What Girls Learn

by Karin Cook

  Elizabeth scooped up the whites in her arms, dropping a tube sock and undershirt, and stuffed the load into the washing machine. I picked up the stray clothes and threw them into the rising water. Elizabeth closed the lid and looked at me. Without saying a word, we hurried to the far room where, on a bottom shelf, next to the paint cans and under a coiled garden hose, Nick kept a box of old Playboy magazines. Elizabeth unearthed the box and pulled out a stack. She handed me one and we crouched next to each other, flipping through the pages.

  Carla Alexander was my favorite centerfold. She wanted to be a veterinarian. She liked photography, horses, and coffee. She was Miss August—straddling a pitch fork and wearing a pair of leather chaps with nothing underneath. Her handwriting was large with rounded vowels and consonants that dipped outside the lines. Her nipples stuck out like hard candies. Even when I twisted and pulled them, my nipples never looked like that.

  Elizabeth stood up and pretended to be Miss May, unzipping her jeans and opening all but one button on her shirt. She posed, arching her back against the cinder block wall, and wrapped the garden hose around her waist. The open end of the nozzle gaped near her zipper. She had the belly button of a grown woman, half inny, half outy, like a pout.

  “Do you think Nick really reads these magazines?” she asked.

  “Probably not anymore,” I said, but couldn’t be sure. I wondered if Mama knew about them. My skin chilled, sending goosebumps up my arms. There was so much we didn’t know about Nick. Elizabeth and I looked at each other without blinking for a long minute, saying nothing.

  We took extra care to put the magazines neatly away and moved to the second-floor staircase to finish the rest of the chores. Elizabeth crouched at the top, wringing a sponge over a bubbling bucket and streaking the black tread on the steps with soap. She gestured toward the plastic bowl filled with clear, hot water.

  “You rinse.”

  We worked like that, in silence, moving down the stairs, for almost an hour. I kept refilling my bowl with new water, sometimes letting it spill and cascade down on her. Not enough to seem purposeful. When we finished, Elizabeth’s jeans were soaked. My sleeves were heavy up to my armpits. We left sock prints across the kitchen floor.

  At the cellar door, we stripped down to our panties and left our clothes in a wet heap. The clean steps squeaked under our bare feet as we ascended the stairs and ran naked down the hall to our bathroom. Exhilarated from having done what we were supposed to do, we climbed in the tub together. While Elizabeth worked the faucet, I poured in the shampoo and waited bent in half for it to bubble up over my thighs. As the steam fogged the mirrors, and the water rose around us, puckering our fingertips and the pads of our toes, we forgot about what was happening to Mama, forgot about our fears of Nick and who he was, even forgot our fights. We stayed this way a long time, waiting for Mama to climb the stairs and find us, wrinkled and pink, rinsing our heads under the faucet. We were too big really for a share bath, our knees knocking against each other, careful in the placement of our feet.

  PART III

  BLASPHEMY

  Our neighbor, Mrs. Teuffel, wanted us to pray. She didn’t say anything outright, but the glass tray of lasagna and aluminum-wrapped zucchini bread she brought over from next door one afternoon had a prayer on the note card. Nick laughed, dismissing the Almighty with a wave of his hand. But Elizabeth saved the card, slicing it free from the tape with her longest nail and bending it into her back pocket.

  That night, before bed, I caught Elizabeth kneeling on her mattress with her eyes closed and head bent. She was whispering the prayer over and over again by memory.

  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

  Blessed art thou amongst women and

  blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

  Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners

  now and at the hour of our death.

  I leaned against the doorjamb and watched as Elizabeth lifted her arm high in the air. She was holding a fistful of pale pink beads that reminded me of the 25¢ plastic jewelry in those machines in the grocery store. I listened to the rhythm of her words and waited for a break.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Elizabeth ignored me, continuing on with her prayer, over and over, until she was left holding the beads upside down. Then, she looked at me seriously. “Mrs. Teuffel gave me this rosary,” she said. “Did you know that the Virgin Mary’s cousin, the one to first say this prayer, was named Elizabeth?”

