hysterically.
“Mimi-saurus, it’s me. I’m your mama.”
“No! Not Mama!” Mimi screamed.
“Honey, of course it’s your mama,” Jeanie said. “She just went to the beauty shop. Don’t she lookpretty?”
“Not Mama!” Mimi shrieked louder.
Lily had to carry Mimi to the bathroom and show her her tattoos in order to convince the little girlthat the pristinely dressed, carefully coiffed creature before her was indeed her mother.
When Lily returned to the place she and Ben grudgingly called home, Ben took one look at herand cried, “Shit! Shiiit. Shi-it.”
Lily flopped down on the sofa. “Hey, now, no profanity in front of the baby.”
Ben shook his head like a wet dog. “Good god, you look like the president of the Junior League,and you say things like no profanity in front of the baby. It’s like you’ve turned into a...a...”
Lily put on a mock Cockney accent. “A real laydee? Just call me Eliza, Professor Higgins.” Shekicked off her shoes and began unceremoniously peeling off her pantyhose. “We got any beer?”
Mordecai emerged from the hall and eyed Lily suspiciously. He approached her, sniffed her, and,satisfied as to her identity, settled down for an ear-scratching. Ben backed out of the room, still fixated onLily’s transformed appearance. “I’ll...I’ll get you one.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You’re a good husband.”
Ben returned with their beers and sat down on the couch. “Say, why don’t I drive over to Callahanand pick us up a pizza for dinner? You can’t be in the kitchen cooking, looking like that. You’ll feel likefucking Harriet Nelson.”
Mimi looked up from her shape sorter and joyously exclaimed, “Fuckin’!”
“Mimi, that’s a grown-up word.” Lily leaned back on the couch and sucked down some beer. “Alot of good it’s gonna do me to change my entire image if my daughter’s gonna have the vocabulary of alongshoreman.”
“Don’t worry; she won’t have to testify.” Ben flipped through the Versailles/Callahan phone book.
Ripping that phone book would be no feat of strength, Lily thought. Mimi could probably do it.
“So...” Ben said, “mushroom, green pepper, and black olive?”
“Sure.” Lily was astonished at the tiredness in her voice.
After Ben went to fetch the pizza, Lily made a bowl of oatmeal and a slice of toast for Mimi,whose idea of good eating was breakfast three times a day. Lily tied on Mimi’s bib, sat down with her,and began to spoon the warm cereal into the little girl’s mouth.
“No, Mama,” Mimi said. “Feed self.”
“Well, okay, grown-up girl.” She handed the spoon over, and Mimi took it into her tiny fist. Mimi