Getting Rid of Mabel

by Keziah Frost

  Mabel asked, looking around, “Who’s Vincent?”

  “Vincent Van Gogh,” said Carlotta, smiling widely. “A famous painter.”

  Mabel seemed to ponder. “The only time he feels alive is when he’s painting? Man. That kinda limits a person, doesn’t it?”

  Lorraine twisted her mouth and shot a look at Carlotta. They would laugh together later about this uncultured woman.

  Norbert offered, “There are kolaczkis on the counter. They’re Polish pastries. Koh-latch-keys is how you say it. Help yourself, Mabel, before you get pigment on your fingers.”

  “Oh, I’m not here to paint!” exclaimed Mabel. “Painting would bore me to tears.”

  If this irritant thought she was going to close down another day’s creative effort, she had another think coming. But then, Carlotta had to be seen being kind to Mabel.

  “Mabel, how funny,” said Carlotta in her tinkling voice. “You’re in a painting class. What else would you do, if not paint?”

  “Well, I could pose,” Mabel suggested.

  Carlotta stared at the woman’s nest of white hair exploding from under her blue baseball cap and at her oversized tie dyed tee shirt. If she had Margaret’s face and build, she certainly didn’t have Margaret’s sense of style.

  Mabel, as if to help Carlotta understand the concept she was putting forth, added, “You know? Like a model?”

  “Ah,” said Carlotta. “But you see, everyone is already engaged in a work-in-progress.”

  “That’s okay, Mrs. Moon!” said Liam. “We could put that work aside and grab a new canvas, y’know?”

  Before Carlotta could squelch the idea, the room was in motion: a new canvas was settling onto each easel, and Norbert was helping Mabel to pull the light-weight wicker couch to the front and center of the room, so that all the painters would have a clear view of her.

  As if she owns the place.

  Margaret rushed to put on her smock and set up for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to paint a self-portrait of a model who was not herself.

  “I always wanted to try modeling,” said Mabel. “I’ve been a lot of things in my life…”

  I’ll just bet you have.

  “But never a model. Try everything, that’s what I say!”

  Mabel experimented with various poses, taking direction from the class. Recumbent? Legs crossed? Arm up over the back of the sofa? Or arms folded?

  As the art students disagreed with one another, Lorraine said at last, “Just make yourself comfortable, Mabel. Sit however you want, as long as it’s a position you can sit still in for about forty minutes.”

  Mabel said, “Sitting still has never been my strong suit.”

  Lorraine assured her, “We can stop a couple of times for a break, if you need to.”

  “Oh, I’ll be okay as long as I can talk. My mouth can move, right?”

  “As long as you can move your mouth without moving anything else,” said Margaret, thrilling with the spotlight that she and Mabel shared. “That can be trickier than you think.”

  Mabel adjusted herself, sitting comfortably on the sofa, with a perfectly good sofa cushion tucked firmly into her armpit (Who does that?), and then offered, “Do you want me to take off my clothes? Isn’t that what you artists do?”

  Carlotta leapt in. “That would be Life Drawing, Mabel, and no thank you. I don’t think we are prepared for that today.”

  “Well,” said Mabel, “if you change your minds, just whistle. It’s warm enough in here! I don’t have any hang-ups. I got rid of all my hang-ups in the sixties.”

  Mabel quickly mastered the skill of keeping perfectly still while talking. There was no stopping the woman’s streaming monologue. She recounted stories that couldn’t possibly be true about people who couldn’t possibly be real. She filled the eyes and the ears of the class.

  “In Rochester,” she claimed, “there’s a nudist colony, but it only has one member. Ha ha! It’s just this one naked guy. He’ll be sitting on a park bench in the center of town on a cold day. Everyone just goes, oh, there’s the nudist! He’s out again! Ha ha! Then he gets arrested. Poor fella. And they call this a free country?

  “Speaking of nudists, many years ago, I lived in the woods in Georgia with a boyfriend who had no teeth. True story. We used to gather berries and bark to sell. In those days, there were a lot of people with no teeth in the woods doing that.”

  The young mother interrupted and sensibly asked, “Wait. Who buys bark?”

