Which was the hardest part of playing games, the part I didn’t particularly cotton to, this having to keep one’s brilliance all to one’s self. Not that I would’ve wanted in a million years to be like Betty Harris, yakking people up and boring them silly, and being so dense as to not even know I was doing it. No, what I really wanted was to beat everybody at their own games, but I wanted to do it nicely, like Papa always did. And then I wanted to tell my opponents I’d been on to them since their opening moves. Not to be snotty.
But just because I could.
My mother’s most prized possession was an upright piano she’d bought secondhand. She played beautifully, self-taught, and on those real hot Sacramento nights when we threw the whole house open and let in the smell of jasmine, I sat on Papa’s lap, on our old mohair couch, head against his chest, watching my pretty mother smile and laugh; listening to her music, to Aunt Rose leading our company in singing off-key, and to my grandfather’s heartbeat, taking in deep gulps of his smell, content as if I had good sense.
Looking back, I can’t help wondering if any part of me had sensed that contentment was fickle, coming and going at whim.
I don’t remember the exact night my second daddy joined in on the music, blowing his trumpet, accompanying Mother on piano. I called him Uncle Francis back then. I called all Mother and Aunt Rose’s friends Uncle or Aunt Something-or-other. I still have snapshots from that time, the kind that look as if they’ve been edged with pinking shears, and there’s one of me with Francis, taken after he stopped being my uncle and became my daddy. I know it was taken before Francis became my daddy, because we’re both smiling.
Which meant Francis’ nerves were not yet shot.
Papa loved teasing my grandmother until she hollered; and although he told her stories like he did with me, the stories he told her had more cuss words in them. Grandma, though, could keep up with Papa in the cussing department. When Papa begged Grandma not to smoke, she told him to shut the fuck up, that if she didn’t smoke she’d only get fatter. She was a nurse who worked the hospital graveyard, so with her patients mostly asleep, she wasn’t on her feet much—and Grandma was gargantuan, I’ll give you that. Fat as Papa was slender—but the nice part about being gargantuan, I thought, was that the skin on a fat person’s face stayed near as fine and smooth as Bean’s butt. Fat people didn’t get wrinkly like regular people.
My aunt, who worked in a nightclub, wasn’t nearly as fat as Grandma, but she had Grandma’s same smooth, lovely skin. And when Grandma and Aunt Rose sat at our kitchen table in those early morning hours, in nightgowns, unwinding after working all night, before going to bed to sleep the day away, hair up in pin curls, big bosoms hanging loose and low, playing cards, smoking and hollering, my mother was the one who stood out. Which wasn’t just because my mother was reed-slender with nice high bosoms, or that she was invariably dressed to the nines—and I mean invariably—or that her long dark hair was always just so. No, it was because my mother had beautiful olive-colored skin instead of Grandma and Aunt Rose’s alabaster skin, and she had a look: “Like majesty,” Papa described it, or as Grandma put it, like Mother would prefer choking to death on her own spit before hollering. Mother didn’t actually say she was Queen of the Nile (what Aunt Rose called her): she didn’t have to. Mother’s disdain for the way we lived had a whole life of its own, needing no words, reverberating throughout our kitchen louder than any yelling, shining straight through those fancy outfits of hers she sewed together late into the night.
“Diana,” Grandma would sniff between pinochle hands, cigarette dangling from her lips, this salvo saved for right after Mother was out the door for work, “is a lady. Her shit don’t stink.”
