Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?

by Jancee Dunn

And what is more intimate, more transporting, than a casual phone conversation between two people? And so I called Ma. Remembering what my father said, I talked to her for over an hour. Thinking of my mother, I asked Ma every question I could imagine. She told me about growing up on a farm in Council Grove, Kansas, and how she rode her horse, Ribbon, to school. I pulled out of her every detail about her wedding to my grandfather, which took place right in the parlor of her family home. She wore a modest brown dress and carried white flowers. When we got up to her experiences during World War II, we stopped.

  Over the next year, I called her periodically and discreetly flicked on the tape recorder. I never did let her know. Her health began to decline soon after that, when she contracted pancreatic cancer. When she was in the last stages of this merciless, excruciating disease, my father flew out to Sun City and arranged for her to come home from the hospice where she had been staying. For the last week of her life, he fixed her the ice cream and lemon pudding that she loved, pulled up a chair next to the bed the hospice employees had set up in her home, and just talked with her quietly. He was holding her hand as she died.

  A year or so later—about the time that your recollection of a loved one’s voice begins to fade ever so slightly, despite your best intentions to fix it permanently in your mind—I handed my dad a little pile of tapes and a tape recorder. I wanted him to hear his mother’s voice, before the morphine drip, before she had to be helped to the bathroom, but instead as she used to be, telling me one sunny afternoon that three hummingbirds had just flown onto her porch at the same time, do you believe it? Three! And they’re so pretty Why they look like little jewels.

  My dad smiled and hugged me. Then he poured himself a big glass of Scotch, put on a pair of headphones, went into his bedroom, and cried.

  You Don’t Have to Get Crazy

  The phone rings at 9:07 A.M. It’s Julie—who else?

  JULIE: It’s so windy out, you can’t believe. I just saw a huge cardboard box go flying down the street, smacking into things. It’s a little Oz-like out here. So if you suddenly hear nothing, it’s me taking off entirely. So how are you?

  JANCEE: I’m not in a good mood today, for some reason.

  JULIE: Well, I know why I’m not. My mom was just visiting for three nights. It’s always chaotic. There were whirlwinds of stuff everywhere, and for every minute, she has a new glass on the table. And she wears this lipstick that doesn’t come off, ever—like, she wakes up in the morning and has lipstick on. But it does come off on my glasses. So I have to scrub the glass before I put it in the dishwasher so I don’t see my mother’s lip print every time I have a drink.

  I’m going to start right off the bat here with my morning pet peeve, which is people who say “What part of no don’t you understand?”

  JANCEE: I’m with you on that one. I’m with you.

  JULIE: Especially when they tell you about how they said it to somebody else. I was just listening to my super talking, and he’s one of those people who always has a big mouth—in the stories in his mind, that is.

  JANCEE: “So I look him right in the eye and say to him—”

  JULIE: “What part of no don’t you understand?”

  JANCEE: I notice we both talk about our supers a lot.

  JULIE: That’s because we both have Schneiders in our buildings.

  JANCEE: It’s true. So yesterday, when I’m working, my parents call on their car speakerphone. Because now, whenever they don’t have a book on tape handy, I become the book on tape. There was an early snowstorm, so they called from McDonald’s, where they pulled over to wait for the trucks to salt the roads. And I felt pressure to keep them occupied. (Sighs.) They used to call me individually, but now they’re always on speakerphone, where I can’t hear their responses because it’s a bad connection and my voice echoes. And it’s my mother doing ninety-five percent of the talking and my father mostly complaining about the traffic. Do your parents do this?

  JULIE: They only do speakerphone if it’s “news.” Instead, my parents both have a phone on either side of their bed. One of them has a cordless and the other has a regular phone—you know, just in case of emergencies? And sometimes when they both talk, there are weird delays, so it sounds like my dad is in Belize and my mother is in Uzbekistan, combined with him telling her that she’s talking too loud and vice versa, and her telling him to get off the phone and go brush his teeth.

  JANCEE: If my father answers the phone at home, he’ll say, “Wait, your mother is getting on the other line.” And the strange thing is, while we wait, he doesn’t make chitchat. We just sit in silence.

