Bibs

The family shivers in the car, engine running and defroster sputtering. The foursome hunkers down in their parkas and boots, staring at a breach of light slowly melting through cracked ice on the windshield. Dougly in the back seat is the only one with skin exposed. She discreetly pushes up the sleeve of her puffed jacket to pick at a thin scab, flicking away frozen flakes. Thick glasses, clouded from warm breath, slide down her nose bridge and rest atop a set of round cheeks, glowing pink. Her white-blond hair flares out from under the frayed rim of a ski hat. Dougly’s broad shoulders and bulbous chest tug at the seams of her thrifted winter coat. Looking out a nickel-sized opening in the side window, she fixates on a street sign caked in snow and quivering: two headless stick figures step into a crosswalk. Her neck lilts from side to side, squeaking the polyester fabric. 

Dougly envisions a snow vortex appearing above the car and sucking her in. Thick winter clothing flies away, replaced by a skimpy bikini; pounds slice off her hips and face; hair tussles and darkens; and she’s deposited in front of a beach scene backdrop in a warehouse studio. She instinctively poses before an unseen photographer, adjusts angles, and finds her light. She teases the camera, letting a strap fall down her shoulder. Make-up boys rush in from the wings to powder her neck, redraw lip lines, and re-curl a tawdry lock. They stage-whisper—“You’re gorgeous,” “You’re sexy,” “You’re fierce”—and flourish away. She pivots and tosses her head back. 

Aside Dougly in the back seat, her sister Donly is speaking softly to no one in particular, voice muffled under a net of wrapped scarves. Her sleepy, disconnected tone provides rhetorical accompaniment to the moaning defroster and muffler, lulling everyone inside the car.

“And he always gets the short end of things. Like he says, the Man is out to get me. But he doesn’t bitch about it like some other guys. Not my Fishel. Everyone’s so unfair to him. It’s not right. I want to help him. That’s my job, you know, to make up for all the crap Fishel deals with in life. Oh, is it going to snow again? That’s what that weather lady said on TV last night, like she knows. Hmm, it’s December already. Fishel hates the snow. He loves Florida. He says it’s always hot even in December. He promised to take me there for a whole week. I wonder what it’s like to have Christmas on a beach…”

Their mother at shotgun is inefficiently fumbling through papers in an open purse. Nylon mittens cannot precisely separate coupons from receipts, spilling onto her lap. Her right foot suffers the brunt of an icy wind tunneling inside from a rusted hole in the floorboard. Throbbing gives way to numbness, and she loses patience waiting for the defroster cycle to finish. Under an oversized knit hat and above a frayed jacket buttoned to her nostrils, she glances at her husband behind the wheel. Doug leans forward, grunting, to switch on the heater. He adjusts his hood and slaps the door handle, and the three women instinctively burrow deeper into their trappings, bracing for the arctic blast as the door opens. Dougly’s exposed arm catches a chilly brush of air. A shiver courses up her forearm and excites fine white hairs, and skin around the scab tightens and cracks open. While cold seeps into open tissue, she embraces a strange blood warmth. 

Her dad’s preferred technique for de-icing glass—using a lighter to heat a painter’s spackle, scrape and repeat—is outpaced by instantaneous re-freeze in below-zero cold. He gives up and sends Dougly out to clear the rear window with a hard-plastic scraper. Her short arms cannot reach across the trunk. To gain leverage, she braces her boots against a frozen snow pile and leans over the car. Her coat rides up, bare stomach contacting frozen metal. She jolts back and flails, spreading arms and legs wide to regain balance. She jerks the coat down to her belt and moves to the other side, stepping into a slushy mixture around the tailpipe. Dougly manages to scrape two small portholes on the glass before tiring. Returning to the car, she slams the door. Her dad’s head is completely masked by a fur-lined hood, yet she senses his disapproval at the incomplete job. After a minute, diamond-shaped clearings on the front windshield begin to merge. Wiping away moisture on the inside glass, Doug prepares to drive.

“Donna, come on,” he says to his wife, motioning to an unclasped seat belt. 

“Oh, alright,” she groans, twisting and contorting to pull the belt over her torso without disturbing the inventory of papers. 

