Becoming Mona Lisa

by Holden Robinson

  “How so?” I asked, genuinely interested.

  “I deserve better. More. I want to teach. I want to do something with my life, something I'm proud of. No one would be proud to drive that, and while there's no shame in selling cars, I want something more out of life. I used to be afraid to say that, to even think it. I'm not afraid anymore.”

  “I want more, too,” I said.

  “What do you want, Mona?” Tom asked, and I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him.

  “I don't know exactly, but I've learned a lot these past two weeks, maybe more than I've learned in all the years leading up to them. I'd like to share what I've learned. I feel important now, like I matter, like I'm beginning to figure out who I am. Maybe I could help other women to do the same.”

  “You want to do that, honey?” Tom asked with a gentle smile.

  “I do. I didn't even know how much I wanted that until I said it out loud.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I don't have a freakin' clue right now, but I will. I think I was born to do this.”

  “You're amazing, Mona. I hope you know that,” he said, and I swallowed hard.

  He stood amongst shards of light cast by the late afternoon sun. The tiny prisms danced across the hardwood floor, and I was momentarily mesmerized, until a crow flew past, interrupting the stream of light.

  “You know what else would make me happy? Escalated, wanting to dance buck-naked, under-the-moonlight, happy?” I said.

  “What's that, babe?” he asked, and although he sounded riveted, I could tell by his eyes, he was picturing me naked.

  “I'd like to look outside and not see any crows.”

  “It's funny you should mention that,” Tom said. “Did you notice that box in the foyer?” I shook my head. “Ray Cunningham dropped it off this afternoon. I talked to him this morning, basically to vent about not getting the CD yet. He'd forgotten he had this thing. He says it worked for his son.”

  “What is it?” I asked, as I followed him down the hall.

  “It's in the shape of an owl, but it emits a high pitched noise that sounds like –”

  “Celine Dion?” I interrupted.

  Tom laughed and swatted my butt. “No, a predator. Crows are supposed to be scared off by it.”

  “They were supposed to be scared off by the scarecrows, too,” I reminded Tom.

  “Yeah, well, I think we blew it with them the first time by letting my brother set up Diana Ross and the Supremes out there.” I chuckled. “Where is he, by the way? His flight landed this morning.”

  “He's already been here. I was cleaning out the cupboards this morning when he got here. Once I'd unloaded all the dishes, Robbie noticed the cabinets looked rotted. He said it won't add much to the budget,” I lied, and Tom looked like he totally bought it.

  “I say let's do it right. Then if we have to sell the house, it will increase the value,” he remarked.

  “We're selling?”

  “Maybe we could rent the house, just until Thurman dies,” Tom said, and I laughed. “Do you think you could talk to Ed Mulpepper once this crow business is over?”

  “About what?” I said, as we stood in the kitchen.

  “Ask him if we can shoot Thurman if he's on our property.”

  “Seriously?” I asked, as my entire body tensed. Tom stood at the counter, holding a half-empty bottle of wine, and he looked at me with a strange expression.

  “Of course not, Mona. I'd just like to know if there's some mediation process, or something, designed for 'neighbors from hell,'” he explained, and the muscles of my body relaxed in such a rush I felt like I'd been tasered. I took two glasses from the Fangerhouse box closest to the sink, and handed them to Tom. He poured a small amount of wine into each glass and handed one to me, which I took.

  “I'd like to propose a toast to my liberation,” Tom said, raising his glass.

  “Okay, but I'm only drinking on special occasions after this,” I said with absolutely no conviction.

  “I'd say this is a special occasion,” Tom said, as he lifted the glass to his lips. “So, Mrs. Siggs, anything you'd like to do to celebrate this particularly special occasion?”

  I felt heat in my lower extremities. I smiled, which was all the answer my husband needed.

  We started making out, and Tom helped me out of my sweater. His lips found my neck and I pressed myself harder against him, forcing him against the wall. His elbow went right through, but this didn't stop us. Our libidos were at full sizzle when the phone rang.

  Tom answered it.

  “Hello,” he said, in a high pitched voice, because I'd grabbed for the family jewels. He kissed me again with the phone to his ear. “Sure thing.” He disconnected.

