Close to Home

by Cynthia Baxter

  “Sure,” Amy replied between chews. “Hey, Sammy, check this out.’’ Slowly she pulled her gum out of her mouth, creating a clothesline nearly two feet long.

  Sammy gasped. He was clearly impressed. “Wow! That’s so cool!”

  “Or sometimes, like in the afternoon, I’ll just need you to watch Sammy for a few hours so I can go out shopping or ... or whatever.”

  “Okay. Hey, Sammy, ever watch Double Dare on TV? I have a feeling you’d love it. The kids who are contestants have to walk through all this yucky stuff, or sometimes they get it dumped all over their faces. ...”

  “And, uh, some of the time, if it’s okay with you, I’ll probably just be hanging out here at home while you’re with him.”

  “ ‘Hanging out’?” Amy repeated. As she glanced up from the green-and-blue battleship she and Sammy were constructing, there was definitely a smirk lurking behind her orange lipstick.

  “Yes, hanging out.” Jessica’s tone was suddenly lofty, the way it often got when she was feeling defensive. “People do still use that phrase, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Amy snapped her blue bubble gum. “We still say that.”

  We. Jessica cringed. Maybe it was time to start giving those Oil of Olay ads some careful consideration, after all.

  “We’re pretty casual, my husband and I,” Jessica went on, trying to keep a stiff upper lip. “You don’t have to worry about messing up the house or anything—well, within reason, of course. You’re welcome to eat anything or listen to our records or whatever.”

  Amy nodded, then abandoned the colorful warship so that she could peruse Jessica and David’s record collection. Jessica couldn’t help feeling a bit smug. Even this child of MTV was bound to appreciate the McAllisters’ taste in music. She only wished they had put those old Association and Donovan records in the basement.

  “Hey, look at this!” Amy snapped another blue bubble in appreciation. “You have this David Bowie album, ‘Let’s Dance.’ “

  “Why, yes. It’s one of our favorites. David—my husband— and I got that record the first year we were married.”

  She felt like gloating. See? she wanted to say. Just because we’ve outgrown acne doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve graduated to Lawrence Welk yet.

  “Gosh, I remember hearing this when I was just a little kid,’’ Amy went on. “I was still in grade school. This is great! It’s so ... so old! It’s like a classic!’’

  Jessica smiled wanly.

  “Amy,” she said, “you’re hired.”

  Look on the bright side, she told herself. You’re not just losing the fantasy that there might still be a few good years left. You’re gaining a baby-sitter.

  Chapter Eleven

  Whenever Jessica answered the telephone and discovered that her mother was on the other end, she immediately experienced a sense of upheaval. Talking to her mom while standing in her own kitchen, in her own house, invariably brought up the thought. Wait a minute. How can I be a daughter, someone’s little girl, and at the same time be a grown-up? And how can I possibly be a mother myself?

  This morning, however, her reaction to hearing Violet’s familiar voice was tempered. She was flying pretty high these days—on having found the perfect baby-sitter for Sammy; on having brand new hair; on being part of a team that was investigating a murder, especially when the other member of the team was someone who made her knees weak.

  That part—the Terry part—did cause its own set of complications. If she was thrown into a tizzy by playing mom while a real, live, official mom hovered in the background, she was thrown headlong into an active volcano over being a supposedly stable married woman who suddenly met a man whose blue eyes and easy grin catapulted her back to junior high school.

  “Hello, Mom,” she said calmly. She nestled the phone between her shoulder and her jawline, knowing full well that any chiropractor would cringe at the very sight. “How is everything?”

  “Oh, Jess. You know better than to ask.”

  Eight seconds into the conversation and already Violet had set the tone. Then again, setting the tone was something Violet had excelled at ever since Jessica emerged from her womb. “And on top of everything else, I’m so upset about your brother.”

  “On top of everything else,” Jessica knew, was one of those statements that was best left untouched.

  “Why? What’s up with Peter?”

