by Susan Isaacs
“Sorry.” The list had about twenty different banks and businesses on it. “Thank you. Thank you very much, Dorothy.”
“I’m just glad I can help, Richard.” They picked at the vegetable plates they had ordered. Richard reported on his visit to Collegiate Employment; the man had been very encouraging. “What will their fee be?” Dorothy asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“I’m sure it’s standard.”
“Richard, make sure before you go on any interviews that you know what their fee will be. Besides, they expect that sort of question from an accountant.”
“Do you think I’ll have to pay it all right away, I mean, before—?”
“You’ll pay it when you have to pay it. Don’t worry. I have some money put away.” Dorothy’s eyes held his as she said this; she knew he understood that she expected him to marry her. It wasn’t something he could fudge, sit back for days and think about one way or another. He seemed to have no control. It was predestined. “I have several thousand dollars,” she declared, then put down her fork and offered him her beautifully manicured hand to hold. He sat still for a second, his head and throat vibrating with a tingling numbness. For a second, he remembered Sally alive, her tongue inching across her upper lip, her eyes two coals, heating him up. But that was for just a second; the next, still held by Dorothy’s watery brown and slightly protruding eyes, he took her hand in his, brought it up to his lips, and kissed it.
“I haven’t met your daughter or your father” were her next words.
“Tonight. We can go—”
“New Year’s Day would be better.”
“Fine. Good. I think you’ll really like Jane. She’s a nice little girl. Very bright. Not even four, and my mother taught her to read.”
“Richard.”
“Yes, Dorothy?”
“If you find a job quickly, we’ll have enough for a down payment on a house. And a living room suite.”
As children often do, Jane misheard the name and thought the lady beside her on the sofa that New Year’s Day was “Miss Rose.” Jane thought, Rose? She sniffed deeply and conspicuously, and her grandmother gave her a warning look. Her father had told her if she didn’t behave they would take back all her Christmas presents, so she clasped her hands in her lap like the good girl on the cover of Poems for Christian Children and lifted her eyes to the yellow-haired angel on top of the tree. The pointy top of the tree went up the angel’s skirt and that’s how come she didn’t fall off. Jane inhaled again, cautiously this time. The lady didn’t really have a bad smell, like the bathroom after her grandfather had been there, but it wasn’t good either—a little like how it smells between your toes after you take off your socks.
The lady had patted the couch and said, “Come sit beside me, Jane,” and her father and grandparents had smiled hard when they heard that, the kind of smile where all your bottom teeth show so it wasn’t a real smile. But they acted like it was the best thing in the world, this lady in the blue dress paying attention to her. They were making a big fuss for her, all right. Her grandmother had taken off her hair net, and her grandfather had put on his new Christmas sweater and a tie. And her father kept passing the lady the chocolate cherries, trying so hard to get her to eat one, but at least she didn’t do that, which was good, because if the grown-ups were talking a lot during dinner, Jane could ask to be excused to go to the bathroom and they’d let her and she could pass through the living room and grab two candies and run upstairs and eat them in the bathroom and flush the little brown papers down the toilet and then rinse her mouth so there wouldn’t be any chocolate on her teeth and nobody would ever notice they were gone because there were still so many in the candy dish.
“Where did you get those pretty black braids?” the lady asked.
“Jane, answer Miss Rhodes,” her father commanded.
“What?”
“Never mind, Richard,” the lady said. “Jane will warm up to me soon enough. Won’t you, dear?” The lady put her hand on Jane’s head, but she didn’t pat it or caress her hair. She just left it there, a big fat hand-hat. Her hand was so heavy. Its dead weight made Jane recall the different touch of her mother’s hand on her head, how Sally had stroked smooth the bangs, how she’d take a braid and tickle Jane’s nose with it. At night, after Sally brushed out Jane’s hair, she’d twirl it around her hand and say, “This is an upsweep, only for real fancy occasions” or “See? A French knot. Very chick.”
