Sometimes this meant Brighton Beach, solyanka in the shadow of the Cyclone. More often it meant midtown and the Balalaika. Fish eggs didn’t agree with Andi, or so she said, so when Ahmad and I went out, Jeanette’s daughter Dotty babysat. Dotty was eighteen and postponing Harvard to volunteer for U2K, a Y2K-preparedness group; she’d go to college in January, she said, if there were any colleges left.Andi had organized her school stuff to show Dotty, her Pretty Princess backpack leaning against a tower of textbooks, Tink, newly rehabilitated, standing guard on top.Guess what! she said, taking Dotty’s hand as soon as she walked in the door. Ahmad’s going to buy me a bike! A pink one, with a basket for Tink!Ahmad! I said.Every kid should have a bike, he said. He was trying to do jovial, but Ahmad didn’t do jovial.Every kid in Connecticut has a bike, Andi said. I’m going to be every kid in Connecticut!Honey, I said, trying to control my voice, we’re not going to Connecticut.Aw, Mom!You’ll thank me later.I doubt it.
