by Nancy Star
“The originals is the four of us. I mean the three of us,” Callie corrected herself. “Me, you, and Mimi. The provision is if we can’t agree, we have to donate the house to the land bank. The lawyer has the papers. Donation isn’t what Mom wanted. She didn’t think you’d want it, either.”
“Are you listening, Gingie?” Mimi said. “If we can’t agree, we’re supposed to donate the house to some bank. So pull it together. Your mother’s dying wish is for us to go to the house one last time to toss her ashes. Are you going to ignore your mother’s last wish?”
Satisfying her dead mother’s wish was not something Ginger cared about. But she did care about Callie. Callie, who was sitting across from her now, finally, after all these years back home. Ginger did not want Callie to leave again. “You want us to come to the Vineyard to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. We will.”
“What a relief.” Callie smiled and there it was, the feature that had been hiding, the big smile of the cutest Tangle.
While Mimi shot back another drink, Ginger called the funeral home to change the arrangements.
The funeral home manager was like a petulant child. “Don’t you want mommy to be treated with respect?” But Ginger stood her ground.
“They’ll keep her for tonight,” she reported when she was done. “In the morning we’ll have to stop over and sign a release. Then we have to go to the cremation society to sign papers there. The cremation society will arrange to pick her up.” Her phone chimed—a text. She hurried out of the room, reading as she walked. It was Richard.
I’m home waiting for you. Where are you?
Richard had stopped texting months ago after he realized that even though Ginger knew Julia did not have a phone, she still got excited every time she got a text. Excited, and then disappointed. He must be worried to have broken his own rule.
She quickly typed back: I’m with Mimi and Callie!! Be there soon. She returned to the kitchen and told her sisters, “I have to go home. Do you want to come with me, Callie? Spend the night?”
“Thank you, but I’d prefer to stay here.”
“You should come,” Ginger said. “It’ll be more comfortable.” Then she saw it, the slight motion of her sister shrinking back as if to avoid being crushed. Was that what Ginger did? Make people feel in danger of getting crushed? “Never mind. If you want to stay here, that’s fine. Mimi and I will swing by in the morning. We’ll come early. We can figure out the rest after we all get a good night’s sleep.” She hurried off before she could make the mistake of pressing her sister again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
On the day the new people moved in, Glory made the announcement that she was going back to work as a personal shopper at her old store, the place where she worked when she was first married. “Part-time,” she explained as she portioned out the Coca-Cola chicken: white meat for Solly and Ginger, thigh for Mimi, drumstick for Callie, wings for herself.
“Part-time is better than no-time,” Solly said, going along. They rarely fought anymore because now Solly just went along.
“The man who runs the department, Mr. Freeze, says there’s a good chance they’ll need me full-time by the holidays.” Glory crossed her fingers. “Let’s hope.” Solly crossed his fingers too, but Ginger didn’t think he looked like he had any hope at all.
After dinner they moved to the den to watch TV. Tonight it was Laugh-In. As usual, minutes after the show began they all heard the gaspy snore that signaled Solly had fallen asleep in his chair. Glory got up and beckoned for Ginger to follow her to the kitchen.
“I’ve got news,” she said when they were alone. “Great news. You’re going to be a mother’s helper after all.”
For a second, Ginger allowed herself the thought that a miracle had occurred, that the new people were gone and Evelyn was back with Thomas, who needed more watching than ever.
Glory put an end to her reverie. “I mean for me. What do you say to being a mother’s helper for your own mother? Is that a good idea or what?”
Ginger concentrated hard on putting feeling in her eyes, specifically the feeling that this was the best news ever in the history of the world. “It’s a great idea!”
“You’re my peach, you know that? Now, you’re going to have to keep a very close eye on Mimi. I swear that girl lives to get into trouble. But she only does it for attention, so you have to try and ignore her, okay?”
Ginger had no clue how that was supposed to work, keeping a close eye on Mimi while also ignoring her, but she wanted to stay a peach, so she nodded as if the task was clear.
“Callie is another story. With her, you’re going to have to be patient. She’s going through a phase.”
