The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay

by Beverly Jensen

  “What the hell happened to him?”

  “It’s over twenty years ago, because that’s how long Miss Lawrence has been living here. . . .” Idella turned. Her lips were all smeared.

  “Are you planning to kiss somebody while I’m watching the movie?”

  “Maybe.” Idella puckered her mouth and smacked the air.

  “Jesus, Idella. How long have you been blind?”

  “The light isn’t too good up here.”

  “Sit down. Let’s aim this time.” Avis took a handkerchief and started rubbing off Idella’s lipstick. “Where does the tragic part come in?”

  “Well he died, for God’s sake.”

  “Close your mouth.” Idella did. “Now open it.”

  “It was summer, see, and Mrs. Brumley went out walking in the field to find him. He was supposed to be doing some sort of work out there with a shovel.”

  Avis pulled a lip pencil from her purse. “Go on.”

  “Well, she found him, all right—laid out straight in the grass and dead of natural causes.”

  “He was probably digging his own grave and planning to jump in. Hold still.” Avis expertly applied a sharp, thin line of Ruby Red around Idella’s mouth.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Brumley were in love, Avis. His death just about killed her. It affected her mind. That’s why—”

  “Stop talking. Smile. Hold it.” Avis daubed Idella’s Creamy Rose inside the sharp red outline. “Pucker.” Idella puckered. “‘That’s why’ what?”

  “That’s why—”

  “Unpucker, you fool.” Avis laughed.

  “—she needs Miss Lawrence as a companion.”

  “Now blot.” Avis gave Idella the handkerchief. “That Lawrence dame knows which side her bread is buttered on. It behooves her to have that old lady dim-witted.”

  “Is that hooves like on the end of horses?” Idella didn’t know where Avis came up with words like “behooves.” She tried to be so superior sometimes. Working at that beauty shop was giving her airs.

  “Why, you should know about the ends of horses.” Avis laughed again. “And I’m not referring to their feet.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, I’m sure.” Idella stood and waggled her behind.

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead waiting on those old biddies and letting them boss me around, wanting every little thing to be just so. They’ve got nothing better to do than keep an eye on you.”

  “It’s not like you don’t have to take orders and get bossed around at the shop. You say ‘yes, ma’am’ plenty of times in one day.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Avis opened her purse and reached for her cigarette pack.

  “You’re not supposed to smoke up here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Avis clipped her bag closed. “But when I’m done work, I’m done with it. I don’t answer to anyone once I leave the shop.”

  “Well, they asked me yesterday if I’d like to go to the opera, as a treat for my working for them one year, and to bring a special friend.”

  “A special friend, eh?”

  “They just want to be friendly and encouraging, is all.” Idella was trying to make a straight part in her hair. She did suspect that Miss Lawrence didn’t like Avis. “She’s your full sister? Not a relative that grew up with you?” Miss Lawrence asked after Avis’s first visit. “I know that happens sometimes up in Canada. People take in children—country cousins sort of thing. It’s hard to believe you two had the same mother.” Idella hadn’t gone into the details about their mother.

  “They just want to keep you cooped up in this musty old biddy trap for the rest of your life, is all,” Avis said. “Idella, let me do that. It looks like a map to the shithouse and back.” She took the comb.

  “Jesus, Avis, don’t kill me. Leave some hair on my head.”

  Avis was a professional with a comb. Idella loved the way she planted herself so firmly in front of a head of hair. “They know they’ve got a good thing here with you. You cook, you clean, you do their bidding, and you’re as green as the grass in June. I’m the only obstacle, and they’re trying to get rid of me. ‘Special friend.’ Who in hell do they think you’ve got tucked away somewhere for tea and opera, the Queen of England? Let me have some hairpins.”

  Idella pointed to the dish on top of her dresser. “It will be fun to look at the people, you know, to see what they’re wearing. And to see the two of them all gussied up. Miss Lawrence has one of them foxes she drapes around her neck, with the head and everything.”

  “She probably killed it herself. I’m surprised she left the head.”

