Test Pattern

by Marjorie Klein

  The refrigerator, a Kelvinator, was just fine until Mrs. Willet put leftover Hawaiian Tuna Noodle Surprise inside after dinner last Tuesday. The refrigerator gave what Mrs. Willet describesas “a pitiful moan, just pitiful” and then broke out in green hives. As Mrs. Willet watched, she says, “The hives started to clump up and take a shape, and all of a sudden I realized it looked like this roly-poly statue my Rudy brought back from when he was in the Philippines. He said the statue was of Buddha, and over there he was just as famous as Jesus.”

  Mayor Barlow is unsure of the future of the Kelvinator Buddha. Due to a shortage of Buddhists in Phoebus, he says, there’s no church to send it to.

  Well, there you go, thinks Lorena. Not one word about Lula being crazy in that whole story. And who knows? Maybe she did see the Buddha. Maybe it really was there.

  Pete hasn’t started snoring yet. Lorena lies on her back in the darkness and listens to him breathe. She tenses as he turns in her direction. His hand scoots across the sheet, then plunks upon her flannel-covered breast. They haven’t had sex in over two weeks. This is Pete’s way of letting her know it’s time.

  When they were first married, she dressed for bed. Slipped into the bathroom and emerged in her bridal negligee, a gift from Aunt Lula. Draped in a floor-length robe and gown of silk and lace, she would allow Pete to peel away each virginal white layer, his hunger unchecked by her arm catching in a sleeve or the gown tangling between her legs. His panting frustration fueled her desire and she found that sex was her time to shine, her opportunity to star in whatever fantasy she chose to swirl through her brain: ravaged virgin, willing mistress, red-hot mama.

  Time and action shredded the silken gown. Years later, it wound up at Goodwill, never to be replaced. Bed became a place to sleep, and gowns were bought for comfort. Now when Lorena dresses for bed, she sees her mother in the mirror. Fluffy cap over pincurls, Lollipop panties under her flannel gown, she crawls nightly under the covers expecting nothing more exciting than a groaning yawn from Pete as he rolls away from her.

  Every now and then, Pete comes to life, as he is doing tonight.

  She lies immobile as his hand starfishes its way from one breast to another, then plunges beneath her gown to snap the elastic waist of her Lollipops. Her compliance is tinged with pity for his problems, as well as fear of his cold withdrawal if she should deny him. She knows that as far as he’s concerned, she could be anyone. He could be anyone to her, too.

  She decides to make him Binky.

  Oooo, Binky, she sighs to herself. Closing her eyes, she pictures Binky’s face, those rainstorm-gray eyes, that Errol Flynn mustache, that snappy postman’s hat set at a jaunty angle. Oooh, yes, yes, Binky, she moans silently, touch me there, as Pete grabs her, unceremoniously climbs on top, and begins to pump. Oh Binky Binky Binky, she begins, and then it’s over. With a grunt, Pete dismounts and collapses on his side of the bed.

  Lorena always felt a little guilty after sex, like her mother was listening on the other side of the door. Her guilt was compounded by her secret fantasies, the crowds of men she had visualized over the years once the initial thrill of early-marriage sex was gone.

  At first she fantasized about people she knew—friends, the pharmacist, the chicken man in the A&P who cut up her fryers with loving care and then threw in extra livers. But as her parallel fantasy of becoming a dancer grew, the lovers in her sexual fantasies became more than mere acquaintances. She had moved on to the rich and famous. Fred Astaire, of course, and Gene Kelly, but her amorous rendezvous also embraced nondancing stars of movies and television: Clark Gable, Kirk Douglas, Julius La Rosa. She even conjured up a memorable threesome with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

  Binky is the first true possibility. The idea of an affair scares her. She could never really do it, no, really, she’s a lousy liar. She’d wind up confessing, pleading guilty, spilling the beans. She had always been a good girl.

  But this wouldn’t be just any old affair. Sure, it would have passion and all, but this affair would also have meaning. It couldchange her life, take her somewhere—take her straight to Cousin Wally.

  It’s something to think about. Like Delia says, unless thinking’s going to get you somewhere, it’s best not to do too much of it.

  So she thinks about it. She thinks about it a lot.

