Mary Jane

by Jessica Anya Blau

  My father entered the room. He folded his newspaper in half, set it on the table beside his plate, and sat. As always, he surveyed the food before putting his hands in the prayer position. My mother and I put our hands in the prayer position too. I shut my eyes.

  My father said, “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 everyone in the Cone household and may all their illnesses be”—I paused as I tried to come up with the best word—“eradicated.”

  My father glanced at me for just a second. And then, as if my voice weren’t strong enough to reach God’s ears, he abridged my prayer with, “Health to the Cones. Amen.”

  “Amen,” my mother and I both said.

  My mother stood and served my father while he removed his tie. “Is someone else in the house sick? I don’t want you going over there if everyone is sick.”

  “I just want to make sure we cover everyone under that roof.”

  “If you make the pork roast tomorrow, be sure it’s cooked all the way through. Her body likely can’t handle undercooked meat.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll come up and check the roast before you serve it.”

  “They have a meat thermometer. She really doesn’t like visitors.”

  “Peanut farmer,” my father mumbled to the paper.

  “Is she losing her hair?” my mother asked.

  “She has been wearing wigs.”

  “Are they tasteful?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would wear a wig that looked just like my hair so that no one would know it was a wig.” My mother’s blond hair was shoulder-length, thick, and stiff. It was like a cap. Or, really, like a wig.

  “She’s been wearing a long blond wig mostly.”

  My mother shook her head in disapproval.

  On Monday I ran to the Cones’, my flip-flops making a slapping sound. When I got to their house, I stood on the porch a minute and caught my breath. I didn’t want anyone to know I’d run all the way; it was embarrassing to think of how badly I wanted to be there.

  When I finally opened the front door, I found Izzy and Jimmy sitting at the banquette in the kitchen. Jimmy had a guitar in his hands and was making up a song about Izzy. Izzy was bouncing her head around like she was at a concert.

  “Izzy! Izzy!” Jimmy sang. “She makes me dizzyyyyyy with LOVE!”

  “MARY JANE!” Izzy jumped off the banquette and climbed up into my arms. “Jimmy’s singing a song about me!”

  “I heard.” I kissed Izzy’s curls. Her head smelled loamy and dank. Her last bath must have been Friday, before we went out to dinner.

  “Now sing about Mary Jane!” Izzy monkeyed out of my arms and returned to the banquette. I went to the refrigerator and took out the eggs. Jimmy plucked out a tune on his guitar. He was humming.

  “Oh!” I turned to Jimmy. “Thank you for coming to church.”

  “I hate church.” Jimmy kept plucking. “But Sheba loves it. And I have to admit, it was worth it just to hear you sing. You were motherfuckin’ beautiful, Mary Jane. I could pick out your voice above the others. Totally gorgeous.”

  I swallowed hard and blushed, then mumbled a thank-you and turned to the cupboards to busy myself. When I opened the upper cupboards, I found new dishes—white with a painted blue pattern of onions and leaves—and new glasses. The lower cupboards where I had put mixing bowls and roasting pans were still pretty empty, though a set of metal mixing bowls and some metal roasting pans had survived the purge.

  Jimmy started singing. “Mary Jane, she ain’t so plain, my dear sweet Mary Jane.”

  My heart banged. When I felt steadier, I turned to look at Jimmy. He smiled and did some picking, his fingers moving fast on the strings. Then he continued, “That down-home girl, Mary Jane, makin’ eggs, on her two strong legs.”

  “BIRDS IN A NESSSST!” Izzy sang, and I laughed.

  “MARY JANE!” Jimmy belted it out like he was singing to a stadium. “She feeeeds us, but she ain’t never, ever, ever, ever, ever tried to bleeeeeeed us.”

  I cracked an egg into a metal bowl to start the pancake batter. Izzy clapped her hands and bounced around. She fed Jimmy lines for his song that he enthusiastically sang back to her as if she were Stephen Sondheim.

  When Dr. Cone came down, I got up to make him a bird in the nest. “I like the new dishes,” I said.

  “Ah. Yes.” Dr. Cone smiled. “Sheba and Bonnie picked them out. Mary Jane, has anyone told you about the beach house?”

