Like Normal People

by Karen Bender

  The houses they could afford were in the San Fernando Valley. They had known all along they’d have had to settle for that. It was hotter there, a quiet heat that magnified sounds. The house where she would start her family was not what she had hoped to own. It was a two-bedroom, burnt-orange stucco house, with slightly warped hardwood floors and a garden that was mostly dirt. The street was filled with these houses. Laundry lines were strung between avocado and lemon trees; fans whirred, guttural as airplane engines. Their neighbors had come from the Midwest or from farms that had failed upstate in the Central Valley.

  Ella and Lou had their suitcases and a used bed purchased from Salvation Army. They bought some canned food and bread and coffee. They had an address.

  The first night they spent in the house was before the electricity had been turned on, so they ate their first dinner in darkness. They bought some flashlights and set them in the empty rooms. Each white beam shot up through the darkness like an eerie plant with a single transparent stalk. They walked through the dim, chalk-smelling rooms, closing doors, turning on faucets. They were inside their lives now, not outside, suspended in their newness, peering into a ring filled with vague images that were dazzling and bright.

  Lou had a surprise for her. He told her about it in their future living room, the flashlight beam turning filaments of his hair incandescent in the dark. “You have to find it,” he said. She walked around the empty house, feeling her way along the walls. He followed, enjoying her pure and delicate blindness.

  She found his surprise in the bathroom as she ran her hands along the bottom of the pink porcelain bathtub. There was a slender spike at the bottom; it swelled into a heel. She lifted it out—an elegant, silk high-heeled shoe. She ran her hand in the tub again; there was another shoe, too. Ella, puzzled, slipped her hands into them.

  “Put them on,” said Lou.

  She stepped into the shoes. She had never worn such high heels.

  “Look at you,” he said.

  Ella undid her blouse, her skirt. She let everything fall. “Look at me,” she said.

  She walked through every room in their new house naked, except for those shoes. The sharp heels made a sound of grand and audacious authority. Of course, Lou followed her. She picked up a flashlight and turned it toward him, herself, her bare body. He unbuttoned his shirt, and she turned the flashlight away until he, too, was completely naked. They took turns holding the flashlight on each other; they both looked glorious. But they did not immediately go to each other, for they merely wanted to look—here, breathless, unashamed.

  Before they tried to start a business, they had to get real jobs. Lou worked as an assistant to a fur salesman. Ella worked in the A. E. Little department store’s equivalent of the Treasure Trove; she found it far less glamorous, because there was no uniform or fake diamond pin to wear.

  By 1930, Lou wanted to open his own store; the question was what to sell. At night, he threw himself into planning advertising campaigns. His experience in Los Angeles had made him good at selling products people did not really need. He considered, briefly, men’s accessories, because he was proud of his slogan: Lou’s accessories are successories! Then he switched to pants: No need to lose precious doubloons. Buy Lou’s pantaloons! His mouth hung open with concentration. His hands were quick, almost frantic. With a set of colored pencils, he sketched signs for his future store deep into the night.

  Ella paged through movie magazines, searching for names for their child. They were trying to have a baby; it was the next step. She sent letters to movie stars she admired, awaiting glossy photos with their signature. The star who wrote the nicest reply on the photo would win; their baby would bear that star’s name. One of those stars would sense her special qualities, thought Ella; one of them would know. Polite letters went out to Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, Lillian Gish, and others. Every afternoon, Ella eagerly checked the mailbox, and she kept each publicity photo in a drawer. But the replies made her restless, not quite understood.

  Marlene Dietrich was the only one who used her name when she answered: Good luck, Ella. Thanks, Marlene. Marlene shimmered, her hair and her lips were suffused with light. She was so beautiful that she seemed not a citizen of this earth. Yet the reply was personal; that was why she won.

  Ella did not know when she became pregnant. There was no immediate shift in her body; the beginning of life was mundane. In the deepest, quietest part of her, love was turning to flesh.