Jane tried to shake her head so the lady’s hand would fall off, but it didn’t move. In fact, the pressure increased, as if the lady knew what Jane wanted but wasn’t going to give in. “I want my mommy,” Jane said softly, directing her words away from the lady, toward her grandmother. But no one heard her. “I want my mommy!” She tried to shout it, but she had begun crying. “Where’s my mommy? I want her. I—” The lady pulled her hand off her head. Her father came, grabbed Jane by the arms, and dragged her up from the couch.
“Stop it, you!” he barked and then, to the lady, said, “She hasn’t done this in a couple of months.”
Carl chimed in. “It must be the excitement.”
“Too many sweets,” Anna said.
The lady said nothing. Her father let go of Jane’s arms.
She stood alone, motionless, her head lowered, fat tears plopping one after another onto the rug. Suddenly she felt a hard tap on her shoulder, like one of the big kids in the playground trying to punch her. It was the lady. “We’ll be gooood friends,” she said to Jane, but she was looking over Jane’s head, to Richard. “I just know it.”
Jane looked right into the pale brown eyes. “You don’t want to be my friend.”
“Oh, I do, Jane.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just making believe, you big—”
She was sent to bed without supper, so it was not until the next day, the second day of 1944, that Jane learned Dorothy Rhodes would be her new mother.
On Tuesday, February 15, the day before her wedding, the last day she was entitled to her McAlpin’s employees’ discount, Dorothy Rhodes prepared for her transition from career woman to housewife by buying five housedresses and an eggbeater.
On February 16, Richard and Dorothy were married by Dr. Clyde Babcock of the Walnut Hills Presbyterian Church, the minister who had baptized Richard. (The Rhodes family had been solid Kentucky Baptists, but since their migration to Ohio in 1902, they had settled into a dilute, secular Christianity whose only sacraments were the playing of a record by the Bag-shot Sisters, “Sleigh Ride in Bethlehem” and Other Yuletime Favorites, throughout December and the serving of hard-boiled eggs in pink and yellow and blue shells on Easter morning.) After the wedding ceremony, the new Heissenhubers and their guests repaired from Dr. Babcock’s study to the Rhodeses’ house for sparkling burgundy and Wanda’s renowned liver paste finger sandwiches. Naturally, no one mentioned that seven months before there was another Mrs. Richard Heissenhuber.
On February 17, Dorothy Heissenhuber, no longer a virgin, served her husband a breakfast of orange juice, Wheatena, and coffee in the small green and white kitchen of their new house in Edgemont. Dorothy had heard the area touted by the real estate agent as an enclave of dynamic junior executives and wives on the rise, but the rising had settled elsewhere. It actually was what it appeared to be: a community of factory foremen and retail clerks so dreary it could have been assumed bodily from Gary, Indiana, and dropped, splat, onto the edge of Cincinnati. Richard, who had not met the real estate agent, suggested there were nicer neighborhoods, but Dorothy had said no, this was a good location, and his parents backed her up, saying it was important for his new employer to know that he wasn’t living too high, and besides, as he worked his way up the ladder of success they could always move. Richard ate slowly. He did not like hot cereal.
“Is the cereal all right?” she asked.
“Oh, yes. Delicious. Thank you very much.”
Dorothy wore a canary yellow ho
usedress with black and white checked collar and pockets and large round black buttons. Richard stared down into a minuscule puddle of milk that floated on the brown gritty surface of the cereal. The night before, their wedding night, Dorothy had asked him to change in the bathroom, and when she said to come out she was ready for bed in a batwing-sleeved white rayon nightgown.
