scarred for life

I.

Fluorescent ceiling bulbs light the room with a sour glare. Even in their harshness I'm dazzled. I stand clinging to my father's hand, still reeling a little from the jostling of foot traffic clogging the corridors. It's Christmastime, my rubber boots leave dirty salt-streaked tracks on the tile floors, and I have to step wide to avoid the puddles left by bigger feet.

The lines are so long I don't think we'll ever get there, and my stomach snarls at me. I bounce from foot to foot, eight years old, unable to decide which is more inviting, the tall clean counters next to the cash register that promise the novelty of fast food, or the secretive darkness of the Play Room filled with plastic balls and slides where I've never been allowed to go. I grip my father's hand as tightly as I can and lean straight back away from him, seeing how much pressure I can put on his arm.

We finally reach the register, and my father places the order in the authoritative voice that I find impressive. I'm proud to have a father who can cause people to run around doing what he wants. I'd decided long before we even got to the mall what I wanted, and when the cashier whom I can't really see pushes our tray of food across the counter, I'm wiggling with delight. It takes forever to negotiate seating, and the wafts of fries and that perfect Fillet-O-Fish are torturous.

My parents sit, direct me to sit next to Mom, and Dad starts distributing the food. My fries land in front of me, and my orange pop. Mom gets her hamburger meal. Dad arranges his Quarter Pounder in front of him. I start to reach for my Fillet-O-Fish, hoping Dad won't notice; but he says, "Wait," and I sit back, disappointed, and watch as he unwraps my sandwich, squeezes the excess tartar sauce -- my favorite part -- from the fish, and eats it. Then, as always, he hands me my Fillet. I don't even bother asking anymore; the answer will stay the same: "You'll make a mess." I stare at my stripped sandwich and long for the day when I'm grown up and can eat all my tartar sauce all on my own.

II.

My ears sting hotly with their new pearl studs, and I knew it would hurt, but most of the girls in my class have had pierced ears since second grade, and I've been waiting on pins and needles for my tenth birthday so I can have them too. My uncle's girlfriend, who works at the Pagoda, did the piercing, and I feel a little stomach-warmth of gladness, because strangers terrify me, and Bonnie was nice. Mom spends her time looking after my little sister, who loves to dart off, and Dad and Uncle Mark joke around, Dad laughing his head off when Uncle Mark grabs a mouthful of helium from the balloon stand and starts gabbling like Donald Duck, and Mom looking horrified and twisting around on the alert for security guards. I hold Mom's free hand and wonder how much my earlobes have swollen.

We grab lunch at the McDonald's in the Food Court; I'm still awed by the size of it -- our mall doesn't have a Food Court at all. As we sit down in a corner and Dad takes my Fillet away from me and starts to unwrap it, a revelation blazes through me brighter than the fluorescent lights.

"Hey!"

Dad starts and freezes where he sits, looking guilty, his hands still in the process of unwrapping.

"Give me that!" I say. "I'm not going to make a mess. You can't do that anymore!"

Mom starts laughing as Dad grudgingly hands it over, saying, "Darn. You know."

I feel a growing balloon of triumph in my chest. The tartar sauce has never tasted so good. And it's all mine.

III

I don't remember the last time I felt this rushed -- production week of Jane Eyre during college theatre, perhaps. All week something has taken up my free time, and it won't let up for another few days. Holy Week demands a lot of my time at church with cantoring and choir practice; I've begun tutoring a kid who needs an unbelievable amount of help in math; the trash service starts tomorrow and Mom and Dad are visiting next week and I have about a thousand pounds of garbage piled up which I just spent my lunch hour hauling to the roadside. Now I have two minutes to get back to work and I haven't eaten yet.

While talking to Mom, for the first time in about a week, which is unusual, I swing into the McDonald's Drive-Thru for a quick bite I can gobble down at the office.

"Hang on a minute, Mom." I shift the phone and lean out the window as the speaker buzzes a request for my order.

"I'd like a Number Thirteen with Coke, please," I say. "And extra tartar sauce."

In my other ear I hear Mom say, "What?" and burst into hysterical laughter. Dad's thievery of my tartar sauce has become a key family joke which we dust off and tease him about several times a year; but I never bothered to mention that when I discovered the possibility of ordering extra anything, I took advantage of it.

"Extra tartar sauce?" Mom's laughing so hard I can barely understand her. "Your dad has scarred you for life, hasn't he? You're warped!"

"Yup, and you can tell him that," I say as I pull up to the window and reach for the bag. "My deprivation as a child has made my appetite insatiable."

When I arrive at the office I say my goodbyes to Mom and make a beeline for my desk. The Fillet-O-Fish is sending steam out of its box and I'm nearly out of my mind with hunger. I grab it up and bite in.

The tartar sauce has never tasted so good.