“I sure did! But I gave that up. Now I drive a Cadillac.” Earlene pointed to a white car with fins poking out of the brick garage.
“I’ll just bet you do,” Dorothy said under her breath.
“You look good, hon,” said Earlene.
“You really think so?” Dorothy smiled. She was starting to warm up to Earlene—quite a lot, in fact. Even though she’d probably kept Mack from visiting Dorothy at Central State. It wouldn’t have killed either one of them if they’d driven up a few Sunday afternoons. Well, never mind that. She gazed sideways at Earlene. “Where’s my son?”
“Inside watching a baseball game.” Earlene pointed. “I just fixed him a ham sandwich and a beer. Can I get you something?”
Dorothy edged up the path. Asylum food wasn’t fit for consumption, and besides, most of the food at Central State ended up on the floor or smeared in the patients’ hair. The thought of a civilian sandwich was mighty appealing. In fact, she hadn’t tasted a ham sandwich in years. She could see it in her mind: stacks of glistening pink ham on toasted white bread, all slathered with mayonnaise, garnished with garden tomatoes and ice-cold crunchy lettuce.
“I could eat a little bite,” Dorothy admitted, trying not to drool down the front of her dress. “While you’re fixing it, you can explain why you painted over my bricks.”
“It was Mr. Frank,” said Earlene. “You remember him? Your old decorator?”
“What about him?”
“Well, it was every bit his fault,” Earlene said. “Me, I wanted to paint it orange, but Mr. Frank said, ‘No, no, no, Earlene. You can’t do that!’ He had his heart set on gray with crisp white trim—the New England look, you know. But we settled on pastels. I drew my color scheme from the petit fours at Ralph’s Bakery.” Earlene spoke in a confidential tone. In the sunny entry hall, she stretched her arms above her head, in a glamour shot pose. “Mack’s a real hotshot builder now, Mrs. McDougal. But I guess you knew that? He’s in county-wide demand. I pick out all the wall-paper and colors for his spec houses. That’s why I done give up driving that lousy bus.”
“I think I’ll take that beer.” Dorothy shuddered, and both eyes began to wink. “And don’t bother with a glass, Darlene. I’ll take it in the can.”
“It’s Earlene,” said the blonde. “Earl-lene.”
Earlene and Mack gave Dorothy the grand tour, inside and out. With rising horror, Dorothy saw, firsthand, how Mack had destroyed his family home, stripping it of its architecture and history. Not that there was a lot to begin with, but still. The blonde/hussy/tart probably put him up to it, but Dorothy didn’t ask why, and she didn’t dare to wonder. In the backyard, the color-coordinated flower beds were gone, replaced by a swimming pool with a blue bottom, and there wasn’t a trace of ivy on the north wall. Her avocado-green kitchen had ceased to exist. The knotty-pine cabinets had been painted a deep fuchsia. Even the appliances had been colored to match. The floor had been ripped up—her pretty brown linoleum was gone!—and in its place were pink-and-white tiles, laid on the diagonal, forming a freakish checkerboard. Dorothy looked at the bay window, expecting to see her round cherry table with the captain’s chairs. They were gone, too, replaced by a smoky-glass table on metal stilts. The plastic chairs looked uncomfortable, and the seats were upholstered in faux tiger stripes.
“You’re welcome to live here with me and Earlene,” Mack said, but he didn’t look too happy about it. In fact, he looked downright distressed. Treacherous children, Dorothy thought. You suckle them from your breast, you wipe baby shit off their butts, and they can’t wait to get rid of you.
“Me? Live here with you and …oh, I couldn’t.”
“Well, you can always go next door and live with Aunt Clancy. The room across from Bitsy’s is empty.”
Dorothy gaped up at her son. Didn’t he know that living next door wasn’t an option? Not after Clancy Jane had done what she’d done. An amused expression flitted across Mack’s face. Except for that grin, which was totally inappropriate, he was the same boy she’d always adored. Unlike her house, which scarcely resembled its old self, Mack had stayed the same—blond and blue-eyed, with one leg shot off in Vietnam. Her Mack. She’d loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone. This was how he showed his thanks.
