by Joan Connor
Bobbie asked, “Have you given any consideration to what you are going to do with your life?”
“No,” Ceci said. She hadn’t.
“I mean,” Bobbie said, “you are nineteen years old and still living at home with a woman who thinks that Bling Bling is a panda and who talks on the phone with Bob the Automated telemarketer. It’s sad really.”
“She needs me,” Ceci said.
“Like Trump needs an apprentice. Look, I got midterms.” Bobbie shut the door.
When Ceci got home from clerking at Classic Video, Dee was poring over her scrapbooks, empty glass, full ashtray at her elbow. Uh oh. She smiled a practiced smile that Ceci recognized from the glam shot of Dee in Blithe Spirit. “I can resist everything but temptation,” Dee said in a dramatic voice which was disconcerting, Britishy but not British, an urchin timbre with class pretensions. “Oscar Wilde. Lady Windemere’s Fan.”
Okeydoke. “Is Bobbie home?” Ceci asked.
Dee grinned. “Guess who got a job?”
“Bobbie got a job?”
Dee propped her chin on her stack of mem books which made it difficult for her to talk. But not impossible. “Moi. It turns out this kid at the community college wants to do an independent project. He wants a drama coach.” Dee’s jaw worked like a marionette’s. “So he called the Blue Angel and guess who they recommended ? I guess that they think that I am ready to go back to work.”
Ceci wasn’t sure of much, but she was quite certain, absolutely completely certain that Dee was not ready to go back to work.”
Dee waved a slip of paper. “Here’s his name. Jason. Jason somebody.” She squinted at the scrap. “Shit, I can’t read my own writing.”
Ceci took the paper. “I’ll take care of it, Mom,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Dee,” Dee said.
Ceci dialed information at the community college and got the listing for Jason Mason. Not much of a stage name. What were his parents thinking? “Yes, Jason. I am calling for Deirdre Moriarty.”
“Yes. Who?”
“Is this Jason?”
“Yes.”
“I am calling for Deirdre Moriarty. You arranged a class through the Blue Angel Theater Troupe.” Ceci stared at the mouthpiece. Odd. “You called requesting her, remember?”
“No.”
“This is Jason, right?” Ceci smiled; the response felt eerie, even to her. Is one of us crazy here?
“Jason, yes. But no. Jason. Oh, you must want Jason Mason. He moved out when my girlfriend moved in. Here’s the number.”
Dee swooped loopily around the room, singing, “Falling in love again, Never wanted to, What am I to do? I can’t help it. Love’s always been my game.” A little distracting. Ceci jotted down the number.
Bobbie peered into the parlor.“Lovely domestic scene.”
Ceci said, “Dee’s just going through a phase.”
“A twenty year phase?” He jammed his hands into his pockets. His boxers puffed over the waist of his oversized pants. Definitely not a good look. Not so much homey as homely. Wasn’t it past passé by now?
“She has an addictive personality,” Ceci said.
“Not for me.”
Ceci twisted away from him and dialed.
Dee struck a posture, an unsteady one. “A community is like a ship; every one ought to be prepared to take the helm.” She grinned. “Ibsen. Henrik.”
“Not to be confused with the other Ibsen,” Bobbie said.
“From head to toe, I’m made for love. Lola Lola,” Dee said.
“Yeah, Dee. I think therefore I ham.”
“I am trying to reach Jason,” Ceci said to the phone.
“Speaking.”
“I am calling about the theater mentorship.”
“What?”
“Is this Jason?”
“Yes.”
“I am calling for Deirdre Moriarty about the mentorship you set up through the Blue Angel Theater Troupe.”
Dee swiped a shawl off the wall and swept it full of air like a spinnaker. Dust scattered and sifted in little puffs.
“I don’t know anything about a mentorship.”
“This is Jason, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Mentorship?” Bobbie asked. “Dee couldn’t mentor her way out of a bottle.”
Dee whipped the shawl like a bullfighter. Puff, puff.
“You called about a drama coach.”
“Oh, you want the other Jason.”
Ceci paused. Dead air. “The other Jason?” she asked. “How many Jasons are there? Do you have a pact to live together or something?”
