Test Pattern

by Marjorie Klein

  He doesn’t say anything, just looks up and seems to study the stars. Then he says, “Yeah. Me, too. I’ve been thinking about that a lot.”

  WE HAD DINNER at Delia’s tonight. She’s been extra nice since Mom left, inviting us over, taking me shopping for school. At first Dad didn’t want to have anything to do with her, but the more we see Delia, the friendlier he gets. Tonight Delia made real fried chicken, not as good as Mom’s but not bad either. I brought the biscuits. I’ve gotten better at making them. They don’t look like hockey pucks anymore.

  Dad’s been different. Quiet—not the kind of quiet he was when Mom was here, that creepy kind of quiet like when the Lone Ranger and Tonto are clopping along the canyon and the bad guys are around the bend—but a thinking kind of quiet. We watch a lot of TV together. When he goes outside to look across the water at Norfolk, I know to leave him alone.

  Tonight when we got home from Delia’s, he asked me how I knew to take the BBs out of his gun. I knew he’d never believe me about the newsman on test-pattern TV, so I just told him that their fighting all the time scared me and I didn’t want a loaded gun around. He didn’t say anything for a minute, then reached out and hugged me hard against his chest. “It’s been real sad for you, hasn’t it?” he said, and I nodded yes. Then he kissed me on top of my head and for a minute it felt just like it used to before everything started getting weird.

  The other day he got a whole bunch of things together—old photographs of Mom and him, some letters, a bow tie with yellow dots Mom gave him for Christmas—mashed them into a grocery bag, stomped it flat with his foot, and threw it in the garbage can. When he went inside to watch TV, I fished out a couple of thephotographs that weren’t scrunched too bad and put them in my secret treasure box under my bed.

  Mom’s called a few times from New York. She says some guy named Wally is going to make her a star. Dad doesn’t talk to her but I feel like I should, since she’s my mother and all. Like Mr. Finkelstein says, you only get one mother in this lifetime, and she’s mine.

  So I listen and act like I believe her when she says she’ll be back to see me soon. The truth is I don’t care about her dancing thing, don’t care that she’s not with the mailman anymore, don’t care if she’ll be famous when she goes on Talent Scouts. All I know is that she’s with that Wally guy now, and I don’t even want to know what it is they’re doing.

  Tonight while Dad and I are outside, I hear the phone ring and it’s Mom calling to remind me to watch Talent Scouts at eight-thirty because she’s going to be a contestant. When I tell Dad, he says he never wants to see that show again in his entire life, that if I want to watch, go ahead, but he’s staying outside until it’s over. I decide to watch, not just because Mom wants me to, but because I can’t believe Arthur Godfrey would have somebody like Mom on his show.

  I go inside and turn on the TV. Arthur Godfrey introduces the first act, a juggler who’s great, and a singer who’s sort of good, and next thing I know, he’s saying, “So let’s have a big hand for this little lady: a bright new comedy dancer—Miss Lorena Palmer!”

  The curtain goes up and there she is posing in the spotlight, wearing those stupid red tap pants and a top hat on her Mr. Ralph curls. And then I hear it: WOOO-WOOO-O-O, like an arrow through my head. WOOO-WOOO-O-O.

  I put my hands over my ears but my eyes can’t stop watching. I can’t believe this is happening. I must be dreaming.

  But it’s not a dream.

  It’s a nightmare.

  36

  LORENA

  LORENA’S COSTUME ITCHES. The satin tap pants are caught in the crack of her butt. She extricates them with a flip of her thumb, scrunches the top hat more firmly atop her springy red curls. She can hear the studio audience applauding for the previous contestant on the other side of the curtain. The heavy velvet muffles the sound, reduces it to the staccato of a rainstorm.

  “Don’t be nervous, now,” whispers the Talent Scouts assistant, a motherly gray-haired woman who just a few moments ago retouched Lorena’s makeup, pressing on a new layer of powder with a gigantic puff.

