by Kelly Fordon
“Doorbell!” May Keane shouted.
Maura didn’t move.
“I’ll get it!” May Keane called.
Finally, the thought that May Keane might actually be dangerously unstable and burst through the swinging door with a weapon propelled Maura forward.
She peeked into the foyer where May Keane was once again on tiptoes at the peephole.
“Holy Mother of God!” May Keane shouted. “It’s Thomas Jefferson! Come quick! Come quick!”
Maura continued through the swinging door pretending to carry a tea set into the room.
“Thanks so much for bringing the tea.” May Keane pointed to the table. “Just set it down right there.”
Feeling foolish, Maura pretended to put the tray down in front of May Keane.
“Help yourselves everyone,” May Keane said in a high formal voice before turning to the empty seat to her left.
“I really like those pantaloons and that cravat,” she said. Then she waggled a finger at Maura. “Sit down. We can’t start without you.”
Maura hesitated. She wasn’t sure where all the people in May Keane’s mind were sitting. Finally, she chanced a chair on the far left.
“Thomas Jefferson! Holy shit,” May Keane said. She nodded a couple of times as if in answer to something, then got up and moved to the chair at the end of the table.
Once there, she pounded on the table.
“Excuse me, madam,” she said in a low gravelly voice. “I’ve been called to this gathering and have traveled a great distance to be here.”
Maura glanced at her watch. Five minutes until Suzanne returned.
“Who is leading this meeting?” May Keane called out. She looked at Maura, then cocked her head again.
“Your man says he doesn’t have all day,” she said.
Maura grimaced as if she’d actually heard him. Get those kids in gear! I don’t have all day. Forget your hair. I don’t have all day.
“This small girl cannot be the leader of the movement,” May Keane said in her Thomas Jefferson voice, pointing at Maura. Then she jumped up and moved to the Oprah chair, where she shouted back in a higher voice. “She can be the leader and she is! She is!”
Maura tried to inhale, but it felt like she was sucking through a cocktail straw.
“Your man says he hopes marriage is not on the agenda. What do you have to say to that?” Her eyes narrowed as she waited for Maura to respond.
“I am honored to have you all here,” Maura said.
May Keane got back up and moved into Jefferson’s seat. She banged on the table again. “As our enemies have found, we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.” Then she bolted up and walked stiffly over to the window where she stood staring out at the empty street. She clasped her hands behind her back in a stance that really did remind Maura of an elder statesman. Maura remembered a quote she’d once read from Thomas Jefferson: “Architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements.”
“The question is,” May Keane shouted, turning away from the window, “are we going to participate in the politics of cynicism or the politics of hope?” She walked purposefully to Maura and clapped her on the back. Maura felt her heart catapult into her mouth.
May Keane strode back around to the other side of the table, sat down, and took a BIC pen out of her purse. Then she began furiously scribbling on the thick protective pad covering the mahogany dining room table. When she was done, she cleared her throat.
“I have drawn a smiley face,” she said, looking at Maura.
Maura stared at her.
“Hold the applause,” May Keane said. Then her mouth opened into a big O again. She turned to Maura.
“Your man is saying that you are fat!”
Maura said nothing. In truth, weight was the least of his complaints. He’d called her old, ugly, done in. He’d told her he was more attracted to the cat. The last time Maura had left the house was the day her friend Carol had taken her to Nordstrom to have a makeover. When the makeup artist was working on her, Maura had made what she’d thought were just a few harmless self-deprecating remarks about how much she hated her crow’s feet and her neck and her jowls. Finally, the girl had put down her makeup brush and put a hand on either side of Maura’s face.
“Get a grip!” she said. “You’re beautiful!”
Carol had nodded in agreement. Instead of inspiring Maura, the speech had done the opposite. Every time she’d tried to leave the house since, she heard the words in her head—get a grip.
May Keane stood up and pounded on the table. “We have real enemies in this world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued, and they must be destroyed.”
