Original Sins

by Lisa Alther

  “Let’s face it, honey,” said Bonnie. “It’s all gone to your head. And if your friends don’t tell you, who will?”

  Sally flounced out. After all she was Sally Tatro, and they were just a bunch of dinky old homemakers sitting around a kitchen table with paring knives. The nerve! She’d used her concepts and her daddy’s money to try to give them all an outlet from the tedium of their dreary housebound lives, and now they were turning on her.

  In the upcoming weeks they refused to appear on the show. And since Sally herself had been too busy giving interviews and answering fan mail to come up with any new ideas, she had to repeat some of her old ones, like the necklace of dried beans and pumpkin seeds. When viewers wrote in complaining about the lack of new material, she realized she had no choice but to offer the group whatever it would take to gain their cooperation. This turned out to be equal shares in the royalties and fees. Sally was horrified. There was just no justice left in this world.

  “And we want to take turns being hostess on the show,” Bonnie insisted relentlessly.

  “But it’s called ‘The Sally Tatro Kitchen Craft Show’!”

  “Well, we’ll just have to think of a new name, won’t we?”

  Sally saw her life collapsing around her like a house of cards. No longer would she be able to afford the babysitter and cleaning lady—or a new ranch house to put them in. Or the weekly hairdos at the beauty parlor. But she wouldn’t need any of these any longer either because she wouldn’t be a star. The flow of fan letters would dry up, reporters would no longer besiege the house. Check-out girls and telephone operators would cease to recognize her name. It was too awful. But she had no choice. She’d run out of material.

  Jed was already in bed when she got home. She began weeping. He held her with reluctance. “It’s all over, Jed,” she wailed. “I’m finished.”

  A look of suspicious hope came into his eyes. “Whadaya mean?”

  “I’ve given up the show, Jed. For you and the children. I know I haven’t been doing right by you. But I’ll make it up to you, honey.”

  “No kidding?” He rolled on top of her and pumped her full of semen, while she renounced all thoughts of Mr. Hitchcock, station manager.

  She sat in her tiny living room watching on TV as Bonnie showed how to make mock cattails from corncobs. Mr. Hitchcock had reluctantly agreed to the new plan, once he grasped that the alternative was no kitchen craft show at all. Sally would be hostess a week every other month, but in between—nothing. She felt like the character in the kids’ fairy tale when the genie arrived and removed all the riches he’d previously bestowed. But over the long painful weeks she’d come to see that this was how it had to be. It had gone to her head. She’d betrayed the group. She’d neglected Jed, Joey, and Laura. The star she’d followed had turned to cinders. There was more to life than money and fame. She wasn’t sure what.

  She meant to make it all up to everybody. The house was now neat and clean, her meals were exciting again, the children’s clothes were ironed. Every day she did her hair and changed her clothes and put on makeup before Jed got home. Christmas was three months away, but she’d already finished her shopping and wrapping. And as penance for her folly, she was making a nativity scene. The stable was a large plastic Clorox bottle with one side cut out, and straw pasted all over it. The animals were made of corncobs and painted rocks. The manger was cups from an egg carton, and the baby Jesus was peanut shells wired together. Mary and Joseph and the wise men and shepherds were to be applehead dolls.

  But she had to confess that there was a hollowness to her life now, after those months of glamour. She looked around for her reflection larger than life in the eyes of others and found—nothing. Already they’d forgotten her. Once again she was just Jed’s wife. Laura’s and Joey’s mother. She’d tried so hard and come so far, and here she was right back where she’d started from.

  She sighed and carved on the apple that was to be Mary’s head. She’d never done a halo before and was managing to find some challenge in that. It could maybe be the topic of her next show.

  After Bonnie signed off, there was an announcement on the Homemakers’ News that nominations were being taken for the Mrs. Tennessee contest, which the General Appliance Housewares Division was sponsoring. Sally gathered it was similar to the Miss Tennessee contest but was for homemakers. The notice said that General Appliance, Inc., wanted to give recognition to the values of home and family, which had made America great and which were now under assault from within this great nation as well as from without. Sally had to admit that she herself had been a little lax about upholding these values in recent months. But she’d realized it and was reforming. Surely that counted for something?”