  “We’re going to the beach for a whole week. That’s seven days!” Izzy shouted.

  “Oh yeah?” My body felt like it was an old, deflating party balloon. I had just spent a tortured weekend at home. What would I do for a week without the Cones and Jimmy and Sheba? How could I take seven full days with my mother?

  “Yeah, we’re borrowing the Flemings’ house on Indian Dunes in Dewey Beach. It’s a big place, lots of bedrooms and bathrooms. Right on the ocean.”

  “That so nice,” I pushed out the words.

  “It’s a private stretch of beach too. And, you know, I don’t believe in the privatization of certain areas—everyone should enjoy the sand, the water, the dunes—and it’s better for us as people if we don’t attach to things.” Dr. Cone put down his fork, as if to rest for a minute. “But Jimmy and Sheba do need privacy, so I’ll accept the private beach in honor of them.”

  “Jimmy can’t addict on a private beach. Right?” Izzy looked up at her dad.

  Dr. Cone smiled at her, then leaned over and kissed her several times on her cheeks and forehead. “Right. And we can meditate there. Take long walks. Really incorporate some mind-and-body unity into the therapy.”

  “That sounds perfect.” I blinked back my grief and started another bird in a nest.

  As if on cue, Mrs. Cone came into the kitchen, wearing cutoff shorts and a tank top. “Mary Jane! Did you see the new dishes?”

  “They’re lovely.” I could barely muster a smile. I put the bird in a nest on a new plate and slid it onto the table for Mrs. Cone, then started another batch.

  “Oh, everyone’s favorite! Birds in a nest.” Mrs. Cone sat and started eating.

  “Jimmy wrote a song called ‘Mary Jane.’” Izzy climbed over her father’s lap and nestled between her parents. Mrs. Cone kissed her all over her face, just as Dr. Cone had done.

  Jimmy was singing softly, strumming out chords, picking out little rifts. Mrs. Cone stopped kissing Izzy and watched him closely. She looked like she wanted to kiss him the way she’d just kissed Izzy.

  “Jimmy, do you want another one?” I asked.

  “MARY JANE!” Jimmy sang. “’Cause one bird in a nest will never, ever, ever, ever do, Mary Jane makes a second one tooooooo. . . .”

  I picked up Jimmy’s plate and refilled it. Sheba came into the kitchen wearing a red terry-cloth romper, white knee socks, and red tennis shoes. In her hair was a thick red elastic hairband. She looked like she’d popped out of a magazine. Or off a record cover. “Mary Jane, how was your weekend?” Without waiting for me to reply, she added, “Did you hear about the beach?”

  “Yeah. You all will have so much fun.” I put the last bird in a nest on a plate for Sheba.

  “Well, you’ll come, won’t you?” Sheba asked. Everyone looked at me.

  “Oh,” I said. My shriveled-up heart started to inflate. “I didn’t know I was invited.”

  “Of course you’re invited,” Dr. Cone said. “You’re part of the family now.”

  I felt my eyes tear up, and quickly turned to the stove so no one could see. “Oh okay, yes, I’d love to come.” My mother’s face flashed in my mind and I felt slightly ill. Almost dizzy. What if she wouldn’t let me go?

  “Mary Jane, I don’t want to go anywhere without you!” Izzy climbed off the banquette and hugged the backs of
my legs. Her grip steadied me. My mother vanished from my thoughts.

  Later that day, when Izzy and I were home from Eddie’s, I braced myself to call my mother and ask about the beach.

  “I’d like to speak with Dr. Cone about this.” My mother’s voice was sharp. I could tell she wanted to say no but couldn’t come up with a logical reason.

  “He’s working. Can I pass on a question?”

  “I’m concerned about his wife being sick and your having full responsibility for a child near water.”

  “We’ve gone to the Roland Park Pool many times.”

  “There are lifeguards there.”

  “There are lifeguards at beaches, too.”

  “Mary Jane. Do not get fresh with me. You are asking to go away for a week with a family your father and I don’t know. I’d like to speak to Dr. Cone to make sure this is a safe and wise decision.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll come up just before dinner.”

