American Housewife: Stories

by Helen Ellis

  You can call me Aunt Mandy.

  Here, take this Dramamine. It’s chewable and tastes orange. It’ll make you sleepy but keep you from getting carsick. These back roads are bumpy. Last year your friend, the Ultimate Grand Supreme Little Miss Savannah Stars and Stripes, refused to take her medicine and puked Mountain Dew across the Louisiana state line.

  Yuck is right!

  Hey, do you still suck a binky?

  No? Well, aren’t you a big girl! Breaking a binky habit is half the battle of relocation.

  Relocation—that is a big word! It means change. Like when you change from your two-piece into your Little Orphan Annie outfit for talent. You contacted me because you want to change your life. You want to change mommies. You don’t want to be hollered at to “Shake it, GIRL! Get it!” for the next eighteen years.

  To change you’ll need to do what I say and look like I say and talk like I tell you to talk. No more y’alls. No more mamas. We’re on our way to New York City.

  That’s right, New York City! Lose your accent and no one will know you were a Miss Anything anymore. Don’t and you’ll be on the next bus back to Birmingham. I’m sorry, sweetie, but I’m not going to prison because you can’t quit saying cain’t.

  Don’t ma’am me. Ma’ams are a tip-off. A ma’am in Manhattan is like a dirty bomb.

  The good news is: in New York City, no one will ask you to lip-synch “It’s the Hard Knock Life” or burn your neck with a curling iron. Your friend, the Ultimate Grand Supreme Little Miss Savannah Stars and Stripes, now goes by Mavis.

  Yes, Mavis. It’s a family name. A family name is how super-rich people tell everyone they’re super rich.

  How rich? Oh, sweetie, richer than Britney and the Doodlebops combined.

  Mavis lives in a penthouse overlooking Central Park and plays center forward for her school’s soccer team. Her do-over mommy, like all my New York City do-over mommies, got Mavis into private school. Private means it costs what your parents’ double-wide cost to learn how to point to France on a map without using a computer.

  Yes, that does sound hard, but it’s not any harder than trying to tap dance your entire family out of a trailer park.

  You don’t want to go back to Serenity Acre, do you?

  Okay then, I’ll put my pedal to the metal.

  Until you’re placed in a no-take-backs home like Mavis’s, you’ll stay with me. I live on Madison, which is not as rich as Mavis’s address, but is rich enough for me to stay home with you girls, who my husband tells friends are foster care kids. My husband is a magazine editor, which means his job is no more secure than a Pixy Stix backstage before Pro-Am modeling. He’s too old to get a new job, so he appreciates the risky but lucrative business I’m in. Lucrative means good for you and good for me. Like a bouncy house! Girls bounce in and girls bounce out. To help, my husband does a certain kind of laundering for me and pays off our super, who finds it suspicious that all of our alleged government charges are as white as mice after your spray tans peel off.

  When you run into Mavis, she’ll be less glitzy than you remember. In fact, she’ll be completely glitz-free. Her hair will be flat. Her face will be bare. Not even a tinted lip balm. Without pancake foundation, her freckles will mask the features in the glamour shot used for her police “Missing” posters. You’ll be unrecognizable without your fake eyelashes and flipper. After JonBenét Ramsey, you’d think pageant moms would learn to take pictures of you girls when you’re not all done up. But they don’t. Pageant moms don’t want records of you girls being anything but Christmas card perfect. They never expect their prize possessions to get stolen. Or in cases like yours and Mavis’s: to get up and go on their own.

  The whole point of relocation is for you to continue to think for yourself. Your first thought was that being the most beautiful girl in the room isn’t all it’s cut out to be. And you were right. It’s hard work and it takes an army of pushers and pullers and toxic glue to keep you that way. And here’s a secret: beauty cracks like a mud cake. To secure your future, you’ll have to rely on your wits. Wits are ideas, which means they’re invisible.

  Like poots in a pool? That’s right! See there, you are clever.

  Quick! Where’d you come from?

  That’s right, you don’t know.

  What happened to your birth family?

  Oh, tears are good. They’ll shut a conversation down.