  “Who was that?” I asked. I was fired up and ready to roll, and I could see smoke rising from my jeans.

  “Robbie. He said we need to take the turkey out of the oven.”

  “Shit,” I mumbled. “I forgot about that.”

  I swung my sweater around like a stripper, as Tom put on some sexy, flowered oven mitts, and proceeded to remove our dinner from the antique oven. He carefully balanced the bird and carried it to the table which, in the kitchen's state of demolition, afforded the only flat surface. “Doesn't feel warm,” Tom said, and I felt my heart sink.

  He lifted the lid so slowly, I wondered if he was afraid the turkey might jump out at him. “It looks okay,” he said.

  I pulled my sweater back on and went to check out the bird. “It's not done, Tom,” I said, poking it with my finger.

  “It looks all right.”

  “It's raw. If we eat this, we'll die.”

  “Oh. Let's not then,” my husband said. “I wonder what's wrong with the oven.”

  “Seriously?”

  It should have been obvious what was wrong with the oven. It was fifty or sixty years old, and had probably died from neglect. I grimaced as Tom began fiddling with something behind the oven.

  “I don't think you should be touching that,” I warned, and he looked at me.

  “Why?”

  “Because you're you, Tom,” I said, and he made a face at me, and returned to his tinkering.

  “I think I fixed it,” he said, and I felt the early warning system go off in my colon.

  “I don't imagine you did,” I said.

  “I'm serious. Something was disconnected, and I put it back together. I bet it will light now. Watch.”

  To my dismay, I did. He lit a match, and I started mumbling. “The Lord is my shepherd.........”

  “Have a little faith,” he said, as he held the match to the magic hole.

  BOOM!

  The kitchen exploded.

  Once I got my wits about me, I realized there was smoke, but no fire. There was also no oven. The appliance had vanished. So had my husband. “Tom?” I yelled.

  “Come here!” he shouted back. “You gotta see this. You're not gonna believe this, Mona!”

  I hated when he said that, and whatever I was going to see, I knew it would mean more anguish for us. No doubt about it, not when you were a Siggs.

  I found Tom on the porch, wearing a look of sheer astonishment. “The oven's in the tree,” he explained, and I gasped.

  “What the.....?” I asked, leaving out the last part. I was too darned stressed to be inserting code words. It was easier to let the sentence trail off into a profane oblivion.

  Sure enough, the Magic Chef was in the pine tree closest to the road. The oven was mostly concealed by thick branches, and was barely noticeable, unless you were looking for it, because yours was missing. Wood started to snap and crackle, and I could see the appliance losing its grip. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, so I did neither. I just stood there, jaw slack, imaging the outcome of this latest cluster........

  “How did it get into the tree?” I asked, after standing there for several minutes. It was something I should have asked immediately, but I needed some time to reboot my brain.


  “Flew right through the roof,” Tom said, and I groaned. Robbie was going to kill us.

  As if on cue, Robbie rounded the corner in his Dodge Ram, just as the branches supporting Aunt Ida's Magic Chef gave way.

  Only a Siggs could be killed by a falling oven.

  “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” I began praying.

  Robbie stopped the truck just before the Magic Chef plummeted. It landed in the middle of the road and literally exploded, sending small bits of oven far and wide, and missing Robbie's truck by mere inches.

  “Robbie!” Tom yelled, as he took off like a bat out of hell off the porch.

  “What the hell happened?” Robbie asked, once he'd parked the truck in the presumed safety of our driveway.

  “My car!” I wailed, suddenly reminded of my new Toyota.

  “Oh shit!” Tom yelled. The three of us made the sad journey to where I'd left my new SUV. Miraculously, there wasn't a mark on it. It sat gleaming, surrounded by pieces of oven.

  “Thurman's mailbox,” Tom groaned. Sure enough, for the second time in as many weeks, we'd committed felony mailbox destruction.

  Robbie reached into his back pocket, withdrew his wallet, pulled out his Lowe's credit card, and forced it into my hand.

