Owning Jolene

by Shelby Hearon

  “Fine.”

  “I think I will. Acting they’ll expect. Every model wants to get into film.” I am surprised at myself for thinking so coolly about this. “I like costume-design major. Especially considering the costume work we did on the portraits.” I say this with a serious tone and a straight face, and I can hear him laugh in a good way, like he’s liking that and deciding that maybe I’m not permanently mad. Also, I can see that Glenna and Brogan are wanting me to sound like I know what I’m doing. That I have this wonderful thing going on that was a big project and a big surprise.

  (They do not want me breaking into tears and throwing the cordless phone across the pink patio at the gray shingles, shouting at Henry that I’m not going to say a word to his creep reporter.)

  “Portraits, that’s good,” he says. “Portraits of a student.”

  “From Chillicothe.”

  “Where?”

  “ ‘The town where I live.’ ”

  “Are you coming back here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t stand it without you.”

  “I imagine so.” I say this in a light way, because Glenna and Brogan can only hear my end of the conversation.

  “Will you call?” He sounds amused, and knows that I’m not alone. “The reporter?”

  “Wait, I need a pen.”

  Glenna hands me her secretary’s clipboard and ballpoint, tied on with a pink cord, for taking messages when she and Brogan are out on the patio or when she’s under her home hair dryer or in the kitchen fixing a batch of milkshakes or some Snappy Tom on ice.

  I write it all down and say to Henry before I hang up, “I need to have a little time alone,” in a sweet way, so that Glenna and Brogan won’t think that anything is wrong or that I’m raging angry at what Henry did to me. I don’t want to give them that, any of them—not Henry and not them. I don’t want them to know, not any of them, that it matters to me as much as it does. Once they see that, then they can’t help it: no matter how well they mean or how much they want to be on your side, they use it. They see that torn open place and they are like dogs; they have to go for it.

  “Come see me,” Henry says, and hangs up the phone.

  “I have to call Newsweek,” I tell my aunt and uncle and watch their faces as they hear that. It is a piece of time that doesn’t seem to move. I see them look at me through that fact: through Newsweek wanting me to call, and I know that it doesn’t matter what I do any more, ever. They are never going to see me again except through that big glossy haze of Newsweek wanting me to call.

  I do all right. Thanks to good old Karen, who was probably trying to send me a message of what to say so I wouldn’t freak out. And I make a note that I’ll pay her back somehow. You’d think if anybody would take the opportunity to say something really hateful, right in the reporter’s ear, it would be Henry’s daughter. But she didn’t. Some people are a lot nicer than you would expect.

  I call collect on the cordless phone, saying it is Jolene calling. The reporter sounds like he is about my age, although I know that can’t be true. He wants some dirt or he wants some fascinating fact and it doesn’t bother me a bit to tell him things that aren’t true here in front of Brogan and Glenna, because they think that’s part of talking to reporters. I give him the costume-design major stuff, and the growing up in Chillicothe, which I have to spell. And then I tell him about how I wish to protect my family’s privacy but that I can say they’re in vineyards, that now that oil prices are down they’ve diversified into vineyards. And it looks like Brogan is going to have to cry. He has to do about ten deep knee bends and expand his chest and take a few arm swings, and look away for a minute.

  Glenna leans forward, hardly able to stand not hearing it all. She tries to guess what they’re asking me, putting it with what I’m saying, and I know she wishes she’d thought to go in the house on some excuse—to get us a refill on our health drinks or powder her nose or check on what’s for lunch—so she could pick up one of the phones in the house and listen in.

  What the reporter really wants to know is how do I feel about being buck naked all over the place, but I figure he can’t ask outright, or put those pictures in either, because it’s a family news magazine, so if I don’t say anything that implies they’re the way they are, then he can’t do much with that. He asks me what was my reaction to the show. And I tell him that portrait painting is coming back, that art is back in the seventeenth century, hoping I’ve remembered the right stuff from what Mrs. Wozencrantz was saying to Hallie Fine Arts and Millie Bernais. I try to remember some of the names she mentioned (of artists then and now) but I can’t. But I say it’s a long tradition, portrait painting; that I’m glad to be a part of it. And then I get him off the phone. He’s been panting a lot and I don’t want to think about that part of it. A good reporter instead of a stringer would be more interested in Henry’s technique. How did he make them look like old-fashioned photographs? And I wish I’d said something about that, but then I might have gotten in over my head, and, anyway, they must have talked to Henry, too, so he would have said all that. And about his uncle. I know he wants to give a lot of mention to his uncle.