  But Lorena isn’t nervous. She feels electrified, toes and fingers tingling with anticipation. Her time has come, ticking closer and closer to fame as she awaits her cue. Her gaze rises to the heaven of rafters that crisscross the backstage area, to the multiple curtains rigged to rise and fall on command, to the complexity oflights overhead awaiting the flick of a switch. Suspended in this moment between two worlds, she knows she is truly blessed.

  The curtain shudders and begins to rise. She hears her name spoken in the sleepy voice of Arthur Godfrey himself. She is prepared, poised in position, as the curtain ascends and disappears into the rafters. Momentarily blinded by a galaxy of lights, she recovers and instinctively turns toward the TV camera with a pert hip flip. The first note wails—WOOO-WOOO-O-O-O—and infuses her with energy. Bathed in the golden beam of the spotlight, she slides easily into the familiar routine, arms rotating chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga, feet accelerating into a blur of smacking, cracking, tapping rhythm.

  She feels the studio audience breathing like a great silent beast. The spotlight gilds her pale legs as, arms flailing, she tappety-taps across the stage. Propelled by the clackety-clack-of-the-railroad-track rhythm, she gains speed and momentum. She beams a red-lipped grin after a particularly inventive twirl punctuated by a big wink.

  She hears a ripple of—what? Applause? Giggles? After a hip-twisting series of moves she learned from Cassie, Lorena revs up for her finale, letting go with an abandon she’s never before experienced, legs loose as a puppet’s, head swinging gaily as the applause becomes a roar. Her top hat flies off as whomp she lands in a crotch-bruising split. Arms way up. Now big smile.

  The studio audience goes berserk, clapping, whistling, hooting with laughter. Arthur Godfrey applauds from the wings looking happily bemused, a living Howdy Doody. Lorena struggles to her feet and throws kisses like candy to her wildly adoring fans. Their love washes over her in escalating waves. Somehow, she always knew it would be this way.

  It’s like a dream. Not just any dream, but her dream. Now she understands its meaning—the dazzling lights, the black-glass sea, the babbling creatures in the darkness. They are the fans beyond the footlights, sensed more than seen. She hears their voices rise, not in speech but in laughter, hears their hands beat together in a frenzy of adoration. She needs no vocabulary to interpret that sound, for applause is the language of fame.

  37

  CASSIE

  IT’S WORSE THAN a nightmare. Nightmares are scary, but they don’t make you want to throw up. That’s how I feel now watching Mom on TV, like the Dinty Moore stew Dad fixed for dinner has changed its mind and is going up instead of down. The feeling started as soon as I heard that first WOOO, and just gets worse as I watch.

  And then I see Dad in the doorway. He’s come inside to see. His face is gray in the light from the screen, and his lips look sewn together. He’s staring at the TV screen as if it were John Cameron Swayze announcing the end of the world instead of Mom dancing in those silly shorts that show off her Jell-O butt.

  “What’s that thing she’s doing with her arms?” he asks. “She looks like a gorilla.”

  It looked neat when I saw those kids do it on that teenage dance show on the test pattern. But I don’t say that. I say, “I hope nobody is watching this.”

  “Everybody is watching this,” he moans. He plunks down on the couch. Mom’s doing the backward-forward step now, holding her top hat above her head and grinning like Charlie McCarthy. Dad’s face is scrunched up like he’s getting a shot but he can’t stop watching. “Where the hell did she get that from?”

  “From me,” I blurt out of guilt.

  “You?” He tears his eyes away from Mom and glares at me.

  “Yeah. I saw it on … on TV.” I feel rotten. “It looked a lot better when this guy did it. He—”

  “Oh, God,” he interrupts as Mom’s face fills the screen in close-up, so c
lose that all you see is her big wink and that stupid grin that shows all her teeth. She’s going into her finale. The camera moves back. She’s winking, she’s grinning, she’s flying across the stage. And then—oh no, please please please, don’t let anyone I know be watching—she flings herself into a split.

  "I don’t believe it,” Dad says. He looks as sick as I feel. “Those morons are actually applauding for her."

  I watch Mom throw kisses to the morons. And then I ask Dad, “Does this mean Mom is famous?”

