I’d gone early to the library so that I could wait until the last minute and grab a chair on the back row, left side, where quiet and unnoticed I could appreciate the discussion in my bystander way. I didn’t just love books, I was “in love” with books. A passionate reader, I could even stay with a bad book until the bitter end, like a good woman can sometimes stay with a mean man. No one could have guessed that a constant battle struggled inside me. The need to remain unnoticed and unheard fought desperately with that part of me that wanted to lead a book discussion.
I just knew I could lead a good discussion if I ever got the chance. But the library director had chosen Pandie to lead the discussion, not me. That’s how I felt, as if the director had taken a look at both of our resumes and had wadded mine up to toss in the trash while he rubbed thick fingers lovingly on the heavy cream colored cover letter introducing Pandie. That’s how I felt, but the reality was that I hadn’t even dared to apply. So any choosing that had taken place couldn’t have involved me. I still silently begged the world to give me what I wanted, but I wanted it without having to ask.
Now I see that we get what we ask for. If you ask for nothing, then “nothing” is exactly what you’re going to get. Asking, however, can be so many things, like hard work, kindness, courage, love, and just plain guts. The thing I didn’t understand then, and which has now been burned into my psyche, is that asking must involve risk or it’s just not asking. That’s something that Pandie taught me in that unintentional way of hers. She didn’t much like sharing knowledge, or for that matter she didn’t much like sharing at all. She could dispense largess as long as it was her idea, which always included a lot of showy drama. She could hoard unmercifully, but she just couldn’t share. She must have missed that kindergarten class. But I’m getting ahead of the story.
Of course, Pandie chose our discussion book, Marriage—Opened or Closed, A Modern Woman’s Perspective, to shock our middle American values which we “young ladies” held as close to our hearts. I had not taken my seat until Pandie had completed the process of identifying each young lady by name and by husband’s occupation. Only then had I felt safe enough to grab that seat I’d been eyeing from between the rows of books. But by process of elimination, and with the help of a group roster that I’d failed to consider, Pandie had pegged me as Bertha Loft without any trouble. Still I felt thrilled when she’d looked straight at me, “Bertha, do you secretly long for an open marriage?” Trills of laughter accompanied the question like an echo. That attention seeker within me answered before I could shut her up, and I found myself saying, “Now if I told you, Pandora, it wouldn’t be a secret would it?” Where in the world did that come from? Oh God, how I suffered from “talker’s remorse.” I knew, but would not have admitted to anyone, that my response had had the same quality as that flip of the hair so many women do. With a quick, deliberate, toss she manages to show herself to best advantage in an “I dare you” sort of way.
What can I say? Of course, Pandie supported an open marriage. She did it in such a way that the rest of us felt shabby, old-fashioned, and trite, at least I assumed everyone else felt the way that I did. So smart, she could spot the gaps in our logic as we defended closed marriages. By process of exaggeration and by her cutting, and I do mean cutting wit, she made us see some advantages to an open marriage. But who dared admit such a thing in public back then, except someone like Pandora? The specifics of the discussion have blurred with time so all I’m left with now is a feeling that lingers like a pungent scent, a feeling that I’d been thoroughly entertained by a gorgeous woman with a wit as high and haughty as her cheekbones.
When I say pungent scent, I mean the memory burns my eyes if I stay with it too long, for instance long enough to recall Pandie’s comment to Sandra. Sandra, as vulnerable as a clam outside its shell, was just the tasty morsel that Pandie could gobble up in one bite. Sandra, much older than the rest of us, and the only one still single excluding Pandie, could have been the picture of the old maid in a deck of cards.
Pandie had said to Sandra, “Of course, Sandy’s the smartest one. She just skipped the husband and went strictly for a hot read.” In unison we looked at the book in Sandra’s lap. It surely did look thoroughly read. Tattered slips of paper marked passages, especially toward the end of the book when the sex had gotten really good. Sandra turned into the clam out of its shell that had run under a shower of salt. She shriveled beyond recognition. Her silence roared with a painful scream.