  JULIE: He doesn’t do hold music for you, like we do for each other? (Hums elevator music.) Sometimes when I tell one parent a story, the other will say, “Start from the beginning, from when you walked in, and …” And both of them already know the story because one has already told the other! But they want to hear it in my words. My mother will make me sometimes tell a story forty times if it involves a compliment to either her or me. “Tell me again what they said.” (She pauses while a siren blares.) I have to take a little minute here to tell you that I’m at a Hundredth and Broadway, and the other night a car drove into the Indian restaurant here on the corner. So it’s all boarded up, but they have a huge sign that says WE’RE OPEN. Beckoning you to come in to the side that isn’t boarded up, for a little chicken tikka with glass.

  JANCEE: They shouldn’t have boarded it up. Then you could have just stepped through the hole. It’s more welcoming.

  JULIE: Anyway. When my parents do call me on speakerphone, my father thinks that anytime the phone rings, it’s time for him to start a meal.

  JANCEE: My parents do that, too. It’s like dinner theater.

  JULIE: And even if my father is talking to the president of the United States, he’s still going to chew loudly. I think he keeps a little jar of corn nuts right by the phone. He makes this mixture of corn nuts and wasabi peas. That’s his Chex Mix. (Imitates him crunching loudly.)

  JANCEE: My sister Heather called my mother the other day to ask her a question: If she was only a B cup, was it necessary to throw on a bra to run to the grocery store? And my mother said no, and then Heather hears my father say, “You know, I think it’s fine not to.” And she said, “Dad, were you actually listening to this conversation?” Then she heard a click as he quickly hung up.

  JULIE: “Oh, that wasn’t your dad!”

  JANCEE: Is it too much to ask to identify yourself?

  JULIE: There are just areas you don’t want your dad involved in. That would never happen to me because there’s no way that you can miss the crunching, the slurping, the brushing of teeth. But here’s my other pet peeve. You’re talking to them and they’re talking to each other at the same time under their breath. (Imitates them with muttering voice.) “Have you seen it?” “No, I already put it in there.” (To Julie) “No, I was listening, go on.” (Muttering voice) “You start walking, I’ll meet you.” The multitasking, the conversations. You’re not entertaining me, people.

  JANCEE: That’s what happened to me yesterday when my parents were bickering about whether they had a McDonald’s coupon in the car or not! (Imitates Southern mother in trademark Foghorn Leghorn voice.) “Jay, it’s in the coupon book, and I’m telling you, we left it at home. Yes, it is. Yes, it most suh-tainly is. It’s in the junk drawer.” They got so swept up in their power struggle that they completely forgot I was there.

  JULIE: My mother hates when you call and she’s watching a movie on TV at night, but she can’t stand to possibly hurt your feelings by saying “I’m watching a movie.” And she doesn’t pause it, either. My favorite one of all time was when I called her—this is going back a few years—and she was watching Seinfeld. I said, “I can tell you’re watching Seinfeld, so why don’t you watch it and we’ll talk another time.” And she says, “Okay. Me too.”

  JANCEE: Are you serious?

  JULIE: I hung up and then called back a minute later so I could tell her
what had just happened. Because, you know, you need a fresh call to get their attention again. With the other call, I had already lost her. I had to be a new person.

  JANCEE: So they never call you from the car?

  JULIE: My mother does and she uses a Bluetooth.

  JANCEE: I’m impressed.

  JULIE: Don’t be, because the phone conversation is almost always about making the phone work. “I don’t know if I need a new charger. I feel like I charge this thing all the time and it says, ‘Low battery’! Can you hear me?”

  Did I tell you? Last night we’re at my house, and I’m sitting at the table with Violet doing something, and the phone keeps ringing, so I keep running over to answer it, and my mother finally says, “No, no, it’s just me trying my cell phone, don’t answer it.” And I’m like, Why are you calling my house? Can’t you check it with somebody who will pick it up? Then I check my phone later and I have forty-two messages of her checking her cell phone.

  JANCEE: My mom has a code where she calls three times and hangs up. So I run to answer it and miss it. Then I go back to the living room and do something else and it happens again, and I miss it.

  JULIE: What’s the purpose of the code?

