Eating the Cheshire Cat

by Helen Ellis

  “I’m sick,” Nicole sobbed to her mother. “I’m sick of all of this.”

  “Well, you know what, Nicole? I’m sick of it too. I’m sick of your laziness. I’m sick of all my hard work and you still insisting on being a disappointment.”

  Nicole felt her body crumble.

  Mrs. Hicks propped her up like an unwilling doll. “Now, you listen to me.” She shook Nicole’s shoulders. “You are a hostess here. You are my daughter and you are a Tri Delt. You will go upstairs and change. You will come down here and tend to our guests. Do you read me? With good fortune comes responsibility.”

  Nicole whispered, “I’m not a Tri Delt.”

  Mrs. Hicks let her go and Nicole’s ass hit the floor.

  Enveloped by her mother’s shadow, Nicole looked up and into the face so similar to her own. She thought, Maybe finally it’s all going to be over. No more clubs to be a part of. No more games to win and win.

  “Did you hear me?” Nicole braved. “They kicked me out. I’m not a Delt.”

  “Well, then.” Mrs. Hicks’s expression lost its luster. “We’re going to have to figure out the next best thing.”

  Mrs. Hicks held up her hand. Under the track lighting, her diamond ring shone.

  Nicole hissed, “You’re not marrying me off. I won’t be a whore.”

  Her mother backhanded her, the ring leaving a gash on Nicole’s pasty cheek. As she walked out of the kitchen, she gave her daughter instructions. “Clean yourself up, then join me with the others.”

  Nicole used her not-so-puffy short sleeve to stop the flow of blood. When she stood up, she knew two things: this was her party now and she wanted that ring.

  On her way from the kitchen, Nicole pulled a butcher knife out of the block.

  She gripped it at her side as she strode into the living room. This is my party now. You will listen, listen, listen. She shouted, “Listen!” but her mother did not flinch.

  Mrs. Hicks kept her eyes on her cards, three card tables away from where her daughter entered screaming. The rest of her foursome tried to follow her lead. When Nicole raised the butcher knife, decorum was lost.

  “Carolyn,” said someone.

  Cards were placed down at table after table. “Carolyn, for God’s sake!”

  Nicole was now running. She hiked her skirt and hurdled a chair. When her mother looked up, Nicole had no way of stopping herself. She was flying, flying, flying. She had wings and she had speed. She was out of control and the only thing that would stop her was the blade coming down.

  When it did, Mrs. Hicks was caught pointing out queens full of jacks. Within a split second, Mrs. Hicks lost her daughter, her nerve, and two-thirds of her right index finger.

  Nicole jerked the butcher knife out of the card table. She shivered as her mother dragged back her hand and Mr. Pointy stayed where served. The ring stood between Mrs. Hicks and her nub of her index finger. It toppled with a tiny thud.

  The alumnae were out of control. They fled to the kitchen, upstairs, to their cars. Several women were so full of mimosas plus panic they squatted like ceramic frog plant holders and peed in the backyard. A few brave matriarchs remained in the poker room and darted between the buffet tables shoving banana bread and petits fours into their purses.

  Mrs. Hicks stayed in her seat. She went pale as the blood drained from her face, and down her arm, across the tablecloth, from the hole in her hand. The blood pooled and lifted the queen of spades from the table. It slid to the edge, then fell, face first, splat on the beige, velvet-soft, steam-cleaned carpet.

  Nicole spotted Tootsie leading the caterer out of the bathroom. She met her eyes as Tootsie registered the blood and the butcher knife and Mrs. Hicks slumping deeper into her chair.

  “No!” she cried. “No, pumpkin, you didn’t!”

  Tootsie zigzagged between card tables, snatching cocktail napkins, shoving them down the front of her shirt. When she reached Mrs. Hicks, she applied pressure to the wound, pulling napkin after napkin out of her blouse to soak more blood.

  Tootsie reached for the finger.

  Nicole reached it first. With the butcher knife, she swept it off the table and it flew into a floor fan. The fan coughed and spit out Mrs. Hicks’s now irreparable part. Blood and skin sprayed Nicole’s ankle, her mother’s cheek.

  Tootsie cried “NO!”