  Despite the concern she consciously put into her voice, Jessica knew better than to be worried. If The Peter Graham Story was ever the basis for a made-for-TV movie, it would be the recounting of one dramatic moment after another.

  In scene one, Peter would refuse to participate in gym class on the grounds that competitive sports were causing the destruction of western civilization. In scene two, he would flunk out of college when the chairman of the art department refused to accept as his final project a piece of sculpture appropriately titled Thin Air. In scene three, he would lose the chance to exhibit his artwork in one of Soho’s most prestigious galleries because of his inability to part with any of it. And so on.

  “Oh, Jessica, I’m so upset,” Violet continued. “I haven’t been able to sleep for days. I can’t even eat... well, maybe a little toast for breakfast, sometimes with some jelly . . . you know, that Smucker’s low-sugar kind. Have you tried the raspberry, Jess? It’s really—”

  “Mom, I can hardly hear you. What’s all that noise?”

  “What noise?”

  “I hear voices in the background.”

  “Oh. The TV.”

  “Can’t you turn it down?”

  “What, and miss Cher? Regis and Kathie Lee are having her on today. I want to see what she’s wearing.”

  “Mom, couldn’t you just—”

  “You know, ever since things started getting rocky with that bagel boy—you know, the one she was going out with a while ago?—I’ve noticed that she hasn’t been herself. Have you noticed that?”

  “I really haven’t—”

  “I feel for her, Jessica.” Violet sighed. “A woman like that, so gorgeous and with so much money and success and all, she can’t even find herself a good man. How could she? They’re all threatened by her! It’s the same old story.”

  “Mom, is Peter dating Cher?”

  Just as she’d expected, that one got her mother’s attention.

  “What, are you crazy?”

  “Well, if her bagel boy let her down, maybe a starving artist who lives in Hoboken and makes sculptures of giant hamburgers for a living would be just the thing for her.’’

  “Jessica, you know he doesn’t just make sculptures of giant hamburgers. They’re sculptures of Whoppers. They’re a statement about our time.’’

  “Whatever.” Jessica was quickly growing impatient. “Look, Mom, I have a million things to do today. I can’t stay on very long. What’s going on with Peter?”

  “Jessica, can you come by for a visit? We need to talk. I have to ... oh, here she is. Ah, what a relief.”

  “What, Mom?”

  “She looks fantastic.” It was clear from her voice that, over in Yonkers, on the other end of the line. Violet was glowing. “Oh, Jessica, you should see. The spark is back in her eyes.”

  “I’m so glad. Listen, it might not be such a bad idea for me and Sammy to drop by. You haven’t seen him since we moved out here. You know how it is, we’ve been so busy with settling in-”

  “Jessica, I can’t talk now. So when are you coming?”

  “Give me a few days. I have some things to do. Maybe next week—”

  “Look at that! Did she change the color of her hair? It seems to me there wasn’t so much red in it the last time I saw her.’’

  “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Speaking of hair, I just got mine cut.’’

  “I like it. It’s different, but it looks good on her.”

  “You sound busy, Mom,” Jessica said patiently. It was no wonder, she was observing, that she had fared so well back in corporate America, wher
e diplomacy was at least as important as the understanding of generally accepted accounting principles. “I’ll call you back later. We can pick a day that’s good for both of us.”

  “You really should turn on your set,” Violet replied. “Jess, if you’re trying to change your look, you might want to see the hairstyle Cher has. You know, it might look very nice on you.”

   * * *

  “Now remember, Sammy. It’s very important that you behave at Grandma and Grandpa’s house,” Jessica reminded the little boy straitjacketed into his car seat in the back of the Volvo.

  The bright sunshine of this morning in early December had put him in a good mood. At the moment, he was reaching new heights of cuteness as he happily crooned along with the radio. Of course, he was singing “John Jacob Jingelheimer Schmidt” to Paul Simon’s “Call Me Al,” but the effect was sweet nonetheless. The two McAllisters, mère and fils, were on the road in search of adventure, this time in the form of a trip to Yonkers.

