Of course I was the only one who could see it.

14

It’s time to talk about Liz Dutton, so check it out. Check her out.

She was about five-six, my mom’s height, with shoulder-length black hair (when it wasn’t yanked back in her cop-approved ponytail, that was), and she had what some of the boys in my fourth grade class would call—as if they had any idea what they were talking about—a “smokin’ hot bod.” She had a great smile and gray eyes that were usually warm. Unless she was mad, that is. When she was mad, those gray eyes could turn as cold as a sleety day in November.

I liked her because she could be kind, like when my mouth and throat were so dry and she gave me what was left in that Burger King Coke without me having to ask her (my mother was just fixated on getting the ins and outs of Mr. Thomas’s unwritten last book). Also, she would sometimes bring me a Matchbox car to add to my growing collection and once in awhile would get right down on the floor beside me and we’d play together. Sometimes she’d give me a hug and ruffle my hair. Sometimes she’d tickle me until I screamed for her to stop or I’d pee myself…which she called “watering my Jockeys.”

I didn’t like her because sometimes, especially after our trip to Cobblestone Cottage, I’d look up and catch her studying me like I was a bug on a slide. There was no warmth in her gray eyes then. Or she’d tell me my room was a mess, which in fairness it usually was, although my mom didn’t seem to mind. “It hurts my eyes,” Liz would say. Or, “Are you going to live that way all your life, Jamie?” She also thought I was too old for a nightlight, but my mother put an end to that discussion, just saying “Leave him alone, Liz. He’ll give it up when he’s ready.”

The biggest thing? She stole a lot of my mother’s attention and affection that I used to get. Much later, when I read some of Freud’s theories in a sophomore psych class, it occurred to me that as a kid I’d had a classic mother fixation, seeing Liz as a rival.

Well, duh.

Of course I was jealous, and I had good reason to be. I had no father, didn’t even know who the fuck he was because my mother wouldn’t talk about him. Later I found out she had good reason for that, but at the time all I knew was that it was “You and me against the world, Jamie.” Until Liz came along, that was. And remember this, I didn’t have a whole lot of Mom even before Liz, because Mom was too busy trying to save the agency after she and Uncle Harry got fucked by James Mackenzie (I hated that he and I had the same first name). Mom was always mining for gold in the slush pile, hoping to come across another Jane Reynolds.

I would have to say that liking and disliking were pretty evenly balanced on the day we went to Cobblestone Cottage, with liking slightly ahead for at least four reasons: Matchbox cars and trucks were not to be sneezed at; sitting between them on the sofa and watching The Big Bang Theory was fun and cozy; I wanted to like who my mother liked; Liz made her happy. Later (there it is again), not so much.

That Christmas was excellent. I got cool presents from both of them, and we had an early lunch at Chinese Tuxedo before Liz had to go to work. Because, she said, “Crime never takes a holiday.” So Mom and me went to the old place on Park Avenue.

Mom stayed in touch with Mr. Burkett after we moved, and sometimes the three of us hung out. “Because he’s lonely,” Mom said, “but also because why, Jamie?”

“Because we like him,” I said, and that was true.

We had Christmas dinner in his apartment (actually turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce from Zabar’s) because his daughter was on the west coast and couldn’t come back. I found out more about that later.

And yes, because we liked him.

As I may have told you, Mr. Burkett was actually Professor Burkett, now Emeritus, which I understood to mean that he was retired but still allowed to hang around NYU and teach the occasional class in his super-smart specialty, which happened to be E and E—English and European Literature. I once made this mistake of calling it Lit and he corrected me, saying lit was either for lights or being drunk.

Anyway, even with no stuffing and only carrots for veg, it was a nice little meal, and we had more presents after. I gave Mr. Burkett a snow globe for his collection. I later found out it had been his wife’s collection, but he admired it, thanked me, and put it on the mantel with the others. Mom gave him a big book called The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, because back when he was working full time, he’d taught a course called Mystery and Gothic in English Fiction.

He gave Mom a locket that he said had belonged to his wife. Mom protested and said he should save it for his daughter. Mr. Burkett said that Siobhan had gotten all the good pieces of Mona’s jewelry, and besides, “If you snooze, you lose.” Meaning, I guess, that if his daughter (from the sound of it, I thought her name was Shivonn) couldn’t bother to come east, she could go whistle. I sort of agreed with that, because who knew how many more Christmases she might have her father around? He was older than God. Besides, I had a soft spot for fathers, not having one myself. I know they say you can’t miss what you’ve never had, and there’s some truth to that, but I knew I was missing something.

My present from Mr. Burkett was also a book. It was called Twenty Unexpurgated Fairy Tales.

“Do you know what unexpurgated means, Jamie?” Once a professor, always a professor, I guess.

I shook my head.

“What do you reckon?” He was leaning forward with his big gnarly hands between his skinny thighs, smiling. “Can you guess from the context of the title?”

“Uncensored? Like R-rated?”

“Nailed it,” he said. “Well done.”

“I hope there’s not a lot of sex in them,” Mom said. “He reads at high school level, but he’s only nine.”

“No sex, just good old violence,” Mr. Burkett said (I never called him professor in those days, because it seemed stuck-up somehow). “For instance, in the original tale of Cinderella, which you’ll find here, the wicked stepsisters—”

Mom turned to me and stage-whispered, “Spoiler alert.”

Mr. Burkett was not to be deterred. He was in full teaching mode. I didn’t mind, it was interesting.

“In the original, the wicked stepsisters cut off their toes in their efforts to make the glass slipper fit.”

“Eww!” I said this in a way that meant gross, tell me more.

“And the glass slipper wasn’t glass at all, Jamie. That seems to have been a translation error which has been immortalized by Walt Disney, that homogenizer of fairy tales. The slipper was actually made of squirrel fur.”

“Wow,” I said. Not as interesting as the stepsisters cutting off their toes, but I wanted to keep him rolling.

“In the original story of the Frog King, the princess doesn’t kiss the frog. Instead, she—”

“No more,” Mom said. “Let him read the stories and find out for himself.”

“Always best,” Mr. Burkett agreed. “And perhaps we’ll discuss them, Jamie.”

You mean you’ll discuss them while I listen, I thought, but that would be okay.

“Should we have hot chocolate?” Mom asked. “It’s also from Zabar’s, and they make the best. I can reheat it in a jiff.”