  Lou decided on shoes. Lou’s Shoes. I’ll Help You Step Into Your Future. They painted the sign together on a large sheet of metal, several times, until the letters were absolutely straight.

  They set up the store on a brilliant September day. Ella was six months pregnant. There was one large, sunny room, for sales, and a back room for stock. Lou stacked the boxes and installed a cash register, unrolling cylinders of quarters, pennies. He hung a large banner that said: We’re not God, but we do save soles.

  During that fall, the unborn child was kicking; it was as if clear, heavy bubbles were bursting inside Ella. The child moved toward its life. The sky was flustered with gray-bottomed clouds; the light fell through them darkly, different; Ella watched the world with solemn joy. This was the last September she and Lou would be alone together, the last October before the child was born. She bought baby furniture at second-hand stores and arranged it in the empty room. Sometimes she stood in the doorway and surveyed the silent room, the faded yellow crib, the smiling toy bears. The room’s emptiness was pure. She tried to imagine the sound of the baby’s cry, the way the child would crawl or walk across the room. She would have to wait.

  The birth of her first daughter came and went quickly. Ella was in labor for twenty-five hours, and Dr. Brown, the resident substituting for Dr. Morton, was younger than she was. He drew the baby out of her with a long steel instrument. There was a large bump on one side of the baby’s head. Later, Ella remembered mostly the color and shape of the doctor’s hands. His fingers were extraordinarily delicate, and his hands had the tenderness of an infant’s, frail and shell-pink.

  They did not want to look at the bump. It disappeared slowly, turning black and blue, then fading away. It was as though someone had stepped on Marlene, some other baby had stamped on her in her hurry to get out. Then Marlene was just a baby, that pink, blameless fact, a surge of fat and silk hair that evoked a pure, reflexive love. They called her Lena; Ella expected her daughter to grow into the name Marlene. Neighbors she barely knew brought oranges, lemons, walnuts from their backyard, gave her clothes that their children had outgrown. They stroked her baby the way they stroked all babies—reverently, running a finger along Lena’s soft arms.

  Ella had not known how she would love her child. Later, Ella wondered whether she had loved Lena differently before she understood that anything was wrong. It was as though she and the baby had broken off from Lou, into their own secret world. He was busy. He had to work during the day as the fur assistant to ensure a paycheck; he kept his shoe store open only on weekends and at night.

  She was alone with Lena all day. Who was this person? What did she want? No one had ever been so dependent on her. Ella did her motherly duties—she nursed Lena, changed her, took her along to the market. But these activities simply made her resemble other mothers; they didn’t account for the change within her. Her heart was assuming a new shape; it was becoming a great, curving sky.

  She tried to tell Lou what Lena had done during the day, but each act she described sounded less important than it had been. “She enjoyed her bananas,” said Ella. “She ate five spoonfuls.”

  “Five?” asked Lou. “All five?” He looked at Lena, making a comic face. He seemed oddly shy; self-conscious. He wanted mostly to be liked. Lena stared back at him with every baby’s serene expression of self-regard and haughty disapproval.

  A baby was bound to its future. It was as though Lena were mysteriously joined with all the people she could become. To Ella, alone with her daughter, the house was filled
with these unknown people, and Ella began to make plans. One day, she wanted Lena to be a glamorous actress. Another day, she wanted Lena to be fluent in French. Or perhaps proficient in preparing the fine foods of several European countries. Ella, excited by these prospects, imagined their discussions about various issues. “No, Lena,” she would say, “I do not think you should take that size suitcase to Paris.” She imagined the tone of voice she’d use, ranging from patient to rather shrill. The kitchen was silent; the discussion was all in her head. And it absorbed her completely.

  Lena had beautiful, gleaming brown eyes. Mother and daughter gazed at each other in the small kitchen, and they waited.

  Lou wanted Ella to help him at the store. Besides, he was lonely without her. People wandered in at night, touched the shoes, looked sheepish, and went out. Ella made up wax-paper bags of her chocolate chip cookies and sold them at the register, twenty-five cents a bag. A gas station opened down the block, and a diner. More people came by; a few stayed.