  JANCEE: Their phone comes up as “private caller,” so I think she thinks this sends a special signal.

  JULIE: Then you’ll know it’s her and race to answer it. My father, even though he and everybody else in the world has voice mail, still leaves these messages: “It’s Dad, hello. Hello! Anybody there? Hello, it’s Dad.” I’m like, There’s nobody to hear you. And my parents have voice mail themselves! Somehow he’s envisioning 1986 with the separate machine in the room and us screening.

  JANCEE: For years my father did the same thing. “Pick up! I’ll wait here a minute.”

  JULIE: You know what I also noticed about my mother? Whenever I call her and tell her something that I’m going to do—for instance, when I told her I’m going to make chocolate chip cookies, so I’m buying some new cookie sheets because mine are burnt—my mother says, “You don’t have to get crazy” It means doing anything that veers off the path of walking one straight line. If I say, “I really want to read that article in the paper,” she’ll say, “You don’t have to get crazy with it.”

  JANCEE: What’s the proper response to that?

  JULIE: You just have to say, “I’ll try my best not to get crazy.” I don’t know. A lot of what she says I just ignore. What else is going on today?

  JANCEE: I’m trying today to hold off on eating an early lunch. Yesterday I ate lunch at 11:20 A.M. When Tom’s away and I set my own schedule, I move everything forward a few hours. Do you know what time I had dinner last night? Five-fifteen. I wish I was kidding, but I’m not. I just can’t wait to eat.

  JULIE: There’s not a thing wrong with that. Not a thing!

  JANCEE: And do you know what else I’m doing? Ordering new towels.

  JULIE: Don’t tell me.

  JANCEE: Yes! One day, my towels just started smelling weird. Just like yours did last month. What is that about?

  JULIE: It’s a mystery. It’s not like your washer/dryer changes.

  JANCEE: And it’s not like I’ve done anything different, like host a football team or anything. And once those towels start reeking, it’s over. You just have to buy new towels.

  JULIE: All right, I’m at the gym. I’ll call you when I get out. Remind me to go to the health-food store because sometimes when I’m talking to you on the way home, I forget to do my stops.

  JANCEE: I’ll remember. Have a good workout.

  Secure Your Wig with Extra

  Hairpins Before Lovemaking

  My mother, as I have mentioned elsewhere, is a former beauty queen. She was one of Mobile, Alabama’s Azalea Trail Maids, an honor reserved for the prettiest and most accomplished local girls, who are selected to dress in candy-colored antebellum costumes and act as “official ambassadors” to the city More notably, she was crowned the 1960 Oil Queen of Citronelle, Alabama. Her dedication to proper deportment and good grooming continues to this day. Not once have I seen her slop around the house past 8 A.M. in a bathrobe and slippers, whereas my at-home uniform is best described as Mommy Drinks.

  Like many children of glamorous mothers, I used to love to watch her apply makeup in front of the bathroom mirror before a big night out. The problem was that she was so skillfully efficient—in a way that only a beauty queen can be—that the whole ritual was over in a matter of minutes. I needed more. And, as a Garanimals-clad kid with freckles and an overbite that would soon require braces, I frankly needed help.

  Then I discovered a book called Polly’s Principles. It sat dustily on the shelf of my tiny local library, which didn’t have the cash to update its Beauty, Health, and Diet section with more current tomes. The subtitle was Polly Bergen Tells You How You Can Feel and Look as Young as She Does. I was twelve years old and had no idea as to the identity of Ms. Bergen, but her photo on the cover seemed attractive enough. Nor did I, as a prepubescent, have a pressing need to look young. But to my mind, anyone older and more experienced than I was an authority, so I took the book home and scrupulously followed Bergen’s brisk instructions. At the time, I didn’t realize that many of her principles were exuberantly, spectacularly nuts.

  Ms. Bergen began the book on a warmly empathetic note. “I hear some of you saying right now, ‘OK, but what can a woman like Polly Bergen tell me, with my problems?’” she wrote. “‘What do I have in common with a show-business personality and successful business executive who gets around in places that I only read about and meets people who are only names to me in the newspapers and magazines?’”

