Enchantments Read Online Free PDF Page B

cud, which made my sister and me burst out laughing.
    They were very affectionate with Mama, who had lost both her parents when she was young. At meals, Uncle Jack would look at her contemplatively and then blow her kisses, saying, “Oh-ah! Mamie, you are so beautiful!” And then he'd start telling us stories about Mama—how beautiful she had been when she'd met Papa at a boxing match, so beautiful in her big hat and with her velvet eyes, like a Hollywood star. “The Italian” had been bowled over and started a conversation with Jack just so he could meet Mama, who, quite rightly, had played hard to get. But then there was the blizzard of 1947 and New York was one enormous white stalagmite and Mama had accepted Papa's invitation to have tea at the Plaza and when they came back to the house all covered with snow and radiant, Jack had understood that this Italian was going to take his Mamie, was going to take her far away, and Jack was half sad and half happy, happy for Mama because Papa was handsome and smart, but sad because he knew that from then on he would have to live his life without his Mamie.
    It was because we lived so far away that Jack and Angelica gave us so many presents, more than to their grandchildren—a mirror with a frame of seashells, two bars of perfumed soap, a porcelain ballerina with a tulle tutu, a plastic bear to put honey in.
    A few days after we arrived, Angelica took us to the “supermarchetta,” the biggest I'd ever seen. Shelf after shelf of bright-colored boxes. Angelica, Clara, and I each took a cart and loaded them as if we were shopping for a family of giants. Broccoli and ice cream, of course, but also Sara Lee brownies (which we'd already tried) and Oreos, black outside, white inside, a dramatic contrast of chocolate and cream that seduced us as soon as we saw them. And finally popcorn in its own little pan sealed in tinfoil. You put it on the stove, and then there was a mysterious hissing and then the foil puffed up into a wonderful silver ball. You punctured it with a knife, and there before your eyes was the popcorn, as fluffy as a pile of cotton balls.
    On weekends my mother's cousins came to visit. They were more like her sisters since they'd all grown up together. I liked Laura because when I talked with her I didn't feel backed into a corner the way I did with other grown-ups. Talking with Laura was like walking around in a big,airy room. I could ask her anything. Whereas Mama became impatient when she had to explain things, Laura always made an effort to find a reasonable answer. Alba, my mother's other cousin, who was Angelica and Jack's daughter, fascinated me because she'd been a great ballerina. I tried to imitate the way she walked with her feet resolutely turned out.
    Laura had a daughter my age, Kate, who was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. In the photos they took of us she's always smiling while Clara and I look like sullen old ladies. One time, as a joke, Kate put the clasp she used on her dog, Piccola, in her hair. When she laughed and turned toward me, I felt pierced by her splendor.
    Alba had two children, a boy and a girl. They all thought the boy was a genius. He had a complete collection of
Life
magazines and a chemistry set. One time his sister broke a test tube, and he threw himself on the ground screaming. Clara and I had a fit of hysterical laughter, which made it all the worse—the more we laughed, the more furiously Tommy beat his fists on the floor. His sister, Norma, dressed like Sports Barbie, and her bedroom was just like Barbie's, white and fuchsia, with upholstered night tables and lace around the bed and windows.
    With these cousins we spoke some English and some Italian but more Italian because they were intent on learning it. My mother said, “They're smarter than you, they're thinking ahead. I have four provincial children who are embarrassed to speak English. But you'll be sorry one day.” It was true that I was embarrassed to speak