by Mary Robison
“Save that throat for tonight,” Chris said.
“Yeah, don’t waste it on us now,” Maureen said. “Wait for tonight.”
Howdy smiled proudly. He looked from Maureen to Chris and back again. “How nice. How nice that you’re coming, and how nice that you’ll be there together.”
“Are these your costume clothes?” Maureen asked.
“Naw. Just black for luck.”
Maureen paged through a Film magazine while Howdy took Chris on a tour. Violet clambered up the steps and snubbed her mother on the way to Howdy’s kitchen. Violet came out with a banana. She stood away from Maureen, gobbled some of the fruit, then dropped the rest on the floor.
“Being rude?” Maureen said. She went for the banana. Violet covered one spear of peeling with her shoe. Maureen moved the small foot. “What’s your problem? Speak up.”
“Leave me alone,” Violet said.
“Fine, but how can I if you drop bananas on the floor instead of saying what’s eating you?”
“Nothing,” Violet said.
“I’m sorry you’re mad.”
“You left me. You and Dad went somewhere,” Violet said.
Howdy and Chris came from the bedroom. There was a knocking noise from the wall next to the front door.
“That’s more people wanting a tour, Howdy,” Chris said. He picked up Violet and smoothed her hair.
Howdy went to the foyer and came back with a very short, very balding black man in a suit of biscuit linen and a madras plaid bow tie.
“Lola’s in the main house. The other house. She lives there actually,” Howdy was saying.
The black man said, “Umm, yes, yes. Well, how stupid can I be? I recall she’s mentioned her arrangements.” His voice was mellifluous, his pronunciation vaguely British. He carried a big leather briefcase.
“Are you her Professor Riley? She loves your class,” Maureen said.
“Lola walks in her sleep,” Violet said. “Are you her dad?”
“In a way, perhaps I am,” Professor Riley said. He gestured to Maureen with a cupped hand. “Don’t chide her, Mother, for what she sees in the world or for what she says. She will penetrate mysteries for you if you let her. So I’m in the wrong house. As usual,” the professor said.
“I love his tie, Mom,” Violet said.
“All the same,” Professor Riley said as he backed away. “I enjoyed bungling into all of you, and my tie thanks you, little baby child, for the compliment.”
“You’re welcome,” Violet said.
“Smooth,” Maureen said when the professor had gone.
“Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth,” Chris said.
Violet said, “Why not?”
“Because he’s so cool and smooth,” Maureen said.
Howdy said, “One more sketch I did, Chris, I’ll show you. Then I’ll let you be.”
“I’m okay, Howard. Show me all you want. But aren’t you giving up painting?”
“I am,” Howdy said. “I’m all through with painting, and rock-and-roll too, and after tonight I’m also through with theater. I’m ready to quit everything and start living.”
Violet went back to the kitchen. Chris settled beside Maureen on the big couch, and waited for Howdy to bring out the last piece of art.
“I’m going to start living, too,” Maureen said.
“How, specifically, do you do that?” Chris said.
“We go see our mother. That comes first,” Maureen said.
Chris tilted his head to get a better biting angle on a cuticle. “Howdy,” he said, “you got any beat-up clothes I could borrow? Your old man needs me for some yardwork.”
“Does Chicago have Polacks?” Maureen said.
2
I can’t sleep, Mom,” Violet said.
They were lying under the top sheet on Maureen’s bed.
“Sure you can, Violet. You’re very tired.” Mother and daughter twisted about and lay facing north. They turned together again and faced south.
“Feel anything?” Maureen said.
“From that pill? No. Nothing.”
“Well, you will,” Maureen said. “Librium always keeps its promise. And I promise you it promises to calm that tummy of yours down.”
“It never wasn’t,” Violet said.
“Look,” Maureen said. “I have to sleep some before tonight. You can’t be loose while I do. So make your brain stop whirring and think of waves of water.”
Violet said after a time, “A fish jumped out of my water.”
Maureen was silent. Violet sat up. “Mom? What’s a fox?”
“A clever little dog with red fur.”