  It was a stranger, armed with her three-year-old, who first suggested that something was wrong with Lena. Ella forever remembered that woman; she became engraved in Ella’s mind. The woman had curly black hair that was almost navy, and she was examining a sleek white bridal pump. Lena, propped on one of the metal chairs, was staring at her feet, as though deciding whether to eat them. Her mouth hung open, and a clear thread of drool dropped to her lap. Ella asked the woman whether she needed help.

  The woman was looking at Lena. “I remember her,” she said. “I dropped in a couple of years ago. Lena. How you doing, cutie?”

  Lena smiled. The woman suddenly looked intent. Lena’s smile was the shape of an orange slice. Perhaps that was what made it not quite right; it was like the smile of a baby seal. Ella had never looked at Lena’s smile this way. Lena twisted down from the chair to the floor and walked around the room with her peculiar walk; it was like a drunken hop.

  “Is her leg all right?” the woman asked.

  “Oh, sure,” said Ella. “Probably asleep.”

  When Lena drew closer, Ella put her hand on her hair and gently fingered it.

  “Harvey, this is Lena,” said the woman to her son.

  “Hello,” said the tiny boy, gripping his mother’s leg.

  Lena’s face swerved into an expression of glee. “Tal!” she shrieked. It was an odd sound, almost a bleat. Her breath rose and fell, like a giggle, like a tiny vampire. The boy was still.

  “How old is Harvey?” asked Ella, and then realized it was not what she should have asked.

  “Three,” said his mother.

  “Oh? So’s my Lena,” blurted Ella.

  The world broke apart—softly and too fast. Sorrow blew across the woman’s face; her child had won some unannounced contest, and she had been handed some unnecessary guilt. She became extremely polite. “You do have such nice bridal shoes!” she exclaimed. She wandered about, looking at more shoes, listlessly; then she and the little boy walked out into the hazy light. Ella stood in the empty store while Lena rolled silently on the floor. The white sun fell on the carpet, grotesque and watery bright.

  Ella began to watch other children. Trying to control the anxiety in her voice, she would ask customers, neighbors, the ages of their children. Standing behind the register, she carefully observed children in the store. She watched them wrestle with each other, try on shoes, and she heard them speak—clear sentences, words.

  Would Lena be worth more if other children didn’t exist? In such a world, Lena would be perfect. Ella began to wish the other children would disappear—all of them, the nice as well as the poorly behaved ones. She wished so powerfully for their disappearance that when she crouched to fit shoes on them, she was afraid to touch their tiny, outstretched feet.

  She had to tell Lou, partly because she was jealous of his ignorance; she could not live alone in her confusion.

  They were in the kitchen, eating chicken salad on lettuce leaves. Lou had recently purchased a four-foot-tall blue neon boot that said LOU! on the heel. It was to be placed in front of the store. He was simultaneously proud of it and concerned. “My name is on the heel,” he said, soberly. “I don’t know if I want customers to see that.”

  “Why not?”

  He cleared his throat. “Perhaps they may think I am a heel.”

  “I doubt that customers think so much.”

  He was eager to argue. “No, sweetheart,” he said, “you can’t underestimate the customers. They’re smart—”

  “I don’t care,” Ella said, in a tone harsher than she herself had expected. He looked hurt.

  “Ella,” he said, “decisions like this can make or break a—”

  “I’m worried about Lena.”

  The air hardened. Lena looked from one to the other and began to cry.

  Lou put a hand on the girl’s arm and stroked it, trying to comfort her. “Shhh,” he said, kissing her tiny hand. “Don’t listen to her. Shh.”

  “Lou. She doesn’t talk like the other children; look how she walks.”

  He pulled Lena into his lap. “Look here,” he said, his voice husky with fatigue. “Look. You’re a smart girl, so stop trying to hide it!”

  Lou would not meet Ella’s eyes; that proved her right. “You have to wake up,” she said.

