by Joanna Scott
The sky above the courtyard was a velvety blue when a mockingbird outside the window suddenly changed its irritating sounds from hungry clicks to a lovely warbling reminiscent of a wood thrush’s song in spring. That’s when my grandmother knew that I’d been born.
She took advantage of an open door, slipping into the restricted area as a doctor let himself out. She made her way to the nurses’ station and demanded to see her daughter and grandchild without delay. The nurse at the desk sympathized, and without asking for the supervisor’s permission she led my grandmother into the birthing room, where my mother was resting and a pediatric nurse was putting silver drops in my eyes.
Assured that my mother had made it through in good condition, my grandmother held her breath as she approached me, even as she directed her mind to the task of willing away all the nightmarish fantasies that had been haunting her through her daughter’s pregnancy. She was admittedly impressionable, and her imagination was still populated with hoofed demons from the illustrated Bible of her youth. Oh, they would have their fun with me, my grandmother feared, branding me as the product of my parents’ unnatural love, stealing essential organs and adding extra body parts — an eleventh toe, a third arm, or even a pink tail curled like a pig’s.
I was more than a mistake. To my grandmother, I was the consequence of a long series of bad decisions traceable back years before my mother and father fell in love, back to the time before my mother had been born, when my grandmother was a young woman fumbling along, following the river north.
I was lying under a warming lamp, not yet swaddled, when my grandmother first saw me. She counted my fingers and toes, eyed my proportions, studied my bunched, angry face. Was I adequately symmetrical, or was I cursed with deformities? Had I been marked by my parents’ sin? It demanded such intense and lengthy concentration for her to be reassured of my normalcy that she didn’t notice how light-headed she’d become. She staggered, clutching at the air. She would have fallen to the floor, but a nurse took quick action, sliding a chair behind her, catching her as she collapsed.
My mother, who’d been watching the scene from her bed, was only partially right in thinking that my grandmother was overcome with joy at the birth of her grandchild. It’s more accurate to say that she was overcome with relief because I wouldn’t have to go through life advertising the fact that I never should have been conceived.
My grandmother Sally, with her peach-white thistle hair, her speckled green eyes, and dimples multiplying into fine-lined wrinkles. I didn’t realize how much we were alike until after she was gone. It’s not just that I’m reminded of our obvious resemblance when I look at photographs of her as a young woman. I’m convinced that I recognize the potential for disarray, as though I could tug the end of a frayed thread sticking out from her cuff, and the tidy package she’d squeezed herself into would unravel.
Of course, if she comes apart, I’ll do the same. And then we’ll both have the opportunity to start over again. If she’s not the woman she was led to think she was, then neither am I the result of her mistakes.
There’s still much I have to consider in order to come up with a convincing new version to replace the old one. Like all stories that are pieced together from different accounts, this one involves a fair amount of guesswork, and sometimes I look at an unfinished sentence and feel stumped. It’s then that my thoughts will drift and I’ll start imagining what I would have done in my grandmother’s place.
Sally Angel
The only bus leaving Amity that evening was heading north, so Sally headed north with it, taking the seat directly behind the driver, hoping that no one had noticed she was barefoot. There were just three other passengers: two old women wearing dusty black capes over black dresses, looking as if they’d been riding the same bus in the same clothes for days, and a blank-faced boy of about fourteen who’d been waiting alone at the stop on the outskirts of Amity and yawned the whole way up the aisle when he’d boarded.
The motion of the bus was jerky, and the interior rattled over every pothole. Smoke hung in the air from the last set of passengers, stirring in Sally a longing for a cigarette. She blinked drowsily, but sleep wouldn’t come to her. She sat up a little straighter. Bumping along toward her new life, she studied the back of the driver’s head, a tangle of gray, brown, and white hair that reminded her of batter for a marble cake.