  EVERY NOW AND then I get a postcard from Mom. After she won third prize on Talent Scouts, she tried out for the June Taylor dancers but didn’t make it. She says she’s working up some new routines and she’s practicing all the time, which I guess that Wally guy got tired of because she says she’s not with him anymore.

  Last time I got a postcard it was from Hollywood, California, a picture of Graumann’s Chinese Theater. Mom wrote that Hollywood was her destiny, her talent was meant for the big screen, not TV. That’s what Raoul, her new friend who’s going to be a movie star, told her. She met him at the restaurant where they both work, and she said that on their breaks they rehearse in the alley outside the kitchen. She says she’s ready to find an agent.

  Dad’s gone back to work at the shipyard. He works in an office now. He says it’s a better job, that he got a promotion and maybe next year he’ll get a raise. He had a talk with his boss and theyagreed that he shouldn’t work outside anymore, that he’s better suited to keep track of inside stuff, like who’s working where and things like that. If I call him at work, he answers the phone, “Personnel.” He sounds very important. He even wears a real hat to work.

  I think he sees Delia there. When we have dinner at her house, they talk about the same people. They go out, too. The other night they went to the Moose Ballroom to dance to the Rhythmairs. I have a feeling they smooched a little because Dad’s face was the color of Delia’s lipstick when he got home. It’s weird to think they might do that because I still think of Mom as my mom, but then I think if she weren’t, who would I want? I can’t have Mrs. Finkelstein because she’s already Molly’s mother, but Delia wouldn’t be so bad. She’s funny, she makes me laugh, and the best part is she makes Dad laugh, too. So I guess it doesn’t matter if they do a little smooching as long as they don’t do sex.

  Sixth grade’s okay, especially now that I’ve got a training bra, 28AAA. Delia and I went shopping for it at Nachman’s. She sat on the little bench in the dressing room while I tried on the bras and she didn’t even say, like Mom would have, “You don’t need a bra, there’s nothing there.” Instead, she picked out one with a little lace on it and said I looked va-va-voom.

  Molly’s mom got back from the writers'-colony place, and now she’s working on a book, all the time writing, writing. She reads me parts while Molly and I sit at their kitchen table eating the apple strudel Mr. Finkelstein likes to bake. I don’t understand what she’s written, but I like to listen to her words, how they go up and down and around like butterflies in your head.

  Mr. Finkelstein tells stories and jokes, and talks to me about all kinds of stuff. He says there are things in the world we may never understand, that there is mystery and magic in the universe. He says it’s good to wonder about things because wondering is the first step to discovery. And he’s helped me understand that Mom and Dad’s problems really weren’t my fault, and whatever happens now will be okay because I can make it be okay.

  He asks me what I think about all kinds of things, but he never asks about the test pattern anymore.

  I haven’t watched it since that time I saw the scary news on the test pattern about Mom and Dad and the gun. But tonight’s one of those nights when I can’t sleep. I’m staring at the ceiling wondering about stuff, not just about Mom, but things like If I could get a pet, would I get a chicken or a monkey, or If your toenails really grow after you die, do they put bigger shoes on you for your funeral?

  And then I start to wonder what I’d see if I turned on the test pattern just one more time.

  It’s a creepy thought, but it’s keeping me up. So, like I used to do, I tiptoe down the stairs and turn on the TV. There it is: giant’s eye, bull’s-eye, round and square at the same time. I hear its hum and wait for the tingling feeling to start pricking at my toes and fingers.

  I wait and wait. But nothing happens. No tingling, no spinning, no melting into a picture. Nothing is there but the test pattern.

  I feel suddenly free, like something dark and furry just left my head. I turn off the test pattern and open the front door. Out on the porch, the wind washes me clean and fresh and pure as Ivory Snow. Across the bay I see Norfolk, a zipper of light between the water and the sky.

  And I make a wish upon it as if it were a star.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful to many people for their help and support:

  Lynne Barrett and John DuFresne, for their inspiration and guidance.

