SIX
myevilfamily.com
The Black Widow
Almighty was born with lots of money. I’ve already told you some of the evil ways her ancestors earned it. But she has even more money now. How did she get it? By marrying people.
My grandmother has been married five times. Her first husband, Alphonse Sullivan, Jr., my grandfather, was rich like her. But he died of a heart attack when he was 43. People said he worked too hard. My father was ten years old at the time. Almighty inherited Al Jr.’s share of his family’s money, of course. Cha-ching.
Once the proper mourning period was over, Almighty had no trouble finding new beaux, as she so delicately puts it. Within two years she had remarried. Her second husband, Geoffrey Weems, was an investment banker. He worked too hard too, I guess, because he died a year later at 54, also from a heart attack. Double cha-ching!
Next she married Leo Maguire, who owned a shoe factory. You might not think a person could get rich from making shoes, but Leo did. He was very rich. And when he died five years after the wedding (cancer), Almighty inherited the shoe factory. Triple cha-ching!!!
At this point she wasn’t just rich, she was filthy rich. Husband Number 4, Bertram Hightower, wasn’t rich, so she must have loved him, though looking at his picture it’s hard to see why (he was a total horse-face). His family had been rich once, but by the time Almighty came along they were just snooty. Bert’s family owned a horse farm but they couldn’t afford to keep it anymore, so Almighty took it over and now it’s hers. She has a whole stable of beautiful thorough-bred horses to ride. That marriage lasted a good twelve years. It was really sad when Bertram died in a riding accident. Sad, and not suspicious at all.
After Bertram died, Almighty stayed single for a while. Then, at age 70, she decided to get married one more time. Husband Number 5 is Wallace Beckendorf. He’s bald and quiet and he owns a nursery. He spends a lot of time tending Almighty’s giant gardens, even though she has a gardener. He just likes being outside with the plants. We like him. He’s very nice. We were hoping his mild demeanor would rub off on our grandmother, but no. Oh well. You can’t have everything.
If anybody feels like investigating the circumstances of some of the deaths of Almighty’s late husbands, be my guest. I’d do it myself, but I’m too busy getting brainwashed by religion.
While Almighty was busy getting married and widowed, The Feud between her and Mamie went on and on. If Mame donated a gym to St. Maggie’s, Almighty donated an auditorium. When the mayor named Almighty head of the City Arts Commission, Mame accused Almighty of bribing every politician in the state to get it. After which, Almighty made a point of cutting off funding for Mame’s pet project, Tin Ear Alley, a summer camp for underprivileged kids who suffer from that dreaded handicap, a lack of musical ability. Back and forth, back and forth. If Almighty invited you to a party and you went to Mame’s instead, you went on her blacklist, never to be invited to anything again, unless you came crawling back to her on your knees and begged—and then only maybe.
Finally, ten years ago, after decades of scrapping over their little patch of Baltimore society, the source of their rivalry, Junius Overbeck, died. At his monster funeral, which filled the new cathedral, Almighty Lou made a big show of sympathy for Mame in her grief. I was there—I saw the whole thing. (Yes, I was only six, but I remember it.) Playing the magnanimous one, Almighty publicly called for an end to The Feud. It was time, she declared, for her and Mame to be friends and allies once more. “Together the two of us can do more good for the city than either of us ever could alone,” Almighty declared at Junius’s wake. “My dear Mame, let us put aside our long-held differences and declare a truce. I miss you, my old partner in crime.”
Everyone clapped and had tears in their eyes. It was such a touching moment. The ancient Feud at an end at last. Or was it?
I have to say, I know my grandmother, and she does not give up that easily. My theory: After Junius died, she saw weakness in her victim and pounced. She saw a way to get Mame where it would really hurt her, get her good, once and for all. Would you like to know what it is? Maybe I’ll tell you my theory sometime.
Next time: My mother. Did she drive her therapist to suicide? And why does she hate the word “heinie” so much?
JANE OUT
COMMENTS:
myevilfamily: Comments? Anyone? Too scared, eh?
“You washed your hair,” Sassy said. “Thank God. You were beginning to smell bad.”
“I was not.” I’d finally given in and washed my hair. The girls at school had started holding their noses when they saw me. I figured a week with a skull and crossbones on my neck was long enough to make a statement. But I was still careful to wash around it on my neck area. “Is it still there?”
Sassy brushed my hair aside to check the back of my neck. “It’s still there. It hasn’t even smudged.”
“Really? That’s funny.” I picked up Norrie’s hand mirror and checked for myself. There was the fake tattoo, clear and dark as the day Bridget drew it. “The pen said ‘washable ink.’ What a lie.”
“But aren’t you glad it didn’t wash off?” Sassy asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just surprised. Bridget’s shamrock bit the dust days ago.”
“She’s probably cleaner than you.”
“Bite me.”
“Maybe you left the ink on so long it sank into your skin and dyed it.”