  I looked around the kitchen. If my mother walked in, she wouldn’t approve of the Cones’ taste—antiques, Buddhas, framed etchings with naked people in them. Also, if she saw Sheba and Jimmy, I’d be imprisoned at home. And of course, Mrs. Cone was supposed to be ill. For just a minute I imagined her meeting my mother at the door, her nipples pushing out through her tank top. “Mrs. Cone doesn’t like visitors.”

  “Then call me before dinner tonight and put Dr. Cone on the phone.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  “And, Mary Jane, if you’re working around the clock like that, you need to be paid more.”

  “Okay, I’ll ask if they’re going to pay me more.” I would not.

  “Do they have a proper meat thermometer for your pork roast?”

  “Yes.” I’d bought one at Eddie’s.

  “Are you doing the berries and whipped cream for dessert?”

  “Izzy’s never had s’mores, so I bought the ingredients for them.”

  “That’s not a proper dessert for adults.”

  “I can make the berries and whipped cream, too.”

  “What kind of butter do they keep in the house?”

  “Land O’Lakes.” This I had also purchased at Eddie’s.

  “Salted or unsalted?”

  “Salted.”

  “Don’t put too much on the peas and corn. Just enough to lightly coat them.”

  “Okay.”

  There was silence for a moment. I felt something coming across the phone line. Loneliness, maybe. Could it be that my mother missed me?

  “I’ll talk to you tonight when you make the call for Dr. Cone.”

  “Okay, Mom.” I wanted to say love you, as Izzy and I now said every night when I put her to sleep. But my parents didn’t say those words. Instead I just hung up.

  The rest of the afternoon as Izzy and I prepared dinner and folded and ironed two loads of laundry, I worried about my mother’s conversation with Dr. Cone. How could I make sure Mrs. Cone’s make-believe cancer didn’t come up? If I told Dr. Cone about the lie, would he still want me to watch his child and go to the beach with them? Could he abide a liar in his house? If I were a mother, would I let a liar (and maybe a sex addict) take care of my child?

  As the roast was cooking, and Izzy and I were setting the table, Dr. Cone and Jimmy entered the house. Jimmy went straight to his guitar in the kitchen. Dr. Cone came into the dining room and said, “Smells wonderful.”

  I smiled and my face burned. My heart was beating so hard, I thought I might collapse right there. “Dr. Cone?” I managed.

  Dr. Cone squinted at me. “Mary Jane, you okay?”

  “May I speak with you privately?”

  “Mary Jane, are you okay?” Izzy hugged my legs and looked up at me.

  “Yes. I just need to talk to your dad a minute.”

  “Izzy, go help Jimmy.”

  Izzy squeezed my legs and then ran off to Jimmy. Dr. Cone pulled out a chair and put his arm out, indicating I should sit. I did. He sat next to me. “Just breathe. In and out. Slowly.”

  I took an inhale and then exhaled slowly. It did make me feel better. “My mother wants to talk to you before she agrees that I can go to the beach.”

  “Okay. That’s okay.”

  “But I told her something I shouldn’t have.” I took another deep breath and when I exhaled, I started crying. It surprised me as much as it seemed to surprise Dr. Cone.

  Dr. Cone pulled the napkin from the place setting in front of him and handed it to me. “Did you tell her about Jimmy and Sheba?”

  I shook my head. “Worse.”

  “Worse? It’s okay, Mary Jane. You can tell me.”

  “I told her . . .” I startled myself by crying too hard to speak. Harder than I’d ever cried in front of my parents, who didn’t allow crying. I couldn’t help but think how different I was these days. I was growing into someone new, new even to me.

  “Breathe in, breathe out.”

  I took a breath in. “I told her . . .” My voice hitched and I breathed out, firmly. “I told her Mrs. Cone has cancer.”

  “Why?” Dr. Cone tilted his head and looked at me. His brow was furrowed. His bushy eyebrows almost met his sideburns.

  “That was the only way she’d let me cook dinner.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  “She thinks a mother should always cook dinner. And so the only way to explain why Mrs. Cone wasn’t cooking dinner was to say that she was sick. And I actually never said she had cancer. I just said she was sick. And then my mother thought she had cancer and I never told her she didn’t.” I squeezed my eyes shut hard. When I opened them, Dr. Cone was staring at me.

  “So your mother wouldn’t let you stay and prepare dinner unless Bonnie was incapacitated?”

