“The pool never even opens because the French people left a mess.” – travel journal entry – Day 13

Any Itch At All

Her husband is French, and he’s also an asshole. She calls him ma puce, which I understand means flea in French and which may apply in terms of him giving her an itch. Ever since they’ve been together, she’s talked about going places, about seeing things, about getting out, but it’s not the good kind of itch, the kind that makes you explore and grow; it’s the kind of itch that makes you want to scratch yourself bloody.

When I was a child, I suffered from atopic dermatitis and she was my only friend. She used to strap oven mitts to my hands on those hot Texan afternoons, and my hands would sweat so badly that the mittens would soon feel like water balloons. I’d beg her to pull off those mittens so I could finally scratch myself, and she would refuse; back in those days when I thought “No” was a word she could pull off.

My mother used to say “That Mia!” admiringly. My mother was 40 years old and it scared me how she seemed to envy my thirteen-year-old friend.

At age fourteen, I had a bad bout of hay fever and Mia had her first boyfriend. Within a few weeks, she stopped reading because he thought movies were more interesting than books. She said she didn’t want to argue with him, and that the books didn’t really mean anything to her, anyways. She would start doing something else, she said, something they both liked.

Later, with other boyfriends, I saw her abandon a few other things: her religion, high heels, long hair, irony, several pets and an electric guitar.

Over the years, my mother continued to say “That Mia!” and Mia started to talk about my mother as if she were her own. We often sat in our kitchen after midnight, digging our spoons into bowls of ice cream, and they talked about things that were foreign to me: mistrust, betrayal, anxiety.

Since she got married, Mia has abandoned makeup, animal products and her childish giggle. My mother has started seeing a man, Mike, who writes her little poems on post-its and has painted the walls in our living room. Mike has also set up a grill in the backyard and makes us dinner a lot – penne alla vodka, hamburgers, tuna salad.

Now, when Mia comes over, it’s right after dinner and only for an hour or so. She usually brings her husband and some raw ice cream with her, made of cashew nuts and water. I’ve had three or four varieties but they all taste like trees.

Once Mia leaves the house, my mother and Mike get the real ice cream out and eat it right out of the package with one spoon. “That Mia!” Mike says and licks his spoon, but it sounds very different from how my mother used to say it.

All I know about her husband, beside his nationality, is that he sells insurances. He has tried to give me advice on how to deal with my skin because his mother makes these expensive little bowls of natural creams and herbal remedies. He’s tried to talk me into using them, but I prefer dealing with things as I always have, just like Mia – better to have an itch, any itch at all.