Mad Girls In Love

by Michael Lee West

  “I’ll have you know that I found a Gucci blouse at a yard sale last month,” Dorothy said, bristling. Nobody but nobody was allowed to mock her bargain hunting. “Just for the record, I’m wearing a St. John to the rehearsal and a Chanel to the wedding.”

  “Can I see?”

  “You’ll have to stop by the dry cleaners.” Dorothy averted her eyes. Actually, her suits were hanging in the hall closet. They had once belonged to Miss Betty, and her fat shoulders had ripped holes in the armpits.

  “Don’t you have anything more elegant?”

  “What’s more elegant than Chanel?”

  Jennifer shrugged. “What color are they? I really need to know.”

  “For the corsages?” Dorothy said, perking up.

  “No, so you won’t clash with Grandmother Wentworth’s ensemble. Or with Pierre’s grandmothers’ gowns.” Jennifer glanced coolly at Dorothy’s jeans and T-shirt. “It will be just like you to wear some putrid color. I have to make sure that you don’t.”

  Dorothy lifted her chin, feeling a surge of defiance. Then she rubbed her forehead. Just for meanness, she ought to wear her latest garage sale find, an orange chiffon dress, tea-length, with Nine West pumps that were dyed-to-match. At this same sale, Dorothy had also bought a lime silk suit with square rhinestone buttons, and matching shoes and a darling bag trimmed in parakeet feathers and faux peridot—more like a pet than a purse, deliciously whimsical and unique. The hostess of the garage sale had been Dorothy’s size—that was how she liked to think of those events, little soirees with hostesses who didn’t give a rat’s ass how long you stayed; although Dorothy just dropped in, made the rounds, and then flitted off to the next sale/soiree.

  “Afraid I’ll show up in a gold lamé pantsuit?” Dorothy lifted one eyebrow, unaware that it was smeared to her hairline, making her resemble a drugged clown.

  “You wouldn’t do that,” Jennifer said, but her eyelids flickered when she stared at her grandmother’s forehead.

  Dorothy shrugged.

  “Look, I’ve got enough to worry about.” Jennifer planted her feet wide apart on the grass, her arms tightly folded, hands tucked into the armpits of her denim jacket. “Have you talked to Mother recently?”

  “I have.” Dorothy repressed a smile. There was no way in hell that she’d tell this mean-spirited child a single word that Bitsy had said. Her old psychiatrist had called her a control freak, but he didn’t know doodly-squat about mothers and daughters, much less haute couture. He’d worn mismatched socks, but that had been his wife’s fault. It was up to the woman to dress a man.

  “And?” Jennifer leaned forward.

  “It’s quaint how you call her Mother. It just sounds so sweet and old-fashioned,” Dorothy said, trying to stall. “I haven’t gotten my invitation, by the way,” she added. “I hope it’s not lost in the mail.”

  “I’ve got one right here.” Jennifer opened the Birkin, pulled out an ivory card. “Read it and tell me if you see anything wrong.”

  Dorothy took the card. It was pretty, no doubt the most expensive design at the bridal shop. When she read “his daughter” she glanced up at Jennifer.

  “No, her name isn’t there, and I’m sorry. But she hasn’t been interested in me lately.” Jennifer turned her face up to the budding Catawba tree. It was crawling with worms, the best fishing bait in the world.

  “She’s more than interested,” said Dorothy. “She loves you.”

  “Stop defending her. The woman is, like, totally focused on herself.”

  “And you’re not?” Dorothy pursed her lips, wondering if she should speak her mind or keep quiet. One of her favorite needlepoint sayings came from Will Rogers—“Never miss a good chance to shut up.” But after all the psychobabble at Central State, she’d learned a few things about human nature—maybe not about her own, but self-analysis could be dicey—and she was eager to share them.

  “Oh, Dorothy. You just don’t understand.”

  “Maybe not, but why don’t you call her? Tell her you’re sorry—”

  “No way.” Jennifer gave Dorothy a withering look. “If anything, she owes me an apology. When I was a baby, she almost killed me!”

  “But she didn’t. You can’t persecute a person for what might have been. Why are you dredging up this ancient history?”

  Jennifer lifted both hands, ran them over her head. When she stopped, her hair looked like it had been chewed by a Rottweiler. “I just can’t please my mother. Everything I do is wrong.”

