Eating the Cheshire Cat

by Helen Ellis

  “This will be a clean break,” Mrs. Summers assured her. “You’re going to Chickasaw tomorrow. You’ll have a summer romance. You don’t need to get serious. The boy’s getting fat.”

  “Is that why? There’s hardly anything on him!”

  Mrs. Summers said, “Trust me. By the time he’s in college, the rest will catch up.”

  “Admit it,” Sarina dared. “You want me to get rid of him because Dad’s getting rid of you!”

  Stewart tentatively used the big brass knocker. Another minute and he would have scooted behind the hedges and peered into the house through the living room windows.

  Mrs. Summers said, “You’d better answer the door or he might leave on his own.”

  Sarina shouted, “Coming!”

  Mrs. Summers sighed, “Really.”

  “Really yourself.”

  Sarina did not invite Stewart in as her mother always insisted. She squeezed out of the house as if the chain was on the door. She shut it behind her like a burglar.

  Sarina could see her mother watching through the sheer living room curtains. She grabbed Stewart’s face and twisted it to meet her own.

  Stewart said, “Your mom.”

  Sarina kissed him flat on the mouth. She used her lips to open his. She slid her tongue in and drew his out. She pulled his head into hers like when she practiced on a throw pillow.

  Stewart broke free from Sarina. He nodded to the door. “She scares the crap out of me.” He took Sarina by the hand and pulled her down the walkway. He called nervously over his shoulder, “ ‘Bye, Mrs. Summers!”

  As they walked into the neighborhood, Sarina looked back at her house, 1348 Cheshire Way. She saw her summer camp trunk sticking out of the back of the car. Even with an hour left of sunlight, she saw the timer-set porch lights click on. Her father’s study was empty. Books off the bookshelves. His graduation tassels untied and taken from the window’s metal lock. She saw lightning bugs and chiggers rise off the grass. All this and her mother had not budged.

  Sarina turned her attention back to Stewart and pulled his arm around her waist. She snuggled into him as they walked. She had told her mother that they were going to the strip mall. It was twenty minutes by foot with only one intersection to cross. Stewart would take her bowling, they’d play video games, have frozen yogurt with a topping, and come straight home. It was an easy alibi. Good for a few hours. Her mother would not come looking unless she broke ten o’clock curfew.

  Sarina said,“Let’s go to the woods.”

  “What, you’re not hungry?”

  “Who cares if I’m hungry?”

  “I care,” said Stewart. He turned her body toward him. He pressed his face into the side of her neck.

  Sarina said, “Are you burrowing again?”

  Stewart nodded and his breath on her skin made her insides light up. She touched his black buzz shaved with a number-two blade for the summer. She could see his scalp. She said, “I’m not hungry.”

  Stewart kissed her throat and, even at ninety pounds, her slight double chin. He moved his hands into her hair. “Your hair always smells so good, Ree.”

  Sarina said, “Please. Let’s go right now.” She pointed to the Kendricks’ house, the backyard rounded by a six-foot picket fence. “We’ll cut through there.”

  They did and then they went into the woods.

  They sat with their backs against a pine tree and kissed. As it got darker, Sarina let her hands go where she wanted. She touched Stewart’s face. She ran her fingers down his back. She put her hands under his rugby shirt. She played with the new hairs surrounding his nipples. Stewart moved his mouth to her ear and whispered things he couldn’t say to her face. Sarina liked these things, but became increasingly aware that her mother had not left her. It was as if Mrs. Summers was sitting on the lowest branch of that tree, commentating on her daughter’s make-out session like someone off the Discovery Channel.

  As our female subject removes our male subject’s Eddie Bauer Item #1454E, size L, color Mango, we notice his flesh, peeling and protruding slightly above his belt. With the aid of Oscar Meyer Wieners and his mother’s second helpings, our male subject will surely put on ten pounds before his start of Central High West. What is commonly referred to as “love handles” will be only the beginning of his body’s descent into the far reaches of Fatdom. To your right, ladies and gentlemen, the city of Can I Finish That for You? To your left, over the horizon, Super Size Those Fries.