“You know that Clancy Jane and I don’t get along,” Dorothy said. “Besides, she’s married. And I could never share a bathroom with a strange man.”
“Hon, we’ve got a guest room upstairs, where Bitsy’s old room used to be,” said Earlene. “It’s real pretty. Decorated in hot pink, the same color as the bricks outside. You’re welcome to it.”
Dorothy’s cheek began to twitch. Somehow she’d been swindled out of two houses, one pink and one purple. Where will I live? she wondered, trying not to panic. And with whom?
I will not live amongst mine enemies, Dorothy thought, casting an involuntary glance at the purple house next door. She could see it from nearly every window, except on the north side. For years she’d spied on her mother and Clancy Jane, her mother’s favorite, watching them dig in the garden, their heads inclined. It didn’t help a person one bit, loving them too much. In fact, it probably weakened them at the core. The neglected ones always had bigger hearts, and they seemed better off.
No, sirree, Bob. She didn’t wish to mingle with her sister, much less live under the same roof, even if Bitsy was there. Dorothy had always favored Mack—she just couldn’t help loving him more than she loved Bitsy. The asylum doctors—oh, what did they know!—had said something about Miss Gussie being a bad role model. And when Dorothy had her own children, she’d followed in her mother’s footsteps, picking Mack to be her pet. The doctors also said that Dorothy had never learned to get along with her mother or her sister, and therefore, she would continue to squabble with other women, including her own daughter.
The doctors had encouraged her to forgive and forget. She had looked at them, her eyes wide with astonishment. Forgiveness was a religious thing, not a psychological one. And she would forgive whom she g.d. pleased. Before Albert’s defection, he’d been Dorothy’s most faithful visitor. Which was a bit ironic, considering their marriage had ended after his debauchery with Clancy Jane. Oh, it hurt her head to think about it. Besides, she had more pressing matters.
Mack added, “You’d probably be happier with Bitsy and them than with me and Earlene.”
Ungrateful little snipe. He didn’t know the first thing about happiness, least of all hers. Dorothy wanted to seize him by the shoulders and shake him. Instead, she counted to ten, but it didn’t help. She was still steaming. So she counted to twenty, thirty, forty. When she hit seventy, she felt calm enough to speak. “I’m staying right here,” she said, looking up her at handsome son, this blond cover boy whom she’d made from scratch. He had her eyes, nose, and hair—well, her old hair, before the shock treatments had fried it. There wasn’t a look of Albert in the boy. It was a miracle.
“Here?” Mack and Earlene cried together.
“Yes.” Dorothy ignored her son’s stricken face and her daughter-inlaw’s curled, defiant lip. “Now that we’ve got that settled, where’s the guest room?”
A TAPED MESSAGE TO PAT NIXON
212 Dixie Avenue
Crystal Falls, Tennessee
June 17, 1974
Dear Pat,
I know you’ve been a nervous wreck, what with all your troubles with Dick, so I forgive you for not answering. But I’m home now, living in my brick house on 212 Dixie, so feel free to use this address for future correspondence. Only it doesn’t feel like MY house anymore. When I got married to Albert, my mother gave us the land next to her house. This was way back in the early fifties, mind you. We hired a contractor and he let me choose everything. I picked red bricks. I’d planned to spend the rest of my days there, but Albert did what he did and I got slapped in the mental hospital. While I was gone, my son and his smutty old wife moved into my house. They hauled off my clothes, shoes, and knickknacks. Mack even threw away his OWN
stuff—his old clothes, toys, and report cards that I’d saved. Well, to make a long story short, Mack knocked down walls, cut holes into the roof, and ripped up the wall-to-wall.
But you haven’t heard the worst. My son’s wife painted my house pink. The upstairs resembles a gymnasium, like the room where Jack Lalayne used to exercise on TV. It’s just horrible, the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Well, I must admit that I like the ceiling windows. I can lay in bed and watch the moon float past. But I do NOT like climbing up the stairs every night. I have a bad leg from where I fell off the roof of Albert’s dime store. And I do NOT like the way my room is decorated. My old cherry furniture has been painted burnt orange. The curtains are skimpy and came from Sears—orange and pink flowers. A hideous painted coconut head hangs from a ceiling hook, and its eyes follow me around the room.
