Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes)

by Lorna Landvik

  “Are you a golfer?” asks James, and Mercedes shakes her head.

  “No. The only club I’ve ever held is a sandwich.”

  James laughs. “You’re funny.”

  A sudden gust of wind adds chill to the October air, and Mercedes’s hands find her pockets.

  “I could take you,” says James. “Golfing that is. I’m a member at the club, and it’s . . . it’s an enjoyable sport.”

  Mercedes’s immediate response is “no, thank you,” but she surprises herself by not voicing it. They continue walking as she ponders the invitation, wondering what Manny would think of her out on a golf course, with people who had money and leisure to spend. She doesn’t have to wonder long, as Manny’s voice in her head is as loud and clear as if he were beside her, and it says, Está bien. It’s okay.

  Tears well in Mercedes eyes, and although she feels a little sad, she feels a lot of other things too.

  “Well, I suppose I could try it,” she says, looking up at the man who’s at least a foot taller than she. “Who knows—I might be good at it. I’ve got a lot of upper-body strength.”

  She takes her hands out of her pockets and stops to flex her arms.

  Chuckling, James reaches out and pats her bicep.

  “I’m impressed,” he says, feeling the hard muscle under her coat sleeve. “It’s bigger than mine.”

  He flexes an arm, and Mercedes pats his bicep, and when he moves his arm, inviting her to keep her hand in the crook of his elbow, she does.

  October 13, 2016

  Wassup, Dudes?

  For extra credit in history, I watched the presidential debate a couple days ago with my mom and dad. My dad kept laughing at everything that guy from The Apprentice said, and my mom just sat there with her arms crossed, shaking her head and sort of muttering, “Oh my God!”

  My mom is a background kind of person, even though she does a lot. Sometimes it seems like the people in the background get more stuff done than the people who are jumping up and down for attention. My mom’s like SuperMom, always checking out these recipe websites and making things like Mexican frittatas and Moroccan stews, so it’s always kinda cool to eat dinner, plus she drives me and my little brother to our soccer practices in the fall and our hockey practices in the winter, and everyone loves when she’s in charge of snacks because she’ll bring homemade stuff like chocolate chip or gingersnap cookies and not fruit or crappy granola bars. She checks our homework, well, more my little brother’s because I don’t really need it (LOL), and takes us shopping when we need stuff and made us go to that language camp every year that we didn’t really want to go to, but it is pretty cool knowing how to speak Swedish. (Think of all those supermodels I’ll be able to talk to!) I mean, sometimes I think, Mom, chill! Don’t make waiting on people your life’s goal, although she does work part-time at Dr. DeMaris’s office, taking calls and filing and stuff. But she was like a different mom watching that debate. My dad said he wouldn’t mind a beer if she was going to the kitchen, and she said she wasn’t, which was kind of surprising ’cause she’ll always jump up if any of us have a request. She’ll even jump up when we don’t even say anything, like, “Anyone want a soda or some popcorn?” but that night, she just sat there laser-eyed on the TV. It was like the rest of us were invisible.

  I heard her arguing with my dad, which she never does, and it made me feel kind of weird but kind of proud too. I mean I never really know what my mom thinks because mostly what she thinks of is me and my brother and my dad, but I was brushing my teeth and heard my mom say, “Mike” (that’s my dad’s name), “What about that tape of him saying those disgusting things about grabbing women? I’m scared to death! Please tell me that you can’t be supporting him! He doesn’t know anything!”

  “He knows how to be a billionaire!” my dad said, and he laughed again, and then I heard a door slam.

  Dylan sits down and jams his fists into his face, pressing up his cheeks so that his eyes are nearly closed. He wonders why, why he ever wrote such a stupid-ass thing let alone read it aloud and is waiting for the laughter to fill the classroom, but after what seems like a year—or at least an hour—he lifts his head slightly. There’s no laughter.

  “Lois,” says Sam, “that’s Haze’s friend, you know the one she’s written about? She says if Haze doesn’t wake up in time to vote for Hillary, it’ll kill her.”

