The next Monday I dumped Joanie and Itchy. All of a sudden, they seemed too crude and vulgar. At lunchtime on Beale Street I squished out a cigarette with the toe of my saddle shoe and told them we couldn’t hang out at my house anymore, my mom’s shift at the factory had changed so she’d be home during the day. I thought they’d see right through my lie, but Joanie was real sympathetic.
“Jeez, that’s tough, Nance,” she’d said, shaking her head, cheeks flushed. “Gettin’ stuck with your mom home during the day. Jeez.”
I was surprised Joanie didn’t made a wisecrack, but later I figured out pretending to believe me was her way of saving face.
In early June I started inviting Bobby around to the apartment after school. Eddie was on the road and I knew my mother wouldn’t get home until 5:30. I showed Bobby my Rosie the Headless Woman essay. We played records, sat on the sofa and smooched. He sang scat in my ear.
One day he slipped his hands inside my blouse and I let him. He loosened my skirt and rubbed my stomach and I let him do that, too. It felt as though he was stroking all the nerve ends in me with his fingers. Then he gently took my hand and put it on his crotch and I felt his thing. It was stiff and warm and I sort of liked the feel of it, but I jerked my hand away, scared. I didn’t want to end up like my mother.
Bobby just smiled, got up and put another record on, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the lump in his blue jeans. “Bésame Mucho” began playing.
He sat down, kissed me again and started rubbing against me, moaning my name. All of a sudden something happened that was like a volcano inside me. There was a huge eruption of feeling in my crotch, then it was like somebody had poured honey into me and it was flowing through my bloodstream, into my arms and legs and toes, everywhere. It was the most wonderful thing I’d ever felt.
I looked at Bobby and cried. He asked what was wrong and I said I didn’t know. He wiped my tears away with his fingers and kissed my ear. Finally I sniffed and swallowed and said I must be coming down with the flu, I felt funny in the stomach. Bobby looked down at his lap for a minute, then raised his eyes back to my face and said he better get going.
For days I couldn’t think of anything but the honey in my blood. When Bobby and I were together, we kissed and petted and rubbed against one another more than ever, but the volcano never erupted again. I wanted to say, “Could you rub against me the way you did that Wednesday afternoon when ‘Besame Mucho’ was playing? I was sort of on this end of the couch and you had your arm over there against the cushion. You were wearing your blue jeans.” But I never did. I was too embarrassed.
Two weeks later on a Saturday when his parents were away, he took me to see his house. The living room had a huge blue sofa, three big easy chairs, and a gigantic Persian carpet that was kind of threadbare but looked good that way. The air in the house had a cinnamony smell to it.
Bobby stopped by a brick fireplace with photographs above it. “Here I am with my brothers when I was six,” he said. I stared at a black and white picture of three boys clowning for the camera. Bobby, wearing a little sailor suit, looked so cute I had to smile. It seemed like there was something familiar about the others, but I couldn’t figure out what. Maybe they just looked a little like Bobby.
A tinted photograph showed Bobby’s mother and Barney Felker on their wedding day. She wore a peach-colored suit and a huge corsage of orchids. Her sandy hair was swept up and her mouth stretched into a soft sweet smile. Barney looked like he barely fit into his dress-up suit, like a barrel stuffed for shipping, but he had a proud expression.
Bobby seemed to read my thoughts. “Barney has been really good to my mom. He loves her. A lot of men wouldn’t want to raise somebody else’s kids.”
I nodded but wondered if that’s why nobody wanted to marry my mother, nobody wanted to raise somebody else’s kid.
He brought Cokes and Cheez-Its from the kitchen as I studied a bookcase near the fireplace.
“My mom is a real bookworm,” he said, setting the Cokes down on a table in front of the sofa. “She’d rather curl up with a novel than go into town and gossip like a lot of women.”
I nodded and smiled. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like having a mother who was a bookworm. I wondered if Bobby’s mom stayed away from town because the women used to gossip about her and the husband who ran off. I could sympathize with that. Maybe Bobby’s mother and I would get along just fine.
