By the summer of my seventh year, I believed my mother had superpowers. My favorite cartoon was Super Friends and my favorite character, Wonder Woman, had telepathy. I loved Wonder Woman so much I begged my parents for the Wonder Woman Underoos panty set for my birthday that year. It came with briefs and an undershirt made to look like her uniform and it had a gold bracelet, just like her cuff. I’d outgrown the panties, but not the cuff. I still wore it every Saturday when the Super Friends came on.
Because my mother seemed to know what I was going to do before I did, I’d begun to wonder if she had telepathy too. So many times I’d just be thinking about eating that cookie or jumping on the couch and my mother’s voice would call out from the kitchen, “Nell! Don’t even think about it!”
My mother was so good that I had spent many weeks testing the limits of her seeming telepathy. One Sunday, I decided I wanted to eat some of the Italian bread my father had brought back from Viareggios’s deli. He’d also brought cannoli and the old-sweat sock smelling Romano cheese that he put on everything. I knew better than to go after a cannoli. My father rarely paid me any attention, but eating his dessert would certainly turn it toward me in a way I wanted to avoid.
I had been forbidden from snacking on the Italian bread the previous morning after eating not one slice slathered in butter, but a full half of the loaf. I couldn’t help myself. The deli my father frequented made perfect bread. It was crusty on the outside with a soft, squishy middle. And, when I was really lucky like I had been the day before, it was still warm when my father got home. The heat from the bread made the butter melt just enough that every single inch of the bread was covered.
I liked to cut it like it was Pacman and load the open mouth with butter. Then, I’d carefully peel away the crust, eating it first; each bite even more delightful than the next as the butter melted into it. Only after every morsel of crust was finished would I then squish the middle together, forming a small ball, and pop it in my mouth like a doughy, buttery, bonbon. I’d gone back to the loaf twice more before I realized I’d devoured half of it.
My father was not pleased. He yelled and hollered about my selfishness and how I’d wasted his time because now he had to go back to Viareggios and didn’t I know he had better things to do than make a second trip to the deli. I’d sat quietly in the kitchen chair, not looking at him as he yelled. Looking at him too long only made him yell harder. Instead, I was thinking about how I could get more bread. When my father had yelled out all his mad, he went to work on the car as he usually did on the weekends.
“Don’t even think about it,” my mother said.
I jumped as if she’d shocked me. How’d she know? She was sitting in her usual spot at the kitchen table. Her book was open and in her hands. This one showed a man with lots of big muscles standing behind a woman with a ripped dress who seemed to be falling into him. My mother wasn’t even looking at me.
“No more bread for you. I don’t care if your daddy brings back two loaves. Since you can’t control yourself, you’ll just have to wait until next time.”
I didn’t say anything. Saying that I wasn’t thinking about how to get more bread would have been a lie. We had a rule in our house – liars got whipped with the thick, black belt that was kept on top of the refrigerator. Usually, when my mother whipped you, she gave you a choice: fly swatter, wooden spoon, or the belt. My go-to choice was the fly swatter. It stung more than the wooden spoon but didn’t hurt for nearly as long. The belt was to be avoided at all costs. It was two inches wide and the leather was soft. This might seem like a good thing, but it wasn’t. The soft leather meant it bent more as it flew toward you which meant it stung like an entire hive of bees landing on your butt when it struck. So, I didn’t lie to my mother, because when she caught you lying, you didn’t get a choice, you got the belt. Period. The next afternoon, I decided to test my mother’s superpower.
I had already eaten my breakfast that morning, my usual Eggo waffle with frozen yogurt and sliced bananas. I carefully toasted my waffles, making sure to get the edges nice and crispy. The frozen yogurt I’d set out to soften as my waffle toasted was perfectly melted. The bananas I sliced with a butter knife — the only knife I was allowed to use — and arranged them in a smiling face on my plate. After breakfast, I’d gone to my bedroom to read. The newest graphic novel for Elfquest was out and I devoured it as I waited for my father to get home.
The walls in our house were very thin. It was quite common that I could be in my bedroom with my door shut and still hear the television in the kitchen. So, I had no problem hearing my father as he arrived back from the deli. There weren’t a lot of luxuries in our house. My father worked at a bookbinding factory. We never had the newest thing when it was new, so fresh bread and cannoli on the weekends were luxuries for us. I listened for the rustle of paper and plastic confirming he’d bought bread. Viareggios packed its bread in brown paper bags and my father always had them place it in plastic bags with handles. He’d ignored me when I asked him why he wanted another bag when the bread came in one anyway, but I figured it had to do with the handles.
I was not disappointed. I heard the squeal of our bread drawer which seemed to always need oil, the rustle of paper and plastic, and then the snap of the bread drawer being shoved closed.
I decided to read one more chapter and then try my luck. As soon as I closed the book, I listened hard. I couldn’t hear anyone moving. My father was likely back outside working on the cars, and my mother was reading. With any luck, she’d be so caught up, she wouldn’t know I was there. It had happened before.
When I got to the kitchen, she sat at the table in her usual chair, her back to me. She had a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She took a long drag, holding the smoke in before setting the cigarette on the edge of the heavy crystal ashtray and slowly turning the page. I waited to make sure she was continuing before raising one foot to step into the kitchen.
No sooner was my foot on the floor than my mother said, “No bread for you, Nell. I done told you already.”
I froze. She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t turned around. There were no mirrors in the kitchen. Even still, she’d known exactly what I was going to do before I did. Once again, I didn’t lie. To save face, I opened the refrigerator and grabbed an RC Cola to take back to my room. Once there, I took a swig and sat on my bed letting the fact that my mother could read minds sink in.
