The Undertaking of Tess

by Lesley Kagen

  I tug on my sister’s leg and tell her to put her head back in the car one more time and when she doesn’t listen to me one more time, I give up and ask our mother, “Where are we?” I don’t know this part of Milwaukee.

  “This is the South Side. Where all the Polacks live,” Mom says with a snort because even the least funniest person I know has to agree that Polacks are the people with the best jokes.

  I take a Kleenex out of my pocket and wipe sweaty Birdie down, and then I stare out the window and hope that wherever our mother is taking us is not dumb like the time she took us swimming in the middle of winter to a place called a natatorium. Birdie couldn’t stand the way the place smelled, and I can’t even do the dead man’s float.

  When we get finally get off the expressway and make a couple of turns, she says, “Look!” and points to a sign over our heads:

  Welcome to the 1959 Wisconsin State Fair

  Birdie and me have never heard of something like this, so we don’t know what to expect. We just say, “Thank you!” because you have to for even the littlest thing.

  After she parks the car, Mom says, “C’mon. This way!” She’s almost skipping. She can get like this, not often, but she can. Real perky. “I loved the Fair when I was a kid and you’re gonna love it too!”

  There are alotta people of all shapes and sizes and ages. Looking at them is very interesting. Mother takes us to a side-show where there is a Woman of a Thousand Veils and a baby in a bottle and an enormously fat lady and a sword swallower. And there are rides galore. A huge roller coaster, merry-go-rounds, a Ferris wheel, and people are selling food. There’s also a man who will guess your weight if you give him a quarter. Birdie started breathing fast when we walked past him, so I said really quick to our mother, “Gosh, I’m hot and starving. I think I’m gonna faint.” (This is one of the stunts I pull if things aren’t going very well. Kids go woozy in church all the time because they gotta fast before they take Holy Communion, so fainting is something that really does happen.) I cannot let Louise get it into her head that it’d be a great idea to get my sister up on that gigantic scale. She loves to be right, and the bigger the audience, the better. She’s always making cracks about “Two-ton Robin,” outside the church after Mass on Sunday.

  After Louise buys us hot dogs with pickle relish and mugs of Graf’s frosty root beer that are so good that Bird cries a little, she checks her watch and says, “You’ve got time to do one more thing while I run and get us a box of cream puffs. How about you go look at the farm animals?”

  “That’s a great idea, but no, thank you,” I say, because I’m pretty sure she’s trying to make us get hoof-and-mouth disease. “If you don’t mind … we wanna go to the Spook House, right, Bird?” We have passed it a few times and it looked dark and cool and the both of us are sweating up a storm, especially my sister, whose hand feels like a raw chicken drumstick in mine. And getting scared … that reminds me of Daddy. A good Gotcha! would almost make me feel like he was here with us.

  After we weave around the crowds to the ticket booth in front of the Spook House, Louise heads over to a building marked Home Economics, and Birdie and I head through the KEEP OUT! HAUNTED! doors in a red, rumbling cart. Creepy stuff jumps out at us. Skeletons and grisly looking zombies and ghosts and cobwebs brush against our skin. I love it, even though it’s kinda cheesy because you can see the strings on the bats, but Birdie hates it. She wet her pants because she took all of it too much to heart, and because she crawled into my lap, the pee is all over me too. I shoulda known that she’s got enough haunting going on. I tried to mop us off, but that was a loosing battle because she’d just had that root beer.

  We are waiting in front of the ride for Louise, who is coming toward us with a bakery box. When she gets to us, she notices our wet shorts right off. She points down and says, “What happened?”

  I tell her, “Oh, they had a witch in there and … and she threw water on us … hardy hardy har,” but I figured out too late that our blouses would also be soaked because Louise kinda sprung that on me, so that’s another thing I better put on my next TO-DO LIST: Think faster.

  On the ride home, our mother lets us know how mad she is at us by eating one of the cream puffs and making a big deal over how tasty it is every two seconds—“Oh, yum … yum,” and not giving us any. Birdie is drooling from wanting to have that deliciousness in her mouth and I’ve run out of Kleenexes, so I have to wipe off her mouth with the bottom of my T-shirt.