  “Yes.”

  “So when I talk to her about the week at the beach she might mention Bonnie’s cancer?”

  “She probably won’t,” I said. “Because she thinks cancer is very private. But I don’t know. If you said something about Mrs. Cone swimming in the ocean, she might . . .” I swallowed hard and squeezed back tears. “I’m sorry I lied. I bet you didn’t think you had a liar as a summer nanny.”

  Dr. Cone laughed. “No, I understand why you lied.” He reached out and rubbed my shoulder. “It’s okay. This isn’t a crime. You were trying to manage two different households with two different value systems. And, yes, it’s not good to lie. But I can see that was the only way you could find to make the situation work. I appreciate it, Mary Jane. I think you can let yourself off the hook here.”

  Mrs. Cone and Sheba came into the dining room. They were in the matching black pixie wigs.

  “What happened?” Sheba pushed a chair next to me, sat, and then pulled me against her chest. I started crying again.

  “Richard, what is it?” Mrs. Cone hovered over us. Dr. Cone stood and then Mrs. Cone took his seat and leaned in close so she, too, was hugging me.

  “Richard! Why is she crying?” Sheba said.

  “Her mother wouldn’t let her cook dinner for us unless Bonnie was incapacitated. So Mary Jane told her mother that Bonnie has cancer and that’s why she has to stay and make dinner each night.”

  “I’m so sorry I lied!” I cried, and Sheba hugged me deeper. Mrs. Cone was at my back, hugging me too. I’d never been so close to two human bodies before, and I was surprised that it didn’t feel closed in and claustrophobic. It felt nice. And warm. And safe.

  “Oh, honey! You don’t have to feel bad! I would have had to tell my own mother the same thing,” Mrs. Cone said.

  “Mary Jane, no one cares that you lied about that!” Sheba said, and kissed my head the way everyone kissed Izzy.

  Mrs. Cone started laughing. “Cancer! Because only something as horrible and deadly as cancer would relieve a woman from the tedium of having to make dinner for her family every night!”

  Everyone gathered in the kitchen near the phone as I dialed the number for my house. Sheba put her finger to her lips and made big ey
es at everyone after I’d dialed the last number.

  My mother answered the phone on the second ring. “Dillard residence.”

  “Mom, Dr. Cone can talk to you now.”

  “Thank you, Mary Jane. Put him on.” I could see her so clearly. Standing in the kitchen near the beige wall phone. Holding a pen and a pad of paper so she could write down any important details, like the address of the home where we’d be staying.

  “Mrs. Dillard, what a pleasure to finally speak to you!” Dr. Cone sounded more formal, more upbeat than he did in the house. Jimmy put an arm around me and pulled me into him. I could feel the fuzz of his chest hairs through his shirt and wondered if that was a sex addict thought or just a thought.

  Mrs. Cone picked up Izzy. Izzy put her finger to her lips like Sheba. Sheba smiled and put one arm around Jimmy.

  “Mary Jane has been a lifesaver this summer. I don’t know what we would have done without her.” Dr. Cone nodded as my mother spoke on the other end. “I’m not the least bit worried about her ability to mind Izzy at the beach. Also, Izzy loves cooking with her, so a large portion of their afternoon is spent in the kitchen.” Dr. Cone looked over and winked at the group. “Yes. Yes. Of course . . . we’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow morning and we’ll return the following Tuesday morning. I could have her call each evening if you’d like. We’ll pay the phone charges. . . . Yes, yes, I understand. Thank you and please give my regards to Mr. Dillard.”

  When Dr. Cone hung up the phone, we all looked at him.

  “She asked that I give you a ride to church on Sunday and sends her best wishes to Bonnie.”

  “So I can go?”

  “Yes, you can go.”

  “HURRAH!” Izzy shouted, and everyone cheered and hooted as if something truly spectacular had just gone down.

  9

  Jimmy sat in the front seat with Dr. Cone. The rest of us bumped around in the back, Izzy and myself framed by Mrs. Cone and Sheba. No one had on a seat belt and the windows were open, blowing my hair into my face. Mrs. Cone’s and Sheba’s blond wigs barely moved, as if the hair were too heavy to be pushed around.