by Lisa Samson
Sitting on my bed, listening to a young Nat King Cole version of “Embraceable You,” I love how he rounds his vowels ever so slightly, an almost imperceptible slur on the final consonants of the words. The burbling jazz guitar, electric and warm, trips along beside him, and I follow behind. I somehow feel the blackness in my heart lighten to more of a slate gray. Charmaine sits on the end of the bed drinking a Diet Coke.
“I didn’t ask for this shake-up in life any more than I asked to be born to Trician Boyer.”
She’s proclaimed herself my counselor, having counseled hundreds of people on the phone lines for Port of Peace.
“She was a piece of work, wasn’t she?” Charmaine.
“I hate my mother, and Drew Parrish taught me how. Before I met him I merely felt deep annoyance paired with a crippled affection. But those two brought out the worst in each other. He couldn’t stand her.”
“Did you ever love her?”
“In the days before my voice flowered. Well, maybe it wasn’t an overwhelming love where I felt safe and pedestaled like you do for your kids, Charmaine. But she fed me, pushed the swing at the park, and never picked me up late from day care. Yeah, I guess I loved her then. But the realization of my talent lit some sort of fire in her and she stepped out of her saleswoman pumps and into those spikier heeled, pointiertoed shoes of a manager of an artist. All in my best interest, of course.”
“I doubt that.”
“I often wondered if she just liked having good excuses to go shopping.”
“Why was she like that, Val? I could never figure her out.”
I pontificate. In the course of her lifetime, my mother dealt with disappointment at almost every step. Her parents divorced when she was fifteen. She couldn’t afford to go to a top design school so she wound up at the local state university, and even there her design portfolio was rejected after her sophomore year. She ended up graduating with a degree in textile management, accepting a sales position at Fieldcrest. When she met my father, he talked big, big, big—someday he’d be the CFO of a Fortune 500 company. He started doing taxes on the side a year after they married, dreams of power cars and club sandwiches at the country club dancing in circles around Mother’s pretty little head. Another H & R Block? Oh, but they could diversify, surely. Perhaps consult. And Dad knew a thing or two about computers. But he ended up hanging out his own CPA shingle, fully planning to “keep it small and manageable.”
No wonder he sells beads now.
Undaunted, Mother eagerly signed up for Mary Kay, buying feminine business suits for the day she’d be some kind of regional manager, get off the sales trail because, naturally, she’d sign up so many people beneath her she could become a motivational speaker, encouraging others that with enough vision and courage they, too, could be where she was today.
“Dad literally wailed—which should tell you something—that she was spending twice as much money on clothes and lunches than what she was bringing in.”
I put on my Trician Boyer voice. “‘You’ve got to spend money to make money, Wally. You might want to consider bringing in another accountant to make up the difference.’ ”
Charmaine shakes her head. “I’ll be honest. I never liked her.
She was horrible to me behind your back. I just tried to steer as clear as I could. What about your dad, honey?”
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into talking about all this stuff! I thought I was quite clear on the dock.”
“I have that way about me.” She hands me a piece of chocolate and I continue the tale.
“My father, however, wasn’t motivated by money. He was motivated by order and balance, and Mother’s idea of business had nothing to do with either of those. It simply didn’t make sense that he should step up his responsibilities due to her lack of common sense.
“No extra accountant, Trician. You’re throwing the monkey-wrench into this situation, not me.
“Well, Mother supposed, it must be the product that kept her from moving forward. Yes, of course. The product.”
“Oh, you don’t have to say more.” Charmaine waves a hand. “If you’re around the church long enough, you soon find out there are as many direct-marketing companies as there are views on the end times, once-saved-always-saved, and baptism!”
“Well, Mother sure sampled her fair share. I’m surprised our church didn’t kick her out because she tried most of her recruitment on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. After Mary Kay she tried Avon, Amway, Bee Alive, and ended up with a ‘Lose Weight Now Ask Me How’ bumper sticker on the back of her old Buick, a car Dad said he’d be darned he’d replace so she could rack up the mileage on something new and put them further in the hole.
“And then one day in the eighth grade I sang ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ in the holiday concert at school. I bowed my head after the final note of the soundtrack faded, the auditorium burst into applause, and I was awarded a standing ovation.
“If Trician Boyer couldn’t sell cosmetics, cleaning supplies, vitamins, or weight loss products, by gum, she could sell her own daughter.
“She got me into pageants, talent contests, tryouts for regional musical theater and TV commercials, model searches, and special music at churches, weddings, social gatherings, and fairs all over the state. I did it all. I became popular with the locals because I was pretty but still approachable.”
“I can’t fault you there.” Charmaine. “You were the real deal. At least inside.”
“Right. Mother never realized this, but I did. I watched the entertainers who endured throughout the years and not only endured but were much-loved and well-respected, and not a one could be called anything but believable. The fact that audiences liked me for me kept me with Mother’s program. It was her drive, coupled with my aura, that made for the perfect combination. We would have been just fine if Drew Parrish hadn’t entered into the picture.”
“Oh, honey. He was hurting like the rest of us.”