  “So? Lots of people are named Elizabeth.”

  “You don’t know anything,” she said, dipping her head and beginning again. “Hail Mary, full of grace …”

  “I know you don’t really know how to pray.”

  She stopped and glared at me. “Then how come Mrs. Teuffel’s going to take me to church with her?”

  “Stop acting so weird,” I said. “Mama’s going to know.”

  “How is she going to know?” Elizabeth held my eye a long time and then started over. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee …”

  We had only been to church a handful of times when we lived in Atlanta, and each time with our grandmother. Mama liked the idea of church more than the practice. Something about making a commitment to attend every week and risking disapproval when she didn’t show up kept her away altogether. But now, I remembered that Elizabeth had always risen to the calling, weaving special colorful ribbons in her hair and polishing her shiny black shoes. She could sit taller and straighter than any other girl in a pew. This, she believed, brought her closer to God.

  One of my last memories of our grandmother was that she bought us each a pair of white gloves with lace trim to wear to church on Easter. They fit perfectly and made my hands feel springy and clean. Elizabeth wore them every Sunday around the house. Mama suggested that we wear them on the day that Grandma and Grandpa were buried even though she wouldn’t let us go to the church.

  Mama didn’t talk much about their deaths. Maybe something about their dying together so suddenly helped Mama feel as if it were meant to be—the two of them in heaven, keeping each other company. “It’s the way they would have wanted it,” she said in a distant voice.

  The Mosquitoes administered Mama’s chemotherapy in a twenty-eight-day cycle. She had to go to the doctor’s office twice a month, on the first and eighth days, but could rest the last two weeks of the month. I kept track of her cycle in the datebook she’d given me. The first week she was hit hard with nausea. She took to the TV room, which was transformed by the comforts she kept near her—a bucket, a box of tissues, a pitcher of water, and her favorite drinking glass. Nick even bought a set of plastic sheets to put under the blankets on the couch. She kept a bunch of projects nearby, hoping she’d feel well enough to catch up on some things she’d let slide. On the coffee table was a box of note cards, her address book, the checkbook she’d been meaning to balance, the photos that needed to be organized. But mostly she watched cooking shows, copying down recipes on the backs of envelopes and absently slipping them between the plastic sugar and flour canisters in the kitchen.

  She was too sick to do all that tasting and preparing. Instead, she relied on habit—foods that required one big fix and then could be eaten day after day.

  “Why can’t we be normal and eat pancakes?” Elizabeth wanted to know.

  On the morning of my thirteenth birthday, I woke up to the smell of steak and eggs wafting up the stairs from the kitchen. It was a Saturday and outside the bits of glass in the driveway shone in the morning sun. I pulled the Macy’s bag out from the back of my closet, where I’d kept it since that day we’d gone shopping, slipped into my new clothes, and stood in front of the mirror. I didn’t look thirteen. Even Elizabeth, who would be twelve two weeks later, had bigger boobs than I did. I tightened the straps on my overalls, hoping that the bib would help hide my flat chest. I styled my hair under with a round brush and flipped my bangs back with a curling iron. I had expected to wake up with a
new body. A grown-up, teenage body with curves and hair. I looked exactly the same as I always had: skinny and disappointed.

  Downstairs, Mama was engulfed in a cloud of kitchen smoke. She was holding a spatula in one hand and a fork in the other. When she hugged me, the implements clanked behind my head. “It isn’t the same as a party,” she said, “but it’s the best I can do.”

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  “So you don’t mind a two-for-one with Elizabeth?”

  I did, but didn’t say so.

  Nick came in from the yard with his arms behind his back. “Come sit down,” he said and walked backwards toward the dining room table. Elizabeth and I each chose a side and he presented us with rosebuds, clipped prematurely from Mrs. Teuffel’s rose bush. “A rose is a rose is a rose,” he said and kissed the tops of our heads.