  Now, there is laughter, from both Liz and her students.

  Sam laughs too and says, “Lois can say some pretty rad stuff.”

  “Dylan, good job,” says Liz. “Would that be your column heading, ‘Wassup, Dudes?’”

  Nodding, the boy thinks again how totally lame he is.

  “Wish I would have thought of that,” says Caleb, “but I couldn’t think of anything better than, ‘How Ya Doin?’”

  “I know, thinking of a good heading is almost as hard as writing the whole column,” says Elise.

  “Well, remember how Haze struggled with that and finally just decided to have her name at the top of her column?” The teacher surveys the class. “Abdi?”

  The tall, thin boy stands. Liz doesn’t require that her students stand when they read, but it seems most of them want to when reading their columns.

  “Pull Up a Chair and Set Your Carcass Down.”

  When the class laughs, he says, “Nah, that’s not my real heading. This is.”

  He begins to read.

  Citizens of the World,

  I was in Minneapolis this weekend to visit my cousins. They live in this big, tall apartment building that is full of Somalis. People say it’s Little Mogadishu. It’s weird when everywhere you look there’s another person who looks sort of like you, unlike here in Granite Creek. Still, I’m glad my parents came here, even though some kids on my traveling soccer team called me “Terr,” short for “Terrorist,” until I became like the top goal scorer.

  I don’t like cities, they’re too crowded, and they’re too many buses and cars that stink, and the park near my cousins’ place has a basketball court with no nets on the hoops and broken bottles and garbage and plastic bags and litter smashed against the fence. There’re a lot of pretty girls though. My parents want me to go to college in Minneapolis, or maybe even a bigger city. But why do we always have to go to something bigger? My parents tell me all the time, they want me to make the most of my opportunities. Yes, I know how much they sacrificed for me and my brother and sisters. Yes, I know their lives have been hard, they haven’t even seen their own parents since we came here, but still, why do parents always want what they want for their kids? Instead of what the kids want? Like I love to draw and paint, and my parents have a lot of my pictures framed and hanging in the house, but they laugh when I tell them I’d like a career in art. Then they get mad. They want me to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer like my dad.

  You probably have no idea what it’s about. Neither do I. Sayonara.

  “Kids really called you ‘Terr’?” says Sondra. “What a bunch of jerks!”

  “That’s nothing compared to the names my dad’s been called,” says Abdi. “And by grown-ups. I was going to write more about that but then . . .” he shrugs elaborately.

  “It was a hard assignment,” says Liz to the class. “When you’re writing a column, you have to figure out all sorts of things—not just your topic but your angle on the topic. And what’s your particular voice, your style? All and all, I’m impressed enough by all of your efforts to ask you to write another one.”

  There are a few scattered groans, but Liz sees some expectant, excited faces looking back at her.

  “But this time,” she says, taking out of her desk drawer the small cloth bag that until this morning held Rummikub tiles but is now filled with slips of paper, “you won’t have to think of a topic. You will, however, have to choose one.”

  Handing the bag to a student, she says, “There are twenty ideas in there. Pick one, and pass the bag down your row.”

  Unfolding his slip of paper, Kyle sa
ys, “I got ‘Who’s Your Hero?’ Oh good, I get to write about myself!”

  Liz joins the class in laughing, although she’s not sure Kyle is kidding.

  As the bag is passed among the students, there are excited and not-so-excited announcements. Sam’s is in the latter category.

  HE’S GETTING HIS JACKET out of his locker when he feels a tap on his shoulder.

  “Piss off, hoser,” Sam says, giving Jacob one of their usual insults/greetings, but when he turns, it isn’t to face Jacob.

  “Hey!” He says, a flush announcing his embarrassment. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “Nope,” says Elise. “Just me.”

  Sam sets his backpack down and shrugs into his jacket, while his mind races to say something witty.

  “I was just wondering if you always take the bus home,” says Elise, and the wittiest thing his mind can come up with is “No. Sometimes I walk.”

