Paper, Scissors, Death

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “Help!” The box and I tipped too far to recover. I fell into the fish pond with a loud splash.

  ___

  “The swelling is going down. Nothin’ better than meat tenderizer for a bee sting. How do you feel?” Mert dabbed a cotton ball full of liquid on the bump by my eye. She was kind enough to buy tenderizer on her way to my house.

  You don’t need tenderizer when all you eat is hamburger.

  I considered myself lucky to have driven home without an accident. My half-closed eye and overblown lower lip hurt like the dickens. My depth perception was distorted, making the world one-dimensional. I couldn’t judge distance accurately. I compensated by driving very, very slowly.

  “I feel woozy. Benadryl makes me sleepy. How’s Anya?” I tried to peer into the living room where my daughter was. I perched on the edge of a straight-back wooden chair, while wearing nothing but an old T-shirt and panties. Drinking ice tea was difficult with my overblown bottom lip. Using a paper napkin, I caught a trail of drool before it slid down my chin. My reflection in my spoon assured me I looked like I’d been in a bar fight. And lost.

  Mert poked her head around the doorway and checked on Anya. “Hey, kid, you okay in there?”

  Anya smiled at Mert and gave the older woman a thumbs-up. Her shoulder-length hair framed her oval face with two smooth wings of silken blonde strands. She was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, a book open in her lap. Her coltish legs were still pale from the winter, her knees knobby and childlike. “Better than Mom. Just trying to finish my English assignment. I hate tests on Mondays. They wreck your whole weekend.”

  “Tell me again,” said Mert, hugging a glass of iced tea to her chest, savoring the cold. She was wearing a low-cut top with sparkling beads and sequins around the neckline. Platinum polish turned her fingernails into ice-cube talons. “Old Mrs. Witherow told you she didn’t have any Benadryl or Caladryl—”

  “Or baking soda. Nothing. Nothing to put on my stings. No aspirin or ibuprofen either.”

  “And she couldn’t spare anything to help the pain. Or wouldn’t. She’s a real ‘begins with B and rhymes with witch’.”

  The vehemence in Mert’s voice awakened Gracie from her slumber. The big girl lifted her sloppy muzzle to rest it on my knee.

  I shivered as I remembered my slow crawl out of the koi pond. “Dodie yelled at me for ruining everything. She was so nervous. She’s not usually like that. The guests went inside to eat and watch Merrilee open gifts. Mrs. Witherow’s maid directed me to the guest bathroom. I toweled off with toilet paper.”

  “I can see.” Mert shook her head at the clumps of wet paper still stuck to my skin.

  Gracie stretched as she rose from her dog bed. Milton and Bradley, the two Chihuahuas I’d been dog-sitting for Mert, stood up along with her. The little dogs raced to wrap themselves around Gracie’s front ankles.

  From their positions near her feet, the two canine lover boys stared up at my Great Dane with intense expressions of passion.

  So close and yet so far away.

  At this rate they’d never get to doggy Nirvana. They clung to her like twin Ugg boots. Gracie took a robotic step forward, dragging the two hairballs along for the ride. They remained attached, whining and yipping for all they were worth.

  Which was not much in my opinion. Gracie concurred. She rolled her eyes and took another shuffling step, trying to knock off her freeloaders.

  Poor Gracie. She was so ill-used, and so patient.

  “Hey, you two, stop that.” Mert bent over to peel the Chihuahuas off my dog. I took one from her so that we both held puny excuses for man’s best friend on our laps.

  Thinking about Mrs. Witherow’s behavior toward me brought on a wave of remorse for not paying more attention to the plight of the hired help in my upscale former neighborhood. “Mert, is that the way people always act toward you? I mean, was it like this—is it like this when you clean for people?”

  Mert’s five hoop earrings marched in formation up her earlobe. They tilted to one side as she shrugged. Her penciled-in brows puckered to consider the question and then relaxed in surrender. “Some do. Some don’t. You never did. Some folks make you come in through the back door. And a couple check your purse before you leave. One woman I worked for patted me down each time I left. Another gave me leftover food and tried to take it out of my wages. It don’t pay to dwell on it.” She closed the topic with a wave of her hand. “What happened after you dried off?”