  “… volunteer work, motherhood, hobbies, hostessing … If you have a neighbor of outstanding ability in these fields, who you think should be considered for our contest, please write for information on how to nominate her—”

  Sally memorized the box number, then jumped up and wrote it down. After thinking it over, she wrote off for the information.

  Jed and the kids seemed to be flourishing under her efforts to atone for her neglect. Jed talked about maybe joining the Elks Club, and was speculating on the likelihood of being supervisor at the mill in a few years. At supper that night he was describing the machinations of his rivals. Joey and Laura explained their struggles on the playground. Sally listened to this with half an ear, the rest of her brain busy with the Mrs. Tennessee contest. If she was already functioning as an outstanding wife and mother and citizen, why not get recognition for these things? The trouble was, she hadn’t been able to think of how to go about asking someone to nominate her.

  For several days only a few fan letters straggled in. “Dear Sally, My son sleeps under an electric blanket. As he wets the bed, I’m scared to death he’ll electrocute himself. Any suggestions?” She threw them away without responding. She had to wean herself from the life of a celebrity. Sally Tatro was just an ordinary old homemaker again.

  Finally the brochure arrived. Mrs. Tennessee contestants competed in six categories: hostess, homemaker, church member, mother, community volunteer, and hobbyist. Sally decided she was weakest in the church member category. She went every week, but to Jed’s church, the Methodist one in the mill village. She’d never felt real involved. But she’d join the choir right away. The winner would go to the Mrs. America contest in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. There was a picture of last year’s Mrs. America, Brenda Gill of Des Moines, Iowa. Smiling tightly, she looked as though she had no upper lip and unusually long teeth. She said winning the contest had changed her life. She didn’t say how.

  That settled it. Sally took up a pen and filled in the nomination form for herself, signing it Dolores Lee Whittaker, a name that just popped into her head. She gave her parents’ address and warned her mother that any mail arriving for Dolores Lee Whittaker should be directed to her. Her mother was confused. “It has to do with a surprise for Jed. For Christmas,” Sally improvised. Dolores received a letter asking her to write an essay on why Sally Tatro should be Mrs. Tennessee, with reference to the six categories. Dolores wrote about Sally’s creative approach to homemaking, her devotion to her husband and children, her self-sacrifice on behalf of her community as Scheduling Chairman for the Candy Stripers, her original use of her free time in making a nativity scene from materials found around the house.

  A few days later Sally received a letter informing her of her nomination by “an admiring neighbor” for the Mrs. Tennessee contest. Showing it to Jed, she asked, “Why, who do you think it could be, honey?”

  “Nobody in this town, that’s for sure.”

  Her chin quavered. Couldn’t he tell how hard she was trying to do right? He thought she was a lousy homemaker? Well, it was just possible that people all across America might disagree with him before long.

  The Committee wrote saying they’d like to spend an evening observing her around her home. On the basis of these visits they’d pick
a certain number of homemakers from each region to come stay at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel in Nashville and compete in the Grand Ole Opry itself for the title of Mrs. Tennessee. The day they mentioned was only a week away, and Sally was swept with excitement and terror. She was almost ready—except for enlisting Jed’s cooperation. She decided he had to be out of the house that night. If he wasn’t, he’d insist on demonstrating how he could crumple a beer can with one hand. He’d belch at dinner and eat with his forearms resting on the table edge. He’d get into an argument with the Committee, or belittle Sally in front of them. If he wasn’t there, though, she could apologize for his absence, saying he was out of town on business, or had to work late, counting on her to keep the home fires burning, for him to return to when he could. She started right away trying to persuade him to work a double shift that evening.

  “I’m a foreman now. Don’t do that no more.”

