The Little Friend
“But tonight on the counter were only some leftovers that she wanted to get rid of: ancient ham slices, pale and slimy from sitting around wrapped in plastic; also some cold mashed potatoes.
Harriet was furious. She opened the pantry and stared in at the too-tidy shelves, lined with dim jars of flour and sugar, dried peas and cornmeal, macaroni and rice. Harriet’s mother rarely ate more than a few spoonfuls of food in the evenings and many nights she was happy with a dish of ice cream or a handf...ul of soda crackers. Sometimes Allison scrambled eggs, but Harriet was a little sick of eggs all the time.
Cobwebs of lassitude drifted over her. She snapped off a stick of spaghetti and sucked on it. The floury taste was familiar—like paste—and triggered an unexpected splutter of pictures from nursery school … green tile floors, wooden blocks painted to look like bricks, windows too high to see out of.… Lost in thought, still chewing on the splinter of dried spaghetti—her brow knotted cumbrously in a way that brought out her resemblance to Edie and Judge Cleve—Harriet dragged a chair to the refrigerator, maneuvering carefully to avoid setting off a landslide of newspapers.MoreLess
Harriet was furious. She opened the pantry and stared in at the too-tidy shelves, lined with dim jars of flour and sugar, dried peas and cornmeal, macaroni and rice. Harriet’s mother rarely ate more than a few spoonfuls of food in the evenings and many nights she was happy with a dish of ice cream or a handf...ul of soda crackers. Sometimes Allison scrambled eggs, but Harriet was a little sick of eggs all the time.
Cobwebs of lassitude drifted over her. She snapped off a stick of spaghetti and sucked on it. The floury taste was familiar—like paste—and triggered an unexpected splutter of pictures from nursery school … green tile floors, wooden blocks painted to look like bricks, windows too high to see out of.… Lost in thought, still chewing on the splinter of dried spaghetti—her brow knotted cumbrously in a way that brought out her resemblance to Edie and Judge Cleve—Harriet dragged a chair to the refrigerator, maneuvering carefully to avoid setting off a landslide of newspapers.MoreLess
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