Doug cranks the car in gear, looking at his daughters in the rearview mirror. Seatbelts in the backseat have long ago been irrevocably buried into the crevices of the Naugahyde. He insists his daughters keep the doors unlocked in case of an accident, “so you’ll be thrown clear or can jump out of the wreck.”  

Donly pulls up the door lock peg, never breaking her lethargic monologue. Dougly wiggles her toes, feeling dampness. She had heated empty dinner roll bags in the microwave for a few seconds before slipping them into two heavy utility boots, which lasted mere seconds in the brutal temperature. 

Her father presses on the gas pedal, and the front wheels spin in place. Repeated attempts only squeal the tires. He switches to rocking the car between full reverse and nudging forward, boring into the ice. His family sways back and forth with each maneuver, eventually rolling the car down the driveway and onto the street. 

As the car turns, Donna sees someone knocking on the lower door of their duplex and cuts into her monotone rambling. 

“Who’s that?”

“Miles,” Dougly answers. “Let’s bring him.”

Despite her poor eyesight, she immediately identifies her school friend by his bright orange coat, a flashy stand-out in a winter-white environment, and soiled sneakers, vocally rebuked by the boys he runs past at the street corner. Miles isn’t wearing a hat or gloves, hands thrust in pockets and collar raised above his ears. Protocol in summer would be to holler at him, while the driver honks and breaks. This time of year, frozen car windows don’t roll down; horns are choked; and a Ford Impala’s inertia on slippery roads requires half a block to decelerate. Dougly opens the car door part way, as her dad removes his foot from the gas and taps the brake pad.

“Hey, crazy! We’re not there. Wanna come with?”

Miles turns around and leaps into a snowbank. He parallels the slowing car, lean legs bounding from one crusty mound to another. As they come to a full stop, Miles hops into a snow pile and sinks to his waist. Dougly and her mother snort-laugh. He struggles in the quicksand powder for a moment and pulls one leg and then the other free, losing a shoe. He dives in headfirst and retrieves his sneaker, holding it up triumphantly. Dougly opens the door wider, and he skids into the car and climbs over her to the middle position.

“You’re gonna freeze to death!” Donna exclaims. “And lose that foot to frostbite. What you thinking? No boots or hat in this kind of weather for heaven’s sake? I oughta call your dad.”

“I ran from the bus stop,” Miles says. “I beat the cold.”

Squeezed between the sisters, he brushes away snow on his legs and stamps his feet. 

“So where we going?”

“Guido’s, where else?” Dougly replies, matching his high energy. 

“Oh yeah, it’s Tuesday, I forgot!”

“Discount Tuesday,” Donna says. “Dinkles’ night out.”

“Rav-i-oli, rav-i-oli,” Donly mellow chants, and the clan joins in.

The car lurches and fishtails towards an intersection. Miles and Dougly playfully bump each other and share rumors of a senior truancy day. They are seniors and counting the days until graduation (excluding weekends, holidays, and at least a couple anticipated snow days). 

“Is everyone gonna skip?” Miles asks. “It’ll only work if everyone does it. We’re not like the class of ’86. They did everything together.”

“You’re not going to bail. Besides, what’s the principal gonna do? If we all do it then he can’t give detention to the whole class.” Dougly slaps his shoulder.

“He can call the cops on us.” 

“What? They don’t do that for stupid stuff. Everyone skips once in senior year. It’s like a tradition.”

“That’s right!” Doug commends his daughter. His thick beard is ringed by icicles, melting into his lips and spraying. “I did my hooky day. Me and my buddies made a pact and pulled it off. My dad bought us three kegs, and we built a bonfire down by the river.”

“Did everyone follow through?” Miles questions, brown eyes looking at Mr. Dinkles’ reflection in the rearview mirror. 

“Yeah sure. Maybe a couple brown-nosers and losers went to school. But we hung out and drank and had a shitload of fun. And the next day, no one got in trouble because we did it in a group. If you do it like that, they won’t waste time giving out detentions or calling everyone’s parents. Teachers are lazy fuckers.”

