Test Pattern

by Marjorie Klein

  “Miz Palmer?” says an unfamiliar voice. “This is Dwayne, Pete’s foreman. I got some bad news.”

  Lorena feels her innards drop through the soles of her feet. “What?” she whispers.

  “Seems like Pete fell and broke hisself up a bit.”

  “Broke? What broke?”

  “Oh, a leg. And a arm. Cracked his head a little, too.”

  “Oh God. Oh God. Is he okay?”

  “Well, now, I don’t know if okay is the word, seein’ as how he’s pretty smashed up and all. But,” he adds cheerily, “he ain’t dead.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Ambylance took him over to Buxton Hospital.”

  Lorena’s knees feel like they’re held together with raw egg white. She sits down on the floor next to the phone. “What happened?”

  “Don’t rightly know, but to tell you the truth, he ain’t been hisself lately. Seems like he’s just plain pissed off at the world—excuse me, ma’am—or somethin’ that’s made him pretty careless. Had to talk to him a bit about that a few times already. But today he was just raving mad when he came to work, so when they told me he tripped and took a dive off the gantry I wadn’t too surprised.”

  “Oh God.” She hangs up the phone, puts her head down on her knees. Why would this happen now, just when she was repenting the Binky thing, just when Pete was looking good to her again? Was it because she was thinking about Wally right then? Is this some kind of punishment? Maybe this was a sign, a crossroad, a test.

  She feels flooded with sudden saintliness. Yes! That’s it. It’s a test of her good intentions, a test she could pass by sacrificing her own dreams and ambition. She would renounce her talent, abstain from dancing, become the ideal wife and mother. Mama Hansen, the warm, dependable mother of all mothers, would become her model of domesticity.

  LORENA’S BROUGHT BISCUITS to Pete in the hospital but he can’t eat them. It scares her the way he looks, flat on his back, head swathed in bandages, left arm in a cast, left leg hanging in a sling from wires attached overhead.

  She attempts cheerfulness. “Biscuits!” she chirps as she enters the room, Cassie following fearfully behind. He doesn’t answer. His right eye, the one not covered by a bandage, blinks like an owl’s, slow and wary.

  The room is still and hot. A faint breeze hovers around the wide-open window, its sash propped up with a stick, but goes no farther. The sheets on Pete’s bed are damp and rumpled. He lookslike an oversized child in the gray-striped hospital gown tied high up on his neck. Lorena fusses with the sheets, arranges them awkwardly around his raised leg in its cast.

  “Better?” she coos.

  His good eye narrows, its blue glittering iridescently beneath the lid like an insect hiding from a predator. “Whad do you care?” he says, the words slurring from whatever drug they pumped into him.

  She doesn’t know what to say. Now, she figures, is not the time to get defensive, especially with Cassie glaring at her from the end of Pete’s bed, caressing his foot that protrudes from the rumple of sheets.

  “Hey, Dad,” Cassie says, “the lookout toe is looking out.”

  His mouth twists into an attempted smile. He closes his eye.

  “Well,” Lorena says. “Well. Guess I’ll just put these biscuits right over here until you feel like a little snack. Okay?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Well.” She plunks the biscuits in their brown paper bag on the night table. Her hair is plastered to her neck and there’s a faint line of moisture above the painstakingly drawn cupid’s bow of her lips. She has dressed carefully for this visit, light summer print dress, spectator pumps that Delia says look smart. She wants to appear responsible. She wants Pete to trust her again.

  Cassie stares at the toes peering out of the cast swinging overhead. “All your toes are okay, right, Dad?”

  Pete nods, eye still closed. “Toes’re okay. Rest of me’s not.” He shifts a little, grimaces, gives a painful groan. “Woulda been better if I got killed.”

  Cassie’s stricken look is mirrored by Lorena. “No, no,” Lorena protests. “You’ll be home before you know it, good as new. It’ll be like nothing ever happened. I’ll take good care of you.”

  LORENA VISITS THE hospital every day, determinedly cheerful, brings baskets filled with biscuits, bologna sandwiches, Little

  Debbie Cakes. She even smuggles in some Ballantine as a peace offering.

