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My Friend

 A strange thing about having children is that you're conscripted for various birthday parties, and you know no one at the parties, and there are no shared interests; you are simply with other people who have small children.


Conversational topics include: "Look, he's getting so big!" Also: "Our local zoo--isn't that place fabulous?"

You yourself might want to say: "Did anyone see the new indie horror film? The one where he slits her throat....and you think she's dead....but next..."

It's a great relief, then, that I have Vanya, who lives five minutes from me. Vanya is Russian-by-way-of-Staten-Island, and she seems to find me anytime we happen to be on one lawn together.

"This child," she says. "It's a full-time job. His Kindergarten teacher calls and whines, Your son violated Harper's space with his body. And I say, My son, he is five. He does not know that he *has* a body. Can you speak in English?"

Vanya's bleakness makes me think of Chekhov, and so I guess it's great that her name is "Vanya." I compliment the location of her house, which is the very, very bottom of a steep and annoying hill. "At the bottom, yes," she says, "but this means all of South Orange runs by all day, all night. All those people, their drunken curse words, their condoms...."

I am a nervous party guest, so I sometimes accidentally shoot spit in the general vicinity of your cheek. And Vanya takes this in stride. "Oh, please," she says, drying her left eyelid...."I've had much, much worse happen today...."

My hero and my spiritual twin--and she is, always, just twenty doors down....
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