Reinventing Mona

by Jennifer Coburn

  The group began clapping, but Mike just watched, agape with delight. Brooke emerged for air and winked at Mike. “My girlfriend,” she said playfully. “So what’d’ya think?”

  “I think women’s sports are highly underrated,” he said.

  Chapter 30

  Some lady wrote to the magazine and said I was a professional womanizer. I think she meant that as an insult, but it left me wondering, if that’s true, are all of these bullshit dinner dates a tax write-off?

  —The Dog House, April

  April was a whirlwind of dates with Adam and a complete overhaul of my two guest bedrooms and downstairs bathroom. Vicki chose warm summer tones for the walls that blended nicely with the floral bedspreads and curtains she chose. She had a remarkable gift for using every ray of natural light you never knew could find its way indoors. The rooms were bright but unimposing, like a garden. There was something more personal about them than your typical generic guest rooms.

  We wound up buying the window Vicki found, but hadn’t yet figured out where it would go. It was deep red and had malt stripes around the curved top with a beveled clear face—perfect for a plantation, which my home was not. Still, a piece like this comes along once in a lifetime, so we snatched it up and stored it in the garage before we moved Vicki out of her apartment that night in March.

  Much as I hated to admit it, the Psycho theme for the bathroom was so kitsch, it worked. Vicki framed a small black-and-white photograph of Janet Leigh screaming in the shower and matted it on a vortex print circled with a pencil thin, blood red Lucite frame. Inside the deep frame, Vicki mounted a kitchen knife. Vicki found another black-and-white shot of Janet Leigh counting her embezzled money—the scene before she takes her fateful shower—and placed it on top of ten dollar bills scattered behind the photo. Jagged edges of money erupted from every edge of the photo until it met the same red frame that surrounded the shower photo. Vicki had a shower curtain made that was clear with a silhouette of Norman Bates with his arm outstretched above his head, ready to attack. Vicki had vortex toilet seat covers and a rug custom made, and a hand-painted soap dish in the same pattern. Resting in the dish were red soaps she’d carved into drops of blood. Towels were plush deep red.

  Adam would never fit in here, I thought. When he saw the Psycho bathroom the following week he said it was “disturbing.” This is the same man who decorated his own guest bathroom with Oklahoma Sooner football wallpaper, photos, and memorabilia. The toilet paper rolled off the facemask of a Sooner helmet. The bathroom in his bedroom was done in a rubber ducky motif. Unlike his living room, at least Adam’s bathrooms reflected a little personality. Problem was, I wasn’t particularly drawn to that personality.

  There was no doubt about it, Adam was a decent, kind person, but so bland I could barely stand it. Once he actually asked if I’d like to take a “long, romantic sunset walk on the beach.” Sure, I’d like to take a walk on the beach with someone I love. Sure, I’d like the conversation to be so smooth and effortless that we both look at our watches and wonder where two hours went. But who plans for this? It all sounded so trite and contrived, like a verse from the Piña Colada Song. The thought of replacing my new housemate for my intended husband was deflating. And yet, on autopilot, I continued dating him, afraid to create a void in the space I’d put him. This was unfair, I knew. But the doing nothing, the coasting, the status quo was so comfortable, I convinced myself that I just needed more time to let my heart catch up with my head.

  When Vicki finished the Psycho bathroom, she was so eager for me to shower in it, I should have known she was up to something. Naively, I assumed she was just excited about my experiencing her new creation, and was shocked into cries of terror when red paint shot from the showerhead. She tore the curtain back and held a butcher knife, laughing psychotically. “My mommy made me do it!” she screeched.

  “You’re out of your mind!” screamed, laughing at her. Vicki jumped around like a twelve-year-old, thrilled with her prank.

  “Mona Warren, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  After twenty minutes, I was back to my normal color, and walked out into the living room with a towel turban and robe to see Vicki and Mike sitting on the couch together. “Oh hey, I didn’t expect you.” I inadvertently touched my headpiece and wondered if my mascara was running under my eyes. “Did your psycho sister tell you what she just did to me?”

