Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

by Lorna Landvik

  “But what are we angry about?”

  “Merit, it’s just sort of a joke. You heard how the guys were teasing us about the book club—why not take their words and use them? It’s like we’re giving them and their chauvinism the finger.”

  “Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons,” said Merit, looking down at the revelry in the living room and in particular at Eric, who had appropriated Helen Hammond for a rhumba. She turned to Slip, smiling. “I like it.”

  January 1969

  Dear Mama,

  “Yippie-ki-yay, it’s New Year’s Day.” Remember how you always said that, Mama? Every year you believed that you were going to start over, that you really were going to “quit drinking, settle down, and not attach myself to worthless men.” Isn’t that funny, Mama, that I can recite your New Year’s resolutions? They were always the same ones, and always broken, especially the first one, on the same day you made them.

  When I was fifteen and spent New Year’s Eve losing my virginity to Jeff Patchett (an event he made sure every single person in school knew about), I made these resolutions as my head pounded from all the beer I drank: “I’m going to be exactly like my mama, I’m going to drink every day of my life, be crazier than I already am, and have sex with people who only care about what’s between my legs.” I figured resolutions were made to be broken, so why not make ones I’d want to break?

  Oh, there I go again. I hate the way bitterness is like a black, bubbling tar pit in me, and I hate the way so many memories of you are in that pit. My big trouble is, I try, but I just don’t know how to seal it up.

  I talked to Wade’s mama a couple weeks ago (we didn’t get to Texas this Christmas ’cause Patsy and Dex went to Mexico). Anyway, she asked me for a favorite Christmas memory—as if I have one. Maybe I should have told her about the time when we were in Arkansas—you had followed that guy, Lamar, the one with that bald spot the size of a grapefruit right in the middle of his big round head? Anyway, you told me he had a good job in Greenville and we were gonna move in with him and be a real family. And we did move in, right before Christmas, only it wasn’t just his house, he lived there with his sister, and I got to know her pretty good, seeing as you and Lamar took off and I didn’t see you again for days. I was, what?—five, six?—and spending Christmas with a lady I didn’t even know. A lady who only spoke to me to tell me my mama was a tramp but if her brother wanted to get together with her, that was none of her business. And on and on in that direction she talked, when what I should have been listening to was “ ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” or a Bible story or something. Yeah, that’s a memory I could have shared with Patsy, or maybe I should have regaled her with the New Year’s Eve memory I just shared with you. You think she’d like to hear how her son’s wife rang in that New Year?

  Wade’s on a three-day trip, so I spent New Year’s Eve with Beau and Bonnie, my neighbor Kari, and her new adopted daughter. The twins had party hats, and Bonnie (who—excuse me for bragging—is a little genius) kept wishing everyone “a vewy happy new yeaw!”

  The twins fell asleep before the baby, which gave me time to hold her without them throwing a fit. Here’s how I could make a million dollars, Mama—by figuring out how to bottle that contentment, that sweetness you feel holding a happy baby. After about five minutes, though, I could tell Kari was itching to hold her again, so I gave her back. It touches me, watching Kari with her baby—you can tell that nothing matters more to her than being a good mother. I admit I was pretty shocked at first when I saw this mixed baby in Kari’s arms, but now I can’t imagine a better place for that baby to be.

  Remember DellaRose Pryne? I don’t know that I’ve ever had a better friend—our favorite game was Civil War and she always played General Grant or Abraham Lincoln, while I had to be the freed slave. Anyway, she used to wait for me outside El-Ray’s Sweets because she wasn’t allowed in. I always gave her more than half of my Moon Pies and chocolate drops because I felt bad Miss Ellie or Mr. Ray wouldn’t let her come inside herself. Still, why didn’t I ever say anything? Slip would have gotten a whole group of protesters together and said, “What you’re doing is wrong and we’re not going to stand for it.” Why couldn’t I? Well, maybe a person’s not so eager to stand up for somebody else when they’re always worried they’re going to have to stand up for themselves.

