RUTHIE was sitting in her place, waiting. Her patience was unbelievable—she’d spend hours out in the garage, just looking at those bird corpses, drawing them over and over again until she got them perfect. I was exactly the opposite. I’d try something once and if I didn’t get it right, it got tossed and I was running to something else. “Miss Perpetual Motion,” Mother called me, saying if I didn’t slow down I’d have a heart attack.
I grabbed the blue and white woven place mats from the cupboard. They were my favorite ones, the ones Mother brought back from Portugal when she flew over to meet Daddy, leaving us with that horrid Mrs. Jolly. She was one of those devout people who thought playing cards was sinful. “Mrs. Anything-But,” I called her and even Grandmother had to laugh.
“Remember Mrs. Jolly?” I asked Ruthie as I shoved a place mat in front of her She giggled as she moved aside, not the least bit offended by my pushing into her territory. Unbelievable! If someone tried to barge into my territory, I’d refuse to budge, I’d make myself into a pillar, I’d push them right back out. But not Ruthie. She was the most docile and placid child in the world and I guessed it just wasn’t that important to her; she’d rather have me speak nicely to her than preserve her boundaries.
“You and Cindy got all silly,” she said, holding her chubby hand over her mouth and laughing. “Mrs. Jolly was going to call the police.”
“What?” Mother cried. “What’s all this about the police?”
“It’s nothing, Mother,” I said. “She’s just talking about the time Cindy and I drank that cider.”
“Oh,” Mother said, giggling herself. They’d arrived home from their trip and we had all run out to greet them, to help them with their luggage, jumping up and down with joy, while Mrs. Jolly stood in the doorway, grim as a hatchet, waiting to chop me to pieces. “Ruthie and Donald were angels,” she said without even a how-was-your-trip? “But Margaret was scandalous.”
“Scandalous.” That was a first. Sometimes I thought I was doing my siblings a favor just by being alive; they always seemed like angels, compared to me, and Donald especially got away with murder because no matter how bad he was or how much trouble he got into, it was never as bad as something I’d just done. Besides, he was a boy and boys were expected to have a certain amount of badness, otherwise they could turn out to be sissies.
“Well, I guess that incident will keep you away from the cider from now on,” Mother said, but cider was for babies. I already drank the hard stuff, sometimes; I had a jar of Mother’s Scotch hidden under the eaves and every once in a while I’d mix it with Coke and sit there all night, thinking about being the first woman governor of Michigan or the first woman astronaut or the first person to swim the Lake. I liked getting dizzy and then having the world get kind of lopsided and hazy and it was the only time when all my parts seemed to be one. Or maybe they disappeared. I didn’t know, all I knew was that when I was hiding under the eaves, drinking that Scotch, I felt comfortable with myself and there were no voices screeching and clamoring and telling me how rotten I was. I felt peaceful and calm and I liked that, even if I had to pay for it the next day, when as soon as I’d wake up, Cotton Mather would start pounding his pulpit and telling me I was beyond salvation and I was going to turn into an alcoholic, even though I was only twelve.
It wasn’t exactly fun, not like that first time, with Cindy. We’d been up in my bedroom, hiding in the Black Hole and reading horror comic books and making gum-wrapper chains and drinking the cider I’d brought up from the garage. We didn’t realize it was hard, not at first, but it tasted different, all fizzy and tart, as if someone had put carbonated water in the jug. After a few glasses, when we started screeching and laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe, we figured it out, but by then we were having too much fun to stop. Suddenly, everything was hilarious and bright and sparkling and the world seemed so easy, so wonderful and all our little troubles seemed so absurdly insignificant. Who cared if I was crazy, who cared if Cindy’s ex-dad had sneaked in their house and stolen all the silverware?
We put on records and danced around; we ran into my parents’ room and pulled down Mother’s hat boxes and we even grabbed Ruthie and dragged her into my room and dressed her up like a witch, painting her face with Mother’s make-up so she looked like a ghoul from the comic books. She was in heaven—she didn’t understand why Cindy and I were so happy, but it didn’t matter to her, she just wanted to be happy too, and she laughed and acted as silly as we did. We ordered pizzas to be sent to all the neighbors houses and then watched out the window, nearly suffocating with laughter, as the pizza boy stood there with his box while Mr. Ditwell shouted and pointed and slammed the door in his face. Everything was outrageously funny, even Mrs. Jolly lumbering up the stairs shouting, “What’s going on up there?”