  “It’s not a matter of pleasing her, Miss Fussy Britches. It’s a matter of not hurting her.”

  “She’s not hurt. She’s pissed. There’s a difference.”

  Dorothy looked up into her granddaughter’s eyes, searching for some tiny shred of compassion. She saw nothing but self-pity, a child hell-bent on making the world pay for every real and imagined slight.

  “When did you get on her side?” The veins pulsated in Jennifer’s pale, thin neck.

  “I’m on yours, too.”

  “Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.”

  “I can have it any damn way I please.”

  “Then I don’t want your support. Give it all to her.” Jennifer whirled around, charged across the grass. The dogs began to bark, claws scrabbling the dirt.

  “Oh, honey, wait. Don’t run off like this.”

  Jennifer hurried down the driveway and climbed into the BMW. As she drove off, Dorothy kept patting her chest, trying to catch her breath. Perspiration ran down the sides of her face. When she wiped it off, she couldn’t feel her left cheek. And her left arm was numb, too. The sensation lasted a few seconds, then it was pins-and-needles again. She reached up to push back her hair. It was slick and damp from where she’d been sweating. Well, no wonder with a temperamental granddaughter like Jennifer. Thou shalt have no other mothers before you, she thought. If thy eyebrows offend thee, pluck them out. Pluck the whole g.d. thing. Get a freaking Brazilian wax job—if they can do it down there, then brows should be a snap. By damn, she’d cut Jennifer out of her will. She’d leave everything to the American Kennel Club before she’d let one dime of her money into Betty Wentworth’s hands. The old hag would just squander it on Birkins and St. Johns.

  A wave of dizziness forced Dorothy to her knees. Panic attack, my foot. Byron didn’t know what he was talking about. He was too busy keeping his bright-eyed girlfriends entertained. The latest one resembled a younger, slimmer Clancy Jane, but she wasn’t a vegetarian. Dorothy had seen them buying groceries together at Kroger, their cart filled with chicken breasts, pork tenderloin, sirloin steaks, even sugar-cured bacon. All the crap that Byron forbade his patients to eat. “Animal fat will raise your cholesterol,” he always said. Meanwhile, he gorged on hens and hogs and underaged women. Dorothy wondered if his girlfriend got bikini waxes or if she let it all hang out.

  Her head was throbbing—not real pain, just a dull ache. Nothing a Tylenol wouldn’t cure; but you couldn’t take too many of those or you’d ruin your liver. She warned Mack all the time, “Don’t take Tylenol if you’ve been drinking.” She didn’t really love him the most. Motherly affection couldn’t be measured and doled out like paregoric. If only love could be dispensed equally. Or, at the very least, according to body weight. But no, God had left it up to the mothers, not the pharmacists. “Figure it out yourself,” He might have said, rushing off to more important events, like the X-rated problems in Sodom and Gomorrah, or the crap tables in Las Vegas. And the clueless mothers did the best they could, offering a dribble to one child, drenching the other, when perhaps it might have been better to pour the excess onto the ground.

  Bitsy

  At twilight, Ian Maitland dropped by my flat, holding a bag of scones. “My God, you’re already in your flannels?” He laughed affectionately. He had straight, dark blond hair, which was quite thick and springy, and he combed it away from his forehead. His sharp jaw and dimpled chin was a bitch to shave, or so he claimed. I took his hand—Ian had great hands, an edi
tor’s hands, a man who thought with his fingertips as well as his brain.

  “Yes, but wait till you see what’s underneath.” I led him down the narrow hall and gave him a recap of today’s events. His response was a quote. “‘Marry in May, live to rue, Aye,’” he said, pulling a scone from the bag. “It’s a Scottish saying. Mary Queen of Scots married the Earl of Bothwell on May 15, 1597. It’s an ill-omened month for lovers.”

  “It certainly boded ill for her,” I said and reached for a raspberry scone—my favorite. Ian frequently showed up on my doorstep with pastries and a small jar of Devonshire cream, ever since I’d admitted a fondness for British tearooms.