  It’s a long two weeks, being home alone with Cassie. School dwindles down to its last, lazy days and then ends. Cassie leaves the house early and returns late, stays often as not for dinner at Molly’s. Both Cassie and Lorena avoid speaking of the Mailman Incident, although Cassie discovers she can alarm Lorena with the pointed use of certain words: Stamp. Envelope. Mail. Post office. She manages to invoke all of those words in one sentence by polishing off an entire jar of Ovaltine in two days in order to send off for a Captain Midnight Decoder Ring, thereby sending Lorena into a paroxysm of guilt by word association.

  She jumps each time she hears the door slot slap open, spew mail on the floor, then snap shut again. She pictures Binky on the other side. She runs to the window to catch him but he’s too quick, gone by the time she hears the mail come through. She knows Cassie hears it, too, so she tries to be nonchalant. Thumbs through the mail, leafs through The Saturday Evening Post, studies each page while Cassie studies her.

  Lorena senses that Cassie is up at night watching the test pattern, but there are more important things to worry about now. So what if Cassie’s like Lula? Lula never hurt anybody, lived a normal life, just had those little spells. Maybe people laughed at her, but it didn’t bother Lula. She and Rudy were happy, married a long time, one died right after the other, couldn’t live without each other. Goes to show, you can be crazy and happy, too.

  Now Pete is home. He hobbles on crutches and delicately lowers himself onto the couch Lorena has made up into a bed in the living room. This is where he’ll stay until he’s able to get up the stairs. They can start all over, like nothing ever happened. She’ll nurse him, she will, and he’ll be his old self again. No. Not his old self. He’ll be better. She’ll make him better. Then she will be better, too.

  To help him pass the time when there’s nothing on TV, Lorenabuys Pete a Revell hobby kit of the battleship Missouri. When she hands him the box, he sneers—"I build real ships, not models"— and the box sits by his bed for days. Well, there’s $1.98 down the drain, Lorena thinks, until one morning she comes downstairs to find Pete painfully gluing tiny turrets and minuscule guns to the gray plastic hull of the model.

  Pete concentrates, squinting as his good hand ekes a teardrop of glue from the tube onto the base of a delicate cannon or anchor, then, steadied by fingers that peek out from the cast on his injured arm, plants it precisely in place. The once-benign-looking ship grows into a prickly porcupine bristling with weapons aimed at an imaginary foe. When the battleship is complete, Pete places it next to his bed, where the light from the elephant lamp illuminates it like a hard-won trophy.

  MMMM MMM GOOD. Mmmm mmm good. That’s what Campbell’s soup is, mmmm mmm good. Lorena hums to herself as she prepares Pete’s lunch: chicken noodle soup. She heard it makes sick people well. She turns the key on the can opener. The Campbell Kids rotate slowly; the metal lid detaches jaggedly from the red-and-white can. She pours the golden goop into the white enamel pot, adds a can of water, ignites the gas flame with a whup, watches the pale noodles chase each other as she stirs the bubbly boiling soup.

  She sets the tray up proper: flowered dish for the biscuits, paper napkin, big spoon, bottle of Nehi orange. She ladles piping-hot soup into a big bowl, then carefully balances the tray as she glides into the living room. “Mmmm mmm good,” she sings as she sets the tray on the TV table next to Pete’s bed.

  “What’s that?” He makes a face.

  “Lunch.”

  “I know. But what’s that?”

  “Chicken soup.”

  “Soup? It must be a hund
red degrees in here. Are you crazy?”

  She isn’t going to let him get to her. She pushes her mouth up into a simper. “Oh, come on. I’ll feed you.”

  “I can feed myself.” He grabs at the bowl.

  “No, no, it’s easier if I do it.” She perches on the side of his bed, cradles the steaming soup bowl in one hand beneath his chin, scoops out a spoonful. “Yummy yummy for the tummy,” she says, holding it to his mouth. Pete presses his lips together like a stubborn kid.

  “Oh, come on,” she snaps as the soup dribbles from the spoon down his chin. She mops at it with the napkin, tries again, forces a smile. “Open wide.”

  He gives in, opens wide. “AAAA! HOT!” he yowls, spraying her with a mouthful of noodles.

  “Now look what you did.” She dabs at her dress with the napkin, plucks a squirming noodle from the sheet. Count to ten. Start again. “I’ll blow on it first.” She dips the spoon back into the bowl, daintily puffs on its surface.

