Ledge Walkers

by Rosalyn Wraight

  Alison jumped in and inadvertently saved me. “I think there are degrees of honesty, Maggie,” she said. “To me it's the inside honesty that's more important than how somebody looks."

  Ginny added, after apparently running honesty lectures through her head, “I don't think any of us could survive in this world being totally honest one hundred percent of the time. Sometimes not even with ourselves. As for me, I started going gray before I hit forty. Now I'm in my fifties without a gray hair on my head. Is that dishonesty or a harmless illusion?"

  "Actually, it's a darn nice color on you!” Charles offered.

  Most of us chuckled. I knew he'd get along with everyone; I did not know he'd be ‘one of the girls’ in so short a time.

  "Maggie,” Holly dared, “if you wore makeup would it change who you are or just how other people see you?"

  "Both."

  Holly then asked me to get a pad of paper, which I did. She got a pencil out of a big case in her purse. She turned to the side, looked at Maggie with a smile, and started drawing. Everyone hovered behind and beside her, totally amazed as she brought Maggie from the far side of the room onto the paper. In a span of time that seemed shorter than it would have taken me to sign my name legibly, she finished and turned the paper toward Maggie. “Is that you?” she asked.

  "It looks like me, yes,” she answered, cautiously intrigued.

  "Then come sit by Charles and me,” she instructed as she pulled a stool closer to her.

  Maggie reluctantly did so. She seemed relieved to discover that all eyes were on Holly and not her.

  Holly took some the various eyeshadow shades and gave the drawing eye and hair color. “Okay, Charles,” she finally said. “You're the pro here, so help me out."

  "Hmm, I think I'd go with a light lip color against her pure skin. This one,” he said, grabbing the stick of his choice.

  Rather than applying it directly to the paper, she matched its shade to an eyeshadow, ran her finger over the compressed powder, and gently worked it into the lip area. She used her pencil to make sure that the shading remained in tact. They went through the same process repeatedly, deciding: light on the mascara, a face powder that matched her skin tone “just to make the picture look realistic,” two tones of peach on her eyes lids, and a little darker shade on her “amazing cheekbones."

  Holly penciled in a few finishing touches. She held it up for Maggie to see, and then she asked again, “Is that you?"

  "No,” Maggie answered.

  I wanted to hit myself up side the head. I don't think I did. Maybe I did. After all of that, a no? I expected an epiphany.

  Apparently, Holly hadn't expected the same, as she very nicely asked, “What did I get wrong? What should I fix?"

  Maggie shrugged.

  "Did I erase part of your nose and make it wider?"

  Maggie shook her head.

  "Did I pencil in a second chin while you weren't looking?"

  Maggie shook her head again.

  "Did I make your eyes smaller? Did I move them closer together? Erase your ears? Must be the lips then,” she said, turning the paper in every direction and pretending to examine it. “No, the lips are still there."

  Maggie smiled.

  "So you're telling me one minute this looks like you, and because I merely add a little bit of color to what was already there, it just doesn't look like you anymore. Is that right?"

  Maggie didn't answer.

  "What color is your car, Maggie?"

  "Blue,” she said.

  "Would it still be a car if it wasn't?” she asked but did not wait for a reply. “How about your shirt? What color is your shirt?"

  She had to look down to answer that one. I found that funny, but I knew I would have had to do the same.

  “White,” she said.

  "Would it still cover you if it were purple?"

  "I hope so,” she said, and everyone giggled.

  "But what? There's something so totally different—orwrong —with you that we add a little color, andpoof, you're just not Maggie anymore?"

  "The Department of Defense might be interested in that. Put a little blush on a terrorist and they become Mother Teresa,” Charles whispered.

  "Colors can't change something into something it's not, Maggie,” Holly said. “Colors only change how light is reflected by something ... but it's still the same something, whether it's blue or purple."

  Holly put down the picture, which Claudia quickly confiscated, gawked at, averted from my grasp, and then passed to the next person until it made the complete rounds ... ending with Susan.Wasn't that just divine intervention, Claudia!

  Susan stared at it, her eyes growing wider with each second. “Oh my God,” she finally said. “I honestly didn't think you could be any more beautiful than you already are."

  Maggie's face turned red, proving Holly's point: She was still Maggie, even with a drastic color change. She looked down.

  "That's it!” Alison was apparently the recipient of the missing epiphany. “You made her pretty, Holly! That's why she doesn't think it's her. She doesn't think she's pretty."

  Maggie raised her head, looked at everyone, and asked, “Is this some just some elaborate scheme to get me to put on makeup?"

  "No!” Holly assured. “You never have to do anything at these things that you don't want to do. Claudia and Kate are a lot of things, but I don't think they're the kind who would hold you down and force makeup on you."