  But Mabel just laughed, as if the young mother had made a very funny joke, and continued her rambling.

  “My friend Zelda is ninety-seven years old and still cuts hair! I kid you not. She can’t see, of course. Never could, actually. Her eyes are three inches from the scissors. It’s kind of funny to watch her in the mirror. A haircut from her takes a pretty long time. But she doesn’t charge much. And she does a real good job. I can’t say she doesn’t.

  “Speaking of my friends, one was supposed to be a mermaid.”

  Lorraine asked, “Whaddaya mean, ‘supposed to be?’”

  “She was born with fish parts. They fixed her, at birth, you know. But the weird thing is, all her life she’s been a really good swimmer. Life’s funny, huh?”

  Mabel’s stories varied from humorous to off-color to something akin to magical realism. What kind of person makes things up about people? Was this woman even sane?

  “I loved an artist once. In the early seventies, I had a boyfriend everyone called Smokey. Do I need to tell you why? Ha ha! He stayed at home and drew pictures of monsters while I worked to support us. Golly, I loved that man. He became a ventriloquist and left me.

  “I never stayed sad after a breakup. I always said, ‘there’s plenty more ice in the sea.’ I’ve had some good times! I can’t say I haven’t! Believe it or not, I was quite volumptuous when I was young.” exulted Mabel.

  Carlotta was reminded at once of Mrs. Malaprop, the character from a Richard Sheridan play who was famous for making up her own ridiculous words, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales--especially the indecent ones. Really, there was young Liam to think of, and the teenage girl. After Carlotta had endured fifteen minutes of non-stop nasty narrative, she snapped on the CD player and turned the volume all the way up. She adored The Magic Flute. All right-thinking people did.

  -21-

  Much disturbed, Carlotta called Summer and Hope, who rushed over to her home to share in the gossip she had light-heartedly promised them. In truth, her heart felt anything but light.

  “Tell us, Gramma!” said Summer. “It sounds so interesting! About Aunt Margaret’s double.”

  (Both Hope and Summer always called the women in Carlotta’s Club “Aunt.”)

  Hope asked, “So, what’s she like?”

  The young women leaned forward.

  Carlotta smiled.

  “Well, let me think how to put this.”

  Hope whistled.

  Voicing Hope’s thought, Summer said, “That bad, huh?”

  Hope and Summer exchanged glances.

  Carlotta said, “Well, my dears, you know the old saying, ‘If you can’t--.”

  Although their childhoods had been consecutive, being twenty years apart by birth, Summer and Hope had both received this doctrine from Carlotta. They chorused: “ ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’”

  “Yes. Words to live by, I believe.”

  Then Carlotta launched, as her company knew she would, into a bitingly comical description of Margaret’s doppelganger.

  “So, like, no one likes her, right?” asked Summer.

  The unkindness of youth!

  “Summer, of course we all like her. Even if her ways are odd. She’s just different from us.”

  “Way different,” said Summer, refusing to be chastened.

  “I don’t expect she’ll stay here long. It’s not her kind of town, Gibbons Corner. We love it, but she’s from Rochester. I guess quirky people don’t stand out so much in big ci
ties. Anyway.” Carlotta poured the tea into the china cups. “She won’t last.”

  “That sounds menacing, Gramma,” said Summer.

  “You know what I mean. She won’t want to stay.”

  “And she’s living with Aunt Margaret?” asked Hope.

  “That won’t work,” predicted Summer, speaking with her mouth full of banana bread.

  Carlotta reflected that years of instruction can amount to disappointing results, when it comes to table manners.

  “Actually, Margaret seemed to be excited about the arrangement. She said she was looking forward to sharing her morning coffee with someone, after years of having only Myrtle the cat to talk to. And Mabel was excited about meeting the cat, and said they’d be ‘the three M’s: Margaret, Myrtle and Mabel.’ As if she were planning on settling in for a while.”

  Hope said, “There’s a lot more to sharing your living space than just morning coffee.”

  The three women paused for a moment, picturing the three M’s in a domestic scene.

  “How bizarre it must have been,” said Summer, “to see Aunt Margaret and Mabel side by side in the art studio.”