I’d felt in my heart that Pandie couldn’t have realized what she’d done, and I had been right, but for all the wrong reasons. My pitiful imagination couldn’t conjure up anyone so unaware of another person’s feelings, that unable to hear the death rattle, they continued with stabbing words that inflicted fatal wounds. Pandie had no ill intent towards anyone, and as long as it didn’t risk a tangible hurt to her, she wished every one well. I wonder if inattention isn’t just as evil as active malice?
“No one could have been more surprised than I, that Pandie had taken an interest in me. Pandie, short for Pandora, had lived up to her name, just as I had lived down to mine. A week after we’d met I’d gone back to the library to refresh my memory of Greek mythology. Sure enough Pandora, according to Edith Hamilton in Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, reminded me that Pandora was the recipient of gifts from all the gods, she was literally the woman with everything. That “everything” of course, included great beauty. Not only was she the woman with everything, but Zeus specifically designed her to enthrall and wreak havoc with men. Now doesn’t that tell you how bright her star was, because she’s the only person in my life who inspired me to search for the meaning of her name.
I already knew about my name, no need to search. My Aunt, the one named Dorothy Margaret Alexander, a name that screamed “smart” if I’d ever heard one, enjoyed taunting me with what she called “your misfortune.” Aunt Margaret used to tell me, “Bertha, a name means everything. Names of beauty and solicitude (I had no idea what that meant) inspire lives of virtue and great accomplishment.” She’d look directly at me. Then she’d remove her glasses as if blindness was a blessing when looking at me. “On the other hand dear, ugly names are difficult to overcome, although I’m confident you will give it your best try.”
My young life confirmed Aunt Margaret’s observation. “Big Bertha” the boys called me in school. My namesake being the German howitzer used in the First World War. “Big Bertha belched and burped while she busted her bunions sitting on her baboon butt.” See if that doesn’t give you a complex. After my marriage to Sam, I was well on my way to “big.” Ugly was effortless. I’d inherited the family curse, a recessive chin, or as mother sometimes called it, “her weak chin.”
You must have known someone, I have, who characterized herself to other folks as ugly (or more commonly unattractive, a softer version of the word, like shout is a softer version of scream) hoping for an unequivocal denial when she says, “So I’m ugly, who cares?” Truthfully, I’d never been one of those people. Why mention something that would be ratified by silence if not outright agreement? Did I need to heap another insult upon the mountainous pile of cruelty I’d accumulated since childhood? So as soon as possible after I met someone, I mentioned how a woman like me loved people, all kinds, sizes, shapes and colors because I tried to see people from the inside out. And it was true. People were the poetry of my life. I loved them like I loved words, the second passion of my life. Doesn’t the word passion sound just like what it means? Starts off slowly, and then ends in a kind of orgasm of sound. See, words love me back, I swear they do.
So it can’t surprise you that both Pandie and I thought of ourselves as the ‘yin and yang of looks’ the extreme ends of the beauty and beast spectrum. To Pandie’s credit, she’d tried over the years to assure me that I had nice eyes and a sparkling intelligence, an intelligence over the years that she came to call wisdom, a compliment that plumped me up like a raisin soaked in bourbon. Pandie shared pieces of
herself with me that did not fit in any fashion the confident beauty she’d set before the world. People, especially people like Pandie, feel like they can say anything to an ugly person. They think ugly people are grateful receptacles for all their trash. My bitterness shows through like a black slip under a white dress doesn’t it? But despite my sometime bitterness now, back then I’d loved Pandie as a true friend. Over the years she’d valued me as well, so much so that she began to trust me, according to her, more than she’d ever trusted anyone. I’d valued her trust and treated it as the delicate matter it was. I willingly gave Pandie control of our friendship because who was I to imagine that I had equal footing with someone so beautiful? I acted as if Pandie had earned beauty like someone earns a promotion. Beauty as a merit reward. No one, not even a saint, could have been trusted with the kind of power I gave to Pandie Kitt.