  You’ve got to have brains to play dumb. Mavis is a shrugger. But you know what? She shrugged her way out of a genetic predisposition for childhood obesity. You two are smart to get off the circuit before you age out. I wish I had. It’s the Ten and Over division that’s hardest to place.

  Placing an older girl is like trying to get people to take a cat from the pound. Everybody wants a kitten, which is you.

  That’s right: MEOW!

  People think kittens are cuter than cats, and those people are right. They think kittens are easier to train and pass off as part of the family, and they’re right about that too. No nosy neighbor is going to give you lip about a cute kitten in your apartment. They’re going to say, “What a cute kitten!” and go on about their day. But bring a cat into your home and your neighbors won’t like it. Maybe your new cat stares out your window like a ghost in a scary movie. Maybe your new cat makes dogs on the street bark. Maybe your new cat is too eager to fit in and rubs against people’s legs in an uncomfortable way. Whatever the case, when neighbors get uncomfortable, they make anonymous calls. Anonymous means they don’t like what you’ve done, but won’t say it to your face. They think the older girl you’ve taken in is stolen or psychotic or perpetually in heat. They don’t want trouble, but they want that older girl gone.

  On the Upper East Side of Manhattan, you have to be blasé to blend in. Blasé means lose the pretty cupcake hands. Never sassy walk. Making eye contact with anyone and everyone draws attention, which you don’t want anymore, so you’ll have to quit it. Smiling like a nutcracker will get you sent to a shrink. A shrink is a doctor who digs through your head like a plastic trick-or-treat pumpkin. If he finds proof you don’t belong, he’ll pass you off to the cops. The cops will ship you back to your pageant mom, who—last you told me—made you smear chocolate on another girl’s formalwear.

  Yes, mommies can be bullies.

  No, it wasn’t chocolate, was it?

  Bad sportsmanship is inherited like a cowlick. It’s a little part of you that’s twisted and nearly impossible to tame. So when you have a playdate with Mavis for potential do-over parents to observe you, you will play nice. If she wants to kick a hacky sack around, you will kick that hacky sack around. If she wants to point to France on a map, you’ll say, “Bonjour!” There will be no princess dress-up because that is asking for trouble. There will be no TV because nobody wants to see you second-guess yourself when you see your pageant mom cry on a ninety-inch flat screen.

  And she will cry. They all do. But you can’t let that make you feel bad enough to go back. You made your choice to relocate and it’s the right choice and I’m going to help you stick with it. Now, why don’t you take a nap for Aunt Mandy? Go on, close your eyes. Dream, while I beat the traffic.

  TAKE IT FROM CATS

  If someone moves to make room for you, take up more room. If someone is looking over there, there’s something to see. If somebody sneezes, run. If someone brings a bag into your home, look inside it. If you don’t want someone to leave, sit on his suitcase.

  Clean between your toes. Flaunt your full figure. Hide loose change. Even though you can take care of yourself, it’s okay to let someone be nice to you. It’s fine to take a nap on the laundry.

  If you stand in a kitchen long enough, someone will feed you. If you’re alone in bed, use all the pillows. Just because it’s gorgeous outside doesn’t mean you have to go outside. Just because you can fit into something tight doesn’t mean that you belong in it.

  If you trust someone, open yourself like a cheap umbrella. If you want to be left alone, park yo
urself in a closet. If you want to surprise someone, lie in a bathtub and then jerk back the curtain when he sits on the toilet. If you’re not interested, don’t look interested. You don’t have to chase every bird that you see.

  MY NOVEL IS

  BROUGHT TO YOU BY

  THE GOOD PEOPLE

  AT TAMPAX

  My novel is sponsored by Tampax. It’s the story of three generations of women and spans three decades. That’s a lot of menstruation. So every time a character rides the cotton pogo stick—Voilà! Tampax.

  My contract allows one year for completion of a first draft and pays bonuses for alternative product placement. So, I’ll give one of my characters anxiety nosebleeds. And you know what’s good for a character’s verbally abusive husband’s hemorrhoid surgery recovery? Something from a blue box that will make his toots smell like a My Little Pony.

