The Appetites of Girls Read Online Free PDF

advantage? Mama demanded. But Poppy thought our local public school was challenging enough. It was good enough for Bernice’s and Helena’s children, after all, and for the children of so many friends. Besides, even with a scholarship, he was sure the cost would still be in the thousands. That kind of money wasn’t falling out of his pockets. This sounded like one of Poppy’s jokes, but I heard no laughing. I wished Mama would forget the whole notion. But she was insistent. Maybe the raise would come faster if Poppy spent less time on his journals, which earned us
nothing
, and more time in the office. She’d heard what Babbie’s son was learning, only a grade ahead of me. “Have you considered the opportunities this could mean, Aaron?” Mama’s words grew louder, covering Poppy’s. I remembered the Passover some years before when I had walked into the kitchen and found Mama and Nana Leah quarreling over things from the past. “That’s not
so
, Mother! It
would
have made a difference if I had finished all four years! How many choices do you think there are without a degree?” I had never seen Mama short-tempered with Nana before. Assoon as they were aware of my presence, their conversation ended. But for days afterward, I wondered what Nana had said before I’d entered and about the things Mama would have changed. And from something unwavering in her voice as she argued with Poppy, I knew she would make sure things went differently for me.
    Then, some weeks later, I heard Poppy announce to her that an increase in his salary had finally come. And so he agreed that I should apply; and if I was accepted, since they now had the means, I would be given the finest possible education. Then, hopefully, the following year, they could plan to send Sarah, too.
    In addition to my usual summer lessons, Mama, during that July and August, drilled me on the rules of grammar and composition. “Extra preparation for your new school can’t hurt, can it? I imagine some new things will be asked of you now.” For my practice work she brought me, from her shop, a red marbleized fountain pen she knew I had always admired, one of the pens fancy enough to be kept in the locked case to the right of the front window rather than in the rows of plastic bins above the loose writing paper.
    Along my walk to school on the first day, I felt for the pen Mama had given me—easily accessible in the pocket of my windbreaker. I headed past the shops of Mosholu Avenue, turning onto Fieldston Road, to the Fieldston section of Riverdale with all of its large homes of stone or brick or stucco, grander than Leonid and Nadia’s house in Scarsdale, a world just minutes from our apartment but one that I’d rarely entered.
    That first Monday I had six courses to attend. The school had mailed me a copy of my weekly schedule, and on its grid of squares Mama had color-coded each subject—yellow for history, blue for math, red for English, and so on—making it simpler for me to keep track of where I needed to go. The campus of my new school was more expansive than I’d remembered from my visit the previous winter, with its scattering of structures, its lawns far wider than even those of the homes I’d passed on the way. (My old school had only a single building with an asphalt play area in theback.) Here the high-ceilinged hallways seemed to swallow sound, the voices of the students seeming more subdued as they moved from room to room—the boys in fitted jeans or khakis, sockless loafers, the girls in ankle boots and designer sweaters. Though many were Jewish—I knew from talk in the neighborhood—I saw not a single yarmulke, not one below-the-knee skirt like the several Orthodox girls in my old school wore. Was this something Mama had noticed, too, when we visited earlier in the year? I vowed that the next morning I would wake early, allowing plenty of extra time to dress more stylishly.
    •   •   •
    B y only the second week, I was