  Aaron Priest, my agent and champion, for his belief in me.

  Betty Kelly, my editor, for her enthusiasm and wisdom.

  Frances Jalet-Miller, for her editorial insight.

  Lucy Childs, for her perception.

  Also, Norma Watkins and Meri-Jane Rochelson, for their reading of the early drafts and their encouragement.

  Melissa Simpson, library manager of the Newport News Daily Press.

  Barry Massin, the Wizard of Welding.

  Maddy Blais, for her good counsel.

  And of course, to Donny, Allison, and Ken.

  PRAISE FOR

  TEST PATTERN

  “Smart … inventive.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Inventive new meaning to the phrase ‘must-see TV.’”

  —Glamour

  “A fable worthy of The Twilight Zone.”

  —People

  “Klein’s book is more magical realism than science fiction. She expertly conjures the bittersweet story of a blue-collar family in distress, of lost dreams and a young girl’s coming-of-age. Test Pattern is a marvelous, clever, funny, and sad novel.”

  —Booklist

  “This surreal mid-century tale of a mom who feels like ‘Lucy gone bad’ and the family left in her wake entertains as surely as a parallel-universe episode of Ozzie and Harriet.”

  —Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Many novels reflect the pernicious influence of television on American society, but few openly acknowledge it. Marjorie Klein’s affecting debut, Test Pattern, goes a step further, using television’s harmful effects as her theme…. Klein’s more serious achievement, though, is in eliciting true pathos from [the] doomed parents and their ingenuously spiritual daughter, all of whom are painfully betrayed by the teasing promises of television fantasies.”

  —Baltimore Sun

  “Zingy and fun, the novel’s first half feels so familiar, like Nick at Nite reruns…. In the book’s second half, [Klein] breaks through the screen with a highly original conclusion. Humor turns to near tragedy. An undercurrent of disappointment and pain gives depth to the characters, and they surprise us. Klein creates a complex connection between cultural history and individual experience. Ultimately, Test Pattern poses serious questions about how television gives people both the strength to persist and the power to change.”

  —Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  “At times, Test Pattern is a light and nostalgic reminder of an earlier era, like a sweet and silly episode of I Love Lucy. You’ll nod and chuckle in recognition. And just below the surface in Miami, writer Marjorie Klein’s imaginative debut novel is also a darker reality: a 1950s family at the brink of ruin. Test Pattern proves Klein’s promise as a novelist and showcases her considerable talent…. Her descriptions are deliciously detailed; her dialogue is energetic and credible.”

  — Chicago Tribune

  “Quirky and fresh, Marjorie Klein is the most original new voice since Kurt Vonnegut. She tells it like it really was in the so-called Happy Days of
the 1950s—and gives us a window into the flip side of Ozzie and Harriet.”

  —IRIS RAINER DART, author of

  When I Fall in Love and Beaches

  “What’s most striking is the author’s voice, which ranges from fresh to knowing, uproarious to poignant, sometimes within a single breathtaking sentence. With her hit-and-run prophecies, eleven-year-old Cassandra Palmer is both the kid next door and a force to reckon with. Ditch your clicker and tune in; Test Pattern is one channel you won’t want to change.”

  —MADELEINE BLAIS, author of

  In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle and

  John Katzenbach, author of Hart’s War

  “Marjorie Klein looks at the same world as we all do, but she sees something completely different. Something strange and wonderful. Sit back, strap on your seat belt, grab hold of this book with both hands— you’re about to take the wildest ride in the amusement park. Marjorie Klein is a brave new voice in American fiction and Test Pattern is an exhilarating blast, a stunning debut novel.”

  —John Dufresne, author of Love Warps the Mind a Little

  “Marjorie Klein’s Test Pattern is a witty fable on the lure of television in its early days. With sharp, clear prose, Klein tells the compelling story of the Palmer household, where the television is less a piece of furniture than a character, with the uncanny power to reflect a daughter’s foresight and a mother’s dreams.”

  —RENE STEINKE, author of The Fires

  Copyright

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2000 by William Morrow and Company, Inc.