The Little Friend

by Donna Tartt

Grandmothers and mothers-in-law always pulled out Martha Price and her boys as a cautionary example to doting young mothers, of the heavy grievance someday to fall if (for instance) one allowed one’s child for three whole years to refuse all food but chocolate pie, as Pemberton had been famously permitted to do. From the ages of four to seven, Pemberton had eaten no food but chocolate pie: moreover (it was stressed, grimly) a special kind of chocolate pie, which called for condensed milk and all sorts of costly ingredients, and which doting Martha Price had been forced to rise at six a.m. daily in order to bake. The aunts still talked about an occasion when Pem—a guest of Robin’s—had refused lunch at Libby’s house, beating on the table with his fists (“like King Henry the Eighth”) demanding chocolate pie. (“Can you imagine? ‘Mama gives me chocolate pie.’” “I would have given him a good whipping.”) That Pemberton had grown to adulthood enjoying a full head of teeth was a miracle; but his lack of industry and gainful employment were fully explainable, all felt, by this early catastrophe.