“You’d say something like that, Charmaine. I think he was a snake. But I can’t say he fooled me completely. I realized his ambition, I knew he played to some script he’d bought only heaven knew where. I simply had the misfortune to fall in love with someone who, I realize looking back, hadn’t the capacity to fall in love with anyone. Not really.”
“I thought you loved him. I could see that a mile away.”
“My bad.”
“I should have stepped in more than I did. I’m just terrible at confrontation. And then, well, Valentine, I thought you were the driving force behind a lot of it.”
“I was the allowing force. I don’t know how much of that stuff I would have come up with on my own. Did you ever confront them about it?”
“I confronted Drew, but he blamed Trician. He really could have cared less about your looks. He just wanted you to get that Nashville contract.”
I shrug. “Who knows who was the bigger criminal? Maybe they fed off each other’s worst parts.”
“Probably. Things were different in my day. It’s so much worse today. Girls having so much surgery beforehand just to try and get their foot in the door. It was the final round of surgery when I knew I had done the wrong thing in not stepping in more than I did.” She sets down her drink and takes my hand. “Valentine, I’m so sorry.” Tears fill her hazel eyes. “I should have said something. I’ve wanted to ask your forgiveness for years now.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Charmaine. You were the only one who ever shot straight with me. You were really who you claimed to be.”
“I let you down. Please, Daisy.”
“I forgive you, Charmaine. I never held anything against you in the first place.”
“I love you, Valentine.”
“I know.” I squeeze her and break the embrace. “Are you sure about Drew? He really wasn’t the driving force? Trician was?”
“I’m almost 100 percent positive.”
“Does it matter though? He still let Trician do what she did, all so I
’d get a contract and his show would do well.”
“As much as I saw the good in that man, that line of reasoning is something I can’t fault you on.”
After she leaves, I point above my CD player to Andrew, standing there so nicely with his halo. “Curse that Charmaine Hopewell for dragging this all out again. I’ve carved out my life the way I like it, the only way I can live it without doing something like burning myself with Drano again.”
John still looks sorry for me.
When I heard through the grapevine years ago that Drew Parrish disappeared, I began dreaming up possible scenarios. My personal favorite? Polishing floors at night at a big mall somewhere in the Midwest.
John shakes his head.
Rick has conjured up some crazy ideas in his time, like suggesting I “just get some good makeup,” but this eclipses them all to such a degree the penumbra almost blinds me with indignation. To be honest, I’m a bit incredulous that Rick could be so, well, stupid really.
I throw my cigarette onto the front lawn and pull my coat around me more tightly. “Absolutely not! I’m not going to stand there and sing while you contort, Rick. Please! Can you imagine it?”
He holds up both hands. “Wait, wait! I’m thinking a sort of cobra angle, coiling myself like a snake and rising up, my back bent at a forty-five degree angle like this.” He splays himself on the porch and I watch the move.
“I’ve got to admit, it’s pretty impressive.”
He jumps back to his feet. “And you can make me an outfit that mimics a cobra’s hood.”
I roll my eyes.
“Now, now. So you can keep a beautiful veil over half of your face and it won’t be weird because we’re supposed to be in India, right? And you can stand there and sing like that! You know, your voice slipping and fluttering and sliding around like that singer in that Sting song.”
“‘Brand New Day’? This gets weirder and weirder, Rick, not to mention the fact that I don’t have that kind of voice. I don’t think I can sing that way even if I want to.”
“You sure about that?”
“Positive.”
“Then how about a duet for Valentine’s Day? Gus says they’re throwing a Love Feast for the lonely that day. This’ll be their third year and it’s a big deal at Shalom. With music, it’ll be so much more like a real event.”
“Did he put you up to this?”
“No way. I swear.”
Rick’s obviously not as dumb as he seems. Despite his poor theatrics, I fell right into his trap. I’m so good at that.
“All right. Just three songs, though, and one has to be ‘Embraceable You.’ ”
“You got it.”
He holds open the front door for me as we walk back into the house.
“And you have to worry about accompaniment, arrangements, everything.”
“Okay, Val. Got it.”
I unwind my scarf. “And don’t make it hard. I don’t want to have to practice more than a couple of times.”
“Sheesh, Val.”
“And don’t play your violin so loud I have to compete with it.”
“I got it, okay?”
“Hey, no reason to get all huffy on me, Rick.”
He throws up his hands, screeches, and clogs back to the kitchen to feed his impossible metabolism.
Okay, John, so be it!
I hold the icon on my lap. If he wants to hear the entire story, so be it. I’ve been avoiding it for years. Maybe getting it out in the open will do me some good. Lella’s downstairs anyway. She won’t hear a thing.
John asks me to tell him about the final surgery.
Well, the day of my final unveiling started off pretty much like all my other unveilings. I ate a little box of Total cereal, drank a glass of skim milk, a plastic foil-capped cup of orange juice, and black coffee.
I knew not to expect much with the bruising and the swelling. After two rhinoplasties, liposuction, and a butt lift (oh, sorry, John, don’t mean to be crude), my expectations rose right to where they should on the yardstick of such things.
