Vanity Insanity

by Mary Kay Leatherman

  That’s when I saw her, head hanging low, right at the creek’s edge. I didn’t yell. I just stopped. She looked up.

  “Hope, we’ve been looking everywhere for you. Everyone is worried sick.”

  “Ben, I can’t find Grandma. What if she got hurt? What if I never find Grandma?” She sniffed loudly and coughed.

  “We found Grandma, Hope. She’s fine. She was napping on the Shanahans’ driveway the whole afternoon. She’s never been happier. Let’s head home.” She ran toward me and hugged me very tightly, wiping her dirty tears on my shoulder.

  “Ben, thank you. Grandma is alive! Grandma is alive! You’re my angel, Ben,” Hope patted my back again and again. “What would I do without you? Grandma is alive!”

  During the silence of her patting, we both became aware of the static of a radio. A very fuzzy and almost inaudible beat buzzed as Hope hugged me. KC and the Sunshine Band sang “I’m Your Boogie Man” from the other side of the creek.

  “Hope, we need to go back. Let’s go see Grandma. She’ll probably be excited to see you.”

  Neither of us moved as we squinted our eyes, looking across the creek to the side on which I had never been. The music was coming from the radio of a car that was tucked between two very large trees. I knew there was another side to the creek, but I had never stopped to think about the area beyond it. Just north of the area were several farms that the city was looking to acquire in order to start building more little parish puddles, and there must have been a dirt road for access. The fear in the center of my chest turned to confusion when I realized the car was the old Morrow station wagon, a funky and easily identifiable metallic color of blue. What was their car doing down here? How had it gotten here? My confusion turned to shock as Hope and I witnessed two heads popping up. Mr. Morrow and—not Mrs. Morrow.

  That’s when the staring started. Hope and I stared at Mr. Morrow and the other person, whom I quickly discerned as Casey Worthington, a sometimes friend of my older sister. I knew that Stinky had mentioned that Casey baby-sat him and his four other siblings every once in a while. He thought she was a babe. I was thinking Mr. Morrow must have thought the same thing. He and Casey stared at us as the reality of the situation became sickly apparent.

  KC and the Sunshine Band stopped singing about the boogie man, and the voice of the DJ living in the big banana on the billboard came in with less static than the song.

  “Debbie Andrews has answered her phone correctly and wins two tickets to Cheapskate Roller Rink. We’ll also put her name in the final drawing for that trip to Kansas City. What do you think of that, Debbie?” Static. Blurry voice. Static.

  Thoughts racing through my head jumped from Stinky to his mother to Stinky’s cousin, Theresa O’Brien, to the little Morrows. All of these people were somewhere at this moment unaware of the clandestine meeting. Hope and I knew, though. I hadn’t asked to be a part of this. My stomach reacted, and I fought hard not to throw up a carbonated mass in front of this very private gathering.

  Within a microsecond, my mind took me back to a birthday party for Stinky in the Morrow kitchen. Years earlier he had invited most of the kids from the neighborhood, and we were all standing around him singing “Happy Birthday” as Stinky smiled at the candles on his cake. He may have been five or six. I can’t remember. What I do remember was Mr. Morrow standing behind Stinky smiling, with both hands on Stinky’s shoulders. The perfect father. I remember feeling so jealous that I wanted to run out of the kitchen before I cried. I sang louder and saved myself from tears. That was what I would never have.

  Anger zapped me back to the moment. Mr. Morrow had been pretty savvy to come to the one place that no one had been in years, but the fact that his secret meeting place was so close to his family left an even worse taste in my mouth.

  Dumb songs, stupid jokes by the pool, and a self-absorbed bully seemed less irritating and harmful and, unfortunately, a million miles away. I wanted to be there instead of here.

  Everything moved in extreme slow motion after that. Mr. Morrow looked very worried as he slowly moved to start his car, never making eye contact again. Casey smiled at us—kind of a powerful agreement with a wink that spoke volumes to Hope and me that day. Oh, you know not to tell. She looked very powerful as the car slowly backed up. She had each of us in a bad spot. Mr. Morrow definitely stood to lose the most with any public awareness of this covert get-together.