  Elizabeth stuck the stem carefully behind her ear and sat up proudly, straightening her spine toward God. Mrs. Teuffel had offered Elizabeth piano lessons and I imagined the two of them on that hard bench, with their backs and shoulders lifted, wrists raised and fingers curled—every muscle poised to make music. Elizabeth had an ear, it turned out. She practiced twice a week next door on Mrs. Teuffel’s upright piano and each time came home nearly singing the word of God.

  “I can’t believe this family,” she said as we hovered over our birthday breakfast. “We don’t even say grace.”

  “What do you care?” I asked.

  “We’re the only family I know who doesn’t go to church on Sundays,” she answered.

  “The Shaptaws don’t go to church,” I said.

  “They’re heathens,” Elizabeth said.

  “They’re Jewish,” I said.

  “Same thing.”

  Mama sat up and pointed her finger at Elizabeth. “I won’t have that talk in this house,” she said.

  “Do you think we’re going to hell?” I asked.

  “Unless we repent for our sins,” Elizabeth answered.

  Mama swung around on her stool to face Elizabeth. “Where did you get that?” she asked. “Nick, do you hear this? To think, I’ve done my best to keep those rigid beliefs away from my children and here they are sitting at breakfast with us.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to Mrs. Teuffel,” Nick said. “She’s harmless.”

  “When her beliefs end up at my table, it’s high time I start paying attention,” Mama said.

  “They aren’t her beliefs,” Elizabeth said, “they’re mine.”

  Mama took a deep breath. “There are many kinds of spirituality,” she started, “what if we use the time before meals to explore what gives us peace in our lives?”

  “Out loud?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No, privately,” Mama said. “Spirituality is a very private thing.”

  “Instead of grace?” Elizabeth asked.

  “You can say grace if you like,” Mama said. “Just don’t be thanking God for a meal that I cooked.”

  I wanted to laugh, but the table got quiet. Elizabeth bowed her head. Nick cut his steak in quarters, exposing the undercooked center, and arranged them in clusters.

  “Amen,” Elizabeth said.

  Nick picked up his head and clapped his hands together. “Cheer up,” he said. “This is supposed to be a birthday celebration.”

  What did he know about our birthdays? In Atlanta, Mama had always decorated the door to our room with balloons, the same number as the years. When we got home from school, the balloons were tied on the mailbox or front fence and she’d let us release them into the sky. A gift to the gods, in celebration of the day we each arrived.

  “Why isn’t anyone eating?” Mama asked.

  “It’s too pink,” I offered.

  “Not really,” Nick said, spearing a piece of steak and biting into it.

  “Tilden thinks we eat too much red meat,” Elizabeth said.

  Mama set her fork on the plate and looked at me. “What?”

  “I just thought that maybe that could be why you’re sick.”

  “And tap water,” Elizabeth said, “tell her we shouldn’t drink the water.”

  Nick eyed the food on the table.

  “I want to know who told you that,” Mama said.

  “Everyone.”

  “Well, it’s not true,” she said. She held a forkful of steak up to her lips. “I am not sick.”

  Elizabeth and I didn’t look at each other. Nick buttered a piece of toast and chewed noisily. After we finished eating, Nick cleared the dishes and went to the kitchen.

  “You stay,” Mama said and left us sitting at the table.

  In the kitchen, I heard her strike a match to light the candles. “Happy Birthday,” she sang, slowing the words down to match her steps. Elizabeth tapped out the notes with her fingers on the placemat. Nick walked behind Mama, carrying two plates with doughnuts, each full of candles. In the holes of the doughnuts, Mama had arranged some rose buds in a film canister. The flames on the candles flickered under Nick’s breath as he sang.

  Late that night Elizabeth came into my room and told me that she was planning to sneak off to church the next morning. Normally, I wouldn’t have helped her. I had seen her go through stage after stage. But this was different. She had convinced me: a direct line to God was the best chance Mama had.

  Mrs. Teuffel had told Elizabeth to wear her Sunday best and to bring an offering for the collection. I remembered those big bins I’d seen in the church parking lot and figured that Mrs. Teuffel meant clothing. Elizabeth had thrown out all but her most essential belongings in the last weeding.