My mother was also a great magazine reader, but Grandma and Aunt Rose read dirty books (Mother said), like “Tropic of Cancer,” and Mother said I was not to go anywhere near their reading material, nor was I to say “damn” just because Grandmother and Aunt Rose did. It was a poor choice of words. And neither was I to go outside without getting dressed first. Until Mother laid down that particular law, it had never occurred to me that getting dressed was a prerequisite for the day. Papa hadn’t mentioned it, and Grandma and Aunt Rose thought nothing of being in bathrobes when people dropped by. In fact, my grandmother was never fully dressed, with brassiere, stockings and shoes on, until she put on her starched nurse’s uniform for work, just as I was going to bed. But ladies, Mother whispered behind our bedroom door, did not get their days and nights mixed up even if it was—no, especially if it was work-related—and neither did they entertain in bathrobes with no lipstick on and hair up in pin curls and bosoms jiggling. They did not smoke standing up, or, God forbid, while walking. They did not pick their teeth with toothpicks, laugh loudly, or drink whiskey out of jelly glasses the way Aunt Rose did, or talk about men all the time, also like Aunt Rose. It said so in those magazines Mother read aloud to me and Bean, as if Bean understood any of this, the same magazines that stipulated the arts of keeping one’s voice well-modulated, the wearing of hats and gloves, what constituted attractive color schemes and table settings, and how many fingertip towels were to be in a well-stocked linen closet. I was pretty sure we didn’t have a linen closet, let alone fingertip towels, but I thought my mother the smartest thing on God’s green earth, knowing so much.
“Not to say your grandmother and Aunt Rose aren’t the real McCoy,” Mother would say, tossing her head and making her dark hair ripple. “Because they are the real McCoy, Elyse. But they show a certain lack of rearing. Now don’t ever tell them I said that,” Mother warned. “It would only hurt Grandma and Aunt Rose’s feelings and that’s not the point. The point is, Elyse, we are not trash.”
My mother told me she’d met Francis before he met her. When I said that sounded silly, Mother said it wasn’t, cross her heart. Francis Grayson had been the country’s most famous bandleader, and everyone in the world had known who he was.
“Uncle Francis, er, Daddy Francis … was famous? Like Santa Claus, you mean?”
“Just ‘Daddy,’ Elyse. Not Daddy Francis. And, yes, pretty much like Santa Claus. Your daddy was very, very famous. Daddy was a star, Elyse. A huge star.”
One night, Mother said, she and Aunt Rose had gone to see Daddy’s orchestra play at the Memorial Auditorium, and it was there, after the show, that they’d been introduced. Properly introduced, Mother stressed. Daddy had invited her and Aunt Rose to dinner, but something had come up and instead of dinner, Daddy had left town.
“Well, then, how’d you and Daddy meet again?”
Some years later, Mother explained, Daddy had joined the Air Force to avoid the draft and he’d been sent to the air base in Sacramento, where, coincidentally, Mother worked. “One night Rose and I went to a dance on the base—oh, this was a year or so after your father …” Mother’s unfinished sentence hung in thin air. She always got sad at the mention of my real father—but she pulled herself together. Her eyes even went dreamy. “Your daddy looked at me, and I looked at him and we both knew. The music started, our song. Your daddy held his arms out and we began to dance. It was glorious! Oh, Elyse, I mean to always dance!”
“Was Daddy very handsome?” I asked, sure we were playing fairytales. My mother was excellent at fairytales. She’d even given me, her idealized firstborn, what she considered a princess name: Elyse Aurora Bowden. Which had to be hard on poor Bean Bowden, though Bean never said so. But that was my sister for you: Bean never was much for talking, or games.
Mother had succeeded in telling me a serious story once, and it was the one about Daddy not being my real father come home. Which of course Papa had already told me. My real father’s name was Stephen Eric, and he was never coming home. Stephen Eric was Bean’s real father, too. But Stephen Eric had died just before Bean had been born, of leukemia. My big, fat grandma was Stephen Eric’s mother, and Aunt Rose was his sister.
“Which makes Grandma my mother-in-law and stepmother,” Mother said. “But Papa is my real father. Do
you understand, Elyse? Your grandparents were married to other people before they married each other. Grandma and Papa got married when Stephen Eric and Rose and I were teenagers.” Mother had kissed my forehead with great fanfare, as if I were the most precious thing in the world, even more precious than those princesses in the fairytales she spoke of, who lived in secret silver places that held no loss.
“But … what about your real mother?” I’d asked. “Did she die like my real father died?”
“No. She … left. When I was a little girl. Papa raised me by himself, until he married Grandma. Look, Elyse, some things are unpleasant—there’s no point talking about them.”