My house has changed so much, I hardly recognize it. Somedays, I’ll be walking home from town, and I’ll go right past it, ending up on the next block. And when I creep around in the night, I bump into walls and knock over tables. My mind keeps slipping out of gear like a faulty transmission—half the time I can’t remember if I’ve took my nerve pills. And you can’t double up on those or you’ll overdose. I’m convinced that’s how Marilyn Monroe died, not that I have a fixation on her, I just feel pity. She had everything going for her but she just couldn’t keep track of her pills.
Just the other day, Earlene gave me some envelopes to mail, and I set them down on my dresser and plum forgot. Earlene is my son’s two-faced,
bleached-blond wife. Not much more than a streetwalker if you ask me. Just like my slut of a sister, she stole my son away from his first wife. Mack has lost touch with his boy. Sloopy remarried and her new husband has adopted the boy. Earlene is thrilled, I can tell. She doesn’t like any competition, even if it’s a child, or a mother-in-law. She works like a man, driving tractors, hammering shingles, laying bricks. When my son met her, she drove a school bus, but now she helps him build houses in Shenandoah Estates. Once the houses are built, she turns them over to Century 21. She carries a fingernail file and a tiny screwdriver in her right hip pocket.
This is not to say she is all bad. She is just mostly bad. She keeps an immaculate house, I’ll give her that. Gleaming floors, dust-free baseboards, sparkling toilet bowls. She has shapely legs, and she shows them off every chance she gets, but she doesn’t cook. Fortunately, I am practically a gourmet chef because I got to watch Julia Child on Channel 8 at the asylum. So I began whipping up soufflés and omelets, but Earlene turns up her nose and drags Mack off to the Burger Barn. Every morning she lays his clothes out on the bed: socks, boxers, jeans, shirt, belt, cowboy boots. Several times a week she sprays his wooden leg with Pledge and puts WD-40 on the hinges. She sits on his lap and kisses his neck, and it just burns me up. It’s vulgar. What mother wants to see this? Back to those envelopes Earlene asked me to mail. They turned out to be her and Mack’s bills, and the City of Crystal Falls cut off our utilities.
Turning off an old woman’s water supply is mean, especially if that old woman keeps caged birds. I have one canary who sets in his food dish and beats his wings. You can just imagine the result. It takes water to clean a mess like that. It made Earlene so mad that she made me get rid of my bird. I tried to tell this to the lady at City Hall, but she just said I had to pay my bills on time. I tried to explain about the envelopes and my bad memory, but she just gave me a stony expression. So I just begged her to make a notation on my son’s account. Then I realized I might be confusing the woman a tad, so I backed up and explained the whole story, how I was living with Mack and Earlene and so on and so forth. She kept interrupting me, telling me that she just worked for the city, she didn’t personally cut off the utilities.
But I can’t make coffee or flush the toilet, I told her. Then when my son came down personally to pay the bill, you people took your sweet time turning back on the water. And when you did, guess what happened?
What? the girl said.
Air in my pipes.
The girl shrugged. She was young, about the age of Earlene, but not nearly as trashy. I just really don’t like other women, all except for you. In fact, now that I’m out of the asylum, I’m hoping that I can come up to Washington, D.C., and have tea in the Blue Room. Or we could go to your private quarters.
I sure hope you don’t forget to answer this letter, or I guess you’d call it a tape recording. It’s terrible to be absentminded. Just the other morning I woke up and couldn’t remember my daddy’s face. He’s only been dead twenty-six years, and you’d think I’d remember something of this nature, but my mind would not call back his face.
