Before I crossed to the next block, I looked back at the woman. Her rump was in the air, her hands were deep in the dirt, and the scarf on her head flapped like a bird about to take off. She sat up quickly, caught me watching, and waved. I waved back, embarrassed, and then hurried away.
Mrs. Cone opened the door for me, smiling and holding a cup of coffee. As she closed the door behind us, she splashed coffee on the floor of the foyer. She was wearing a nightgown that came to her knees and was unbuttoned down the front, revealing just about everything. I tried not to look.
“They’re in the kitchen—go on in.” She turned and trotted up the stairs, ignoring the spill.
“Mary Jane?!” Izzy shouted. “We’re in the kitchen!”
Dr. Cone shouted, as if Izzy hadn’t, “We’re in the kitchen!”
“IN THE KITCHEN!” Izzy repeated.
“Coming.” I couldn’t bring myself to shout, so I announced myself again after I’d passed out of the living room, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. “I’m here.”
Dr. Cone was wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. Izzy was wearing pink pajama pants and no shirt. Her taut belly sweetly popped out.
“I’m coloring!” Izzy announced.
“I love coloring.” I scooted in next to her on the blue-cushioned banquette. The window behind the kitchen table looked out into the backyard and toward the garage. There was a lamp on in the garage; it appeared to be sitting on a surface—a table or a desk—at the window.
Dr. Cone noticed me looking. He pointed past me and Izzy. “That’s my office.”
“The garage?” I imagined a nurse inside, hospital beds, IV bags full of blood, ambulances pulling into the alleyway.
“Well, it was a garage once. A barn before that.”
“Ours, too.” The neighborhood had been built about eighty years ago by one of the Olmsted brothers who’d designed Central Park in New York City. It was full of winding roads, already mature trees, and a horse barn behind every house. I loved that our neighborhood had a connection to New York City. I liked to imagine myself in New York City, walking beside all those towering buildings and among the people cramming the sidewalks, like I’d seen in movies and TV shows. But most of all, I wanted to go to a Broadway show. My mother and I belonged to the Show Tunes of the Month Club and received a new Broadway cast album every month. I had memorized every song from all the great shows, and the best songs from the bad shows. My mother adored Broadway songs but not New York City, which she said was full of thieves, drug addicts, and degenerates.
“What should we color?” Izzy was sorting through a six-inch-high stack of coloring books.
“Is there a nurse in there?” I asked Dr. Cone, nodding toward the window.
“A nurse?”
“Who helps you with the patients.”
Dr. Cone laughed. “I’m a psychiatrist. I’m a medical doctor, but I just work with thoughts. Addiction, obsessions. I don’t deal in bodies.”
“Oh.” I wondered if my mother thought psychiatrists were as big a deal as the doctors who dealt in bodies.
“Bodies!” Izzy said, and waved a coloring book in front of me. The Human Body was printed on the front.
“That looks cool.” I gathered crayons from around the table and grouped them according to color.
“Let’s do the penis.” Izzy opened the book and started flipping through the pages. My face burned and I felt a little shaky.
“What color are you going to do the penis?” Dr. Cone asked, and I almost gasped. I’d never heard an adult say penis. I’d barely heard people my age say penis. The Kellogg twins were the two top students in our class, and they never said words like penis.
“GREEN!” Izzy stopped at a page that showed a penis and scrotum. The whole thing looked droopy and boneless; the scrotum reminded me of half-rotted guavas that had started to wrinkle as they shrunk. Words were printed on the side and lines directed each word to what it was naming. This penis was larger and far more detailed than the one I’d barely glanced at on the anatomy drawing we’d been handed in sex ed class last year. In fact, upon receiving that handout, most girls took a pen and rapidly scratched over the penis so they wouldn’t have to look at it. I was too afraid of the teacher to graffiti my paper. Sally Beaton, who sat beside me and was afraid of no one, saw my pristine page and reached from her desk to mine to scribble out the penis. Izzy picked up a green crayon and started frantically coloring the penis green. I wasn’t sure if I should color with her or not. If it hadn’t been a penis, I would have. But it was a penis, and Dr. Cone was right there. Would he want a girl who colored a penis taking care of his daughter? Then again, his own daughter was coloring a penis! And I had to assume he or Mrs. Cone had bought her the book.