  I was thinking of this when Kari was telling me about all the ignorant or just plain mean things people say to her about Julia, and I said that sure must wear a person down, and she shrugged and said, “It’s all worth it.”

  Remember the first time you pawned me off to MawMaw because your latest boyfriend didn’t like kids and you only came to get me when MawMaw threatened to put me in a foster home?

  “Tie me down, that’s all you’re good for,” you said when you picked me up, and I can still feel my hand wrapped around the door handle of that car that stank like whiskey and hair tonic and how close I came to opening it and tumbling out. “Tie me down”—how could you say words like those to your own daughter, Mama?

  Kari and Julia left a little after midnight—I told her they were welcome to stay the night, but she said Flicka (that’s her big sloppy dog) would be lonesome for them, and so I watched her wade through the snow with the baby wrapped up in five pounds of blankets. So it’s just two hours into 1969—can anything sound more modern?—and I’m sitting here in front of the fireplace, tucked under my cashmere afghan but still feeling as cold as stone, feeling jealous of the love Kari has for that mixed-blood baby! How can I feel jealous when I’ve got my own two babies, who people never say mean things about and whom I can’t imagine loving more? It makes me sick, Mama, this way I think—that everybody’s better than me, that somehow they love better, feel deeper, have something that I can’t describe but know I lack. But no one would ever guess I feel this way—if there’s one thing you taught me, Mama, it’s how to act.

  Okay, I was sitting here crying—how many New Year’s Eves have I brought in with tears?—but then I got a funny little picture of Mr. Teague in my head. Dear Mr. Teague, smelling of BO and mothballs; the first person who believed in me enough to make me start believing in his belief.

  Anyway, Mr. Teague always said the same words to me whenever I started complaining too loud about something: “If you don’t like where you’re at, move.” So, remembering that, I just got up off the couch and went over to sit on the easy chair. Ha ha ha. But I do feel a tiny ounce better.

  I used Mr. Teague’s advice a lot my senior year, Mama, when you were with that creep who topped all creeps, who taught creeps how to be creepy, the Great King of Creeps. Sandy. He thought he was a cowboy and was so proud of his cowboy name, Sandy. I used to call him Curly or Hoss, just to tick him off.

  One day he was sitting in the kitchen while I was making my school lunch. I have no idea what he was doing up so early—maybe he still hadn’t gone to bed. Anyway, there he was, wearing only his underwear and cowboy boots, sitting backward on the kitchen chair flipping playing cards into his stupid cowboy hat he’d set in the middle of the floor. Once or twice I felt a card flick at my leg, but I tried to ignore the creep, as I was trying to make something appetizing out of bread that was a day away from being moldy and cheese hard as linoleum.

  “Y’ever been with a cowboy, angel?” he said, and I said, “No, Curly, have you?”

  His lip curled up—I guess it was a smile—and he said, “You know what happens to sassy girls, like you?”

  I didn’t even bother to make a guess, just rolled my eyes like I was making it clear I had no time for him, and all of a sudden he lunged out of the chair. He was fast enough to grab my arm, but not strong enough to hold on—I yanked myself out of that miserable creep’s stinking hand and shot out the back door like I was a girl catapult. I could hear the creep’s stupid snickery little laugh as I raced through the backyard, dropping tears on the ground like bread crumbs, only I knew they wouldn’t lead me safely back home; they’d just dry up in the dirt.

&nb
sp; I was thinking of just going to the river; maybe there’d be other truants down there, drinking whatever liquor they had managed to steal and making out with whomever they happened to be sitting next to, but then I thought, no, that’s what my mother and stupid Sandy probably did—at least before they quit school altogether. I remembered good old Mr. Teague and even though I couldn’t physically move away yet, I could go anywhere I wanted to in my head.

  So I did. I was walking to school, because my father, the doctor, was called to the hospital early. We loved our rides together. We talked about absolutely everything; he’d tell me about his cases, and then we’d discuss current affairs and he’d be very impressed by my insights. Sometimes we’d sing duets together, and he wasn’t a country hick either; nope, my daddy liked singers like Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney. When we got to school, he’d always give me a five-dollar bill and tell me to buy sodas for everyone on the way home, and then he’d give me a kiss on the cheek, and all the other girls whose daddies were too lazy or hungover or just plain uninterested to drive their daughters to school would stare at me with their bottom lips pushed out, wishing they had a daddy like Faith Reynolds did.