It mystified me that Mother and Drew sat with such expectation, their spines stretched from skull to pelvis like rubber bands, their eyes glazed with hope that I’d finally be perfect, truly beautiful, with a hint of Victoria’s Secret gathering just below the surface.
Well, maybe it wasn’t Drew so much as I thought. But still. I didn’t know that then. And Charmaine could be wrong.
The doctor snipped away the lengths of gauze and removed the cotton strips, then stared at his handiwork, still somewhat in the raw.
He nodded. “When the swelling goes down, I believe you’ll be very satisfied with the results. They should be just what you were seeking, Ms. Boyer.”
He didn’t say I was going to be lovely. Dr. Denlinger didn’t believe a woman had to be a cross between Brigitte Nielsen and Pam Anderson to rank among the beautiful people of this world.
He presented the hand mirror and I inspected my face. This had been major work. The implants in my cheeks, giving me sharp cheekbones for the first time in my life, were balanced out by a chin implant to, as Mother said, “remove that birdish quality from your face.” Though only twenty-five at the time, I had my heavy upper eyelids given a more defined crease with blepharoplasty and my brows raised a touch.
Yeah, John, I know what you’re thinking. We’re way too caught up in the whole youth thing. I hear you, friend. I hear you.
It wasn’t that I had deep wrinkles. I’d always had eyebrows that simply rested a little too close to my eyes. I could do much more dramatic eye makeup with greater space in which to work.
So I went home to fully heal.
I called some of my friends from my former sales route and chatted about their lives. They told me how much they loved the show, that had, by this time, been on for almost eighteen months. The viewers were increasing week-by-week such that Charmaine and Harlan were as pleased as they could be.
Drew wanted more than that though, and he’d fallen into such a state of ego that every success rained like gold on his shoulders and every failure sat on mine like Atlas’s world.
Oh, Judas was a little like that too? I’m not surprised.
Not only that, a major network had contacted him. They were thinking Drew and Daisy, a chatty morning show on the order of Regis and Whoever. They loved our chemistry. Now that was good.
Okay, okay, we had sex!
But as soon as he realized I wanted commitment, he backed off. I don’t know why I expected anything different, to be honest. He never said he loved me. I just thought …
Well, I guess I thought what millions of women do when the man of their dreams takes things too far.
Maybe he’ll really love me now.
Maybe he’ll be a gentleman.
Maybe he’ll do the honorable thing.
Oh, brother.
But this opportunity for a network show? I was going to do whatever it took, and if it took another round of surgery, so be it.
Trician could hardly follow us to New York, could she? Honestly, that sealed the deal on the surgery for me.
But the Christmas season was coming up and with my looks honed, the songs picked out, the guests engaged, and the set that Drew found financing for through various companies—their products displayed or their logos emblazoned on our coffee mugs—it all promised to be a major coup in “Podunk programming” as Mother called it. Mother, who was already talking to Nashville, who assured me she had some takers along that route if we could get our numbers up.
I prayed for New York instead.
I know, I know, John. It’s a good thing Jesus wasn’t all about the numbers here on earth. You’re right about that. I mean, how would any more of you fit on that icon, right?
I let my mother move forward, figuring she’d be busy pursuing Nashville and would leave me alone. At least away from gospel entertainment there’d be no pretense that at the end of the day, the show was really the thing after all.
Drew s
olo-piloted Faith Street during my healing, inviting notable guest hosts while I was “on a well-deserved time of rest and restoration.”
I received over seven hundred letters during that time, begging me to come back soon. I felt loved. Some folks sent snapshots of themselves or their kids or their pets. It meant a lot to me.
On the Monday after Thanksgiving, we began taping our first Christmas special, our debut show with the completed Daisy, a size zero masterpiece by this time, sculpted and without flaw. Despite what people may say, I didn’t have an eating disorder. I realized I was too skinny and looking freakish. But I saw the tabloids every day, and skinny and freakish had become the new normal.
But nothing can be perfect, and those who seek it and display what they perceive to be just that are not reliable. You simply can’t trust that kind of artifice.
What’s that, Peter? It’s the flaws that sometimes give things their beauty?
I see that now. Up to a point. Back then, though, I couldn’t wait to hear the feedback once the show aired. As I walked onto the set to tape, my face bearing no bruising, no noticeable swelling, the crew gasped.
Well, sure. I looked a lot better, and quite different. I mean, yes, I saw a difference, but nothing deserving of a gasp, for goodness sake. The camera would love my new angles. They’d see. And I’d be off to Nashville or New York, leaving Trician behind. We taped the special for the next three days.
Catching my reflection in windows, mirrors, and shiny surfaces, I navigated through the snowfall of heavy glares by convincing myself I was finally beautiful. Perfect. But most important, I could leave Mount Oak behind.
That was the goal of it all.
Looking over the footage in the editing suite the next day, Drew looked at my mother, then laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Now, this may sound improper and I don’t mean it to be. But what if your front balanced your back a little bit more?”
“Another boob job?!”
Sorry, disciples.
I slammed myself back in the swivel chair. And something came over me. I reached out and smacked him across the face, as hard as I’d ever smacked anything, including my lips at a perfectly done steak—and boy did Drew make sure I’d never have anything like that again.