All Good Women by Valerie Miner Page B

if she had been accepted at the Catholic school where her father tried to enroll her — over Mama’s protests — because it was good on academic discipline. Yes, she would have learned the Palmer Method if she hadn’t been Jewish and left-handed. They were sorry, said Sister Agatha, who could smell past the rose in her name, but there was no more room in the first grade.
    Ann enjoyed grating the Parmesan, watching the soft flakes fill the bowl, savoring the sharp, hardrock aroma escape from the grater. Very good at following directions … that’s why she was flying through the Greek course. It was kind of Professor Watson to let her audit the classes, but she could see he was pleased to have a secretary who was interested in the curriculum. San Francisco State wasn’t the most prestigious Greek faculty in the country, but she wasn’t exactly ready for graduate work.
    At least she was recovering from her jealousy of Daniel. For years her brother’s courses at Stanford tormented her: history, English literature, calculus, French. She should never have taken him up on his invitation to visit the campus. It would have been easier to bear — him finishing college and going straight to law school — if she hadn’t seen how elegant Stanford was. All those graceful Spanish buildings. The tall eucalyptus trees. The wonderful, large communal dining rooms. And his friends — boys from Long Island and Louisiana and Italy and Africa. Well, now she was making her own way, differently, more slowly. She would show Papa, who had dreamed she was going to business school so she could type in her brother’s law office!
    She hated this envy because she really loved Daniel. They had been natural allies — neutral in the war between their parents. Even though he was two years older, they often played together. They both hated leaving New York for California and they were buddies in this arid and overfragrant place, travelling to the zoo and the museums together on weekends. They also developed a mutual vigilance as Mama grew more quiet.
    Papa said they were silly to miss New York. Who wouldn’t prefer a nice, warm climate with beautiful palm trees and the Pacific Ocean. They were crazy. Soon they would forget the concrete land where people shoved and pushed and were always categorizing who you were and where you came from. California would be a new life for all of them. Mama would be happier. He promised they could move back to New York in five years if they still missed the damn place. When Ann and Daniel took him up on the bargain — Ann, aged fifteen and Daniel, seventeen — Papa said he was sorry they hadn’t adjusted, but the family couldn’t pull up its roots for such whim. Roots! Ann screamed. Papa thought they had roots here? Daniel tugged at her sleeve, come on, this is a waste of time. Ann wondered why she was the one who always got angry.
    Now Ann shook her head and picked up another piece of the Parmesan Teddy had brought home from Bertolis’.
    Teddy, faithful Teddy, encouraged her about college. Teddy would make the perfect mother — do what you want dear, whatever makes you happy. Yet there was something about her that made Ann feel Teddy would never have kids. Funny, the friends one chooses. Teddy was so different from anyone she or Carol ever talked to in high school. So slow and easy. They probably wouldn’t have even noticed her. It still hurt to think about Carol, and Ann watched her mind return to a safer topic. This house would be a good place for studying Greek and Latin. After all, they helped each other survive Tracey Business School here. And she was close enough to Filbert Street to run home in an emergency, which, God knew, was likely.
    Yes, she was getting a better perspective, like a paleontologist predicting shifts in the surface of rock over time — the various layers of movement and possibility and resistance. She could not