Like eating, wearing clothes was mostly a question of necessity; it didn’t matter if you liked a particular blouse or pair of pants. What mattered was whether or not it was your turn to wear them. Lily was slightly small for her age, shorter in stature like her father’s side of the family. As soon as Iris grew out of an article of clothing, it found its way to Lily. Except for items that became permanently soiled or damaged beyond repair, every piece of girls clothing eventually became Lily’s, but rarely at a time when her size could adequately accommodate it, and usually years after it had gone out of style. If only they had been born in a different order – maybe then things would have fit better. With her shirtsleeves hanging down over her hands, and the baggy legs of her corduroy pants making a zip-zip sound as they brushed back and forth against each other, Lily followed Iris out to the garage.
“Let’s skedaddle and get this over with,” said Iris, using an Auntie Rosa word. “Daddy has to cut the grass first thing in the morning.” She handed Lily a bushel basket.
The fallen apples were always crawling with ants and other such detestable and creepy critters. Lily hated bugs, and she gagged at the slime and ooze that rotten apples became. The thick stench of rotting fruit flesh made her queasy. It was hard to imagine that these apples had ever been shiny, red, and firm – full of life and flavor. The only way Lily could manage to pick them up without getting disgusted was to never look directly at them – the way they were told not to look directly at the sun during the eclipse. Admittedly, this was difficult to do, if only because of the temptation to explore and challenge what was taboo. However, in both cases Lily managed to resist. A peek at the eclipse just wasn’t worth going blind over. And once you got the image of a worm-infested apple in your mind, it could take days before you would forget, and even then, you could be enjoying yourself on the swings, or watching TV before dinner, and that image could just barge right in and take over your whole brain. So Lily learned to pick up the apples using her peripheral vision. They were easy to spot in the green grass, and when you saw one out of the corner of your eye, you could stoop down and scoop it up, without ever having to look right at it, thereby avoiding all of the gross possibilities that entailed.
Bolstered by the knowledge that tomorrow was Pay Day, and fueled by her desire for her very own penny candies, Lily trailed around the yard behind Iris, scanning the edges of her scope of vision and retrieving apples from their grassy graves, all the while looking up at the sky or into the neighbor’s yard.
“Lily – you missed one, over there.” Iris warned, pointing. “And another one over there. You know what will happen if Daddy runs them over.”
“I’m getting them,” said Lily, not entirely sure if she was or not. As they roamed, Lily’s pant cuffs became unfurled and dragged along in the dewy grass. They worked in silence for several minutes, with Lily unconsciously following a route that kept her within a few feet of her sister at all times.
“Iris,” Lily asked, “you know that song about ‘the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out?’”
“The worms play pea-knuckles up your snout!” Iris sang in reply.
“Is that really true? When you die, do you have worms go up your nose like that?”
“No, silly – they put you inside a special big box. How can worms get in a box?”
Lily was relieved about the worms, but now concerned about the box.
“What kind of a box? Like one of those big refrigerator boxes?” Those were fun – good for playing fort or house.
“Well,” explained Iris, “Auntie Rosa has a picture of her little sister Teresa who died, and she is lying in this big box that looks like a fancy bed, and she has on a brand new beautiful dress that Grandma made, with a big bow in her hair.”
Lily hiked up her right pant leg to pull it out from underfoot, and bent down to grab another apple. She liked the idea of wearing a pretty dress, but it seemed a shame to put a new dress in a box and bury it in the ground.
“How did she die?
“They were taking a shortcut home from school and she fell into the canal and drownded.” Iris tossed an apple into her basket, then ran the palm of her hand up and down along her thigh.
“Why didn’t she hang onto the side, like we have to do when we go to family swim?” Lily asked.
“Auntie Rosa says her shoes got stuck in the mud at the bottom, and she couldn’t get out.”
Lily stopped, and with irritation she said, “Well why didn’t Daddy jump in and save her?”
“Silly, Daddy was still a little boy. He wasn’t even there because he was too little to even go to school.” Iris checked the sole of her bare foot, then wiped it on the cool wet grass. She added, “He was even smaller than you!”