“I don’t know if we need to go that far,” Maura said.
“Change will not come if we wait,” May Keane shouted. “We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for. We are the ones we seek.” She walked over to the empty seat and simulated picking something up. “Let’s go, Mister,” she said.
Maura watched as May Keane made yanking motions. She dug her heels in and leaned back. She tried to scoot the chair out, to no avail. She looked like she was playing tug-of-war. She wiped her brow and said, “Whew!” over and over again.
In May Keane’s mind, there was an enormous immovable object in the chair where Howard once sat. How many nights had Maura sat across from him, wishing him gone? How had she forgotten that?
May Keane slumped over on the floor breathing loudly, then she wiped off her hands and kicked the chair over.
“Ya! Ha!” she yelled. She took hold of the imaginary object and began dragging it backwards toward the door. If May Keane had been on TV and only her face were visible, Maura would have been convinced she was straining to lift a piano.
Maura stood up. “Let me help you with that.”
Tell Them I’m Happy Now
A week before I gave birth, the new people moved in across the street. It was mid-winter. I watched from my window. A young woman about my age, early thirties, was standing on the front lawn in a long robin’s egg–blue parka. When she turned around, I noticed a baby wearing a matching blue ski cap hitched to her in a baby carrier and a toddler in a red one-piece snowsuit clinging to her leg. A third boy, maybe six, was fashioning snowballs and firing them at the stop sign. The woman waved her arms around like a crossing guard, directing the moving men here and there. I didn’t see a husband anywhere.
A couple of days later, I waddled over with banana bread. I was overdue. I’d been off work for two weeks, and I was so bored I would have proffered communion wafers to the Devil if he’d turned up for a chat. Banana bread was the only thing I knew how to make besides chocolate chip cookies. That morning, I had made the chocolate chip cookie batter first—which in my estimation anyone would prefer to banana bread—but I’d eaten it all while I waited for the oven to preheat.
The woman’s name was Theresa. She invited me in for coffee. She was wearing short shorts and a midriff T-shirt even though it was frigid outside. Her stomach was as flat as a plate. She had the sleek, unmarred legs of a window-display mannequin, and her thick blonde hair was parted in the middle and ran halfway down her back. Seeing her reminded me of all those years I had spent imitating Marcia Brady—wielding pom-poms while somersaulting and holding a hand up to shield my broken nose.
They’d come from Denver, Theresa said. The weather was great there, but she wasn’t a big fan of the prefab subdivisions. She was glad to be here in the Midwest in a real, old-fashioned neighborhood with sidewalks and trees.
“I love old houses like this one,” she said. “I’m so excited to get to work on it.”
“I wish I felt the same,” I said. “It tires me out just thinking about all the stuff we still have to do . . . the carpets, the kitchen, the plaster . . .”
She silenced me, swiping her hand through the air.
“Once you take the first step,” she said, “it’s much harder to stop than to k
eep a-movin’!”
She sounded just like my mother.
Theresa’s house was spotless. The two older children were watching television in the family room and didn’t look away from it as we passed. They were so quiet I felt like I had entered the public library. This was one of my first impressions of life with kids, and it proved misleading. The living room reminded me of something I had seen somewhere. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Even the area rug in the living room—a maroon and olive Oriental—looked familiar.
“I love that rug,” I said.
“Pottery Barn,” she said, leading me into the kitchen. “The whole house is Pottery Barn. I left all the old crap in Denver and went on a big spree when we bought this place.”
There was a beautiful floral arrangement on the mantle flanked by silver candlestick holders and family photos. The only things on the kitchen counter were a cappuccino maker and a toaster.
“I’m sorry it’s such a mess,” she continued. “I just feel like it’s out of control sometimes. Like I can’t get a handle on it.”
She walked over to the cappuccino maker and turned a dial. “Do you like lattes? I can make you a decaf . . .”