  “You guys go get something for dinner, and get a mailbox. I'm gonna load the oven into my truck and patch the roof. Pippin doesn't appear to be home, so maybe we can fix all this and he won't be the wiser. If he gets back before you do, I'll tell him I did it, and I intend to fix it.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said. Tom ran into the house, returned with my purse, and we climbed into my Toyota and sped away from the scene of the crime.

  We were back in less than thirty minutes with one large pizza and two mailboxes.

  Robbie was on the roof.

  “Why'd you get two?” Robbie yelled. “Were they on sale?”

  “Emergency preparedness,” I said, and Robbie smiled.

  Tom unwrapped the first mailbox, and I groaned. “The old one was gray. These are both black,” I pointed out, and Tom threw me a look that shut me up immediately.

  “Robbie! Come set this up!” Tom begged, and his brother descended the roof by way of the ladder.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the house, and Robbie surveyed the damage in the kitchen which, surprisingly, was minimal.

  “This is an absolute miracle. The entire house should have exploded. I have no idea why it didn't. This can't be explained, it defies logic,” Robbie rambled.

  “Welcome to Siggs Central,” I mumbled. “Everything defies logic here.”

  Tom and I each stared at a slice of pizza. Neither of us had an appetite, which concerned me. If we passed on Joe's pizza, we were at death's door.

  “You guys should be dead,” Robbie said, which seemed a logical explanation for why we had no appetite. Maybe we were dead.

  I pinched Tom. “Ow! Jeez, Mona. What the hell?” he whined.

  “Just checking to see if we're dead,” I explained.

  He flicked me, and I winced. “Did you feel that?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I guess we're not dead.”

  “Look, guys,” Robbie said, stepping in as mediator. “This is nobody's fault. The stove was ancient, and it's a wonder it didn't burn this whole place down a long time ago. I'll check with Lowe's tomorrow, and we'll bump up the delivery of the new appliances. In the meantime, one of you should call the gas company and see when they can come out to do an inspection. If the hookup's faulty, something like this could happen again, and next time you're not likely to be so lucky.”

  Lucky?

  I just looked at Robbie. “I'll call,” I offered, as Tom and I resumed our staring contest with our dinner.

  Robbie begged off to get ready to go out, and I loaded the pizza into the fridge, while Tom opened the bottle of wine his brother had bought for our celebration. I knew it was a bad idea to drink on an empty stomach, but I needed to be medicated if I had any hope of surviving the night.

  I suggested Robbie take my SUV, so he didn't have to drive around with a truck bed full of oven parts, but mainly because I figured my new Toyota was safer if it wasn't near the house.

  Once Robbie was gone, Tom and I settled down to watch a movie, with the kittens snuggled between us. Halfway into the film, things got steamy on screen. I glanced at my husband, and sure enough, he had the look.

  “Seriously?” I asked, and he nodded. “I'll be right back.”

  I rifled through my bedroom for a couple minutes, and finally found what I was seeking. The teddy was thrown on a chair in the corner, and I shed my clothes and stepped into it.

  “I'll light some candles,” Tom called from the living room, and I froze.

  “No, Tom! Whatever you do, do NOT light a match,” I warned. “Tom?”

  Nothing.

  “Now, what the hell is he up to?” I mumbled, as I made my way back to the living room. Tom was not where I'd left him. I had donned the itchy teddy, and my husband had ditched me? “Shithead.”

  The living room was dimly lit, and thankfully, none of the candles were burning. I wrapped myself in one of the throws, walked to the window, peeked through the blinds, and saw my half-naked husband carrying the owl. Now, in anyone else's life, this might have been weird. In mine, not so much.

  Tom set the owl in the middle of the lawn. I waved at him from the window, and he did a little dance for me. The lights were off next door, and I wondered where Thurman was.

  As long as he wasn't seeing my husband dance around in his undies, all was well.

  I met Tom at the door. Things heated up pretty quickly, and he whipped the throw off me with such enthusiasm, it's a wonder I didn't spin out like a little kid's top. We collapsed onto the rug, and rolled around enthusiastically for a long time. Tom was getting some serious rug burn, and the teddy was giving off friction sparks, which I prayed wouldn't ignite anything.

