Eating the Cheshire Cat

by Helen Ellis

  Big Al’s head back in her arms, Bitty Jack approached Stewart, stood on her toes and blew cold air onto his throat. When Stewart closed his eyes, Bitty Jack blew on his forehead and face, behind his ears and along the hairline along the back of his neck.

  Stewart whispered, “That feels so nice.” He opened his eyes and put his front feet on Bitty Jack’s hands which held Big Al’s head by his two pudgy cheeks.

  By the look in Stewart’s blue eyes, Bitty knew what was coming. She had seen that look before. That look that said kiss. Up until now, there had only been Johnny. Up until now, Johnny haunted her every day. But the dressing room was too small to house both memories and new interests. Bitty Jack leaned forward despite the mascot’s head, Stewart’s extra padding, and her own quickening heart that up until now had belonged to another.

  Before kickoff, Stewart led Bitty Jack up the steep stadium aisle to the president’s box. With Big Al’s head secured over his own, Stewart disappeared and Big Al came to life. He took the cement stairs by twos, slapping five with eager fans, doing the Rocky routine with his arms overhead in a victory V. He was working the crowd. Bitty Jack followed, but nobody noticed. All eyes were on the elephant. In the Crimson Tide spirit. Roll Tide Roll Tide, Roll.

  When they reached the president’s box, Stewart waved through the glass windows, and his parents, along with everyone else, waved back.

  Mrs. Steptoe raised her hand and pointed as if to ask, That her?

  Stewart nodded his heavy gray head. He nudged Bitty Jack with his fat, felt elbow.

  Mrs. Steptoe made her way through the hotshot alumnae. She pointed out the cute couple to everyone she maneuvered around. Through the soundproof glass, Bitty Jack could read her lips.

  “Hah-loo,” she called. “I’m coming! Hah-loo!”

  A security guard held the door open as Mrs. Steptoe fell into Stewart’s elephant arms. She was five foot two. She lay her cheek against his extra-extra large T-shirt. “I love him like this,” she shouted over the noise. “Call me Tootsie. Everybody does.”

  In the president’s box, Mrs. Steptoe introduced Bitty Jack as “Bitty.” In a room full of Missies and Bootsies led by a Tootsie, Bitty Jack’s name seemed cultured and sane. Mr. and Mrs. Steptoe mingled and let Bitty Jack sit at the front long narrow table and watch their son make the whole town proud.

  During halftime, the Million Dollar Band marched onto the field. They spelled bama with their bodies, the guy with the tuba dotting the twelve-man exclamation point. The drum major’s feathered hat blew easy in the breezy. Stewart held a megaphone and mimed cheers with the cheerleaders. He charged at the refs. He hexed the other team’s goal post.

  Mrs. Steptoe sat down next to Bitty. She took her hand and seemed to slowly pet it. “You’re a nice girl, I can tell.”

  Bitty Jack said, “Thank you.”

  “You’ll take care of him when he needs it?”

  Bitty Jack said, “Sure.”

  “He’s our only one,” Tootsie said and squeezed her fingers. “You know what that’s like. You’re an only. I can feel it. Your parents love you like we love Stewart. To us, you onlies can do nothing that’s not right.”

  The game continued and Alabama won. Bitty Jack said goodbye to the Steptoes, said she’d see them again. She waited for Stewart in the Big Al Mobile. He had given her the keys. Promised something special after their kiss.

  He took her to the Alabama Museum of Natural History located in Smith Hall to the right of the library.

  “Won’t it be closed?”

  Stewart said, “Skeleton key.” He jangled his key ring and separated a long brass suspicious-looking one. “Job perk.”

  “What for?”

  “Tradition. You know, from one Al to another.”

  As Stewart unlocked the front door, Bitty Jack played lookout, increasingly ill at ease as if spotlighted by the past. Smith Hall was built entirely of yellow bricks. A former president’s wife had grown tired of a campus made of redbrick, but her efforts never reached further than the end of Capstone Drive. There were cars parked, but the drivers were elsewhere, caught up in post-game Homecoming festivities. Music drifted overhead from fraternity backyards. The street lights drew moths and Stewart fumbled with the skeleton key. When the lock clicked out of place, Bitty Jack wondered how many other study buddies he might have brought here before her. She wondered what else might be a mascot tradition. If stories of conquests were passed along with that key.

