porch and gashed her head.
When Lori heard that, she declared it was time for Maureen to move to
New York, too. But Maureen was only twelve, and I worried that she
might be too young to leave home. She'd been four when we moved to
West Virginia, and it was all she really knew.
"Who's going to look after her?" I asked.
"I will," Lori said. "She can stay with me."
Lori called Maureen, who got squeally with excitement about the idea,
and then Lori talked to Mom and Dad. Mom thought it was a great plan,
but Dad accused Lori of stealing his children and declared he was
disowning her. Maureen arrived in early winter. By then Brian had
moved into a walk-up near the Port Authority bus terminal, and using his
address, we enrolled Maureen in a good public school in Manhattan. On
weekends, we all met at Lori's apartment. We made fried pork chops or
heaping plates of spaghetti and meatballs and sat around talking about
Welch, laughing so hard at the idea of all that craziness that our eyes
watered.
ONE MORNING THREE years after I'd moved to New York, I was
getting ready for class and listening to the radio. The announcer reported
a terrible traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike. A van had broken
down, spilling clothes and furniture all over the road and creating a big
backup. The police were trying to clear the highway, but a dog had
jumped out of the van and was running up and down the turnpike as a
couple of officers chased after him. The announcer got a lot of mileage
out of the story, going on about the rubes with their clunker of a vehicle
and yapping dog who were making thousands of New York commuters
late for work.