Just Desserts
I remember it clearly because I was eight, maybe nine, and because it was the sort of stupid thing that eight and nine year-olds occasionally dream about, because they do not yet know to dream about bigger, more ambitious things. My sisters and I sat dangling off our chairs, having finished (or almost finished) our dinners.

“No dessert yet,” my father told us. “If you can wait an extra hour for it I have a really great surprise for dessert. But you have to wait an hour.”

“I want a grape ice,” said Pam. Pam was six, maybe seven—an age where willpower is far from its peak. “Is the surprise grape ice?”

“No,” said my father.

“If you wait an hour you can have something better than a grape ice,” I whispered, kicking her.

“I want one.”

“Stop ruining everything,” I said, and she sulkily went back to mashing the things on her plate together, making it look like she had eaten more than she had. Karen, who was two, maybe three, was sitting in her booster chair, not fully understanding the enormity of the phrase “surprise for dessert.”

The hour we had to wait was the hour it would take for my mother to get ready before leaving the house. Many of my father’s “great surprises” have been things like, “allowing us to ride on top of the station wagon, clutching the luggage rack, while he drove it up the block and around the cul-de-sac. These were things that we could not always so much do when my mother was around, given that she refused to let us ride without seat belts, let alone without seats, let alone on top of the car."

“It’s a really good surprise,” my father said, and I frantically thought through all the sweet or fattening foods we had in the house, wondering what he would possibly let us have. Maybe he was going to finally let us eat icing, an unhealthy but universally understood child fantasy. Maybe he was going to let me eat the grape licorice string that I had found in the cabinet while looking for something else two or three days prior, but which was still there because I had checked for it that morning. Maybe the box of sugar cubes I had had my eye on for so long would finally be fair game. Pam, rather than marveling at her potential opportunities, chose to brood over the delay, making noises that ranged between drawn out versions of the words “graaaaaaaape iiiiiiiiice” and loud, indistinguishable moans.

“I love you girls,” my mother said. “Be good.

“Love you,” we said. And it was true. We loved our mother very much. But in this particular instance it meant, “We love you as much as it is possible for children aged two, six and eight (or five, seven and nine) to love someone. Please go out to dinner with your friends already so we can find out what we’re having for dessert.”

The door closed behind her and we listened for the screen door to click into place as well. I looked at Pam, who was slumped in her chair as if waiting an hour for dessert were the equivalent of being shot.

“All right,” said my father. “You girls have been really good about waiting. Your dessert for tonight is…

“Is?”

“Is anything we have in the house,” he said. “It’s whatever you want.”

I stared at him, blinking with the disbelief that accompanies unbridled joy. Anything? We could have anything we wanted?

“Anything,” he clarified. “Whatever you can get your hands on, you can eat.”

I climbed out of my chair in awe while my sister, who had realized the importance of this supermarket sweep-type opportunity, ran to the freezer and stuck two grape ices in her mouth at once. Locating the string licorice in the drawer where I had longingly viewed it that morning, I uncoiled the roll and began lowering it into my mouth, as if overseeing a rescue that was determined to save someone trapped in my esophagus. (Grab the licorice! Hang on!) Chewing through it, I watched as the tail end disappeared between my lips and immediately ran to the refrigerator to polish off a jar of vanilla frosting, accenting the taste with peanut butter (smooth), and spooning it into my mouth. I sat tentatively at the table, ready to bolt up at a moment’s notice to eat something else. Pam, who had polished off her grape ices had begun on the cherry ices while Karen had discovered a box of soft-baked chocolate chip cookies and was proceeding to consume her bodyweight in Frihoffers.
We were, and have always been, bottomless. Karen, several years later at my High School Graduation party would eat (in addition to the food and cake) twenty-five pieces of fudge, leading guests to ask the question, “Why is your sister lying on her back in the middle of the living room?” Even as a toddler she patiently pushed cookies into her small mouth before discovering a jar of Hershey’s kisses which she unwrapped with her tiny, pinkish fingers.

“Ice cream,” I said aloud, as if summoning troops to battle. My sisters dropped what they were doing and proceeded to help me dig out the ever-present container of Breyers (half chocolate, half vanilla) that defined our freezer.

“I’ll scoop it,” I said, since I was the strongest. And as I began digging into the brown and white block my sisters ran to accent their ice cream with highlights of the last five minutes. Hershey kisses were added, as were crumbled cookies and pieces of frosting. Marshmallows (the large ones) were poured generously.

“This is amazing,” I thought, pushing spoonfuls of indeterminate sweetness into my mouth. “This is the greatest thing that will ever happen to me.”

And it must have been up there, given that it is nearly twenty years later and I have not forgotten it. My father and sisters do not, I believe, have any recollection of the incident, a fact which both saddens and shocks me. But more than the happy memories of the food itself, I enjoyed the realization that I do not need as much of things as I think I need.


“I’m done,” I choked, words that I could not have imagined myself uttering. I was amazed at my limits—namely, that I had them. While able to eat many more than my usually allotted “three cookies” or “one bowl of ice cream,” I was not, in fact, endless. I had a definitive limit and I had discovered that limit while halfway through a box of sugar cubes, unable to place another cube in my mouth without feeling as though I would vomit on the brick-red tiles of our linoleum floor.

“I’m full,” I told my father. Karen and Pam had long since fallen asleep in a fat stupor.

“Did you enjoy it?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you. Can we do it again next week?”

“No,” he said.

“Next month?” I asked.

“Probably not,” he said. “I just thought it would be nice tonight. I think at least once in their lives, people should get to have whatever they want.”

“It was good,” I told him, “but I feel sick.”

And looking back, it was brilliant of him to have given that to us at a point in our lives where whatever we wanted was available in the baked goods aisle at ShopRite, with a possible detour into candy/frozen foods. And that while we might get older and begin wanting larger, more complicated things, at least once we had gotten everything we wanted. It was mind-blowing to us that it had been offered, but it was good to know that getting everything you want, in one way or another, will make you sick.


* * *

It was last week that I went for a lunchtime walk with my father—over the Manhattan bridge and back over the Brooklyn. Upon returning to his office he took me to “Garden of Eden,” an aptly named grocery store which specializes in temptation, olives and cheese.

“Because we usually have lunch together and we didn’t have time to eat,” he said, “Whatever you want for lunch is yours.”

“Wow,” I said. “Thanks.” With great excitement I picked out two pomegranates and a plastic tray of Sashimi.

“Is that all you want?” he asked.

“It’s enough for lunch,” I said.

“Come look at the cheeses,” he said. “You don’t have to eat it all today.”

“Ok,” I said. “Can I get this?” I help up a container of mozzarella in olive oil.

“Whatever you want,” he said.

“Ok,” I said. “Wow. Um. I want everything in the store.”

And I did, I thought, glancing from the perfectly unbruised plums to the wheels of brie to the small, individual sized mousse cakes which I imagined eating with my hands. But my father is not made of money and as I learned at the age of eight (or maybe nine), it is nice to be offered everything you want, but actually having it can be somewhat painful—if not for you, for someone.

“Get a dessert,” he encouraged.

“All right,” I said, picking out a fruit tart in the window of the pastry refrigerator. “I’ll have this.”

“That’s all you want as a dessert?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I told him, eying the rows of cookies and chocolates.

“Are you sure?” he asked. My eyes fell on a container of fruit-flavored licorice and I paused, fruit tart in hand.

“I’m sure.”

“You’re positive,” he said.

“This is enough of a dessert,” I told him, calmly remembering the taste of vanilla frosting mixed with peanut butter. “But thank you for the offer. It all looks amazing, but I’ve had most of it before.”