  “I be have,” Sammy assured her. And then, after a few seconds’ consideration of the commitment he had just made, he inquired, “What happens if I’m not have?”

  “Sweetie, ‘behave’ is one word. I’m not saying ‘be have,’ I’m saying . . . oh, never mind.”

  The warnings of one of the current big-name guilt mongers, Dr. Eldred, echoed through her mind, scolding her about the dangers of pushing her child. It was important that she accept him as he was, rather than trying to stifle his creative impulses by forcing him into a mold into which he wasn’t yet ready to fit. Even if that meant going along with his tendency to conjugate verbs like a street kid from the South Bronx.

  She tried a different tack. “Look, it’s important that you be nice to Grandma and Grandpa. Don’t forget; they’re old.”

  Another thought-provoking point for the three-year-old to consider. With sincere curiosity, he asked, “How ‘bout me, Mom? Am I old? Or am I new?”

  “You’re new, Sammy. Believe me, you’re brand-new.”

  On the radio, Paul Simon’s gig was over. Now the female vocalist from a rock group with a strange name was singing a song whose lyrics consisted of reassurance to her lover that no matter how poorly he treated her, even through rejection and infidelity and any other colorful forms of abuse he could come up with, she would still do anything for him.

  Goodness, thought Jessica, am I the only one who actually listens to the words to these songs?

  Angrily she snapped off the radio. She was even more annoyed when a few seconds later she found herself unable to resist singing the song herself, picking up where the professional masochist had left off.

  But it wasn’t long before she arrived at her parents’ house. It was time to steel herself against the tidal wave of contradictory emotions that invariably greeted her the moment she headed up the front walk: hope followed by disappointment, tolerance followed by annoyance, love and anger so thoroughly mixed up in the Osterizer that was her heart that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

  Then there was the house itself, the place in which she had grown up, a collection of furniture and housewares and other assorted possessions that were so much more than simply things. Taken all together, they were a symbol. Rather than people being what they ate, Jessica tended to believe that people were what they owned.

  One of these days, Jessica thought as she stepped inside, I’m going to write a book on Depression decorating, on the effect of having lived through a period when there wasn’t enough of anything.

  Here in her parents’ house, it was difficult not to get inspired. She stood in the living room, taking in the plastic coverings still on the ten-year-old lamp shades, the torn Holiday Inn towel tucked underneath the front door to keep the draft out, the odd-shaped rug remnants covering the wall-to-wall carpeting, forming a multicolored path all around the house.

  “How was traffic?” Jessica’s father, John Graham, asked as he came wandering in from the den. It was clear that he, like ninety-nine percent of fathers everywhere, could not rest easy until he had been given the most current update possible on driving conditions on the roads surrounding his home.

  “Not bad,” Jessica assured him. The anecdote about the oil truck that cut her off and nearly converted her front fender into a box of tinsel did not seem like one he would benefit from hearing. “Where’s Mom?”

  “In the basement, going through her old bottles and jars and plastic containers.”

  “Oh, good. Is she finally throwing all that stuff out?”

  ‘‘Actually, I think she’s just rearranging it.”

  Jessica sighed. “Listen, can you keep an eye on Sammy while I go down and say hello?”

  No problem there. Her little boy, the beloved grandson, was already being taken into the kitchen and invited to choose between oatmeal cookies, potato chips, and ice cream bars that contained less cream than Coffee-Mate.

  “Mom, I’m home,” she called down to the basement.

  “Don’t come down; I’m coming up.” Violet was already at the base of the stairs, her cheeks flushed with excitement as she clutched no fewer than five empty coffee cans.

  “Look at these! I didn’t realize I still had them. I thought I’d thrown them out.”

  “They’re coffee cans. Mom,” Jessica blinked. “What are you going to do with them?”

