FireVaney

Once we were all seated around our regular table at Great Godfrey Daniels, Malka launched into the latest news of Russ, her grade school crush.  “He’s got a girlfriend!” she cried.  “Hm,” I said.  “Play Hard-to-Get.”   “What do you mean?” she asked.  Good question. But instead of being honest, I evaded and said, “Nothing’s serious until high school.”  But what  had  I meant? Set aside, for a moment, that this is about the unrequited puppy love of a tweenager. How do you play Hard-to-Get with somebody who isn’t interested in you?  Well, if you treat someone like merde , then you will be on their radar.  For starters, then, every time Malka crosses paths with Russ, she could stick her tongue out (at him). This should be a stick in his craw, so to speak. Yes, it should nag him—that is, unless he’s too self-absorbed or too iron-willed to focus and pay heed to a girl’s stuck out tongue. To that point, his f...

For Malka and Aiden, Great Godfrey Daniels was the  only  restaurant in Skokie.  Ma was very pleased with her flounder. “It tastes like cake,” she said.  I raised my eyebrows, nodded once and said, “Hm.” Although I’ve never eaten fish that tasted anything like cake, I took her word for it.  Nearly every five minutes Carolyn offered Ma a lemon wedge—that is, to squeeze over her “cake” flavored flounder. Ma repeatedly declined. Hearing isn’t exactly Carolyn’s forte. More and more, neither is remembering.  Aiden’s seemingly inexhaustible obsession with the word, if not the concept of, “butt-cheeks,” as a tongue-in-cheek insult, but also, presumably, as an anatomical curiosity, i.e. for an eight year old, is very nearly disturbing.  As a rule, kids won’t easily let go of any curiosity that adults find very nearly, or even outright, disturbing.  Malka—Aiden’s sister, older by three years—was sulky. Malka is frequently sulky fol...