by Keziah Frost
Birdie breathed, “Far out.” She often responded like a hippie from the sixties. Perhaps because she was a hippie from the sixties.
Lorraine bellowed, “You gotta be kidding!”
Norbert, the only one who could remember to say the expected, said, “Hello, Mabel.”
Margaret said, “And Mabel, let me introduce you to my friends! You’ve already met Norbert Zelenka.”
Mabel said, in a voice that was gravelly and hard-living, not like Margaret’s higher-pitched one, “Oh, Norb and I know each other, I can’t say we don’t!”
What on earth is the creature implying?
Mabel gave Norbert a wink, as he stood transfixed. “Norb read my cards the day I got into town, didn’t you, hon?”
Norb? No one calls him that.
Suddenly Carlotta felt possessive of Norbert. This stranger insinuated that she and Norbert had had some sort of experience together. What right had she? Norbert belonged to the Club. That is, he wasn’t a member, of course, but he belonged to the Club as one of their projects.
“And this is Lorraine Andretta. Lorraine teaches the colored pencils class. You were admiring her work in the gallery window just now.”
Lorraine opened her mouth to speak, but no wisecrack issued forth, so she shut it again.
“And this is Birdie Walsh.”
“Didn’t I talk to you in Edwards Cove one day?” asked Mabel, scratching her head. “Sure I did!”
“Oh,” said Birdie. “So you were real.”
“I was real? I am real!” Mabel looked around the class for affirmation.
Margaret went on: “Birdie teaches the watercolor class—that’s this one! Only, it’s usually just us, so she doesn’t have to teach so much; we just paint together, like we’ve been doing for years already. You can use my supplies, Mabel. It’s easy—you’ll see!”
Birdie looked as if she were seeing a ghost; but then, she always looked that way.
“And this is Carlotta Moon. Carlotta teaches the class in oil painting. She’s won tons of prizes for her work. Carlotta’s sort of the Leader of our Club.”
Sort of?
Mabel seemed to take Carlotta’s measure, her bright eyes moving from Carlotta’s white salon-styled hair down to her classic navy canvas slip-on shoes. Carlotta took Mabel’s measure, giving her “the elevator eyes,” from Mabel’s navy blue Yankees cap resting atop her white curls, down to her rain boots which she should have taken off to avoid making puddles on the studio’s hardwood floor.
Remembering her role as head of state, Carlotta stepped forward and extended her hand. Mabel looked at it in surprise before pumping it.
“Welcome, Mabel. I’m afraid I’m a bit muddled,” said Carlotta, only vaguely aware she was quoting Glinda from The Wizard of Oz. It was just that these two spritely little ladies put her in mind of Munchkins, unfortunately. They were so extremely short. “You see, we thought you were imaginary. That is, you were imaginary. We made you up, of course. But now you’re here.” A deep blush suffused Carlotta’s cheeks, and she had the mortifying realization that she was talking like an idiot.
Mabel snorted. “The hell I’m imaginary! Pinch me!”
Carlotta took a step backward. She looked to Margaret for a way out of her bewilderment. “But Margaret, how can it be? I don’t understand. I mean, all those Mabel stories—well, I’m sorry to say, it was all a joke. None of it was true. When I told you I’d seen a woman who looked just like you at the bank, flirting with the manager, and Lorraine said she saw you in a patrol car, singing hymns—none of that ever actually happened. You know that, of course.”
Margaret raised her chin and her blue eyes shone. “You lied to me. I knew it. You and Lorraine lied to me.”
Mabel, watching this exchange from the sidelines, grinned. “You people are real creative. Fact is, I don’t even know any hymns. Can’t say that I do. And wearing a bathing suit and shorts to the bank? Now, that’s one thing even I wouldn’t do.”
Mabel had clearly forgiven all of the slander already. She was having a good time, as anyone could see.
Margaret kept her eyes locked on Carlotta’s.
Carlotta said, “We’re sorry, Margaret. Truly, we are. It started out to be a funny joke. You just didn’t catch on.” Too late, Carlotta realized her misstep.