  He and Hank had the hood up on the T-Bird under the floodlight out back. They hung suspended over the engine like surgeons over an open heart. Sally tripped out and said, “Don’t you boys want to go on a fishing trip or something?”

  They looked up at her. Jed said in a bemused voice, “It’s the middle of October.”

  Later, in bed, he asked, “Hey, what’s going on anyhow?”

  “Why don’t you go bowling straight from work next Thursday, darling? It’d save you a trip back here. It’s OK. We can get along without you for supper one night.”

  “What’re you up to, woman?”

  “Oh, all right, I’ll tell you! The Mrs. Tennessee Committee is going to be here all evening next Thursday. I know you don’t care much for all that stuff, and I was just trying to help you avoid it.”

  “Are you lying to me, Sally?”

  She looked at him with surprise.

  “Why do you really want me out of this house?”

  “I just told you, honey.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “Well, yes. Because it’s the truth.”

  “Shit, have your fucking meeting then. Don’t worry about me. I don’t need to come home after being on my feet all day. I can go wander the streets half the night.”

  “Never mind, Jed. Come home, honey. But please behave.”

  “Behave? Behave? Let’s face it, Sally, you’re ashamed of me. Always have been. I’m not good enough for you, am I? I’ve known it since high school, but I’ve tried to pretend it wasn’t so.”

  “It’s not that, Jed.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t think you much want me to be Mrs. Tennessee.”

  “Ah shit, be fucking Mrs. Tennessee, Sally. I don’t give a good goddam. Don’t worry about it. I’ll stay away next Thursday evening.

  “Thanks, hon. I’d do the same for you, you know.”

  “Hell, I don’t wanna be no Mrs. Tennessee.”

  The Contest Committee consisted of three wives of vice presidents in suits and heels and stockings. Sally showed them around the house and yard, wishing it was the ranch house in the development with the white pillars. She showed them her new method for rolling socks. She brought out her Candy Striper uniform and explained the rows of pins and bars and stars. She showed them her nativity scene in the bleach bottle, which was still under construction, and assured them it would be completed in time for the contest. She showed them her peach-pit window curtains. She told them how flattered she was that Dolores had nominated her, what an honor it was even to think about being the one chosen to uphold the standards that had made America great.

  Joey and Laura were being very good. Sally had told them she’d cut off their allowances and not let them watch “Charlie’s Angels” for an entire month if they uttered any sound other than “yes, ma’am” or “no, ma’am.” She put them to bed early, and the Committee watched as she sat on their bedsides and sang one of the lullabies she’d composed:

  “Hush, Mommy’s little larvae,/ Slumberland is so marvellous for good little children …”

  She felt really pleased when she heard one woman whisper, “I declare, what a cunning little song.”

  But if anything would get her to the Grand Ole Opry Hotel, she knew it was her dinner. It just so happened that her dishwasher was a General Appliance brand. She wrapped a mackerel in a square of aluminum foil. As the Committee watched in amazement, she placed the packet in the dishwasher and turned it on. As the machine ran through its cycle, she described how she began homemaking feeling intimidated by her appliances, as though she was nothing but an appendage made of flesh. But how over the years she made friends with her machines and even came to regard them as accomplices in this business of homemaking. By the time she finished, so had the dishwasher. She took out the packet and served them perfectly poached mackerel; pickled green beans and zucchini bread from Jed’s mother, which they thought Sally had made, an impression Sally didn’t correct; and lemon Jell-O and grapefruit segments molded in scooped-out grapefruit rinds whose edges she’d scalloped.

  Afterward they sat drinking coffee and admiring her candle holders made from the top halves of bleach bottles. One bottom half she’d turned into a basket and filled with dahlias, carnations, and lilies made from pink, yellow, blue, and white egg cartons. The Committee also commented admiringly on her meat-tray peacock plaque hanging on the wall above the table.

  The Committee started talking about having to go back to their motel to rest up for their visit to the next candidate the next day. “Now, we’ll be talking to some folks around town who’ve worked with you, Sally. The head of the Candy Stripers, people like that. You won’t mind, will you?”