I’d no problem with Papa and Grandma having gotten married; that seemed pretty regular, my grandparents being married to each other. And I’d no memory of my tragic real father, although I imagined I must’ve missed Stephen Eric very much when he died. I imagined him as being just like Papa, and I imagined him hating having to leave me behind. But I also imagined it easing Stephen Eric somewhat, knowing he was leaving me and my mother and the new baby in good hands, to my grandparents and Aunt Rose. And, really, it had worked out so well, the timing, what with Papa just retired from the railroad and looking for a new place to hang his and Grandma’s hats, and me and Mother newly alone in the house Stephen Eric had bought just before dying.
“Was Daddy Francis very handsome?” I asked again. “When you met him?” I knew the answer. I only asked because Mother liked the question. “Except for his shorter ear, I mean.”
“Just ‘Daddy.’ And, yes, your daddy was the handsomest man in the world. And there’s nothing wrong with your daddy’s ear. Please don’t bring that up again. Now, Elyse, there’s something else we need to talk about. I think it best if we keep talk of your real father to ourselves. Otherwise, where we’re going, people might think I’ve been divorced and, well … divorce is unacceptable—”
“But—”
“Besides, having to explain about your real father makes me sad. And it makes your daddy feel funny. Francis Grayson is your father now,” she added with authority. “He’s letting you use his name and I expect you’ll show the proper gratitude. We owe your daddy everything, getting us out of this hell-hole.”
I looked around. I didn’t understand “hell-hole.” Our house was colorful, and Papa had worked hard papering everything with yellow roses. But I did understand these two things: divorce was terrible, like getting the mumps. And my mother wanted me to swear never to tell about Stephen Eric being my real father. She wanted me to pretend to the world that Daddy Francis was my real father. Which was fine enough: it took nothing away from me, living a fairytale to put a smile on my whisper-soft mother’s beautiful face. In fact, I felt benevolent granting Mother her wish, and so I sealed Stephen Eric inside a place in my heart, in a new and hastily structured place reserved for safekeeping rare, unused things, things too important to toss away.
“You never know,” Papa always said, “the things you’ll find a use for. Never, ever throw anything away, mein Liebes. Never, ever, ever.”
Another thing Papa always said was that I wasn’t picky enough about people, the way I went right up to strangers and sat myself down in their laps. He didn’t say this critical-like, because Papa was never critical, just matter-of-fact. Although at the start of things, Francis had been merely an afterthought, another face, another uncle, in Mother and Aunt Rose’s crowd, he’d let me sit on his lap whenever he’d visited, and he’d made Mother laugh and show her dimples and dip her head so that her dark hair rippled, and so of course I’d accepted Francis, no questions asked.
It was a whirlwind thing. One minute Francis was one of my fly-by-night uncles, and the next he had Mother in Reno, marrying her. He moved into our house and made Papa turn quiet, and Bean and I, who’d shared a room with Mother, sleep on the living room couch instead, wedged together like sardines. He was staying. A month later, my new daddy got orders. The Air Force said we had to live in Biloxi, Mississippi. I didn’t understand that my grandparents and Aunt Rose weren’t coming with me to Biloxi. I didn’t understand even when Papa helped Francis load the car with all our things and none of his or Grandma’s or Aunt Rose’s. I didn’t understand until Papa hugged me tight and his voice turned shaky.
“Süsses Mädchen, you will be brave. A year is not a long time. And you will have grand adventure in Mississippi. You will remember everything and tell me of your grand adventure, nein?” I gave a little cry, suddenly understanding.
Papa said quickly, “Listen, Elyse, nothing is black and white in this world, even though we try very hard to make it so. Verstehst du?”
“No,” I moaned.
Papa tried again. “Life is like a ship, Elyse. Sometimes it blows forward, sometimes back. But just when you think your life is sinking, someone rows into the harbor and tosses oranges onto your deck.”
I stopped crying. “Oranges?”
“When I was a boy coming to America, nearly everyone on our ship got sick. We weren’t allowed to dock. It looked bad for us. But when the other German settlers got word of our predicament, they rowed out, bringing bags of oranges with them. They tossed the oranges onto our deck.”
“The oranges made you better?”
“Viel besser. And most of us got well. We made it to shore. And you will make it too, Elyse. Now, chin up. There’s a brave girl.”
