The Goal

62

"Look for something? Look for what?" she asks, turning to let me in. "Come in, come in. You're letting all the cold inside. Boy, you gave me a scare. Here you are in town and you never come to see me anymore. What's the matter? You too important now for your old mother?"

"No, of course not, Mom. I've been very busy at the plant," I say.

"Busy, busy," she says leading the way to the kitchen. "You hungry?"

"No, listen, I don't want to put you to any trouble," I say.

She says, "Oh, it's no trouble. I got some ziti I can heat up. You want a salad too?"

"No, listen, a cup of coffee will be fine. I just need to find my old address book," I tell her. "It's the one I had when I was in college. Do you know where it might be?"

We step into the kitchen.

"Your old address book..." she muses as she pours a cup of coffee from the percolator. "How about some cake? Danny brought some day-old over last night from the store."

"No thanks, Mom. I'm fine," I say. "It's probably in with all my old notebooks and stuff from school."

She hands me the cup of coffee. "Notebooks..."

"Yeah, you know where they might be?"

Her eyes blink. She's thinking.

"Well... no. But I put all that stuff up in the attic," she says.

"Okay, I'll go look there," I say.

Coffee in hand, I head for the stairs leading to the second floor and up into the attic.

"Or it might all be in the basement," she says.

Three hours later-after dusting through the drawings I made in the first grade, my model airplanes, an assortment of musical instruments my brother once attempted to play in his quest to become a rock star, my yearbooks, four steamer trunks filled with receipts from my fatber's business, old love letters, old snapshots, old newspapers, old you-name-it-the address book is still at large. We give up on the attic. My mother prevails upon me to have some ziti. Then we try the basement.

"Oh, look!" says my mother.

"Did you find it?" I ask.