Crooked Little Heart by Anne Lamott

Author:Anne Lamott [Lamott, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-80673-4
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

two

ON the seventh of July, James celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday, and they decided to spend the day at the Russian River—James and Elizabeth, Rosie, Rae, and Lank. Simone and her mother were out of town for the weekend. Rosie had been out in the garden all morning weeding; she charged her mother four dollars an hour and had been working a lot all week. She was apparently saving for something.

James came into the kitchen and kissed the back of Elizabeth’s neck as she stood at the counter making sandwiches. He kissed the top of Rae’s head as she sat at the table stuffing celery sticks with cream cheese. She sang him happy birthday. He bowed and went to the freezer for an ice cream sandwich. He held one out to Elizabeth, who shook her head, and to Rae, who drew back, a vampire recoiling from the cross.

“Please, James. I feel like a pike today. Before they gefilte it.”

“So whom were we talking about?”

“I’m sort of interested in this guy at the gallery.”

“Is he available? Is he straight? Does he speak English?”

“I don’t know. We went for coffee, but I didn’t end up knowing all that much about his circumstances. But clearly he adores me.”

“Well, we like that,” he said and handed her the ice cream sandwich he was working on. She absently began to groom the borders with her tongue. “Did you ask him if you could come over and watch him dance in the shower?” Rae shook her head. “Isn’t that what you usually ask on a first date?”

Rae nodded happily and handed the ice cream sandwich back to him. She had brought a paper plate of homemade meringues flecked with dark chocolate, because it was James’s birthday and because Rosie had always especially loved them. But when Rosie finally lumbered in and slid down into Rae’s lap, wearing the remains of a pair of cutoffs, a tank top, and a Giants cap, she looked askance at the meringues, as though they were laced with strychnine. Her fingernails were ringed with black crescent moons of soil from the garden. She finally picked out a meringue and ate it in tiny bites. Elizabeth, at the cutting board, opened her mouth like a baby bird, closed it for a moment to make peeping sounds, and Rosie got up, ambled over, and put the last bite on her mother’s tongue like a host.

LANK was standing on the grass outside his house when they pulled up a while later. The sun shone directly on his bald spot, which was surrounded by lovely reddish hair. There was so much forehead now, smooth as a baby’s; it gave him a gentle look. His eyes were closed and his head was bowed as if he were hearing the national anthem. But when they honked, he looked up, clutched his heart with passion, and walked with his arms outstretched toward James in the driver’s seat.

ROSIE sat between Lank and Rae all the way up to the river, her knees drawn up because of the hump; she wore a headset, listening to rap music.

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