MARY JANE by Jessica Anya Blau

Mary Jane is going to babysit five years old Izzy over the summer.

“I had just turned fourteen, it was 1975, and my ideas about homes, furniture, and cleanliness ran straight into me like an umbilical cord from my mother.

My mother’s work was mostly in the home. I’d never seen anyone busier than Mom. She made the beds everyday, swept every day, grocery shopped every Friday, made breakfast and dinner every day, and mopped the kitchen floor each night.

My mother thought it was nice that I’d be working for a doctor and his wife for the summer. She said that a house with a doctor was a respectable house.
If my father knew I was working for a doctor’s family, he would have approved. But he didn’t pay much attention to matters concerning me. Or concerning anyone, really. Each night, he came home from work, settled into his chair by the living room window, and read the Evening Sun until my mother announced that dinner was ready, at which point he moved into the dining room, where he sat at the head of the table.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

When Dr.Cone stepped deeper into the room and kissed Mrs. Cone on the lips, I almost fainted. Their bodies were pressed together, their heads only an inch apart after the kiss as they whispered to each other.

I had never met anyone like Dr. and Mrs. Cone.
And I’d never been in a house where every space was crammed with things to look at or think about (could it be that all messes weren’t evil and didn’t need to be banished with such efficiency?).

The Cones seems uninterested in how their house or yard looked.

I’d felt instantaneous affection for Izzy and happy that I was to be her nanny. 
But I was happy for other things too: that I’d be doing something I’d never done before, that my days would be spent in a world that was so different to me that I could feel a sheen of anticipation on my skin.
Already, I didn’t want the summer to end.”

Kindle, 2022