Korê in New York

What happens when a kid refuses to leave the past behind? What happens when the past won't go away? Read on and don't worry about the emotional damage.

1. Pea Soup for Nervy Worm

   Noblesse oblige was over. No one had to tell me that. I just knew that after activities, I had to take the subway back to Manhattan so I could eat dinner with Nervy and make her lunch. It felt strange to arrive at the Ardsley around 7pm and head upstairs.

   I washed my hands and headed into the kitchen where RoAnn had purchased sandwiches from Kapors for she and her own daughter. I felt a twinge of anger that Nervy got left out. RoAnn had a ready explanation. “I offered your sister a sandwich but she said she’d rather eat that roast beef spread from a can with pickles.”

   I believed that and went down to the pantry to replenish our supply. I got to work making a bowl of roast beaf spread salad with mayonaise, mustard, picallily relish, and grated carrot. I fixed Nervy Worm two sandwiches of this with one sweet and one salty pickle and wrapped one up for her lunch. I also put out our relish tray and set some breaded okra to heat on a tray in the oven. I made my own lunch and an extra sandwich for my own meal.

   Nervy talked about school. She showed me drawings she had made. They were odd, radially symetrical designs. There was also a picture of the four of us studying in the study/office. It was weirdly realistic or as realistic as a kindergartener could render. It made me feel sad because Dad was missing.

   I told Nervy about the lighting board where I work as a tech and about the bee we had in French. Nervy said that some day she wanted to learn French.

   “There are lots more exciting things than learning a language,” spat back Ivanna.

   “What’s more exciting than that?” RoAnn always spoiled for a fight or maybe just didn’t shy away from one.

   “Dancnig…clothes…shopping…going on vacations.”

   “Want to go the the Turks and Caicos?” I asked Ivanna.

   “Some day. You have to qualify to get that one,” Ivanna quipped.

   “You have to have parental cnsent,” RoAnn told her daughter.

   “Yeah….I have two parents,” Ivanna complained.

   “You live with this parent,” RoAnn played her trump card.

   Nervy glanced at me. I glanced back. Parental authority gets old fast.

   “Let’s have soup tomorrow,” Nervy said to me as she got ready for bed. “I’ll bring some up,” I answered.

   “When are you coming to sleep?” Nervy asked.

   “When I feel like it and I get some work done,” I answered.

   “That means you don’t sleep.”

   “Not much during the week,” I told my younger sister. “If there’s anything you need, just come down to the study. I’ll be in there.”

   ---

   Tuesday after school was the Young Achiever’s meeting. It went on longer than it should, but we had the issue of making sure everyone got bus tickets for the trip to Westchester on Sunday. Yes, we now had chartered buses and ours would pick us all up at Brooklyn Tech at 7:35am on Sunday morning, bright, sharp, and early. This meant kids were getting up before the crack of dawn as in what is new. Like vampires we live in the dark. Only Nervy found this strange. She would just have to get used to it.

   I got home and gave my little sister her choice of soups. She picked split pea with ham. That was fine with me, I made it according to can directions and set it on very low heat so I could fix our lunch sandwiches and set up the slices of bread as well as the relish tray. We had marble rye in the house as well as the usual 100% whole wheat because Nervy had asked for it. Nervy has excellent taste.

   RoAnn glanced into the pot of split pea soup and leaped back as if some of it had scalded her. She turned to my sister who was rocking back and forth seated sideways in a chair the way impatient little kids do and said: “You don’t have to eat this stuff if you don’t want to.”

   “She said she was fine with it when we went shopping remember?” I wished my stepmother would get a clue.

   “Yes, but that was because you set up the questions in a funny way.”

   “What questions?” I inquired.

   “Is there any reason you wouldn’t eat this. Sometimes there is no reason until you see the food or smell it, you understand?”

   “I think it smells pretty good,” I commented.

   “But it’s green….” RoAnn tried to explain.

   “Peas are green,” Nervy settled the argument. Needless to say, the pea soup earned rave reviews in Nervy’s comments on the new food chart.

   “When are you going to sleep?” Nervy asked as I put her to bed. Yes, I was putting my little sister to bed. Never in a thousand years had I ever dreamed that I would be doing such a thing. I just figured Nervy was much younger. I had my own life, and some opportunities just pass you by.

   In reality, the opportunity that had passed me by was Kyril. I no longer really had a brother even though we had travelled hundreds of Greyhound miles together and shared a whole early childhood. My parents’ divorce, my stubbornness, and Kyril’s own mean streak had laid our relationship completely waste. That was a scarey thought.

   “I’m in the study if you need me,” I told Nervy. Those words were more practical and more meaningful than “I love you.” I loved Nervy and I was there for her. That was what counted, and the heck with Noblesse Oblige.

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