  Hope looked bothered, but I wasn’t sure if she was aware of the implications of what we were witnessing. I know that if Hope and I told what we saw, placing us both at the creek, a place that our parents had repeatedly warned us not to go, we stood to lose privileges.

  Everyone might lose something.

  Finally, I stood to lose, no matter what. Telling any soul what I’d just witnessed could lead to the breakup of my friend’s family. I already knew what it was like not to have a father around. Stinky didn’t need that. Not telling, which was what I planned to do, meant that I would have to carry this secret alone, always knowing, always wondering.

  Another face flashed in my head out of nowhere. It was the face of Johnny Madlin, or rather the face from the photo that was plastered everywhere following his disappearance five years ago. I wondered about him. By the creek. Losing his life.

  A bunch of losers. I lost a piece of my soul down by the creek that day.

  “That was weird. Who was that lady with Mr. Morrow?” Hope whispered as the car went out of sight.

  Now for the next moral dilemma. Did I tell Hope that we needed to keep this a secret? I didn’t want Hope to feel any guilt about today. She’d done nothing wrong, just gone looking for a dog and found a neighborhood affair. She shouldn’t feel bad about this afternoon.

  “Hey, Hope. Your mom would really worry if she knew you had come down here. Let’s not talk about it. OK?” I wondered if the “it” had covered enough.

  “Yeah.” Her word was numb.

  “You were just looking for Grandma and then went for a walk. OK?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We don’t really need to tell anybody…”

  I may have worked hard to eliminate guilt for Hope, but I could never take away the sickening guilt that started seeping into my heart about my decision not to talk about what we had seen. Was that wrong? Was I responsible to report what I’d seen? Was it any category of sin not to tell the truth if you thought the truth was worse than silence? I hadn’t asked to be here.

  Guilt was something that I usually left to Lucy. She knew all the sin levels and stuff for Catholic guilt—it was what defined her as a good little Catholic girl. Lucy would say, “You’re not alive if you’re not feeling guilty.” If that were the case, I had never felt more alive. But why was I feeling such guilt? I hadn’t had the affair. I felt bile in my mouth mixed with TaB.

  We would walk the back way up the hill from the creek and enter the neighborhood as if we were coming from outside Maple Crest Circle. Everyone would be happy to see Hope. I would be a hero.

  So I walked up the hill with Hope.

  The perfect day was just a mirage slowly dissipating into one of the worst days of my life. I worked hard to catch my breath as Hope took my hand. I looked up at the Wicker Witch’s green house and saw a curtain move in the back window. My stomach hurt as I trudged up that creepy, twisted hill with Hope, carrying a much greater, more uncomfortable guilt than that which had started my day.

  9

  Lucy Mangiamelli: Something Like Olivia Newton-John, Graduation Dance

  Tuesday, May 24

  1977

  I’m not sure when giggling girls turn from obnoxious to interesting, but I know that it wasn’t in 1977 for me. Though I was intrigued by their bodies, I was confused and annoyed by their minds.

  As I stood at the top of the stairs to my mother’s shop, I heard obnoxious girl laughter coming from below. I knew that Lucy was coming to get her hair done for her junior-high graduation from Saint Pius, and it sounded as though she’d brought her backup sing
ers. To avoid any awkward exchange with those who were of the opposite sex, I yelled down the creaky stairs to the basement to let my mother know that A.C. and his dad were driving over to pick me up to go see Star Wars—for the seventh time that year.

  A year after the incident with Hope at the creek, most of the neighbor kids no longer played outside, as we focused on more mature interactions than getting dirty and planning forts. We were all getting older. Before you think that I’m some kind of Star Wars freak, I need to explain that A.C.’s dad was the one driving every time. He drove and paid. We went. I’m not saying he’s a freak. I’m just saying.

  Better than the movie was the theater that we went to each time: the Indian Hills Theatre, the coolest theater ever known to mankind. All movies there were shown in a Cinerama wide-screen format. A 105-foot screen, inclined, purple plush seating, a smoking section, a balcony, and the biggest variety of candy offered to my imagination to date. For A.C. and me, Indian Hills was the best movie-going experience of our lives; however, at almost sixteen, we were pushing the age factor and realized that we needed to start acting like teenagers. Sneaking into R-rated movies and going to concerts were next on the age agenda, and we begrudgingly yet excitedly decided that we would let go of our youth and grow up that year—after we saw Star Wars, just one more time.