  I fell into the bed, dragged the covers up to my neck, and smiled at Ian. He was unabashedly sweet and earnest, and he was quite gifted as a lover; but on this particular afternoon, I had another motive for staying beneath the covers: a cold front had moved in overnight, and I was freezing. London wasn’t the coldest place on earth, but it certainly wasn’t the warmest. My bed was a massive, hideous construction from Queen Victoria’s reign, and I had fortified it with at least a dozen woolen blankets, and one rather frilly duvet, yellow and pink, strewn with sweet flowers, but it was deceptively warm, packed with thick down filling.

  “Having a lie-in, are we?” He sat on top of the duvet, trapping me beneath it.

  “I’ve just been thinking,” I said. “The omission of my name on that invitation is just a prelude. When Jennifer has children, I’ll be shut out of their lives, the way I was shut out of hers. Claude will be both the grandmother and grandfather.”

  “Don’t fret, love.” Ian touched my cheek. From the CD player, Dolly Parton began singing “Little Sparrow.” Behind him the arched windows were raised several inches, and a nippy wind stirred the lace curtains and howled in the fireplace.

  “Do you have any silver bullets?” I asked.

  “Whatever for?” Ian’s eyes widened.

  “To shoot the werewolf in my attic.” I tried not to smile, but my lips twitched in the corners. I lifted one hand from beneath the duvet and traced my finger along a vein in his hand. How lovely to be a platelet in his bloodstream, traveling though every inch of his body. He moved his hand under the covers, lifted my gown, and touched my bare stomach. I held my breath when his fingers slid over the bumpy scar that began at my navel and ended above my pubic bone. “Still cold?”

  “I crave warmth.”

  “I thought you craved grits and pecans.”

  “An electric blanket would be lovely,” I said wistfully.

  “Then you shall have one.” He kissed the tip of my nose. Last December, I had taken to my bed with a cold, and he’d fed me tea and cock-a-leeky soup, explaining that British foods were calculated to thwart the chill. As he read passages from Ivanhoe, I closed my eyes and drifted on the curve of his voice, wondering if he was the last of his kind, a nurturing man, or if I’d awaken in the morning and discover that I’d been hallucinating.

  Morning sunlight trickled into the bedroom. The windows were cracked open, and the chilly air smelled of hyacinths. Earlier I’d made a pot of tea and had gotten back into bed. Now I was sitting cross-legged in a nest of feather pillows, drinking Earl Grey tea, listening to Dolly Parton sing “I Get a Kick Out of You.” Ian was stretched out next to me, his eyes closed; but his nose kept twitching, so I knew he was awake.

  I lifted my teacup. This bedroom was my favorite spot—largely due to Ian, of course. Last night we’d gotten dressed and dashed over to the Hard Rock Café for burgers, then we’d raced home, skipping through the park. The bedroom floor showed evidence of our haste: Ian’s shirt and pants. My lacy undergarments from Agent Provocateur. A black high heel lay upside-down beneath a tufted chair, in the exact spot I’d tossed it, the toe pointing to an empty bottle of Drambuie.

  The wind stirred the curtains, and I shivered. “I’ll never adjust to this climate,” I said.

  This got his attention. He opened his eyes, lifted his head from the pillow. “It’s only been, what, ten years? Give it another decade or so, love. It’s taken us Brits eons.” In a dry, humorous voice, he added, “If you crave an inferno, go to Italy, preferably in July. I should take you to the Hotel Monaco in Venice. Stunning views. However, you’d love the pool at the Cipriani.”

  “I can’t wait that long,” I said, my teeth chattering. I leaned toward the night table and set down my teacup—a rather ugly pattern by Royal Doulton. “Perhaps I should dash over to Marks and Spencer and buy another blanket.”

  I burrowed beneath the covers and turned on my side. Ian curled up behind me, rubbing his chin against my shoulder. “You are positively frozen. You need a long weekend in Nice.”

  “I need longer than a weekend. Besides, aren’t we going to Ireland?”

  “Nice is warmer.”

  I imagined myself drinking cafe au lait at an umbrella table with Ian, feeding croissant crumbs to the wrens and staring off into the faint blue hills, the country of bad-tempered Cézanne. I remembered a hot, dry summer in Aix-en-Provence—Louie in a café drinking wine, watching me shop in an open-air stall, holding up a long, plastic-wrapped strand of sachets. We’d been apart longer than we’d been together. Stop, I told myself. If only these unwanted thoughts could be driven out of my mind by force. I sat up abruptly, dislodging Ian’s hands, then slapped my pillow, using a little more strength than necessary. Ian reached out and caught a drifting feather. God, this man was beautiful. Even his gestures were thrilling. I traced my finger around the dimple in his chin. This was feeling far too good. And that was always the prelude to doom. I admonished myself to be cautious, to remember that the McDougal-Hamilton women had notoriously bad luck with men—excluding Violet, of course; and how my cousin had managed to escape this fate was a conundrum—one of the old C words I remembered learning from that battered Merriam-Webster.

