Mary Jane

by Jessica Anya Blau

  “Can I trust you, Mary Jane?” Dr. Cone asked.

  I nodded again.

  “Doctor-patient confidentiality is very serious in psychiatry. No one can know who I’m treating or why or even where.”

  “I understand.” I was no longer hungry, but I was nervous, so I reached into the bag and removed another burger. If Dr. Cone was treating someone, didn’t that mean that someone was crazy? So would a crazy man and his wife be in the house where I was working all summer? And did I have to turn my face away and not look at the crazy man to preserve doctor-patient confidentiality? The whole thing felt big and scary and as much as I enjoyed Izzy Cone, the barefoot and sideburn nature of Dr. and Mrs. Cone, and the cluttered kaleidoscope of the Cone home, I wondered if maybe this wasn’t the job for me.

  “So, this patient, well, he’s an addict—even the press knows by now, which is why I’m telling you.” Dr. Cone tossed the other half of his burger into his mouth and took a big swill of his orange soda. Izzy handed my orange soda back to me and I took a sip and then returned it to her. “And the wife needs lots of support too. You know, it’s hard when your spouse, or anyone in your family, is addicted.”

  Why would the press know this man was an addict? Did the Baltimore Sun print lists of local addicts? I swallowed hard and said, “Will it be safe for me and Izzy to be in the house if an addict is there?”

  Dr. Cone burst out laughing, releasing a small spray of food. “It’s entirely safe! He’s a smart, interesting, creative man. His wife is too. Neither of them would ever harm anyone. No one chooses to be an addict, and my job is to help out those who are unfortunate enough to be struck with it. I treat drug addicts, alcoholics, sex addicts . . . the whole shebang.”

  My face burned. I shoved two fries into my mouth. Izzy didn’t seem to notice that Dr. Cone has used the word sex. With the word addict! I didn’t even know you could be a sex addict. A slideshow started in my brain: images of people kissing, naked, pushing themselves against each other hour after hour. Would the sex addicts ever get hungry? Would they eat while doing sex things?

  “In this situation,” Dr. Cone continued, “it seemed better that the patient and his wife just move in and stay with us until everything’s more under control. They live in New York City and he’s been taking the train down for twice-weekly visits with me. He’s actually detoxed now; we’re just working on ways he can stay sober.”

  “Oh okay.” I took the drink back from Izzy, swallowed another strawful, and then handed it to her again.

  “The thing that’s tricky here,” Dr. Cone said, “is that they’re both very, very famous.”

  “Movie stars?!” Izzy asked.

  “Yes. The wife’s a movie star. He’s a rock star.”

  “A rock star!” Izzy shouted. “I want to be a rock star!” She held the drink in front of her face as if it were a microphone, and started singing a song I’d heard a couple of times but didn’t really know. Izzy had it down word for word, so I assumed the Cones had the record.

  “A movie star and a rock star from New York City are going to move into your house?” I asked, just to be sure I was understanding this correctly.

  “Who who who who who who who?” Izzy asked. “Is it the Partridge Family?”

  “You’ll see when they get here.” Dr. Cone reached out and mussed up Izzy’s hair.

  I had many more questions but didn’t dare ask. What was the rock star addicted to? Would I ever see him or his movie star wife, or would they be in Dr. Cone’s office all day? Were they bringing maids with them? Did they have a limousine and a driver?

  If Izzy didn’t know who they were, I doubted I would. I barely knew Little Tavern burgers! The records in my house were all cast albums from Broadway musicals or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Kids at school talked about bands and rock music, but the names of the singers and bands were as foreign to me as the neighborhoods and streets east, west, and south of where we lived. For all I knew, the rock star and the movie star, the drug addict and his wife, might be less recognizable to me than Dr. and Mrs. Cone.

  3

  All weekend long, I thought about the Cones and the addict rock star/movie star couple who would be moving in. On Saturday, I walked up to Eddie’s market and flipped through People magazine to see if there was any mention of a rock star/movie star couple dealing with an addiction. I wondered if the addict would look like the addicts I’d seen downtown from the window of the car. Skinny people in dirty clothes, leaning against doorways. Or the man with only one limb who pushed himself around on a wide skateboard. I’d seen him many times. Once, I asked my father if we could roll down the window and give him money. Dad didn’t answer, but my mother said, “We can’t roll down the window here.”