She barged into my room and stood there like a hangman, scowling at our glee. She gasped when she saw the horror comic books lying around, and when she saw Ruthie painted up like a monster, she nearly keeled over “Torturers!” she shouted. “Devils!” We fell on the floor laughing and Ruthie tried to stand up for us, crying streaks of red and black, saying, “We’re playing! We’re having fun!”
“You’ve been drinking!” Mrs. Jolly gasped when she saw the empty jug. “You’re drunk!”
Cindy and I rolled on the floor, laughing so hard it hurt, shouting, “Stop! Stop! You’re killing me!” and Mrs. Jolly grabbed Cindy and yanked her up. “You!” she said menacingly. “Go home. And don’t ever come back here!” She pushed her out of my room and although Cindy was shaken, she managed to stand behind Mrs. Jolly and pretend to kick her in the butt. “Don’t! Don’t!” I tried to say; I knew I’d really get it if I kept laughing, but I couldn’t help it—there was Cindy, all red-faced and messy, standing behind Mrs. Jolly’s flat, skinny butt, making faces and pretending to sniff, rolling her eyes and holding her nose.
“You!” Mrs. Jolly said, pointing a skinny finger at me. “You are not leaving this house until your parents come home.”
“What about school?” I said. “You can’t make me stay home from school. You can’t make me do anything.”
She started coming at me and I wasn’t happy any more; I got up on my knees and backed into the corner and thought, if she touches me, I’ll kill her. I looked around for a weapon but there was nothing with which I could bludgeon her. She kept coming closer and closer and I wanted to scream, to run, to be a tank and roll right over her, squashing her into my ink-stained carpet, making her into just another grey blob that Mother couldn’t get out. Save me, save me, save me, I thought and then suddenly Margaret appeared, fierce and vicious, and shouted, “Don’t you TOUCH me!” in a voice so shrill and powerful Mrs. Jolly stopped, still as a stone. Cindy and Ruthie stood in the doorway, their eyes popping out like bubble gum, while Mrs. Jolly started to shake with rage as she backed up.
“She said I was evil,” I told Mother as I plopped the silverware on the table, letting it rattle loudly and watching while Mother’s back stiffened.
“Who did, dear?” she asked, turning to smile, as if clattering silverware didn’t bother her in the least.
“Mrs. Anything-But,” I said. “She said I was a fiend from hell.”
Mother shrugged. That was all in the past and better forgotten.
“I liked it when you were silly,” Ruthie said, looking up at me adoringly. “You were nice to me.”
Her eyes were shining with innocent, devoted love and I felt terrible—how could I be so mean to someone who was so sweet and vulnerable? If I so much as smiled at her, she beamed with happiness; she’d instantly forget all the times I made her cry or gave her the evil eye. I wanted to reach out and tousle her billowy curls, to grab her and throw her up in the air like a baby, to cuddle her like a doll, as I did when she was little. She was so trusting, so willing—I knew she’d trust me to catch her, just like a baby, just like a little kid, always thinking someone would be there to catch you if they tossed you up.
I looked down
at her, grinning up at me as if I were some kind of hero, and I suddenly felt this horrible rage wash over me, like a blood-red tidal wave, pounding down and sucking me in, pulling me deeper and deeper down to the bottom of the Lake. Ruthie wasn’t Ruthie any more, she was turning into a baby, a tiny baby, and all I could see were her eyes, staring at me, and I wanted to shake that baby, make it miserable, hurt it, give it what it deserved. Better get used to it, better get used to it, a foggy voice in the back of my head was saying, better learn to like it.
I shook my head, trying to make the baby go away, to shake the voice out, but they wouldn’t go. The baby just kept staring at me, just eyes, so innocent and full of trust, and the rage kept churning like a disease and my insides were burning and I wanted to start pulling my skin off, to get away from myself, from the fury, to get out.
Ruthie’s hand was tugging at my arm. “Peggy! Peggy!” she said and I nearly smacked her.
“What did you call me?” I screamed, scaring her and making her cry.
“Maggie,” she sobbed, “I called you Maggie! It’s your name!”