  “Use them as canisters!” her mother replied triumphantly. “And they’re great for storing Christmas cookies. You haven’t forgotten that the holidays are right around the corner, have you?”

  “Between Sammy and the TV, I couldn’t possibly forget.” She gave her mother a kiss and an awkward hug, her movements hampered by the wall of metal between them.

  Violet led her back to the living room, where she set her booty down on the coffee table.

  “So, Jess,’’ she said, cocking her head to one side and frowning, “let me take a look at your hair.’’

  “How do you like it?”

  “It looks. . . perky.’’ Violet motioned for her to twirl around, model-style. “You look like David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust phase.”

  Jessica just nodded. “So what about you. Mom? What have you been up to?”

  “Well, as I told you on the phone, Jessica, I’ve been worried sick. Too worried to do much of anything. I can’t even eat, hardly.” She peered at her daughter, real concern in her eyes. “Which reminds me, have you noticed that Dolly is still as thin as ever? I don’t know how she does it. Maybe she had that operation where they suck all the fat out of you—I forget what it’s called, I heard about it on Geraldo—or maybe she’s bulimic like Jane, or maybe she even has that anorexia, whatever they call it-”

  “Mom, who’s Dolly? And who’s Jane? What are you talking about?”

  Violet looked genuinely surprised.

  “Why, Dolly Parton, of course. She looks like walking death, and, frankly, I’m concerned. It’s not good for a person to be that thin, especially when that someone has a figure like hers, if you catch my meaning. I know it’s in style to be so skinny— I was thin my whole life, up until the last few years, so thin that people were always saying to me, ‘Eat something, Violet. You’re so thin!’ “

  “Mom, who’s Jane?” Now that she had found out who Dolly was, however, the rest was bound to be pitifully anticlimactic.

  “Jane Fonda, of course. I know she’s had a hard life, with her mother dying and all that, but such a pretty girl having something like that in her past? Throwing up everything she ate, meanwhile making those exercise videos, as if you could really get such a terrific body like hers just by jumping around? Such a terrible thing.”

  “And Geraldo?” Jessica asked halfheartedly, feeling cheap for having allowed herself to be drawn into this senseless conversation. This feeling was immediately followed by a rush of guilt, guilt over having negative thoughts about this woman who, after all, had done for her what she only now fully comprehending, now that she was in the middle of that same process with her own of
fspring.

  “The Geraldo Rivera Show.” Incredulous, she added, “What, you don’t watch?”

  “No, Mom, I don’t. Look, all this is very interesting, but wasn’t there something specific you wanted to talk to me about?’’

  In the same tone of voice in which she had only moments before been lamenting the sorry fate of Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda, Violet said, “It’s your brother.”

  “So you’ve been saying.” Jessica rolled her eyes upward. “What is it this time?”

  There was always something going on with Peter, and in her mother’s eyes, it was almost always something disastrous. Long before, Jessica had learned to accept Peter for what he was. It wasn’t even so terrible, really. While of course his parents would have preferred that he had become a doctor, a lawyer, or a stock broker, or at least open a restaurant in Soho, Jessica was secretly proud of the way in which he had resisted the conventional, instead choosing to become an artist. He lived in a loft in Hoboken. New Jersey. There he was virtually kept by his steadfast girlfriend Leah, an odd combination of earth mother with infinite strength and full-time doormat. Yet no one who knew them had any doubt that this waif in Birkenstock sandals was, in actuality, Peter’s life-support system.

  “What’s the matter with Peter?” Jessica asked. “What happened, did someone actually buy one of his pieces of sculpture— a term I use as loosely as possible, I might add?”

  Violet shook her head. “No, nothing like that. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Jessica, he’s been offered a job.”

  Jessica grimaced. “Excuse me, but I think I’m missing the momentousness of all this. A thirty-two-year-old man who was talented enough to get into Cooper Union at the age of sixteen, who’s been awarded two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, is offered a job, and that’s as big a piece of news as the fact that the world’s foremost country singer might be dying of anorexia?”