Oh!

by Mary Robison

  Lola went out of the room for a minute and came back with a bottle of glass cleaner. “‘On only tiny things that tear . . .’” she murmured to herself.

  “What?” Maureen said, carefully unhooking her rollers and racking them back in their case.

  “Just a minute,” Lola said. She stopped in the middle of the room and stared at her shoes.

  “Never mind if you don’t want to tell me,” Maureen said.

  “Sure,” Lola said. She went to the front window and striped it with cleaning spray. “I’m writing a poem in my head.”

  Maureen used her fingers to ruffle the stiffness out of her hair. “I didn’t know you wrote poetry.” She leaned between her parted knees, flexed her toes, and blew on the nails.

  “I haven’t since high school,” Lola said. “This is for my Creative Writing class. The professor told us he didn’t want sunsets or sea gulls, and no love junk.”

  “I’d rather be hit by a school bus than write a love poem,” Maureen said.

  “‘There are many days and terrible ways, to waste my bitter pride,’” Lola recited. “‘On only tiny things that tear, something, something, something.’”

  “That’s angry and ugly,” Maureen said.

  “No, it’s about anger,” Lola said, “and about how we waste it on a million little annoyances instead of on what’s really chewing at us.” She worked her paper towel around on the window glass. “Professor Riley got on my back last week. He jumped all over me for being black.”

  “I thought you told me he was black.” Maureen was busy pinching the bandage on her toe.

  “He is. But he says I’m not dealing with the New Negro. He says I don’t even know what the New Negro is,” Lola said.

  “What’s your favorite flower?”

  “Jonquils,” Lola said.

  “Then that’s it,” Maureen said. “That’s your topic.”

  “Not jonquils. Riley says stay away from flowers and children.”

  “Then Violet’s doubly out,” Maureen said. She got off the bed and draped herself in a beach towel on which the word Capri was scrawled, as if in lipstick, dozens of times.

  “More sunbathing?” Lola said.

  “Sleep,” Maureen said. “I’ve been trying to find a safe place to sleep ever since that helicopter came down at me this morning.”

  “You sleep more than anyone I’ve ever known,” Lola said. “How can you do it so much?”

  “It’s a gift,” Maureen said. She stepped through a small door out onto a little rooftop balcony surrounded by latticed fencing. She stepped back inside. “Goddamn it, Chris is back.”

  “I didn’t know he ever left,” Lola said.

  They watched Chris. He had gotten himself onto Violet’s tiny bicycle, and he pumped across the backyard, standing on the pedals for leverage. The bike inched to the top of a grade. There was a sharp hill all around the yard proper, and Chris shot down it with his feet spinning furiously and then coasted on his momentum to the very back of the house. He tweaked the air horn on the handlebars, and yelled, “Hey! Mo!”

  Maureen stepped back from the window.

  “Oh, come on!” he yelled. “I see you!”

  He let the bike fall and vanished out of view. Maureen and Lola heard banging noises, a loud scrape, and after a while they saw Chris’s hands reaching for the latticework fence. He hauled himself up and over, dusted his palms, and removed one of Cleveland’s crimson roses from under his belt. He held the flower out to Maureen, who had shut the little glass-paned door and thrown its bolt.

  “Who does he think he is?” Lola said. She took one of Maureen’s pillows and stuffed it into a laundered pillowcase.

  Chris was shouting something, but his words were impossible to hear over Maureen’s air conditioner.

  “The big child,” Maureen said.

  Chris smiled through the door. He poked the rose into his mouth, chewed on the petals, and swallowed them.

  “You’re not funny,” Maureen said. She flapped her beach towel. She spread it on the rug beneath her and sat cross-legged. She sighed and, keeping her eyes on Chris, lit a fresh cigarette.

  On the balcony, Chris brought a flat brown pint of whiskey from his hip pocket. He took some gulps and, mimicking drunkenness, reeled close to the railing and then leaned dangerously over.

  Lola said, “Go ahead and fall.” She stood behind Maureen and shook out a clean sheet fragrant with fabric softener.

  “We’re not that lucky,” Maureen said.

  Chris charged the door. He pressed his nose against the glass.