  “I don’t have anything,” she said.

  “You have to sacrifice something,” I said. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

  Finally, Elizabeth settled on a red shirt that had a tiger instead of an alligator on the front and some leg warmers. She stuffed them in a plastic bag and set it under her bed.

  The next morning, I helped Elizabeth dress for church. She put on a yellow sundress and sandals with socks. I cleaned up an old makeup bag and pinned a ribbon on as a strap.

  “Shouldn’t you put your hair in a bun?” I asked.

  “Don’t make fun of me,” she said, her face scrunched up and wounded.

  “I’m not.” I waited until she was almost down the stairs, then whispered frantically after her, “Make sure you say something for me.”

  I tried to distract Mama in the kitchen while Elizabeth went out the front door. But Mama saw her trying to climb the split-rail fence, her dress hiked up around her waist, the plastic bag clenched in her teeth.

  “Where is she going?” Mama asked.

  I shrugged. “Piano lessons?”

  “On Sunday morning?” Mama challenged.

  “I guess so,” I said.

  Mama walked over to the screen door and followed Elizabeth with her eyes, watching as she slipped onto Mrs. Teuffel’s front porch and disappeared into the house.

  “Come here for a minute, Tilden,” Mama said. “Let me ask you a question.” She leaned against the screen door and rested her forehead on the mesh. “Is Elizabeth praying because she thinks I’m very sick?”

  “Maybe.”

  She didn’t speak for a few moments. At TransAlt, the first of the weekend drivers were beginning to arrive. Nick was talking to them, one hand deep in his pocket, the other tight around a cup of coffee.

  “Mama, do you believe in God?” I asked.

  “In a way,” she said and smoothed her hand absently over my face, “sometimes.”

  HOME REMEDIES

  After the first round of chemo, Dr. O’Connor gave Mama some new exercises to do, movements that involved holding onto household appliances and groceries. Mama held the diagrams up for us to see and with a strange, twisted smile on her face, she complained that the worksheet read like the Ladies’ Home Journal.

  “What if you don’t have a giant wooden salad spoon or a feather duster to hold above your head?” She pretended to dust the juicer, lightly and then the kitchen shelf. “W
hat if I wanted to use a flashlight or my favorite pair of pliers?”

  “They just don’t want you to have to go out of your way,” Nick said.

  “And why not?” Mama braced herself for a fight. “How far do they think I have to go?”

  Nick took a deep breath and settled himself. “It’s just until you’re healed.”

  “Bull,” Mama said, disgusted. “I bet if men were having their you know what’s taken off whole gyms would spring up. There would be rehabilitation programs tied into construction companies. First you’d stir paint. Then hammer over your head. And work right up to chopping wood. That way things would still get accomplished. I bet they’d even let you drive.”

  Nick didn’t argue. He blinked slowly, flashing his dark, kind eyes, then retrieved the toolbox from the garage and set it in the kitchen. He stepped closer to Mama and put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m not them,” he said. “I’m not the enemy.”

  Mama softened. “I know,” she said, relaxing under his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  Despite her protests, I caught Mama doing her exercises religiously. She tried not to draw attention to herself, slipping her workout into everyday life. The staples were arranged by weight on the middle shelf: cereal, macaroni, soup cans, box of brown sugar, flour. The sacks of flour and rice rested at the end of the shelf like a goal post.

  Nick encouraged us to look on the bright side—even on the bad days, when Mama did nothing but throw up. “This is the worst part,” he’d say. “But it means the medicine is working.”

  On the good days, Mama took longer to dress, concerning herself with makeup and scarves. “Readying herself,” Nick called it. Those mornings she’d emerge with a certain sense of purpose, ready to greet the world—a bustle of enthusiasm and promise that took her only as far as the mailbox at the end of the driveway. There, she’d wave at Mrs. Teuffel from a distance before retreating back to the house, suddenly frail against the outdoors.