Ceci pictured a house of Jasons, a tumbling circus of Jasons all clowning around and residing together just for the zany confusion of it all. Oh those madcap Jasons.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Did I ever tell you about the time that I met Janis Joplin?” Dee asked.
“I hear that there’s a vacancy at the Landmark Hotel,” Bobbie said.
“What?” Dee asked.
“Just because I slept with you doesn’t mean that I like you,” Ceci said. And just then she didn’t.
“What?” Jason asked.
“You slept with him?” Dee asked.
“Not you,” Ceci said to the phone. “The other Jason. When will he be in? He needs to schedule some appointments with Ms. Moriarty.” This was getting complicated.
“Who exactly is this?” Jason asked. “Are you a friend of Jason’s or what?”
“Ceci, what we did wasn’t exactly sleeping,” Bobbie said.
Ceci tried to sound business-like, efficient, secretarial, composed. Her mother sang in the background, “Play it how I may, I was made that way. I can’t help it.” “I really think that I should speak directly to Mr. Mason regarding his request. Thank you.” She hung up. “What is wrong with you people?”
Bobbie said, “There’s this new reality show. They give makeovers. I mean total makeovers. Give it some thought, you two. I have homework.”
Ceci said, “You’re an asshole.”
“Yes, but I know that I am an asshole which makes me just this side of an asshole, more like a cheek. Cheeky.” Bobbie winked at her and ducked down the hall.
Dee palmed her daughter’s face. “You slept with him?”
Two days later when Ceci got back from Classic Video, Dee was at the Deco desk sorting through some old promo snapshots. She shoved aside the stack of albums on the table. “That Jason character didn’t call back.”
“Dee, that Jason character is never going to call back. Never as in not ever. Never. Jason number two no doubt conveyed to Jason number three that our household is insane. Generally speaking, drama students prefer coaches who are not psychotic.” She listened for the babble of the television. “Is Bobbie back from school?” She opened the cabinet and stared. Oatmeal. Nope. Baking soda. Corn meal. Did no one in this house ever buy food?
“He is not an attractive man,” Dee said.
Duh. “That’s the attraction. How old is this oatmeal?” That Quaker was looking a little faded, a little pinched.
Dee said, “I really have to find something professional to do. Maybe I’ll schedule a dramatic reading. The library might be interested. I am an accomplished reader.” She exhaled a wobbly smoke ring.
“Dee.”
Bobbie banged in the front door. Ceci fidgeted with her bangs. Okay, his spider tattoo made her skin crawl, but still.... He was available.
“Look, you guys.” The light winked off his glasses. “I think that I am going to have to move out. This isn’t working.”
Uh oh. “Are you giving notice?” Ceci asked.
Bobbie yanked the fridge open and stared. “Does anyone ever buy food?”
“You get room not board,” Dee said. She stubbed out her cigarette. “I still think that that Jason character might call back.”
“The horn of scanty,” Bobbie said, considering a catsup bottle.
“Dee, he is not going to call back. Wo
uld you like a cup of tea?” Ceci asked. “We really depend on the rent you know.”
“Tea and strumpets? No thanks.” Bobbie slammed the fridge. “Truth is, I am thinking about a career in television.”
Ceci tilted her head. One doesn’t just leap into television. “Did you flunk out or something?”
Bobbie shoved his hands into his parachute pants. “Actually. . . .”
“I really do need a change,” Dee said. “Maybe I should get back into theater. This,” Dee gestured broadly, “is making me miserable.”
“Yeah, yeah, marching to the beat of a different bummer,” Bobbie said. “Dee, we’ve heard it all before.”
“You did. You did flunk out, didn’t you?” Ceci said. “I am really sorry.” Stubbing his toes in his ballooning pants, he looked vulnerable suddenly, boyish, sheepish. “I am really sorry.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I mean, fuck, it’s just community college. It’s not like I flunked out of Harvard or something. I’m out of here,” he said. And he was.
“I still think that that Jason guy might call. Or I should schedule a reading. I really should,” Dee said. She glanced up at Ceci. “What’s for dinner?”
Ceci tucked the cartons of Chinese food back into the fridge. Dee had eaten little of the General Tso’s. Busy planning her reading. Jeez Louise. Ceci headed down the hall. Bobbie didn’t answer the door the first time that she knocked. “I know that you are in there,” she said. “I can hear the television.”