  I put the phone down in its cradle, so worn out I can hardly move a muscle. I do the ten fingers and then nine more, this time as sort of a joke to myself. “About that bath …” I say.

  “You go right ahead.” Glenna gives a little shake of excitement. “But now, honey, what I started to say before your call is that we are all going out to celebrate tonight, the three of us. We are going to have us a real first-class five-star dinner on the town. We, us, ourselves, are going to have dinner at Lou Tess.”

  “It’s our treat,” Brogan says. “It’s on us.”

  “That’s right.” Glenna pulls something from her wallet and lays it on the table. “We have got here a brand-new unused maximum-limit MasterCard that we’ve been saving for something big. And this is it.”

  “Get your mouth to watering,” Brogan says. “Anything on the menu.”

  “But right now,” Glenna says, “I’m going to fill—”

  “—draw—”

  “—your tub.”

  “—her bath.”

  “Alien sights UFO,” I tell them, saluting with a high five. And even though they don’t understand what in the world my saying that has to do with anything at all that we’ve been talking about, they laugh. They laugh because they heard it from Jolene.

  39

  AFTER A FEW more days of being fussed over by Brogan and Glenna, I decide to try the Dawsons. Check out my options.

  Driving down San Pedro, rounding the corner to Rosewood, I move in slow motion, relieved to be back in this part of town. Everything seems familiar in the way that suburbs did in the old days with Mom, and even though in this neighborhood each house is distinctive, with its eye-catching special feature, still these attention-getters give the houses a quality of sameness, of their own kind of protective coloration, the way that when you drive around a Heights of Hills or Park at Christmas, every yard has a Santa with reindeer and outdoor lights on all the shrubs, so that in one way each yard is different but in another way they’re all alike.

  I take my time at the mailbox with its lariat, the retama/huisache in the yard, the doorway lassoed in shellacked rope. I take my time pushing the doorbell, not really wanting to be inside so much as to be here right on this porch, someone who belongs here, ringing the bell, calling out. The yard and the porch and the door can be the whole stage set, for both acts. The Niece comes to the door; she waits on the porch. Years pass, the sun sets, she’s under the tree in the yard. The moon rises, it’s another evening, she’s at the curb by her car.

  L.W.’s mom answers my ring.

  “Well, look here. Jolene,” she says. “Buddy’s out at school,” she tells me before I can ask. “It’s his play going on out there. You know about his play?”

  “The Second Peloponnesian War.” I show that I do.

  “That’s it
. That’s what he said.” She moves us both inside. “Look who’s here, Lenox,” she calls out to L.W. Senior at the dining table.

  He looks up, shifts his bulk. He is deep in the study of the Fixed Perpetual Calendar.

  “Buddy’s gone,” he tells me, getting up like a gentleman. “He’s not here. He’s at the college.”

  “Trinity,” Mrs. Dawson supplies.

  “I know—” I am trying to think of a way to linger. “I was on my way to help with the play. But as I was driving up San Pedro from town, in a hurry, don’t you know, to get there in plenty of time, well, see, I got something in my eye.” I squint and pull down my lid over my lower lashes, hoping it will look convincing, Hoping a slight wetness will result. I blink quickly two or three times. “I wonder, it isn’t safe, you know, driving with something in your eye, if I could rinse it out, if it would be trouble for you …”

  “You come right on back. Use the guest towels. Cold water is the best,” Mrs. L.W. says.

  “You have to watch yourself out there,” Mr. Dawson advises.

  “Maybe a little boric acid?” she suggests.

  “Driving down the street is a hazard these days,” he says.