  Sally hurriedly tried to recall what names she’d given them. Not Bonnie’s, she hoped.

  “… and of course we’d like to meet that nice Dolores Whittaker, who was kind enough to put us on to you …”

  “She’s out of town,” Sally assured them.

  “What a shame.”

  “Went to the Virgin Islands last week.”

  “… and of course we’re just so sorry to miss that nice husband of yours. But we’ll have a chance to meet him in Nashville, won’t we?”

  Sally beamed. So she’d be going to Nashville?

  Just then a siren sounded at the end of the street. It stopped in front of her house, the red light flashing through the window.

  “My goodness!” gasped the Committee.

  They heard shouts and running feet. Sally rushed to the door. Out by the curb two policemen held a man in a hammerlock. He wore a battered beer can hat low over his face.

  “But I live here,” he was insisting. “This is my house.”

  “Sure it is, buddy.”

  Another cop was walking up to the back door. He said to Sally, “Your neighbor saw this guy looking through your window. Called us. We’ll take him in. Don’t worry about a thing, ma’am.”

  “Sally, tell them it’s me,” Jed called faintly. Sally glanced behind her at the Committee seated around the table. She murmured, “Thank you so much, officer.”

  One of the women exclaimed, “Why, it’s just horrible what goes on these days. That’s why our contest is so important. We have to reaffirm decency in this nation once again, before all our values get eroded.”

  After the Committee left, Sally locked the doors. But when Jed got home from the police station, he kicked in the back door.

  “I’m just so sorry, honey,” she cooed. “We were right smack in the middle of our meal.”

  “Not half as sorry as you’re gonna be.” He clenched his fists.

  “But what were you doing sneaking around like a peeping Tom in the first place?”

  “Wanted to see who he was.”

  She studied her fingernails. “And did you, silly?”

  “Didn’t get a chance before them cops jumped me.”

  “Well, it wasn’t a man, darling. It was the Mrs. Tennessee Committee. Just like I told you.” Poor Jed. Just a great big baby. She went over and put her arms aroun
d him.

  “Sure it was.”

  “It was, honey.” She was starting to get alarmed. She’d never seen him like this.

  He shoved her across the room. She fell on the La-Z-Boy Lounger, fear on her face. “Please be quiet, darling. You’ll wake the children.”

  “It’s you I want to wake up, Sally. Don’t you see what you’re doing to me? Doing to us?”

  “But I’m not doing anything, honey.”

  “I thought it’d be different once you quit that goddam show.”

  “But it is different, Jed. Can’t you tell?”

  “Naw, it ain’t. You’re still pushing me and the kids away.”

  “But I’m not, honey. I’m devoting myself to you. Didn’t I get nominated for Mrs. Tennessee?”

  He kicked her in the ribs and began punching her.

  Sally coated her black eyes and bruises with pancake makeup. How would she explain her appearance to the Committee if they reappeared? She suspected one of her ribs was broken, but couldn’t risk publicity by going to the hospital while the Committee was still in town. Last night Jed had stormed out, leaving her in a whimpering heap on the floor. He hadn’t returned. She guessed she deserved this for neglecting him all those months. But she’d paid her dues. Once was enough. Now that she’d reformed, if he did this again, she’d have no choice but to leave. She wouldn’t be able to live with a man who thought so little of her as to beat her up on a regular basis for nothing. But she had no income, had saved nothing from the book or show. She had spent part of what her daddy had put away for her on the book. She couldn’t ask him for more. He’d probably fire poor Jed or something. No, to be ready to leave Jed, she’d have to earn some more money on her own. If she were Mrs. Tennessee, there’d be product endorsements, like Anita Bryant and citrus fruits. There’d be personal appearances. If she were Mrs. America, General Appliance would pay her to travel around the country for a year, talking about the pleasures of being at home; then maybe they’d give her some kind of public relations job. But to become Mrs. America she had to make up with Jed for long enough to become Mrs. Tennessee.