“Not a dog,” Violet said. “Some boys at the recreation center said I was a fox.”
“That’s nice, Vi. They were praising you. You’re the dog all the other dogs chase, they were saying. The fox.”
“All right,” Violet said. “Now what does this mean?” She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, then poked another finger through.
“Do you want me to tell you?” Maureen said. “You’re sure?”
Violet sighed. “It’s okay whatever it is.”
“It all starts when you get older,” Maureen said. She turned onto her back.
They looked at the ceiling while Maureen spoke. “That’s when all the chemicals you have inside you begin changing you and you get bosoms. Boys, they get hairy.”
“Yeck!” Violet said.
“And their complexions get oily.”
“Yeck!” she said again.
“Yeah, I know,” Maureen said.
“Maureen?” Lola said, from out in the hallway. “Are you dressed? There’s someone with me.”
“Sort of. Enough,” Maureen said.
Lola and Professor Riley came in together. “Hang me,” Professor Riley said. “You didn’t say you were resting, you two. Let us go, Turtlidge.”
“It’s all right,” Maureen said.
Violet was giggling. She burrowed under the sheet to the bottom of the bed, and froze.
“Dr. Riley is interested in the house, and he wanted to say good-bye to Violet,” Lola said.
“If the child were here,” Professor Riley said, “I’d ask her advice about something. An octogenarian friend is having a birthday and I want my gift for him to be very special. Children conceive of the most inventive ideas for gifts.”
“I wish Violet was here,” Maureen said.
“Your old friend will wind up with a peanut-butter bar if you listen to Violet, but that’s your business,” Lola said.
The form under the sheet flattened and then spurted up again. Violet surfaced next to her mother and jammed her hot face against Maureen’s. “Bosoms!” she hissed into Maureen’s ear. Maureen nodded yes. “Eee-yeck!” Violet said. She tried to keep eye contact with Maureen.
“Come on, Vi,” Maureen said.
“Now, Violet, if you were my friend of eighty-four years of age, what would please you as a gift?” Professor Riley asked.
“Don’t know,” Violet said.
“I’d like to show you the attic,” Lola said to Professor Riley.
“Well, I won’t exploit her further,” he said. “Lovely home. Lovely child. Perhaps a future president?”
“I’m sure of it,” Maureen said.
“I wouldn’t wish it on either of you,” Professor Riley said, and made his hearty laugh.
Violet whirled on the bed to study him. She scooted sideways and covered Maureen’s ear with a small hand and whispered behind the hand.
“Secrets are the salt and pepper of life,” Lola said, and then looked surprised at her own words.
3
Now I really hurt,” Cleveland said. It was afternoon. He and Chris were deep in the north yard by a strawberry patch just above the ravine. The door of the toolshed hung open. Three or four green and yellow enameled pieces of yard equipment stood around in the grass. Cleveland wore a headband. His bare chest was burning. His field shirt was looped by the sleeves aro
und his waist. Chris was shirtless and in a pair of Howdy’s trousers. Jack, the gardener, had gone home.
“We’re about through, aren’t we?” Chris said. “What’s left to do but round up a few rocks?”
“They have to be the right-size rocks,” Cleveland said. “I don’t want any quick job done. I’ll handle the carrying if you want to go lie down and have a nap.”
Chris said, “I was just noticing your skin has a funny look.”
Cleveland fanned a horsefly away and, with the help of his arm, sat down on the grass. “You going to borrow clothes from Howdy? For this evening?”
“I guess,” Chris said. “I can’t make it to the hotel and back in time to change.”
“Hell, no,” Cleveland said. After a time, he said, “Sunburn I don’t worry about. I can shed skin. It’s the inside stuff that scares me, the vital organ damage.”
“You’re probably fine,” Chris said. “Probably healthier than I am.”
“You sick?” Cleveland said.
4
And so the night began in the old house where the little girl lived and all the people went to sleep—everyone except the little girl. She said, ‘It’s time for me to taste the delights of this big old house.’ She scrambled out of her high bed and tiptoed over to her door and first she looked to one side—”
“And then she looked to the other side. Dad? Can I tell you something?”
