This Is My Life Read Free Page B

she was told. “I promise you, soon.”
    But when, exactly, was “soon”? The word was used to represent any given period of time; it was fluid and could change shape freely.
    â€œI will be back from L.A. soon,” her mother would say as she stood before her closet, selecting dresses from the rack withthe help of her assistant, Cynthia, who always leaned toward the loudest, most spangle-dipped items. Then a week or two might go by, during which Opal had her hair braided systematically each morning and her lunch packed by a live-in baby-sitter.
Soon, soon
, came the voice, this time over the telephone, but even long-distance it was as soothing and persuasive as a hypnotist’s.
    Finally her mother would return. It might be winter in New York City, with snow gathered in ragged drifts, but the limousine would pull up at the curb and the doorman would fly out to greet her, and she would emerge a dusty, mottled, coastal pink, her nose peeling, her suitcase swollen with citrus fruit. California seemed a remote, tropical island, having little to do with anything that went on here, in New York City, where the snow fell for days, and the world seemed locked permanently into winter. In California, Opal imagined, you were served crescents of papaya on a terrace overlooking the water, and speed-shutter cameras were always hissing at you like locusts. Opal would go there soon, she knew. But “soon” kept unraveling with no end in sight.
    There were times, during that first year of fame, when her mother was home for weeks on end, either resting or playing a series of club dates in the city. “I really prefer it here,” she would say as she got ready to go out for an evening in New York. “The audiences are much more savvy. They laugh with discrimination. Out in L.A., you get the feeling that there’s a laugh track going. Everyone’s so desperate to have a good time; you could get up there and read a manual about oral hygiene and they would laugh. No, this is where I want you girls to live, not out there in Disneyland.”
    Sometimes she would sit down for a moment on the bed between her two daughters. “I hope I’m doing the right thing,” she would say. “Who knows? Maybe if God had really wanted me to be a comedienne, He would have named me Shecky.”
    Opal and Erica looked at each other and laughed politely. They had reached a point at which they usually understood when their mother was making a joke and were able to respond fairly quickly. But sometimes Opal wasn’t even sure whether her mother was really funny or not; she’d heard her jokes too many times. At home her mother practiced in the bedroom.
    â€œYou girls be my audience,” she said. Opal and Erica sat solemnly on the edge of the bed and listened as she ran through her act. She usually opened with some rueful comments about her size. “I do have a weight problem,” she said, looking down at herself and shaking her head. Then she looked up suddenly. “I just can’t
wait
for dinner!”
    Opal thought about this, and understood that her mother was making a little pun. She chuckled politely.
    â€œWomen’s lib isn’t so easy on large women,” her mother went on. “I mean, I tried to burn my bra, and the neighbors called the fire department. It took hours to put it out. One of the firemen said to me, ‘I don’t know what kind of campfire you were making, lady, but those are the biggest marshmallows I’ve ever seen!’”
    Opal and Erica laughed again, hesitantly. Their laughter had a familiar, rolling burble to it, like a water cooler. Opal was aware that there were probably some nuances she was missing, certain inflections that seemed to point to the approximate region of humor, although the particular meaning was lost on her. She recognized her own ignorance, her limits in the presenceof this huge, wonderful mother. Opal was a knobby girl,