“What kind of phase?”
“A phase is a phase. What more can I say?” She sat down and motioned for Ginger to sit beside her. There were five chairs around the table now. Ginger didn’t know where the sixth one went. It disappeared one night while she was sleeping, and in the morning when the sisters paused to figure out where to sit in the new configuration, Glory blurted out, “Enough with the assigned seats. Loosen up. Anything goes.”
“We’re in this together, kiddo,” Glory told her now. “You and me.” She laid her cool palm atop Ginger’s hand, but only for a brief moment. Her tone changed to all business. “Okay, Pinocchio. We got to get our stories straight. If Callie doesn’t feel like talking and someone asks what’s wrong with her, what do you say?”
Ginger took a chance. “It’s just a phase?” She could see that was wrong. “I mean, I’ll say, ‘Nothing.’” This time her mother cocked her head slightly, so Ginger knew she was on the right track. “I’ll say, ‘Nothing’s wrong with Callie. What’s wrong with you?’”
Glory laughed so hard it woke up Solly, who rushed into the kitchen to find out what was wrong.
“What do you mean wrong? Everything’s great. It’s a new day, Solly. Change is in the air.” She stood up. “Now, if you two will excuse me, I’ve got a theater group meeting to get to.” She made a slow exit and when she was gone, the room filled up with a familiar smell. Change might be in the air outside, but inside it was still onions.
Mr. Freeze’s prediction came true. By early December, Glory was hired full-time. By the end of January she was named Personal Shopper of the Week, a title she held on to for months. This incarnation of her mother, the Glory who spent all day fussing over strangers, was a huge improvement over the previous one, the Glory who stayed in bed, or the one before that, the Glory who picked fights with Solly. Most nights now the family ate together in peace. Instead of Glory berating Solly for telling stories about his dull day, she regaled them with tales of her day: how she’d eased customers into sweater sets and miniskirts they swore they had no interest in trying on. How she won them over with compliments, easy to do, she explained, because she paid attention to what they said and what they wanted.
Audrey Hepburn would kill to have your bust, she’d tell one and to another she’d say, You sure you’re not Julie Christie’s younger sister? To win over her colleagues, she proposed department competitions, and when Mr. Freeze put her in charge of picking out prizes, she was careful not to win all the time. “Sometimes it’s better to let someone else win,” she confessed to her family over dinner. “People get very put out if I win three months in a row.”
But win she did. A handbag or cardigan for herself, a hat or cashmere socks for Solly. The girls did well too: one or the other finding a surprise—either boxed or wrapped in tissue paper—on her pillow, a wool kilt, an argyle vest, a pair of white lace-up boots lined with fake fur.
There were occasional complaints. The other personal shoppers were cliquey. They didn’t always appreciate her advice. They begrudged her talent for closing a sale. “What do they want me to do when someone requests me? Should I tell the customer no?”
For Ginger, listening to a little bellyaching was a small price to pay for the freedom that came with Glory’s job. Now, between he
r mother’s work and her theater group, she was hardly ever home.
But her father did not seem pleased. “Again you’re going out? For one night, you can’t stay in?”
“Wake up, Solly. The old days are over and good riddance to them. You know what Gloria Steinem says.” Gloria Steinem had replaced Ivan the Director as the most quoted person at the table. “‘American children suffer from too much mother and not enough father.’”
Ginger thought if her father had a choice, he’d vote to bring back fortune-cookie Ivan from the dead, rather than listen to fortune-cookie Gloria Steinem. But he didn’t have a choice about this, or about anything. Far as she could tell, the amount of unhappiness in the house remained unchanged. It was just distributed differently. Glory bustled about practically beaming with delight while Solly napped or simmered in his chair.