  As Stewart slid his tongue into Sarina’s ear, she kept her hands on his chest and wondered if her mother was right. When he got older, would he have breasts like that boy who drank four milks and sat alone during lunch? Would Stewart’s shoulders round and slump? Would he lose his posture? Would he fit between the chemistry table and that old schoolmarm’s blackboard? Sarina moved her body closer to Stewart’s. She boosted herself onto his crossed legs. She felt his bare feet cradle her butt. She loved that. She straddled him and wondered how long she would be able to get in this position. If he got as big as her mother predicted, Sarina would not be able to get her legs around him. She was not known for her splits. She did not want to be known as the girl who loved the fat guy. Lard Ass. Wide Load. Mr. Ho-Ho-Ho. Stupid Retard Taking Up the Whole God Dang Bus. She could hear the other kids cutting him down.

  Sarina refused to be taken down with him. She loved Stewart. She had envisioned car rides, spring breaks, surely the prom. They would go all the way when she felt the time was right. Yet that night she saw nothing but a sorry fat chance. It would be difficult to stand by him. Embarrassing. A drag.

  She heard her mother say Dump the porker.

  The next morning, Sarina woke to Stewart’s knuckles against her bedroom window. She drew up the purple balloon curtains and said, “I told you it was over.”

  Stewart said, “You’re making such a mistake, Ree, and when you figure it out I’ll take you back.”

  Sarina shut the curtains and wondered how long he would wait in the yard. As she pulled her T-shirt over her head, she thought about starting high school after summer camp. In the shower, she swore she would never stop by his locker. She would invite him to her parties but it would be understood that he should not come. It would be hard, but Sarina would make him disappear. Her mother was right. She would never call him again.

  * * *

  Three years later Sarina changed her mind.

  Coming out of her drug-induced slumber, Sarina heard her mother start the car to go get dinner. With her fingers broken, Sarina would not get her driver’s license for weeks. She felt cooped up and wanted to continue taking charge of her life. She wanted to make more things happen. Stewart had his license. Sarina wanted a ride.

  Using the palms of her hands, she picked the Princess phone off the nightstand and steadied it on her lap. She remembered the pattern of Stewart’s number. She dialed. He answered.

  “You said to call if I ever wanted to see you again.”

  Stewart said, “Your voice sounds weird. And why haven’t you been at the pool?”

  “Do you want to go out or not?”

  Stewart said, “I guess.”

  “So pick me up at nine. I’ll make sure my mom’s asleep by then.”

  “Still sleeps like a big ol’ bear?”

  “Just show up on time. Park the car down the street and wait for me in the yard.”

  “Is this the part where I salute?”

  “I’m sorry. Just come. I need to see you tonight.”

  Sarina fell asleep with the phone in her lap.

  When her mother woke her she was halfway hysterical. “I tried calling from Kroger’s.” Mrs. Summers squatted and scooped up the phone which had fallen off the bed. “It’s been off the hook. What on earth happened?”

  “I must’ve knocked it over.”

  “I’ll move it to the dresser.”

  “Mom.” Sarina stopped her. “Would you wash my hair?”

  Mrs. Summers studied her daughter. She touched the oily knot Sarin
a’s hair was tied into on the top of her head. She stroked Sarina’s hairline where a few wirelike gray hairs were in urgent need of a trip to the beauty parlor. She plucked them instead, then pulled back the covers. Remembering her groceries, Mrs. Summers hurried to the kitchen to put the Fudgsicles in the freezer. Sarina looked at her pallid legs and thought that while at the hospital she should have figured out a way to get the color fixed. She needed to bathe and to put on some lipstick. When her mother returned, Sarina was seated on the toilet lid. Mrs. Summers ran the water and tested the temperature. She said, “On your knees, sweetheart.”

  Sarina obeyed. She steadied herself on the edge of the tub. The shower curtain smelled funny. She said, “When’s Meena coming back?”

  “When the splints come off. We don’t need any gossip.” Mrs. Summers sat on the side of the tub and worked Sarina’s hair into wet soapy mounds. “And don’t call her that. We call her Will.”