“Sure.”
I’d forgotten all about lattes. We were too broke for lattes.
“I’m having a double,” she said. “I was up all night painting my daughter Rachel’s bathroom.”
The baby was sleeping in a car seat on the kitchen table. He looked fresh out of the pouch. I wasn’t experienced enough with babies to guess his age, so I asked. Six weeks, she said. She said his name was Nate.
“How do you paint—with the baby?”
I had read that you should never leave a car seat or a bouncy seat on a table. I stationed myself next to Nate with one hand on the rim of his seat. “And when did you unpack?”
“I did that the first night.” She handed me the latte. She’d produced a thick, peaked whip. “I can’t stand boxes. Rachel’s birthday is on Sunday. She really wanted a Barbie bathroom, so I figured what the heck! I’m up anyway with the baby! Why not paint?”
“Geez,” I said. “It would freak me out to start a project like that.”
After coffee, we went up to look at the bathroom. It looked exactly like my childhood Barbie bus—a pinkish purple hue I’d never seen on any surface since. She’d actually re-created a life-size Barbie on the wall opposite the toilet so that—somewhat disconcertingly—Barbie appeared to be staring down at the facilities.
Theresa explained that by employing a combing technique, she was able to create the illusion of wallpaper.
“I’m very impressed,” I said.
“Oh, it’s not done.” She pointed up at the ceiling. “I missed a couple of spots up there, and I still have to install the shelves.”
That night I told my husband, Ed, that our new neighbor had already managed to paint her daughter’s bathroom.
“She must be on something,” he said.
I climbed into bed and arranged the pillows to accommodate my large midsection.
“Nobody has that much energy,” I said.
It was 9 p.m. I could barely keep my eyes open.
“She’s probably painting the kitchen tonight,” I added.
“I got a defective model.”
I glared at him.
He grinned, and I hit him with a pillow.
I met Theresa’s husband, Jim, two days later, the night before I gave birth to Christopher. We were sitting in the living room when he walked in. Theresa was drinking merlot, and I was nursing a Coke. He didn’t look our way. He didn’t look at the kids, who were glued to Barney. He came in on tiptoe like a thief. He probably would have continued right past us down the hall to the kitchen if Theresa hadn’t brought me to his attention.
“Our new neighbor,” she called out, pointing to me. He walked over, still studying the ground, then offered me his hand without looking directly at me. I noticed that he was very good-looking. In fact, he was the type of person who is so good-looking it’s hard to hear what they’re saying. He had black hair, short in the back but long in the front, with bangs that hung like a drop cloth over his eyes. He may have spoken, but if he did, I was too mesmerized to notice.
“Go look at the bathroom,” Theresa said to him. “I’m pretty well finished. Now I’m thinking we should fix up the basement for the kids . . . you know, like a castle? Take a peek down there. Everything in miniature. You’ll totally be able to see it.”
In his abashed stance (he was still studying the carpet), he reminded me of that dopey actor Keanu Reeves. Finally, he brushed his bangs aside and glanced briefly at Theresa.
“Will do,” he mumbled. Then he loped off toward the kitchen.
After a week of sleepless, frantic motherhood, I looked out the kitchen window one morning and burst into tears. The trees were naked. The wind was howling. The houses lining the street looked like upturned coffins. The only thing I wanted was sleep, but there were dishes in the sink and diapers on the counter. Even after I did the dishes, more appeared. It felt like I’d entered my own private horror film, an endlessly recurring nightmare. My grandmother always had dreams that there was a lion chasing her. I couldn’t relate to that at all, but I would have screamed aloud if someone made a movie about dishes that materialized out of thin air or laundry that proliferated unchecked. I spent a good portion of each day breastfeeding and crying in my bed.
Then, my mother showed up.
“Let me see! Let me see my grandson!” she squealed as she burst through the door. In her hip-length mink, she resembled a linebacker.
