Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst Read Free

car, and a black engine with silver trimming, and of course the caboose will be red—"
    She interrupted herself. "Here, Sam," she said, handing him the box she was holding, "take this one with the mustache and paint the whole box orange."
    Anastasia scowled. "What's for dinner?" she asked.
    Her mother was blowing on the blue boxes to dry them. She looked up. "Dinner? What time is it?"
    "Almost five. I stayed late at school because stupid Daphne has a crush on a guy on the stupid football team, and she made me stay and watch stupid football practice with her."
    Mrs. Krupnik sighed and wiped her hands on a rag. "I forgot all about dinner, Anastasia. I forgot to take anything out of the freezer. I was so excited about making this train because I'd been saving the boxes for almost two years. This morning when Sam was at nursery school, I opened a closet door and all these oatmeal boxes fell out at me, and I realized I had enough, finally, and so when Sam got home, we—Sam, did we ever have lunch?"
    Sam was painting the Quaker Oats man industriously. His tongue was wedged between his teeth. There was an orange spot on his nose. "Yeah," he told her. "Hot dogs."
    Anastasia's mother put the rag down and stood up. "Dinner," she said. "Dinner. Let's see. You know what? In order to get that one last box, the one for the caboose, I emptied out a batch of Quaker Oats into a plastic bag. Maybe I could—"
    "MOM!" wailed Anastasia. "I don't want oatmeal for dinner! I
hate
oatmeal!"
    "I don't," said Sam cheerfully. "I
love
oatmeal, because it makes me get a train."
    Anastasia headed angrily toward the door of the studio. "I'm going to the kitchen," she announced, "and I'm going to examine the contents of the refrigerator, and there had better be something in there that we can have for dinner. Because it's against the law to starve your family, Mom. If I call this special phone number that I know about—this phone number you call if you know of a Very Troubled Family—they'll send social workers to investigate."
    Her mother laughed. "We have eggs," she said. "I'll make an omelet. I'll put cheese in it, and onions, and green peppers, and I think I have some mushrooms. Your social worker would arrive, Anastasia, and it would smell so good that she'd want to be invited for dinner."
    "Ketchup," said Sam. "Put ketchup on it, too."
    Anastasia sniffed. It was a sort of sniff that she'd been practicing in her room, a huffy sort of noise she could
do with her nose, which meant "I am above this sort of thing." It was the kind of sniff that she imagined Queen Elizabeth would do if Diana asked her to change William's diapers.
    "Mother," she said, "I would like to have a private conversation with you. I would like to have it now, before Dad gets home, and I don't want Sam there, either, because it is a
female
conversation."
    Her mother sighed, dropped her paintbrush into a can of water, and said, "Sam, you keep doing the orange, okay? You can probably get two more boxes done before it's time to get cleaned up for dinner."
    Sam nodded solemnly, his tongue between his teeth again.
    Mrs. Krupnik followed Anastasia down the hall to the kitchen. Anastasia's feet went thump, thump, thump; partly because she was upset, and partly because she was wearing her very favorite heavy hiking boots. Her mother's feet made no sound at all because her mother was barefoot. There was bright blue paint on Katherine Krupink's toes.
    They sat down on two kitchen chairs, facing each other across the round table.
    "What's up?" asked Mrs. Krupnik cheerfully. "Got female troubles?"
    "No," said Anastasia in a grim voice. "
You
do."
    "
Me?
A healthy, happy, lovable person like me?"
    Even though she was still angry, Anastasia began to feel a twinge of sympathy. Her mother didn't even
realize
she had this problem. I'll be gentle with her, she decided.
    "Mom," she said as gently as she could, "I believe you are entering menopause."

    "Beer," her mother said, after a long silence.