  THE INVITATION COMES in the next day’s mail. “Tomorrow,” it says. “Three o’clock. B.” It slides, unstamped, through the slot, buried in a barrage of bills. She almost overlooks it. Just a slip of paper inside a plain envelope. She reads it over and over again, then tears it into tiny pieces and flushes it.

  Tomorrow is Thursday. Lorena is flattered that Binky remembered that Cassie has dancing on Thursday. He cared enough to plan this. But tomorrow? So soon? She’s not ready. She needs Maybelle. With a trembling finger, she dials.

  “Sorry, sugarplum,” says Maybelle. “I’m booked till next week. How’s Tuesday?”

  “Too late. Too late,” Lorena mumbles, and hangs up. She fluffs her flattened curls in the mirror and sighs. She can’t do this, no she just can’t, it’s not right. But then she thinks of Binky’s slow gray eyes, remembers the way his lips felt, wonders what lies in wait beneath those black-striped gray pants. Oh yes.

  She can barely cut out the biscuits for dinner, her hands shake so. The pork chops are overcooked, the mashed potatoes lumpy, but dinner is eaten in hurried silence without a peep of complaint. For that, Lorena is grateful.

  The silence of dinner continues through the evening, broken only by Perry Como and Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. Cassie goes up to her room after Haleloke does her hula, and Pete and Lorena are left alone, the light from the TV washing their faces with silver.

  She waits for the commercial, then asks, “How’s work been?” On the screen a blonde swings impossibly shiny hair. A chorussings “Halo everybody, Halo.” Pete doesn’t answer, not now, not during the entire half hour of I’ve Got a Secret, not when he gets into bed and rolls away from Lorena.

  Lorena stares at the patch of light on the ceiling until she falls asleep, the patch imprinted on her brain. Indelible and glowing, it surfaces in dream, becomes a TV screen filled with the crewcut image of Garry Moore, the host of I’ve Got a Secret. Next to him sits Lorena herself, whispering in his ear her secret, which is superimposed across the screen for the audience: “Having an affair with Binky Quisenberry.”

  The audience applauds. She beams at the camera. Garry Moore winks, adjusts his bow tie, calls first on Henry Morgan, who asks, “Does your husband know your secret?” She shakes her head no. Bess Myerson looks thoughtful, taps her beauty-queen teeth with a fingernail, then asks, “Does this involve some talent?” Lorena consults in a whisper with Garry Moore before vigorously nodding yes. The audience’s applause is louder this time.

  Garry calls on the next panelist. It’s Cassie. She’s wearing the dress of tinsel and her hair is a tangle of curls. She looks piercingly at Lorena, then asks, “Are you as crazy as Lula?”

  Lorena’s eyes pop open. The patch on the ceiling is gone. The room is dark and Pete is snoring. She lies and waits for morning.

  BRA. BRA. LORENA paws through her underwear drawer looking for the least-frayed of her Maidenform Chansonettes, all identical: white cotton, 34-B. She holds each one up, looking for signs of wear, examines the cone-shaped cups for breaks in the concentric stitching. Oh, well, she sighs, and plucks one from the jumbled heap.

  She showers, pulls on toreador pants and her peasant blouse, cinches her waist with a wide stretch belt, releases her hair from its pincurls. Mitzi Gaynor, Mitzi Gaynor, she pleads with the mirror, her hand trembling as she applies Seagreen eye shadow, Powder Pink lips, a spritz of Evening in Paris behind each ear. She’s ready. She waits. Three o’clock. Where is he? Three-fifteen. She dabs on another layer of Odor-O-No, reapplies her lipstick.

  Doorbell.

  Oh God. She feels herself move down the stairs, across the living room. She peers through the glass square of the door, s
ees Binky’s hat and matching gray eyes, opens the door, and shuts it quickly behind him.

  “Lorena,” he says.

  “Binky.”

  She’s not sure what’s supposed to happen next. If this were the movies, he would embrace her and sweep her off her feet. But what he does is slap the leather of his mailbag before dropping it at her feet. “Weighs a ton,” he says. “Makes me sweat like a pig.”