  Nicole grabbed the ring and started to run. I can’t go back. I can never go back. She had no idea where she was going or how to get there or whether she would. She sprinted through the house without the proper shoes. Her pumps hurt her heels and she clenched the ring in her fist. She thought of her mother. Now she’s got nothing! Not moon rocks, not me! She ran into the traffic congested outside her house. She ran as fast as she could until someone opened a door offering her a way to escape.

  Back in the Hicks’s house, the guests had evacuated. Remaining were Tootsie and Mrs. Hicks and the caterer who had seen this incident from beginning to end. That young woman dialed 911.

  In a house vacated by hatred and nonsense, Bitty Jack Carlson spoke as calmly as she could. “There’s been an accident,” she told the operator. “We need an ambulance. Hurry, you hear?”

  Sarina

  THE YEAR FOLLOWING Nicole’s disappearance, Sarina kept her bedroom door locked and the shades drawn, and she never walked anywhere without a sister at her side. These were house rules and applied to every girl, not just the one Nicole had cut herself up for. The Tri Deltas were distraught. Terrified that Nicole might show up full of craziness. A bagful of butcher knives. Geared to collect souvenirs from sisters who had forgotten to tuck their hands safely beneath their covers.

  Mrs. Summers told Sarina she had nothing to worry about. If Nicole was going to come back, she would have done so by now. If Nicole was going to hurt her, she’d had plenty of chances. In the wake of such an ugly situation, Sarina should do her best to find the good. Nicole had always been dead weight on her heels. She’d hung on. Slowed her down. Her junior year in college, Sarina had more important things to consider. Now was the time to move on unencumbered.

  Sarina told her mother she wasn’t scared.

  Mrs. Summers answered frequently, “That’s because that girl is gone.”

  Sarina knew Nicole was probably dead. Picked up hitchhiking, her thumb testing her doom like a turkey thermometer. Years from now, Nicole’s body would surface. Kids would find it in the woods or parts of it stuffed in an abandoned refrigerator. By the time she was found, Tuscaloosa would have forgotten Nicole and come to view Mrs. Hicks’s right-hand nub as an unfortunate birth defect and not the result of a bad seed gone berserk. Her dental records would be the only way to identify her. Unless Nicole still had that ring. That was an item T-town could identify.

  During his five-minute editorial time, Mr. Hicks had shown enlarged pictures of the diamond in its intended place, his wife’s first finger. He showed photos of Nicole. The most recent, her Tri Delta pledge shot. Sarina remembered how, every few seconds, Mr. Hicks shook his head as if he were trying to wake himself from what had become of his life. He wasn’t too swift during the co-anchor banter. When he read the TelePrompTer segue into the football scores, his voice cracked and he didn’t seem to care that Auburn trounced Bama at the end of November for the third stinking year in a row. Closing off, he apologized for his earlier lack of impartiality. The editorial had been a one-time plea for help in the locating of his lost, obviously disturbed, sweet, sweet child.

  Sarina was pissed at Mr. Hicks’s portrait of his daughter. Nicole wasn’t the victim and she shouldn’t be portrayed as one on TV. In Sarina’s opinion, Nicole had done this to herself. She had screwed up her chances of being anyone worthwhile. Once upon a time, Sarina would have been more affected by the loss of her friend, but Sarina had let go of Nicole years before Nicole had surgically removed herself.

  Besides, Sarina was too busy to be sad, scared, or bothered at all. Graduation was in sight. Less than two years away.

  At every Delta meeting,
it seemed, another senior announced her engagement. All the single sisters cheered and jumped to their feet. Champagne was uncorked and a serenade pilgrimage was made to the lawn of the groom-to-be’s frat house.

  Sarina wanted to be the subject of such songs. She wanted to move forward, beat her peers to Wife and Country Clubber. It would be good to have her future secured. Marriage was the logical step.

  Of course, Sarina was aware of divorce stats and difficult men. She had grown up as a first-hand witness to a prime example. She knew. No one had to tell her. But her marriage would be different, a shining example. No man would dare to cross her. She just had to find a manageable prospect.

  Sarina met Joe Diller at the Alabama Boat Show.

  Diller Marine was the largest display in the center floor space of the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center. The family business had twelve bass boats surrounding a yacht that stood almost as high as the second-floor escalators. Joe stood on the deck of that yacht. He wore shorts and sunglasses despite an unseasonably cold Halloween.

