Tales From the Crib Read Online Free PDF Page B

the cafeteria. After the first swig, I felt the cool water rolling down my chin and onto the right side of my crushed silk emerald top. “Holy schlit! My mouth won’t close,” I cried.
    “Let me get a straw for you, darling,” Anjoli offered. She returned moments later with a white plastic straw and the suggestion that I seal my lips closed with my fingers. “I dunt fink vat will be neshassary,” I rolled my one good eye. But it was. As soon as I sucked on the straw, I felt water shoot out of the right side of my mouth.
    “This is going to make eating rather challenging,” Anjoli said sympathetically.
    I slurred, “Eating became difficult when cookies went off the menu.”
    “Challenging, darling,” Anjoli corrected. “Release the struggle consciousness. Challenges can be overcome. One can rise to a challenge. Difficulty sounds so hopeless. Words are affirmations. Affirmations are manifestations. Manifestations—”
    “All right already! Eating will be challenging, are you happy?”
    “In general or at the moment?”
    “Good God, Mother!”
    Anjoli was right. Trying to eat without the use of the right side of my face was extremely challenging. I used my hand to push my jaw up and down to help chew food. But my greatest obstacle to surmount was the fact that my right eye would not fully close. When one considers that we blink every few seconds, it’s easy to see how after only an hour my eye became a stinging, irritated dust trap.
    “Mom,” I said, on the brink of tears. “My eye is challenging me.”
    “Darling!” Anjoli hugged. “Where is that doctor?! First they leave you in a waiting room, then they keep you waiting in an exam room. This is what’s wrong with Western medicine.”
    Before she could start the inevitable tirade about the arrogance of doctors, I asked if she could find a patch to protect my right eye. “Of course, Lucy. You let Anjoli take care of everything.”
    I must say, our day in the hospital was Anjoli at her most nurturing. When I say she doesn’t have a maternal instinct in her body, I don’t mean to sound harsh. And I don’t mean to sound as though I don’t love her deeply. My mother is a vivacious woman who’s had more adventures than anyone I’ve ever known. She has friends in every corner of the world, and has been banned from three countries for harmless yet illegal shenanigans. Yet mothering wasn’t really her thing. She was her thing. The upside of having a self-absorbed mother was that I became self-sufficient at a young age. It certainly wasn’t as though I was left completely on my own. I knew that if I ever really needed help, my mother would be happy to outsource it to the most qualified consultants. As a child, sometimes I wondered why Anjoli wasn’t more involved in the day-to-day aspects of parenting. As an adult, I realize that she simply could not give what she didn’t have.
    In fifth grade, I remember my best friend, Vicki DeMattia, opening her lunch box and finding a note from her mother. I love you, Vicki! Sometimes Mrs. DeMattia included more, like what they would do together after school or how many kisses Vicki owed her from their Monopoly game the previous night. I got notes from Anjoli, too. They were typed and left on the dining room table. They went something like this: Lucy: I’m at the theatre tonight and won’t be home till after you’re asleep. On the table, please find ten dollars for dinner. Be sure to include a vegetable and a green salad. Rinse lettuce thoroughly. Pesticides can kill you. Anjoli.
    By seventh grade, the notes stopped and it was assumed that I’d know how to fend for myself for dinner if there was a ten-dollar bill on the table. There were three dinner options at my house. In reverse order of preference: Number three—broiled chicken dusted with paprika. Number two—ten on the table. And number one-dinner with Mom and her boyfriend, David, at a five-star restaurant. For ten-on-the-table nights, I memorized the