Wouldn’t she rather have been stirring a cake batter’s chocolate into swirls, dipping in her finger for a taste? Sure. Pouring, measuring, creaming sugar with sweet butter. And the good smell of the cake baking in the oven. Mmm-mmm. The spongy holes from the prongs of the fork, and it was done, la-di-da, see what Sally made all on her own, sure, you can have some, there’s enough to go around, but wait your turn.
Loden and Willy would be right there holding out empty plates to be filled. And Tru and Laura and Clem. And a little boy, his face smeared with chocolate frosting.
He likes the cake so much, he’s not coming up for air till he’s cleaned the plate.
Look how happy he is.
Happy to be eating cake.
And the rest of them — what had they been up to these past years?
Doing and doing and doing. You know, the same old thing. They always liked best doing as close to nothing as they could get away with. Leaning against the trunk of a sycamore at noon, looking up through the cool shade at the highest branches and the sunlit green of the leaves between patches of blue sky. Not that they’d ever put it that way. But there were some things they would never take for granted, like the coo of a dove. Who doesn’t love that sound? And the sweet racket of a cricket’s chirp. And at night a full moon, a soft breeze, and the pulsing glow from a firefly trapped in cupped hands. What a life.
Well, we’d best be going. Come along now, finish your cake and say thanks.
Thanks.
Wait, don’t leave!
It was you who left.
Then and now separated by the wall of Sally’s foolishness, an unbreachable wall built stone by stone, reaching high and wide enough to block the view. Sally on one side, her little boy on the other. Why was she heading in the opposite direction, away from him? Because she was only riding on the bus, not steering it.
Good-bye, Sally.
Who’s Sally?
I’m your mother, damn it, and one day I’m coming to get you.
Trouble was, she’d paid for her fare all the way to the last stop on the bus route, the end of the line — not Rondo, not her unreal city, but close enough. Before too long, she’d go back home and find her little boy. But for now she wanted to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, from Fishkill Notch. Upriver, downriver, it didn’t matter where she was going, as long as she was going away from Mason Jackson’s house and that box on the shelf.
Bumpety-bumping through the darkening land. The rattling shell of the bus made talk impossible, so Sally would never know whether the two old mourners across the aisle were on their way to a funeral or coming home from one, or why the boy was traveling alone, or what the driver with his marble-cake hair was thinking about while he piloted the bus along the uneven road, from Amity through the hamlets of Garlinport and Canadice and — look at the sign illuminated by the bus’s headlights, look there, why, it was Helena. What was so important about Helena? Sally knew the name, yet at first she couldn’t remember why she knew it.
That her recognition was imprecise initially made her all the more interested in the place. Helena. She recalled that Helena was… what? She associated the place with all things sophisticated, gleaming, sharp, and witty. Why? She wasn’t sure. But here she was, in the town… yes, she remembered now, where the worldly Gladdy Toffit lived.
She leaned forward. “Do you stop here?” she asked the driver.
“What’s that?”
“Do you stop here?”
“You want to get off?”
“I was just wondering…”
“Yes or no, miss?”
“Well…”
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The next thing she knew, the bus was slowing to a halt, and the hinges were creaking as the doors folded open. The driver dropped his arm with obvious impatience. The other passengers were silent. All attention was focused on Sally, who sat there staring ahead, trying to pretend that she wasn’t solely responsible for this interruption. It was a long, awkward moment, and it became more awkward with every second that passed. She might as well have spoken a different language from the rest of them. She couldn’t make her desires known because she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted, and no one was going to make a move to help her. She was condemned to fulfill the expectations of these strangers, which meant that she had no choice but to tighten her grip on the rolled edge of the paper bag full of Mason Jackson’s money and get off the bus.
She was left standing barefooted on the sidewalk. A row of streetlamps lit up the block where she’d inadvertently landed — the center of the town where Gladdy Toffit lived. There were several empty stores across the street, and on one of the boards that had been nailed over the window, someone had painted a skull with gaping black eyes. On Sally’s side of the street was the local credit union, a small grocery store, and, down at the end of the block, a neon sign for a tavern, the Barge. The B of the sign blinked weakly, off and on again, and then surprised Sally by suddenly going out altogether.