Miles shrugs, unconvinced, and Doug pulls him into a debate on tactics to avoid tipping off school authorities and strategies to retaliate against narcs. Dougly drifts away and gazes out the window. Soft snowfall rapidly picks up pace and forms curtains. Her father turns on the windshield wipers and headlights. A dishtowel wrapped around a wiper blade sputters and growls in rebound. 

She imagines herself dressed in a corset and bustle, hair curled, matching the visage of a British historical drama re-running on public television. She glides through an outside luncheon on the grassy lawn of a picturesque estate. In full manners, she smiles at well-dressed friends and looks over her shoulder to admire a young lad riding a yellow mare down a hill towards her. She shields her creamy face with a lace-gloved hand. Her thin waist and upturned chin catch the eye of the tall, dark, and handsome Duke of Somewhere. He dismounts and marches his pristine riding boots to her side. She is taken aback by his close approach. 

“My apologies for my forwardness. I am compelled by your fair beauty and undeniable grace. May I be so bold as to know your name,” he begs and bows. 

“You may call me Lady Dinkles,” she replies coquettishly and offers her wrist.

Miles elbows her side, noticing her lack of participation, and dispatches her daydreams. 

“See the show last night?” He raises his voice above the stuttering wipers and valiant muffler.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t tell me anything,” her sister moans, covering her ears. “I missed the last part cuz it was Fishel’s time to call.” 

“It was a good one. So realistic.”

“You’re crazy!” Dougly disagrees, wrinkling her nose. “Captains go down with the ship. It’s an honor thing. But he left the ship during a red alert! Who does that? And that space hooker was in charge on the bridge!” 

“I liked her outfit,” Donly says.

“Oh yes,” Miles gasps in delight. “She is stunning in sapphire blue. She could be a runway model.”

“She’s stupid,” Dougly flatly disagrees. “She’s got nothing to do. She sits there and doesn’t say anything. Except to scream anytime there’s danger. And she’ll catch a cold in space dressing like that.”

As the discussion of their favorite sci-fi TV show takes over the car, Dougly’s interest fades again. She studies a plastered snowflake on the glass. Backlit from a traffic light, the perfect hexagon glows green. Winds pick up, buffeting the car. Doug double-fists the wheel and eases off the gas pedal. The voices hush, and they watch slanting snow drapes obscure the view outside. Dougly rests her face against the cool glass and loosens an itchy scarf around her neck. The other Impala occupants dissolve around fading edges of her consciousness. She returns to a petticoat and courtesan state for a moment. 

For Dougly, winter blizzards bring on acute temperament shifts more often than classic spring showers or feckless summer humidity. Whenever December snowstorms breach the plastic sealant around her bedroom window and beckons her to step outside herself, she is anxious to leave their duplex. But it’s inevitably a scam. When the full force of frigid air bites her cheeks, head barely out the door, she recoils and backpedals inside to shake off the hoax.

The car swerves on a slick patch, missing an on-coming truck by an inch. Slush kicks up on the windows and breaks Dougly’s trance—and her father’s patience.

“Dammit! Can’t see a fucking thing! I bet that’s a woman driver!”

He regains control and adjusts the steering column, resting his gut in the well of the wheel, and curses idiot drivers and children who don’t listen. Donna rubs the leg of her husband’s snowmobile suit, purring at him to calm down. 

“So Miles,” she twists aside in her heavy coat. “Whaddya want for dessert? It’s our treat.”

Miles blinks nervously. 

“Oh, I dunno.” 

He looks for familiar landmarks and buildings through the wall of snow. 

“Don’t be shy. Get whatever you like. We love having you along.”

Dougly kicks his foot. 

“You’re already in the car with us, stupid. And you’re doing senior skip day. Or else you’ll be the only one left out.”

“Or it’s a prank on me.” He bats long lashes and flashes his teeth. “I’ll be the only one going down with the ship.”

“No you won’t. If you don’t play along, then you’ll be left behind.” 

Donna passes around a large brownie chunk wrapped in doubled tin foil, a premeal snack (or emergency rations in the event white-out conditions force them off the road). Miles pinches a tiny corner and pops it into his mouth. His jaw muscles strain to maintain a polite grin while chewing the dense treat. Dougly tears away a large piece, bobbing her head side to side. The radiating heat finally reaches the back seat, if unevenly, and tingles Dougly’s toes. Outside winds scoop top layers of uncompacted snow, whirling it into peaks. Donna shivers and clutches her lap papers.