  I spent the trip looking out the car window wondering if Louise’d be sorry for being so cruddy to us after my sister and me save up enough money selling potholders to our neighbors to run away to ________? I’m not sure yet where Birdie and I will go, maybe to Gammy and Boppa’s, or to Oklahoma, where all the mornings are beautiful, but I also wouldn’t mind following James Darren’s suggestion: “Goodbye cruel world, I’m off to join the circus.” Or maybe we could be part of the Freak Show we saw today. We could let the fat lady with the three chins be our mother. She told us that she couldn’t have kids when we were staring at her behind the sideshow glass, and then she burst into tears. Probably because she was hungry. She would get along great with my sister.

  When the Moon Hits Your Eye

  When our mother gets mad, it’s not like a sudden storm that blows in and out. Hers is more like what the weather man with the cute black cat named Albert on the TV’s Channel Four calls, “A stalled front.”

  The second we got home, she sent us straight to the basement to wash out our pee shorts. We could hear her in the kitchen pacing above our heads.

  Birdie, who is huddled over next to the furnace, says, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. That ride was so scary and now … now Mom’s gonna punish both of us.”

  “You mean Louise is gonna punish both of us,” I say as I shove the pink shorts in the washer. “You gotta remember to call her that, okay?”

  I shake in some Tide powder, and then turn on the washer the same way I do with the sheet that she wets in the middle of the night. Only then, I have to climb on top of the Maytag and sit up there and read a Superman comic book with our flashlight until the spinning cycle is done because the washer doesn’t sit right on the floor and it makes this horrible banging noise that would wake Louise up.

  “C’mere.” I hold out my hand to Birdie and lead her back across the cement floor that hasn’t been swept in ages. There’s a dead mouse in one of the traps because it was Daddy’s job to throw them away, and spider webs on the walls, and the worst of all—flies on the sills that could be dead or just playing possum. I sit my sister down on the bottom basement step, put my arm around her, and say, “You wanna hear a happy story?”

  She nods, because she really does need cheering up. She wanted one of those cream puffs so bad.

  I say, “Remember our last birthday? How we all went to Mama Mia’s restaurant and we had that delicious sausage pizza and fat, spongy bread drenched in butter … and how Mom and Daddy ate a plate of spaghetti with meatballs and drank wine like Lady and the Tramp to celebrate ten years of being married, and how that nice waitress with the black teased up hair cleared our dishes and then came back and dropped a little something else off at the table along with the check?” I make my voice sound like hers. “‘Here’s your doggie bagga. Thank youa verya mucha,’” and I told her, “But we can’t take that under false pretenses because that’s against the law and a sin. My sister and me want one really bad, but we don’t have a dog.” And then Daddy, and even Mom laughed real hard, and … and on the way home he sang to her, ‘When the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie, that’s amore,’ and she loved it so much that she didn’t care what a mess that would make of her face and she even set her head on his shoulder and let her hair get messy.”

  Birdie smiles, but it’s a ghost of a one that I can see through. She looks like she might bawl some more. I try not to, because our mother calls us babies, and sometimes will sing, “Cry me a river,” but we’re down here alone, so I might
let out a few of the tears that I can feel brimming over. I’m sad because it feels good to remember the fun times we had with Daddy, but it’s a bad thing too because having the memories make me wish we could make more of them and now we’ll never, ever get to. Everything Birdie and me ever loved doing with him we’ll never get to do again. No more fishing, no more laughing at his jokes, no more bedtime hugs, no more singing the “Sisters” song at Lonnigan’s, no more Gotchas!

  And it’s not only thinking about what already happened, it’s also thinking about any dreams that Birdie and me had for the future. Like someday getting a pooch of our own, or going to the Wisconsin Dells to see the giant Paul Bunyan statue with Daddy when he saved up enough tips. That will never happen because beetle-browed Stan was right about what he said the night after he and Jim rescued me outta the white motorboat. “Her life ain’t ever gonna be the same.” Birdie’s neither.