We were lounging around in Norrie’s room on a Saturday night in November. It was very late. I was thinking about how next year Norrie would go to college and the Tower would be mine at last. Norrie was out somewhere with Robbie. I thought about what Bibi had said about her and Shea being lumped together. Not that I cared what Bibi thought but I didn’t like her bad-mouthing Norrie.
“Sass, do you think going out with Robbie makes Norrie a slut?”
“No,” she said. “Norrie loves him. There’s nothing slutty about that.”
“I wish Bibi D’Alessandro would shut up about it.”
“Jane—”
I rolled my eyes. “Next year, when this room is mine, no one’s going to be allowed in here.”
“That’s not fair,” Sassy said. “The others always let us come in here. It’s our playroom.”
“Too bad. That’s all coming to an end when the Reign of Jane begins. Don’t worry—you’ll only have to suffer through the Reign of Jane for one year, then you can take over and do whatever you want to the place. Cover it in unicorns and rainbows for all I care. It’ll be just you and Takey then.”
“That’s going to be lonely,” she said.
“Yeah, in a way. But think of all the privacy you’ll have. And Ginger and Daddy-o’s undivided attention.” That made us laugh.
I opened Norrie’s laptop and checked my e-mail. I found an interesting message from someone named Delphine Burrell.
Dear Jane Sullivan,
I’ve recently stumbled across your blog, myevilfamily.com, and enjoy it very much. In fact, I think many citizens of Baltimore would enjoy reading your thoughts on our city’s history. May I interview you for a story for our paper’s Metro section? I’d like to talk about your blog and your feelings about your family’s history.
Thanks!
Delphine Burrell
Features Reporter
The Baltimore Sun
Hmm. Very interesting. The Sun wanted to do a story on me and my family. My evil family.
Should I do it?
“Any news?” Sassy asked.
“No.” I logged off and shut the laptop. It was better not to mention the Sun to Sassy. She’d find out about it soon enough. Everyone would.
Outside, a car door slammed shut. I looked out the window.
“Norrie’s home.” I lit a ciggie so she would be greeted with the warm smell of clove as soon as she walked in. Oh, how she loves that.
“Jane, she’ll kick us out.”
“No she won’t. She always says she will but she never does.”<
br />
A few minutes later Norrie burst into the room. “I thought I’d find you in here.” She was glaring at me.
“What? What did I do?”
“I’ll show you what you did.” She opened her laptop and it purred to life. She punched a few keys and myevilfamily.com appeared on the screen.
“What the fuck, Jane?” (Quoting! Quoting!) “You’re blogging all our family secrets? And I had to find out at a party from a total stranger?”
“A total stranger reads my blog?” I said. “Wow. Who was it?”
“What difference does it make? Why are you doing this? And why didn’t you tell me?” She turned to Sassy. “Did you know about this?”
“No,” Sassy said. “Let me see.”
Sassy started reading the blog posts. Norrie snatched the cig out of my hand and tossed it out the window. This was all very dramatic and exciting.
“I didn’t think anybody would read it,” I said. “Outside the family. I was going to tell you about it, but I was afraid you’d try and stop me, and I won’t be stopped. The world needs to know the truth.”
“The truth?” Norrie said. “This is just a bunch of old family stories. Who knows if there’s any truth to any of them?” She sat down on the bed. “Why are you writing all those mean things about Almighty? She’s going to kill you.”
“If she finds out about it.”
“When she finds out about it.”
I knew then if I talked to the reporter from the Sun, you would definitely find out about it.
“I’m like Joan of Arc,” I said. “Everyone thought she was crazy, but she had vision. She was only trying to do what was right.”
“Jane, she burned to death. Think about it.”
“I know,” I said. “But that won’t happen to me. Almighty wouldn’t burn me at the stake. Even she’s not that evil.” (You’re not—are you? Just kidding.)
Norrie sighed. “Jane, why are you doing this to us?”
I tried to explain to her why I did it. Here’s what I said. Maybe it will help you understand.
“Whenever you read about Almighty in the newspaper, they always talk about how great it is that she gives money to schools and supports charity and has such a nice house and a colorful life and a distinguished family history. They make her—all of us—sound so glamorous. And I just thought somebody should tell the other side of it. To balance things out. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
“So you won’t stop?”
I shook my head. “First Amendment. You can’t stop me.”
“Just don’t ever write about me. If you do, I swear, I’ll never speak to you again.”
I didn’t promise her one way or the other. A truth-teller can’t make those kinds of promises.
SEVEN
myevilfamily.com
How to Drive Your Therapist to Suicide
Just for fun, let’s talk about another member of my family for a change. How about…oh…um…my mother?
My mother, Virginia Wells Sullivan. We call her Ginger, ’cause she hates to be called “Mom.” According to her, just hearing the word “mom” ages a woman twenty years. And it’s not very chic. So Ginger it is.
Ginger’s got plenty of secrets I could spill—just as one example, did you know she uses a face cream with rabbit pee in it to keep her skin smooth?
Here’s a typical Ginger day:
7:30 am: Lift sleep mask and crack one eye open to make sure Miss Maura has Daddy-o and kids ready for school and work. Confirm that all is under control. Go back to sleep.
