Rhonda the Rubber Woman

by Peterson, Norma;

  Nancy clattered down the steps yelling, “I knew it. I knew he’d be alive,” and the two hugged and twirled.

  Cora read aloud. “Got a bullet in the thigh stop I’m okay stop Will be home for two weeks stop Arrive Thursday March 26 stop Letter follows stop Love Walt.”

  The railway station crackled with the soft electric static of bunny sweaters. Cora wore robin’s egg blue to match her eyes. Her hair, freshly rinsed with lemons, shone like the sun. As the train pulled in, tears began streaking the women’s make-up. Soldiers huddled at cloudy train windows like kids packed into three-for-a-nickel photo booths.

  Cheers went up as the first GI appeared at the steps, then there was a momentary hush as everyone realized he was missing an arm. But he smiled and hurried toward a plump brunette who had pushed her way to the front of the crowd yelling, “Roger, it’s me.” They kissed in a lopsided embrace that twisted the pinned-up empty arm of his uniform.

  Walt was twelfth off, looking so handsome Cora’s pulse raced.

  “Hey, gor-juss,” he hollered, elbowing his way through the crowd, moving with the help of a cane.

  “The same to you,” she sang out and rushed forward. They kissed, and he gave her a bear hug. Suddenly she felt a tremendous surge of peace. Walt had gone close to the edge and he’d made it. She took that as a sign. After this they could come through anything together. They might get close to danger but they’d pull through.

  Cora drove Walt home, gushing about how great he looked, who all had said to tell him hello, pointing out little changes around town.

  “Boy,” Walt wisecracked, “I’m home five minutes and already I can’t get a word in edgewise.” Cora laughed hysterically.

  Then Walt got solemn. “You don’t know what it’s like to be back,” he said. “On the train a guy was just reading the brand names from the paper, and they sounded so good, we all clapped.”

  He sat with a crooked grin, shaking his head and reached over to touch Cora’s thigh. She noticed his face was thinner, showing more of his cheekbones.

  Cora pulled into the driveway. She’d sent Nancy back to Marysville for two weeks. What the social welfare people didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

  “But I can come back, can’t I?” Nancy had asked with a panicky look.

  “Of course,” Cora had assured her.

  “I bought a bottle of Canadian Club to celebrate,” Cora told Walt as they stumbled into the apartment, half walking, half embracing, hands all over one another.

  He sank into the sofa. “Jesus, if you knew how good it felt to sit on a sofa. Here, sit here. Christ, I missed you.”

  He nuzzled her neck and unbuttoned her sweater. “Oh, God, this is so good,” he whispered. “Where’s that Canadian Club? I could do with a little one. How about you?”

  “Sure thing. I wouldn’t want you drinking alone.” Cora jumped up, taking special care with her leg movements, toes just slightly pointed out, as she crossed to the kitchen and returned.

  Walt fingered his glass. “God, I feel filthy,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time I had a bath. Let me take this and sip it while I soak and think about you and what we’ll do afterward.” He winked.

  “Sure, go ahead. I’ll put some records on.”

  Cora picked up “I’ll Never Smile Again,” studied her reflection in the shiny black wax for a minute, then set the record on the Victrola. She sat listening and cried with joy as it played.

  She heard Walt splash out of the tub and walk into the bedroom, his cane stabbing the floor with every other step. For a minute he sounded like Eddie. Cora wondered if he’d tell her about the bullet. In his letter he’d said he killed himself some Krauts. He said it had been worth being wounded to kill some Krauts.

  She put “Sentimental Journey” on and sat down again, closing her eyes until it ended. She picked up “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” Where was Walt? He was so quiet.

  She tore up the stairs and into the bedroom. Her face froze in horror. Walt was sitting dressed on the bed holding the Capricorn Charm School contract. She’d stuffed it into her underwear drawer during a last-minute fit of tidying up. She’d forgotten Walt liked to run his hands through the silk and lace in her drawer before they made love.

  “Isn’t this a nice surprise?” he asked with a sneer. “Where the hell did you get $268?”