When I held him up, she said, “What in the world is wrong with his face!”
“Infant acne,” I said. “The doctor said it would clear up in a week or two.”
She looked aghast.
“He gets it from me,” I added.
“You never had acne!” She shook off her pelt, and I hung it up in the hall closet. “Anyway, we have a new acne clear system at Mary Kay that’ll fix him right up.” My mother had been Mary Kay’s top beauty consultant in Pittsburgh for thirty years and was now proud to call herself a director.
“No, my hormones. Apparently, he’s expelling hormones.”
“Through his face?” She was fixing her hair in the mirror, lining the white-blonde ends up like scythes behind her ears.
“So I’m told.”
“In that case, I’ll hold off on pictures for a couple of days. Am I still sleeping in the basement?”
The next day, I had just put Christopher down for a nap and was headed upstairs to join him when the doorbell rang. It was my mother-in-law, Mrs. White. When I opened the door, her voice hit me like a slap. I fought the urge to shush her. Since Christopher’s birth, our house had become her own personal toll booth—she couldn’t pass by without depositing something in our kitchen, but she always made it quite clear she was on her way elsewhere.
She placed a pan on the counter and glanced at the full sink and the paper-strewn breakfast table.
“I’m headed to Neam’s Market,” she said. “They’re having a great sale on my favorite La Crema Chardonnay.”
“Great,” I said.
“Just let me say hi to your mother before I go,” she said, sweeping past me.
In the living room, she shrieked, “Angela!” as if greeting a salesperson at the opposite end of Macy’s rather than my mother in the next room. I winced and listened for a cry from upstairs, but there was nothing.
Mrs. White was still in the living room chatting with my mother when the doorbell rang again five minutes later.
“Sheesh!” I hissed. I was never going to get my nap.
It was Theresa. She was carrying a wicker basket. I tried to thank her and shoo her out the door, but my mother yelled out, “Yoo hoo! Who’s that?” and I had no choice but to lead Theresa out to the sun porch where my mother was reclining on the chaise.
Mrs. White was sitting on the love seat opposite my mother. She sat stiffly on the edge of it with
her knees pressed together and her hands in her lap. For twenty years she’d been an EMT. She had cultivated the wide-eyed, panic-stricken look of one surveying a disaster area and the drinking habits of a still-bristling survivor. When Theresa and I walked in, she popped right up.
“This is our new neighbor, Theresa Dixon,” I said.
“Welcome to the neighborhood!” Mrs. White said with a bow.
“Hello!” my mother said. She closed her compact and put it back in her purse. She had just finished reapplying her lipstick—mandatory after every meal. I have never seen my mother without makeup. When I was little, I snuck into her room one time (strictly off-limits), and there was lipstick all over the pillowcase. Many years later, when I kidded her about wearing makeup to bed, she said, “I only show one face to the world.”
“I brought treats,” Theresa said, holding up the basket. Then she set it down on the coffee table and undid the bow to reveal homemade spaghetti sauce and gnocchi, Caesar salad, and fudge caramel brownies nestled on a red-and-white striped tablecloth. She said she’d picked the basket up at Pottery Barn.
“Sustenance!” Mrs. White announced, peering down at the booty as Theresa emptied it out onto the table.
“Thank you so much!” my mother said. “I was just getting up to cook dinner, but now I can just relax and enjoy the baby!”
“Theresa owns her own business,” I said to keep myself from singing “Alleluia.” My mother, if given the chance, probably would have whipped up one of her signature happy-face meals. When I was a child, she thought she could fool me into eating nutritious food by disguising it. She cut liverwurst sandwiches into the shape of bunnies and tulips. She put scoops of tuna fish in tomato boats and decorated them with a raisin smiley face. She lined up cauliflower and broccoli to resemble the forest outside the salmon man’s home. The salmon man had pecan eyes and a red pepper mouth. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the worse the food tasted, the more elaborate the decoration.
