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

kitchen, where Carrie was washing dishes in soapy water.
    “Carrie,” I said, “I have a toothpick stuck in my throat.”
    She scooped up a cup of soapy water and walked me past my mother, up the hall, and into the bathroom. “Drink this.”
    I drank the water, threw up the toothpick, and went back to my seat. My mother had not stopped talking. I resumed lunch; she looked up from the paper. “Where were you?”
    “I had a toothpick stuck in my throat. Carrie got it out.”
    Her face paled and she started to slip from her chair. “My brassiere, undo my brassiere.” I did. “I almost lost you,” she cried, wailing, now flat on the floor. “Call Fremo, Grandma.” Fremo and my grandmother still lived next door in my grandmother’s brownstone. They arrived. My mother was lifted onto the living room sofa, where she told the story of how she almost lost me again and again, begging me to play “Für Elise” on the piano, which I did.
    I would never again tell my mother anything alarming about myself. Her fear that something would happen to her only child was matched only by her wonder at my genius. Jews in that period had lots of geniuses, virtuosos, in music, math, theater, films. All some proud mother’s boy or girl.
    The black-and-white films of glamorous women with glamorous lives were as real to her as food. Isadora Duncan, dancing the world over with all those lovers. The reality she chose to believe in was a magical reality. And that’s what she imbued in me, her one child. “Look, Fremo, how she picks up the bread! Look how she spreads the butter! Look how she walks, talks, sings!” Omigod—sing!
    I would sing “Embraceable You” to my mother and Fremo, seated on the couch, clutching each other.
    “You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me!” I’d sing, pointing my finger at my mother.
    “No, no, Lyova, don’t!” she’d scream, so affected by my power was she.
    “Lovey, please,” Fremo would plead beside her, overcome.
    How could I doubt my effect on the world when I had these two grown women hypnotized by my every move?
    There were reasons I didn’t tell my dear, silly, vulnerable, and theatrical mother anything that happened to me—except the things she could celebrate.
    Carrie and I sat in front of the radio for hours, gossiping about all my programs. We went to the movies together. We saw Errol Flynn in
Captain Blood
and were both smitten. By his beauty, his smile, his dedication as a doctor, the sweat pouring down his wonderful face, the earnestness in his eyes. Carrie and I were bound together by Errol. We never called him Errol Flynn. Just Errol.
    Carrie brought in the newspaper every day. The
Daily News
. Errol was being accused of doing something to a fifteen-year-old he wasn’t supposed to.
    Every day for a year, Carrie and I scoured the papers. Peggy something was her name. Hours of indignation: “Errol wouldn’t do that,” Carrie said. “She’s just trash.”
    “Trash,” I’d agree happily, “that’s all she is.” And we’d look at the picture in the paper again. In the morning I’d say, “What’s happening with Errol?” and Carrie would shake out the day’s paper. We’d read the story in shock, angry at anyone who was not on Errol’s side. “Listen to this!” “Listen to this!” we’d say to each other. Carrie, the person in my house most in touch with reality. The one there for me in every emergency. Carrie was my closest friend and comfort.
    Carrie left to have a baby. She called that poor little girl Lyova.
    I must have been fourteen when my mother told me Carrie died.
    I went by myself to the funeral home to say a private good-bye. The hard, unyielding body in the coffin didn’t look like Carrie’s. Nor did the face. Gray. The upper lip stuffed with something round and hard. I was shocked and shaken. My Carrie lives on, at 706 Riverside Drive, with her friend Lyova.
    An odd postscript to our crush on Errol Flynn, Carrie’s and mine. I read his