  “Yeah,” said Hope. “I’d love to see that.”

  “Me, too,” said Summer. “What a sight!”

  “I’m sure you’ll see the pair of them soon enough,” said Carlotta, realizing too late what she was proposing.

  “When?” asked Summer and Hope together.

  Carlotta was not sure why the idea of such a meeting displeased her, but it did.

  “We’ll have to arrange that—very soon.”

  She changed the subject.

  “Hope, Arnie from the book store was just asking about you. He talks about you in the most flattering terms, you know. I really think if you just gave him a nod--.”

  -22-

  Before leaving for lunch at Margaret’s condo, Carlotta opened the end table drawer in her living room where her indispensable reference books lay concealed. Carlotta had not cared one bit for Mabel’s easy commandeering of the Club’s attention in her oil painting class. The entire room had seemed transfixed by this awful woman, and the more dreadful she became, the more entranced they were. It defied explanation. How could anyone like Mabel? And yet, it seemed as if they did.

  Carlotta moved aside How to Discuss Classics You Haven’t Read, to reach French to Impress. This was the volume that Carlotta wanted to peruse today, just for a quick refresher.

  If there’s one way to put a person in her place, speaking to her in a language of culture and refinement that she doesn’t know, should do it.

  What she wanted today were some conversational gems to throw in casually, to let Mabel know that Carlotta and her Club spoke to each other in French. If that didn’t show her that she didn’t belong, well, if that didn’t show her, Carlotta would have to think of something else. Thinking of something else was never a problem for Carlotta’s swarming brain.

  A few expressions of delight would be easy to work into the discussion. Carlotta ran her red nail down a page.

  C’est trop mignon!—“It’s so cute!”

  J’aime bien—“I like very much.”

  C’est merveilleux! –“It’s wonderful.”

  Yes, these, along with the usual French greetings that her friends knew and responded to automatically now, thanks to her persistent tutelage, would be enough to make Mabel feel out of place. Not that Carlotta would ever be so lacking in manners as to make anyone feel out of place. But if Mabel didn’t speak French, was that Carlotta’s fault?

  Carlotta was actually looking forward to dealing with Margaret’s new roommate. Margaret had the distinction of being the Club’s best cook, so an exceptional spread could be expected. Margaret had invited only the Club and Norbert.

  “Gramma,” Summer had said one day to Carlotta as they drank tea at the Good Fortune Café, “why do you always say ‘the Club and Norbert?’ Why isn’t Mr. Zelenka a member of the Club by now?”

  Summer had a soft spot for Norbert. She seemed to confide in him and trust him like a sort of father figure. And certainly, their relationship seemed to have brought about a wonderful change in her. She had become the more light-hearted girl she used to be, long ago. Carlotta had been able to worry a little less about her granddaughter, and she knew that was in some way thanks to Norbert.

  Carlotta had laughed. “Norbert is a gentleman, Summer.”

  “So?”

  “The Club is primarily about intelligent conversation, dear. Men, in general, are not gifted conversationalists, you know. Have you ever noticed? They tend to stall psychologically-oriented discussions. They want to talk about baseball and waste time. Men, just by entering the room, change the atmosphere. They introduce… a certain energy.”

  Summer smiled. “You sound like Aunt Birdie, talking about people’s energy.”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. Men don’t want to talk about what we like to talk about.” Carlotta stirred her tea, even though she hadn’t added cream or sugar. “And then…they tend to want to run things.”

  “Ah!” Summer had said annoyingly. “There it is!”

  “It’s always been a women’s club. Since the sixties. That’s a long time.”

  Summer had cast her eyes to the ceiling and said, “Oh, Gramma. Gender discrimination is so passé.”

  Margaret’s condo on Washington Street was an aesthetic abomination in rose pink and mint green, but friends didn’t remark upon friends’ shortcomings. Carlotta was the last to arrive, by plan. She wanted to give her friends the chance to talk about her and to look forward to the fun and direction she could be relied upon to provide. The anticipation would be nice for them.

  She took a deep breath as she stepped over the threshold, preparing to ignore the kitschy clutter that was Margaret’s home. At least, the clutter was always organized. (The phrase, I can’t say it isn’t, rose to her mind, and she wondered where that came from.)