  The maid’s name was actually Willamina, but the whole family thought Will was more manageable. Mr. Summers had hired her to clean house while his wife was busy with Tuscaloosa charities. Willamina was a light-skinned black woman from New Orleans who had been referred by her sister, who cleaned the Hicks’ house directly across the street. Mrs. Summers didn’t ask Mrs. Hicks. In all the years in Cheshire Way, Sarina had never seen her mother speak to Mrs. Hicks.

  Willamina’s sister had contracted cervical cancer from the genital warts her husband caught screwing his coworkers on the graveyard shift at the tire mill. When the cancer got ugly, he left her. So, Willamina took his side of the bed and, during the day, took care of the Summers.

  Willamina was the same age as Mrs. Summers. Since the first day she’d started, her body had remained a larger version of her employer’s. She was heavyset whereas Mrs. Summers was pleasantly plump. Sarina saw both women as comfortable retreats.

  When Sarina’s parents divorced, Mrs. Summers gave up her charity work.

  “Don’t you want to see your friends, Mom?”

  “They were your father’s friends.”

  Mr. Summers had not fought for custody. He was moving out West with that stewardess from Montana. He settled quickly and forfeited his daughter, the house, alimony, and Will.

  Willamina helped Sarina get through her bad times. While her mother was napping, Sarina once stood in the kitchen and called her father fifteen times. She tried his house, the office, his cell phone, the gym.

  “What the hell’s going on, did Montana close down?”

  “Might as well have.” Willamina motioned for her to join her at the stove. She pointed to their dinner laid out on the paper towels. “See this?”

  “A bunch of raw chicken parts?”

  “Back in New Orleans, we’d call that a dead man. Today it’s your daddy. Pick up that leg.”

  Sarina picked it up.

  Willamina put her fingers in a cup of water and flicked a few drops onto an inch of oil in the skillet. The water popped and sizzled. “That leg’s your father’s lack of courtesy. But what do you care?”

  Sarina threw it in the skillet. The oil splattered on the stove. The chicken skin bubbled. Sarina said, “I don’t care.”

  “That thigh’s his stupid ignorance. Walking off on a such a girl.”

  Sarina tossed the thigh in. “I don’t care. I don’t care.”

  Willamina turned the chicken and made room for some more. Together, they fried Mr. Summers’ insensitivity, his lackluster performance, his manners, his taste. “That’s right, my sweet girl. Just get rid of what he did.”

  Sarina reached into the tub to wipe shampoo out of her face.

  “Uh, uh, uh.” Mrs. Summers gently slapped Sarina’s wrist. “You can’t get the bandages wet. Wait till I put the sandwich bags on.” Mrs. Summers turned off the water and rang out Sarina’s hair with several long twists. She wrapped it with Sarina’s favorite towel, which was really a beach towel with a beer-bottle print, which Sarina wasn’t allowed to take to the pool. She told Sarina, “I’ll run you a tub.”

  The water rose and the mirror began to cloud. Mrs. Summers used rubber bands to secure sandwich bags around Sarina’s hands. The rubber bands were soiled from newspapers and they chewed at her wrists.

  Her mother left and Sarina’s hands began to sweat inside the see-through plastic bags as she unbuttoned her pajama top, slid her bottoms to the floor. She steadied herself against the tiled wall and lowered her body into the bath. She sighed. “It’s not hot enough.” She turned the hot knob with too much force and the water came hard, splashed her face, and burnt her feet. Sarina pushed her body away and made a wave, which sent the water crashing over the tub, onto the tiles, racing toward the bedroom carpet. Sarina yanked a towel down from the curtain rod and dropped it on the puddle. The water from the faucet roared. The water in the tub wavered at the rim. The overflow hole growled angrily as it failed to swallow fast enough. The plastic baggies stuck to her hands. “Just turn it off,” Sarina bullied herself, and with her sticky, sweaty flippers she did.

  Sarina looked at the stopper buried in her bath. She looked at her flippers. She drew her knees to her chest and propped her elbows on top. She placed her face into the gummy hollow of her hands. With her toes, she fished for the plug. She thought aloud, “I’m clean enough.” She remained in the drainage and lathered her legs, her pits, her pube line with shaving cream. She shaved everything she could reach, then rinsed one part at a time.

  She met her mother at the grill.

  Sarina’s stomach rumbled as Mrs. Summers slapped two steaks over the coals. Sarina said, “While they’re cooking, will you roll my hair?” She offered a Ziploc bag full of foam curlers.