  Polly then relayed her inevitable tale of triumph, of a bullied small-town girl who eventually landed glamorous film roles and a coveted long-standing gig as a panelist on To Tell the Truth. It was a long, rough road, God knows it was, but along the way, she learned how to put herself together.

  I paged through the book in happy abandon, lost in Ms. Bergen’s Hollywood tales and exotic advice. One maxim: Inspect your naked body every single day for defects. Polly gave her “derriere” a rigorous daily once-over for “crepeyness [sic],” then moved on to her legs to detect any emergent varicose veins, and finally to her stomach to catch any folds. Another valuable lesson: Always use two colors of lipstick, such as “orange mat [sic]” and “orange frost.” It seemed that Polly could face down any beauty crisis. Have an unsightly wart on your face? Use an eyebrow pencil to turn it into a large, brown, three-dimensional beauty mark!

  Her chapter on sensuality was particularly intriguing to my young mind. She urged readers to paint their nipples with lipstick, and to skip the “crotch deodorant” in favor of your distinctive female aroma, which would drive your man wild. I had only a vague idea of what a crotch deodorant was, but I made a careful note to avoid it. The free-spirited actress was also against wearing underwear. Instead, she bought pants with shields sewn into the crotch (clearly she had an affinity for the word crotch) or, if said shields were not present, she picked up a couple at the “notions counter.”

  Moving on to skin care, Ms. Bergen warned readers to shun cigarettes, even as she puffed away herself and cheerfully confessed no real desire to quit, even when Cary Grant harassed her to do so. Most of her skin advice, however, appeared to be a plug for the Polly Bergen Company, a skin-care and cosmetics concern whose trademark ingredient in those pre-conservationist times was turtle oil (or, as the company alluringly put it, Oil of the Turtle).

  The final chapter ended on a rueful, bittersweet note with the title “I’m Going to Love Myself Someday.” I closed Polly’s Principles with a satisfied sigh. This book had it all: entertaining Hollywood tidbits (Jerry Lewis once horrified Polly by calling her an old hooker), inspiring perseverance (maybe I, too, could improve my average looks enough to decamp to Hollywood!), relatable neuroses (Polly hated her short legs, straight ankles, and low-hanging behind). And, of course, there were plenty of useful beauty tips, su
ch as Polly’s exhortation to avoid the sun (even as she admitted to crispily frying her own skin for years).

  Well. Celebrity beauty-and-exercise books had hooked me for life.

  In the eighties, a slew of them had been released by model-slash-actresses, and I petitioned my library to order them all: Victoria Principal’s The Beauty Principal, Jaclyn Smith’s The American Look, Cheryl Tiegs’s The Way to Natural Beauty. Each followed the same trajectory: sad tales of teenage unattractiveness (even as Principal supplied a photo of herself looking poised and lovely at age sixteen, a year before her good looks landed her in commercials), chatty, confidential stories of criticisms from callous casting agents and modeling scouts, followed by hard-won wisdom. The books usually closed with some sort of wry epilogue on how the star had come to love herself, dammit, although some days—hell, most days—it was not easy. It was not easy.

  I followed their advice with the utmost dedication. Who, if not Cheryl Tiegs’s and Jaclyn Smith, possessed the magical secrets of Looking Your Very Best? At nighttime in my bedroom, I’d dutifully go through their recommended calisthenics, getting down on my hands and knees and counting out twenty-five donkey kicks for each leg. I slathered a refrigerator’s worth of homemade masks—eggs and oatmeal and lemons—onto my face, sure that my zits would disappear to reveal glowing skin like Victoria’s. I ate dreary breakfasts of dry wheat toast, a half grapefruit, and unsweetened coffee, hoping that the large-curd cottage cheese on my legs would be replaced with Tiegs-quality thighs.

  At first I made careful notes from each library book and put them all in a Trapper Keeper, but eventually I began a home collection, for handier referral. The first book was given to me by my parents: Brooke Shields’s On Your Own, a treatise on looking good during one’s college years, written after Brooke’s first year at Princeton in the mid-eighties. My mother knew that I used to pore over any Seventeen magazine that featured the Blue Lagoon star on the cover.