  “How’ve you been, Mona Lisa?” Mike smiled.

  “Good. How ‘bout yourself?”

  “Not bad.”

  Vicki took stock of the awkwardness in the room, looking at Mike, then examining me. Following the hysterical laughter from the shower scene minutes earlier, the silence was all-encompassing. Booming quiet. Unending silence. After a full minute of this, Vicki finally had to say something. “The tension is so thick in here, you could cut it with a knife.” She laughed as she made the screeching sound effects of Norman Bates.

  Mike forced a chuckle. An “oh” escaped my socially inept lips. “I’m going to get some clothes on. I’ll let you visit with your sister.” As I ran upstairs, I heard Mike say that he had come by to see me, too. But I knew he was just being polite. It had been two weeks since our business arrangement had ended and I hadn’t heard a word from him. No phone calls. No instant messages. The absence of cash led to the absence of Mike.

  This was the night I decided to really throw myself into making things work with Adam. What he lacked in excitement, he made up for in stability, which was precisely what I needed for a happy future. While Mike was still in the house, I ran upstairs to my room and called Adam. We booked five dates for the following three weeks including a barbeque with his family on Easter Sunday. I knew if it was time for me to meet the family, Adam was getting serious about me.

  Five dates without any public relations efforts to bolster my image made me feel like I was a raw grain sitting in a barrel at the health food store. I desperately needed packaging. A cute graphic on the box. At least a logo. But I decided to take Greta’s advice and go organic.

  Adam took me to see Chipping Away, an independent film being shown on the sail of the Star of India. I thought it was pretentious drivel. He said this was his fourth viewing and that in college, the film changed his life. I had to laugh when Adam said that he liked my candor. “A lot of women don’t speak their minds in a relationship, but you always tell it like it is, Mona. It’s important to be forthright. That’s what I believe,” he praised.

  Ah yes, the honest and forthright Mona Warren. Film critic. Total fraud. Though it didn’t bother Adam that I detested his favorite film, it definitely rubbed me the wrong way that Adam seemed so impressed with this irritating pseudo-psychological piece of shit of a movie. Who could enjoy a movie shot entirely from the perspective of the bottom of a bowl of chips at a cocktail party? For the first half hour of Chipping Away, the entire screen was covered in yellow and dark blue tortilla chips. We heard voices of party guests whispering their dirty little secrets, come-ons and gossip as they reached into the chip bowl. As people grabbed them, the chips would shift every now and then, but how exciting is that to watch? Then finally, the last obstructing chips were removed and the audience saw the faces of the voices we’d become familiar with. But our view was still from the bottom of that goddamn bowl of chips! Never once did the camera move. It was nauseating to watch huge hands reaching into the bowl and then look up at giant chins and nostrils. The ending was less than climactic. The hostess said, “Oh look, we’ve run low on chips,” and refilled the bowl entirely with dark blue ones. And that was it. The end. She refilled the chips. What the hell does that even mean?

  The next week, I took Adam to an art installation, which he said he “didn’t get.” He got deep meaning from the chip flick, but saw absolutely no beauty in sprawling mosaics made of the tiniest pieces of stained glass.

  That weekend, Adam and I had a forced conversation over dinner about our life’s ambitions. He asked where I saw myself in five years. Mar
ried to you and in a committed relationship with any doctor who can hook me up with Zoloft. “If there was one thing you could change about yourself, what would it be?” he continued. I felt like I was being interviewed for a job.

  “Um, I don’t know, I’m pretty happy with who I am,” I lied. If only I knew who that was.

  “That’s refreshing!” Adam slapped the dinner table. “Everywhere I turn in this town, women are getting plastic surgery, taking self-improvement classes and the like. I think these ladies have it too easy. That’s what’s wrong with our culture, especially here. We don’t have real problems so we have to make up silly little things to work on. Self-esteem, droopy eyelids, lactose intolerance. One woman at a meeting last week said her chi was out of balance.” He laughed. “Can you imagine, her chi? She was getting acupuncture to get it all back where it should be. We’re a very spoiled country, that’s what I believe. You go to Iraq and I guarantee you, no one’s complaining about their chi being out of whack. They’ve got real problems to deal with.”

