Free Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb Page B

figured. Why else would he be making an announcement to sixty-something people about Ma having diarrhea?
    In support of her “Connecticut cohort,” Mrs.Parzych silenced the stove timer, pulled on a pair of plaid mitts, and took Ma’s dish out of the oven. It was all smoky, and the Pillsbury crescent rolls that formed the top crust looked kinda burnt. Everybody at the lunch counter got real quiet, except for someone way in the back that said, “Uh oh.”
    And then? On TV? There was Ma, running in from the right. Her beehive was kinda wobbling from side to side, and there was this weird white thing flying behind her that reminded me of the surrender flag they waved sometimes in cowboy movies. When Ronald Reagan seen Ma coming at him, he looked kinda scared, and he said, “So let’s see what’s cookin’ down in Louisiana! Mimi’s Mumbo Jumbo Gumbo! Now that sounds pretty darn delicious, doesn’t it?” And instead of walking toward the Louisiana lady’s stove, he sort of broke into a run.
    As it turned out, that white thing flying behind Ma was sort of like a flag of surrender. After she’d finished her diarrhea, she’d somehow gotten toilet paper stuck in her apron strings and the elastic waistband of her skort. I was pretty sure, even before they announced that “Sandra’s E-Z Tuna Stroganoff with Pillsbury Biscuits” was the winner in Ma’s category and that “Coco-Nutty Blond Brownie Bars” was getting the $25,000 grand prize, that that 1965 Buick Riviera with the hideaway headlights wasn’t going to end up parked in our driveway. “Booooooo!” I said when Art Linkletter shook hands with the winners. Simone slugged me one and told me to stop being a poor sport. Then she said to go ask my teachers if they wanted any pie and coffee. “What do you mean, my teachers?” I said.
    I looked back to where my sister was pointing, and there were Sister Fabian, Sister Lucinda, and Mother Filomina. Nuns from my school at our lunch counter? It was like some kind of psycho dream! I didn’t want to go over to them, but Simone and Pop both made me.
    Sister Lucinda wanted pie but no ice cream—apple, which was good because there was no more blueberry. Mother Filomina said she’d take a littlebit of ice cream but no pie. Sister Fabian said no thanks, she didn’t want anything. Christopher Creamcheese, who was still shadowing me, said, “Can I have hers then?” So I told him okay, but this time he couldn’t lick his plate because it was bad manners. And he said if it was gonna be his pie, then yes he could so lick the plate, and I said, “Okay, fine, no pie then,” and he said all right, all right, he wouldn’t. And after I gave it to him, he said, “You know what? You’re weird” and I said, “So ain’t you.” And he stuck his tongue out at me and there was ice cream and pie crust all over it. But at least he stopped following me around.
    “Well, Felix, you must be very proud of your mother,” Sister Fabian said. I wasn’t sure when she and the others had arrived, but I figured it had to have been after Ma’d come out of the bathroom, trailing toilet paper and scaring Ronald Reagan.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, yes, Sister…. Sisters. And Mother.”
    “Why, you’re entirely welcome, Felix,” MotherFilomina said. “And I hope you know how proud we are of you .”
    “Huh?” I said. I didn’t know what I’d done that they should be proud of me for, but still, I thought, it was too bad Rosalie wasn’t there because it probably would’ve killed her to hear Sister say it to me, not her.
    In a long distance call from her hotel room that night—you could hear both sides of Ma’s and Pop’s conversation because they were both using these real loud long-distance voices—Ma verified that her nerves had given her the runs just before the broadcast began. Her fellow contestants had been very nice about her having burned her Shepherd’s Pie Italiano, she said. But still, she’d been