Bobbie cracked the door. “And?”
“And I thought that you might like some dinner or that you could use some consolation.”
“Consolation?” Colored lights whirled behind Bobbie like the Aurora Borealis. “Is that a euphemism for sex? You want to blow me maybe? Blow my dick?”
Ceci slumped. “Pathetic. Blow you? I don’t even want to blow your nose. Grow up. Never mind.” She turned away.
Dee’s voice floated from the kitchen. “If I were you, I’d have nothing to do with that boy. Nothing at all. As far as I am concerned, he’s free to leave any time.”
Bobbie’s glasses glinted. “Yeah, yeah. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” he sang nasally. “By the way, Ceci, your mother never met Joplin. I mean, think about it. How old would she have been in 1970 when Joplin od’ed. Ten? What’d she do, meet Janis when she was ten? Give me a break.” Bobbie shut the door.
Ceci stared at the grain in the oak. Lovely, Bobbie, lovely. “Reality TV?” she asked the door. “Try this on, Bobbie. Reality therapy.You are never going to make it in TV.”
From the kitchen, Dee’s shout wafted in on a blue raft of smoke. “He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.”
When Ceci entered the kitchen, Dee looked up at her brightly. “Arthur Miller,” she said. “Death of a Salesman.”
“Oh, shut up, Mom.”
As Ceci expected, Dee’s dramatic reading turned out not to be a great idea. Dee did in fact interest the local library in a reading with her list of credentials and performances without mentioning that most of them were twenty years old. And she did enlist Ceci in posting announcements and distributing fliers in local stores. And she did select a passage with sedulous seriousness. And she did expect various players from the Blue Angel to turn out to hear her. And she did fret over what to wear for days, finally settling on a blue velvet princess seamed hostess dress, pinched too tight in the waist, Ceci thought and too warm for the season, but she kept that to herself. And Dee did practice her soliloquy for several days before the parlor mirror, much to the irritation of Bobbie who had not yet moved out although he still intended to and who turned up the volume on the TV in a duel of pique.
Here’s how it turned out:
Dee tanked up. Tarted up in the blue velvet dress, tipsy, slurry, and slightly listing at the lectern, she addressed four rows of chairs empty except for Ceci who had trouble concentrating, as she later told Bobbie, because the librarian, a trim blonde in eye-smarting Kelly green and hot pink, kept popping in and looking, well, appalled, and the other member of the audience, rumpled into a chair in the last row, a street person with Tourette’s Syndrome kept yelling out enigmatic slogans. It was a little unnerving. And of course the members of the Blue Angel did not show up, likely because they had witnessed a few too many of Dee’s sozzled soliloquies to find the unnatural disaster amusing any longer.
It sounded like this.
Dee: Whether tish nobler in the mind to shuffer Rumpled Guy: (yelling) Copulating penguins.
Dee: The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a she of troubles
Rumpled Guy: (louder) fornicating tuxedo birds on ice.
Dee: And by opposing, end them? Where was I? To die to sleep—
No more; and by opposing end them, and by a sheep
Rumpled Guy: Bleat, bleat.
Dee: To say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks.
Rumpled Guy: (muttering) fucking frozen birds and sheep. Bleat.
Dee: (faster) That flesh is heir to, tish a consummation, Devoutly to be wished. To sheep, perchance to dream; ay there’s the rub
Rumpled Guy: Great rubbing penis-grabbing penguins.
And so on and so forth through despised love, a bare bodkin, to grunt and sweat all the way to the Nymph, in thy orisons.
Or so at least Ceci recounted it later to Bobbie in bed the night before he moved out of the bungalow, Bobbie who had shown up for Dee’s reading, surprising Ceci even though he was late but not too late to help Ceci trundle Dee into the car and away from the librarian who, Bobbie agreed, looked appalled.
In the kitchen that evening Bobbie said to Dee, “You really should stop drinking.”
Dee her chin, dismal in her propped hand, recited, “Nothing is ever as simple as you think it’s going to be. You take the simplest darn thing and, before you know it, it gets all loused up. I don’t know how it happens or why it happens but it always happens.”