I looked down at her, crying as if her little heart was broken, and I thought maybe everybody was right, maybe I was crazy, maybe I was nuts, maybe they should tie me up in a straitjacket and haul me off to Lapeer, where I couldn’t do damage to anyone but myself.
“I’m sorry, Ruthie,” I said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She looked up at me hopefully. “I wish you were silly all the time,” she said, and so did I.
RUTHIE always said grace. She was the religious one in the family; she believed fervently and cried for my soul when I said damn. “You’re going to hell!” she’d sob and I’d say so what, what difference did it make to her where I went after I was dead? “You’re my sister!” she’d weep. “I don’t want you to suffer for ever!”
I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I didn’t think it was anything to cry about. At least, I told her, I’d finally find a place where I fit in.
“No talking about hell at the dinner table,” Daddy declared and we sat silently, waiting to be served.
“Mrs. Benson called,” Mother said as Daddy handed me a plate piled high with chicken and scalloped potatoes. “She said you were sneaking around their yard again.”
“I wasn’t ‘sneaking around.’ I was cutting through.”
“That’s Private Property,” Daddy said sternly. “You have got to develop a sense of respect for other people’s property. How would you like it if people used your bedroom as a short cut?”
I shrugged. It wasn’t the same, but there was no use arguing about it. Besides, they could burst into my room any time they wanted—Mother wouldn’t let me put a lock on the door: “What if the house burned down?” she wanted to know. “How could we get you out?” But really she just didn’t want me to have any privacy. I’d be in the middle of dressing and suddenly Mother would open the door and leer at my half-naked body and say, “My, my, you’re already quite a woman,” and I’d want to die of shame.
“So!” Mother said cheerfully. “We had a wonderful game today!”
“What do you mean, wonderful?” Grandmother snapped. “We lost!”
“Yes, but we had a lovely time.”
“Maybe you had a ‘lovely time,’ ” Grandmother growled, “but I don’t consider losing lovely.’ I want to win. And we would have, if you’d learn to bid, for Chrissakes.”
Ruthie gasped and Daddy grunted. “Now, Kay,” he said, “this is dinner.”
Daddy was the only one who could shut Grandmother up. She seemed to be scared of him, but I don’t know why. She wasn’t scared of anyone else, but maybe she worried that he’d kick her out or that we’d move during the winter and not tell her where we were. She’d done that once, to Mother. Mother came home from college and when she got to her house, there was another family living in it. Grandmother had just upped and moved and not bothered to tell Mother. “I forgot,” she said when Mother finally found her, and Mother didn’t do anything. I would have killed her I would have strangled her, I would have spat in her face and said, “I don’t want to live with you, anyway, you old hag.”
“Let’s have a peaceful meal,” Daddy said and I rolled my eyes and Ruthie gobbled her chicken wings, already greased up like a body builder. It was disgusting. Mother went on and on, talking about no trump and finesses, and I wished Donald were home, so I’d have someone to kick under the table and make faces at. “Dinner is family time,” Daddy always said but I never felt part of it. It was supposed to be the time during which we discussed family problems and told each other about our lives, but I didn’t want them to know anything about me.
“How’s Julius Caesar?” Daddy asked and I shrugged. I told him I wasn’t sure I wanted him to be my hero.
“Why not?” he asked, chuckling as if I were getting ready to say something hilarious. “What’s wrong with Caesar?”
“He starved out the rebels in Gaul and then had the survivors’ hands chopped off,” I said.
“Margaret!” Mother gasped. “We’re having dinner!”
“Well, he asked,” I protested, and Mother sighed and wanted to know why I couldn’t have a nice hero, like Betsy Ross.
“Betsy Ross!” I cried, rolling my eyes. “Oh, please! All she did was sew!”
“Yes, but she sewed the flag that kept our soldiers going,” Mother said. “She did something very important, just by staying home and sewing. ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’ ”
“Blah,” I said.
“Miss Nonconformist,” Grandmother said scornfully. “I’m surprised she didn’t choose Attila the Hun. He’d be right up her alley.”
“No, he’s right up yours,” I said and Mother turned cement-colored and Grandmother said, “Why, you little sh …”
“Now, Kay,” Daddy said, trying to stop her before she said shit, as if our pure little ears had never heard it before. Shit, shit, shit, Donald and I said it all the time; on family trips, we’d ride in the way-back of the station wagon and look for “sh” words on the billboards and the one who got the most shits by the end of the trip, won. We’d crouch down, with only the tips of our heads and our eyes peeking over the back window, and laugh and laugh until Mother said, “Just what are you two doing back there?”