  Mrs. Summers sat in a lawn chair and Sarina leaned back into the cavern of her thighs draped in a denim jumper. Mrs. Summers put her daughter’s hair up in a matter of moments. She tied a kerchief around the pink bones.

  As they ate dinner and watched Entertainment Tonight, Sarina felt like the Mammy doll Willamina had given her when she was six. Sarina wondered where her mother had put that doll, black lips crusted with Baby Alive’s apricot pudding, when she spent that summer at Camp Chickasaw.

  Mrs. Summers drank white wine and each time she left her TV tray to answer the phone or get another sliver of steak, Sarina would refill her mother’s glass. By eight o’clock, Sarina’s hair was dry and Mrs. Summers was ready for bed.

  Mrs. Summers said, “I’m ready for bed.”

  Sarina said, “I’ll clean up.”

  Mrs. Summers pushed herself off the sofa, lost her balance, and knocked the TV tray with her hip. The wine rocked in the glass the way the water had rocked in Sarina’s bathtub. Rounding the couch, Mrs. Summers headed down the hall toward her room.

  During the next hour, Sarina fought every urge to cry out each time she bumped a pinky. She cleaned the kitchen. She wiped off the TV trays. She took her hair down, did her makeup, got dressed, then waited by the living room window.

  Two houses up the block, she saw Stewart walking toward the front yard. He seemed taller. He sat by the mailbox and, through the peephole, his back looked broader than could be possible. Sarina opened the door so quietly, Stewart did not hear her. With the sprinklers running, she tiptoed through the grass and stood behind him and listened to a Beatles song he sang under his breath.

  “All my lovin’ I will give to you.”

  Sarina felt herself blush. It had been a long time since she had been so close to him. He smelled, just as she remembered, of Irish Spring and benzoyl peroxide. She wondered what his face would feel like now that he was shaving. After three years of dating other boys, Sarina was dissatisfied. None of them—Mr. Football, Mr. Sophomore Class President, Mr. We’ll-Just-Lay-Here-We-Don’t-Even-Have-to-Touch—treated her as nicely as Stewart, the first boy she’d kissed, the one who made her feel like she, alone, ruled. Stewart would do anything for her. All Sarina had to do was ask. Sarina ran the flat of her hand across the top of his buzz.

  “Geez!” said Stewart. He j
umped to his feet. “You scared the crap out of me. Don’t do that.”

  Sarina said, “Sorry.”

  “Hey, what’s this all about anyway? Geez! And what the hell did you do to your fingers?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” She tried to tuck her hands underneath her crossed arms, but that hurt so she held them out in plain view. “It was an accident. I shut ’em in a door. Did you bring your car or not?”

  Stewart said, “Yeah.” He reached out to touch the gauze. Sarina winced before he got near her, so he pointed up the street toward his mother’s station wagon.

  “Good,” said Sarina. “Let’s get out of here.”

  As Stewart leaned over her body to buckle her seat belt, he asked her if she wanted to listen to the radio or a tape, which tape; he had a portable CD player he could plug into the cigarette lighter if she hadn’t started smoking; if she had, that was cool, did she want to stop at the 7-Eleven and pick up some Virginia Slims?

  Sarina said, “You talk different. Stop talking so fast.”

  “You haven’t talked to me since the eighth grade. I do a lot of things different.”

  “You haven’t done it, have you?”

  Stewart put the keys into the ignition. He stared at the darkened speedometer. He said, “That’s not your business anymore.”

  “Come on,” Sarina said. “I just want to know. I won’t tell. I’ll tell you mine.”

  “Everybody knows yours. The whole school knows you do everything but.”

  “Who said that? I do not. I’ve never done,” she whispered the word, “oral.”

  “Well, you never did it with me, that’s for sure.”

  Sarina said, “I used to practice for you.”

  “What?” said Stewart.

  “You’re the only one I ever wanted to try it with.”

  “Shut up. Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Stewart shook his head. He crossed his arms. “Cool.”

  Sarina said, “So have you or not?”

  “Not. In the experience department we’re about even.”

  “Good,” said Sarina. “Let’s go to the fair.”