For You, Mom. Finally by Reichl Ruth

Author:Reichl, Ruth [Reichl, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
ISBN: 9780143117346
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 8140224
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2010-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

What We Are Made For

Mom drove her family crazy, but she was relentlessly social and a very good friend to a surprisingly broad spectrum of people. Among her many women friends my favorite, at least when I was small, was her childhood friend Hermine.

She was everything my mother wasn’t. An immensely successful businesswoman, she lived in a fabulous apartment just off Fifth Avenue. Tall, thin and elegant, she dressed gorgeously in handmade clothes that always looked as if they were being worn for the first time. Her shoes always gleamed with polish and her stockings never ran.

As a little girl I considered her sunken living room the utmost in sophistication and I’d jump up the stairs, just for the pleasure of going back down, imagining myself sweeping into a room the way Auntie Mame did in the movies. Sometimes I even recited her line “Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death” as I walked in.

Unlike the messy apartment in which my family lived, Hermine’s place was always serenely immaculate. Her housekeeper, Mildred, ironed the sheets, put clean towels in the bathrooms and made sure that the tables were polished to a luxurious sheen. Every time I walked through the door I inhaled deeply; I loved the way Hermine’s apartment smelled, an irresistible mixture of flowers, furniture wax, sugar and butter. I’d follow the aroma through the living room, admiring the beautiful bouquets nodding in their vases, into the old-fashioned kitchen, where Hermine could often be found baking her famous cookies. She was a legendary cook, and I was always hanging around, dropping desperate hints to be invited to stay for supper.

But as a very little girl I understood that despite all this Hermine was a person to be pitied. As the door closed behind us my mother always sighed and said, “What a waste! Poor Hermine is a spinster.” And each time Mom met an unmarried man she’d look him speculatively up and down and ask my father, “Do you think he might like Hermine?”

I was almost twelve before a man who did like Hermine came along. Mom had introduced them, and she was very proud when they got married.

Joe moved into Hermine’s apartment, and before long the lovely aroma of flowers and sugar was overwhelmed by a heavy fog of tobacco that hung in the air. Joe didn’t want his wife working outside the home, so Hermine quit her job. And one day when Mom and I stopped in we found that Mildred was gone. “Oh, darling,” said Hermine when I asked, “Joe didn’t like having a strange woman in the house. And he didn’t see any reason to pay someone to clean when I am perfectly capable of doing it myself.”

Walking home, I knew that Mom was having second thoughts about the miracle she’d wrought. “Her shoes weren’t even shined!” she cried. “In my whole life I’ve never seen Hermine looking so unkempt.” She sighed unhappily. “Do you think she would have been better off if she hadn’t gotten married?”

Mom said nothing more on the subject, at least to me.

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