You're Married to Her? Read Free

he appeared to view the world with an imperious bemusement. He was fond of squeezing my funny bone when he thought I was down, bellowing “ Nil Il-legitimus Carborundum, my boy!” and ticking off the names of famous orphans who’d become successful. It was like Allison hadn’t brought home a boyfriend but the United Way.
    Her mother called me “the Foundling.” A sun-wizened ex-Broadway chorus girl with a cigarette-raspy voice, she spent most of her days at the club playing golf and evenings, whenever she felt she could get away, in the city, meeting her husband for dinner at Joe Allen or Sardi’s, and leaving Allison to the care of Marina, their live-in housekeeper and cook.
    When her father was detained at work I was invited to stay to dinner. Her mother sat with her elbows on the dining room table, tanned brittle forearms with sun spots, the wings of a crisply roast duck. She barely picked at Marina’s pork dumplings and poppy seed cake, but made comments to Allison as she ate. “Perhaps we want half as much, Dear?”
    â€œI’m fine, thank you.”
    â€œI wonder if Ricky would think so?” Ricky Fox was a favorite on a weekly TV show for kids. Allison told me they had gone to summer camp together.

    â€œI don’t really care.”
    â€œObviously not.” Her mother enjoyed watching me eat, however, and chose to see my gluttony as deprivation. “Have more veal. Pass him the mushroom sauce. I think those step-parents of yours are trying to starve you.” She was full of stories from her days on the stage, tales in which she danced in rhinestone g-strings and was chased by a certain married producer who offered her bracelets and hats for, and here she would wink, “You know what.”
    â€œMother, I think that’s enough.”
    â€œThe Foundling doesn’t think so, do you?”
    â€œDon’t embarrass him.”
    â€œAt least I don’t bore him.”
    â€œI’m going to leave the room.”
    â€œWhen did you become so grumpy?”
    In spite of their skirmishes I loved Allison’s mother’s stories of theatrical New York in the fifties, one big opening night party, one friendly neighborhood overflowing with the most eccentric and generous people in the world. Allison’s mother was happiest when she had an audience. “Put another shot of rye in this drinkie, would you, Dear?” Early on she had taught me to make Old Fashioneds. “And a double dash of bitters? Good boy.”
    But when she was bored she could be malicious. One long rain-swept afternoon when a game of hearts turned to bickering Allison ran from the table and slammed her bedroom door so hard an entire shelf of antique
ceramic dolls crashed to the floor. She wept as we knelt to sweep up the mess. “I can never live up to that bitch’s expectations.”
    â€œOf course not,” I said. “You’re only one person. Your mother needs a roomful.”
    That was the first time she said, “I love you.”
    If Allison felt tormented by her mother there was always the presence of Marina to make a home. A large silent Lithuanian woman who lived in the maid’s suite off the kitchen, Marina was suspicious of all male mammals that had not been gelded. She wore a headscarf tightly knotted under her chin and a crucifix the size of a Bowie knife. Marina doted on Allison, whom she had effectively raised, and looked at me like I was a mouse turd on a white lace tablecloth. Softly spoken, demurely dressed, Allison was in all ways modest in front of Marina, doubly so before her father. Having fantasized more about sex than ever having had any, I was happy enough with our long wet good night kisses and the occasional backseat feel at the drive-in. I loved Allison and felt grateful simply to be accepted by a family like hers.
    Every year on the weekend after Memorial Day Allison’s parents prepared a barbecue for their closest