“I guess.”
“Lola got up in the middle of the night like a zombie.”
“So anyway,” Chris said, “this is what the little girl did. First she looked to one side and then she looked to the other side and then she headed into the big, black hallway.”
“Dad, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. What?”
“I know this story so many times.”
“How could you? I made it up and I’ve been away for a long, long while. Who’s been telling it to you?”
“I have,” Maureen said. “The first part I borrowed from you. But I always changed what the little girl did when she went downstairs.”
“There’s always Mr. Bullet Head,” Violet said. “He chases the little girl down into the cellar with a scissors.”
“Shears,” said Maureen.
“With those. He chases her, going chop, chop, and cuts off her ponytail, but she gets away. And Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I have to go to the store tonight,” Violet said. “For a Chinese jump rope. Mine broke.”
“Not tonight, you don’t,” Maureen said. “Can’t you see we’re dressed up and just about to leave? Sometimes, Violet, I swear!”
“You have to stay here in bed, Violet,” Chris said. “That’s your job.”
“It’s too hard to do,” Violet said.
“Won’t be that hard,” Maureen whispered to Chris. “I’ve given her ten milligrams of Librium so far.”
“Oh,” he said, “a dopey baby.”
“What’d you give me again?”
Maureen said, “Medicine. I gave you medicine to fight germs and help you sleep.”
Chris and Maureen left Violet’s bedroom. Her baby-sitter was downstairs in Cleveland’s office—a comfortable room with a zinc and slate wet bar, leather furniture, oil paintings, a bed-sized walnut desk. On the desk were an adding machine, a typewriter, paperweights, a brass pen-and-pencil holder, and the puzzle book that the baby-sitter was filling in with neat printing. She looked up at them through wire-framed glasses.
“We’re off,” Chris said.
“Have a nice play,” the girl said. “You know a word that starts with O and means ‘unique’?”
“How many letters?” Maureen said.
“Not that kind of puzzle. I don’t know,” the baby-sitter said.
“How about only?” Chris said.
“No, it’s not only,” the girl said. “What’s a film actress called Dolores blank?”
“There’s Dolores Hart, Dolores Del Rio, Dolores Costello,” Chris said.
“Who was the second one? Did it have an R?”
“Yeah. Two words.” He spelled the name for her.
The girl bit the tip of her tongue and moved a roller-ball pen across the puzzle book.
“How about a star dog?” she said.
“Rin Tin Tin,” Chris said as Maureen led him away.
“Asta. Lassie,” Maureen said, dragging him.
“Benji!” the baby-sitter said.
“Who the hell is Benji? What the hell kind of a name is that for a dog star? Is this dog from Faulkner?” Chris said as they headed out of the room and into the kitchen.
“You’re drunk,” Maureen said.
“Impossible. No one’s given me anything to drink. Here’s a Breathalyzer.” He kissed her mouth. “I’m happy,” he said.
5
The lobby had a marble floor and plaster columns set into the walls. The air was warm and drifty with the mixed-up fruity smells of hairspray, chewing gum, and cologne. Perspiring ushers in white shirts bustled around. Girls with straight hair and long gowns took tickets at the one open door in a wall of four doors. They handed out single-sheet, folded programs. The theater was small, a three-hundred-seater painted three shades of gray.
“I feel like I’m inside a skull,” Chris said, stripping off his jacket.
They all moved into their row.
“You watch,” Chris said, leaning forward to speak to the lineup of Maureen, Lola, Stephanie, Virginia, and Cleveland. They all leaned forward and listened to Chris. “You watch. How long does it take you to read this whole program? To memorize it, practically? Two minutes? But the crowd here will spend the entire evening studying the thing like it’s the Magna Carta.”
Maureen glanced around. The theater was three-quarters full, and everyone who was not talking or hunting a seat had his nose in a program.
“I’m so nervous,” Stephanie said. She and Lola and Virginia were exchanging hand pats.