But despite all our problems, including my slimy, slick jealousy that came and went at will, and despite her patronizing, snobbish attitude, some current of real love connected us. Both of us felt it, but rarely at the same time. Pandie came to call my love her wisdom, and I guess she was right wasn’t she? Love is a sort of wisdom. But there was also something else. Something I’d been reluctant, no unwilling, to actually name—Competition with a capital C, and an exclamation point squared to the nth degree.
Pandie not only never denied that she was competitive, that was one of the first things she told you about herself in that laughing boastful ‘look at me, look at me’ way she had. A way that worked so well because it was so damn honest. I, on the other hand, could not admit to myself how competitive I was, so how could I admit that to someone else?
I do get lost in thought sometimes. Back to our first meeting at the library book discussion—at the end I’d tried to sneak away from the meeting without calling attention to myself. But Pandie had motioned for me to sit down and wait for her. I sat and watched with enjoyment as other women flocked around Pandie, magnetized by her beauty and what I’d thought then was a genuine free spirit. But as I watched I also posed as if for a camera. Always a direct gaze, hiding any possible look at my profile as if by always looking at Pandie directly she wouldn’t notice the chin I didn’t have. It had not escaped my critical eye that a soft beauty could be seen in my direct gaze because of the unusual green color of my eyes that held a quality of light in them, odd yet pleasing. But life is not a one-dimensional universe. My ploy was destined for failure.
After all the other women left, Pandie took my arm in hers, saying to me “Let’s go for coffee—or maybe a vodka tonic?” But it was just coffee for us that day, nothing stronger. Pandie had questioned me with the intensity of a news reporter with an exclusive. I’d felt important as she made aside comments such as, “I could tell from the book discussion that you’re tough and smart.” So when she ordered me to choose the book for our next discussion, I simply nodded in agreement, a soldier taking orders.
My God. You’d have thought I’d been given the opportunity to make a million dollars. I could hardly sit still, being an avid reader; a hundred books had come to mind. But before we left that day I’d done my own questioning. Information helped me to please others. Something an ugly woman does to compensate for the almost unforgivable sin of ugliness. I’d been no different.
We’d exchanged phone numbers. Our next book discussion had been scheduled for the following month. Pandie had given me the group roster. She directed me to send each woman the title of our next book with a list of suggested questions for discussion. She’d insisted that she pay for postage stamps to make it a truly “joint enterprise.” A puppy in a pound on his way to a kid-filled home couldn’t have been more ecstatic than me on that day when Pandie Kitt had decided to make me her friend. On that day I’d basked in her warm light and counted myself fortunate, never once questioning my willingness to accept a subservient role, a role in which I willingly bartered my kindness, intelligence, and loyalty for a speck of attention from a stranger.
That evening when I went home to Sam and told him about my new friendship he’d been thrilled. He taken my hand and said “Ellie,” short for Eloise my middle name and a name that Sam said fit me better than Bertha, “Ellie, you just remember that you are as good as anyone else. You enjoy this new friend, but from equal footing. Don’t you be carrying this woman’s water. You’re too damned good for that.” I squeezed Sam’s hand in answer. My squeeze would have said if it could have talked, “Oh Sam, my love, you don’t have any way of knowing how it is to be ugly. My bright and beautiful man.” I was the one who let go first. Had I know what was coming I would have held, and held, and held, now wouldn’t I?
Chapter 2
“PANDIE”
Who knows why people become friends? Bertha and me, together? That shocked the piss out of me. I guess if you’re a lady, like Bertha, you don’t piss. What’s the prissy word for piss, cause believe me, Bertha’s a little priss. Did I mention that I’m known for my cutting sense of humor? Us, nothing in common, total, complete opposites. Maybe that’s it, the attraction of the positive and the negative. I’m not much of a reader. Bertha loves to read. I prefer that Bertha read and tell me the important points. She’s serious. Didn’t I tell you I’m known as pretty damn funny? Bertha, at best, is awkward with men.