Lily couldn’t imagine her father as a child – she pictured him with the same hairy forearms, running around the house in his white boxer shorts and sleeveless ribbed white undershirt, with a Parliament hanging out of the corner of his mouth, only he was very short. The image made her laugh.
“C’mon, lazybones,” Iris teased. “Get moving – we gotta finish this before it gets dark.”
The sun had set, September had cooled the evening air, and the smell of rotted apples rose up from the basket and filled Lily’s head. She bent over and scooped up a round red object off to her right, but as soon as she got it into her hand, she knew from its weight and texture that it was not an apple. Instinctively, she looked down and was horrified to discover she was holding a dead robin, whose head was almost completely severed and covered with squirming white maggots. Lily screamed and threw the dead bird up into the air, dropping her basket, and spilling all of the collected apples back onto the ground. Frantically, she danced around the yard, shouting out, “It’s a birdie – it’s a dead birdie!”
“Where?” asked Iris, surveying the area.
“I don’t know – I threw it,” Lily cried, jumping up and down. “But I picked it up in my hand and his head was coming off!” The gruesome image now firmly planted in her mind, and the rotted apples spread all around her, a wave of nausea came over Lily, and she vomited in the grass.
Lily’s mother opened the door to the back porch, and stuck her head out. “What in heaven’s name is going on out there?”
“Lily puked,” said Iris, matter-of-factly.
“Come on inside, Lily. Iris, you too – it’s nearly dark.” Lily’s mother disappeared from the doorway.
“I’m almost done, Mom,” called Iris. Turning to Lily she said, “You go inside, Lily. I’ll be right there. If we don’t finish, we might not get allowance.”
“OK,” said Lily. “But I’m gonna wait for you, OK?” She walked over to the back door, slipped into the porch, and stood looking out the window. Iris continued to scan the yard, looking just like the ballerina inside Jasmine’s wind-up jewelry box. When she bent forward, she would raise one leg up behind her and Lily imagined her wearing one of those pink cotton candy skirts, leaping across the yard, spinning and twirling as she collected apples and placed them gently into the bushel. She was graceful; that’s what Auntie Rosa called it.
Iris disappeared into the garage, emerging a minute later with a garden shovel in one hand and a flap torn from a cardboard box in the other. She walked to a spot on the ground, and using the shovel, she pushed the dead bird onto the cardboard. She squatted under the apple tree, dug a hole in the dirt, placed the bird into it, and then covered it up again, patting the loose dirt back into place. Lily’s nose was pressed against the porch window, and her breath steamed up the glass. She used her shirtsleeve to wipe a spot clean and saw Iris on her knees, making the sign of the cross.
Lily whispered along, “In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost Amen.”
As Iris hauled the bushels to the garage, Lily arranged all the shoes neatly on the mat, and then held the back door open for her sister.
“It’s late, girls.” Lily’s mother was bent over the dishwasher, her head enveloped in a cloud of steam that
filled the kitchen with the smell of melted plastic. “Better get in the tub.”
“OK, Mom,” said Iris, taking Lily’s hand. Together they sneaked around behind their mother, and Iris snatched the dishwashing liquid from the kitchen sink as they passed by. She shot Lily a smile. “Bubble bath,” she whispered.
The girls climbed the stairs, hand in hand. “I’ll run the water, Lily. You go get two towels.”
Lily retrieved two towels from the hall closet, and then knocked on the bathroom door, using the secret code they had devised. Knock. Knock-knock. Knock.
“Who is it?” asked Iris.
“I-r-i-i-is…” said Lily. “It’s me.”
Iris unlocked the bathroom door and let Lily inside.
“I used the secret code – why didn’t you let me in?”
“You did it wrong. It’s like this.” Iris demonstrated the code. Knock. Knock-knock-knock. Knock.
“Oh, man,” said Lily, stomping her foot. “I always get it wrong!”
Iris reached over Lily’s head and re-locked the door. Taking the towels, she draped them over the rack and said, “OK – let’s get in before the water gets cold.”