  I felt guilty wondering if perhaps my chi was off balance and that was my problem. Maybe what I needed all along was better chi.

  The next weekend I invited Adam over for a home-cooked Chinese meal at my place. My culinary skills blew him away until he saw the carryout containers in the garbage.

  At his family’s Easter barbeque, I was determined to show him how well I would fit in with the Ziegler clan. I got along well with his father, who shared my passion for music, but realized I had to start marketing myself not only as daughter-in-law material, but as a good mother. A gaggle of under-ten kids were playing Toss Across in the backyard. Instead of showing them what a great auntie I would be, I wound up getting really competitive and shouting at my team to “focus or we’re going to get slaughtered!” My would-be cousin, Jeanette, really appreciated the opportunity to explain what slaughter was to her eight-year-old son.

  I returned home that evening and decided to return to my original plan of figuring out what made Adam tick. I wondered why I was trying so hard to impress Adam, when frankly, I wasn’t all that impressed with our compatibility. I definitely liked him, and there was a part of me that even loved him as a human being. He was a genuinely good and decent person, who would never intentionally hurt a soul. The connection just wasn’t there with him, though.

  I kicked myself at my next thought—that the connection wasn’t there with Adam because it was already made with Mike. The coach in me took over. Mike is a player. He will use you for sex, then discard you like an old newspaper. Look how he treats women. Read his column! You need someone who will stay the course with you. You need a long-term investment, not the impulse purchase of a novelty item.

  As my keys unlocked the front door, I heard voices from the television set. “Vicki?” I shouted in. “You home?”

  “Mike’s here, too,” she returned.

  The whole room stiffened. Leaves of plants tensed. Air ceased to flow. Flowers craned their petals to see what would happen next. Against the backdrop of stillness, I hoped my racing heart would go unnoticed.

  “Hey.” He waved.

  “Hey.” I tried to sound less enthused than him. “You guys have a good time at your picnic?”

  “Our family’s crazy,” Vicki said, clicking the television off. “We were just talking about how fucked up they are. Dad’s like this sergeant who has to be in charge of everything.” She imitated his stern voice. “Don’t press the burgers or you’ll dry ‘em out, Vicki. Mike, you need a haircut. Marion, you’ve had enough to drink today.”

  Mike shrugged. “I could use a haircut,” he said. “Mom was drinking a bit more than usual.”

  “Whatever.” Vicki sounded annoyed with him. “Two minutes ago you said this was the last holiday you were spending with them. Now you’re fine with the freaks. What’s up?”

  Mike didn’t have to answer Vicki’s question. I knew what was up. The same thing that’s always up when people complain about their families in front of me. They realize that I would love to have someone to bitch about. Mike and I had talked about my longing to be part of a family or even a community of people with a shared interest. Hell, I’d join a book group if I thought it would give me the peace of truly belonging somewhere. I’d settle for being waved in at the naval base. Mike knew this about me, and felt guilty griping about a father who was overly controlling about grilling burgers when mine had driven seventeen people off the side of an icy cliff.

  I’d planned to dart off to my room, but could not tear myself away from the place Mike was. I sat in a chair beside the couch where they sat, and tried not to pry into Mike’s social life, though I was dying to ask if he was seeing anyone. More important, if he missed me. Thankfully, Vicki’s presence kept me from blurting anything as stupid as that. If Mike missed me, he would have called, I reminded myself. Even if I asked him, he’d tell me he did just to avoid hurting my fragile, orphan feelings. Clearly the man was not carving my initials into his wrist with a fork. He was not joining any support groups for lonely guys. Mike was just going about his business, completely unfazed by the fact that I was essentially out of his life.

  “So how’s the Dog’s life?” I tried my hardest not to fume.

  “Pretty shitty, to tell you the truth,” he said.

  “Oh, poor baby.” I was sounding far more sarcastic than appropriate. “Sorry. I just had a rough day with Adam.”

