The Paris Review - Fall 2016

leading up to Christmas, Dick was trying to either go bankrupt or avoid
going bankrupt; an old friend, a lawyer in town, was advising him.
Oh, the boys thought it was so funny to start calling each other “little.”
The girls paid no attention to what the boys were doing, did not answer to
their new names, and, to Mandy’s way of thinking, seemed more like teenagers.
Well, not the first graders, but the fifth graders, who wore not only bras but
Spanx. It was a big thing to put on the longest Spanx you could under whatever
you were wearing—and if it showed below the hem, so much the better.
Mandy worked for a dentist in town, Dr. Kim. She’d wanted to study
massage, but she’d gotten a scholarship to train as a dental hygienist. It was
how she’d met Dick, the week after his girlfriend walked out on him and
Little Edgar. She’d started to think of him now as Little Edgar, because the
name brought him such pleasure. The “little” concept was like the new dirty
word. It brought instant giggling. It seemed socked in, like the humidity of
the past week.
What, exactly, did Little Edgar want to do for Little Rose? Mandy sat
on Little Edgar’s futon and asked. Was it going to be something romantic,
like giving her flowers? Noooooo. Well, was it that he wanted to (whisper)
kiss her, maybe? Ugh, noooooo, he did not want to do that.
“Find a place for Little Rose to live,” he said. “Because her grandma’s boat
has a leak and it’s sinking.”
“What do you mean, her boat?” She’d met the grandmother: a battle-ax
in a spandex workout getup that revealed her deep, wrinkled cleavage. The
woman wore a visor, wraparound sunglasses, and bright pink lipstick and
nail polish.
“Her grandma’s on a boat off Stock Island. The boat’s sinking, and Little
Rose will drown.”
“Edgar, let Mandy eat her dinner,” Dick said to his son. “It’s six thirty.
What are you doing in bed anyway?”
“I have a headache,” Little Edgar said.
“I would, too, if I went to that school,” Dick said. “If you hadn’t eaten so
much peanut butter on banana slices, you could have dinner with us, Edgar.
Think about that.”
“Little Edgar,” Edgar giggled. He’d been named for his mother’s father,
whom he’d never met. Now his mother was gone, and he was stuck with an
old man’s name.
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