  I have been trying to believe in that famous saying, “Time heals all wounds.” My sister and me hear people saying that at the cemetery all the time, but I’ve reached the conclusion that’s just something people tell people when they fall apart in front of their eyes instead of telling them, “Sorry that pain you’re feeling will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever go away.” I don’t want to believe that, but I think that’s the truth. Maybe many, many years from now a scab will form on Birdie’s broken heart because she didn’t murder Daddy, but I think mine will be taking a licking until the end of time.

  “What’s taking you so long?” Louise yells at us from the back hallway. “Get up here.”

  I tell Birdie who’s gone stiff as a stiff, “Let’s spiff you up, kiddo,” and then I swipe her blah-brown bangs away from her eyes and lick my finger to straighten her eyebrows. I check under her nails for dirt too; Louise hates that. “You look beautiful and very skinny. Time to face the music.”

  Birdie is still so rigid that I have to carry-lug her up the basement steps, that’s how ascared she is of our mother’s stupid punishments.

  Louise is tapping her foot and inspecting her fingernail polish at the kitchen table. That’s where she spends most of her time when she isn’t staring at herself, or bothering Birdie and me. She changed out of the blouse and pedal pushers she wore to the Wisconsin State Fair. Now a pretty white top and a full yellow skirt and white high heels that she only gets to wear during the summer are making her look good. Her wavy red hair is piled high on her head in a French twist. She’s freshened up her make-up too. Instead of her usual red lipstick, she’s got on a really pink shade that I’ve never seen before.

  To smooth down her ruffled feathers, it’s always good to start out with a compliment. “We love your new shade of lipstick, don’t we, Robin Jean?” Louise can’t see my sister nod her head because she’s hiding behind me, but I can feel it brushing against my back.

  “I’m going out,” Louise says. “The cream puffs are in the fridge.”

  Holy cow! What a big surprise! How come she didn’t mention Birdie’s peeing in her pants in the spook house a hundred more times? Why isn’t she punishing us? How come she’s letting us have that nice dessert? This is VERY suspicious. Maybe because it’s our birthday? And down there, somewhere, she must have a heart that got thawed a little in all this heat?

  Before Louise can change her mind, Birdie and me both rush to tell her, “Thank you … thank you!”

  But my sister also says, “You’re so pretty. Where are you going? Can we come with you?”

  I don’t have to ask Louise where she’s going. She’ll tell us that she’s heading to confession, but she isn’t. Any idiot knows that they don’t have nighttime confession, and second off, she’s religious, but not that religious. I knew she wasn’t telling us the truth the first night she took off and left Birdie and me alone because she does this funny thing with her mouth when she’s lying. Twists it to the left a little. I was so curious that I wanted to put on black clothes and follow her to see what she was really up to because that’s what they do on TV, but Birdie was too ascared.

  I found out where Louise really went by searching her jacket pockets when she drove over to the Red Owl the next day. It kinda made me laugh when I found the balled up Lonnigan’s cocktail napkin in her pocket because she only lied to us a little. Daddy sometimes called the bar, “The Confessional,” because after people get drunk they’ll cry in their beers and tell you all sorts of bad things they’ve done and how sorry they are. There was a name and telephone number scribbled in blue pen on the napkin.

  Dwight Hilltop 4-5271

  I figured he must be a friend of our father’s; he had so many. To know Eddie Finley was to love Eddie Finley! Everyone did, not just Birdie and me. Louise won’t talk about him anymore, and I was feeling so desperate to hear a good story about him that maybe I hadn’t heard before that I called the number on the napkin. But when a man picked up and said, “Anderson residence. Dwight speaking,” I chickened out and said, “Vaya con Dios,” in my Zorro voice and hung up.

  After Louise pushes back her kitchen chair and heads toward the front door, I tug my hand out of my sister’s, tell her, “Stay here. Be right back. Eat one of those cream puffs,” and I go after our mother.