  Suddenly he’s suctioning her lips with his, cupping his hands around her bottom, grinding his pelvis into hers. His tongue is snaking around her gums and she can tell he had tuna for lunch. They shuffle over to the couch, where they collapse, burrowing into each other with snurfing sounds. Binky grasps the elastic shoulders of her peasant blouse and pulls it to her waist, exposing the stiff cotton cones of her Maidenform. A look of disappointment crosses his face but he moves on, reaching behind her to unhook the bra.

  “Wait!” She yanks her blouse back up. “Not here.”

  “Huh?”

  “Upstairs.”

  He shrugs and follows her up the stairs, into her bedroom. At the sight of her marital bed, a wave of panic envelops Lorena. “Maybe we shouldn’t …” she begins, but Binky has pulled her down on the bed and her blouse is back around her waist and he’s grappling with the stubborn hook of her bra, which won’t release, so he pulls it down far enough to nibble on her nipple.

  “Oooh, Binky,” she sighs to the top of his hat. Impulsively, sheremoves it, flings it off the bed, then runs her fingers through his Vitalis-slick hair. He’s struggling with the zipper on her toreador pants, finally peels them down over her Lollipops. She kicks off her sandals, pedals her legs until she’s freed the toreadors, and they pause, exhausted, she in her Maidenform and Lollipops, he still in full dress uniform. He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his wallet, extracts a rubber, and turns his back for a brief but busy moment. His purpose accomplished, he plunks himself atop Lorena.

  Despite sun which sizzles like melted butter on the bed, Lorena shivers beneath Binky, awaiting his caress. He leans over her and slides his gaze over her prone body. “Can you get that thing off yourself?” he says, and plucks at her bra. “Those, too,” he adds, tugging at her Lollipops.

  She complies, yanks the bra around so the hook is in the front, rolls the panties down into a pretzel at her feet. She leans back and shyly covers herself with her hands. She’s never been naked in front of another man. She’s hardly been naked with Pete.

  “Take your shoes off,” she murmurs, and she hears two thunks as they hit the floor. Then Binky surrounds her, a storm cloud of gray, all buttons and flaps and stripes in a blur of uniform, lips, tongue, fingertips slipping into places she had forgotten she had and she hears the rrrrrp of a zipper and feels the molten explosion inside and then Binky is flopped over on his back and sweating like a pig.

  “Wow,” says Binky.

  “Wow yourself,” she sighs as the throbbing ebbs like the tide going out. He’s finished? She was just starting.

  “No, I mean, Wow, it’s late.” Binky squints at his watch. “I skipped lunch to make up the time, but I’m really going to be off schedule.”

  “What time is it?” Lorena jumps up, starts pulling on her clothes. “Cassie gets home on the four o’clock bus.”

  “It’s four o’clock.” He wrestles the black oxfords onto his black-socked feet, gives her a quick peck good-bye, and hollers ashe pounds down the stairs, “Next Thursday, okay?” She hears the door slam and, minutes later, open again.

  “Mom?” Cassie calls. “I’m home.”

  THAT NIGHT LORENA lies in bed staring at the light patch on the ceiling as if awaiting some sign. She can’t sleep. Something momentous has occurred, a shift in her consciousness more profound than the change she felt on her wedding night when she lay awake marveling that she was no longer a virgin, an event she had dreaded as well as anticipated. And when it was over and done with before she knew what was happening, she wondered why she had spent so many years fantasizing about such an insignificant moment.

  But by sleeping with another man, she had crossed a boundary more daring than that of exchanging a maiden’s innocence for marital experience. Why, she thought, this is like a movie. Illicit. Daring. Lustful. Well, maybe not that lustful, but it was probably because she had been so nervous, being an extramarital virgin and all. Next time she’d be better.

  She did feel guilty. Oh, yes, she was ridden with guilt, but it was all mixed up with the excitement of being desired and admired, of being wanted. Being the object of such passion instilled a passion within her that overrode the pangs of regret she felt when she looked upon the faces of Pete and Cassie. She was wanted. She was wanton. She just couldn’t help herself.

  And if the side effect of this marital detour could mean fame and fortune, wouldn’t the guilt be worth it? Once she was rich and famous, she knew she would be happy. She’d have everything she ever wanted and never worry about anything again. Not money. Not looks. Not love.

  Because when you’re famous, it means you’ve got it all.