Margaret’s blue gaze became laser-like. “Once again, not as smart as you, eh, Carlotta? And you, too, Lorraine? Et tu, Bruté?” Despite the disagreeable circumstances, Margaret grabbed her opportunity to quote from Julius Caesar. Carlotta’s Club appreciated classic literature.
“Birdie was in on it, too,” said Carlotta, seeking safety in numbers. “She said she saw Mabel riding a bike down Main Street and then she saw her on the public access TV channel.”
“Oh,” inserted Birdie, twisting the excess of rings on her fingers, “but I really did see Mabel. I wasn’t lying. Or—joking. I didn’t know it was a joke.”
“Yeah,” offered Mabel. “I did go for a little spin on a rented bike one day. It’s way easier to ride a bike in this one-horse town than in Rochester. And yeah, I got on Community TV one day—I love getting on television, don’t you?” Mabel looked around at the group which was still struggling to catch up.
Lorraine threw her hands in the air. “Hold on! I’m missing something here. How could it happen that we made up a bunch of stories about an imaginary person, and then it turns out the person really exists? What the hell is going on here?”
Margaret stood up as tall as she could. She was the only one who could clear up the mess her friends had made. It was not often that she found herself at such an advantage.
“You may remember how the name ‘Mabel’ first came up? I was coming back to town from Edwards Cove after a day of shopping. A man on the bus approached me and acted like he knew me.”
“That was Walter Strand,” put in Mabel. “An old pal of mine. He’s a womanizer; I can’t say he isn’t.” She laughed and shook her head.
Lecherous woman, thought Carlotta.
Margaret resumed, “But I’d never seen him before in my life. He made personal remarks, and he called me Mabel. But when I came to the studio and told you all about it, you started saying you’d seen Mabel, too. Stumbling drunk out of the Alibi Bar. Et cetera.” Here, Margaret took some deep breaths.
“Yeah,” inserted Mabel. “I don’t drink like that anymore. My doctor would kill me.”
“Yes,” admitted Carlotta, ignoring Mabel. “But then you came in one day and said you’d met Mabel by coincidence on the street, she was leaving town and none of us would ever see her again. I thought you were so clever, to think of resolving the problem that way!” Perhaps a little flattery would calm Margaret down.
Mabel and Norbert, both up to date and well-informed on the whole Mabel-Margaret episode, stood together watching the volleys between Margaret and Carlotta, their heads snapping back and forth.
“So you thought I made that up? About the dinner at Renata’s?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Of course not. Not everyone lies to their dearest friends, Carlotta.”
Carlotta winced at the force of this backhand smash, and felt a flash of resentment. How dare Margaret make her look so bad? Lorraine jumped in to lob the ball from Carlotta’s court.
“Oh, come on, Margaret! You never suspected we were putting you on?” Lorraine put her hands on her hips.
“Actually, at the end, I did. I’ll admit, when I was able to tell you I’d met Mabel, I knew you’d be very confused. And that gave me some satisfaction.”
“Which you deserved—after three weeks of aggravation!” Norbert spoke up.
Annoying man.
Ivy, Norbert’s aged white Chihuahua, jumped out of her basket against the wall and came running on her skinny little legs into the middle of the fray, barking madly, and turning herself about. This was turning into a riot. Norbert picked her up and she went silent, but she continued to look accusingly at everyone as she trembled in his arms.
/> -20-
Six days passed quietly. Carlotta’s book had been flowing from her pen, and she was in high spirits.
It was Tuesday night, and almost time for Oil Painting with Carlotta. Carlotta marched with her head high and shoulders back, through the mid-August twilight. It was only a block and a half from her Edwardian-style home on Clarence Avenue to the Art League on Main Street. As she walked, she enjoyed breathing in the fresh night air and soaking in the quiet. What an artist needs, thought Carlotta, is quiet, and lots of it.
As a painting teacher, Carlotta was popular. Striding about the studio, she gave plenty of individual attention, helping her students to achieve their own painterly aims. She had a knack for understanding what each student was hoping to achieve, and her suggestions helped many a budding painter to move up to the next level of achievement. She loved painting and helped her students to love it as she did. Along with her art instruction, she spooned out generous dollops of culture and personal philosophy.