  I handed over Bradley—or was it Milton? Mert arm-wrestled the wriggling dog into her lap.

  “I went into the family room where they’d set up work tables for scrapbooking. My page kits were in the boxes I delivered last week.”

  “You call them make ’n’ takes, right?”

  I nodded. “A make ’n’ take includes all you need to create a pre-designed page except for adhesives, paper trimmers, and ink products. All the crafter does is assemble the page.”

  “Or project,” she corrected. “A make ’n’ take can be a project, right?”

  “Right. Like a customized candle or bracelet or a notebook.”

  My make ’n’ take was a particularly nifty page design, if I do say so myself. The theme was a garden party, so I used silk flowers, matching ribbon, and four patterned papers plus pre-cut letters spelling “Bridal Shower.”

  Mert refilled my mug with ice tea. After George died, she brought me a special coffee cup that says, “No More Mrs. Nice Guy.” After I read the slogan, she leaned close and said, “For the next year, you are my project. I’m going to turn you into a woman who can stand on her own two feet. No more life as a human doormat, just waiting for people to wipe off their shoes on you. Makes me sick at heart, but you got to toughen up or you ain’t gonna make it. And you got no choice but to make it because your little girl depends on you. Hear?”

  That was hard, but she was right. That’s what a real friend does—she tells you what you don’t want to hear, even risking your friendship, because you are important to her.

  I heard. And I obeyed. I’m the star pupil in Mert’s School of Hard Knocks, better known as Tough Tamales University or TTU. I’m hoping to graduate Magna Cum Laude. Or as Mert says, “Magna cum LOUDLY. That rhymes with proudly.”

  I’m her only pupil, but I’m sure enrollment will increase when word gets around. I bet I’m not the only woman in the world who has a wishbone where her spine should be.

  She handed me the mug, and I dutifully drank. When Mert’s around, I’m only allowed to drink out of my special mug or I get demerits. “Best to flush out your system. You got all them bee sting juices in you.” She poured herself another glass of ice tea as well. “Now tell me about this floozy. What’s her name?”

  “Roxanne. Roxanne Baker.” I’d seen her photo a million times in the society section of the Ladue newspaper.

  “Here’s what happened.” I peeped around the corner to make sure Anya wasn’t listening. “I was swollen, lumpy, and covered with globs of wet toilet paper when Mrs. Witherow introduced me to the women. One by one, they gave their names, then got real quiet when it was Roxanne’s turn.”

  “What’d she say?”

  ___

  I thought back over that day. Roxanne was tan and thin except for what looked like a pair of over-inflated beach balls popping out the top of her skimpy aquamarine sun dress. A chain of opals hung around her neck and nestled between her twin assets. Her eyes narrowed, and she gave me a wicked once-over before hissing, “So this is the famous Kiki. My, my, my.”

  How bizarre. I wondered what was up. I could see all the other women suppressing any signs of emotion. I tried to be polite. “Your name sounds familiar, as well.”

  She smirked.

  Suddenly, I remembered. “Didn’t you used to date my late husband, George?”

  She stared down her nose at me and sneered, “That’s one way of putting it.”

  The other women hopped up and began chattering over their make ’n’ takes. Merrilee especially
needed a lot of attention. I didn’t have the chance to say more to Roxanne because I was busy helping the women get started.

  ___

  Their lack of dexterity had flummoxed me. As I told Mert, “You’d think they’d never handled a pair of scissors in their lives. Except for Roxanne and Tisha.”

  “Comes from having other people do everything for you,” snorted Mert. “They’re all dang-near helpless. Can’t even find their own backsides with two hands. Who all was there?”

  “Mrs. Witherow, her daughter Merrilee, Roxanne, Bill Ballard’s wife Tisha, Sally O’Brien, Markie Dorring, Jennifer Moore—the woman who organized the play date the same day George died—and Linda Kovaleski. Her daughter Claire is in the same grade as Anya. We used to sit beside each other in the carpool line.”