Bobby got out his clarinet, stood by a window, and played “In the Mood,” arching his back and squinting his eyes as the sun framed him from behind like a spotlight. I sank into the sofa and thought of the days I’d gone out of my way to walk past Bobby’s house and study the pavement, wondering when he’d walked on it last. I could hardly believe I was inside that house now listening to him play “In the Mood” just for me. When he finished, he set his clarinet on a chair, put “Paper Doll” on the Victrola, stretched his hand out, and pulled me up to him. We danced so closely I could feel his ribs against me.
The music stopped but we kept dancing, out into the hallway, then to the back of the house, and finally into Bobby’s room where we stopped and sat on a window seat covered with a yellow striped cushion. Outside a huge birch tree swayed in the breeze. Bobby crossed the paneled room to where he had his own Victrola and a wooden cabinet full of jazz records. He put on Artie Shaw’s “Begin the Beguine” and boogied back and we sat together on the window seat, holding hands and gazing out at the world.
He got up and put on “Who Wouldn’t Love You?,” then walked to the bed, sat on it and looked at me, serious as a preacher. He lifted his hands, palms up, and wiggled his curved fingers at me to come to him, and there wasn’t a thing in the world I could do except go.
Later I opened my eyes to look at Bobby. He smiled and ran his fingertips across my hairline. I touched his ear-lobe. I caught my reflection in the pupils of his eyes and trembled. Suddenly my lashes filled with tears and shame welled up inside me as I realized I was Georgia Sayer’s daughter after all. I rolled away.
Bobby ran his fingers over the back of my hair. “Nancy…” he whispered … “look at me.”
I didn’t move.
He picked up my hair and kissed the back of my neck. I shivered.
“Please,” he said.
I turned to face him and his eyes were so kind I didn’t care if I was destined to be a slut like my mother, after all. I loved Bobby too much to care.
For the next two weeks we couldn’t keep our hands off one another. Afternoons at my apartment. Picnics in the grass near Echo Lake just outside of town. Walks to the meadow on Kessler Junction Road. Things were going so well I decided to let Bobby pick me up at home one night. We were going to a movie and I knew sooner or later I’d have to let him meet my mom so I gritted my teeth, crossed my fingers, and wished on a star that my mother would act decent and it worked. She just gave Bobby a big smile and hello and commented on how humid it was. “I always say it’s not the heat that gets you, it’s the humidity,” she said, fanning her face with her hand. Bobby smiled back and agreed and my mother said now don’t keep her out too late, we Sayers girls need our beauty sleep, and that was it. She wandered off into the kitchen and the next day at breakfast she chirped, “So he’s what you’ve been doing all the primping for, huh?” and I grinned and said “Yeah,” and we both laughed. My mother was in a good mood because Eddie was due back from a sales trip that day, but I still took it as another sign that maybe my luck was changing.
The trouble started when Bobby invited me to a backyard barbecue at his house on the Fourth of July. Two of his older brothers were going to be there, too, with some friends.
At first my heart soared, thinking he must be serious about me, taking me home to meet his family, but then I started to worry they might pry. One thing about Bobby, he never once asked an embarrassing question, but that didn’t mean his folks wouldn’t. I figured by now everybody in town knew who Georgia Sayers and her girl were but I couldn’t be absolutely sure, es
pecially since they used to live out in the R.D. and his mother was too much of a bookworm to come into town. Suppose somebody said out of the blue, “And what does your father do, Nancy?” At night in bed I went achy trying to rehearse how to act. Maybe I could just lower my eyelids and whisper, “Oh, he died.” For all I knew, maybe my father did die so it wouldn’t be an absolute lie. Or maybe I could just pretend I didn’t hear the question and rattle on about how beautiful the lilies of the valley or the hollyhocks or whatever flowers they had in their yard were. I could even throw in a quote about flowers. That would be good, a quote. Or, wait, maybe it would be better to just let my lip quiver a little bit and say, “My father isn’t with us anymore,” as though something happened that was so tragic I could hardly bear it. That should stop them, shouldn’t it? Plus it would be pretty much true. But then what if somebody asked about Eddie? I’d just have to stick to my mother’s story, that he was a boarder.