  My Tampax account manager’s name is Lisa. She claims to be calling from Wisconsin but doesn’t sound like she’s from there. Every Monday she asks me: “How is it going? On behalf of Tampax, I wish to be inquiring.”

  Lisa’s job is to make sure I hit my deadlines. Tampax has invested a lot in this book.

  I tell her, “It’s going great. Two months in, and I’ve created three apps.”

  “Apps?”

  “For people who buy my book as an e-book—which will be everybody. The first is called Don’t Look. It’s for the overly sensitive. It blurs and turns the type red when a dog dies or a baby is born with a birth defect. Stuff like that. My second is It’s Not Okay When You Say It, and it delivers an electrical zap if the reader laughs at a racial slur. My third is Jesus Thesaurus, which replaces explicit sexual language with church words. So, when one of my characters saints a guy’s disciple, he’ll beg her to cavalry his Baptists and shout amen.”

  There is silence on the other end of the line.

  “Lisa?”

  “I am deciphering. I am also tallying the greater number of books that may be sold because these applications will widen your readership. Your husband will be very proud.”

  I say, “My husband’s a ref with the WNBA. He’s on the road, surrounded by oak trees with tits. For me to impress him, I’ll have to sink a ball from half court.”

  Lisa says, “Yes, that would be very impressive. But writing a novel is impressive as well. I myself have had the pleasure of reading your first chapter and the description you submitted. If I were to trade my shoes with your shoes, I would write another chapter so that you will be closer to the finish of your novel when your husband returns. You could present it to him like a cake. You have ten months and two days to complete your novel for Tampax.”

  ————

  To generate buzz for my novel, I’ve created the following Twitter handles for my main characters. They are: @GrannyWithAGun, @MiddleAgeMartyr, and @Unclad Undergrad.

  My characters have Twitter wars. They live-tweet court trials and reality TV, with a penchant for Toddlers & Tiaras. I’m online all day figuring them out, and Twitter gives me instant feedback if what I write doesn’t work. It’s the ultimate editor: if it’s not retweeted, it’s deleted.

  Lisa calls and says, “To add to your follower numbers I am following your characters as the company of Tampax and as my own private account, which to maintain our professional relationship I wish to remain locked to you. Your follower numbers are low. They need to be in the five-figure range to impact book sales.”

  I say, “To build numbers takes years.”

  Lisa says, “You do not have years. You have a contract, which it appears to me you have not read closely. If you do not turn in a partial manuscript by the half-year mark, there will be consequences. You have eight months and twenty-four days to write a novel for Tampax.”

  “I am writing.”

  “Tweeting does not count. You need to e-mail chapters as a PDF attachment.”

  I say, “I know I’m behind, but I’m working. I’m branding. If Tampax would retweet me, I’ll get more attention and be forced to write another chapter.”

  Lisa says, “Force is a den of tigers alone with you in a dark room. Force is feeling the hot breath of those beasts on the back of your neck. And then the drool. And then the teeth. So very many teeth, you will beg for death before you can count.”

  “Lisa, are you going to retweet me or not?”

  Lisa sighs. I know she is losing patience with me, but what does a woman who wears a headset for a living know about writing? I’m like a credit card debtor to her. She gets paid to get me to write pages.

  She says, “Incorporate your sponsor, hashtag the title of your novel, and I will see what I can do.”

  The next day, @Tampax plus sixty-four others retweet @GrannyWithAGun for writing:

  @MiddleAgeMartyr needs to buy @UncladUndergrad pants. DON’T GET YOUR STRING PULLED LIKE A DUMMY. Right @Tampax? #TheStraightShooters Daughter.

  ————

  To capitalize on @GrannyWithAGun’s popularity—she now has over a hundred thousand Twitter followers that include the NRA, AARP, and Miley Cyrus—I’ve leased a water-gun booth for The Straight Shooter’s Daughter to travel the Southeast fairgrounds circuit. @Granny WithAGun is the straight shooter for whom the novel is named. The water-gun booth promotes the novel while I’m working on it and keeps my most beloved character alive with look-alikes.