“Donly, do you have one?”  

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” her husband scolds. “Not in the car. We’re almost there.” 

He knuckles the wheel and alternates between pumping the accelerator and break, slaloming between parked and moving automobiles.

“Oh, alright. Smoking’s my only bad habit,” Donna sighs. “At least I don’t fall asleep in the Lazy-Boy with a plate on my stomach.”

“That happened one time.”

“More than once.” 

She reminds him of the plates currently soaking in the kitchen sink, dried pork chop entrails and hardened Velveeta acting as a powerful epoxy. 

Circling to find a safe place to park, Doug rejects his wife’s assistance pointing out an available spot.

“Naw, if we park there, we’ll be snowed-in by the plows, and I’m not digging us out after I stuff my gut.”

Miles tips his head back and closes his eyes. Dougly notices several appropriate parking options but remains silent, relying as always on her dad’s instincts. 

They enter an unplowed side street, and Doug maneuvers the car into a relatively perpendicular position to an un-demarcated curb between two car-shaped mounds. The party tumbles out and fords several drifts up to their knees. They trudge a path through featureless sidewalks. Bracing against needling hails, Doug leads the pack. His barreled torso breaks the current, and ribbons of snow curl aside him. The women hold on to each other’s coattails in a row to avoid falling behind unnoticed in the blinding conditions. Miles, unattached in the rear, hops in their foot holes. Snow is sticking to his hair coils, gaining volume. He can barely make out a neon “G” ahead, lighting the pathway to the restaurant. At an intersection, they pause, unable to see where the street begins. Doug mushes them forward. A hazy traffic signal changes and the headlights of a city bus approach, cutting off Miles. He steps back to avoid slush waves from its chained tires. He holds up his naked hand to block snow gales and read the bus line number, catching a handful of wet snow. The passing bus belches fumes, and he covers his mouth, tasting salt-ice-diesel. Across the street, Dougly turns around and scans inside the bus to see if he is jumping aboard.

“Hurry up, crazy!” she yells through the gusts.

Miles waves his arms above his head, as if signaling an S.O.S. He waits for the light to change and skis across the street. Dougly grabs his coat waist, slides him around and ahead of her, and pushes off with one foot to continue the momentum. 

Inside Guido’s lobby, they all stamp on flattened cardboard boxes and rip off their outer wear. Miles shakes his hair and blows on his knuckles. Dougly takes his hands and vigorously rubs. An anxious host fiddles with his bowtie, forecasting the puddles he will be mopping up later.

“You five together? I can put you in a booth.”

“A booth? We can’t fit in a booth,” Doug scolds, wiping his nose and cleaning mucous fingers in his underbelly. “We always sit here up front.” He points to a six-chair table aside a bay window. “This is free, right?”

He hands his coat to his wife and walks over to the head of the table. The host grins unnaturally and snatches a pile of placard-sized menus, following them. He slaps menus around the table between decorative jugs of wine. The bottle corks are replaced with candles, streams of hardened wax welded to a checkered table cover. An eponymous sign above a swinging kitchen door is draped with rubber grapes and plastic vines. The host drags an extra chair, drawing a skid mark on the peeling linoleum. 

“You can leave it, dear.” Donna tosses a jacket on the seat. “We’ll use it for our coats and stuff.”

The host stops, bowtie smirking. Donna gathers everyone’s snow gear and flops it on the chair.

“I used to do your job here, way back in dinosaur times, so I know all the ins and outs. You don’t got a closet or hangers. And you’ll need every booth during the dinner rush. So we’ll use this chair here and keep it simple. I go way back with your boss, so I know how to deal with a party of five or more. And I know the entire menu by heart. You can test me on anything. ‘Course it don’t matter tonight. It’s ravioli night. But I still like to have a look.”

Affecting an expression and upper body posture of intense concentration, the host quietly maneuvers a piece of cardboard under the chair with the toe of his shoe. 

“We’re all set,” she re-emphasizes. “You don’t need to fuss over the likes of us.”

The host nods and backs away. 