  15

  CASSIE

  DAD AND I are comparing feet. We always do that on the first warm night, lying barefoot side by side in the lawn chair that tips back so we can look at the stars. Dad and I have the same feet. The second toe is longer than the rest, longer even than our big toes. Dad calls it our “Lookout Toe.” He says it sticks out like that so it can check around and see if there’s danger ahead for the other toes.

  Dad had a close call this morning when he went to put up the TV antenna. We get too much snow with just the rabbit ears, so he bought a big outside antenna and carried it up to the roof. Next thing I know I heard this big thump and Dad yelling shit and then another bunch of thumps and other words I can’t say, and then I saw his feet dangling outside my window. He climbed down the chinaberry tree to the ground. It’s lucky he caught himself on the gutter before he fell or he would have broken something for sure.

  The air is soft, sprinkled with firefly light, buzzing with summersounds. Crickets crackle in the soft dark, radio voices leak into the night—Fibber McGee, a ball game. I hear the kids playing, Margaret’s voice way way off, “Ally-ally-in-free.” We watch the lights of Norfolk over the water. We look in people’s windows across the court. The Powells’ and the MacDougals’ windows are dark except for the silvery squares of their TVs. There’s nothing on now we want to watch, so we sit outside between Topper and Our Miss Brooks.

  I like snuggling with Dad, burrowing into his soft cotton shirt, sniffing his smoky smell. The webbing of the chair makes patterns of cold on our backs but he feels warm by my side. Tonight he’s in a good mood and it’s like it used to be when we’d sit out here until I fell asleep listening to him tell stories about when he was little.

  “Mornings I’d lie in bed under the quilt my grandma made from my grandpa’s old shirts, shirts he wore out from working on ships,” he says. “I’d lie there and smell the biscuits and bacon my mother was fixing for breakfast.”

  Even though I’ve heard this story before, I like hearing it again. I close my eyes and see a little-boy Dad, like in the picture I have when he was six. It was taken at Virginia Beach, and he’s wearing a funny striped bathing suit that covers him all the way up to his neck, all the way down to his knees. His face is scrunched up in the sun and his hair is wet against his forehead.

  “And while I was lying so warm under the quilt, I could hear the sound of the shipyard,” he says. I peek up at him and his eyes are closed, too. “That sound followed me around all day. To school, to the playground—it was like my heartbeat.”

  “I hear it, too,” I say.

  “You can’t hear it the way I do,” he says. “I hear it from the inside out.”

  He tells me how I was named after that grandma who made the quilt, his grandma Cassandra. How she taught him to catch crabs in Chesapeake Bay, how they scrabbled around in the trap when he hauled it, dripping water and seaweed, onto the dock.

  How he
learned to grab them just right so they don’t pinch, then drop them into a pot of boiling water.

  “My grandma taught me the names of all the constellations when I was so little I could hardly read,” he says, his eyes still closed. “I coulda been a sailor. I could steer by the stars, that’s how much I know about them.”

  “Would you ever want to go to the stars, Dad?”

  “Naw,” he says. “They’re up too high. All’s I want to do is look at them.” He opens his eyes and points to the sky just over the horizon above the water. “Look over there. See that big ‘W'? That’s the constellation that’s named after you: Cassie-opeia.” He tells me I have to share it with the other person it’s named after, Queen Cassiopeia, who was sent into the sky because she bragged about her beautiful daughter.

  I look but all I see is black sky and a whole bunch of scattered stars. “Where’s the ‘W'?” I ask.

  “Just follow the dots of stars,” Dad says, but I still can’t see the queen. I squint, trying to follow where his finger is pointing, but she’s lost somewhere in the glitter. I stare and stare and all of a sudden there she is, stretched out across the sky.

  “I see her, I see her!” I say to Dad. “She just popped out like magic.”

  “There’s nothing magic about it,” he says. “She’s been there all along.”

  I tell Dad what this man on test-pattern TV said about stars. That there are stars way beyond the stars we can see. That they all began with one big bang. That all those stars could be suns to other worlds. And that one day our sun will get so big that it will swallow up the earth.

  “Where did you hear that?” he asks.

  “On test-pattern TV.”

  He gives me a look. “Aren’t you getting a little old to be making stuff up?”