  The water-gun booth is staffed by retired ladies who fit the @GrannyWithAGun profile. Targets are shaped like oncologists and grocery shoppers with eleven items instead of ten in the express checkout lane. Small prizes are plastic water pistols with the title of my novel printed on the side. Large prizes are plastic AK-47s with @GrannyWithAGun’s catchphrase: “Screw Gardening.”

  I follow the fair circuit in a VW Beetle with a Subway-party-sandwich-size photo of a tampon on the trunk and Tampax’s trademarked terms “Anti-Slip Grip” and “Purse-Proof” in Day-Glo letters on the driver’s and passenger’s sides.

  I video the granny barkers in their off-time screaming their dentures out on roller coasters, losing their dentures in caramel apples, and styling their purple bouffants to resemble cotton candy. My videos go viral, and every time someone views one on my novel’s YouTube channel, that person has to sit through an ad for The Straight Shooter’s Daughter that is presented by Tampax.

  Lisa asks, “What do you call the prank where the old ladies throw knitted shawls over younger ladies wearing swimming suit tops?”

  “Afghan-bombing.”

  “Oh yes, afghan-bombing. We have watched this video many times in our call center.”

  I ask, “What do you think Tampax would say about leasing a Straight Shooter’s Daughter booth for the Midwest circuit? Where are you, Madison? We could get together and see who wins the blue ribbon for the biggest cheese wheel.”

  Lisa says, “I predict Tampax will say that expanding your circuit tour will stretch you too thinly. While Tampax is impressed with your efforts, you have been on the road for nine weeks. Your booth can run itself. Your grannies are capable. Besides, your publicity videos are doing the work of an army.”

  “Is it the gun control issue?”

  “No, Tampax champions female empowerment. They are bothered by the fact that the popularities of your characters of childbearing age have not taken off.”

  “Give them time.”

  “You do not have that kind of time. You have six months and one day to turn in a novel for Tampax.”

  I say, “I’ll get an extension.”

  Lisa says, “You will not.”

  “Well then, I’ll quit.”

  Lisa says, “Never has a Tampax novelist quit. You would know that quitting is next in the line to impossible if you had done more than click the “Agree” box on your contract. From my experience, I am guessing that you read the first paragraph that describes monies due. And then you scrolled to the bottom and clicked the acknowledgment of deadline box. In between these markers were one hundred and thirteen clauses.”

  “What kinds of clauses
?”

  Lisa says, “Why do you not use your company car to follow your husband to where he is currently refereeing in Miami? Tampax will perceive this as a step in the writing direction. You can write in your husband’s hotel room or by the pool. You may order a piña colada—as many as you like. Tampax has no problem with alcoholism.”

  I ask, “How do you know where my husband is?”

  “The same way I know where you are. You are on a bench in Decatur, Alabama, watching a Tilt-a-Whirl.”

  I look around. Everyone is on a smartphone: ride riders, ride operators, moms with strollers, girls in groups. A woman leans against the Tilt-a-Whirl gate and holds her phone up in selfie mode to put on lipstick. I see the frosty pink color in the reflection. I can also see myself. I look small.

  I ask, “Lisa, are you not in Wisconsin?”

  Lisa says, “Of course I am in the twenty-third state, Wisconsin, nicknamed America’s Dairyland. Here, it is cranberry season and the current temperature is eighty-one degrees Fahrenheit.”

  I ask, “Then how do you know about me and my husband?”

  Lisa asks, “How long have you used Tampax? Since you were fifteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever switched brands?”

  “No.”

  “But you have had extramarital relations.”

  So this is what a cold sweat feels like. I was fine and now I’m sick. I’ve never fainted, but now I know I will. I’m clammy and boneless. I drop my head into my hand. My other hand dangles with my phone between my legs. I stare at the caller ID silhouette of my Tampax account manager. The faceless picture doesn’t blink. It won’t go dark until I answer. And it knows my answer.

  I whisper, “Yes.”

  Lisa’s voice broadcasts from the tiny speaker. “Then there you are having it: the only thing women are more loyal to than love is feminine hygiene. As long as women use Tampax, Tampax is everywhere.”