The stillness of the small lakeside town was punctuated by a railroad whistle as a train lumbered along the tracks two blocks west of the Art League, reminding Carlotta that there were other places beyond the comfortable, peaceful world of Gibbons Corner. Nice places to visit, but everyone Carlotta knew agreed, there was no better place to live.
As she approached the entrance of the Art League, Carlotta saw Norbert with his white box coming out of Gloria’s Bakery.
Norbert’s four-pound Chihuahua peered out at Carlotta from his man purse/dog carrier.
“Good evening, Norbert. Good evening, Ivy,” said Carlotta, as Norbert opened the door for her.
“Hello, Carlotta. It’s getting to be a big class, isn’t it?”
Carlotta nodded with satisfaction. She wondered if Margaret would bring Mabel again, and feared she would. Margaret had gotten so much attention by bringing Mabel to Birdie’s class, she was bound to leverage Mabel again today. People who needed to be the center of attention were so tiresome. But it was of no consequence. They’d gotten no painting done when the doubles had burst into Birdie’s watercolor class. Margaret had made such a scene. The little replica-woman Mabel was so awful, Carlotta could be sure of one thing: no one in their circle would like her. How could they? Loud, raucous, trumpeting specimen of a human being. Carlotta would be kind to her. And make sure to be seen doing so. And then the creature, seeing that she did not and could not ever fit in, would go away.
There were eight students on the roster, and such a large class would require Carlotta’s full professional attention.
After hanging her coat and changing from street shoes to slip-ons, Carlotta mounted the stairs to the gallery and found most of the class setting up. Margaret had not yet arrived. Carlotta braced herself for another Lullaby League entrance.
Childish people, like real children, tend to repeat jokes after they are no longer funny.
The comforting aroma of turpentine filled the space. Carlotta flicked on a Mozart CD, and the stimulating strains of the opening scene of The Magic Flute began to build.
Carlotta, with her smattering of German, was satisfied to think that she alone of everyone in the studio understood the lyrics:
Oh, help me, oh help me, oh help me!
My mind is in danger!
The venomous monster will soon
Overtake me and I-- can’t-- escape!
Well, it was something like that, anyway. Such a funny scene. Herr Mozart was such a genius, she thought. Such a gift for pointing out the ridiculous.
Lorraine, her black hair tied back, was hooking a photograph onto her canvas. Beside her, the young mother was turning her canvas this way and that, trying to decide: vertical or horizontal? The teenage girl took out her earbuds and gave Carlotta the “thumbs-up” sign as she set up her easel.
Ginger-haired, adolescent Liam, with his penchant for the macabre, was looking over Birdie’s shoulder at her work-in-progress: an abstract, grey background, and faces peering at the viewer with intense oversized eyes, as if through some gauze-like material. Dear, strange, out-there Birdie.
“Cool, Mrs. Walsh!” approved Liam. “But you know what you should do? You should paint a bloody skull—right there!” He traced delicately with his pinky finger in front of the canvas where the improvement should go.
Arnie Butler, the manager of Butler’s Books, was a recent addition to the class. The young man had the defect of excessive discretion, it seemed. He had not spilled the beans about Carlotta’s literary work in progress to anyone, as far as she could perceive. Still, he was a nice young man and Carlotta wondered why her niece Hope didn’t have the time of day for him. Not that young women today needed to be married. Not at all. Carlotta approved of the many choices available now to young people. Certainly.
The ever-smiling Norbert (the man had some unfortunate sort of tic that made him smile all the time, regardless of circumstances) was advising Arnie on art supplies.
“You’ll be happier with your painting if you invest in the best brushes you can get,” said Norbert.
“So true, Norbert!” said Carlotta, turning down the music to a faint whine, so that she could be heard by all. “A good brush makes all the difference between satisfaction and frustration. Buy the best, and take loving care of it,” she went on, addressing the whole class as she began her slow and steady pace around the studio. “A cheap brush—or even a good one that has been allowed to dry with a little bit of paint in the bristles—will have unruly hairs sticking out that will ruin your work. As the poet Sara Teasdale wrote: ‘Spend all you have for loveliness, buy it and never count the cost.’”