  “Get lost,” Lola yelled.

  Maureen crossed the room to tap the ash off her cigarette. “Now you see where Violet gets all that violent energy. I knew it wasn’t from me. All I want to do is sleep.”

  Lola smoothed the top sheet and tucked down the corners.

  Maureen was going through her bureau drawer for a comb when she heard Lola gasp. She looked and saw Chris at the balcony door. He had dropped his jeans so that Lola could get a good look at his buttocks.

  “Very mature, Chris!” Maureen yelled.

  “Isn’t that sickening?” Lola said, laughing.

  Maureen drew on her cigarette. Burning ash flew down and hit her bare leg. “That does it,” she said. “These smokes are defective.”

  She went back to the balcony door, yanked open the bolt, and swung the door open. Chris hiked up his pants and struggled to get them snapped.

  “Why do you haunt me?” Maureen said. “What pleasure do you find in it? Please tell me, because I’d really love to know.”

  “Easy,” Chris said. He buckled his belt and picked up the pint of whiskey. “I officially consider you my wife.”

  “The law doesn’t. No one does.”

  “I do,” Chris said. He uncapped the bottle and swigged from it. “You know what I’ve been thinking?”

  “I certainly don’t.”

  “I’ve been thinking we ought to get married. Once and for all. Yes or no? A simple answer will do.”

  “Absolutely never.”

  “Okay,” Chris said.

  “You’re insane,” Maureen said.

  “I’ve also been thinking about the kid,” Chris said. “I’ve been wondering a lot about Violet. How can she be happy, living the way she does?”

  “Ha!” Lola said.

  “Really, Chris,” Maureen said. “That’s beneath even you.”

  “To be concerned for my daughter? In this house? You know,” Chris said, “very soon now you’re going to have to marry me or somebody. I don’t think you’ll be able to stand it here. You’ll have to get out.”

  “This is interesting,” Maureen said. “This is really interesting. I’ll have to leave?”

  “Yes. I think so. Probably,” Chris said. “For one thing, Howdy won’t be staying. He’s got a girl or something. That leaves your dad and, of course, Lola, and they’re both worse than Howdy.” He wiped his lips with his bicep, sucked a breath, and tried to look competent. “Everybody knows Violet regards me as her father. Which I am. And insofar as the standards go around here, I’ve been an excellent father. That’s my opinion.”

  “Insofar as the standards go,” Maureen said.

  Chris weaved a little and braced his back on the railing. “Don’t interrupt me, Mo. I’m determined to say this. If you don’t get out of here soon, your dad’s going to core your apple. You’ll go completely and irretrievably off your rocker. It’s me or it’s him. Only you can decide. There are forces at work here—things closing down. I’ve felt them, Mo. I really have.”

  “Are you drunk?” Maureen said. “Because it’s okay, if you are. I get drunk.”

  “It might as well be me that saves you,” Chris said.

  “I’d prefer somebody with manners,” Maureen said.

  “I’m the best you’re going to get.” He drank from the bottle, capped it, and dropped it on the deck of the balcony. He turned and vaulted over the railing.

  “Jesus!” Maureen
said.

  Lola hurried out from the bedroom, and the two women stood leaning over the little fence.

  “Some jump,” Lola called down.

  “Some father,” Maureen said.

  “That’s just an example!” Chris called back to them.

  9

  The late-afternoon sun was moving the roof’s shadow closer to Maureen’s Capri towel, but the air was still warm enough to bring sweat out under her eyes. The balcony seemed to sway beneath her. She was nearly asleep.

  “Mom?” Violet whispered. She came out onto the balcony, a copy of Countdown magazine in her hand. She was wearing her Brownie uniform.

  Maureen rolled her head and blinked. “Hi, honey.”

  “Here,” Violet said. She held out the magazine.

  “Not right now,” Maureen said.

  Lola said, “Don’t tell me I never did anything for you.” She had followed Violet upstairs with a glass of beer for Maureen.

  “I’m marking it down,” Maureen said. “I’m going to put it in the big book.”

  “Here, Mom. Lookit.” Violet showed a page in the magazine. “I drewed this.”