  “They wear long white gloves, like we found in Mother’s trunk that time, only fancier, with little beads sewn all over them. It’s quite a sight.”

  “Do you think our mother ever went to the opera? Put your chin down.”

  “I doubt it. They don’t have opera up in Canada. She wore them to church.”

  “Would we have to wear capes and hats and gloves and things?” Avis had stuck some hairpins into the corner of her mouth and was talking through them.

  “We wear regular dresses, I guess.”

  “Look in the mirror. What do you think?”

  Idella stood and looked in the mirror from side to side. Then she stared straight ahead and frowned. “Isn’t this a little severe? You’ve pinned it all off my face so.”

  “It’s more sophisticated. More sleek.”

  “It looks sort of hard.”

  “Leave it, Idella. It looks good.” Avis sat back on the bed, took a cigarette from her purse, and lit it. There was no stopping her. “Get your shoes on and let’s get the hell out of here before they pull up the drawbridge.”

  “You’ll have to put that out. Couldn’t you wait till we’re outside?” Avis waved the cigarette wildly. “Stop that, Avis!”

  “I thought it’d get your ass moving. What is the opera about anyway?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. People sing and dance. Mrs. Brumley said that this one was going to have bullfights. Not real ones, of course. I couldn’t take that.” Idella looked up from buckling her shoes. “There’s one thing that I heard about it, though, that’s a little off-putting.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They don’t speak English.”

  “What the hell do they speak?”

  “Some foreign language.” Idella stood up. “There. I’m ready. Put that thing out.”

  “Jesus Christ, what’s the point of that?”

  “I don’t know, Avis. I just heard them talking about it. Mrs. Brumley is very educated, you know. She knows other languages.”

  “How the hell are we supposed to know what’s going on?”

  “It’s not important. You listen to the music.”

  “Oh, brother. If I wanted to hear a foreign language I’d have hung out with the Frenchies up in Canada.”

  “They won’t be speaking French, I don’t think. German or Italian, is my understanding. It depends on who wrote it. They might even have some in Greek or Japanese. I really don’t know. We’ll just have to see. Now, let’s go.”

  “Idella! Idella, dear, do I smell smoke?” Miss Lawrence’s voice came snaking up the stairwell. “You’re not smoking up there, are you?”

  Avis laughed and blew a puff into Idella’s face.

  “No, Miss Lawrence,” Idella called down sweetly, kicking at Avis. “It must be coming in the window.”

  On the day of the opera, Miss Lawrence gave Idella two hours off in the afternoon to rest and get ready. The old ladies took an extra-long nap, so it wasn’t too much of a sacrifice to let Idella spend some time alone in her room, preparing.

  She stood frowning before the mirror, trying to get the wave just right across her forehead. She wished Avis were here to do it. Avis was coming with her overnight bag, but only just before it was time to leave. She wanted to get ready in her own room, she said, where the light was strong enough to make out your front from your behind in the mirror.

  Idella looked with d
espair at her dim reflection. She’d have to wet her hair and start all over again. She took out the wave clamps and dipped her comb into the glass of water. She wouldn’t get to pluck her eyebrows. That was for the best, probably. They stayed red for the longest time afterward.

  Idella worried that Avis would arrive late and make them all wait. And who knew what she’d be wearing? To hear Avis tell it, she’d had great fun announcing to the other hairdressers that she was going to the opera. She’d strutted around the shop and had everyone laughing so that one customer got shampoo in her eye, and heads were coming out from under the dryers to hear what was so funny.

  Avis said she was going to wear some kind of hat with bull horns on top. Idella didn’t know where on earth she got some of her ideas. Avis said that it was well known that in opera some fat woman came out and sang wearing a helmet with horns sticking out the sides. Maybe that had something to do with the bullfight. Idella couldn’t imagine such a thing. Even if it was all in a foreign language, it was supposed to be about people, not animals.

