Free I'm with Stupid by Elaine Szewczyk

there, scrutinizing me.
    The phone rings and rings. My muscles tighten. My mother finally answers. “Hello?”
    “Mom! It’s me!” I scream into the phone. “What happened?”
    “Oh God, it’s you!” she exclaims. She is shouting, too. There is a knot in my stomach. I hope no one is dead. I brace myself. “I was at the store this afternoon and they’re having a sale on canned soup,” she says. “I’m going to buy you some. You like cheese and potato?”
    I quickly glance at Helga. “What’s the emergency?” I say into the phone.
    “What?” my mother asks. I tell her that I received a note saying there was a family emergency. “I don’t think I said emergency,” my mother corrects me. “I may have. What kind of soup should I buy? Minestrone or cheese and potato?”
    I clumsily put on my other shoe. I cup my hand over my mouth and try to look casual. “Cheese and potato,” I whisper in horror.
    “What?” she screams. “I can’t hear you!”
    “Cheeeshnpotato,” I repeat, trying to stiffen my lips. I want to scramble the communication so that Helga doesn’t know what we are discussing. She continues staring.
    “Cheese and potato. That’s what I was thinking,” my mother says. “I’ll buy it tomorrow.”
    “I love you,” I say, signaling that I need to hang up. (My parents, brother, and I end every call with “I love you,” whether we’re feeling loving or not.) But she keeps talking, now about South Africa.
    My mother panicked when I told her I was going on the trip. She put together a “first-aid travel kit” for me to take along. When she gave it to me I thought, What am I doing, serving overseas? But I knew better than to argue. After the New York Blackout of 2003 I was actually surprised when she didn’t offer to build a fallout shelter next to my bathroom with her bare hands. So it didn’t come as a surprise when she handed me a pair of underwear that had a little change purse sewn to the waistband. Keep your money in there, she explained, and added that if I need to buy a soda or pretzels I should go to the bathroom and take the money out in there so no one sees me doing it.
    As I stand in the middle of Helga’s office in a pair of untied shoes, my dear mother, who hates to leave her Brooklyn neighborhood, begins lecturing me on how to behave in a foreign country. “Speak as little as possible and keep your head down. Everyone hates Americans,” she advises. I pull out the chair and take a seat as she explains that I shouldn’t wear any “flashy clothes” that might attract unwanted attention, and that I probably shouldn’t iron my pants—better to look poor—and that I definitely shouldn’t wear any necklaces because they might get torn off me. I shake my head. She’s always telling me to dress like a lady, like Libby. Now, because I’m in a foreign country . . . She continues: As for my passport, I’m told to put it in a legal-size envelope and hide it under the mattress. And don’t take the camera out to take pictures! she adds. It might get stolen!
    After my mother is done lecturing she puts both my father and brother on the phone to say hello. My convo with dad (who excitedly asks how my “free vacation” is going) and the teenage mute (who merely listens as I talk) is much more brief. Thankfully. When I finally hang up, Helga asks what the problem is. “Our dog died,” I blurt. We don’t have a dog. Helga scares me. I don’t want to pay for the international call.
    Max and Libby are waiting for me in front of my chalet when I return from Helga’s office. Almost immediately I can smell her perfume and his cologne. Oh brother. “You guys are oversexed,” I observe. I let myself in and take a seat on the bed. They do not follow me inside. Instead, they continue to stand on the threshold. “Is all that room deodorizer for the benefit of a certain ranger we know and love?” I ask.
    “You betcha,” says Max, rattling the door handle. “Now let’s