Donna takes a deep breath and looks around at the familiar walls. She removes a hat, revealing her bald head, and flings it on top of the coat pile. 

“Nice to be inside all toasty warm.” 

She pulls out a long kerchief from her bra and wraps it around her boney dome, coursed with blue veins and burgundy rashes. She ties the head wrap in double knots, tugging a few wispy remnants of hair at the base of her neck. She repositions her glasses and reviews the menu, looking for anything out of place. White stickers are placed over any options unavailable today or to update printed prices. An unpronounceable dish has been redacted for as long as she can remember. 

“I was the hostess back in high school when I was your age,” she announces to the table. “My friends sat at that back booth and giggle at the cute busboys.”

Her daughters roll their eyes at the tired story.

“Oh good, no price changes. And I found the coupon! It expires today, so it’s worth the walk in this weather.”

Miles hides his nose under the menu and watches multiple conversations. The family resemblance is striking. Each member uses a napkin to rub and de-fog their hefty eyeglasses. Round bodies force them to sit at a distance from the table and roll forward when speaking. 

“I hope they hurry,” Dougly says to her sister at the end of the table. “I’m starving.”

“Me too. I could eat a whole platter. I won’t stop cuz Fishel ain’t here. I need him to eat off my plate and tell me when I’ve had enough. He loves the huge portions they give you. That reminds me of something funny he said…” 

She directs her focus to the candle but her words towards her parents. Their eyebrows, raised above the menus already memorized from years of patronage, react to their daughter’s storylines. 

Dougly jabs Miles under the table. 

“It’s been forever since you came with us. Why so long? You too good for Guido’s?” 

“Homework.”   

“Homework every Tuesday night?”

“Sometimes rehearsals for the school play.”

“Well, you don’t got rehearsal all the time.”

“And my old man yells at me to do chores—or else.”

His eyelashes are telling, and Dougly leans in to challenge him further but is distracted by her grumbling stomach.

“Uh, I haven’t eaten anything all day, really.”

She shakes her ponytail, flinging ice chips and water in all directions, and tightens a blue scrunchie. Miles gets a whiff of her strawberry shampoo. Below the table, she kicks off a boot and rubs her wet sock on the cold floor.

“I love ravioli so much. Why don’t you come every week? You’re too skinny.”

“I’m not that skinny anymore.”

“I bet I could bench press you!” She motions a barbell lift, puffing her cheeks and squeezing her eyelids shut. 

 “Yeah right, She-Ra.”

“Well, ya can fill up tonight. Bonnie’ll treat you like you’re one of us and give you extra cheese on top.”

“I don’t like a lot of cheese.”

“Yeah ya do,” she says, shaking her head. “Everyone likes extra cheese. And there’s always leftovers for doggie bags—you can have it for lunch tomorrow.”

“I don’t—”

“You’re way too skinny. I don’t get it. You like never gain nothing.” 

Dougly slides out a breadstick from a mason jar, twirls it like a wand, and stabs it into a brick of soft butter resting in a ceramic dish. “Meanwhile, I get fat just from the air!”

“Hey, we burned lots of calories getting here.”

“That’s for sure. We’re getting a big dessert after that work out. My legs are sore just walking here. It felt like gym class.”

“Hah, you never go to gym.”

“Sometimes.”

“Girls are lucky. You can just say, ‘I got my period,’ and go to the locker room and smoke.”

“Yeah, we’re real lucky.”

“I have to run around with the sweaty guys.”

Doug interrupts to re-start the sci-fi topic, rubbing his belly and pontificating. Miles casts his eyes across the table—his coat is sandwiched near the bottom of the chair—and looks over to the front door, opening to let in another snow-capped family. He flips over the menu and taps a calendar of specials; the day of the week had slipped his mind. He shrinks below the menu, hoping the waiter will not notice him.

The blizzard pounds on Guido’s windows and inspires a collective “ooh.” Dougly hears Miles’ stomach grumble.

“You too! Where the hell is Bonnie? Whaddya want to drink?”

“Whatever you have is good for me.” 

Bonnie bursts out of the kitchen.

“Bibs! Bibs for everyone!”

