I Said Yes to Everything: A Memoir Read Online Free PDF Page B

mirror, the way the movie stars of the thirties did. So glamorous, so sophisticated. As was I, eight-year-old Lyova, head back, hair swaying, eyes half closed under my eyelashes, a stream of smoke pouring out, the boy in the mirror under my spell.
    “Lyova. Lyova.” My mother’s sharp voice. “What are you doing in there?” Knocking sharply on the wooden door,
rap rap.
“Open up this door.”
Knock knock.
    I quickly threw the cigarette in the toilet, flushed it, opened the hook on the door, and faced my tall, angry mother. “What are you doing?”
    “Nothing.” My mouth opened, a gob of smoke escaped and hung between us. I started to cough. The rest escaped. She dragged me to the sink, then thought better of it, shook me, talking all the while. “No, the soap is too drying.” I’d cunningly concluded that I’d escapedmy mouth being washed out with soap when my mother grabbed her cold cream jar. “Open your mouth!” On my wail—“Noooo!”—she slapped in a handful of Pond’s cold cream. I retched. “Cold cream is good for your skin,” she said as she slammed out the screen door. I lay on the cot gagging and crying, trying to spit out the cold cream.
    For a long time I couldn’t even stand the smell of cigarettes.
    But my cousin Genevieve taught me to be bold and lie, to be tricky and adventurous. Two against the parents and counselors. She was a great bad influence. Being bad was good.
    The next summer I was alone, walking somewhere, it had to be August because the grass was parched. Stanley Baumschlag was standing watching me. I was nine; he was at least eleven. He stood barefoot, brown-bodied, thin, and muscular, in khaki shorts rolled up his thighs. He held a long stick of gum in his mouth between his teeth. His dark eyes watched me. He was the God of Mischief.
    “Bite the other half of my gum off,” he challenged.
    “No, why should I?” Secretly thrilled.
    “You’ll see.”
    “Oh, all right.” Acting bored, reluctant, I walked up to him, carefully putting my teeth around the stick of gum, biting, my lips brushing his. He jumped away, pointing at me. “Gotcha!” Running away barefoot, turning and calling “Gotcha!” again.
    I stood, hands on hips, showing exasperation, like he’d really tricked me.
    I wrote in my diary that night,
I am going to torment Baumschlag!
If. Only. My first kiss.
    •   •   •
    I had a very bad earache and my mother called the doctor. The doctor said I needed a mastoid operation. A lot of children did at the time; this was before antibiotics were common. I never hear aboutmastoids anymore. We were at camp. The summer was over. The boys had all gone home on buses. I remember lying on a cot in my mother and father’s cabin. Looking up, I saw the doctor’s white face, glasses, and gray suit, and my mother and two other strangers. The doctor held a large white gauze patch to my face. It had a terrible smell. It was chloroform. I was drowning in brown rushing water, reaching for the brambles on the side of the ravine, screaming for my mother to save me. “Mother, Mother. Save me, help me!”
    I could hear my mother’s voice. “Oh God,” she cried, “let her go.”
    For a long time I was swept down the stream. And then I drowned.
    There is life after death. The pavilion above the lake was turning slowly in the blue sky. I was on it, holding on to the sides. It landed softly. I looked out at the lake, the mountains. I was safe. Alive.
    •   •   •
    I wandered through the empty bunks. In one I found a book of poetry. The lines made me sit on a cot and read.
When I have fears that I may cease to be before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain.
Then,
Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
The inevitability of the inevitable. Pauline on the tracks—“Save me, save me”—with the train coming on.
    I was gobbling books. Up the hill on Broadway was a small bookstore. It was there I discovered Tolstoy and Turgenev, and