  “I don’t want any—” he begins, edging away from her.

  SLAP. The mail slot opens and kshwssss regurgitates an avalanche of letters before smacking shut. Startled by the sound and a sudden vision of Binky on the other side of the door, Lorena leaps from her chair, catapulting the bowl of soup from her hands.

  “AIEEEE!” Pete screams as scalding chicken soup rains down on him like a monsoon from hell. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  Cassie stampedes down the stairs from her room. “What happened? What happened?”

  “Ice. I’ll get ice.” Lorena dashes into the kitchen and wrestles cubes from the ice tray into a bowl. She almost trips over Cassie, who is blocking her way back into the living room.

  “No!” Cassie yells. “Keep away from him. If you don’t, I’ll … I’ll call the police.”

  Lorena shoves her way past Cassie. Ignoring Pete’s protests, sherubs ice cubes over his burned face and arm, mashing noodles beneath the rapidly melting cubes in her frenzy.

  “Look what you did!” Pete pokes at the cast, which has turned to mush where the soup soaked in. The sheets are soggy with soup, sloppy with noodles, several of which are wiggling through Pete’s curly black hair. The room smells like chicken.

  Cassie watches the cleanup from the stairs, pressing her forehead against the banister railing until two vertical lines are imprinted on the skin. Lorena glances furtively at her as she helps Pete to a chair and changes the sheet on his bed. She doesn’t speak. Neither does Pete, aside from an occasional moan when he shifts his weight in the chair.

  He is shiny with the butter Lorena smears onto the burned areas, basting him like a turkey. His face gleams in the afternoon sunlight. Now and then he nods when Cassie asks at intervals, “You okay, Dad?” He doesn’t look at Lorena as she wipes up noodles from the rug on her hands and knees.

  The cleanup is complete. Pete is propped up on the couch, glaring at The Brighter Day, which Lorena has turned on despite his protests. She sticks a straw into a Ballantine and hands it to him, then clumps upstairs to fling herself on the bed.

  Suddenly overcome by an image of herself and Binky lying on this very spot in happier days—limbs entwined, bra unsnapped, stockings degartered and unrolled—Lorena breaks into sobs she muffles with her pillow. She tries to conjure up the comforting figure of Mama Hansen, but all she gets is a naked, hat-free Binky. Exhausted by the effort to think good thoughts, she gives in and allows Binky to dominate her fantasy. At its heaving, breathless conclusion, she falls into a deep and dreamless sleep. All this penance is wearing her out.

  23

  CASSIE

  MOM TRIED TO kill Dad. Death by soup. It’s like on test-pattern TV where people kill their husbands or wives so they can do sex with somebody else. I asked Molly if maybe I should warn Dad or tell the police even if it meant telling on my own mother. But Mr. Finkelstein heard me and said, “No, don’t do that. Accidents happen. If you say something, it’ll just upset your mom and dad.” I bet anything Mr. Finkelstein would feel different if I told him about the mailman thing. I bet he would help me rescue Dad.

  Maybe Mr. Finkelstein is right. Maybe Dad doesn’t need saving, maybe it was just an accident. Still, I can’t help myself, I have this weird feeling like something bad’s going to happen to him unless I do something. And then it would all be my fault.

  Sometimes I dream that I’m flying. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. People see me and say, “Look—up in the sky!

  It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Cassie Palmer.'” In my dream I have a cape and I fly around and rescue people.

  I don’t think you really need a cape to do that because Wonder Woman doesn’t have one, but she does have those big cuffs on her arms that bounce bullets off. I guess you have to wear something unusual like a cape or cuffs if you want to be a hero, or else you just look like anybody else. If you’re not dressed right, people might not let you save them.

  DAD’S LYING ON his bed in the living room, so we watch TV until he falls asleep. Usually that doesn’t happen until What’s My Line or Your Hit Parade, but tonight right in the middle of Our Miss Brooks, one of my favorite, favorite shows, I hear Dad snore.

  “Bedtime,” Mom announces.

  “Why? It’s summer.” I hear the kids outside playing hide-and-seek in the court, Ginny Sue squealing like she does when she gets caught. “Well, can I go out and play?”

