Grime and Punishment

she thought as she rummaged in her purse for the car keys.
    Katie was in the station wagon, waiting impatiently. The garage door was still closed. Jane got in the car, adjusted the rearview mirror and latched her seat belt, then sat back. “Someone needs to open that door. You didn’t think about that, I guess, as you walked by it.“
    “Oh, Mother,“ Katie said, getting back out with a world-weary sigh. This was something they had gone through nearly every morning last school year. Somehow Jane had hoped this year would be different.
    On the way to school, Katie reopened a too-familiar subject. “It’s our allowance day, remember?“
    “Uh-huh,“ Jane said, stopping behind a trash truck that was stopped in the center of the road to facilitate loading from both sides. Jane smiled. Once last year her friend Shelley had gotten stuck behind one of these smelly, inconsiderate monsters that was halted in front of her own house blocking traffic. Already running late, Shelley had laid on the horn, and when the driver leaned out and made a rude gesture, Shelley had promptly pulled around the truck, right through her yard, and left the trash men gaping with surprise. Jane had often wanted to do the same, but driving through somebody else’s yard might not make her very popular with the neighbors.
    “You’re giving me an extra ten dollars, remember?“
    “I am? What for?“ Jane asked, tapping her fingers on the wheel and craning her neck to see what they were doing that took so long. One of the trashmen was riffling casually through a stack of Playboys that someone had tried to throw away.
    “The tanning sessions.”
    Jane honked the horn. “No way.“
    “But you promised!“
    “ I didn’t promise. I said I’d think about it. I have. It’s too much money, and dangerous besides.“
    “Dangerous!“ Katie scoffed.
    “You’d have skin cancer by the time you’re thirty-five.”
    Katie flounced magnificently. “Thirty-five! Who cares by then?“
    “You will. And you’ll blame me.“
    “Oh, Mother! I’ll be the color of a polar bear by November if I don’t go.“
    “No-go, kid. Sorry.”
    The trash truck finally pulled over, and Jane realized it was because they’d blocked a businessman who’d come from the opposite direction. He was worth moving for. “Male chauvinist pigs!“ Jane muttered.
    She joined the line of station wagons disgorg- ing girls in front of the junior high. Jane discovered that her predictions about there being no social contact this early were wrong. School had only been in session for three rainy autumn days, and this was the first sunny morning. Today, several of the women were out of their cars, chatting with each other. Two were dressed in sporty tennis dresses and carrying rackets. Katie glanced at them and then raked her mother with an I-told-you-so glare. “Out!“ Jane ordered.
    “Think about the tanning sessions, Mom.”
    “I have. No. Close the door.”
    The boys were dressed and watching cartoons at the kitchen table when she got back at 6:50. Mike, a gangling fifteen-year-old, swallowed the last of his orange juice and shoved back his chair when she came in the door. Through the donut he’d stuck in his mouth to free his hands, he said, “Where you been?“
    “Stuck behind the garbage truck. Ready?“ Mike mumbled something that might have been, “Just about.”
    Jane sat down for a second in the crumb-spattered place he’d left and prodded her youngest gently in the ribs. “Hey, Todd, old thing, haven’t you got anything to say for yourself?”
    He tore himself away from a vision of a badly animated character flying between buildings. “Hey, Mom, old thing. I need three dollars to get some colored pencils at school. The teacher said we had to have them for maps today.“
    “Three dollars? Why didn’t you tell me yesterday? I could have picked them up at the store.”
    He grinned. “I guess I forgot.”
    If Katie, or even Mike had given her that line, she probably would have been irritated, but with Todd—well, it was different. He was still her baby. At ten, he hadn’t started to develop the apparent contempt Katie had for her. Jane had no doubt he’d get to that stage in good time. Even Mike, the most sensible and even-tempered of children, occasionally showed signs of it.
    She remembered vividly how she’d felt about her parents during her early teens. She’d been sure they were the frumpiest, most embarrassing individuals in the world. She was