  That Sunday night, my mother was serving ham, peas with bacon, coleslaw, succotash, and corn muffins and a trifle for dessert. I always stood by and helped while she made dinner. Step by step she’d narrate what she was doing so that I could do it myself when I grew up. If she handed me a knife, she showed me exactly where on it I should place my fingers. If she handed me a whisk and a bowl, she showed me the angle at which I should hold the bowl in the crook of my left arm, and the speed and force with which I should use the whisk with my right hand. But that night she let me prepare the trifle all by myself. Mostly.

  When it was time to eat, after I’d set the table, my mother and I sat in our padded-seat chairs, waiting in silence for my father. He finally arrived, still wearing the tie he’d had on at church that morning. The Sunday paper was tucked under his arm.

  Dad sat, placed the paper on the table, and put his hands together for prayer. Before he spoke, he dropped his forehead onto the pointed tip of his first fingers. “Thank you, Jesus, for this food on our table and for my wonderful wife and obedient child. God bless this family, God bless our relatives in Idaho, God bless President Ford and his family, and God bless the United States of America.”

  “And God bless that man with no legs and only one arm who hangs out near the expressway,” I said.

  My father opened one eye and looked at me. He shut the eye and added, “God bless all the poor souls of Baltimore.”

  “Amen,” my mother and I said.

  “Mary Jane,” my mother said, forking ham onto my father’s plate, “what country club do the Cones belong to?”

  “Hmmm.” I chugged from my cup of milk. “I don’t know. They haven’t gone to one since I’ve been babysitting.”

  “Certainly not Elkridge.” My dad removed his tie, placed it on the table, and picked up the newspaper. My mother loaded succotash onto his plate.

  “How do you know they don’t belong to Elkridge?” I asked. That was our country club.

  “It’s spelled C-O-N-E,” my mother said. “I looked it up in the Blue Book.” The Blue Book was a small directory for our neighborhood and the two neighborhoods that abutted us on either side: Guilford and Homeland. You could look up people by address or by name. Children were called Miss if they were girls and Master if they were boys. The Blue Book also listed the occupation of every man, and any women who worked. Sometimes, when I was lying around the house doing nothing, I flipped through the Blue Book, read the names, the children’s names, the father’s job, and tried to imagine what these people looked like, what their house looked like, what food they’d have in their refrigerator.

  “The Cones are Jews,” my father said. “Probably changed the name from Co-hen.” He turned the page and then folded the paper in half.

  “Well, then not L’Hirondelle, either. What are the names of those two Jewish clubs?” My mother stared at my father. My father stared at the paper. She was holding a corn muffin aloft.

  “Are you sure the Cones are Jewish?” I didn’t know any Jewish people. Except now the Cones. And Jesus, who, if I were to believe everything I heard at church, knew me better than I knew him.

  “Jim Tuttle told me they’re Jews,” Dad said without looking away from the paper.

  “I should have known soon
er. A doctor.” My mother placed the muffin onto my father’s plate and picked up the coleslaw.

  “They haven’t said anything Jewish,” I said. Though I had no way of knowing what Jewishness might sound like. I knew there was a neighborhood in Baltimore where they all lived—Pikesville—but I’d never been there and I’d never even met someone who’d been there. I’d just heard my parents and their friends mentioning the area in passing, as if they were talking about another country, a country far, far away, where they were unlikely to ever travel.

  “I’m sure they’re just being polite.” My mother was onto the peas and bacon. “But being a doctor makes up for being a Jew.”

  “What do they have to make up for?” I asked.

  My father put the paper down on the table. “It’s just a different type of person, Mary Jane. Different physiognomy. Different rituals. Different holidays. Different schools and country clubs. Different way of speaking.” He picked the paper back up.

