Fiction: “Double Take” by Jessica Francis Kane

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000

Six weeks after his college roommate died, Ben thought he saw him in London: the square jaw and pale skin, the round eyes and devilish grin. But it was only a stranger in the crowd on Oxford Street. In the weeks that followed, Ben saw lots of people who reminded him of Mike. It seemed the city was suddenly populated with dozens of men who shared his fondness for gray parkas, cheap tight jeans, baseball caps and bargain boots.

Of course, Ben didn’t know if these items were still in Mike’s wardrobe when he died. He hadn’t seen him for two years when he got word that Mike had drowned off the coast of Fire Island. He was just remembering him as he’d looked at Yale.

Ben flew in from London for the memorial service in New York. He couldn’t take any time off, but with the time difference he was able to make the trip work. He left Heathrow Friday night and arrived in the city an hour before the service Saturday afternoon. Saturday night he spent with college friends. A few of them took Mike’s mother, Maryanne, out for dinner -- he remembered a quiet Italian place -- then Sunday he woke up early, went to a movie with friends (one they told themselves Mike would have liked), and caught a late afternoon flight back to London. There was a mishap with the car service and he rode to LaGuardia in a long white limo only perfunctorily cleaned from its stag party service the night before. Back in London, he took a cab straight to work. It was a whirlwind, but he was glad he’d gone.

The heartbreak of my mother’s smoking

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:01:00 +0000

My mother used to leave messages on my answering machine to announce that she was going to try, once again, to quit smoking. Starting tomorrow. She never started on the day she made the announcement. There was always some amount of lag time: a week, a day, a month, when you go to camp, when you leave for college, after I lose 15 pounds, before the wedding, after the wedding, when your brother leaves for college, when you have children, when the cow jumps over the moon. It was my habit to save the messages. That way, when she called to say she was smoking again, I could replay them as a bitter tonic for chronic hopefulness.

My mother started smoking when she was 16. It's a great story how she started. She lived in New York City, and for her 16th birthday, her mother took her to the Copacabana. There's a black-and-white picture of the party at the table: My grandmother was a professional model then and her smile is directed at the camera full force, adding a certain flair to the group. All the men are wearing tuxedos. Champagne and wine glasses sparkle on the white tablecloths, pearls gleam on silky throats. My mother is wearing an elegant dress and looks 25. The dress shows off to perfection her beautiful shoulders and narrow waist. I've looked at this photograph many times, and I still can't believe I'm related to some of these people.

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Fiction: “Double Take” by Jessica Francis Kane

The heartbreak of my mother’s smoking