  "Oh gee, thanks for that vote of confidence, Holly,” I said and added, “Maggie, nobody's trying to set you up.

  We'll just be in therapy for years, knowing that you're pretty enough without makeup while the rest of us have flaws to hide. It's okay though. Think nothing of it, humdinger."

  She smiled, and above her flew the portrait, forced back and forth by Susan's hand. “Can I have this, Holly?"

  "Of course! She yours, not mine."

  "Okay, ladies, we've only got fifteen minutes left, so make sure your faces are on properly,” Claudia said.

  "Hon, you're probably going to kill me for this, but I want to take care of something first,” I said, immediately looking away so that “Don't!” didn't find its way to me. “Maggie, I don't mean to put you on the spot—okay, yes I do. You said before that you think Susan tries to hide you, that she doesn't want to you look like a lesbian.

  She says that's not true, but I don't think you believe her. That's a pretty nasty feeling to have inside, especially about someone you love. So as hall monitor or whatever the hell I am in this class, I hereby banish you to a timeout for failure to listen. That corner over there—now!” I instructed, pointing to the corner by the front door.

  She was floored, but she did as I asked. Yes, I wielded that much power.

  "And you, Susan, I hereby banish you to a timeout as well, for failure to convince. That corner over there—

  now!” I said, pointing to the same corner where the confused Maggie stood. “Neither of you are allowed to come out of the corner until that nasty feeling is down for the count. Understand?"

  They both grinned at me and took to the corner. I watched them until I knew they were engaged in conversation.

  Then I turned my back to them. I feared looking at Claudia, but I slowly did so to find a smile attached to a shaking head.

  "What? Would you want to feel like that? I had to do something."

  "That's not what I meant,” she clarified. “I only got one of your eyes done. Sit down so I can finish."

  Okay, so it wasn't power I wielded. It was fear.

  As she finished my face, I noticed how chummy Charles and Holly had become. They chatted about how helpful her drawing was and how much the other knew about color. I saw her kiss him on the cheek, saying,

  “You are such a sweet guy!” Then she turned to Laura, who, I must admit, had behaved herself quite nicely throughout our little art class. Holly said, “I just love this man, Laura. Can we take him home? Can we keep him? Please, oh please?"

&n
bsp; Laura crossed her arms over her chest, acting as if she were contemplating. “I don't know,” she said. “That's a pretty big decision."

  "What if I promise not to poop on the lawn?” Charles asked.

  "Well, in that case...” Laura replied, laughing.

  I really didn't know any normal people, did I?

  Chapter 4

  As everybody straightened up, I moved the dining room table and chairs back into their usual position. All the while I thought about trust. Maybe because I had tried to get Ginny to consider it. Maybe because I saw how tenuous it could be, watching Susan and Maggie struggle to find it. I guessed that it really didn't matter. What did matter, though, was that when I opened the door at ten fifteen, there stood Janice. When I opened it again, there stood Charles. We began each session completely dependent upon the fact that our guests would arrive on time. That was unadulterated trust, and that was exactly what it would take now to open the drapery in the dining room.

  Claudia did her little hand clapping ritual, and for such a rambunctious crew, they did what was expected of them. They huddled to listen to her next explanation.

  "It's lunchtime, and I'm sure you're all hungry” she began. “Kate and I kind of went back and forth on this one.

  Should it be Home Ec, or should it be lunchtime? There's a good reason for each, so we decided to make it both."

  The glances between them commenced, and it was easy to tell who was famished.

  "In Home Ec, they taught us the basics of domestic slavery, and probably how to make some essentials like brownies and chocolate chip cookies. But did they really teach us anything we needed to know to grow up to be strong, healthy women?"

  The expected “No!” arrived promptly. That was trust, too. Both ways.

  "I mean could any one of us make a lunch for ... say Maggie, being the vegan she is? What we learned was the typical, but what we needed to know was how to personalize,” she said.

  Then I jumped in, “And everybody remembers lunchtime. The women who had to ‘aversion to children’ in their job descriptions. And the slop—those piles ofstuff that had names but never quite resembled what they were supposed to be."

  Everybody seemed to remember and started tossing out names of things, making faces to match.

  "What I remember the most, though,” I continued, “was that lunchtime was the time for revenge. If you were being bullied or if you pissed off someone that morning, lunchtime was when you were paid in full. In class you were safe because it would have been too obvious. But in an unruly lunchroom, it was inevitable that you would be tripped, spat at, kicked, stolen from, or have food slung at you, and nobody noticed. It just kind of mixed into the chaos."

  Some nodding occurred, and this time it was easy to tell who had been bullied.

  Claudia said, “We'll be combining those two things. We'll be having a lunch fit for a vegan, and we'll be exacting a little revenge.” She smiled wickedly, and I liked it. “Kate, care to do the honors?"