  Goose bumps crept up Cora’s arms like bugs. “I was going to tell you, Walt. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Well, you already did that, didn’t you? Answer me, dammit. Where did you get this kind of money?”

  “I borrowed it. But Walt, I can make enough to pay it back. I can make money modeling. They said I was a natural model.”

  “Jesus Christ, Cora, you sound like a star-struck sixteen-year-old, falling for a line like that. Dammit, where did you borrow the money?”

  “From Georgia and Eddie.”

  “Georgia and Eddie?” Walt’s face tightened like a fist. “Jesus Christ, that’s all I need. I come home after getting half killed, and my wife is in debt up to her tits and who does she owe it to? Her slut of a sister and a cripple.” He pounded his fist on the bed, rattling springs against the wall.

  “Walt, that’s not fair. Georgia’s no slut. Carl was a long time ago. Eddie’s the only guy since then.”

  “Huh, the only one who’s hung around, you mean. A cripple creep who’s savvy enough to know a good thing when he sees it. Plenty of pussy and three square meals. No strings attached. Christ.” He got up but lost his balance and fell back on the bed, his cane clattering to the floor. He glared at it as Cora picked it up, then grabbed it, got up and hit the door with his fist.

  “Walt, I’m sorry. I’ll pay the money back. I thought by the time you got home I’d have a job modeling. I thought you’d be proud of me.”

  “Well, you thought wrong, didn’t you?” He grabbed his cane and hobbled down the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Cora ran after him.

  “I’m gonna visit that slut of a sister and her cripple boyfriend. Tell them to keep their stinking noses out of our business. I can just picture them looking so smug. Poor Walt can’t afford to send his wife to modeling school. Christ, Cora. Jesus P. Christ.”

  “No, Walt, please. You just got home. Let’s have another drink. Let’s sit and talk. Please.”

  “Shut up. Brother, what a homecoming.” Walt stomped out the door toward the Packard.

  Cora raced out after him. “Take me with you,” she cried, hoping she could talk some sense into him on the way. He revved the engine and started backing out of the driveway, then screeched to a stop.

  “You want to see the damage? Why not?”

  Cora got in, trembling. Walt had a look in his eyes that scared her. She tried to reason with him, but he yelled, “Shut the fuck up,” and started muttering to himself, “Christ, I’m off being blown half to smithereens and my loving wife is back here taking handouts from a slut and a cripple.”

  Cora remembered a conversation she’d heard in the record store, two women talking about boys who came home with shell shock. “They can’t put the war behind them,” one woman had said. “They want to keep fighting every minute. It must be terrible for them and their poor families.” She prayed that Georgia and Eddie wouldn’t be there. “Please, God,” she said, “please don’t let them be there.”

  But before she knew it, Walt was pulling up in front of Doc’s, and she winced as she saw the light upstairs in the apartment window.

  Eddie answered the door wearing an undershirt; red suspenders held up his pants and his mustache was askew as though he’d been scratching it.

  “I’m gonna knock your block off, you twerp,” Walt yelled.

  “Hey, whoa there,” Eddie said and put his arm out, but Walt shoved it aside like a dead animal and he hobbled into the apartment. Eddie hobbled after him, repeating, “Hey, whoa there.”

  “Who is it?” Georgia called in her little girl voice from the bedroom.

  “Guess who,�
� Walt bellowed.

  Georgia peeked out and smiled. “Walt, you’re back,” she said.

  But then she saw the scowl and her chin dropped as he mimicked her in a falsetto voice. “Walt, you’re back.”

  Eddie ran to Georgia. “Look, fella, calm down,” he cried.

  Walt lifted his arm.

  Cora raced up. “No, Walt, don’t.”

  But by now Walt was too far gone to stop. “Stay out of this,” he yelled and swung at Cora instead. She jerked and folded, her hair a silky yellow veil across her face as she dropped to the floor slowly and gracefully, like a movie star.

  9

  NANCY, 1944

  When I found out what happened, my first thought was, Suppose the social welfare people found out? I didn’t want to get sent away from another unfit home. But it didn’t come to that. Aunt Cora called to say I should stay in Marysville.