I could tell one of Eddie’s funny carnival stories and make them think I was cute and witty. I went through so many maybe thises and maybe thats I woke up every morning with sore jaws, pulsing teeth and knots in my neck. I almost backed out, but then I’d see Bobby, go weak with love, and hope for a miracle.
One thing, I knew I had to look right. I bought a copy of Silver Screen with a picture of Margaret O’Brien on the cover and studied how to look more like her. I figured sugary demure Margaret would go over better with the Felkers than saucy, sultry Jennifer Jones. I pictured myself sitting on a striped lawn chair across from Mrs. Felker, daintily holding a tea cup and gushing, “Oh, you’re so lovely to invite me. Everyone in your family is so lovely.” I practiced pulling my hair back behind my ears and fastening it with barrettes so the curls fluffed out behind me and made my face look baby sweet. I studied myself in the mirror, smiling with my upper lip firm across my teeth like Margaret did instead of loose and floppy like I usually smiled.
The morning of the picnic I washed my hair, rinsed it with the juice of a lemon to make it shine, and rolled it up with setting lotion. I wore a white cap-sleeved blouse with a Peter Pan collar and pearly buttons above a gathered print skirt with red roses that trailed around and around on a white background. Even my mother said, “Oh, you look so cute, so fresh and summery. And there’s more bounce in your curls.” Eddie even whistled and winked at me as he and my mom left at eleven o’clock to go to a Fourth of July picnic.
Bobby picked me up at noon in Barney’s pea green Buick. It was a clear bright day and the sun felt so warm on my face through the Buick’s windshield as we drove up Broadway, I took that as another sign things would work out just fine.
But by the time we reached his house I started getting stage fright and as Bobby pulled the Buick into his parents’ driveway I felt my face freeze into a smile I could only hope was a Margaret O’Brien one. After that, all I remember are bits and pieces of the afternoon, all mixed up with the furious rat-a-tat of firecrackers neighborhood kids were setting off.
I remember Barney giving us a tour of his victory garden, bragging about the size of his carrots, radishes and dwarf lemons as I gushed, “Oh, they’re lovely. They’re so lovely.” Bang bang. Bang. I remember Bobby’s oldest brother, Cory, wearing a stretched out T-shirt and a scowl, eyeing Bobby’s pegged pants and waving a beer can at him and saying, “Well, Bobbo, a li’l bird tole me you were a real Zoot Suiter these days, and damned if that li’l ol bird wasn’t right,” as Bobby grinned and pretended to tip a widebrimmed fedora and twirl a key chain. Bang bang bang. Oh, and one real good thing. I remember I offered to help Mrs. Felker set the table and she said Well, how nice, let’s see I think we’re eight people and I looked around and counted and faced her and said, Yeah, eight, as though we’d just agreed on an important theory about life.
But the main reason my brain went blobby and everything else turned into a blur was what happened at the end when the boys went inside to turn a Phillies game on the radio and I stayed in the yard to help Mrs. Felker clean up.
“And how is your mother, Nancy?” she asked as she stood at the head of the wooden picnic table scraping the remains from one melamine plate onto another.
“Oh, she’s fine.” I felt my chest tighten. “Just fine.” I dipped my head and started gathering up used napkins.
“Well, that’s good. The last time I was in the gas company office, she told me she’d had a touch of neuralgia.”
I bounced. Gas company? Neuralgia? I glanced toward the screen door as though somebody might be there to explain but there were just the silent rhododendron plants gleaming in the sun.
Mrs. Felker started collecting Dixie cups with her thumb and forefinger. “She said she was thinking of going on part-time. Has she done that? That may be why she’s feeling better.”
I realized Mrs. Felker had my mother mixed up with somebody else. “Uh, my mom works at the Rutt Ridge Silk Factory,” I said in a small voice, “not the gas company.”
Mrs. Felker looked puzzled for a minute, but she smiled and said, “Oh, forgive me, Nancy. I’ve been so excited getting ready for the boys coming home, my brain isn’t working right.” She put a hand on my arm. “Forgive me. What is your mother’s name?”
I held my breath for a second. “Georgia Sayers.” My voice was just a whisper.