  “I don’t even know why you’re with that guy,” Vicki jumped in. “He’s so boring.”

  “Not like exciting Jimmy,” I shot, now furious at both Doughertys in my home. I sighed and buried my face in my hands. “I’m sorry, you two. I don’t know what’s gotten into me today. I’m just not myself.”

  These awkward silences never seemed to bother Mike, but always set Vicki into automatic overdrive in peacemaker mode. Whenever there was tension, she made a joke or changed the topic to something less emotionally charged. “So Mike was telling me he loves what we’ve done with the place,” Vicki beamed.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Nice of you to give Vicki a break like this, Mona Lisa.”

  “Well, it’s long past due. She’s got a lot of talent,” I said as though she weren’t sitting right there in the room with us. “In fact, I was going to ask her to do the whole house. As long as she’s here, I may as well put her to work, right?”

  “Ohmigod!” Vicki jumped from her chair and hugged me. “You are like my guardian angel or something.” Like a wind-up doll, she started muttering about needing to get a license, hooking up with an experienced designer, and counting rooms on her fingers. “The whole house? The entire thing, right?”

  I nodded, my eyes never leaving Mike’s, who returned my gaze as intensely. We looked as though we could be facing off for a fight, or about to kiss.

  “I’m glad my sister was more helpful to you than I was.” Mike said, breaking our silence.

  “You were plenty helpful,” I said. “I just didn’t need your help anymore.”

  “Done with me, huh?”

  “Exactly.” I clenched my jaw and forced back any tears that might have even been contemplating making an appearance.

  Chapter 31

  Although I was hanging dead on a meat hook, I could hear every word the white-coated butchers said. I could feel the cold air of the refrigerated slaughterhouse. And I could smell the blood from my own body and the others around me. Adam’s cousin Jeanette walked by my body and slapped my rump, commenting that I’d make a fine grill. She wore white stiletto heels and held a rolled-up copy of Highlights magazine in her jewel-speckled hand. Pointing at me, she said, “This one got what she deserved but what a shame for these innocent children.”

  A knock on the door startled me back to consciousness. Vicki was still in her pajamas and hopped onto my bed like a child on Christmas morning, unable to wait for the day to begin. She even looked like a child with her two low pigtails draping over her sleeveless pink tank top. The matching pink flannel pants were adorned with baby bl
ue bows. “So, about decorating the house,” she began. “I wanted to ask you a few things.” I nodded for her to continue. “We could do the whole house in one style, like clean and modern, or rustic or whatever. Or we could mix things up a bit and have different themes for different rooms.”

  The thought that it was acceptable to do an entire house in a patchwork of different styles—and have it all come together beautifully—caused me to sigh aloud with relief, though Vicki had no idea how liberating her simple idea was. “Is it too early for this?” she asked.

  “No.” I laughed. “We should’ve talked about this a while ago.” Vicki looked puzzled, undoubtedly because she’d only been given the green light on redecorating less than twelve hours earlier. “Different themes would be okay. It’ll be fun,” I relieved her from the confusion my earlier comment had caused.

  “Okay,” she said, moving into excited decorator mode. Her posture changed as she grabbed the pencil and notepad on my nightstand. “I was thinking since you’re such a fan of movies, we might do the living room in the style of your favorite old flick. What’s your favorite?”

  Without pause, I answered, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Vicki knit her brows trying to remember what the set looked like. “Weren’t they kind of poor?” she asked.

  “Middle class. George Bailey’s dad wasn’t much of a businessman,” I told her. “I guess their home really wasn’t much to look at.”

  “Hmmm, okay, what’s your second favorite? Think of a place with a little flair.”

  “Gone With the Wind,” I told her.

  “Tara,” we said simultaneously, as though a light bulb lit between our heads at the exact same moment.

  “Ohmigod! That window, that window!” Vicki fanned herself with her hand. “How perfect is that window we bought?! We’ll do the whole downstairs common areas in Southern grandeur, marble floors, big palms, plush red chairs with satin rope tassels. Do you love it?”