The reason for his bad mood, according to her mother, was the toy business was in a slump. But since the slump seemed to have hit Solly’s business alone, Ginger came up with another theory. The problem, as she saw it, was her father had stopped selling what he called “dumb toys.” Dumb toys, she figured out, was code for any toy meant for a boy. Her father simply could no longer bear to be around Matchbox Superfast car sets, Power Play tabletop hockey, Moon Missile kits, or Skittle Pool. If her mother had been paying attention, if she was at least around, she might have pointed out these toys were not just for boys. Girls liked to play Skittle Pool and to build Moon Missiles. Look at Callie. She still liked lining up her stuffed animals and pretending to feed them, but she’d added the Matchbox cars she’d inherited from her brother into her make-believe games, giving her stuffed dogs lifts across the room to visit each other. Ginger now had to constantly leap up and kick the cars under the bed when she heard her father’s footsteps in the hall. Callie remained oblivious but Ginger knew, if Solly saw those cars, he’d scoop them up and throw them out and no amount of moping would bring them back.
But Glory was not around much, and when she was around, she preferred the conversation to be about things like how few women looked good in harem pants.
Callie started wandering that spring. So while Solly was at work not selling dumb toys and Glory was convincing mothers-of-the-bride not to be afraid of wearing color, Ginger spent her afternoons walking the neighborhood searching for her sister. She quickly learned Callie’s favorite hiding places: neighbors’ yards, particularly those fenced-in for dogs.
Mrs. Budney was the first to complain. “Yesterday, your sister rang my bell,” she told Ginger one afternoon. “Wanted to walk my dog. I told her, my dog died six months ago. Today she came back and asked if she could walk my cat. I don’t have a cat. Is your mother home?”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean to bother you,” Ginger said. She didn’t admit that hearing this was good news. At home, Callie had gone back to giving everyone the silent treatment. Bothering neighbors meant at least she was talking to someone. But Ginger knew enough to apologize. “I’m really sorry. My mom is at work, but if you want you can come back tonight.”
She didn’t expect Mrs. Budney to take her up on her suggestion but that night, right before dinner, she glanced out the window and saw their neighbor coming up the front walk.
“For god sake,” Glory said after Ginger filled her in. “All right. What’s done is done. Get that guilty look off your face. That’s not going to help things.”
Ginger tried her best to get the guilt off her face.
“That’s worse. Try looking blank. Can you make yourself go blank?” Glory demonstrated a blank face, which seemed to make her soften. “It’s going to be okay, kiddo. We can handle this.” They were collaborators now. “You’ve got a little to learn, that’s all. So watch and listen. Listening is key.” She brushed the creases out of her camel-colored skirt and opened the door right as Mrs. Budney was about to ring the bell. This seemed to unnerve the woman, and Ginger wondered if that was the point.
“Mrs. Budney,” Glory sang out. “It’s been too long.” And there it was, the change in her face, her frown lines gone and her internal light—it really was if she had a light inside—switched to bright. “Come on, come in. How’ve you been?”
“Very well, thank you.” Mrs. Budney didn’t ask how Glory was. Ginger had noticed this, that people no longer asked her mother how she was. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Bother? What bother? Come in. Have some tea.”
“No, thank you. I’m here about your daughter.” Her eyes flitted to Ginger. “The young one.” She went on to recount how Callie asked to walk her dead dog and her nonexistent cat.
“Oh dear.” Glory’s frown line pulsed back and then vanished. “Sounds disturbing.”
“It was.” Mrs. Budney lifted her chin and Ginger watched as her mother, noticing the movement, echoed it, chin rising to the same angle.
“I know what loss feels like,” Glory said. “And it doesn’t matter what kind. Loss is loss. You loved that dog. You and your husband walked him all the time.” Glory noticed a slight change in Mrs. Budney’s face and corrected herself. “Of course, you were the main walker.” Mrs. Budney nodded. Glory nodded too. She went on to ask how long they’d had the dog and how old the dog was when he died, and when Mrs. Budney described how the dog’s arthritis affected his gait, Glory rubbed her own hand as if she could feel the dead dog’s pain in her fingers. Before long, they were at the kitchen table sipping the tea the neighbor hadn’t wanted, and by the end of the dazzling performance, Mrs. Budney was considering a proposal that they chip in and get a dog together.