  “Nancy, I’m real sorry,” she said, “but Walt has shell shock. He got it from the war.” Her voice sounded like it had sand in it. “He gets episodes. It wouldn’t be good for you here.”

  My chest was tight. “Well, maybe it won’t last,” I said in a tiny voice, my eyes fixed on the back window of our apartment. The glass had streaks of imperfections in it, like teardrops had got stuck there.

  “Maybe not.” I heard her take a drag on a cigarette. “Just promise me you won’t run to the teacher again. Give Eddie a chance. Promise me, okay?”

  I promised because I was too scared not to. I didn’t want to think of my aunt all bruisy blue. In a way I was glad I couldn’t see her.

  “Well, listen, we had some good times, me and you, didn’t we?”

  “Oh, yeah.” My voice cracked.

  “Yeah. So I’ll talk to you soon…”

  “Aunt Cora…” I held the phone tight with both hands.

  “Uh huh…”

  “I love you.”

  “Oh, Nancy, I love you, too.”

  At least I was a hot shot around school for awhile, bragging that my aunt was a model who’d showed me some of her tricks. I said she’d probably get me a modeling job any day; I wouldn’t be hanging around Marysville very long.

  Miss Sandercock wasn’t my homeroom teacher anymore but she stopped me once in the hall after an assembly where some seniors had demonstrated table manners.

  “Nancy, I’m glad to see you,” she said, her eyes traveling around my face like I was sprouting weeds. She was probably trying to figure out what was up. I thought back to the day I’d sat in her quiet classroom and written the note asking for help. She’d been as sweet as could be and had written me asking if I wanted to go home with her for a while. I’d looked at her perfect handwriting, thrilled that it was intended just for me. I’d only ever seen a few words of her lettering before—“Good work, Nancy,” or “Watch your mechanics, please” at the top of a paper. I’d nodded and she walked me to her house, sat me down in her sunny kitchen and poured me tea from a copper kettle, her nylon stockings rustling as she moved.

  “Are you still writing?” she asked now in a soft voice.

  “Oh, sure.” I blinked and went tongue-tied. My poems were getting blacker and more bitter every day, full of insults, ghosts with huge square holes for mouths that bubbled out loud mocking laughs, babies falling headlong on the steel-sharp edges of low tables, shadowy mothers smiling from dark corners.

  Miss Sandercock put the tips of her fingers on my arm. “If there’s anything you want to talk about, let me know.” Her eyes were so kind, I went weak, but I was too embarrassed to explain all that had happened.

  “Oh, yeah, if there ever is, I sure will,” I muttered. I remembered even when I’d been beside myself to get away, I’d begged her to make sure the social welfare people weren’t mean to my mom, and later I heard her tell them on the phone, “I’m sure Mrs. Sayers means no harm, but the child is visibly shaken.” She’d been thoughtful enough to call my mom Mrs. Sayers although everyone knew better. And later she’d come up with the idea we could tell my mom Aunt Cora needed company while Uncle Walt was overseas, and that would help her save face.

  The bell for next period rang. “Oh, well, I gotta go,” I muttered and hurried off, tripping over my feet. After that, whenever I saw Miss Sandercock in the hallway I turned around and went back where I’d come from, as though I’d forgotten something.

  I ran into Bobby Felker a couple of times but he always seemed to be rushing off somewhere with older kids. He’d wave and give me a smile, but that would be it. I’d turn and watch him move and think of the cute little hunches and dips he made with his shoulders when he jitterbugged. I’d feel the way his jaw moved against the side of my head when we danced a slow number. But in the end, I figured the only reason he came to see me in Clinton was because Aunt Cora was able to bring Artie Shaw records home from Tune Time.

  I started using my insults around school, muttering just loud enough so whoever was near me could hear. Kids would laugh. Sometimes when a teacher got uppity, I’d write “physicface” or “blubberbrain” on a piece of paper and slip it to Joanie Bonnadonna, who sat alongside me in math. Joanie would roll her eyes and slap her hands on her desk.

  By the middle of April, the insults weren’t enough, though. I wanted more attention. I started talking fancy, reciting lines from books and poems. I got the idea from a new teacher, Mrs. Gilbert, who used flowery sayings to make a point.