  “I’m heading out, Mom!” I yelled, sounding hurried.

  “Hey, Ben. Come down for a minute, would ya?” Mom yelled up.

  I took a breath and descended the creaky stairs. Walking into my mother’s salon, I could hear the voices talking hairstyles and colors of dance dresses, and with that, their beauty quickly dissipated before my eyes.

  The good friends that they were, Marty and Theresa wanted to make sure that Lucy looked beautiful for her first dance that followed the Mass and graduation in Saint Pius church. Following a graduation Mass, Cool Father Whalen would bless their junior-high souls and push them out of the puddle. The boys in their suits and the girls in their long dresses would march right out of the big box church, across the black top/ playground, and over to the big box gym where cookies, punch, a DJ, and the moms and dads who signed up to chaperone would be waiting. The parents would gawk at their kids the remainder of the night, occasionally offering a steep karate chop between two bodies that had snuggled too closely. Of course, they would remind the couple, “Let’s just keep enough room for the Holy Spirit between you two while you dance…”

  Eighth-grade graduation was a rite of passage. In the Catholic universe, eighth-grade graduation was the almost equivalent to a Jewish bar/bat mitzvah. These boys and girls are growing up to be such fine pubescent Catholic individuals that they should start to take responsibility for themselves. Heck, why don’t we have a big dance and send them off to the next phase of life: Catholic high school? A big send-off from the puddle to the pond.

  Suits? Long dresses and a dance? Really? This was not college or high school. For heaven’s sake, it was just eighth grade. Maybe the Catholic schools could have learned a thing or two from the Omaha public schools in the seventies. I survived without the party.

  Theresa and Marty stood on each side of Lucy during the great transfiguration. Marty stood taller and thinner than ever with her Dorothy Hamill haircut, which looked like a goofy eraser top to a really long pencil. Theresa smiled with the hair of the day, flowing and feathering with an effect that would make Farrah Fawcett look dumpy. They stood behind her and giggled a hello.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Ben, we’re getting Lucy ready for her big dance tonight. What do you think?” my mom prompted me. What did I think of what? Hair? Long Dresses? Stupid graduation dances?

  “You bet,” I guessed.

  The trio laughed with Lucy leading, of course. “What do you think of my hair, Ben? I’m going for an Olivia Newton-John look.”

  This was going to be harder than I’d thought. Lucy and her frizzy dark hair looked about as much like Olivia Newton-John as I did John Travolta.

  “Looks good, Lu—” I started walking toward the stairs.

  “Wait, here’s the really exciting part! We’re going to pick up our dresses from Theresa’s aunt. Mrs. Morrow made all three of them from the same pattern.”

  “I’m subtle peach,” Marty said.

  “And I’m sky blue,” Theresa added.

  “And I am mint green,” Lucy said, concluding the wimpy rainbow parade. My mother smiled weakly, and then I heard my own voice speak the very words I was thinking.

  “And you did that on purpose?”

  The giggling stopped. The three looked at me, confused and annoyed. The room was quiet with disappointment in me. Fine by me. I was about as interested in their fluffy conversation about bland-colored dresses as I was in the final episode of The Brady Bunch when they went to Hawaii and found a Tiki doll.

  “What a lovely plan, girls. You’ll all look lovely,” my mom said as she shook her head and gave me a dirty look. I guess I was dismissed.

  I was then sharply ignored as the discussion moved on to the dance, ABBA, Lucy’s love of her life, Tom Ducey, and the movie You Light Up My Life. I hadn’t realized it could be that easy to get out of a silly conversation. Of course, Lucy would later scold me and then forgive me. Lucy always forgave me. “Blinded by the Light” played on the little black radio on the windowsill.