“Would that be insane?” Glory asked, laughing at her own idea. “Two neighbors, sharing a dog? Joint custody? Obviously, Callie would take care of the dog after school—she really wants a dog—but during the day, I’m not home. That’s why we can’t get a dog.” She paused. “Ever since last summer.” She cast her eyes to her lap. “I work now.”
“I’ll take care of it during school,” Mrs. Budney volunteered. “I don’t work.”
The next thing Ginger knew, the two women were making plans to go to Connecticut to visit a beagle breeder who Glory said got first place at the Westminster Dog Show two years in a row. “Ever watch that?” she asked Mrs. Budney. “I try and watch every year.”
As soon as Mrs. Budney left, a trail of cookie crumbs marking her path to the door, Ginger asked when the dog show was on. “I’ve never seen it. Can I watch it with you sometime? Or is it on when I’m at school?”
“What are you talking about? How do I know when it’s on? Anyway, I don’t have time to discuss dogs. I’ve got to make a fruit basket for that Buddinski before she starts bad-mouthing your sister up and down the block.” Fruit baskets were one of Glory’s solutions for handling prickly people. She modeled them after baskets she saw in catalogues, but hers had lots of crumpled tissue paper on the bottom so they looked abundant, even when there were only a few pieces of fruit.
Mrs. Budney and Glory never did go on a trip to see the breeder in Connecticut or anywhere else. But Ginger did have to take Callie over to deliver a fruit basket and apologize, and when they returned from their mission, Ginger got a stern lecture about keeping Callie in sight after school from now on.
Keeping Callie in sight at all times was a challenge. She seemed allergic to staying inside. When Mimi offered to share the job of bodyguard, Ginger accepted. It made sense, four eyes being better than two. It didn’t take long for her to realize what a mistake that was. Adding Mimi’s eyes only made things worse. Mimi had all kinds of ideas that didn’t work out well. There was the misguided walk to town, which ended with them all getting kicked out of Woolworth’s for making a mess of the puzzle department, and after that, the failed attempt at keeping Callie happy by showing her how to climb the oak tree on the front lawn outside their house.
“You’ll get a great view of the whole neighborhood,” Mimi had promised her.
That it turned out Callie’s ankle was strained, but not broken, made little difference to Glory. “Yo
u’re letting me down, Gingie,” she said, after calling her into her room. “I thought you were responsible. Was I wrong?”
“No.” Ginger debated how much blame to give to Mimi. “It’s just, Callie won’t listen. She barely talks.” She could read in her mother’s face that this had been a mistake to say. Before she could take it back, Mimi ran in to join their discussion.
“I know what the problem is,” she said. “The reason Callie doesn’t like to talk is because of what she saw. Right?”
Glory cocked her head. “What did she see?”
“I don’t know.” Mimi looked like she was regretting what she said. “She saw what she shouldn’t have seen.” She started to back out of the room, but Glory blocked her.
“What are you talking about?”
Mimi surrendered. “It’s about what she saw last summer. When she was with you and Charlie. At the hospital.” She shrugged. “That’s what people say.”
“Which people?” Glory sounded more curious than angry.
“My teacher. The lady down the block. The mailman. Everyone. Don’t know what she saw, but whatever it was she shouldn’t have seen it. What was it? What did she see?”
The color seeped out of Glory’s face. “I never should have taken her to that horror show of a hospital.” She sat on her bed and seemed to deflate. “You can’t imagine.” Ginger and Mimi sat down on either side of her and leaned in to buck her up. “If I told you what happened, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I would believe you,” Ginger volunteered. “I always believe you,” by which she meant, she always tried.
Her mother shook her head. “No. I’m not supposed to think about that.” Her spine straightened and her eyes came back to life. “And neither are you. Next time someone asks you what happened, or they want to know what’s wrong with your little sister, don’t respond. Put your fingers in your ears if you have to.” She plugged her ears. “You can even hum.” She hummed and tried to look lighthearted. Then she dropped her arms, got up, took her brush out of the drawer, and started counting. “One, two, three, four . . .” She slowly ran the bristles through her hair. “You know the best way to get your hair shiny, right? Brush a hundred times. A hundred times a day.”