  As if reading her mind, Stewart said, “I’ve never done this before. I was half scared the thing wouldn’t work.”

  Inside, the darkness caused Bitty Jack to instinctively reach out and take his hand. It was meaty and warm. Tight, padded skin covering palm, thumb, and fingers. Bitty Jack was suddenly comforted. At ease in the grasp of such a great, sturdy man.

  Stewart flipped a switch that lit up ten glass cases along the walls of the circular Indian artifact room. Beneath the soft glow of 40 watt voltage, Bitty Jack and Stewart looked at arrow heads and sharp sticks and shallow bowls for crushing corn. There were photos covering the backs of each case: Chocktaws sharpening spears, Cherokees nursing babies, the Creeks rowing down the Black Warrior River, Chief Tuskaloosa telling stories to his tribe.

  Bitty Jack stopped at the Chickasaw case. She noticed how different the Indians were than the ones painted on the mess-hall mural back at summer camp. There were no photos of the wild-eyed warriors she had grown up with. No red-skinned men with white stripes across their faces.

  Every single case displayed one shrunken head after the next.

  “Pretty cool,” said Stewart and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  Bitty Jack allowed herself to lean back against Stewart’s stomach. He was much wider than Johnny. He was as solid as a wall. Bitty Jack felt the static in her hair ignite against his shirt pocket. She tried to stare into the sewn-shut eyelids of the Chickasaw shrunken heads. But they were gray and puckered and made Bitty Jack turn away. She laid her cheek against Stewart’s oxford shirt and breathed in the fresh scent of his laundry detergent.

  She said, “Mama uses Tide.”

  Stewart said, “Oh, yeah?”

  Bitty Jack nodded, Stewart’s cool cotton shirt heating up from the friction of her skin so close to his. She tried to make her fingertips touch behind his back. When she failed, she squeezed him as if she could make him shrink to fit. She couldn’t, but that didn’t matter. Stewart felt good. So close, breathing at a rate two beats slower than her own. She considered going to sleep, standing up, right there in his arms.

  Stewart kissed her before she had the chance. He cradled her so snugly, she just let her body go. His bottom lip was fuller than the top, so as he repositioned each kiss, Bitty Jack felt the conflicting sensations of pink skin and mustache stubble. Her glasses bumped against his face, but still it was easier than it had been before the game.

  “I could get used to kissing you,” Bitty said before she realized she had said it out loud.

  Stewart said, “Oh, yeah?”

  “I don’t know,” she managed, “I don’t know. I’m just rambling.”

  “Ramble on.” Stewart grinned and, like a fireman, picked her up and carried her to the next room, to a bench, by the reconstructed saber-toothed tiger.

  Nicole

  AS NICOLE spooned sugar over the grapefruit half her ‘mother had set out for her, Mrs. Hicks sat down at the kitchen table and said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Nicole ran her thumb back and forth across the serrated edge of her grapefruit spoon. Feeling that familiar itch where her skin started to tear, she wondered if she could saw that spoon all the way to the bone.

  Mrs. Hicks didn’t give her the chance. “Don’t be so melodramatic.” She snatched the spoon and rapped it on the table. “You’re eighteen, for God’s sake. It’s good news. Eat your breakfast.”

  “I get to live in the dorms?”

  Mrs. Hicks said, “No. I’ve signed you up for rush.”

  Ni
cole frowned. “Give me back my spoon.”

  Mrs. Hicks tossed the spoon onto Nicole’s quilted place mat. It landed with a tiny thwup. Mrs. Hicks leaned forward and wrapped her hands around her daughter’s wrists. While she spoke, she pumped Nicole’s arms as if she was trying to get water from a dead, dried-up well. “Listen to me.” She tightened her grip. “The decision is made. You’re going with me to a pre-rush party at Tootsie’s. You’ll wear your black sundress. The one with the daisies.” She sized up her daughter. “And my white cardigan to cover those scars.”

  Nicole crossed her arms to hide the welts she had created with a sharp No. 2 pencil. She knew better than to fight her mother anymore. Since the Kelly party fiasco, Nicole had been doing her best to get out of the house on good behavior. Her grounding had become like a debt. Each time she talked back, raised her voice, or gave her mother a hint of trouble, Mrs. Hicks added interest to her punishment: another week, two more months, or, as she was prone to put it, “Whatever I damn well feel like.”