Iris and Lily shed their clothes, Iris stacking hers neatly in the corner. Lily let hers drop to the floor and simply stepped out of them, leaving them in a pile. They climbed in, exclaiming “ooohs” and “ows” as they lowered their small bodies down into the tub brimming with hot water and mounds of dishwashing soap bubbles. Disappearing into all that white foam was Lily’s favorite part of the bath. She gathered piles of it around her like a soft fluffy blanket, then scooped it up into her hands, examining the way the bubbles sparkled blue and pink, like each tiny dome might burst and reveal a precious gem. Of course, when bubbles popped, there was nothing there; they were just gone - which is why bubble baths sometimes made Lily sad. She couldn’t understand why something so magical had to fade so quickly.
Within moments, the girls’ cheeks were flushed and their faces were beaded with perspiration. Iris scooped up a mound of bubbles with both hands and placed them along her jaw line.
“Look at me, Lily. I’m an old man.”
“Look at me, look at me,” said Lily with a giggle. “I’m a princess!” She placed a pile of bubbles atop her head.
“That’s not a princess, silly. That’s a snowman!”
“Ho, ho, ho!” Lily bellowed heartily.
“You’re a snowman, not Santa Claus!” Iris laughed.
“Ho, ho ho – I’m Santa-man!” Lily thrust a clenched fist into the air.
Iris placed a generous handful of bubbles over each nipple. “Look - I’m Auntie Rosa!”
They played and laughed and splashed until the bubbles dissipated and the water turned cold and dingy.
“I’m fr-fr-freezing!” chattered Lily, standing up. Iris stepped out of the tub, grabbed a towel from the rack, and draped it around her little sister’s shoulders.
“Here, dry off,” said Iris, wrapping herself in the other towel. “And let’s go put our pajamas on.”
The girls cinched their towels around their chests, gathered up their dirty clothes, and padded down the hallway, leaving a puddle on the bathroom floor, and a ring in the tub.
The cool breeze that came in through the bedroom window carried the distant moan of the Coldwater Road train. Lily and Iris nestled up against each other under the threadbare white cotton bedspread. The muffled voices from the television in the living room below lulled Lily, but just as she was drifting off to sleep, the image of the dead robin assaulted her imagination, and she startled.
“Whatsa matter?” Iris whispered.
“I keep thinking about that birdie,” said Lily. “How did his head come off?”
“I bet Skipper did it.”
“I hate that Skipper! Why did Jasmine get a kitty that kills birdies?”
“That’s just what cats do - they like to catch birds and play with them.”
“Do you think that birdie will go straight to Heaven right away, Iris?”
“Prob’ly,” said Iris. “He can fly right up there.”
“Not if he’s dead, though. And not if you buried him in the ground.”
“Well,” said Iris, “Maybe a fairy will come, and fly him away. She will wave her magic wand, and flap her golden wings, and that little birdie will just come right up out of the ground.”
Lily smiled. “Will he be singing?”
“Oh, yes,” Iris answered. “He will be singing that val-da-ri song: ‘I love to go a-wandering, along the mountain track…’ ”
Lily closed her eyes and slipped her thumb into her mouth. Iris pulled it back out again, and continued. “… and as I go, I love to sing, my knapsack on my back.”
With a sleepy voice, Lily joined in and they sang quietly together. “Val-de-ri, val-der-a, val-de-ri, val-der-ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha….” Iris’ eyelids lowered as her voice trailed off. Lily slipped her thumb back into her mouth, and began to snore, and the sisters drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.
The late summer sun blared in through the bedroom window, and the girls were shaken awake by the unmistakable cha-chung of the lawnmower blades hitting and spewing apples, followed by a resounding, “Jeepers Crrr-ipes!”
“Oh, no!” said Lily, covering her head with the bedspread.
“I told you you missed some,” said Iris, pulling on a pair of jeans under her nightgown.
“I hope he doesn’t run over the puke!”
The lawnmower engine ceased, and Lily’s father called out, “Whose turn was it to pick up the apples last night?”