  “They look normal to me. And they sound the same to me.” Well, there was the shouting. Did all Jews shout? And there were Mrs. Cone’s breasts, which usually seemed on the verge of being exposed. Was that a Jewish thing? If so, it would be interesting, though maybe embarrassing, to travel to Pikesville.

  “Look at their hair. It’s often dark and frizzy.” My mother served herself now. I would serve myself after she had fixed her plate. “And look at their long, bumpy noses.”

  “Mrs. Cone has red hair and a little button nose like Izzy,” I said.

  “Probably a nose job.” My mother held the serving spoon over the coleslaw, stared at it, then dumped half back into the bowl.

  My father put the paper down again. “It’s another breed of human. It’s like poodles and mutts. We’re poodles. They’re mutts.”

  “One breed doesn’t shed,” my mother said.

  “So Jesus was a mutt?” I asked.

  “Enough,” my father said, and he snapped the paper in the air as he turned the page.

  After dinner, I stood at my closet and looked for the best outfit to wear when I met the rock star and the movie star. Everything was so contained, tidy, new-looking. My mother even ironed my blue jeans.

  I pulled out a pair of bell-bottoms. The hem was above my anklebone, what the kids at school would call floods. They had fit last time I’d worn them.

  Mom and Dad were in the TV room watching the news. I quietly went down the hall into my mother’s sewing room. On the wall was a rack with hooks on which hung various-size scissors. I took down the heaviest pair and then leaned over and cut up the seam of the jeans. When I got above my knee, I paused. I wanted to go shorter, but would I dare? No, I wouldn’t. I stopped about four inches above my knee and then turned the scissors sideways and cut off the leg. When that leg was done, I did the other, then returned the scissors to their rightful spot.

  Back in my bedroom, I stood in front of the door mirror and examined my work. The cut had left a toothed, uneven edge, and one leg was longer than the other. I rolled up the bottoms until they were even.

  For my top, I picked out a red-and-white-striped tank top that covered my bra straps. I’d wear the rainbow flip-flops my mother had agreed to buy me after she’d seen the other girls at Elkridge pool wearing them. She didn’t like me to be out of sync almost as much as she didn’t like me to appear dirty or unladylike.

  On Monday morning I put on the outfit, rolling up the shorts as little as possible. When I came downstairs my mother looked me over. “Where did you get those shorts?”

  “I made them from my bell-bottoms that were too short.”

  “You can’t wear them to Elkridge.”

  “I know.”

  “What if the Cones want to take you to their Jewish country club?”

  “I’ll run home and change.”

  “And they would be okay with that? It’s not very professional of you.”

  “I don’t think they go to a country club, Mom. Izzy and I stayed home all last week. And when she wanted to swim, we walked to the Roland Park Pool.”

  “I see.” My mother stared at the cutoffs as if she were looking at a bloody body.

  “Please?” I asked.

  “It’s your choice. I’m simply trying to lead you down the correct path.” My mother turned her head toward the brewing coffeepot as if she couldn’t bear the sight of me dressed this way.

  “I really don’t think they’ll mind if I wear cutoffs.” There was no way I was going to tell her that Izzy spent half her day naked and that Mrs. Cone never wore a bra. And of course I’d never let on that the rock star and the movie star (the addict and his wife) were moving into the Cones’ house. There was the issue of confidentiality; the promise I’d made to Dr. Cone. And the issue of my parents, who would never allow me to set foot into a home where an addict was staying.

  “Hmm.” My mother continued to stare at the coffeepot, and then she sighed and almost whispered, “Maybe it’s a Jewish thing.”

  I slipped out of the house before she could say anything else. The pretty blond woman was gardening again; she waved as I passed, and I waved back.

  I’d been instructed last week to just walk into the Cones’ house without knocking. Still, I stood for a moment on the porch and smoothed my hair back. I looked down at my shorts and felt panicky about the length. Surely a movie star and a rock star would think they were too long. I rolled them up a few more times, until they were binding my thighs like rubber bands.