For weeks he had been terrified about having to make love to her, afraid he would fail. He, who had never had much of an imagination, could picture Dorothy’s face when she realized he couldn’t get an erection. It wouldn’t be an angry face, but her nostrils would dilate. She’d sit up in bed and want to talk to him about it. He could imagine the conversation: “Is there something I should be doing that I’m not? Don’t be afraid to hurt my feelings.” But that first night she had simply flipped off the lights, so he couldn’t see her at all. When he found her bed and slipped under the quilt he discovered that, on her own initiative, she’d pulled her nightgown all the way up, into a ruffle of fabric above her bust. He said “Oh.” The first thing he touched was her bare stomach. Compared to her arms and legs, her torso was slender, but her stomach, which looked flat, felt loose, as if the skin was not attached to the muscles. He moved his hand in soft circles. She said nothing. He could not hear her breathe. He eased his hand up to her breasts. Although somewhat flat, they were spread out and covered a large area of her chest. Her nipples were inverted. They felt like toothless mouths. He ran the tips of his fingers over and over them, in a mindless, metronomic rhythm, until finally, to his surprise, he felt an erection. Not only an erection but, an instant later, a frenzied need for release. He drew his legs up. He gasped for air. Then he began to whimper and thrash about, like a baby. His wife had lain still and silent, flat on her back. And then, at last, she had given permission. “All right, Richard.”
Dorothy’s hair was combed that morning as neatly as if she were at her desk at McAlpin’s. “A half spoon of sugar in your coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
“Milk?”
“Yes. I don’t mind doing it myself, Dorothy.”
“No. I’ll do it.”
“Thank you very much.”
The following day, Friday, on his way home from the job the employment agency had found for him, Richard stopped by his parents’, picked up his daughter, and brought her to her new home. “This is your new mommy,” Richard said to her. They stood in the small alcove beyond the front door. “Say ‘Hello, Mommy.’ Say it, Jane.”
“No.”
“Jane, you better say it!”
“Richard, don’t push her. It will take time.” Dorothy put a hand on Jane’s shoulder and hoisted the child’s chin with the other. “Jane, dear, I know this is hard for you, but won’t you just try to call me Mommy? You know I love you and want to take care of you. Come, dear. Say Mommy.”
“No.”
Richard tried to yank Jane from Dorothy’s grasp. “Say Mommy!”
“Richard,” Dorothy said softly, “please.” She gazed down at Jane. “Now, dear, you see you are getting your father angry. In a minute he’ll take you upstairs and spank you. Do you want that, Jane? Do you? A hard spanking and then to bed without supper your first night in your brand new house? Is that what you want? Please, Jane, just call me Mommy. That’s all you have to do. Don’t make your father angry.”
Jane’s mouth tightened. She looked up at her father. Richard looked to his wife. Dorothy looked at Jane. “All right,” Dorothy said. “I’m sorry. I really wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
“And then,” Jane breathed to her friend, “the wicked stepmother locked Princess Cindy up in a tower.” Her friend, Charlene Moffett, who was six and lived next door, paled at this latest atrocity and gripped Jane’s forearm with the passion of the perfect audience. “It was a teeny room,” Jane continued, “very dark, with spiders and—”
“No ghosts,” Charlene whispered. “You promised.”
“I know.” The two girls lay beside each other under the elm, their heads resting on the yellow belly of the Moffetts’ cocker spaniel. It was a hot July afternoon with a humid wind that assaulted them like a blast of bad breath. It was the first anniversary of Sally’s death, but Jane did not know that. All she knew was that Dorothy had one of her stomachaches and, as usual, had suggested Jane spend the afternoon next door. “Anyway, Princess Cindy is in this dark room and the only thing in it is an old stool to sit on.”
“No bread and water?”
“No. And so she’s sitting on this stool and crying,” Jane slapped her palms over her eyes and made noisy sobbing sounds. Then she put her hands back on the dog’s comforting fur. “See, it’s pitch black and there are spider-webs in her long golden locks.”
“But if Prince Charming sees spiderwebs in her hair—”
“Charlene, you stop or I won’t finish. Anyway, all of a sudden she hears magic music. You know, tinkle, tinkle. And then…”
“What? What?”
“The room gets all lit up and right there, in front of Princess Cindy, is a beautiful, lovely, magic fairy godmother. And she says, ‘Don’t you worry, Cindy. No more spidewebs.’ And she waves her magic wand—it’s a red stick with a gold star on top—and all the spiderwebs and spiders disappear and Princess Cindy is all dressed up in a pink evening gown and a diamond crown. And so she looks at herself and says, ‘On, thank you, Fairy Godmother.’ But then do you know what happens? The fairy godmother disappears. Just like that. Poof! No more beautiful fairy godmother.”