Clutching the paper bag, she headed toward the tavern. Since she didn’t hear music or the noise of a crowd when she stood outside the door, she expected to find the interior quiet. Instead, when she pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped inside, she was met by a blast of music from the jukebox and the clamor of voices trying to be heard. People were packed against the bar, others were standing idly, and there was a group of men, all bearded, all in baseball caps and sleeveless shirts, hovering by the entrance.
To move farther into the tavern, Sally had to pass between the gauntlet of these men. She pressed forward. But the space between them narrowed, and she heard their murmurs as they became aware of her. She considered the ridiculous impression she was making: a young woman in a mud-splattered yellow silk dress, with no shoes. She’d have expected strangers would prefer to keep their distance from a girl like her. But the men seemed eager to claim her as their own, pressing in, raising their voices to announce, “Why, won’t you lookie here, we got a vee-zit-or!” and “Hello, baby doll!” and “Hey, how come I don’t know you?”
“Excuse me,” she said, trying to push through the crowd. When the men wouldn’t budge, she seethed, “Get on out of my way, you dumbbells!” thinking this was closer to the language they spoke.
In response, an arm came up and wrapped around her waist. A man put his face close to hers, flashing a grin that revealed bloody barbecue sauce filling the cracks between his teeth. She felt another hand slide more stealthily down her buttocks, smoothing her dress. She tried to free herself, but the group of them were surrounding her, bearing down, the lot of them becoming one brutish force.
She should have been offended. But all Sally could think about right then was protecting the bag full of Mason Jackson’s money. Whose money? She’d stolen it — or he’d given it to her. Which? Both. Either. It was hers now. No, it was still his. How disorienting it was to consider this while she was trying to push her way through the men. With their groping and fondling, they were coming too close to Mason Jackson’s money.
Stay away, you perverts!
Did she say that aloud? She wasn’t sure. But it wouldn’t matter what she said because they weren’t listening to her words.
Then listen to my elbow, you bastard, right in your fat gut!
“Uh!”
And how about a kick in the kneecap?
“Uh!”
That’ll show you, baby-dolling a girl you don’t even know…
She watched their mouths move, but their voices seemed to come from elsewhere, to belong to others hidden behind the curtain of bodies. They asked her, “What are you doing here?” and “Why are you alone?” and “Where are your shoes?”
“I’m looking for a friend.”
“He’s not here.”
“She.”
“Who’s she?”
“Gladdy Toffit.”
“You’re looking for Gladdy? Why didn’t you say so? Hey, she’s looking for Gladdy.”
“We should have guessed.”
“She’s Gladdy’s friend.”
“Gladdy! Where’s Gladdy?”
“There she is!”
A hand cupped gently under her elbow, steering her through the crowd.
“Move aside, boys, let us through. I’ll take you to Gladdy. Come on now, out of the way, make room, here we are.” Men stepped back, opening up a path straight from the entrance to the bar. The song on the jukebox finished, the record clicked back into its slot, and as the voices in the bar softened to a hush, the man who was guiding Sally tapped the shoulder of a woman drooping on her barstool.
She straightened, tipped back the wide brim of her straw hat, and blinked against the ceiling lights. The foundation greased on her face made her skin shine. The penciled line of her plucked eyebrows seemed to move independently of the muscles of her face, bunching when she smiled.
“My darling Lily!”
Gladdy grabbed Sally’s arm and pulled her into an embrace. Her breath had a sickly smell of licorice, with a hint of vinegar.
“You’ve come home,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? Why didn’t you write?”
“That’s Lily?” a man in the background asked.
“That’s not Lily,” someone else declared.
The man who had accompanied Sally through the crowd asked her directly: “Are you Lily?”
“Who’s Lily?”
“Why, we all thought you were out in California.”
“I’m not Lily. I’m Sally.”
“Sally who?” Gladdy asked, wobbling slightly on the stool, squinting against the blur.