  If a kid complained the work was too hard, Mrs. Gilbert would put a bony hand on her chest and scold, “Mark, you are the master of your fate, you are the captain of your soul.” When she listed new vocabulary words on the blackboard, she always wrote underneath them in pink chalk, “Remember, language is the light of the mind.” Then she’d stand back and smile as though she’d just unveiled the secret of life.

  I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t sound as poetic. It seemed like fancy language was just the thing to go with my new curly hairdo and my made-up stories about being a child model. On Saturdays I went to the public library and sat at a wooden table and read a book called The Great Quotations: Ideas for Our Time, memorizing quotes the way I’d collected insults. Whenever I had to leave a place, I’d say, “The time has come, the walrus said,” and I’d get up and go. Whenever I walked into Mr. LaCrosse’s algebra class, I’d spout, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

  I got friendlier with Eddie, too. He seemed to like me, asked about school, read my papers—stuff my mom never bothered with. I pictured Eddie as a dad. He wasn’t the kind of dad I had fantasies about, like Judge Hardy in the movies, but at least if they married, my mom wouldn’t be living in sin anymore, and having Eddie around put her in a good mood. She’d been nicer to me since I came back from Clinton.

  I remember one day in June, I was in the bathroom trying on some of my mother’s Ivory Invitation face powder and thinking I looked pretty cute in a coral colored blouse Aunt Cora had given me that fit just right. I was smiling at myself from a three-quarters view when my mother walked in. I held my breath as she looked at me and then at the open powder box, afraid she’d have a conniption fit, but she didn’t.

  “Oh, isn’t that cute.” She laughed her big laugh, but I wasn’t sure what was funny.

  “You’re really growing up, huh?” she said, talking to my reflection. “You look cute.”

  “You think so?” I talked back to her in the mirror, feeling an unexpected thrill.

  “Yeah, a little powder now and then won’t hurt.”

  “Beauty is as beauty does, huh?”

  She looked blank, then smiled. “Yeah. So what are you now, fifteen?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Same difference. It makes your skin a little fairer, more like mine.” When she put her face closer, she smelled like pineapple puff. I liked it.

  “The only thing…” She burst out laughing.

  “What?” I laughed too though, I didn’t know what was so funny.

  “The only thing,” she giggled again, “you’re not supposed to put it on your e
yebrows. You look like the union guy, what’s his name?”

  I peered in the mirror. My eyebrows were steely gray and bushy from brushing on the powder. “John L. Lewis,” I answered.

  “Yeah.” My mom wet her finger in the sink and wiped the powder off. I could hardly believe it; she practically never touched me.

  “There,” she said. “That’s better.” We stood for a few seconds grinning at each other in the mirror.

  That night I dreamed my mom and I were riding on a bicycle built for two. Then the bicycle turned into a Ferris wheel that broke down when we were at the top. All I could see down below was black churning water and I went shivery with terror. My mom and I hugged one another in fear, and suddenly she turned to me and said, “Nancy, I’m sorry I’m a loose woman. I’m sorry I’m an adulteress.” She squeezed my shoulder. “But look what I got for it. I got you.” I sagged against her and the Ferris wheel began to move.

  The problems started up again in July when Eddie began going on the road more. When he’d first moved in, he’d just go for a couple of days at a time but things changed after Uncle Walt came home from the war, drove up to Marysville and threatened to beat Eddie and my mom up for being a cripple and a slut. Eddie started going away for a week at a time, and once he went to western P.A. for a whole month.

  My mother called him at the boarding houses where he stayed in the different towns to say she missed him. She’d ask when was it, exactly, he was coming back, it slipped her mind. One night she called a place four times until the guy who kept answering the phone finally said, “Look, lady, why don’t you just give me the message.” My mom got so discombobulated she blurted out the truth. “Well … ah … all right … ah … please tell him Georgia called to say she … ah … misses him.”

  She hung up, banged on the wall by the phone, and ran her finger over a little ceramic statue of the See No Evil monkeys she kept on a rickety wood table by the phone. Suddenly she slapped at the monkeys and burst out crying.