  She is yanking her raincoat out of the front hall closet. The metal hanger falls onto the wooden floor and she doesn’t pick it up. “Please don’t be mad at Birdie for having an accident in her shorts,” I tell her. “Daddy wouldn’t be.”

  She places her hand on the front door latch. Around the fourth finger on her tan left hand there’s a ghost wedding ring where the real one used to be. She doesn’t look at me, just says, “Your father’s not here anymore.”

  I reach out and place my hand on top of hers. Her skin is so soft. “Mom?”

  She scowls.

  “Sorry. Louise?” I take my hand away. “Can Birdie and me come with you to Lonnigan’s tonight?”

  It’d be really nice to see the old gang, to breathe in the smell of Pabst Blue Ribbon and peanuts, and to see them raise their glasses in a toast to, “The best bartender in the parish!”

  Louise shoves the screen door open and says, “Clean up the house and take baths,” and walks out into the drizzling night. A few minutes later, she fires up the woody station wagon that everyone on the block can hear. Daddy had been meaning to replace that muffler for the longest time.

  Sometimes You Gotta Take Your Life into Your Hands

  After I put a bag of dog poop on Mrs. Klement’s front porch, light it on fire, and run away to get back at her for reporting to Louise that she saw me stealing my sister’s birthday nightlight, Birdie and me get down to work. We pretend the whole time that we’re two of those elves that surprise the shoemaker by tidying up his workshop while he’s sleeping. She loves that game, especially when I do my elf voice that really sounds more like one of Snow White’s dwarves—Grumpy—because cleaning is a big waste of time when I could be working on more important things like spying and blackmailing, or my TO-DO LIST.

  Once everything is shipshape, I grab both of Birdie’s hands, squeeze hard, and say, “Okay. Stop. Bath time.” If I don’t get bossy she won’t stop polishing because she really, really loves shiny things. She inherited that from Louise.

  We shampoo each other in the tub with the scary claw feet that I wrap towels around so Birdie doesn’t have to look at them. When we duck under the water to rinse our heads, we practice our mermaid talking. This could also be a good carnival job because they had a lady up on the stage who had scales all over her at the State Fair, so maybe we could team up with her in a partnership like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby or Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Instead of me singing and dancing and doing voices and Birdie beating everyone in cat’s cradle and performing card tricks, we could be The Electrifying Finley Mermaids and dive into the tank with Elsie the Fish Woman. That has a nice ring to it. Of course, I’d have to learn how to swim first, but maybe Mr. McGinty could teach me in the cemetery pond the way he told me he would.

  “Birdie Finley
,” I say underwater.

  She bubbles back, “Tessie Finley,” but when she does it tonight instead of making me smile, a picture of Daddy sinking to the bottom of the lake comes into my mind and I get out of the tub real fast so she does too.

  My sister smells much better after the bath. Like Ivory soap and Breck shampoo and not like the cafeteria up at school on mock chicken leg day. We’re in our bed, lying on top of our sheet. She’s on her tummy and I’m making rows on her back and pretending to plant lavender because Gammy, who is such an excellent gardener, told me it can help a person sleep. I didn’t before, but I know now why they’re called the “wee” hours, so I’m gonna ask Gammy the next time I see her what flower keeps a person from peeing in the bed and I’ll start planting those on Birdie’s back every night. It’ll probably be one of the yellow ones, maybe daisies.

  After I’ve sowed the lavender, we get under the sheet, say our prayer, and make a tent with our feet and lift it up and down because it gives us a nice breeze.

  Birdie starts crying, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, please come back from Boca Raton.”

  I tell her for the hundredth millionth time, “He’s not in Boca Raton, tweetheart. He’s dead.”

  I almost have a heart attack when she sobs back, “I know! Yesterday when I told Mr. Dalinsky that it was our Daddy on the postcard, he laughed, and told me that … that the man looks a lot like Daddy, but it’s not. He’s just a man called a model that they pay to look happy next to a big fish so people will come to Florida to catch one too.”