Such A Pretty Face

by Cathy Lamb

  “I and my firm are losing patience with you people,” Crystal said.

  I wanted to groan.

  “We understand,” Sonja said, tipping her chin up. “But we refuse to compromise on the original amount.”

  This went on and on, grandstanding and rudeness by Crystal, class and quiet determination by Sonja and Dirk. On and on till I wanted to bang my head on the table.

  “That’s enough, Crystal,” I whispered.

  She kicked me, hard, under the table, pontificated and threatened on and on, and finally said to the Athertons, “Do you people think, for a minute, that you can win a case against us?” She glared at the Athertons. “Give up. You’re up against the big guys and we always win. I do not lose. I’m sorry about your boy, Dan, but accept things as they are and move on.”

  She swung her designer shoe, plucked at her $800 suit, and pushed her black hair back.

  “Don’t attack my clients,” Dirk said.

  Crystal snickered. Long, lean, glamorous. “Your clients need to be educated about this issue. We have a housewife (Slimy vermin. Lazy loser. Bottom-dwelling infected crab) and a plumber here, and they don’t get the legal ramifications. If we go to trial, you can, Mr. and Mrs. Atherton, you will, walk away with nothing. Got it? All this for nothing. You, Dirk and Sonja, need to explain this without the legalese so these two”—she jerked her head toward the Athertons—“can understand.”

  I leaned forward and grabbed Crystal’s arm. “Crystal, close your mouth.” She yanked her arm away, glared at me, kicked.

  At that, Mrs. Atherton, wearing jeans and a yellow T-shirt, her face pale with worry and defeat, started to cry. Quiet, hopeless, hot tears.

  “Oh, dear,” I said. “Oh, dear.” I reached across the wobbly table and grabbed her hand. I could hold on for only a second, because the table was lifted up, up, up, then smashed back down by Mr. Atherton, the noise thunderous, papers and folders flying everywhere.

  “You are a bitch,” Mr. Atherton seethed, his muscles flexing under his blue T-shirt. “In my life, I have never met anyone more obnoxious, condescending, and cruel than you. You are absolutely heartless. I never thought I’d meet a person who truly had no heart, but now I have. You are a cold, manipulative person, and if you can go home and stare at yourself in the mirror and be happy with what you see, then more power to you. But, me, I see someone that makes my wife—” He paused, tried to hold in the tears that suddenly sprung to his eyes—“You are someone that makes my wife—a woman who is so much smarter than you, funnier, kinder, better than you—you make her cry. You have made her cry a hundred times, Crystal. Every time she leaves this office, and you, she cries.”

  He brushed a hand across his face.

  Dirk jumped up next to him, ready to hold him back physically, but not verbally.

  Crystal’s mouth hung open in shock, as if she were trying to catch wasps or mosquitoes in it.

  “And you know what?” Mr. Atherton continued, his voice splitting down the middle with pain. “This didn’t need to be this way. It didn’t. We have a son, Crystal, a son we love dearly, Danny, who fights for every single breath he takes. Every single one. We are on our knees, every day, praying for a miracle and none comes. None. We pray for strength to get through the day. We pray for work for me. We pray we have enough energy for our other kids. We pray in thanks for all the people in our lives who help us, who bring us meals, who entertain the other boys, who even come and clean our house and mow our lawn, and the guys who washed my truck the other day.”

  I could hear Crystal’s breath, ragged. She tapped her heels.

  I glared at her, arms crossed.

  Mr. Atherton picked up the table and smashed it down again, then stuck his square chin out. “And you know what, Crystal? My wife makes me pray for you. For you.”

  Wow, I thought. I couldn’t do that. No way. Praise the Lord.

  “I wouldn’t do it at first, I couldn’t. I can’t stand you. You have stood in the way of me being able to help my son for a wrong that was done to him in a hospital that promised to fix him, not hurt him. But my wife—” Again he swiped at his eyes, then put a hand on her shoulder. “My wife insisted that I pray for you. We pray, Crystal, that you find happiness. We pray that you learn how to feel, to be kind and compassionate and giving. We pray that our hearts will forgive you and that God will forgive you. My wife only had to pray the prayer of forgiveness twice. I still have to pray it every day. But I do. I am trying to forgive you.”