  Mom looks down at her hands, studies them with this worried look like she just grew extra fingers. “I thought this might be a good time for a little mother-daughter chat.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and put on your jammies,” she says. Jammies? She hasn’t said “jammies” since I was six. “And then,” she adds, “we can get all cozy and talk.”

  Oh boy. I can’t wait. Mom’s idea of a cozy talk is like the time she handed me the book on menstruation, a box of Junior Kotex and what she called a sanitary belt, and said if I had any questions, just ask her. So I did. I held up the belt and asked, “How does this work?” and she said, “I’ll explain when you need it.” If it wasn’t for Molly, I’d still be waiting for an answer.

  So I go upstairs and put on my pajamas and brush my teeth and when I come out of the bathroom there’s Mom, sitting on the edge of my bed, studying those extra fingers again.

  She gives a little cough, like she’s going to give a speech. And then she does: “I just want you to know that things will be different from now on.” She doesn’t look at me, starts picking at a hangnail. “Sometimes people make mistakes. But that doesn’t mean they’re bad people. Or that they’re not sorry about what they did.”

  I don’t say anything. She goes on: “So what you have to do, when that happens, is kind of … forget the bad things and remember the good things. Forgive and forget. That’s what you have to do.” And then she looks at me, her eyes all fluttery and damp.

  Why doesn’t she just say it? Say, “I was doing sex with the mailman and you caught me and now I’m scared you’re going to tell.” I almost blurt that out, but then I think, What if she really means it? Maybe she’s not just faking. Maybe she really is sorry. Maybe all her taking care of Dad is for real and we can just go back to being a regular family. I almost forget what that was like, being regular, not thinking about stuff like mailmen and hospitals, just being like we were before, Mom and me talking without crying, and Dad when he used to laugh.

  So what I say is, “Well-l-l, okay. Long as you don’t try to hurt Dad again.”

  “What?” she squeaks.

  “Yeah. Don’t burn him with soup. Or think about other ways to get rid of him.”

  “Where did you get that from?” She’s standing up now, the old Mom again, frazzled as ever. “What gets into your head? I swear, you are just as crazy as Lula.” And she stomps back downstairs.

  I’m as crazy as Lula? How crazy is that? I don’t remember Aunt Lula, all I know is the stories about her, how she made up thin
gs, saw things that weren’t really there.

  Well, I’m not like Lula. I know the things I see are real.

  But then I wonder: Did Lula think so, too?

  * * *

  I WAKE UP with the moon in my face. It’s full and fat outside my window and lights up the whole outdoors. Long shadows stretch like goblin fingers over grass as white and silent as snow. It’s late, so late that the crickets have stopped singing.

  Mom’s asleep. Her door is closed. There’s no light underneath, so I know she’s not up. I slide off my bed and feel the cool wood floor under my feet as I tiptoe down the stairs, cringing at each creak.

  Dad is snoring away on his living-room bed. I turn on the test pattern but it doesn’t wake him up like I hope it will. If he wakes up, I’ll make him watch till he sees the shows I tried to tell him about. Then he’ll know that I’m not crazy like Lula.

  The test pattern is sharp and crisp in black-and-white, starts to spin like a pinwheel, and then, like always, it fades. The lines blur, it gets all fuzzy, and I get that tingly pins-and-needles feeling. I tried to explain the feeling once to Mr. Finkelstein but I couldn’t describe it. It’s like I know something is about to happen, something that I never saw before.

  Tonight what comes on is a foot. A foot in a boot, a fat, funny-looking boot stepping on ground that’s covered in powder. Then the man whose boot it is says, “That’s one small step for man,” only his steps aren’t little, they’re boingy giant steps, like he’s jumping on a trampoline. He’s dressed like a spaceman with a big bubble helmet, just like another man who climbs out the door of their rocket ship. They both boing around in this desert-looking place, then they stick a flag in it.

  I’ve seen lots of rocket ships on test-pattern TV. They’re much better than that dinky Polaris on Tom Corbett, Space Cadet on regular TV. The best is this neat rocket ship called the Enterprise, which has girl space cadets, too. One of the crew is from another planet. You can tell because he’s got pointy ears which the regular guys on the ship don’t even seem to notice.