Any question in the Capotosti house that started with “Whose turn was it….” usually ended with someone getting into some serious trouble either for neglecting their duties, or for executing them improperly. “Whose turn was it…” was never followed with a compliment or a reward. It was a phrase that rendered all of the children deaf, mute, and entirely ignorant of whose turn it actually was. If you could hold out from confessing – in spite of the propaganda that doing so provided a measure of virtue - it was possible to avoid the issue altogether because when it came to the chores, an unspoken code of silence among the children all but guaranteed that you would not be tattled on.
Lily looked out the bedroom window into the front yard to see her mother come into view and hand her father a glass of water.
“What does it matter now, Carlo?”
“These kids need to understand how to do a job properly, Betty. If I was going to just run over all the apples, making this God-awful mess all over the place, I wouldn’t even bother having them pick up in the first place.” With several deep, long gulps, he drained the glass and gave it back to his wife.
“I’m sure they do their best, Carlo – they’re just children, after all.”
“Well what good does it do to give them a chore if they only cause me more work in the long run?” Without waiting for an answer, Carlo pulled the cord to restart the mower; without attempting to provide an answer, Lily’s mother turned and walked away.
“Ask him,” Lily prodded Iris.
“No – you ask him,” Iris replied.
The girls sat on the forest green loveseat in the living room, anxious for their father to emerge from the bedroom and pass out allowances. They had waited, squirming, as he finished cutting the grass, and then sat watching as he walked back and forth through the living room, which separated his bedroom from the first-floor bathroom where he showered. The first time through, he walked into the bedroom and emerged in his boxer shorts and sweaty ribbed white undershirt, soiled grass-cutting clothes in hand. The next time they saw him, he was fresh out of the shower, wearing nothing but a white towel about his waist. When he emerged from the bedroom again, he had on fresh white boxers and a clean undershirt, and was carrying his wet towel. As though he were the ball in a ping-pong tournament, Iris and Lily followed his every move, anticipating how many bounces it would take before he landed.
They sat and listened to the buzz of
his electric razor, the repeated sliding and slamming of the mirrored doors of the medicine chest, the clinking of nail clippers, nail file, and combs as he retrieved them from the cabinet and then tossed them back in again. The girls knew the routine; their father got ready for work every morning while they sat and had their cereal, watching him in the bathroom from the kitchen table. Soon the ritual would be complete.
Each time their father passed by, he glanced at his daughters sitting there waiting, swinging their legs nervously, kicking the loveseat with the backs of their heels. He never gave a hint as to whether he knew what they were waiting for, and if he knew, he made no attempt whatsoever at easing their anxieties. As it grew closer to allowance time, more children gathered around. Like soldiers in the rations line hungry for their allotment, they awaited the nickels they’d earned, which each would convert to some form of freedom, pleasure, or power.
“No – you ask him; he likes you better,” Lily insisted.
Iris didn’t argue. “Daddy –” she quietly called.
“Yes,” he sang from inside the bedroom.
“Are we getting allowance today?”
Their father didn’t reply, and the children sat and stared at each other, shrugging, leaning forward to try and gain a view into the next room, to get a hint of what was going on in there, the most mysterious and fearsome room in the house. Going into their parents’ bedroom was a mission for the intrepid – one that you did not undertake unless you absolutely had to, such as if you were deathly ill in the night, or if you needed milk money for school in the morning.
Part of the danger of entering the bedroom was that their father slept in nothing but a pajama top, and he was not the sort of a man who liked to nestle beneath the covers. If you had to go into the room, and if he happened to be in bed, regardless of whether he was facing the door or facing away from it, you were sure to get an eyeful of exposed body parts in all their glory, covered with a thick coat of black hair. Even if you knew he wasn’t in there sleeping, since every child had the experience at some point of walking in and seeing their father al fresco, the emotional experience stayed with you, and accompanied you every subsequent time you approached the door – the way even a huge and fierce dog will cower at the sight of a rolled up newspaper if you intimidate it enough with one when it is a puppy.
The Complete Series Page 16