  I was so struck by that, I started to cry, and I grabbed Mrs. Atherton’s hand again. She was startled, but she did not pull away.

  “My beautiful, strong, courageous wife has more class, more character in her ear than you will ever dream of having. And here you are, making her cry.” He picked up the table again and slammed it down once more. Our hands lost touch again as the table cracked, all the way down the middle.

  Crystal made gaspy noises in her throat.

  Mr. Atherton stood straight, shoulders back. “Crystal, you rotten person, I’m not arguing with you anymore. Our church gave us a check to help us through. We can pay our mortgage with no worries for a full year. Our cars are paid for. If I have to declare bankruptcy because of this medical debt, I will. No skin off my nose. I’m not moving or buying anything new at all. But I will not”—he bent over and pounded both sides of the cracked table, which then collapsed—“I will not give on the amount that we are requesting. Not one cent. It’s fair. It’s just. It’s accurate. Danny will need care the rest of his life and that is the minimum amount of what it will cost. If you can’t agree to it, that’s fine. You want to fight this out some more, we’ll do it. I will fight you until I die, and even if my wife makes me pray for you every one of those damn days, I’ll do it.”

  He breathed hard for a second, piercing Crystal with those bright green eyes. She made more gaspy noises, mouth still trying to find that pesky mosquito!

  Then Mr. Atherton, a husband, father, plumber, friend, gallantly pulled out his wife’s chair, helped her up, hugged her close because she was still crying, and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m sorry I swore, honey,” I heard him whisper. He glared at Crystal, and I knew he wanted to fry her on an open spit. Then they left.

  I wanted to cheer.

  What a stud.

  Now that’s the kind of man my grandpa would have wanted me to marry.

  Crystal jabbered about the case incessantly in the car on the way back to the office, but I could tell she was rattled. Her hands shook and she couldn’t catch her breath.

  She was also, I think, thrown by Mr. Atherton. Strong. Courageous. Loving.

  And there she was. Cruel. Heartless. Mean.

  And somebody out there was praying for her.

  Sheesh. The devil would have to be standing over me with a pitchfork to my neck, flames shooting from his mouth, before I would pray for Crystal.

  Praise the Lord, as my grandma would have said. God screwed up on Crystal, too.

  The anniversary party planning was exhausting. I was getting calls from many people who had many problems.

  For example, the tent people. One of their tents had collapsed at a wedding. The big one. The bride had a “hissy fit,” so they would be bringing three smaller ones. Their people would be coming to Herbert’s early in the morning the day of the party. It was scheduled to rain. Was I aware of this? Had I planned for it?

  The ice sculpture people called. The owner was from Russia, and I could not understand his accent very well, although he seemed very apologetic. Their ice sculptress, naughty girl, had run off with her boyfriend to, of all places, Alabama, so they would not be able to provide two swans with their necks entwined. Their other ice sculptor refused to do swans—the necks drove him crazy. Crazy! Would a grizzly bear do? He could carve ferocious grizzlies! Sharp teeth! The owner growled.

  No, a grizzly wouldn’t do.

  How about a tiger, long tail? Another growl. A sphinx? Zeus? Naked Zeus?

  No.


  What about gnomes? Two gnomes?

  Double no.

  I imagined two male gnomes side by side at an anti-gay marriage political rally/anniversary party. I imagined a naked Zeus, well endowed, sexy. Whew, boy.

  We settled on two doves with a heart between them. At least, I think it was two doves. I couldn’t understand him well. We did, definitely, though, have the heart. I understood that part. “Okay, miz. Is good. Is all good. We do.” Click.

  The florist called. The red and black flowers would be ready to go.

  I did not order red and black flowers.

  Yes, you did.

  No, I didn’t.

  Yes…let me double-check. Oh! You’re right. You didn’t order red and black carnations. That’s for the hard rock party the next night. Same last name, so there was some confusion…. Here’s your order. Pink and yellow flowers for the anniversary party? Gee whiz. They weren’t prepared for that. They’d have to order more. Okay! They’d do it! Had I ordered red and black roses surrounding a giant, white plastic skull? No? That was for the other party, too, then? What about the guitar wreaths? Also for the hard rock party that Saturday?