Men are drawn to me, really without any effort on my part. I’m always a little puzzled at the effort some women exert for a little male attention. I just ignore Bertha’s strong hints that I’m one of them. So I’m a little racy. Try telling the guy in the office next door about last’s night’s dream with his hand up your skirt and how you were caught by surprise without any panties. See if he doesn’t perk right up in all the important places. Bertha doesn’t approve of me telling men about my lusty dreams, especially the married ones. But they’re the most fun, so starved for sexual attention they line up to do my bidding, a sort of cadre of slaves. I figure what their wives don’t know won’t hurt them. I’ve never told anyone this, not even Bertha. There’s something I love about stealing a married man. It’s thrilling to me in a way that single men aren’t. So married men have been the foundation for my career. But they just provide the opportunity. Once one gets the opportunity one still has to be competent to make it count. That’s where so many women make their mistake.
Now if Bertha were here, and if she were still herself, she’d roll her eyes at you as if I exaggerate. That was the thing about Bertha. No matter what, she always saw me in the best light. She’d look at me as if I hadn’t made a career out of married men. And I’d hide and watch, because against your better judgment you’d believe her. Bertha is as sincere as the rug on this floor. But let’s face it. When I first met her, found out Bertha was her name, I couldn’t help myself, I thought if she’s not a perfect Bertha, then I guess I’ve never seen one. Chubby, pale, dowdy, stooped, matronly, that was Bertha.
Even I have, not often mind you, but sometimes, felt touched when Bertha cupped her pathetic little chin to hide what wasn’t there. You asked what caused me to notice Bertha, but I’m not sure I remember now. There’s no reason to think I’d be drawn to one so quiet, reserved, stiff, you know someone with a corncob up her butt. That’s the thing, if you make someone like Bertha laugh, you’ve got it, you’ve definitely got it. She’s not so friendly most of the time, but despite all that she was drawn to me. I do remember her hanging around after that first book discussion. She waited until after all the other women left before she asked if I wanted to get a cup of coffee. So I did. I always say, you never know what a resource someone can be until you take the time to find out.
All this recent business after Sam’s death, I think she’s lost it. Bertha’s reverted to childhood. She goes to the park and flies kites for God’s sake. Can you believe it? She plays Jacks like she’s a little girl. Goes to the zoo and stays for hours. I even caught her eating ice cream for breakfast one morning. She’d made a concoction you wouldn’t believe with whipped cream and little sparkles on top. She’s gone completely outr
ageous since Sam died. Of course, all the attention she’s gotten from men has gone to her head. It’s made her crazy.
Like I was saying, we’re total opposites. Some folks would call me lazy. Bertha’s a hard worker. Maybe that’s what prompted her request to select the book for our next discussion the first time she and I talked. I remember, she’d wanted me to write to each woman individually with suggested questions to stimulate deeper discussions. I told her I’d help, but she said “no” in that martyr way of hers. That’s the thing people don’t know about Bertha, she’s got a vicious streak. Everyone says how sweet she is, but it’s not without a price if you know what I mean. I’ll give you a for instance: When Bertha volunteered to do the individual letters to the other women, she forwarded them to me for my signature. I told her right then that she could add her own name, but she said no because after all, the library director had invited me to moderate the discussion, not her. I got the distinct impression she got a bee up her butt when the women applauded me for the suggested questions at the second book discussion. I didn’t feel like it was my job to tell them otherwise. She didn’t sign the letter did she? And I did offer didn’t I?
During most of our friendship, I could count on Bertha refusing to ask for what she really wanted. I on the other hand refused to accept the job of making sure she got the credit, attention, and applause she craved. When she wanted to be my friend, I didn’t read the fine print. All these years later to change the rules, to suddenly expect to be the one getting attention. I just don’t think it will work. I mean, we both agreed that I’d be the star.
Quit laughing, yep, I love being the center of attention. It’s what I do best. I’ve got a knack too for discovering talent, those hard-working people like Bertha that don’t want the limelight, but don’t mind doing the work that supports me. I’m amazed really that they can stand being in the background like shadows on the wall hovering for their next assignment.
Chik~Lit for Foxy Hens Page 21