“Did the light go out again?”
“No. It stayed on, but Cindy kept crying and crying, because she wanted her fairy godmother back. But then she heard the fairy godmother’s voice, coming down from heaven. And she said, ‘Don’t cry, sweet Cindy. I’ll always take care of you.’ And sure enough.”
“Sure enough what?”
“Sure enough, she waved her magic wand in heaven because the light got even brighter, and there, before her eyes, was—”
“Prince Charming.”
“Charlene, will you please? Anyway, Prince Charming gave her a kiss”—Jane lifted her cheek slightly, as if to receive it—“and the tower door opened up and he took her away to his castle, but first he killed the wicked stepmother. He took his sword and stuck the point all the way into her eyes, and then he cut her belly open and all her green, slimy guts—”
“You crossed your heart you wouldn’t say that part.”
“Well, anyway, he took Cindy on his white horse and they lived happily ever after.”
“That’s it?”
“Of course that’s it, Charlene.”
Richard worked for one of the richest men in Ohio. John Hart had sold the heavy machinery manufacturing company founded by his grandfather. He added that fortune to the wealth he’d inherited from his father, who had invested early and heavily in several chemical companies, and formed his own company, to serve his own ends. Then he married a Cincinnati debutante, Rebecca Corey; the papers called her Beauteous Becky. All these arrangements were complete by the time he was twenty-five.
At the time Richard was hired, however, John Hart was a lieutenant commander in the navy, a master of the M1 rifle, fighting the Japanese in the Marshall Islands. Thus engaged, he was unable for some time to meet his new employee, Richard Heissenhuber.
Not that it would have been much of a meeting. Richard was hired as the Hart Company’s comptroller. “Comptroller,” Dorothy breathed.
“Some firms call it ‘controller,’” Richard said.
“And to work personally for John Hart.”
“Well, he’s in the navy now.”
“Yes. Of course. But when he gets back. To be his comptroller.” Richard nodded. “It’s like being his right-hand man.”
However, on Richard’s first day of work old Mr. Tisman, who had worked for three generations of Harts, declared, “You have a problem, you come to me. Not to Mr. Grooms. Not to Mr. Weiskittle. And for chrissake not to Mr. Corbett.” The last was Hart’s commodi
ties expert, a fat, volatile man whose moods fluctuated with the movements of pork bellies. Once, in a bad moment, he had slammed his fist onto his desktop, shattering the wood. “And for the love of Pete, when Mr. Hart comes home, you say Good morning and Good night and that is all! No How are yous. No Isn’t it a nice day?”
The Hart Company’s sole function was to invest and enlarge John Hart’s personal fortune. It had fourteen employees. Richard was its internal auditor. He checked the bookkeepers’ ledgers and records, monitored Hart’s financial transactions to make certain that brokers, bankers, and businessmen who dealt with the company were on the up-and-up, and examined the expense accounts of Hart employees.
“My comptroller,” Dorothy said expansively some months later. She and Richard were alone in the living room, her favorite part of the house. She had picked out the suite of furniture in one minute after she had entered the store—a couch, two chairs, and an ottoman, all covered in dark green rayon damask. The assistant furniture buyer at McAlpin’s, whom Dorothy had admired for her fine breeding and beautifully arched eyebrows, had once mentioned blue was for the newly rich; secure people chose dark green or gold.
“Your own secretary, Richard. I’ll just bet you’re the heart of the Hart Company.” She smiled across the room at him. Richard shrugged. He did not have the heart to tell her that the secretary had been hired to replace one who had quit a month before he was hired. And he couldn’t tell her how the strategy she had urged he use had failed, how brusquely Mr. Tisman had refused his request for a private office, telling him he belonged with the bookkeepers, not the financial analysts. “And once the war is over and Mr. Hart comes home…Richard, there’s just no limit. Didn’t I tell you that the first time I met you?”