  They’d fix it!

  The one thing that was taken care of was the music. I called and asked the quartet if they were ready for the anniversary party. My cell phone connection wasn’t very good, but I heard what I wanted to hear. They were organized. They would be on time. They would play classical music.

  So, all was ready.

  Except for Aunt Janet.

  Aunt Janet was not ready.

  I found that out at the last minute.

  Annie Sinclair called and asked me and Lance to come together for an appointment with her and Polly. We both agreed immediately and met on Sunday at one o’clock.

  You know how some families bury their secrets?

  How the secrets implode and morph and turn into underground volcanoes and infected sores?

  That’s how our secret was, complete with shame, guilt, and a truckload of insidious grief that had magnified exponentially because it was “a secret.”

  Annie started us off. “As you know, Polly is making some progress here. A lot of progress.” She smiled. Annie was a gentle soul.

  “Good job, Polly!” Lance exclaimed. “Good job. I love you!”

  “So although Polly has addressed some of the issues in your family, including her issues with Herbert and Janet, you all have not addressed the tragedy in your past, have you?”

  I felt myself sinking.

  Lance covered his face. “I should have brought my knitting and a girl.”

  Polly said, wringing her hands, “I know, I know! I don’t know if we can talk about it. I thought we should leave it where it is, but I think, I think—” She gasped, held her throat. “I think this secret is making me sick, it’s keeping me sick! I need a bag.”

  “This is gonna hurt,” Lance said. “Oh, poor, poor Stevie! I love you, Stevie!”

  “We were never allowed to talk about what happened to your mom, Stevie, or Sunshine, or our grandparents,” Polly said, holding a bag Annie handed to her. She patted her heart with her other hand. “Be still, heart, quiet down. All is well.” Then said to us, “Dad told us never to talk about it, to keep it secret, to forget it happened, or else. I know you and I have talked about it a little bit, Stevie, and you with Lance, but we’ve basically shoved this scary, horrible thing away and tried to make it not there anymore.”

  “But it is here,” Annie said. “It’s always been here. You’ve never dealt with it, never tried to work it through, because you couldn’t. You were forbidden to under threat of the gravest punishment, and yet it’s continued to cause you the gravest pain.”

  “It never should have been shoved away,” Lance said, pushing his shoulders back. “And I’m going to be a man about it now. A man. We’ve all circled it. We’ve smashed it down like a spiked football and it keeps coming up. It’s freakin’ followed us our whole lives. We’ve had a murder, a suicide, an attempted murder, and our grandparents died, and it’s out there. Hurting us, here.” He pounded his chest.

  “Stevie,” Polly said. “Honey, I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t, but…” She took a shaky breath in. “Can we quit circling it? Please?”

  Two tsunami-sized emotions were sweeping through me. Grief, as usual. Grief over the secret. Secrets will kill you. If not physically, they will kill your insides. They will kill the life you want to live.

  The second emotion I felt? Relief. Relief that someone wanted to say Sunshine’s name, and talk about Grandma and Grandpa, and hear, even, my momma’s name, and how Lance and Polly felt, and a million other things.

  “Polly, let’s talk about it.” I pulled my lips in tight, feeling those tears edging on in. “Lance.” He got up to hug me, not bothering to hide those ol’ emotions rolling through him. “You’re right. We can’t circle this anymore.”

  “I love you, girls!” he declared. “I love you!”

  We started then. We talked, hesitantly, about Sunshine, how cute she was, what we used to all do together on the farm with the animals and running down the hills together and playing in the hayloft. We talked about Helen. We laughed, not in a mean way, but in remembrance of her singing in church, her beaver hat, her necklaces. We cried for her. We tried to imagine that piercing, intense anguish she must have felt all the time, the fear, the aloneness, how she said many times that she was “just a Helen, a no-love person, I should be dead.” We talked about our anger and our loss over her death and Sunshine’s, and we talked about our grandparents—everything they tried to do to help, how they must have felt so hopeless and scared and devastated.