  This is where the epitome of trust entered the picture. Either this would come off without a hitch, or we'd feel like buffoons while we waited for the pizza person to set off the bellman.

  I pulled open the drapes, and as I did so, the influx of air arrived with the aroma of something cooking. “We have an expert in the backyard who has been busy at the grill. If you'll just find a place to sit, your lunch will be served in just a few moments."

  As I entered the porch, I heard the crowd move into high gear. There was no questioning between them about whether or not they would comply. I opened the porch door, entered the backyard, and there I saw our chef du jour, all ready and waiting. Trust!

  "Hi there!” I greeted. “It was so nice of you to do this for us. We can't thank you enough."

  "Oh, trust me, Kate,” she said, and I did. “I'm getting something out of this, too, and I can't wait."

  I laughed as she handed me a big, big platter stacked high with burgers. “Then let's get this show on the road!

  I'll be right back."

  I reentered the house and set the platter on the table. “Veggie burgers!” I announced, and I knew to expect apprehension. Hell, I was apprehensive.

  "What is this, Maggie's revenge on all of us?” Alison asked, and as she did so I realized that Claudia had managed to seat Kris and Ginny in a good place.

  Claudia explained, “Alison, this day is about learning new things. If you've never had a veggie burger, you'll learn something. Maggie didn't get a very good deal last time, what with those Mad Cow burgers and all.” She shot dirty looks at Kris and Ginny, and I detected no guilt whatsoever in their eyes.

  "Now, if you will all just behave for a moment, I'll go get dessert."

  They seemed to think that dessert would justify having to eat a veggie burger. That made me chuckle, and as I left the dining room again, I specified, “Justdesserts."

  A moment later, our chef—owner of Molly's Taphouse, home of the Mad Cow—entered the dining room with a greeting and a wide smile. I watched as Kris and Ginny's mouths dropped and confusion set in. Molly was laughing now, and she approached the two of them, balancing a heavy plate with each hand. “A Mad Cow for you,” she said with the first plate. “And a Mad Cow for you,” she said with the second.

  Hysterical laughter took over, and then a round of applause erupted so loud that it was jolting. I knew that each remembered how horrible it had been to consume two and a half pounds of burger, plus a pound of cheese, plus veggies, plus fries. It indeed had been hell. We had vowed to take revenge, and here it was. The looks on Kris and Ginny's faces were indeed things deemed priceless, and revenge was indeed mouthwateringly sweet.

  "Why you!” Ginny said, rising from her seat and approaching Molly. “How the heck could you go into cahoots with these crazy women? I feel so betrayed!"

  Molly spouted, “Gin, there is nothing I'd like better than to see you get even some of what you've got coming to you.” She laughed and hugged the woman who had been her friend since first grade. “And I mean for both the goodand the bad."

  Kris was beside them now, mixing into the hug. Then she turned to us. “Okay, you got us,” she acknowledged to the roaring crowd. “But there is no way we can eat all that!"

  "Well,” I said, “we're not moving on until you do, so you two had better get busy. We promise to have as much sympathy for you as you had for us."

  Drinks and chips made their way to the table, and I realized that the sounds in the room were no different from an elementary school lunchroom. That was trust, too, for I knew that I could depend on each woman there to get swept up into the moment. I suddenly felt very grateful for them all. And for Charles, the poor man who had been talked into staying.

  He secluded himself in the living room, as far from the fray as he could get. He stood there smiling, watching us, shaking his head.

  "Come on over and eat with us,” I shouted to him above all the noise.

  Kris pulled a chair next to her, saying, “Sit here, Charles. How does Mad Cow sound to you?"

  "Not fair!” Claudia spouted. “Eat it yourself!"

  I then noticed that no one, except Maggie, had even taken a bite of the veggie burgers. They held them mouth-level but did nothing but stare at them, afraid maybe. I grabbed one from the platter, held it high, and said,

  “Here's to revenge! Cheers."

  While everyone was quick to toast, not one managed to complete the action by putting the burger into her mouth.

  "What exactly is in this anyway?” Holly asked.

  Maggie quickly replied, “When you're trying something new, it's always better to try it andthen ask what's in it.

  That way your mind will stay open to the experience."

  "Oh, I see, Maggie,” Laura said. “You're an expert on trying new things now, huh?” She winked at her.

  "For your information, I already agreed to let Charles and Susando my face before he has to leave.” Amazingly, she smiled as she said it, but I think it was more at her agreemen
t than at the prospect of clogging her pores with color. It was a huge risk, and I felt proud of her for stepping beyond what was comfortable.

  It was not good timing, but everyone dropped their burgers to their plates and another round of applause erupted.

  "Please don't make it any bigger a deal than it already is,” she begged. “Just do me a favor and try the burgers, which, by the way, are very good, Molly. Thank you. Claudia and Kate, you, too. Thanks!"