  I ran up the stairs and walked out to my front yard, praying for more intellectual stimulation than the Pale Rainbow Coalition. A.C. was the kind of guy who was always pontificating, and I was the friend who not only didn’t mind but truly enjoyed his mountain of insight. Out of the blue, A.C. would proclaim, “The devil wears a Girl Scout uniform…Why else would Girls Scout cookies be delivered during Lent?” This was some profound thinking for kids our age.

  Once A.C. got to my house, we would talk sports and music and about that whole plan to grow up this year. Sometime this summer we were hoping to sneak into the movie advertised all summer that would be coming out in a few months: Saturday Night Fever. I looked up toward the Wicker Witch house and waited to see Mr. Perelman’s Cadillac appear. It was actually pretty impressive that A.C. and I had stayed connected through the years. We hadn’t lived near each other for what seemed forever. A.C. went to the private high school Brownell Talbot while I attended Burke High School. Still we managed to keep the ties tight—thanks to his dad driving us to movies and his mother getting her hair done.

  The white Cadillac seemed to emerge from the green Wicker house as the car turned the corner onto the circle. When A.C. got out of the car, he looked like he could throw up on the lawn. I wondered if he was sick.

  “You look white!” I commented before I could filter the words.

  Through his pale face, A.C. smiled. “Well, I am, partly.” The smile disappeared. “You won’t believe what we just saw.”

  At this point Mr. Perelman got out of the car. A.C.’s dad always reminded me of a gentle giant. I think A.C. told me that his dad was six-four or something like that. He always seemed taller to me. Though he hadn’t practiced his Jewish religion in years, John Perelman looked like an oversized rabbi with his beard and olive skin. I guess that made it even more peculiar that this colossal, quiet professor liked Star Wars so much.

  “We don’t have to talk about it, A.C.,” he said softly.

  “I can with Ben, Dad. He can handle it. We aren’t even sure what happened. We were driving near Ak-Sar-Ben Racetrack when we saw all these police cars. Maybe twenty. Don’t ya think, Dad?”

  “About ten.”

  “Well, they were all surrounding this tiny little house. Tiny.”

  A.C.’s body moved as he told the story. He was thin like me with gigantic feet that made him look like a clumsy puppy. He seemed puny at fifteen, but A.C. would grow into those feet some day and into his own father’s shoes. He admired his quiet parents, though he was anything but. Rather than attempt to disappear so that his blended racial and religious inheritance did not draw attention, A.C. chose to embrace the anomaly of his
state of affairs and demand attention through humor, strong opinions, and animation of the moment. His sister Elizabeth took the quiet path. I barely knew her.

  “The house was right off the golf course, you know, about seven blocks or so from my house. Twenty cop cars. Can you believe it?”

  “Ten police cars, A.C. We still don’t know the details.” His father grew more uncomfortable as A.C.’s story progressed.

  “OK, ten. Anyway, Dad and I turn on the radio and find out that a woman was murdered last night. They think it’s some guy who worked at Ak-Sar-Ben. He walked horses or something. He murdered her and then just left her. Her parents were worried when they hadn’t heard from their daughter…”

  Their daughter was twenty-six-year-old Jane McManus. Harold Lamont Otey, who was also known as Walkin’ Willie, a nickname he’d acquired from handling horses at the Ak-Sar-Ben track in between races, was in custody and arrested for her murder. Per usual, stories through the years varied. Some say he was high on PCP, saw her through the window, and just decided to attack her. Another account claims that he walked by her house after he left work and decided to steal a few things. He took a stereo, but when he reentered to remove other items, McManus awoke. They say that Otey raped McManus, then stabbed and finally strangled her with a belt.

  A.C. had been that close to such a gruesome scene. I was standing near him at that moment. By the theory of transitive property, I felt somehow too close to something pretty evil. Other than the disappearance of Johnny Madlin, I was unaware of such shocking events in Omaha. A.C.’s dad quietly rushed us to the car, explaining that Luke Skywalker couldn’t be waiting all day for us.

  When Mr. Perelman, A.C., and I got to the Indian Hills Theater that evening for our farewell-to-immaturity viewing of Star Wars, all three of us were not as focused on Princess Leia Organa as we had been the first six times. I noticed that A.C. was quiet when he and I usually whispered our favorite lines from the movie.