  “Good! That’s what I was hoping.” Now it’s Elise’s turn to blush. “I was just wondering if maybe you’d like to walk with me. I mean ’cause it’s so nice out.”

  Sam nods eagerly, although to his mind the fall day’s gloriousness has nothing to do with the weather.

  By the time they’ve walked two blocks on sidewalks confettied with orange- and rust-colored leaves, the awkwardness that was at full boil in Sam has settled down to a weak simmer.

  It figures that when they talk about Radical Hag Wednesday, Sam feels the most at ease, his words delivered for no reason other than to express his thoughts.

  Elise has said she wishes she could read all the columns that Sam has.

  “I mean, you’ve read so many. Lucky.”

  Sam nods, he does feel lucky.

  “I really liked the ones about the Obamas in last week’s packet,” says Elise. “Talk about a power couple—when Hillary gets elected she should nominate Michelle to the Supreme Court!”

  Elise has a pink POTUS pin on her backpack strap, and Sam thinks how much Haze would like her.

  “And the one about Barack Obama’s parents not living to see how far their son went in the world?” she continues. “I felt so bad for his mom—I mean, she’s the one who raised him and everything—but at least she got to see him grow up.”

  “Yeah, and I liked how Haze made us feel bad for the dad, because of the choices he made.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Life Choices,” Elise says. “That’s the topic I picked today.” She shakes her head. “Sort of a big one, don’t you think? Like something you write a book about, not a column.”

  “Guess you have to figure out your angle,” says Sam, remembering Mrs. Garnet’s advice. “Is it going to be about a choice you made, or someone else—”

  “You’re so smart.”

  This literally stops Sam in his tracks.

  Elise laughs.

  “I mean it. The stuff you say in class is just so, I don’t know . . . thoughtful.”

  “I guess when you’re a nerd, you have a lot of time to think.”

  “Who says you’re a nerd?”

  “Anyone who’s not one.”

  They both laugh.

  “I’m not a nerd,” says Elise, “at least I don’t think I am. And I don’t think you are either, and even if you are, what’s the matter with being a nerd?”

  “If that was a compliment,” says Sam, “I accept it.”

  At a corner house whose boulevard is edged with hearty marigolds, Elise says, “Well, this is where I turn. Thanks for walking me home.”

  “Well, technically,” says Sam, “I haven’t walked you home since we’re not at your house yet.”

  “But it’s another three blocks,” says Elise.

  Sam sighs as if put out.

  “Oh, I’ll manage,” he says, and he hunches as if his backpack weighs a ton and drags his feet like a nomad on a cross-continents trek.

  What he really wants to do is skip, but even he has standards.

  When they get to her house, Elise says, “I’d ask you to come in, but I have to watch my little brothers, and believe me, you don’t want to do that.”

  Sam’s about to say he doesn’t mind, that he’d like to be around when Elise watched anything, but she’s taking her phone out of her pocket and says, “Here, I’ll give you my number, and you can, you know, call me. Or text.”

  “I already do,” says Sam. He has no control; it’s as if the words have been projectile-vomited out of his mouth.

  Elise cocks her head, and before she can say, “What is the matter with you, weirdo?” words gush out of his mouth.

  “I . . . sometimes I text you.”

  Elise frowns, puzzled. “I’ve never gotten them.”

  “Because I don’t send them to you. I mean, I don’t even have your number. I just type them and then send them to myself.”

  The heat rising up his neck and into his head is almost enough to make him pass out, and yet he can’t seem to stop doing what it is that makes him feel so faint: talking.

  “Sometimes I text other people too. Like famous people I’d like to talk to, even if they’re dead. Haven’t gotten any answers back though!”

  Sam’s laugh is high and tinny as he shouts to himself, Shut up! What’s the matter with you? Your life is over, dude!

  But Elise is not running to her front door, hollering, “Help!” Nor is she backing away slowly, hands out in appeasement, telling him in a soft, soothing voice that everything’s going to be all right. She is, in fact, looking at him with a full-on smile.