  My turn to pour us both more ice tea. “The good news is that Merrilee was so thrilled with the make ’n’ takes that she wants me to make her wedding album. She’s stopping by tomorrow to work out the details. As a surprise, Dodie slipped the memory cards out of all the guests’ digital cameras while they were eating. She downloaded the images so I could make bridal shower albums. The women had no idea we could include pictures they’d been taking during the party.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “I blew it. Roxanne was really nasty to me, and I told her off.”

  ___

  Dodie has convinced me my work is my best advertisement. As the women finished their make ’n’ takes, she brought out my albums for them to look through. Roxanne pointed a jubilant finger at an old picture of me and said in a loud voice, “What a porker.”

  I cringed. My weight has been an issue much of my life.

  “How could George stand being married to such a chubby?” Roxanne continued.

  I turned away and bit my lip. My weight wasn’t the cause of my marital problems. George always told me it was fine, even though I didn’t believe him. Whenever something bothered me, I turned to food for comfort. Bad idea. A minute on the lips and a lifetime on the hips. Sure, food felt good going down, but after I swallowed, the guilt erased every smidgeon of satisfaction.

  Ironically, after George’s death, even the thought of food made me sick. In a dark recess of my mind, I worried I wouldn’t be able to feed Anya, so I quit eating. I know that sounds silly, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

  Before long, my pants sagged around my waist. That’s when Mert stepped in. “Either you start eating, or I’ll drag your scrawny self to the hospital psych ward.”

  I forced myself to eat regular meals until my appetite returned.

  So, yeah, I was skinny now. Whoop-de-do. Thin wasn’t near as much fun as I thought it would be. I liked having room in my clothes, but being svelte didn’t solve all life’s problems like I thought it would.

  When Roxanne’s mean remark didn’t faze me, she struck again. “How does a person get that big? What did you do? Sit around and stuff your face all day?”

  Well, duh.

  Once after a fight with my mother, I went to Wal-Mart and filled a shopping cart with half-price Halloween candy. The check-out clerk asked, “You planning a party?” She was half-right. It was a pity party, and I was the guest of honor.

  I ignored Roxanne’s comment and concentrated on gathering leftover paper. Thanks to my meager income, I was putting the “scrap” back into scrapbooking.

  “Poor George,” said Roxanne. “He looks miserable in all these photos.”

  He did not. The woman was either blind or a liar.

  Tisha Ballard tried to change the subject. She said “I swear, Kiki, you are so creative. These layouts are gorgeous. Were they hard? Can you help me learn to scrapbook? Too bad my birthday was last month, or I’d ask Bill to give me lessons as a gift.”

  Jennifer Moore turned to Tisha and said, “Nicci had so much fun at the scrapbooking play date. We should get the girls together and take a lesson.”

  I responded to the cue for a sales pitch. “I’d be delighted to do a mother-daughter class. I don’t know if you’ve stopped by the store recently, but we’re getting new paper in all the time.”

  Dodie took advantage of the compliments to hand coupons and goody bags to Sally, Markie, Jennifer, Linda, and Tisha.

  Roxanne moved in and stood too close to me, invading my personal space, as I stacked adhesives in the Cropper Hopper. I could smell alcohol on her breath.

  “Look, everybody.” She held up an album and pointed to a picture of me nine months pregnant with Anya. “She was as big as a whale—”

  That was too much. Most of the guests were mothers themselves. They remembered being bigger than bread trucks. Roxanne’s remark struck pay dirt. The women recoiled. Even Merrilee pouted with concern and said, “Roxie, darling, let’s go upstairs. I want you to see the brochures I have from where Jeff and I are going for our honeymoon.”

  But Roxanne was spoiling for a fight. “No. I don’t want to go upstairs,” she said, flicking her red hair over her shoulder with one exquisitely manicured hand. “I want to stay right here.”

  Sally O’Brien took Roxanne’s hand and said, “Come on, honey, we’re done here. Let’s go—”

  “No!” Roxanne jerked her hand away. She struggled for balance. Her stiletto heel gouged my foot. I grimaced in pain. Slamming into me, she came to rest with an arm draped over my shoulder. I eased her off. Sally helped Roxanne right herself. Roxanne stared into my face and homed in on me the way a cat does a field mouse, head swiveling to follow my every move.

  Linda tried to distract her. “Roxanne, sweetie, can I see those pictures on your camera again? Let’s go over them together, okay?”