Maureen was hungry for a cigarette. She longed for the curtain to rise.
“Where’s Howdy?” Cleveland said. He was searching the handout for Howdy’s name. “Almost everyone listed is a girl.”
“On the back,” Lola said.
“Production assistant?” Cleveland said. “Is that all?”
“Shhh, Dad,” Maureen said. “I can hear you way over here.”
“The evening’s in three parts,” Lola explained. “Howdy hasn’t anything to do with the first two parts. But he’s in the cast of the last part, after the intermission. See? And he helped with the set design, I guess. And he assisted with the production. Three listings for his name, like Orson Welles or something.”
“Hell, I thought he wrote the whole shebang and was the star,” Cleveland said.
“Shhh,” Lola said. “Quit now.”
Maureen was watching an usher who was joking with a white-haired man and calling him “Dr. Bob.”
“Hey, Chris,” she said. “Chris!” He was reading his program.
“Yeah?”
“See that guy? Hurry up and look. He’s going up the aisle. Not the usher in blue. The one with the glasses.”
Chris had to twist and partly stand to see. “Okay, I saw him,” he said.
“He’s an asshole,” Maureen said.
“Speaking of which—” Chris nodded at the huge man who had just taken the seat directly in front of him. The man had oiled, wavy hair and enormous shoulders. “The biggest head in the world,” Chris said. The man’s wife turned sharply and grinned at Chris. She turned back. Chris hooked his fingers in his mouth, stretched his lips, popped his eyes, and waggled his tongue at her head. The huge man caught Chris doing it. “Please don’t eat me,” Chris said.
Maureen smiled.
“Leaky barge. Pious gob of slobber,” Chris said very softly.
Maureen turned to Chris. “Vomit,” she said.
“Rat vomit?” Chris said.
Lola leaned forward. “Babies!” she said with disgust. “Eight-year-olds! Worse
than Violet. Far worse.”
“Here we go,” Maureen said.
The houselights died. The curtain rose. From the ceiling, from speakers that looked like flying saucers, came an amplified prelude to a Bach suite for unaccompanied viola. The music was busy, lonely, linear.
Downstage center, a girl in a raspberry tutu and tights posed in a difficult arch. White light shone from both wings. The girl began dancing in place—curling, bending, sticking out one leg or the other. “There’s rat vomit now,” Chris said.
“Yeah, that’s her,” Maureen said.
“Big idiots,” Lola said. “She’s good. What she’s doing is hard.”
The music faded and was replaced by random bursts of percussion. But the switch had no effect on the slowly unwinding dancer. A tub was thumped. Cymbals shivered. The dancer’s elbow jutted. She lifted a knee, curled her toes.
Heavier girls in leotards zoomed out from the wings. “Buffalo vomit,” Maureen said. The girls jumped and spun in unison. Their feet made patting noises and skid sounds on the stage.
Chris said, “They’ve come to test the strength of wood.”
Lola batted Maureen’s head as she sometimes did Violet’s.
“What’d I do?” Maureen said.
The music changed to bluegrass banjo, then abruptly stopped. The girls danced in silence. The one in the tutu crashed to a halt, turned to the audience, and spoke for several minutes in a low singsong. All Maureen could get were some mentions of various constellations and a U.S. secretary of defense.
The second part of the entertainment was better. There were flats and scrims on the stage, props and furniture to look at, and actual actors. Maureen thought one of them was cute—a boy in too much mascara. She watched him almost exclusively. Chris had fallen asleep, so Maureen said to Lola, “Look at the guy in the corner.”
“Isn’t he darling?” Lola said.
At intermission, they all went out to the lobby, and Chris, stretching and rubbing his eyes, gave his review of the first two playlets. “I toss my hat in the air in excitement for, and in appreciation of, these two samples of regional theater. They inspire us to dream. In my many years of theatergoing, I don’t recall a production so irresistibly inspiring.”
“Not funny,” Lola said.
Maureen said, “I never thought I would be, but I’m coming apart with nerves for poor Howdy. Dad is, too. You can tell.”