  Sarina was dressed as Cleopatra at the Tri Delta Trout Tub. She wore blood red lipstick and false eyelashes that hit her brows. Her dress had been doctored so she looked straight out of the movies. Cleavage everywhere. Faux emeralds pasted to leather straps making their way over and under ten polished toes. And there was more. Mrs. Summers had mixed glue, glitter, and Jergens to give Sarina’s skin the golden glint sometimes found on expensive hood ornaments.

  Her sorority sisters had come dressed as a mouse, Raggedy Ann, a bubble bath (who looked more like a cauliflower), and an Avon lady fresh out of hell. Even if Sarina hadn’t spotted Joe, the night at the trout tub would have been a success.

  Every year, Tri Delta sponsored amateur fishing to raise money for the Humane Society. They rented bamboo poles to kids or anyone who wanted to stand around a fiberglass pool, drop their hooks, and try to catch one of the hundreds of bass previously captured the hard way from Lake Tuscaloosa.

  “Five minutes for a dollar,” a Tri Delt would call.

  “There’s a big one in there. Almost eight pounds.”

  “Won’t you?” Sarina would say, her voice soft like Marilyn’s, not Elizabeth Taylor’s. “It’s for charity.”

  From the top of his yacht, behind his silver-tinted sunglasses, Joe pretended to survey the sales floor. He was a terrible faker. Sarina knew he was looking at her. She knew he was considering taking a break to say hello. To show Joe that she was a sporting girl, a woman he could lure to the lake at five in the morning, Sarina took the fish off the hooks by herself. She smiled as she stuck her hand into each gill, held it firmly, then dropped it into a Ziploc bag.

  “Don’t cry.” She’d gather her dress and stoop to watery kiddie eye-level. “He’ll stop squirming as soon as he suffocates.”

  Joe made his way down the yacht stairs to the bass boats. He took two steps at a time as if he had one just like it docked in his backyard. Sarina clocked him at twenty-eight, but indisputably he was in charge. Comfortable as the go-see. At ease with competition in every direction.

  All the salesmen reported to Joe. If a customer wanted a better deal, he asked for a supervisor and was taken to Joe. If he wanted to see something back at the dealership, Joe gave him a business card and hints of special treatment. Joe signed all sale slips. He kept the catalogues stacked a foot high no matter how busy things got.

  “Everybody likes to fish.” Joe grinned at his customers, retirees or juniors with their Pampers brood in tow. “A little quiet time with nature. Just you and your thoughts. Come on.” He’d wave his blond-knuckled hand. “Let me show you the rod bins. Seven-footers on this Cajun Beauty.”

  When Joe offered to buy her a Pepsi Freeze, Sarina knew she would bag him on their first date.

  * * *

  Joe took Sarina to dinner at the Cypress Inn. The restaurant was just across the Black Warrior River and Joe’s new car handled the back roads beautifully. All the restaurant tables had a view of the water and the wait staff wore bow ties, even the waitresses. Sarina had been there just a few times. Each night, an occasion. High school Homecoming. The prom. While her suitors paid the checks, Sarina had noticed adults who were there only for Friday surf-and-turf. No special reason. Just dinner. Fifty bucks. Sarina had never been there in anything other than her fanciest dress. So she called her mother, who advised a nice pantsuit.

  Sarina ordered swordfish, even though she hated sword-fish. She drank white wine illegally. She ate all her vegetables. She was very attentive. She did not complain when Joe excused himself to make a business call and left her gazing at the river, a pecked-bald duck drifting determinately by.

  After all, he was gorgeous. And rich. Not just some college boy.

  Diller Marine was the most profitable dealership outside of Gulf Shores. Mrs. Summers had done some homework. She wanted to know who this boat salesman was. When she got the Dun & Bradstreet, she said, “Sweetheart, he’s your man.”

  The Dillers weren’t big socially, but the Summers could change that. They could push them into the Cheshire Country Club. Override Mrs. Hicks, that naysayer who used Mrs. Summers’s divorce and, more than likely, that rush ring–stealing lie she’d threatened Sarina with, as ways to keep the Summers at the University Pool. With the Diller money behind them, the Summers had power. No due was too pricey. No Hicks strong enough.