  There. That was all she could do. It’d just have to dry in place. Idella walked carefully over to her bed, trying not to move her head, and lowered herself down flat so she could rest. She thought about what she was going to wear. Her best dress was fine for going to a movie, but she didn’t know about the opera. She wondered if Avis would be upset if she wore the long white gloves that had belonged to their mother. They would make her look more dressy. She wasn’t even sure Avis knew she had them. She’d taken them out of the trunk up in Canada and brought them with her to the States when she’d left home. Idella had a memory of her mother putting them on for church, of watching her slide her fingers in and smooth them all the way down to her fingertips. She remembered the soft, powdery grip of the gloved fingers when she held her mother’s hand. Avis would have no memory of it. She’d been too little.

  You never knew what would get to Avis. She still resented their sister Emma—for taking away their mother, she said—when poor Emma had only been a baby, for God’s sake. And Avis had such a temper on her. Dad called her his loaded pistol. Avis was quick to point out that he was the one who was loaded. They thought that was such a great joke.

  Idella shook her head. She didn’t want to think about the farm, or Dad and his drinking, or even about Avis. She didn’t want to have to worry, or be embarrassed or ashamed. It all made her nervous. She should have told the old ladies she wasn’t interested in going.

  She got a washcloth and dipped it into the basin of cool water she kept in her room. She wrung it out and laid it carefully over her closed eyes, not touching the drying wave. It felt so nice and soothing and dark. She’d just lie down here for a bit and not think about anything.

  “Goosey, goosey, gander,” Avis whispered, her head swinging from one side to the other as they were led down the aisle to their seats.

  Idella had never seen anything like it. Just walking into the theater was a show by itself. The buzz of all the voices chatting at once was terrific. Perfumes floated at her from every direction. She had never seen so many women in long dresses and jewelry and gloves up to the elbow. Idella had taken her own gloves off before she’d left her room. She had thought them too daring and stuck them into her brown purse, which was her only purse, and which she now placed across her lap. It felt like a steamer trunk compared to all the dear little evening bags that the women in the audience, including Avis, had dangling lightly from wrists or tucked into palms.

  Avis cupped her own gloved hand and whispered into her ear, “Can’t you put that thing under the seat? It looks like you brought a goddamned turkey to eat.”

  “It’s too big. There’s no room for my feet.” Idella could feel her cheeks flush. Who did Avis think she was anyway, Queen of the Piss Pot? She sat there in that beaded dress, with a real bracelet on and earrings and a little evening bag—her eyebrows all plucked nice as you please and a fancy wave in her hair that must have taken all afternoon to get just right—like she owned the place. She looked beautiful, and Idella felt bad—so gawky and glommy and brown.

  Avis had shown up at the door dressed to the nines. She had taken the breath out of them all. One of her regular customers had decided that Avis would be the belle of the ball, lending her everything to wear, and of course she went right along with it, lapping it all up, and now she was lording it over Idella.

  It was like sitting next to a whirlpool. Avis sat forward and looked over the audience. “There’s more minks in this crowd than in all of Canada.” She stood up to peer at the musicians. You could just see the tops of some of their instruments—those sticks the violin players used were scraping up and down, making weird noises. “They’re tuning up,” Avis said knowingly when Idella pulled her back down into her seat. Avis looked up at the ceiling and laughed. “Get a load of the naked babies painted up there. Their little whosie-whatsits are tinkling on us.”

  “Avis!” Idella held her purse closer.

  Avis sat straight up and read the program. They had each gotten one, telling who was who and whatnot. Idella couldn’t concentrate. Avis bounced up and down in her seat, testing the pillows. “Cushy.” She ran her fingers over the velvet chair back. “Plush.” Suddenly she was twisting in her seat and looking up at the fancy boxes that lined the outer edges of the balcony. “Let’s find the old ladies.”

  “Avis, turn around and sit still.”

  “There they are. Like a couple of roosting pullets. I think there’ll be some fresh eggs before the show’s over.”

  “Would you sit still?” Idella hissed.