“Oh.” Mrs. Felker’s face flushed and her hand dropped from my arm. She looked at Bobby with a kind of desperate expression, then swung her eyes back to me and studied my face for a minute as if she was reading a map.
I wanted to run.
Then she broke into a smile again. “Well, my heavens, of course. The woman at the gas company, her last name is Saunders. How stupid of me! I believe I did meet your mother once at the drugstore in town.”
“Yeah, probably. We … uh … live near there.”
I smiled back but I could tell I had an expression like when you’re waiting too long for somebody to take your picture and I was so relieved when Bobby walked back out and said, “Here, let me help you ladies bury these remains,” I wanted to hug him right there but at least I had enough sense to wait until later in the car and then I hugged him like I never wanted to let go
The next afternoon Bobby showed up at my house looking like he hadn’t slept. The rings around his eyes were dark and his shoulders slumped.
“Nancy,” he said, “this is the hardest thing I ever had to say, but…” He heaved, as if he was having trouble getting air. “We can’t see each other anymore.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. Something has come up.” His voice was raspy.
“Just like that? All of a sudden? Why?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s too … oh, God, I don’t even know what the word is.” His voice trailed off. “Just believe me, it’s not your fault. It’s not mine either.”
But by now I felt my breath catch as I figured out the answer. Once Mrs. Felker learned my mom was Georgia Sayers, my name might as well have been mud. What was worse, I’d behaved with Bobby exactly the way everybody would expect Georgia Sayers’ kid to behave. Like a scarlet woman. A slut.
“Nancy, look, I wish it could be different…”
“Sure. I understand.” I hoped he didn’t hear my thumping heart. “C’est la vie, huh? Fun while it lasted, right? Well, why not?” I turned away quick to hide the tears. “To tell you the truth, I was getting bored myself.”
My head felt like it had just fallen on the floor with a thunk. At least I wasn’t going to become pathetic like my mom, desperate to hold onto any man who paid her a little attention. If I was destined to be a loose woman, at least I could pretend I didn’t give a damn.
“Nancy…” Bobby sounded more like his old self for a minute. “If I could change things … if there was anything I could do.”
“Hey, sounds like a song title,” I quipped. Now the other parts of my body started to float away until I felt like I was just a huge beating heart.
15
NANCY
I stared
at the apartment door as though I could somehow bring Bobby back to say it had all been a silly mistake, and pounded on it with my fists, and dropped my head against the hard wood.
Even though my mouth felt dry as old socks, I needed a cigarette. I staggered into my mother’s bedroom. Eddie’s black sample cases and the catalog that listed the novelties he sold were stacked along one wall near the radiator. An extra pair of his special shoes was tucked into a corner by the bed, one sole five inches higher than the other. I thought of the time I’d tried Eddie’s shoes on and hobbled around the apartment in them. I’d been extra nice to Eddie that week. Tears pricked at my eyes now and I quick looked away.
I grabbed a crumpled pack of Raleighs from the drawer of the nicked maple night stand, stomped out and stumbled around the block, then started towards Marysville Park, thoughts of Bobby running through my brain like a speeding train. Bobby singing scat. Bobby’s lips against my cheek. But when I got to the park, I took one look at the dance pavilion and tears started streaming down my face. I sat on a bench by the barbecue pit and thought of walking out to the R.D. to see his mother. She’d been through some misery herself, a husband running off. Maybe she’d be able to understand how I felt if I told her I hated having a mother who was a slut.
A breeze brushed my ankles and I looked down at my scuffed sandals and faded gray skirt. I couldn’t go to see Mrs. Felker. There wasn’t anyplace I could go except back home, and that made me saddest of all.
I slumped on the bench and sobbed. The sky was darkening into the purple color of a giant bruise. In the distance I could see the dark shapes of pine trees like black slashes on the hills.
I stood up and dragged myself back toward town. The sharp air cut my lungs and the silhouettes of chimneys looked like men from Mars. I shivered.
Outside Doc’s, I stopped and stared up at the lighted apartment window and shook with fury thinking if it hadn’t been for my mother I could be in Bobby’s arms right now. I shouted at the top of my lungs, “Stop it, you old witch. Stop ruining my life.” I couldn’t go in.
Rhonda the Rubber Woman Page 12