I hiccoughed, trying not to cry. Grandma said she wanted to hold me, so Papa passed me to her and I put my cheek against one of Grandma’s arms and watched my tears roll down the notched white fat of it.
“Well, that’s it,” I heard Daddy say for what had to be the billionth time. He rechecked the ropes that held our tarp-covered suitcases and boxes to the top of the car, also for the billionth time, then held out his arms. Grandma handed me over. My immediate future didn’t include choice. “I’ll do right by her,” Daddy promised. “And Bean, too.”
I looked at Papa, beseeching him, but his narrowed eyes were on Daddy, not me, trying to see through Daddy’s “dense and complicated.” I could tell Daddy saw Papa’s disapproving look, because I turned my head just in time to see Daddy’s lips go thin. Thinking Daddy might cry because Papa had hurt his feelings without meaning to, I instinctively put a hand on Daddy’s cheek. “Daddy—” I started, but Mother, using her impatient voice, interrupted, telling Daddy to put me down.
I watched longingly out the back window of the car, until Aunt Rose waving her white hankie disappeared from sight, until my fat grandmother was reduced to a mere speck, until Papa was non-existent—and then I wailed. I wailed with a vengeance. I wailed like nobody had ever wailed before. I keened, rocking back and forth, arms clasped tight around my middle, as if to hold my broken pieces together.
“Let her cry,” Daddy said tenderly some time later, after I’d shuddered into exhausted mewling and Mother had begun sighing her exasperated sigh. Daddy patted her hand. “It’ll work out, Diana. It’s for the best. You’ll see.”
It was then, at Daddy’s tender tone—a gentle man’s voice, a voice that led me to believe he understood—that my heart gravitated toward Daddy and I began to love him, really love him, even while still loving Papa; and it was also then that I resolved to have a grand adventure, not yet understanding that Mississippi is a world apart from California, and that missing people, one in particular, their smells and cussing and a hollering that sounds like love, is not a straightforward thing. Missing someone is a crazy-quilt kind of thing: acceptance one piece, but right above the acceptance patch is another patch, this one made of grief, plus two more grief patches over at the side rising up to slap you down—generally right after you’ve got yourself convinced you’ve figured out the gist of life’s pattern.
And neither did I understand, then, that men could be so different from one another. It took me a long time to work that one out. Probably until Aidan Madsen, the man who brought me oranges and books, was firmly entrenched in my life. Which was about the same time I understood that the
crazy patches on my quilt were outnumbered by the saner ones.
And that I would survive.
***
I didn’t find out about Daddy’s nerve problem until our second day on the road. It was very hot, but not the kind of hot like back home in Sacramento, where there are lots of nice shade trees. This hot was unrelenting, and it was humid. Daddy had to stop the car every now and then so the radiator wouldn’t boil over, and waiting for the car to cool he paced and smoked and chewed his lower lip, even snapping at Mother once, making her cry. I wanted to cry, too. I’d never been so hot and miserable, but because Bean was quiet, and Mother was telling her what a good girl she was (plus, I’d decided I now loved Daddy, so I wasn’t looking for his disapproval), I pegged crying for nothing but tagging me as the brat. Our only hope was conversation, so we could all forget just how awful the heat was and get on with a grand adventure the way Papa wanted us to.
I felt sorriest for Daddy, the way his wet shirt clung to his back, and him looking so worried about the radiator, so I asked if it was true he’d forgotten Mother until just before they got married, and he said no, it wasn’t. Mother had been pulling my leg. He’d remembered Mother clear as anything because who could ever forget someone so snotty? And the reason he’d canceled dinner with Mother and Aunt Rose that first night was because of an emergency. When I asked what the emergency had been, Daddy said I shouldn’t try talking to him anymore because it made his nerves feel shot.
I was crushed and uncertain again.
That night in our motel room, while Mother was giving me and Bean baths, and Daddy was outside pacing, Mother confided that Daddy’s nerves were stretched a little thin and that it would behoove me to keep that in mind.
“It’s not the heat or the driving so much, I don’t think,” Mother said, bending over the tub and soaping my back. “The truth is, your daddy has a sadness deep inside him, and sometimes … well, sometimes that sadness just comes out, and he gets a little testy.”
The Angry Woman Suite Page 2