  Roxanne bellowed at her, “Leave me alone!”

  Merrilee and Sally each grabbed her by the arm. “Come on, Roxie.”

  But Roxanne wouldn’t be deterred. She leaned close and shook a finger in my face. “George only took up with you back in college because I dumped him! What do you think of that? Huh? I dumped him! You got my leftovers!”

  Now the women went silent, waiting for my response. I was too embarrassed to meet their eyes. I kept stacking supplies in the Cropper Hopper.

  “Don’t you have anything to say? Anything?” A spray of Roxanne’s spittle landed on my face.

  That did it. I turned to the evil woman beside me and said, “Leave me alone. Why don’t you just eat bugs and die?”

  Kiki’s suggestions for paper crafting

  with groups

  1. Keep your project simple.

  2. Provide your guests with stable, smooth, and clean work surfaces.

  3. Choose a project with visual dazzle and a limited number of pieces. The more pieces you have the more potential problems you have. Gluing small pieces together in advance will help.

  4. Think through your supplies/tools carefully. How many of them can be shared? How many will you need for each individual?

  5. Break your paper down into parts of pages. For example: If each guest needs a half a sheet of red paper, you can save money and time by dividing a sheet of red paper in half and giving each person a portion rather than wasting a full sheet.

  6. Package small items in individual zippered plastic bags. Put the small bags into larger bags so it’s easy to hand each person all the project pieces at once. (Be sure to have extra pieces on hand, but keep them separate so you don’t get them confused with complete sets.)

  7. Show samples of your project in various stages of completion. Some folks are visual learners and need to see how things go together to follow your oral instructions.

  Mert put Milton and Bradley, the Mexican jumping beans, in their travel carriers and paid me for three days of dog sitting. “That money’s hardly enough for Gracie’s dog chow, but at least it’s something. And the tenderizer is on me. I’ll take the rest home. Roger and I are having steaks tonight.”

  At nineteen, Roger was a strapping young man, six feet tall and still growing. Anya had a big crush on him, and I could see why. He was as sweet as he was handsome.

>   “Hey, the cash is a big help. Gracie appreciates the ongoing contribution to her upkeep. She’s my favorite mistake, aren’t you, baby?” I reached down to stroke the big dog’s floppy ears.

  The last thing I needed after George died was another mouth to feed. Gracie weighs one hundred twenty pounds. A smarter woman would have found a smaller dog. But the Great Dane and I had a common bond: no one wanted either of us because we were just too big.

  So my finding Gracie was bashert. That’s Yiddish for “fated” or “meant to be,” and the term usually refers to finding the love of your life or your truest, best-est friend.

  A week after George’s funeral, I was driving past a pet store with an adoption activity in progress. I paused to let a family with kids in tow navigate the crosswalk. One look at poor Gracie, her black-and-white body squashed inside a small pen, her uncropped ears falling softly around expressive eyes, and I was out of the car filling out forms.

  The adoption volunteer quizzed me gently. “Ever own a Great Dane?”

  “Nope.”

  “Um, a dog this size could cause a lot of damage.”

  “Yep.”

  Sure, Gracie weighs more than Anya, but the soft light in her eyes told me she was a gentle giant. Once out of the tiny crate, she quickly proved herself to be a loving and patient companion. As I completed the paperwork, she leaned her body against mine, her weight nearly knocking me over. She gazed up at me, her eyes filled with adoration. My heart melted.

  Although Gracie’s size is intimidating, her disposition is strictly low-key. If I’d wanted a watchdog, I was in big trouble. To date, we’ve never heard her bark. When Mert offered to subcontract the overflow from her dog-sitting business, Going to the Dogs, I worried how Gracie would take to furry rugrats sharing her home. Huh. Gracie ignores them the way a horse flicks away flies on a summer day. Even as Milton and Bradley clung to her legs and tugged on her ears for all they were worth, Gracie simply mustered a look of “whatcha gonna do?”

  “I hope this heat breaks soon.” Mert paused at the front door, steeling herself for the blast furnace that waited outside. Her fake tennis bracelets and faux Rolex clattered as she hoisted a dog carrier in each hand.