  “Ella!” He wrapped his arms around their daughter. “How is she going to feel when she hears you saying that?”

  For two months after they had learned about Lena, Ella rose every morning without kissing Lou. She woke up first and went into the bathroom, taking a shower and filling the room with white steam. She liked the warm mist clinging to her as she applied her lipstick, set her hair; it was as if, during the night, something unclean had happened to her and Lou, their chaste sleep a little obscene. Mold began to grow in the corners of the floor. The carnation-patterned Royledge paper lining the shelves started to curl. When she came out of the room, Lou was always up and completely dressed.

  He wasn’t exactly like Lou now; he was bigger, like a cartoon Lou, coated with a shiny cheeriness. He called her an assortment of pet names he’d heard in movies. “What’s for breakfast, Pumpkin?” he’d ask.

  “What do you want?”

  Everything she said sounded vaguely leering, flirtatious. By this time, Lena was hurtling around the house, a thin, off-key song trailing through the halls.

  He answered, “What do you want?”

  Their shock had given way to a horrid politeness. “Anything,” she said. “Waffles, pancakes, Cream of Wheat.”

  “Well,” he said, hesitating. The sun poured through the curtains into the bedroom. His features were gilded by the light.

  How young he looked. He was already thirty-eight, but his skin was as creamy as a girl’s. Part of Ella ached for him to know everything. She wished he were six feet tall or had a lush beard or a fancy car—anything that would convey authority and command.

  His eyes, as he looked at her, were hot with tenderness; it was as though she could see through them into his thoughts. She turned away. She didn’t want to know what he was thinking for fear that his thoughts were as dark as her own.

  “We’ll have Cream of Wheat,” she decided. Lena banged on the door, and Ella opened it. Lou scooped up his daughter, and Lena squealed, her legs kicking, as he swung her into the air.

  She had to learn to understand Lena, but she didn’t know where to begin. She decided to start at the local library, where she found a book: God’s Special Children. It featured descriptions and photos of children who had been born wrong. Ella read it secretly at night, for instruction, and also to conjure up some feelings of superiority and comfort. There were children with huge heads, children with cleft palates, children with fins for arms. As she stared at the pictures of deformed children, an evil feeling of gratitude came over her; at least Lena was a pretty girl.

  She looked at pictures of mongoloid children, at photos of retarded adults engaged in various activities. They hunched over plates at picnics or sat on porches o
r leaned against cars. Often their faces looked hopeful. Ella tried to make friends with the men and women in these photos. She gave them names. Here was Alfred; here was Lorraine. Ella kept the book under the bed, ashamed to be reading it. Yet it was all she could think to do. Ella forced herself to study the pictures until her eyes burned, until these people appeared understandable.

  She had no idea what Lena was going to be. She sent away for information from any organization that seemed relevant. There was a Committee to Aid the Feeble-Minded, the Jewish Children’s Fund, the Council for the Mentally Impaired. She crossed theology lines and received the Baptist League pamphlet, which said, You must reform. This child has been cast upon you because of your many sins.

  She opened the envelopes with trembling hands. She would read the enclosures methodically, completely. With each new pamphlet, she would pour herself a glass of orange juice and read. Much of the information was vague and cheerful, and all the organizations requested money. One brochure had a chart linking IQ levels with abilities to do certain tasks. She sat with this chart for a long time, waiting for it to reveal the future. A person with an IQ from 55 to 69 could learn to read to the sixth-grade level. A person with an IQ from 40 to 54 could learn to sweep a floor and count change. A person with an IQ of 39 or lower would have to live in an institution. These people cannot be trained. It is best for them to live in a safe and controlled environment.

  Once, she sent away for information from an institution, the California Home for the Mentally Handicapped. There was a photo of a large, barren dormitory filled with a dozen beds. The citizens of the home wore uniforms; they looked like large children wearing pajamas. And they had sorrowful, wondering eyes. Ella calmly held this brochure over the gas flame on her stove.