  Oh, Mama, by the time I got to school, I was like a balloon, blown up with good feelings, and even Mr. Hilgerman, the snotty principal who always stood on the steps watching the kids come in as if they were germs, said, “Why, hello, Faith, you look like a ray of sunshine,” and I said, very proper, “Why, thank you, Mr. Hilgerman.”

  Mama, I have moved away so many times from places I haven’t wanted to be in, taken so many trips in my head, that sometimes I forget where I really am. And yet when I find myself in this nice neighborhood where the women are married to lawyers and doctors and scientists, the kind of neighborhood I fantasized about, I think: what the hell am I doing here? Where are the men staggering out the front door, zipping up their pants? The scrawny chickens stepping around the broken bottles that decorate the dirt yard like sinister lawn ornaments? The old, dented cars bleeding rust onto the cement blocks they’re perched on? How’m I supposed to feel at home?

  But then I see your face, see your face the way it looked the last night of your life, and I remember exactly where I am and who I am. And then I want to ask Mr. Teague, “People like me will always want to be moving, won’t we? Because things never really will get nice enough to stay.”

  Hey, could I get any bluer? Could I feel any lower? But then guess what? Wade called from Denver, wishing me a happy new year and telling me he would like to resolve to love me more, but how is that possible?

  How come I can’t hear words like that and not feel like the luckiest woman in the world? How come I can’t hear words like that without hearing awful little echoes rising up from the tar pit? “Tie me down, that’s all you’re good for.”

  Oh, Mama, I’m sorry,

  Faith

  April 1969

  HOST: KARI

  BOOK: The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

  FOOD: “Kari made the kind of dessert Willa had on the farm: yellow cake with chocolate icing and molasses candy.”

  It thrilled Kari, who was a long-standing member of the Democratic Party and the teachers’ union, the PTA and the Lutheran Church, to be part of a group with the provocative name Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons. To her it sounded like the code name of a subversive group Gloria Steinem and Sara Lee had put together, whose plans included taking over if not the world, then at least the world’s chocolate supply.

  She remembered asking her mother why Mr. Moe had gotten so upset about the church women’s book club, and her dear mother (how Kari wished she were alive so that she could see Julia!) had said, “Women with minds scare some men. We make them wonder if they’re as on top of things as they think they are.”

  She wanted to do something special as tonight’s hostess—or, as she corrected herself, as tonight’s host.

  They had decided to drop the word hostess. “It’s a useless feminine ending,” said Slip. “People don’t call female doctors doctoresses or female lawyers lawyeresses; so when -ess is used, I think it’s diminishing. See how less substantial authoress sounds than author or actress than actor?”

  “I like the word actress,” said Audrey, “and I like the word hostess. What I don’t like is when feminism tries to do away with what’s feminine.”

  “I’m just saying when we do the same job as men, our titles should be the same.”

  “I never thought about it much, Slip,” said Merit. “But I get your point.”

  “Me too,” echoed Faith. “Wade told me some of the stewardesses don’t want to be called that anymore, that the name trivializes their work.”

  “Well, come on,” said Audrey, “what kind of work is serving drinks and sleeping with pilots on layovers anyway?”

  A surge of anger warmed Faith’s body. “I hope you’re not implying that my husband sleeps with stewardesses.”

  “I’m not implying anything. I just think people are getting all bent out of shape over semantics.”

  “Can you imagine how men would be outraged if they had a masculine version of Mrs. or Miss?” Slip frowned, her copper-colored eyebrows meeting her eyes. “I just get so . . . so fed up with all this repressive shit.”

