Biography of Miss Go Chi

By M. B. Goffstein

In M. B. Goffstein’s last work, she offers a collection of stories and verse that paint a world of cosmic twists and inapparent truths that delight and inspire. In this place, little girls save gangsters, all books go to heaven, and it’s always summer at Lake Minnetonka. By turns funny, beautiful, and heartbreaking, these novelettos and poems are a beloved author’s gift to writers and readers everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. B. Goffstein
• Release date: Feb 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781949310078

M. B. Goffstein

M. B. Goffstein was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1940. After graduating from Bennington College in 1962, she moved to New York City and began writing and illustrating books for children and adults, beginning with The Gats! (1966) and ending with A House, a Home (1989). She died in 2017, having spent her last decades painting, photographing, and writing.

Book preview

The Mildred Stories

Days and Nights at Our Prairie Home

Alvina listens to the radio, hoping to hear one of the jokes she sent in to her favorite show.

Her sister, Lillian, washes the dinner dishes.

Lillian’s husband, Bernard, is out on the porch with the cat, Long John Silver.

Ten-year-old Mildred looks at herself in the mirror in Alvina’s room, and hopes she will be like her Aunt Alvina.

Within the first half hour of Alvina’s coming to live with them, Mildred brought in her doll Inez, and Alvina exclaimed, Oh, for cute!

Once, when Alvina dropped a dish, she said, Oh, for crying in the beer!

Sometimes Lillian is as grouchy as a bear to Alvina.

Lillian isn’t used to having someone at home with her all day long.

She likes to take a nap in the afternoon.

She wants Alvina to get a job, so she reminds Alvina that she taught grade school before she married Bernard.

Since Alvina had to stay on the farm because Lillian went to Teachers College, she says, Go kiss a fly!

Alvina laughs so hard at her own wit that Lillian tells her, Laughing makes you fat.

Long John Silver takes a sip of milk.

Mother and Aunt hear Mildred’s step on the porch.

It was Instrument Day at Mildred’s school, and she brings home a French horn. She has signed up for lessons.

Alvina wishes she could play a musical instrument.

The accordion would be her dream, playing schottisches and polkas at weddings and dances.

Bernard comes home from the Sewing Machine Company.

Dinner is on the table.

After the dishes are done, the family gathers in the living room.

At the piano, Lillian plays and sings Annie Laurie.

Alvina surprises Lillian by singing harmony: "Gave me her promise true, which ne’er forgot shall be . . ."

Bernard brings a typewriter home from his office, and encourages Alvina to take a typing course at Night School.

Alvina signs up for World Literature.

One night she dreams there is a giant cockroach under her bed. She screams in her sleep.

Her Night School class was reading a story in which a man became a beetle.

Lillian tells Bernard that World Literature is wasted on Alvina.

Whenever Alvina gets on the bathroom scales, she sings the Too Fat Polka.

When Mildred goes up to her room, she imagines a beautiful little horse waiting for her.

Bernard and Lillian have a quiet moment together.

Alvina writes down the day’s weather in her diary.

Up at the Lake

A picture of King Edward VIII in Mildred and Alvina’s room at Presidents Lodge shows how far north they are—almost at the Canadian border.

Bernard says, This is the life!

His wife, Lillian, keeps her eye on the cake cart, waiting for it to come around.

A stranger named Veronica joins them. She has been out bird-watching.

Lillian asks Bernard if he brought their binoculars from home.

Lillian introduces their daughter, Mildred, to Veronica.

Mildred attempts to win the Lodge game: get the ring on the stake in the jug.

Veronica shows her how it’s done.

Lillian’s sister, Alvina, has been out at the workshop behind the Resort, talking with the handyman, Joe.

Another guest, Betty, enters the Lodge. Mildred thinks Betty looks like a Hubba-Hubba Girl.

Betty is married to a sailor, and she advises Alvina to marry one, too. They can sew, she says.

But Betty guesses that Alvina likes Joe, as he measures a new drawer for the desk in the Lodge.

The dinner bell rings, and Veronica leads the way to the dining room.

There you are, Larry! Betty says to her husband.

She calls teasingly, What are you waiting for, Alvina?

The presidents’ portraits are in the dining room: Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, Tyler, Pierce, Fillmore, Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, and Hayes.

Not all the presidents are here, Lillian tells Mildred.

Maybe they’re still in their rooms, says Alvina.

Maybe they’re riding around the lake, says Larry.

Joe is leaving tonight. He waits for Alvina in the Lodge after everyone has gone to bed.

Alvina’s heart is pounding as she looks in the mirror one last time.

Mildred is asleep in the other bed.

Alvina thinks Joe wants to elope with her, but he just says he is no good at writing letters.

Alvina cries as Joe says goodbye.

In Mildred’s dream, Alvina is voted Queen of Presidents Lodge.

Her humble subjects await her command.

She chooses Joe as King. God bless them!

Boiled Rice Mountain

to my cousin Mary

with love

Part One

Excelsior

2003

Mildred Vikla grew up thinking she was her Aunt Alvina’s illegitimate daughter.

She knew her father and mother, Bernard and Lillian, weren’t her real parents. Lillian said she had asked at the dime store for a little girl with blond curly hair, and they gave her an Indian.

By the time Mildred knew her suspicions about Alvina weren’t true, she was confirmed in her single life.

She liked buying her own popcorn and eating it at her own pace.

She didn’t like discussing movies. She liked letting the characters live in her head.

Antoine Doinel, Antoine Doinel, Antoine Doinel from Stolen Kisses was still in there.

She was fifty-nine and would leave, when she died, a few household furnishings, clothes, books, and notebooks.

Mildred lived the way she thought the Native Americans had lived: without a trace.

The phone rang in her small, spare apartment in Excelsior, Minnesota.

"Mildred Mary?’’

Who is this?

A voice from your past.

Eddie?

How are you?

I’m sorry about Bea.

How do you know?

It’s in the paper.

She could hear Eddie pouring a drink.

I just opened her safe-deposit box. When can I see you? I’m in Minneapolis. There’s a letter for you.

A letter from Bea?

And two manila envelopes with your name on them. There’s also a date on each, September 6, 1953. I think there’s a lot of money inside. The glue on the envelope flaps was brittle with age and Eddie had peeked inside.

Why would Bea leave me money?

She liked you.

Eddie poured more scotch.

Guests

1953

Bernard received word that his only brother, Lewis, was in the hospital.

Lillian refused to go to Detroit Lakes unless Alvina came to help her clean his apartment.

Can Mildred stay with us? asked Bea.

Bea and her sons, Dean and Eddie, moved next door to the Viklas when Mildred and Eddie were nine.

Bea used to sit on her porch holding a wrinkly Life magazine and fantasize that the Viklas would die, leaving Mildred in her care.

The great day finally arrived.

Mildred had a little metal clicker. I can’t talk, she said. When I do this once, it means yes. When I do it twice, it means no.

Lewis Vikla’s apartment was spotless.

Don’t stay there! he cried from his bed at the V.A. Stay at Presidents Lodge!

He was so happy to see Bernard and family, he called and made the arrangements.

Abe and Gertie Washko, the owners, were card sharks like the Viklas.

Their handyman, Joe Denton, told Alvina his real name was