  Besides, since Nicole’s disappearance, Mrs. Hicks had dissolved. She had become even thinner. Unattractively thinner. She was quiet at sorority gatherings, her hands arranged carefully, poised in her lap. Tootsie Steptoe escorted her, pointed out steps, guided her through girls, uncomfortable in the presence of her cancerish condition.

  Mrs. Summers said, “Now she knows what it’s like to be robbed.”

  Sarina said, “She’s lost it, all right.”

  With the Diller name signed in Sarina’s bold penmanship, it would be impossible for Mrs. Hicks to override the application.

  Joe told Sarina about his job. How one day, he would take over for his father. Turn Diller Marine into a chain of stores linking Alabama to Georgia to Mississippi.

  “You mean Mississippi to Alabama to Georgia.”

  “Sure, sure.” He smiled. “That’s what I said.”

  Sarina pictured a future with Joe. Cutting red ribbons. Posing by his side in Sunday color-edition newspaper ads. She would water ski every summer. Oil herself up. Get the tan she knew she deserved.

  “My father doesn’t have my ambition. When I’m in charge, I’ll take us places. Move to Atlanta. Get us out of this one-horse town.”

  “Us?” said Sarina.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Sarina held her wine glass casually. She wanted him to see a woman who could always keep him satisfied. Who would stay this way forever. Who was better than the rest. She blew out the candle. She said, “Let’s go.”

  Joe’s apartment was small by Alabama standards. Shaped like a capital L, each door was indistinguishable: bathroom, his room, hall closet, one for linens. It was neat, but lacked identity.

  “I know.” Joe grinned. “It could use a woman’s touch.”

  Sarina said she’d touch it and then Joe opened the fridge. The little light lit up and the Maytag screamed bachelor. Parkay sticks, two brown eggs, left-over fast food, and an assortment of booze.

  “Champagne?” Joe said. “Or,” he opened the freezer to a lone bottle of vodka, “something stronger?”

  Sarina said, “Whose wine cooler is that?”

  Joe looked in the fridge as if he had unlocked the door to his neighbor’s apartment. His voice curled into a question. “Mine?”

  Sarina crossed her arms like her mother in certain circumstances. “What’s her name?”

  “She’s nobody.”

  “Is Nobody who you spent half an hour with on the phone during dinner?”

  Joe didn’t move.

  Sarina reached into the fridge and plucked out the wine cooler. It was Very Berry. A sissy girl’s drink. She rolled it be
tween her palms. “Why don’t you call Miss Nobody right now and tell her that it’s over. I’m not going to share you.” She twisted off the top.

  Joe leaned against the kitchen counter, his good posture heading toward the sink. “I can’t do it over the phone. She’s not as strong as you.”

  Sarina took a sip. The Very Berry was sickly sweet. She wanted to gag, but then she thought of the woman who had picked the four-pack off the grocery shelf. She was probably Joe’s age. Fragile with the knowledge that her good years were gone. Sarina pulled the bottle away and the glass mouth made a little pop. She looked at Joe as if he should know better. She brought the bottle back for another swig. She thought, By the time I finish drinking this, you sure as hell better pick up that phone. What she said was, “So toughen her up.”

  Joe looked at her as if the other woman was his mother. God forbid he hurt her like that. God forbid he hurt a stupid little twit.

  Sarina said, “It’s your choice.” But she knew there was no contest. How could there be? How could it possibly get better than this? Sarina knew she was a catch. She had the fries to go with her shake. She was all that and a bag of chips.

  Joe took the portable into his bedroom. He shut the door for what, after ten minutes, seemed like would be a very long time.

  Sarina took inventory of the bathroom. She put the plastic trash can on the commode and filled it with toiletries he would not be needing anymore. Pond’s Cold Cream (even her mother was too young to use that), hair spray, a barrette lacquered with hair spray, roll-on deodorant shaped like a lavender penis, plus his only toothbrush. She knew it had been in that other woman’s mouth. Joe should know it wasn’t going back into his.

  She opened the front door and hurled the wine cooler at the bushes that bordered the parking lot. It felt good to divide and conquer. When the bottle broke, the night air was filled with the sour, arousing tang of an ex-girlfriend gone stale.

  Back at the Delta house she called her mother, who asked how it went.

  “Pretty well,” said Sarina. “I didn’t call you too late?”