  “Okay, okay, let’s call each other hosts,” said Audrey, laughing. “Anything to avoid Slip saying things like ‘repressive shit.’ ”

  “IT’S TRUE; WE MUST fight for justice,” Kari reminded Julia, who was carefully inspecting the Cheerios scattered across her high-chair tray. “If you think someone’s being poorly treated, you say so! Don’t ever be afraid to speak up! Now . . . what do you say we make three kinds of brownies?”

  Julia smiled broadly, showing off several new white teeth.

  Or maybe I’ll just sit and watch you eat Cheerios all day, Kari thought as Julia put the small ring of cereal into her mouth, and be absolutely, perfectly content.

  JULIA SPENT HER FIRST NIGHT in Kari’s house sleeping in the fine-washables drawer, in the center of Kari’s bed.

  The new mother had taken a taxi home from the airport and slipped inside her house with Julia tucked inside her unzipped carryall. It was dark outside, but she wanted to make sure no one saw her; she wanted to have one night with the baby all to herself before she introduced her to the world.

  “Well, there is someone I want you to meet right away,” she said after she had changed Julia’s diaper. (Mary Jo had packed a bag full of diapers, plastic pants, and doll-sized T-shirts, but Kari was struck by how woefully unequipped she was for a baby in the house.)

  When the phone rang, Kari jumped as if someone had thrown a firecracker at her.

  “Well, howdy, stranger,” said Slip. “I saw the lights come on, and I was hoping it was you and not some burglars. Anyway, you want me to bring Flicka over?”

  “Yes,” said Kari, “but . . . but I’m not feeling very well, and—”

  “I can make you some hot tea.”

  “Oh, no, please, I’m ready to collapse into bed.”

  “Kari, I’ve got to bring Flicka back. She knows you’re home.”

  The new mother placed Julia in the center of her bed and surrounded her with pillows.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said when she heard the doorbell ring.

  Hunching over and mustering a cough, Kari opened the door a crack.

  “Thanks for watching her,” she said in a croaky voice as Flicka bounded in.

  “The kids loved having her around,” said Slip. “Flannery dressed her up like a reindeer, and Joe tried to ride her like a horse—”

  “I’ve got to get to bed,” croaked Kari, and, thanking Slip again, she shut the door and raced back to the bedroom to find Flicka pacing around the bed.

  “It’s okay, girl,” she said to the dog, who thumped her tail and whined in agitation and excitement. She took Flicka’s head in her hands. “It’s a baby, that’s all. Now, you’re going to have to show me you can settle down and be gentle or I won’t show her to you.�
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  Kneeling on the bed, she carefully took Julia up in her arms. Flicka gave her such a thorough sniffing that at one point the baby’s little arms shot out and her face puckered.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered to the baby, who fell back to sleep. “It’s all right,” she said to the dog, who was still a little skittish. “You’ll love this dog, Julia, and you’ll love the baby, Flicka.”

  It was in the middle of the night, when Kari was burping the baby that a realization hit her.

  “Oh, my,” she said, not in response to the nice belch Julia had just let rip, but to the thought that had come into her head. “Oh, my.”

  With the baby in her arms and Flicka following her, she climbed the narrow staircase to the attic and at the top pulled the chain of the bare bulb.

  “Oh, my,” she said again, and this time in awe, for there amid boxes marked Camping and Books—Law and Text, amid Bjorn’s legal files and a broken typewriter, was the bassinet they had gotten for Bettina. And next to that was a stroller and a box Kari knew was filled with baby clothes and another filled with toys.

  “We’ve got some hand-me-downs for you,” said Kari as the sweet, tiny baby nestled closer to her chest. “From your sister.”

  The words made her feel both happy and sad, and she sat down on a trunk for a moment to think about them. Flicka rested her head on Kari’s knee, and with her free hand, Kari patted her.

  “We are a patchwork family, and certainly not the family I imagined having,” she said to infant and retriever, “but I’m very happy and very blessed to have it.” She looked around the dimly lit attic, spotting Bjorn’s fishing rod, Bettina’s stroller, her grandmother’s old sewing machine. “And all who came before and all who’ll come after.”

  SLIP CALLED the next morning inquiring about Kari’s health.

  “Actually, I’m much better, but I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”