If Carlotta were to compose her own Ten Commandments, “Buy the best,” would be one of them. Carlotta had never known want. Another of her Commandments would have been, “Take excellent care of what you have.” Carlotta did not dispose of anything valuable, be it a high-quality, well-cared for old brush or friend. After choosing the best for herself, she valued what was hers, and she held on to it.
Where was Margaret? Carlotta wondered. No doubt she and that woman were planning to make a late entrance for dramatic effect. Carlotta would just detonate that bombshell right now.
“Most of you,” intoned Carlotta as she strode, tilting her head slightly before each canvas, “were here in my Oil Painting Class last month, when Margaret started talking about having a double. She said this other woman who looked like her—.”
Liam interrupted here: “Her doppelganger! Ha!”
Carlotta continued, “Yes. Her double, according to her, was going around town doing scandalous things.”
Norbert’s head shot up over his canvas. “Actually, Margaret was told that her double was doing scandalous things. Margaret was upset about it.”
“Whatever,” said Carlotta, borrowing a convenient term she had heard her granddaughter Summer use so often. “The point is, we all thought that the double was just made up.”
The young mother wrinkled her brow. “Who made up the double?”
Carlotta stepped adroitly around this landmine, as Lorraine looked on with narrowed eyes.
“Apparently, no one. The double, in fact, exists,” she said.
The class had stopped painting and all eyes were on Carlotta. She enjoyed the moment. Was there any better feeling than the sense of importance that came with being the center of things?
“You all may get to meet her very soon,” said Carlotta, as if she were promising a birthday party to good children.
The teenage girl and the young mother chorused, “Meet her?”
Carlotta began, “Yes. Her full name is--.”
“MABEL PAINE!” crowed a tobacco-stained voice from the stairs, and two tiny look-alike white-haired ladies stepped into the art studio.
Margaret and Mabel stood side by side, smiling at the class like giggly twin sisters.
The room fell silent, except for a barely audible screeching soprano that sounded like a mosquito circling the room. Carlotta clicked off the CD player.
“You look like twins!” thrilled the teenage girl, stating the obvious.
“Well, will you look at that,” commented Arnie inanely, and Carlotta thought that Hope did well to not give him the time of day.
“You look exactly alike!” breathed the young mother, unnecessarily.
Margaret introduced her double to the young mother, the high school girl, Arnie, and Liam, as Mabel grinned and greeted each one. Mabel was clearly exultant as everyone’s eyes ricocheted back and forth between her and Margaret.
Mabel crowed, “Aren’t we a sight for sour eyes? Ha ha!”
Carlotta tried to conjure up an image of sour eyes, but was unsuccessful.
Liam enthused, “Wow. So, like, one of you could commit a murder? And, like, the other one could take the rap?”
“Aw, hon,” chuckled Mabel, “I think we can have more fun than that.”
“Which is which?” exclaimed Lorraine. “I mean, who is who?”
“But you can see differences,” observed Birdie. Her maxi skirt swaying, she stepped toward the matched pair to get a closer look. Lifting her brush and outlining, as if she were about to paint a portrait of the two of them, she said, “Mabel, you are just an inch or two taller. Margaret, your forehead is wider. And Mabel, you have the smallest bump on your nose, just below the bridge--.” Here, Birdie dabbed her brush into the air as if marking the spot.
Liam joined in, “But there’s no mole.”
“That’s right,” said Carlotta, “The made-up Mabel had a beauty mark, or a mole, as you say, Liam, under one eye. But the real Mabel doesn’t.”
“Who made up the mole?” asked the young mother, once again deviating into dangerous terrain.
“It doesn’t matter now,” said Carlotta, disposing of the mole once and for all. “There is no mole.”
As the class threatened to ask more pointed questions, Carlotta steered them back toward their art.
“Margaret, you can help Mabel settle in. We need to get on with our painting.” Carlotta lifted her chin, pretending to search for a quote she had actually memorized that morning: “As Vincent said, ‘the only time I feel alive is when I’m painting.’”