  Grief killed them. We knew that.

  We were there for hours and hours.

  We would be there, in the future, for hours and hours.

  But at least the secret was no longer a secret.

  That was something.

  I asked a chair a lot of questions that night:

  Do you have any family secrets? What are they? How have they affected your life? What will happen if you talk about them? Is it better to talk about them or keep them buried? What are the consequences of both? Is it eating you?

  I started painting the chair red. On the seat I painted a sunrise. I painted the legs with orange and yellow stripes. Later I would cut off the back and cut out a yellow ball for the sun for the backrest. I thought I’d carve out angel wings, too, and attach them.

  Because don’t we all need an angel hanging around when we want to start over?

  The chair’s name was Maybelle Swan.

  I wished my insomnia would go away. It’s exhausting. I thought of Jake. When he had tucked me in I hadn’t had any nightmares at all. He was calling me every night to chat before we both went to sleep. It was a melody in my ear to hear him tell me good night.

  But I still couldn’t sleep very well.

  I had a nightmare that night. I saw my mother. She was wielding a cornstalk as one would a sword. “You shouldn’t have told!” she whispered. “You shouldn’t have told!”

  I cringed in the cave. She followed me in and put the cornstalk through my heart, and I died.

  23

  Ashville, Oregon

  The love of sisters can transcend the mountainous difficulties of life.

  Herbert, Aunt Janet, Lance, and Polly visited us about a week after Helen got home from another mental ward. Aunt Janet wanted to see her sister and the baby, as did Lance and Polly.

  Helen let Aunt Janet hug her. She actually put her arms around Aunt Janet and said to her, “You smell like corn. I like corn.”

  Aunt Janet cried, and Helen wiped the tears from her face and licked them off her fingers. “All gone now,” she said. Then she tapped Aunt Janet on the nose and Aunt Janet hugged her again. “I love you so much, Helen.”

  Helen nodded at Lance and Polly, the floppy yellow hat on her head bopping about. She was wearing a peasant’s dress from her time on Broadway and a flowing pink cape. “You are a bo
y and you are a girl,” she told them. “We have a Trash Heap here. Watch out.” She pointed at Sunshine, asleep in a crib. “She bites.”

  Helen let Aunt Janet wash and condition her hair and even cut a few inches off where the knots had grown. She let Aunt Janet cut her scraggly fingernails and toenails. When we had dinner the next night, Helen looked so pretty. I’ve never forgotten it. Her hair shone, her makeup was perfect, her nails polished. She was wearing her pink tutu, but underneath it she had on an elegant green silk dress.

  I noticed that Herbert stared at my momma for a long, long time at dinner.

  In the middle of it, though, Herbert said, “Glory, more lasagna here.” He did not bother to glance up from his plate.

  “It’s in the kitchen, Herbert,” Grandpa said.

  Herbert glared at him. “Women should be pleased to serve the men in the household, Albert.”

  “The women in this household are not required to serve the men. In fact, it is men, Herbert, men who should serve and protect women. It is the husband’s responsibility to make sure that his wife is happy, that she has a full life and the freedom to become whoever she wants to become.”

  Herbert made a sound through his nose that said, essentially, “That’s asinine, you old man.” Then he said, “The man is the head of the house. All are to follow his lead, his rules, his direction, without question or dissent.”

  “Yes, and if you want everyone to hate you, and you want to lose your relationship with your wife and with your children, be sure to continue insisting that your family follows your arcane, abusive rules. You’re going to end up alone, Herbert.”

  He snorted again. “My wife knows her place.”

  “I wish my daughter would find a new place,” Grandma said, trembling she was so mad. “Preferably one quite a long ways away from the place she’s in now.”

  Helen decided to show off her poetry skills then. “Herbert Herbert. A herb. A Bert. A Bert Herb. A tiny stick, for a dick. A little man, a skinny thing thing, he’ll wind up playing with his bang bang.” She swirled her spaghetti noodles. No sauce. She was not eating red or pink food today so Grandma gave her plain noodles. “He has a mean voice. He has a mean heart. He’ll stick his thingie in your part.”