  Another breeze ruffled the curtains, and I said, “I smell hyacinths.”

  “No, darling,” said Ian. “It’s ginger. You’re breathing in fumes from The Suntory.”

  I pictured the Japanese restaurant on St. James’s Street, and my stomach growled. “You would have to mention food,” I said, scooting off the bed. “I’m dying for more tea. How about you?”

  “That would be lovely.” He reached out to grab my hand and pulled me back for a kiss. Then I hurried into the chilly sitting room. My bare feet scuffed over the thick Persian rug as I stepped past a peeling, burled chest. I paused by the CD player, replacing Dolly with Miles Davis. Poor Dolly, she’d been singing love songs all night. It was time to give her a break.

  In the kitchen, I filled the kettle, set it onto a burner, and turned up the flame. While I waited for it to boil, I glanced at a chrome rack where two towels hung crookedly—Mary Queen of Scots on the right, Elizabeth I on the left. The two queens appeared to be having a staring contest. Had they ever been this close in real life? According to Ian, the two monarchs had never met. There was a crease in Elizabeth’s towel, right over her heart. Poor Bess had never known her mother. And, despite historical gossip, she might never have known romantic love. This was either the worst tragedy of her life, or her greatest blessing. The Queen of Scots was a love junkie. From her end of the towel rack, her head miraculously restored to its rightful spot, she stared contemptuously at her virgin cousin. “Hypocrite,” I told her. Then I felt foolish for talking to a tea towel. From the left, Elizabeth watched with a bemused expression, as if to say wine, women, and song was the tip of the royal iceberg.

  I’d purchased the Queen of Scots towel in Edinburgh last October; but I’d bought Elizabeth I several weeks ago, while on holiday in Bath. Ian had teased me when I’d squeezed into a gift shop, working my way past a group of tourists in front of the cathedral. “You’d best hurry,” Ian had said, amused. “The souvenirs are going fast.”

  Now, rubbing my hands over Elizabeth, I wondered if these purchases proved something. I wasn’t sure what, exactly—that I enjoyed tea towels? That I loved to shop? Tea towels were popul
ar because they were easily folded into the bottom of one’s suitcase, and upon return to the United States, there was nothing to declare. Maybe that was all I was doing, collecting mementos, things that would not require extra room in my luggage if I ever left this island.

  Not that I was planning to move. Despite the weather, I loved England. Standing on my toes, I opened a cabinet. The wood was painted the color of clotted cream, with dish racks above a long, glossy expanse of black granite counters. When I’d first moved to the UK, I’d designed this kitchen for Lady Agatha Sykes, a well-to-do solicitor, who later moved to South Africa. When she asked if I’d be interested in looking after the flat, I’d jumped at the chance.

  All these years later, I was still officially looking after her place. I reached into a cabinet and pulled out cups and saucers patterned with cabbage roses, along with an old china pitcher shaped like a cow. I set everything on a tray. The kettle still hadn’t boiled, so I opened a tin of orange-rind biscuits and scattered them onto a plate. The citrus smell reminded me of the summer that Jennifer had visited me in New Orleans and she’d come down with a cold. I’d had nursed the child back to health, feeding her hot tea, chicken noodle soup, and orange-marmalade cookies. Long after Jennifer returned to Crystal Falls, I found myself making “sick child” trays for Louie.

  I brought the tea back to the bedroom and Ian scooted up in bed. During my absence, he had lit a candle, even though the room blazed with light. I slid the tray onto the night table, poured his tea, and set two biscuits on the saucer. Across the room, a gust of wind rippled the curtains, and I turned my head, as if listening for something. The noises of London never ceased to enchant me—they still sounded quite foreign, and I liked that jolt of strangeness; but sometimes I could hear music from another flat, and it sounded like the blues and jazz in the French Quarter. Those sweet, sad, heavy voices always filled me with an unspeakable longing.

  Dorothy