“Don’t you know me, Gladdy?”
“That’s Lily’s dress,” Gladdy announced, suspicion in her voice.
“You gave it to me,” Sally reminded her, but just then the jukebox started up again.
“What?”
“You gave it to me,” Sally shouted, “to wear at Georgie’s wedding!”
That was enough of a clue for Gladdy to guess the answer to the riddle. “Sally! Why, Sally!” The heave of her hiccup would have sent her flying from her stool if she hadn’t still been holding on to Sally. And now Sally was holding on to her.
“Hello, Gladdy.”
“I thought you were my Lily,” Gladdy said loudly, in an effort to be heard above the noise. “Just appearing out of the blue in Lily’s dress and all. And with that light shining in my eyes.”
Sally could guess that it wasn’t the light confusing Gladdy. It was drink after drink after drink. And now she wanted Sally to sit by her, sit here on the stool that her friend Mick would give up, what a gentleman, and they could talk, Sally and Gladdy, over drinks, and laugh about old times — as if their brief history of gabbing at Erna’s parlor was already that far back in the past.
“What’ll you have?”
The question was put to her as if it were a test, and Sally realized even as she answered, “Lemonade, I guess,” that she’d failed.
“Lemonade? Lemonade!” Gladdy hooted. “Give her your famous Wallop, Bill,” Gladdy directed the bartender. “And the same for me. You’re in my town,” she said to Sally. “Let the fun begin!”
The fun began with a bitter concoction of Wild Turkey and soda water, which Gladdy goaded Sally into drinking in gulps. A full glass replaced the empty one, and Sally kept on drinking, though more slowly. Between sips, she asked Gladdy why she’d missed Georgie’s wedding.
“I hate weddings,” Gladdy replied, and with that flat declaration she made Sally aware of how little she knew her or knew about her. The woman who lived on what she’d called a handsome trust and who had always seemed to have more advice to share tha
n there was time to share it — it was hard to match that woman with this one. Sally hadn’t known, for instance, that Gladdy spent her nights drinking at this dingy bar. She hadn’t known that Gladdy liked to get so drunk she couldn’t think straight. She hadn’t known that Gladdy hated weddings. Why did she hate weddings? Sally wanted to ask. But Gladdy preempted her, demanding with sudden clarity, “Why are you here?”
“I…” Sally didn’t know what to say. The pronoun hung there, without meaning. Just a dumb, reckless, forgettable I, unaccountable and attached to only one thing: the paper bag stuffed with Mason Jackson’s money. She gripped the rolled edge more tightly, making a small tear in the paper.
“Taking a vacation, are you? Or did you up and quit?”
“Yeah, I quit.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Cheers. Welcome to Helena.”
They clinked, and with that toast Sally entered Gladdy’s world — a world that was turning out to be far less predictable than she would have thought, a world that didn’t conform to any of the advice Gladdy had ever offered during those hours at Erna’s Beauty Parlor. She sat there wishing she’d had the nerve to turn around and walk out of the Barge, leaving Gladdy Toffit behind. But she felt trapped by the older woman’s friendship, protected by her, dependent upon her, buffeted by her whims, helpless, ignorant, and eager to be whatever Gladdy wanted her to be, in particular, to stand in as a substitute for her daughter, who had once worn to a dance the yellow dress that Sally had managed to splatter with mud.
“You came to the right place,” Gladdy drawled, patting Sally’s thigh. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll find you some shoes.”
Helena, fifteen miles north of Amity, was even less of a town than Fishkill Notch, with more than half the commercial buildings boarded shut. The land to the east behind Main Street sloped down to the Tuskee. The water was shallow and clear, and the pull of the current turned the water weeds and moss into green streaks below the surface. Willows lined both banks, forming a canopy before opening to gravel. Downriver, an old railway trestle had partially collapsed. The current poured around the broken wood and steel, rushed on and over the crumpled stone lip of a dam, and widened into a basin beside an abandoned gristmill.