  “Shhh!” Avis turned back around. “Quiet, Idella! It’s about to begin.” The lights had flickered and dimmed. The musicians started playing for real.

  The nerve. Telling her to be still. Idella scrunched back into her seat and watched the bright light spread across the big red curtain. It looked like velvet. The music struck her as loud already. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Idella was growing restless. There was too much to look at. The songs went on and on. People were running on- and offstage and singing away alone and in large groups, and the next thing she knew, they were shouting and she had no idea why.

  Gypsy women came rushing onstage. One of them was Carmen. She danced around, pulling her skirts way up and swiveling her hips like there was no tomorrow. Kind of tarty. Then they started singing about cigarettes, of all things. “Cigarette” was the one English word Idella could make out. That whole scene was right up Avis’s alley. She was bobbing and squirming in her seat like a buoy in a gale. Someone was going to ask her to sit still.

  The Gypsies reminded Idella of the French girls up in Canada at the lobster factory. Maddie had told her how they had to clean out claws and tails, a terrible job. Idella and Avis would hide in the bushes and watch them walk up and down during their lunch break. Dad didn’t allow them to go near those French girls or talk to them. He said they were from way down country, they were too rough. They were very mysterious to Idella and Avis, always speaking French. Maddie was the only one she’d ever really known.

  Idella glanced at the people seated near them and wondered what their lives were like. The woman on her left wore a ring with a stone the size of a grape. It flashed and sparkled like a streetlamp. The man in front of Avis had a bald spot like a sand dollar right on top of his head. Idella was surprised Avis hadn’t pointed it out with a rude remark. Idella sighed and shifted in her seat. Her fanny was starting to bore holes through the cushion. It couldn’t be too much longer.

  Suddenly everyone was clapping away. The lights were turned on bright all around them. “Is it over?” she whispered to Avis, who was clapping like a seal.

  “No, ninny, it’s intermission.”

  “I’m staying put.” She had to pee but did not feel comfortable with these people. She’d hold it. And she’d have to carry her purse. She wished she’d left it home. There was nothing in it, really, but the gloves and a handkerchief.

  “Come on, le
t’s go mingle with the hoi polloi.” Avis was on her feet, adjusting the tight-fitting dress over her rear end.

  “I want to stay here, Avis. I’m perfectly comfortable.”

  “Well, I need a smoke. That scene in the cigarette factory had me sucking air. Get your Pony Express bag there and let’s go.”

  People were standing in the row waiting to slide past Idella. She stood, clutching her bag, and sidled out after Avis, who hadn’t even bothered to wait but plunged ahead into the crowd heading up the aisle.

  “This opera is all right,” Avis whispered when Idella finally wormed her way up to stand beside her. “That Carmen’s a pistol.”

  “She seems sort of crude.”

  Avis smiled. “She knows how to have fun, that’s for sure. Course, I wouldn’t mind meeting that bullfighter some dark night myself.”

  Avis wasn’t even looking at her. She was watching the swirl of people who filled the lobby with their smoke, their glitter, their rippling little laughs. Idella felt hemmed in.

  “They drag the words out so in the songs. I don’t think I’d understand them even if it was in English.”

  “Probably not.” Avis was stylishly tapping out a cigarette, holding it between two fingertips.

  “What was all that business on Carmen’s leg, when the soldier came to the cigarette factory?”

  “She was rolling a tobacco leaf.”

  “Go on. Who would smoke that?”

  “Plenty of people.”

  “May I light that for you, miss?” A very dapper man—fortyish, maybe—in a beautiful gray suit had caught Avis’s eye and offered a light. He was tall, and Avis looked right up into his face and smiled.

  “Yes. Yes indeed. You may. Thanks.” Avis offered him the unlit end of her cigarette like she was in a movie. “That’s very kind of you.” She was batting her eyes so, it was a miracle she didn’t blow out the cigarette.

  “My pleasure.” The man said no more than that but nodded and turned to join his party. Idella watched him glide across the carpet. He was with two other men and two women, so he could be solo or not. They formed a loose circle, chatting and laughing.