She sports a black bouffant wig, wider than her hips, and punctuated by a big barrette. She begins with the patriarch, tying on a large plastic bib featuring a red caricature. Doug cranes his neck and holds out his arms. 

“There you go, my big fella. I know you won’t miss a drop.”

Bonnie moves to the women, who raise their chins in anticipation of the same treatment. She pauses to size up Miles, face sinking into his shoulders. 

“Hmm, let me see. Let’s go with this.” 

She pulls out a compressed plastic bib from her apron pocket, shakes it open, and expertly lassoes his neck from behind. 

“There you go.” She smooths the undersized bib, caressing his chest, and he squirms. “Oh, he’s ticklish! Don’t worry, good-looking, the kid’s size won’t fit you for long. Your chest will be growing any day now, and you’ll be eating like a bear.”

She squeezes his shoulders and looks up.

“So, you ordering, or is it ravioli all around as usual?”

“Ravioli,” Doug commands. “And large Mountain Dews.”

“And we have a 2-for-1 coupon,” Donna says. “How do we split it between five of us?”

Dougly turns to Miles. 

“What are you doing for the rest of Christmas break?”

“Not much.”

“Come with us to the mall tomorrow. I’m gonna look at jeans. Donly maybe wants to get another ear pierced.”  

Miles nods equivocally, distracted by the crackling discussion at the end of the table. Bonnie is looking over the coupon and shaking her big hair.

“Come on, what else you doing? Homework?

“I’m done with everything.”

“I’m almost finished. I’m reading this cool book. I’m up to page 250.”

“Reading? You really are a four-eyes.” 

“It’s a fun novel. Not like a textbook.”

Miles grimaces as Donly comes to her mother’s assistance.

“It’s fine, mom, it’s fine. I have money in my purse.”

“Oh no, dear,” Donna cries. “Not your meter maid money; you’ll get in trouble.”

“No, Fish mailed me a fifty.”

“No one’s forking over cold cash,” Doug declares. “And we’re not taking money from no con named Fish! We have a perfectly good coupon and my own damn checkbook.”

“Um, I’m not sure what to do, big fella.” Bonnie scratches her hair with a pencil. “But let me go see about that, ok? And I’ll put in your order right away. I’m sure you’re all starving.”

She stomps away, and a moment later the kitchen door flings open again. A tall, thin man with white hair and deep-set blue eyes opens his arms. He glides crookedly to the table.

“Donna, Donna, and family. How may I help you?”

She shakes a coupon with one hand, using the other to adjust her shifting head wrap.

“Sven, this is still good. You know it is. Look at the date right here, Sven. I’ve known you since we were kids and you tried to kiss me out by the dumpster. You naughty boy. You know I’m good for it. The coupon, I mean.”

Miles pulls at his plastic bib.

Ten minutes later, Bonnie plops a heaving platter of ravioli in front of them, and the Dinkles’ jowls shake with delight. Bonnie rounds the table, adjusting bibs and setting a large silver spoon on each plate. For Miles, she leans over his shoulder, takes up his hand, and presses the spoon into his palm. 

“Here, you’ll want to use this, not that silly little fork. Our ravioli is super-sized. And keep the bib flat, handsome, or you’ll splatter everywhere.”

She irons the bib across his chest.

“Ok now, I’ll be right back with Big Hank.”

Miles’ eyelashes desperately appeal to Dougly. She, however, has joined her family in the feeding. Fisting their spoons, they dive into sticky pods swimming in oily tomato sauce. They come up for air in unison, dabbing bibs to mouths, and tip into the trough again. Miles finds an opening and scoops a single pasta square. He plays with it, painting concentric sauce circles around the plate. Feeling Dougly’s eyes train on him at her second break, he slurps the pod, filling his entire mouth. 

“Mm, so good,” he mumbles between chews.

Dougly kicks him under the table and dives in for thirds.

Bonnie returns holding an industrial-sized cheese grater like a hunting rifle. She stands beside Miles, packs in a chunk of parmesan, winds up the handle, and looks down at his empty plate. 

“Big Hank is loaded and ready.”

Miles is caught between swallows. Dougly grabs his spoon and slops raviolis from the communal platter onto his plate. Bonnie smiles and begins grating cheese, swinging her hips with each crank.

“Say when.”