You don’t have to be crazy to lose your mind. Although it could be hardening of the arteries or the medicine I’m taking. I sure would like to remember everything. It’s important to know where you’re going, but it might be even more important to know where you’ve been. At first I thought I might keep a family history for my children, but how could I explain what I was doing without them getting suspicious? If they think I’ve lost my memory, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to thinking I’ve lost my mind. Then they’ll slap me back into the asylum. I try to hide my confusion, like where I put the TV Guide, but it’s a terrible way to live. It just occurred to me that your husband might have a memory problem, too. He might’ve erased his tapes and then forgot what he’d done. If you need me as a character witness, don’t hesitate to ask.
Your friend,
Dorothy
FROM THE DESK OF CLANCY JANE FALK
June 19, 1974
Dearest Violet,
I haven’t written because I’ve been busy helping Bitsy fix up a nursery for Jennifer. We picked Miss Gussie’s old sewing room because it’s sunny, then we peeled off the wallpaper. Bitsy went down to Sherwin-Williams and bought pale blue paint. We rolled it on the walls and even the ceiling. I thought it was too much blue, until Bitsy started painting clouds everywhere. Next, we hung gauzy white curtains over the double windows. We found a poofy, ruffled white bedspread and matching pillow shams in the attic, and Dorothy dumped them into the sink and dyed them blue. Byron and Mack painted the furniture white. I found a fluffy white rug at the remnant store. Bitsy’s stuffed animals went into the bookcase, then she framed some old lace doilies and hung them over the bed. We did it for under $150, including the rug for $75. Bitsy has found her calling. Only I don’t think a living can be made from decorating other people’s houses. Mr. Frank has cornered the market in this town, and look what he drives—a beat-up Chevy van.
XX OO
Bitsy
I stood in the cereal aisle at Winn Dixie, trying to decide between Cap’n Crunch and Special K, when I saw a tall man staring. He had shocking red hair and freckles. It took me a minute to recognize him. Oh, my God, I thought. It’s him, Dr. Walter Saylor.
“I know you.” His eyes opened wide, showing the yellow irises. “Didn’t I fill one of your cavities?”
“Mmmhum.” Go away, I thought.
“Is it doing okay?” he asked, eyeing my brown plaid sundress—not my color at all, but it was a gift from Earlene. It had spaghetti straps and a built-in bra that made my teacup-size breasts seem larger.
“Fine,” I said, thinking about our so-called breakfast date. I’d stood him up.
“I’m just doing a little shopping.” He stared down into his cart. I looked, too. He had apples, lettuce, bread, liver loaf, Hellmann’s mayonnaise. It was tempting to analyze people by the food in their grocery carts, but I resisted the impulse. These days, I was trying hard not to make snap judgments. Besides, normally my own cart was filled with strange items for Aunt Clancy and would lead someone to deduce that I suffered from a picky palate. Today, my cart was jumbled with soy milk, artichokes, flat-leaf parsley, yogurt, navy beans, chocolate syrup, vanilla ice cream, frozen puff pastry, blue birthday candles, a wheel of Brie, T-bone steaks. It was for Byron’s thirty-eighth birthday, which was coming up. On that day, my aunt was actually serving meat and
making a cake that called for a dozen eggs.
“I’ve been wondering about you.” Dr. Saylor tossed a cereal box into his cart. “What was your name again?”
“Bitsy.”
“Oh, right. Now I remember.” He reached for another box. “I waited a long time for you at the truck stop.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, casting about for a convincing lie. Several came to mind, but I discarded them all. Honesty was another part to my self-improvement campaign. But looking at Dr. Saylor’s downcast eyes, I just felt terrible.
“Well, you missed a good breakfast.” He sighed. Then his eyes swept over my breasts, down to my feet, then back up to my face. “That’s a real pretty outfit. You look like a fashion model.”
I had the oddest feeling that I’d heard these words before—maybe on a deodorant commercial. “Flatterer,” I said.
“I’m not. You’re pretty enough to be a movie star. You’re real hot-looking. In fact, I’m getting hot.”
I frowned. It seemed wrong to discuss sexual chemistry in the cereal aisle of the Winn Dixie.
Dr. Saylor smiled, dropping another box of Raisin Bran into his cart. He glanced at me again, then picked up a box of Trix.
“You must be crazy about cereal.”
“What? Oh, my gosh.” He blushed, and began placing the boxes back on the shelf. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
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