  “You just come right on in here.” Mrs. Dawson leads the way to the bathroom off the hall, the bathroom between the living room and L.W.’s bedroom.

  “I appreciate it,” I tell her.

  Left alone I lean against the wall, almost weak with relief at how here, at least, things are the same. I never want to leave. I let the water run slowly, splashing it with my fingers from time to time, listening to the comforting sounds. I can hear Mrs. Dawson spit on the iron, can hear the thump of the heavy metal hitting the starched cotton dress, red and white, pulled over the covered ironing board. Spit, slap, it makes a good rhythm.

  I hear L.W.’s dad pull out his chair, get settled, scoot the chair back to the table, shuffle sheets of charts across the waxed surface.

  Why wouldn’t it be all right for me to go into the kitchen and make those chocolate chip cookies, careful to rotate the hot metal sheets back to front and top shelf to bottom for even baking, the chocolate and condensed milk and pecans all heating up and running together into a rich dark batter?

  I splash a little tap water on the back of my neck, resolved to ask them if I can just lie down for a minute. Just lie there for a minute in L.W.’s room, on his neat single bed, beneath the hanging mitts and hats.

  Then I hear Mrs. Dawson whisper, “She looks just the same as she did on TV, doesn’t she, Dad? The image. I declare I couldn’t believe my eyes. Jolene! Right here at the door.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what I already know. I know what I’m seeing when I’m seeing it. I’m seeing what I saw on my TV set and in my newspaper. The very same. Prettier in the flesh if you ask me.”

  “Won’t Buddy be sick to miss her.”

  “Not safe out there by herself. Where’s her folks should be carrying her where she needs to go?”

  Then I do feel sick and want to lie down—but not here. Not here where I have already disturbed the natural order of things. I turn off the water and strain for the sound of L.W.’s mom spitting on the iron, that nice sizzling sound.

  “Hush,” she whispers. “Here she comes.”

  “I’ll be on my way,” I tell them, opening my eyes wide to show that everything is fine.

  “You’ll be going on the school now, won’t you?”

  “I’m on my way. Thanks a lot. I sure appreciate your letting me stop by.”

  “You come again now. Any time. You come back to see us anytime you feel like it.”

  In the yard I look back at the safe-house set.

  It isn’t very good; you can see the joints where the flats hook together. And the porch: it’s flimsy, almost cardboard. It doesn’t look like anybody really stands there and rings the bell. But the rope—I wipe my eyes—the rope around the door, that’s good. And the matching one on the mailbox, that’s good, too.

  40

  IT ISN’T HARD to find the theatre building at Trinity. There are posters about coming performances and even a marquee in front. But I’m not in a big hurry; I figure that just about now the crew and cast will be having tacos and burgers from bags backstage and having their opening night pep talk. I have a clear picture of that, although I’ve never been part of a play. A lot of stuff like that you get in your mind from films. Besides, my famous teacher liked to talk about tragedies she’d played in capitals around the world.

  I sit in the courtyard by the drama building on a slatted redwood chair, one of a dozen set in a circle around a redwood table, near square hedges and round flower beds, all dappled by a live oak in the low setting sun. Probably some talk session has taken place here, with some other famous teacher, explaining the message of a play or the concept of a role. Or maybe just actors offstage talking about was it okay to sit around in a place this luxurious and landscaped, did that count as being serious and in class?

  I know it isn’t true that only rich kids come here—because L.W. and the Pal are here. But then maybe they let in talent at the top, to make a good impression, the way you see foreign students, wearing different clothes and sounding different, asking you the way to the administration building.

  Once inside, I go in the theatre, and it is a big splendid room with soft black-tweed seats fanned out in a semicircle, rising up in steep rows. But the stage, which has a few black cube tables and black chairs and a black baby grand piano is deserted. It isn’t actually a set; there are blank gray flats in the back and a few chalk marks on the floor. Nobody is in here.

  I look around, thinking there should be people running up and down the aisles, noises off in the wings. It is like a model of a theatre, beautiful in all its blacks and grays, but it doesn’t look as if anyone has ever been in here. Maybe it’s new; maybe even the chalk marks are part of the action.