  “Tell me some of the famous people,” she says, and blushing furiously, Sam answers, “Well, Lorde sometimes, and sometimes writers, like maybe J. K. Rowling . . . Philip Pullman? And a couple times, Steve Jobs.”

  “I’m flattered to be in such good company,” says Elise, still smiling as she talks. “What’s your number?”

  Sam answers, and her fingers fly across her phone’s keypad, and his phone chirps.

  He looks down at it and sees in the message bubble: “SO TEXT ME. OR CALL.”

  26

  “Wow,” says Phil.

  “That’s kind of what I thought,” says Susan.

  They sit there silently for a long while, at the kitchen table that holds their family’s history of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners (they rarely ate in their dining room, its table most often used for either company, class projects, or folding laundry). Now bare of crumbs, of spilled juice, of peanut butter jars, of silverware and plates, the table holds only their wine glasses and a homework assignment.

  “I didn’t know he could do this,” says Phil, and his hand smooths a piece of paper marked with a big red A.

  “Liz had told me how . . . well, what a force he is in her class—a force!—but this came as a surprise to me too.”

  “Thanks for letting me see it.”

  “I couldn’t not let you see it,” says Susan, and she takes a big gulp of wine. “I mean, he’s our son.”

  Phil raises his eyebrows and offers a cockeyed smile; it’s Phil’s signature look when he doesn’t know what to do with his feelings.

  When Sam had left to spend the Friday night at Jacob’s, Susan had called Phil and asked him to come over so she could “show him something.”

  Not knowing what to expect, Phil had brought a bottle of Susan’s favorite merlot, and they both laughed when he presented it to her.

  “It’s not a date—” she began just as he said, “I know it’s not a date.”

  They had stood awkwardly in the entryway, which Phil had always teased Susan for calling a foyer, until Susan had laughed again and told him to follow her into the kitchen.

  Sam I Am.

  “True Love.” Sigh. (And not a good sigh, more like an “I can’t believe it” sigh.) If I had been given the topic “True Love” to write about a year ago, I still probably would have had the same reaction (*@#&!$#@!!—why couldn’t I have gotten an easy one like Jacob did—“Best Vacation Ever”). Still, it would
n’t have taken me very long to figure out that I’d write about my parents. It’s not like I thought they were Romeo and Juliet or anything (as if!), but this topic made me look at them not just as my mom and dad but as two people who started off as two people in love. Or it did at first. Like I said, if I’d written this a year ago, I would have talked about how to me true love is like being on the same team as your partner and always wanting to stay on that team, cheering each other on in both good times and bad. How it’s like being amazed at plays they make (“I made your favorite banana cream pie in celebration of you selling that RV to the Olsens!” or “Congratulations on the newspaper award—let’s go out to Zig’s!”) or helping each other off the field after a bad game (like when my dad’s friend Jim got sick, and my dad would come home from the hospital all jacked-up and worried, and the only way he could get to sleep was if my mom read to him aloud, which she’d always do no matter how late it was. Sometimes I’d sneak down the hallway and sit outside their bedroom door to listen, first to her voice, and then to him snoring!).

  But they’re not together anymore, so what I thought was true love doesn’t seem so true anymore.

  So I’m looking at another angle. Not thinking of true love as only a thing between people but maybe between you and something else—like a dog (I think Cesar’s the best thing on four legs, and he thinks I’m the best thing on two), or a sport, or a hobby. This is kind of a surprise to me, but I’m really getting into writing in a way that seems to matter way more than a hobby. Not like I’m good or anything at it, but I really like—no, I love doing it. Love trying to put down what I’m thinking and feeling. (Not everything, don’t want to scare anyone, LOL!) Working at the paper and reading all those columns of Haze’s have given me this love, which feels true right now, but hey, who knows, maybe next year I’ll really get into toe wrestling or playdough sculpture. And also, what I’ve learned is that true love might not always be permanent but that doesn’t disqualify it for being true at the time. Which kind of invalidates my argument about writing about my mom and dad, because I think for a long while their love was true.