  “You drew it,” Lola said.

  “You did, Violet?” Maureen said. “It’s excellent, honey. It’s a beautiful swan.”

  “Actually, it’s not a swan,” Lola said.

  “It can be a swan,” Violet said.

  “Well, it’s an almost perfect drawing,” Maureen said. She lay on her side with her face on her arm and studied the page. “Mommie’s so beat,” she said.

  Violet flopped down on one edge of the towel and lay stiffly on her stomach. She turned her face to Maureen’s.

  Violet’s hair was temporarily blond from the sun. She had orange freckles, permanent. Her shoulders, under her Brownie uniform, were wide and muscled like a little boy’s. Her clear gray eyes stayed fixed on Maureen’s.

  “Cut it out, Violet. You’re giving me the creeps.”

  “Mom? I’m hot.”

  “Me too, baby,” Maureen said. “It’s the sunshine.”

  “Inside I’m hot,” Violet said.

  “I don’t know what you mean, honey.”

  Violet sighed and went on staring.

  “Honestly, Vi, can’t you go eyeball someone else?”

  “Why don’t you move?” Lola said. “Sit up and drink your beer.”

  “Don’t want to,” Maureen said.

  “Well, you’ve got the whole damn porch,” Lola said. “So why are you lying face-to-face on top of each other?”

  “I don’t know,” Maureen said.

  The extension phones all over the house rang. Lola went away and came back. “For you,” she said to Maureen. “Him.”

  “We’re not here today,” Maureen said.

  “We are so,” Violet said. “It’s Dad.”

  “He’s not your dad,” Maureen said wearily.

  “This morning I told her he is,” Lola said. “She always asks me, and I always tell her.”

  “You have no dad,” Maureen said.

  Lola sat down beside them. Out on the great lawn, evening was setting in, the bushes and trees turning gray.

  “This is just about the time my father would make it home from work,” Lola said. “He’d come in hot and growling and mean-headed, and my mom would stay away from him. He’d sit on the sofa and eat what was left in his lunch box—he worked a lathe at Garfield Aircraft—and I’d pester him to read me the paper. Mom would bring him his beer and then she’d disappear. He’d drink it and eat an orange or a sardine sandwich and a pepper from our truck garden. They were the hottest things, those peppers. Nobody could eat them but him.”

  Violet turned onto her back and began to cry.

  “What on earth?” Maureen said.

  “Did I say something, Violet Ann?” Lola said.

  “This boy I hate,” Violet said. “Fritz! He was at the recreation center on the . . . you know.”

  “We don’t know,” Maureen said.

  “The tumbling mat and I was playing after my Brownie meeting. And he went and got this, uh, like a mop—and held it up and said, ‘This is your hair!’”

  “Fritz who?” Lola said.

  Maureen said, “That just means he’s in love with you, honey. Your hair is perfect. It’s the style now to have weather-blown hair.”

  “I’d say you are in step with the style,” Lola said.

  “Well, he tore out a lot of my hair,” Violet said.

  “No, he didn’t,” Maureen said. “He pulled your hair.”

  “It hurts when they pull it,” Lola said. “It feels like it’s being yanked out when they do that.”

  “He showed me a big handful of my hair,” Violet said, and sobbed.

  “He was playing a trick on you,” Maureen said.

  “Let’s see your head,” Lola said. “Sit up.”

  “No, never mind,” Violet said, and sniffed. “He didn’t pull out too much.”

  “Just shrug it off,” Maureen said.

  “Well, here’s where he blasted me with the mop.” Violet raised her hem and pointed to a welt on her thigh.

  “Was that with the handle? What a drag!” Maureen said.

  “What’s his last name, Violet? I’ll call his father,” Lola said.

  Maureen said, “Always remember, Violet, that boys are incredibly stupid imbeciles who are liable to do anything to you at any time.”

  “Why do they?” Violet said.

  “Because we girls’ prettiness drives them crazy,” Maureen said.

  “That’s right,” Lola said.