  I put my hand on the doorknob and walked in. The house was silent. Things were slightly tidier than they had been last week. Nothing had been removed, but the stuff that was around had been amassed, stacked. So instead of scattered magazines, there was now a small tower of magazines sitting on the bottom step of the stairs. I headed straight toward the kitchen, which was where I usually found Izzy. When I got there, I almost screamed.

  Sitting in the banquette, alone, was Sheba, the one-named movie star who’d once had a variety show, Family First!, on TV with her two singing brothers. I’d watched the show the very first night it aired and never missed an episode. Each week in the opening, Sheba and her two brothers sang three-part harmonies about love, rock and roll, and family. There were always great guest stars like Lee Majors or Farrah Fawcett Majors or Liberace or Yul Brynner. Sheba went through about eight costume changes each show—she played Indian maidens, mermaids, cheerleaders, and even an old lady in one recurring skit.

  Family First! was canceled shortly after Sheba had a falling-out with her brothers. The twins and I had read about it in People magazine. Sheba said her brothers thought they were the boss and she was sick of it. It turned out no one wanted to watch the show without Sheba; only two episodes aired without her before All Hat, No Cattle replaced it in the time slot. And Sheba didn’t need the show anyway—she was busy making movies with sexy costars or with horses, and on ranches in Africa. I’d only seen some of her movies, as my mother thought most of them were too racy.

  On TV, Sheba had long black hair that hung like a curtain almost to her waist. Her eyes were giant circles with lashes that hit her eyebrows. And her smile flashed like a cube on a camera. As she sat in the Cones’ banquette, I could see that Sheba’s hair was just as long and beautiful. Her eyes were just as big. But her lashes were missing. She was wearing cutoff shorts and a tank top, no bra. Her feet were bare and tucked under her bottom. Her golden skin was as shiny and smooth as a piece of wet suede.

  I couldn’t speak.

  Sheba glanced up and saw me. “You must be Mary Jane,” she said. “Izzy’s been talking about you.”

  I nodded.

  “I like your cutoffs.” She smiled and I felt my knees wobble.

  “I made them last night. Maybe they’re too long.”

  “Well, hell, we can fix that, can’t we?” Sheba scooted out from the banquette and started rummaging around the counter. “How do they find anything in this house?”

  “Izzy can usually find things. What are you looking for?”


  “Scissors!”

  I opened the drawer I’d sorted through one day last week when I had been looking for a vegetable peeler. Scissors had been there, nestled among bottles of nail polish, toenail clippers, a AAA map of Maryland, paper-wrapped (and ripped) chopsticks, sticky loose coins, Wrigley’s gum, rubber bands, and other odds and ends. Magically, the scissors were still there. I pulled them out and handed them to Sheba.

  “Go stand on the bench,” Sheba said.

  I went to the banquette and climbed up. My hands were shaking. I hoped my legs weren’t shaking.

  “Let’s unroll them first.” Sheba unrolled one leg of my shorts. Her hands felt cool and gentle. I unrolled the other.

  She laughed. “Were you drunk?!”

  “What?”

  “When you cut these? Looks like you were drinking!”

  “No. I don’t drink.”

  “I’m teasing.” Sheba winked at me, then inserted the scissors into the edge of one leg and started cutting upward. “Turn slowly.”

  I rotated and Sheba glided the scissors, cold against my skin, around my thighs until I was facing front again. The shorts leg was barely longer than my underpants. My mother would die.

  “Good?”

  I nodded. Sheba dug the scissors into the other leg. I turned slowly. When I came back around, the Cone family had entered the room with a man who looked familiar but whose name I didn’t know. The addict, I presumed. He held a heavy hardcover book in one giant hand.

  “We’re fixing her shorts,” Sheba said.

  “Hurrah!” Mrs. Cone said, and she winked at me.

  “Mary Jane!” Izzy shouted. “Sheba lives here now but we can’t tell anyone!”

  Everyone laughed, even the rock star whose identity was coming back to me. I remembered reading about Sheba marrying him shortly after Family First! was canceled. Her brothers disapproved and her family disowned her. He was the lead singer of a band called Running Water. The cool girls at school loved Running Water, but I couldn’t name a single song of theirs.