She recited it perfectly, soberly, unslurrily. Clear elocution, impeccable emphases, with just the right tinge of wisdom, resignation, and despair, and added, “Richard in The Seven Year Itch.” She struck a match and lit the filter end of her cigarette.
“Bravo,” Bobbie said. He clapped listlessly. “But you’re still a drunken has-been.”
“And you,” Dee said with a teetery gaze, “are a community college flunk-out.” She sucked on her cigarette and then stared at it as if it were playing a practical joke on her.
“Another parable from the Book of Ruthless,” Bobbie said and left for his room.
To which Ceci came shortly after bundling Dee to bed.
She knocked at his door. It cracked open. No TV.
“Well, this is a surprise,” Bobbie said.
“You all packed?”
He swung the door wide. “Just about. The car’s loaded except for what I’ll need in the morning.”
The room looked transient like the rumpled guy at the reading. “That was very nice of you to come to the reading. I mean even if it was a debacle.”
Bobbie said, “It seemed like the right thing to do. I mean, I thought that you might need a hand.”
“As it turns out,” Ceci said.
“Do you want to come in?” Bobbie asked.
“I’d like to spend the night,” Ceci said.
And she did.
In the morning Ceci wrapped herself in a chrysalis of Bobbie’s top sheet. “I am going to miss you,” she said.
“Word,” Bobbie said, leaning over a box. He snapped off some strapping tape with his teeth.
“Why do you dislike us so much?” Ceci asked.
Bobbie turned around, propped his glasses on his forehead and blinked. “I don’t dislike you. I just think that you are sad.”
“I guess we are,” Ceci said. She rose from the bed and embraced him quickly. “Years from now when you ta
lk about this, and you will, be kind.”
She did not tell Bobbie, “Laura in Tea and Sympathy.” It was one of her favorites, a great scene, which she popped in from time to time at Classic Video when it was slow. She did not tell Bobbie that before he left, and she didn’t tell him about the snapshot either, the one which she was looking at now of Janis Joplin, born in 1943 when “Mairzy Doats” was a hit song and the kids jitterbugged in Zoot suits, dead in 1970, a heroin overdose in the Landmark Hotel, the year of the Kent State murders, the year when the kids danced naked to “Aquarius.” Janis is grinning, wearing sunglasses, an askew straw hat trying to tame her brambles of hair, and she is holding the hand of a small girl, maybe ten years old, who is staring, round-eyed and solemn, at the camera. The girl is wearing an Empire dress with a big bow, ankle socks, and Mary Janes. Her shoes are highly polished and the bow in her curls, pertly tied, looks somehow hopeful.
Cry Baby.
How To Stop Loving Someone
A Twelve Step Program
HERE’S HOW YOU DO IT.First, fall in love with someone. Anyone will do. A) the clerk in the convenience store, B) that man caressing a can of Save the Dolphins tuna, C) that long drink of water in the nubby Irish sweater eyeballing himself on the closed circuit TV. Select one. Preferably C). Send him yellow roses, Godiva chocolates, cashmere sweaters. Bake him pies. They prefer pumpkin. Get his phone number. Not necessarily in that order.
Second, talk on the phone. Be peppy. Make him laugh. At all costs, be interesting. More important, find him fascinating even when he talks about his skiing accident, his car accident, his socks, his war and love stories. Try to forget that the latter two equate; it will come in handy later.You will have a lot to forget.
Third, baste yourself and roast in a tanning booth. Do not get melanoma or wrinkles. Lose ten pounds and don’t let them find you. Order lingerie from brown papered catalogues and wear it no matter how uncomfortable you find the thongs, and laces, and lace. Wear pearls without irony, heels without disclaimers or discomfort. Buy dresses that you think he would buy for you if he bought you dresses. He won’t. Let this be your mantra: if you want it (flowers, dresses, earrings, cute cards, pillow talk, reassurance, self esteem) do not wait. Not for a second. Run, don’t walk. Jaywalk, jay-run, jay-hell-for-leather-at-breakneck speed hoof it to ensure it for yourself at the nearest florist/dress shop/jewelry store/ Holiday Inn seminar/ or self-help shelf in your local bookstore. The binding of love after forty is cracked and reads in Helvetica gilt font: DO IT YOURSELF. So do.