  I laid beside my husband, and inhaled sharply as he gently removed the teddy. Just as I was about to achieve maximum satisfaction, compliments of Tom's lower extremities, something hit the window. “Jesus,” Tom said, from just above me.

  “Ignore it,” I begged. He didn't. “Tom, just ignore it.” He pulled on his boxers and stormed out the front door. I wrapped myself in the throw, and shuffled to the foyer on weak knees. “Dammit,” I whispered.

  Over the persistent yipping of Thurman's chihuahua, I heard the screaming of the birds. I couldn't see Tom, although I imagined he was wandering through the firestorm dressed only in his underwear. Then I saw him, lit by a handsome harvest moon. He emerged from the garage, carrying a large baseball bat. His expression frightened me.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled from the porch.

  “That damn thing doesn't work. You think I can't fix anything? WATCH ME!” He screamed over the fever pitch of sound, and began striking the owl with the bat.

  What the hell is he doing?

  I ran to the kitchen to get my cell phone, but I had no idea who to call. Who could help my crazy husband? Then I saw a familiar business card stuck to the front of the refrigerator.

  Burt's Bat Removal.

  “Wrong kind of bat,” I whispered.

  I returned to the foyer, and things hadn't improved in the yard. Tom was striking the owl with all the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old boy accosting a candy-filled pinata. I picked up the box the owl had been delivered in, and something jumped out at me. In small letters on the lower left hand side, was clearly printed: Requires 4 D size batteries, not included.

  “Sonovabitch,” I whispered.

  By this time, Tom was in a frenzy, whacking the owl for all he was worth. I could hear sirens in the distance, and my body chilled, and not just because I was naked under the throw. I ran like hell for my bedroom. Whatever happened, I wanted to be dressed when it did. I flung the throw, grabbed my jeans and sweatshirt, dressed as I stumbled back down the hall, and stepped onto the porch just as the cops were arriving.


  “This is the police. Drop your weapon, sir!”

  Now where had I heard that before?

  “Sir, owls are a protected species. Please step away from the owl and drop your weapon!”

  Was he freakin' kidding? The damn thing wasn't real, which should have been evident from a mile away.

  “Sir, I do not want to shoot you, but I will if you don't drop your weapon. DROP YOUR WEAPON, SIR!”

  What the fuck? “The owl is plastic for God's sake!” I screamed from the porch, and Deputy Ed Mulpepper turned to look at me.

  “Hey, Mona,” Ed said, as if we'd just seen each other at a party. I just stared at the guy. Was he going to shoot my Tom or not?

  “Tom! Put the bat down, or you're going to get shot!” I screamed.

  Finally, Tom did. He threw the bat on the ground, and collapsed to his knees. Deputy Ed Mulpepper and company closed in on him as if he'd just robbed the Bucks County Savings and Loan!

  I ran like hell, and as I did, I saw Thurman from the corner of my eye. He stood under his porch light, smiling like the devil himself.

  Somebody better dispose of that bat before I use it!

  I arrived at my husband's side, and he was kneeling on the ground, surrounded by cops. “Tom? What the hell are you doing?” I asked, and he looked up at me.

  “I can't live like this anymore,” he whined pathetically, and I looked at Ed.

  “Can we just let this go?” I asked, and I tensed when the deputy shook his head.

  “Mr. Pippin wants to file charges.”

  “That sonovabitch!” I roared, grabbing for the bat. Ed got to it just as I did, and he pulled it from me.

  “I don't want to have to arrest you too, Mrs. Siggs.”

  I didn't think that was such a good idea either, since I wasn't wearing panties, and I knew my mother would be royally pissed.

  “So, he's under arrest?” I asked, and Tom whimpered from where he knelt in a pile of owl.

  “I'm gonna take him to the station. We'll book him, and you can bail him out in a couple of hours.”

  “What's the charge?” I asked, forcing myself to function like a normal person, when I was anything but.

  “Disturbing the peace, but other charges are pending,” Ed said, and I groaned audibly. “I'm sorry, Mona. You seem like nice folks. I'm just doing my job here.”