“She needs to be taught a lesson,” Grandmother said. “If she were mine …”
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t hers or anyone else’s and she couldn’t touch me. I wasn’t a piece of property, some shell on her Florida beach, that she could crunch under her heel or toss back in the ocean or cover with shellac and set on a glass-topped table.
“She’s nothing but trouble with a capital T,” she said, and Daddy said, “Leave her alone, she’s just a kid.”
“Kid, my derrière,” she retorted.
“Come on, come on, let’s have some peace around here,” Daddy said. “What do you all say to the Dairy Queen?”
“Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!” Ruthie squawked, indicating her approval and Mother thought it was a wonderful idea, the Dairy Queen would be lovely.
“What do you say, Boo?” Daddy asked.
“I’m on a diet,” I said and they all hooted.
“Whoever heard of such a thing?” Mother wanted to know. “A twelve-year-old on a diet?” But I wasn’t going. I wouldn’t be caught dead at the Dairy Queen with my family.
Mother knew what I was thinking and she looked sad and I felt bad for hurting her feelings. I hated it when they did that; when they’d sit around looking like lost souls, making me feel like a monster because I didn’t want to pile in the car and sing songs and drive through town looking like some stupid TV family, happy and carefree and clean. How could I expect her to understand when she was so dutiful herself—after all, for four months a year, she had Grandmother clinging to her back like a snarling hump.
“Oh, Maggie, please come,” Mother said and I wanted to scream. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? I’d said I didn’t want to go, so why couldn’t
they just say “OK” and go; why did they have to stand at the door, looking back at me as if they’d never see me again? It made me so mad—if I went with them, I’d hate myself for giving in and doing something I didn’t want to do just because someone’s stupid feelings would be hurt otherwise; but if I didn’t go, I’d hate myself for hurting their feelings.
Grandmother was already in the car, shouting, “Let’s get this show on the road!”
“Are you sure you won’t change your mind?” Mother asked, kind of pleadingly, and I wondered if she wanted me along so Grandmother would torment me, rather than her.
“No,” I said and went upstairs.
MY bedroom was long and narrow, with a little dressing room at the end that Mother called the Black Hole. At either end of the Black Hole were storage spaces directly under the sloping roof of the main part of the house, which we called “under the eaves.” The one on the left-hand side of the room overlooked the sunroom and there was a crack in the floor where I could see down and hear what people were saying if they talked loud enough.
On nights when I was banished from the dinner table, I’d hide there and wait for them to move out into the sunroom to watch TV Donald would be first, then Ruthie would follow, sucking on her stuffed zebra and climbing up on the end of the couch to rock. I hated that couch. I wouldn’t even sit on it; I’d rather have sat on the floor or the footstool than on that dumb couch. It was stupid and ugly and I wished Mother would get rid of it, toss it out on trash day and replace it with something nice, something soft and smooth and comfortable, something to sink into, something covered with pink flowers, not that scratchy brown tweedy stuff. It hurt. It hurt to sit on it, it hurt to look at it, I hated it and I wished Goober would pee all over it so Mother would have to get a new one.
Ruthie didn’t seem to mind. She’d put her hands on the armrest and start rocking back and forth, back and forth, for hours. She’d done it all her life, practically since the day Mother brought her home from the hospital. “Sweet dreams,” Mother used to say as Donald and I trudged upstairs after I Love Lucy, and I’d lie in my dreamy white four-poster bed, listening to Ruthie across the hall, pounding her crib against the wall with an impossible fury “How can a two-year-old have that much strength?” I had asked Mother and she said it was normal for children to rock in their cribs. “Rock, yes,” I said, “not break through the wall like a tank!” Hoo-WHOP! Hoo-WHOP! Hoo-WHOP! Hours and hours of it—rhythmic, monotonous pounding like cannibal drums, Hoo-WHOP! “I think you’d better get her checked,” I told Mother. “I think there’s something wrong with her.” But Mother said that was nonsense, of course there was nothing wrong with her, how could there be? She was just a child, a perfectly well-adjusted child and I ought to be ashamed of myself for suggesting anything to the contrary.
NOT THE END OF THE WORLD Page 7