  At Central East, there had been no more late dates with Sarina after school. As soon as the last bell rang, Mrs. Hicks could be found in the pickup semicircle, the car in neutral, her hands steady at the wheel. Ready. Set. Go. She hired tutors to account for Nicole’s time at home. Whenever Mrs. Hicks had plans, Nicole had a tutor. As a result, Nicole’s grades legitimately improved, and Mrs. Hicks was free to join the likes of Tootsie Steptoe at monthly alumnae meetings of the University of Alabama chapter of Delta Delta Delta.

  As far back as Nicole could remember, her mother had been a dedicated Tri Delt alum. Since joining the sorority, she had been best friends with Tootsie. So much so that it was she who had given the Steptoes their nicknames back in college. Mrs. Steptoe was Tootsie. Dr. Steptoe was Footsie. Nicole didn’t know if the name had anything to do with podiatry. But every time his name was mentioned, whoever heard it would nod their head and concur, “Good old Footsie!” But only Tootsie caught him. And Mrs. Hicks took full credit for setting the couple up.

  In regard to her sorority, Mrs. Hicks nabbed credit for just about everything. She was the Standards Chair and, each year, she sponsored the Tri Delta Poker Play-Off. It was held at the Hicks’ house the Sunday following pledge initiation. Tri Delt alumnae from six Southern states tried to win their way in through their chapters’ qualifying tournaments. The event went under the guise of charity and good fun, but there was a small side pot no winner would be embarrassed to take home.

  Tootsie and Footsie lived in Lakewood, two houses from the Kellys, just ten minutes from Cheshire. The street was silent for the most part. As quiet as Nicole’s friendship with Sarina had been since her panic attack in the cul-de-sac.

  Pulling up to the curb, Mrs. Hicks told her daughter, “You’re doing the right thing. Letting me help you like this.”

  Nicole let her gaze fall into her own lap. She surveyed the sheer pink nail polish her mother had insisted she borrow after breakfast.

  Mrs. Hicks said, “Tri Delta can change your life. It’s still the best house on campus. So stay close to me and let everyone know that you’re my daughter.”

  Nicole felt funny in her mother’s good graces. It was almost nauseating. Nicole was so anxious that she did not notice the blue Prelude at the end of the driveway. It belonged to Sarina, a second-year Delt.

  The party was just as Mrs. Hicks had described. Finger food and handshakes. Alumnae and sisters staying in Tuscaloosa over summer vacation. The alumnae were there to push the local girls; the sisters to check out that new crop of daughters and the sweethearts of certain sons. When official rush started one week before school, the Tri Delts would see more than one thousand high school graduates. They picked fifty to pledge. It was crucial that Nicole stand out in their minds.

  “You’ll stand out because you’re an easy cut,” Mrs. Hicks whispered as she poured the last of the punch. “You’ve got your looks, but you are far, far from the pick of the litter.”

  “Oh, she’s not that bad!” said Tootsie as she pushed her body between the Hicks to dump a fresh ring of rainbow sherbet into the punch bowl. The sherbet had been packed and refrozen in a pound-cake pan. In the champagne pool, it floated and spun slightly like the last inner tube at the end of the world.

  Mrs. Hicks said, “I’m just being honest.”

  Tootsie wrapped an arm around Nicole’s shoulders. She pulled Nicole’s hair away from her ear and whispered loud enough for her best friend to hear, “Your mom’s a little worry-wart.” She pinched Nicole’s waist in a way that could force a giggle out of anyone.

  Mrs. Hicks said, “Tootsie, be serious!”

  “Now, now.” Tootsie reached down and took Nicole’s hand. “I see the natives approaching. Big Chief Toot Toot know cold sky in bowl bring tribe to buffet table. Me see-um now.”

  Mrs. Hicks said, “Nicole, hold your shoulders back.”

  Tootsie said, “Relax. You’re making me tense. Go do your thing. I’ll take care of Nicole.”

  Mrs. Hicks relented and walked away from the buffet and straight toward Sarina.

  Sarina was by the living-room picture window. Nicole had not noticed her because she was surrounded by the Macon triplets, driven down from Birmingham to spend the weekend with their Great Aunt Gertrude, who, every year, turned her four-acre front yard into the Tri Delta Christmas Tree Auction for the crack-baby wing at Druid City Hospital. Old Gertrude liked to piss off the Boy Scouts and their puny trees. The eighty-nine-year-old lady was a Tri Delta supreme.

