Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir Read Online Free PDF Page A

and handed it over.
    “This . . .” She held up the tambourine as if it were excrement. “This is awful. Do not turn in anything like this again. Ever. I was embarrassed for you, and you should be too.”
    She dropped the tambourine in the middle of the floor and one of the bells came loose.
    When she left, I jammed the sorry piece of plastic and glitter in the back of my closet, behind the gray sneakers that I never wore because they gave me blisters.
     
     
    The following Tuesday, I walked into the kitchen after school and found my spectacular mission.
    My jaw dropped.
    The model filled a third of our kitchen table, and consisted of three shoe boxes superglued to a cardboard foundation. The walls of the mission were covered in white cake frosting, perfectly feathered and fanned to mimic traditional Mexican stucco. Elbow macaroni lined up like infantry soldiers along pitched pieces of cardboard to create a tile roof. Diced pieces of kitchen sponge had been stapled in the middle, glued to the base, and painted Kelly green and oak to resemble shrubs. The piècé de resistance was a tiny cross, made of carved Popsicle sticks, that hung over the door, underneath which a Play-Do friar waited to greet pioneers migrating west, his arms stretched out to welcome them.
    This was no humble homework assignment; it was an architectural wonder. There was even a color picture attached of the real mission to prove it was a perfect replica. Very few adults had enough artistic talent to produce such a work, much less a first grader.
    Mom stood behind the model. “What do you think?” There was a hesitation in her voice.
    I loved it and was ashamed of it.
    “You can’t tell anyone I helped you with this.” Helped? She looked me in the eye. “Do you honestly think Eric made that tuba?”
    It hadn’t occurred to me that my tambourine and I had been so thoroughly outclassed by Eric’s mother .
     
     
    The next day, Mom carried my mission into class. It was far too heavy for me to lift. She set her elaborate handiwork on the counter next to all the others and smiled proudly.
    “Didn’t she do a nice job?” Mom said. Mrs. Jones just smiled.
    I scanned the crowd of miniature buildings with new eyes. For the first time, I could pick out exactly which ones kids had assembled, and which ones parents had built.
    I still didn’t feel right about cheating, but clearly I wasn’t the only one working with backup. Though I felt a little dirty, I was grateful that Mom had figured out the game and won. I decided that if Mrs. Jones handed out grades based on the final product without regard for how it was produced, we had no other option. It was the grade that counted.
    And Mom got an E+.
     
     
    Saturday mornings meant getting up early to ice skate at the Topanga Plaza Mall. Tiffany had asked for lessons, and as with everything else, I went along for the ride at first and then joined in after a few weeks.
    This Saturday, we arrived at the rink in our thick tan tights and baby blue skate dresses, with white rabbit fur coats on top. The air was cold in the ice rink, but once we started skating, we always got too hot to keep the coats on. Mom had bought Tiffany her own beautiful white skates, but I still skated in worn tan rentals that I stood in line to pick up once we arrived at the rink.
    We stepped onto the ice and skated off to opposite ends of the rink to start the lesson with our own age groups. I was six now, so I skated with the six- and seven-year-old group, Tiffany with the nines and tens. Today, every time I looked over at her, Tiffany had fallen. Mom sat in the front row of the bleachers looking annoyed.
    I did a small jump, skating forward on my left skate, then leaping and turning backward in the air, and landing on my right foot with my left leg extended. The teacher was trying to teach the group a waltz jump. Tiffany had shown me this trick at home and I’d practiced a million times on dry land. Just as she had taught me to