  10

  So this is where everyone is,” Cleveland said. He was dressed in a cream-colored poplin suit and a tie the hue of shrimp sauce. “Three lazy bugs. I want you all to say hello to Virginia. Come on, Virginia.” He led his new lady friend, whom they had all met once before, out into the evening sun. Virginia was a leggy woman. She wore a white cocktail dress. Her yellow-red hair was pinned in a neat chignon.

  Lola and Maureen exchanged looks. “Oh my gosh, look at you two,” Lola said. “Beautiful!”

  “I’ll say,” Maureen said.

  Violet took her beanie from where it was tucked in her uniform belt and chewed absently at its edge.

  “Off to the Ritz, I guess,” Lola said.

  Virginia and Cleveland were laughing and glancing down at their clothes.

  “As nice as you look, Dad, this woman is still too good for you,” Maureen said.

  “That’s what she keeps telling me,” Cleveland said, and smacked his hands together and rubbed them briskly.

  “No place in this town is classy enough for you two. It’s a shame,” Lola said.

  “Everyone can drop the blarney,” Virginia said, beaming and red-faced.

  “Sweet potato, what’s the trouble?” Cleveland said to Violet, who shrugged.

  “Nothing, nothing,” Maureen said. She shook her head at her father. “It’s all taken care of. Really. Handled already.”

  “If you’ve got kid problems, talk to Virginia. She’s a real kick in the figurative pants along those lines,” Cleveland said.

  “Oh, I am not,” Virginia said. “I’ve never even had children of my own.”

  “That’s easy—to deal with your own. Your own kids, you can kick the hell out of them. But you do something much harder, babycakes,” Cleveland said. He appealed to Lola and Maureen. “She does something much harder. Every Sunday morning she takes on a dozen Violet-sized hooligans, and she keeps them happy as clams. And that’s with their parents watching.”

  Virginia was the hostess of a church-sponsored TV show that aired at seven o’clock on Sunday mornings.

  “She keeps them handled, all right,” Cleveland said.

  “We know,” Maureen said. “Don’t we, Vi? We know all about Wonderbox.”

  Violet nodded, looking away.

  “You watch Wonderbox, Violet?” Cleveland said. “Do you like it?”

  Virginia said, “Oh, leave her alone and don’t emb
arrass the child.” But she studied Violet with a hopeful expression.

  Lola said, “I do.”

  “It’s wonderful,” Maureen said, “how Virginia can run that show. Violet and I always watch it.”

  “Oh, come on, Maureen,” Cleveland said. “When was the last time you were out of bed at seven o’clock on a Sunday?”

  “Oh, now, now,” Virginia said, “Maureen’s a little too old for Wonderbox.”

  “Is she too old to sleep in a bed?” Cleveland said. “Or live in a house instead of a yard?”

  “Settle down,” Maureen said.

  “Grook,” Violet said.

  “Violet, that’s right!” Cleveland said. “You do watch Virginia’s show, don’t you? Grook is the clock, who helps us tell time.”

  “He’s good,” Lola said.

  “I told you we watched,” Maureen said.

  Cleveland said, “And this here, Violet, is Miss Virginia.”

  “I know it,” Violet said.

  “She tells us about the animals, the weather, and God,” Cleveland said.

  “Violet knows,” Maureen said.

  “Do you make up that show?” Lola said. “Or does someone write a script? How do you know what the right things are to tell children? You have a specialist or an adviser?”

  Virginia smiled. “Oh, now,” she said.

  “Well, you’re doing something right,” Maureen said. “You’ve been on the air quite a while.”

  “Thirteen years,” Virginia said. “And it was thirteen years ago that I was born again. You wouldn’t guess I’m only thirteen years old, would you, Violet?”

  “Yes,” Violet said.

  “Isn’t that nice,” Lola said.

  “You joke,” Virginia said, “but it’s like starting all over. When your sins are washed away, you are born all over again. It’ll come to you, Maureen. And you too, Lola. I’m confident it will.”

  “I sort of have my own religion,” Maureen said.

  “Sleep,” Lola said.

  “She believes in being asleep,” Cleveland said.

  “Can we have supper?” Violet said.

  “In a minute,” Maureen said. She picked up the glass of beer Lola had brought her and swallowed about half of it.

  “Maureen’s decided not to eat meat,” Cleveland said.