  With one motion, Mrs. Hicks managed to touch all three of the backs of the Macon triplets’ necks. She said something like “More punch?” and the Macon girls came barreling toward Nicole as if the ice would melt as soon as they exhaled.

  Tootsie said, “Whoa! Slow down. It’s not going anywhere. Is it?” She released Nicole’s hand and offered her the ladle. “Is it, pumpkin?”

  Nicole shook her head and tried to get the punch into the cups without spilling any on the white lace tablecloth. It wasn’t easy and it was even harder to concentrate with her mother and Sarina holed up in the living room corner.

  “Relax,” Tootsie told her. “You’re doing just fine.”

  Nicole nodded and appeased the Macon triplets and five girls from Georgia and some of Tootsie’s friends and the pledge director herself. Tootsie introduced Nicole to every person she served.

  “Nicole,” she said, each time as naturally as the first, “is the Hicks girl. Isn’t she a sport helping out on no notice? It’s my tennis elbow again. Call me crazy, but I just can’t keep my hands off the doc-tah’s fuzzy widdle bawls!”

  Without fail, whoever heard this would laugh and swat the air. “Oh, Tootsie, you are so bad!”

  Tootsie would follow with the sincere note “Nicole is most definitively an RTP.”

  Rush to Pledge was serious business. An RTP had better get in.

  That afternoon, Tootsie and Mrs. Hicks were able to campaign for Nicole. Once official rush started, they would be practically powerless. Alumnae were not allowed on campus. The active sisters ran the show. Although it did not happen frequently, legacies could be rejected. Once cut, there was no second chance. A girl was left with very few choices. If she wasn’t cut from rush altogether, she could pledge a lesser house or do the extreme: leave Tuscaloosa and rush Auburn two weeks later. Maybe the girl would make Tri Delt there. But everyone knew that wasn’t as good. It was an agricultural college, for crying out loud. At the Alabama-Auburn football games, those girls were known as Delta Dogs.

  Mrs. Summers was an Auburn Tri Delt. Nicole wondered if her mother was currently rubbing that in Sarina’s poreless face.

  “She’s just telling it like it is.” Tootsie took the ladle away from Nicole and gently let it sink into the remainder of the punch. “Come.” She motioned to an empty window-seat. “Sit.”

  “What’s she doing?” Nicole asked. “What’s she want with her?”

  Tootsie moved a few throw pillows aside, sat down, and made room for Nicol
e. She looked out the window into the neighborhood laced with cars. “I miss our Jeep,” she said wistfully. “Stewart took it for the summer. He’s a Black Foot at Camp Chickasaw. Do you know it? Black Feet paint the cabins and keep up the grass.”

  Nicole waited for the answer to her question. What’s my mother want with my Ree?

  “His girlfriend’s parents run that camp. She grew up there. Can you imagine? Making your way out of the middle of nowhere. Working through college. That girl is a trouper.”

  “What house did she pledge?” Nicole tried to be cordial, but My mother, what’s she want? ran rampant through her brain.

  “She’s too poor to pledge,” Tootsie said sort of sadly. “But Stewart just loves her. We think she’s the One. Her background doesn’t matter. If Stewart were a girl, I’d be much more concerned.”

  “Mrs. Steptoe. My mother?”

  “Sure, sure. I’m sorry, pumpkin. Your mother. Your mother’s making sure you get a bid next month. She’s talking to your old friend. Telling her to push for you from inside the house.”

  Nicole remembered the car rides to Central West, the prom plans laid out, Sarina’s call for help made to her over anyone else in the whole damned school. She felt terrible that she had let Sarina down. By the time she arrived at the Kelly pre-prom party, Sarina had been forced to find another way home. Nicole had ruined everything. Poor Ree. Poor, poor Ree. In the wake of such a disastrous rescue, Nicole understood why Sarina snubbed her at Central East the following year. Then came college, which kept Sarina on campus, too far from Cheshire to reach out for Nicole.

  Nicole thought of how much closer Sarina would be to her if their lives were parallel. If they both lived at Tri Delta. If they were again cheering for the same home team. She told Tootsie, “I think Sarina would help me anyway.”