10:00 am: Wake up to find Miss Maura delivering coffee, toast, grapefruit, and the paper in bed. But no time to dillydally! Must shower and get ready to meet Casey Stewart at Petit Louis for lunch.
12:30 pm: Lunch and gossip with Casey, followed by shopping at Cross Keys or Nordstrom or hair/nails/spa/dermatologist appointment.
3:00 pm (if Wednesday): Annoying interruption of a perfectly pleasant day for therapy with Dr. Melanie Viorst. Talk about how disappointing the children are. No matter how much one tries to teach them properly, they continue to speak as if raised in a trailer park. They use the most hateful words—“heinie,” “wiener,” “booger,” and so on—just to upset their mother. Ask Dr. Viorst to please stop probing into why those words are so upsetting. Can’t she see it’s a simple matter of taste? Speaking of taste, revisit fear of mayonnaise—it’s a disgusting concoction, what on earth IS mayonnaise anyway?—and how impossible it is to avoid mayonnaise in one’s daily life when one is surrounded by WASPs and extremely WASPy Catholics. Mayonnaise is in EVERYTHING, you can’t get away from it, it is so nauseating…. How does Dr. Viorst think one stays so reed thin? If one doesn’t eat mayonnaise, one can hardly eat anything at all.
Weep decorously so Dr. Viorst can see that in spite of all appearances to the contrary, you hurt deeply inside.
4:30 pm: Home. Have a quick cocktail while greeting children and asking how school was. Whatever the children say (even if it’s “I just got suspended for blasphemy”), answer, “Marvelous!”
6:00 pm: Daddy-o home from work. More cocktails and dressing for dinner.
7:30 pm: Out for the evening.
As you can imagine, discussing this frivolous life in therapy and CRYING over it could drive a psychiatrist to drink. Or worse.
One Wednesday, Ginger appeared at the North Baltimore Professional Center promptly at 3:00 for her regular appointment with Dr. Viorst. She sat in the waiting room and opened the New Yorker. She stared at the closed door of Dr. Viorst’s office. Dr. Viorst did not appear. This was odd.
After half an hour, Ginger knocked on the office door. No response. She tried to open it. It was locked. Ginger shrugged and went home.
That evening Ginger got a call from someone she didn’t know, saying that Dr. Viorst would no longer be seeing her. When Ginger asked why, the caller explained that Dr. Viorst had killed herself. “How dreadful,” Ginger said to the caller.
Ginger hung up the phone and announced to her family, who were all seated together at dinner, that she always knew Dr. Viorst was crazy—even crazier than Ginger was—and what a relief not to have to try to think up problems to tell her therapist and cry over every week. Now that Wednesdays at 3:00 were free, she thought she might take up tennis again.
Oh, Ginger. Don’t ever change.
JANE OUT
P.S. Does anybody know how to get ink off your skin? I’ve tried everything.
COMMENTS:
St. John: Did it ever occur to you that Ginger might be covering up a lot of pain with that brittle act of hers?
myevilfamily: What’s your point?
Sassy: Ginger’s right. Mayonnaise is totally gross.
Sully: I remember the night she found out about Dr. Viorst and she was REALLY upset. Remember? She was kind of in shock and she drank a LOT.
St. John: I hate to say this about my own little sister, but if our family is evil, the most evil member is you. And anyway, evil is a relative term. If you say there is no God, then you can’t call people evil. Without God, there is no evil. Without heaven, there can be no hell.
myevilfamily: Oh, St. John, why don’t you let your head explode and get it over with?
St. John: You’re just trying to get a response from someone—ANY response.
myevilfamily: Heinie heinie heinie!
Sully: Here’s some truth for you: Four years ago Jane Sullivan was the world’s biggest Hannah Montana fan! Ha!
myevilfamily: I was all of nine. So was every other nine-year-old girl on earth.
Sully: You were twelve. And you were her #1 fan. So suck it.
“Jane, look at this.” Bridget led me into the last stall in the bad girl bathroom. Someone had taken my cue and started scribbling graffiti on the walls. Except this wasn’t the graffiti I’d been hoping for:
GIRLS WHO GIVE BJS TO PERVY OLD GUYS:
Shea D.
Norrie S.
Jane S??? (Maybe next year)
“Do you think Bibi wrot
e this?” Bridget asked.
“I don’t know.” To be honest, I don’t think Bibi would stoop so low. She hates me, not Norrie. The whole Guys and Dolls debacle, etc. Unless she was jealous of Norrie because of Brooks.
Bibi and Tasha happened to walk in and catch us studying the stall wall. Bibi and I always did have the same pee schedule.
“Give it up, Jane,” Bibi said. “This is not now and never will be a bad girl bathroom, no matter how much you vandalize it.”
“I’m not vandalizing it.” I showed her the graffiti. She and Tasha poked their heads into the stall to read it. Tasha nodded. “Yeah, I heard that.”
Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters Page 14