  I sit a minute, trying to imagine a play here, someone saying lines, lights from the spots showing up a face, the face of a girl caught in a crowd, a lot of voices and people waving cameras—but that’s been done before.

  Finally I leave the quiet and go back out into the entrance hall. I wander around until I see a sign that says WORKSHOP THEATRE and an arrow that points down a narrower hall.

  There it is. A big three-color poster with very arty graphics that spell out THE SECOND PELOPONNESIAN WAR. A TWO-ACT PLAY. BY LENOX WORTH DAWSON. The last letters of the title and his name are made very big and set at an angle, so you have E D N R and X H N leaping out from the sign. It’s very effective. Something about it has a Mexican air and I wonder if L.W. got to do his own designing or, in a workshop play, if there is a crew for that.

  I open the door a crack and there it is. His play. No mistaking it. The set is an intersection. High up are two street signs: HUISACHE and RETAMA. Below each sign is a smaller one pointing to the left and right respectively, and these, being in English and then Spanish give the idea right away what the play’s about. Under HUISACHE an arrow indicates EL SENDERO DE LA CRUZ ASAMBLEAS DE DIOS, and, under RETAMA an arrow points to THE WAY OF THE CROSS ASSEMBLY OF GOD.

  I feel better already, tucked here under L.W.’s Brown Umbrella. I figure if he can’t get his mind off the problem even when I’m sitting on his bed, then he’s sure not going to be noticing me here.

  A lot of kids are shouting and lights are changing colors and it’s hard to tell who is part of the play and who is part of the audience—but there may be a lot of duplication.

  You can tell it’s a workshop because there is paint on the floor and stacks of flats against one wall and some unlabeled boxes tied with string.

  I take a seat in the back on one of the folding chairs that are all on one level and arranged in straight rows with a wide aisle in the middle. It is dark back here; the houselights have suddenly dimmed, and I feel as inconspicuous as I have anywhere since before Henry’s show.

  Maybe I’ll just spend a lot of time the next few years sitting in the back of theatre
s around town, being part of the audience for tryouts and readings and rehearsals, clapping when everybody else does, getting up when it’s over and wrapping a scarf around my neck and pulling on an acid-washed jean jacket when everybody else does, or coming in shorts and a T, if it’s that kind of crowd.

  I’m in my poet’s skirt, with my gauzy blouse made in the Philippines, and it seems to me that it’s been about a hundred years since I made up my rice-white cheeks and went in search of a Texas Ex at that first party where I met L.W. I wonder what would have happened if I’d gone home with him that night; if everything would have turned out differently.

  I remember later times, too, when things could have gone either way. The red panties tucked under his pillow in that house on Rosewood with its arched doorway, its nailed-shut windows in back, its big yard dotted with blackbirds, its green-barked tree by the walk. I remember our improvising that I’d been attacked by a mugger in the parking lot outside Al’s diner. Would we have been any different with each other if his folks had stayed away an hour longer? If the Pal had waited till another day?

  If I hadn’t been already posing for Henry?

  I wish for a minute that it was me up there standing at the intersection, sleeves rolled up, my back turned, looking first toward EL SENDERO DE LA CRUZ and then toward THE WAY OF THE CROSS.

  L.W. turns around to scattered applause. He looks to his right and then his left, and while he’s looking right another figure in pants and shirt with rolled-up sleeves enters on the left. It’s the Pal, dressed with her hair tucked up and a cap on and wearing suspenders like a man. They slap hands and then both look right and left. Clearly they are waiting for someone.

  Arch has a sign that she swings that identifies her as a member of OBEMLA (Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages); L.W. waves a similar one that says U.S. ENGLISH (the one-language lobby).

  Finally, the main character rushes in from the right, dressed in workman’s coveralls that say FIRE ANT CONTROL across the chest. He holds up a placard on which is lettered LULAC—a prop that lets everybody know he’s a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens. They both greet him, and then we know that his name is Jesús, and this is part of the point, too, because he’s called Geez-us by L.W. and Hey-soose by Arch.