  The aromas of bread, potato and tomato filled the air encouragingly.

  Her first act on entering this or any other room, was to scan the occupants for just a moment to take in what everyone was wearing. Part of the interest in going anywhere at all was in noticing people’s clothes.

  Margaret wore a green dress with small white polka dots, belted at the waist in matching fabric. She seemed to own a polka dot dress in every color. “Polka dots are so cheerful, aren’t they?” she always said.

  Norbert wore a white shirt and grey slacks, and good black shoes. Quite an improvement from the day she and the Club had gone to his house to persuade him to become a fortune-teller, and his shoes were falling apart. The fortune-telling trade was going strong, apparently.

  Birdie fluttered in a maxi dress with capacious bell sleeves, and her earrings were swinging as she laughed with Lorraine, who had just delivered an amusing line. Lorraine wore her usual simple uniform-like outfit: black slacks and a smock-y white shirt.

  And there was Mabel. In sweats.

  Carlotta smoothed a hand over her own black and cream sheath dress that fell becomingly to her mid-calf, and smiled at Mabel with satisfaction.

  Mabel smiled back.

  “Hey, it’s Carlotta!” she announced merrily. “You’re late! Come on in!”

  Of all the irritating things Mabel might have chosen to say, “Come on in” was certainly at the top of the list. As if she lived here in Margaret’s condo. As if these were her friends.

  “I’m so sorry I’m a bit late,” said Carlotta, preparing to make the excuse she had invented. She needn’t have invented it.

  “No problemo!” cried Mabel. “We’ve been having a fine time without you!”

  Carlotta looked around at the happy faces and saw that this was true.

  “Don’t take that the wrong way!” trumpeted Mabel, and the group giggled at her witticism.

  “The real fun doesn’t start until Carlotta gets here!” said Lorraine, loyally.

  Dear Lorraine, thought Carlotta gratefully.r />
  Lorraine went on, “I’ve been telling Mabel about some of the fun things to do around here. We oughta take her out and show her the sights.”

  Treacherous Lorraine, thought Carlotta.

  Margaret called her guests to the table. The choice spots at any rectangular table, Carlotta knew, were the head and the foot. From either of those places, one could most easily control the flow of the general conversation. That had been her observation after years of paying close attention to such things. Margaret, in her own home, should have the head, of course. Therefore, the foot belonged to Carlotta.

  Except that the foot was already occupied.

  As Carlotta pulled the chair back from the white table cloth, she perceived a small weight on it. It was Myrtle, the monstrous black and white cat that Margaret kept. The thing lifted its head with a trill, and narrowed its eyes at Carlotta. Carlotta experienced a little frisson and gave a cry.

  To say that Carlotta was terrified of cats was to state a bold-faced lie. Or was it a bald-faced lie? It was both. She would deny it until her last breath. Only the weak had phobias, and Carlotta took pride in her mental toughness.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Carlotta!” exclaimed Margaret. “Myrtle, get off that chair!”

  Myrtle shot a look of surprise at Margaret, and then, one by one, glared at each of the human faces peering down at her.

  “I’ll get her,” offered Mabel. “Myrtle and I are friends, aren’t we, Myrtle?”

  Mabel reached toward Myrtle, and Myrtle was up on her hind legs, anchoring her claws into Mabel’s hand. Mabel drew back, and applied a white napkin to the stripes of red forming on her skin. Carlotta experienced at once an urge to laugh and a wave of nausea. She was at the same time both horrified and pleased at the cat’s assault on their mutual antagonist.

  “I’m so sorry!” cried Margaret. “No, Mabel, that cat is not anyone’s friend, I’m afraid—except Carlotta’s. For some strange reason, she loves only Carlotta. But Carlotta—.”

  Carlotta would not allow Margaret to announce to everyone—especially Mabel—that she suffered from a fear of cats. Because she didn’t. To admit to a phobia was to show weakness. In fact, Carlotta thought, as she focused her attention on slowing her breath, this would be an excellent time to bring out her prepared French phrases. This would highlight her culture and education.