Sounds Like Crazy

by Mahaffey, Shana

  Betty Jane shook her head and went back to reading her book. That was when I noticed that the chaise she reclined on was purple.And new. My mind’s eye flashed around the Committee’s room and I saw that there was a lot of new purple stuff. Ruffles had always worn purple and her lounging pillow was purple. But now the living room walls and the carpeting were an almost imperceptible lavender, and scattered about their living room were accent pillows a deep Japanese eggplant purple. Sheer lilac curtains billowed from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The Silent One knelt in prayer on a new midnight blue cushion that exactly matched his robe. Sarge still wore his standard faded jeans and white tee, but these now blended with the surroundings.The only two sharply contrasting colors were Betty Jane’s sunflower pin and the Boy’s red Converse sneakers. The Committee’s digs had definitely improved since I’d started doing voice-overs.That was how it worked. When things got better on the outside, it showed on the inside. It startled me that I was just noticing. I guessed now I was the unaware dolt.

  “Holly?” I heard my name being called from what seemed like far away. “Holly?” My body was being shaken. “Holly?”

  “What?” I snapped. “Don’t touch me.” I pushed Peter away.

  “Jesus,” he said,“you don’t have to be such a bitch. I was talking and you were gone. I take it back.You haven’t changed.”

  I stared at him. If there were a mirror behind his head, I’d expect to be overcome by the reflection of the nasty look on my face.We’d had this fight so many times. So many times.And I was so tired of it. But not tired enough to do anything about it.

  Peter sipped his beer and stayed silent.

  After a while, I said in a neutral tone, “I thought we were going to go out.”

  “I didn’t say we were going out. I said we might go out. But turns out I can’t tonight.”

  “He most certainly said we were going out,” said Betty Jane inside my head. She was right. “We have new Manolos and a pedicure to show off.” Her voice matched the anger I felt.

  “Oh—”

  “But I came by to see you anyway.”

  Oh, well.“I am glad you came by. I’ve missed you,” I said, taking off my shoes and kicking them over in front of the closet.

  “What?” screamed Betty Jane, so loud my head shimmied on my neck.

  Peter mimicked me with a wobble and said, “Me too. And I know how we can kill that couple of hours.” His hands toyed playfully with the waistband of my jeans.

  I heard a loud snort of disgust inside my head before the Committee left the room.

  “Convince me,” I teased. Peter pulled me close and started kissing me very slowly, applying what we called the lesbian kiss. Peter once told me he had met a lesbian at a party who swore to him that only a woman knew how to kiss a woman. Peter convinced her to teach him how. He liked to think he could charm the pants off even lesbians. She did teach him, though. And he was good at it. So, maybe her pants were hiding somewhere in his closet at home. Either way, this kiss was the trump card he pulled out when he wanted to avoid conflict of any kind.

  Later, Peter, me, and the cats were lying in bed watching the sliver of moon as it peeked through the two buildings I could see from my window. Peter made a move to get up. I snuggled in closer and whispered, “Stay the night.We can sleep in, go for breakfast, and then wander the streets talking, like we used to.”

  “Can’t. Gotta go.”

  “Of course he has to go,” snapped Betty Jane inside my head. “He didn’t have time to go out but he certainly had time to stay in.”

  Private time was over.

  “Come on,” I said, trying to flirt, but the tone bordered on pleading. “I have a week off.”

  Inside my head, I heard what sounded like a strangled expletive. Even under extreme duress, Betty Jane never swore like us mere mortals.“He got what he came for; why on earth should he stay?”

  I reached out my hands to Peter.

  “Tomorrow we’re going to march to the bookstore looking stylish, and not in sweatpants, and buy some books on how to handle a man.” Betty Jane always threatened me like this when I pushed past her limits.

  “You never stay anymore.” Despite having avoided buying, much less reading, any books on manhandling, even I knew I shouldn’t say this. I heard a high-pitched wail at the same time Peter nudged me, not gently, aside. I sat up with the sheet wrapped around me. He was off the bed and picking up his discarded clothes.

  “I’m not having this conversation,” he said, pulling up his Calvins. “I told you I’ve been busy.”

  Busy doing what? I wondered.

  “I came by tonight because I know we haven’t seen each other much lately.” He fastened his jeans and started looking around. “Where’s my shirt?”

  “Over there,” I said, pointing to the foot of the bed. A pain that always started before a crying jag radiated behind my eyes.

  “Grab that shirt and tell him you want to know what he is doing that keeps him so busy!” hissed Betty Jane inside my head.

  Maybe she needed a brushup on manhandling as well. Too late, though. Even though her harangues were surely meant to motivate me back onto the market for a new man, they always had the opposite effect—fomenting a desperation I was unwilling to examine, accompanied by deep shame because the whole Committee witnessed it and even felt it. Let’s face it. Even the most heedless woman intuitively knows what her lover is up to. But there are women who throw a lover out for betrayal and there are women who cling. I don’t have to tell you which one I was.

  Peter sat back on the bed and tied his shoes. He turned around to say good night but stopped. “Are you . . .”

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

  “It’s the voices.” Peter pointed at me.

  My stomach dropped.

  “Fire in the hole!” yelled Sarge inside my head. I started trembling. All the Committee members scrambled for the exits in their house. They’d left me to handle this grenade. How had he figured it out? After one and a half years.

  “You don’t change your voice anymore when you’re mad or whatever.”

  I exhaled and anger seeped in through my pores. “Mad” meant Betty Jane, and the rest of the Committee was “whatever.”

  “I never liked it when you changed your voice like that,” Peter said, getting up.

  My resentment shifted as soon as I knew he was really going. As if my fluctuating emotions and lack of changing voices were the cause of his early departure. As if my new job, my new outlook, my success all came at the price of my relationship. Oh, God, I thought. What if Peter leaves me? What if I’m wrong and he walks out the door and never comes back? Never calls again? No explanation as to why not. Just disappears. Doesn’t respond when I call. What would I do? I couldn’t stand the thought. I couldn’t stand it.The jagged teeth of my tears tore at my eyelids.

  I quickly wiped my eyes and said,“No kiss?” I tried to mimic Betty Jane’s voice, but it came out like a squeaky plea. Peter picked up the change that had fallen out of his pocket and took his wallet off the nightstand. He leaned over, pecked me on the head, turned around so I could see his wallet sliding into his back pocket as he disappeared into the living room.

  When he shut the door, I curled up in a fetal position with the sheet pulled up to my chin.All was quiet except for the ringing in my ears and the noise from the street below. I felt too empty to shed any more tears.

  After a while, I sat up and lit a cigarette. My phone indicated new voice mail. Maybe Peter had called me to apologize. That shred of hope turned woebegone when I heard Brenda’s voice.

  “Holly, I know you’re catching up on, uh, life, but I have an easy two-hour job for you if you want it. It’s for a movie. Really quick. Good money. I told them you’d do it tomorrow.” I loved how she went from “if you want it” to “you’ll do it tomorrow.” At least she gave me twenty-four hours’ notice. I called Brenda and told her I’d be there and to go ahead and book me for the rest of the week.


  Betty Jane was in a bad mood when we got into the car.“I do not see why we have to go to that squalid little recording studio for this job,” she said inside my head.

  For the first time Betty Jane wore a tracksuit. Granted, it was a five-hundred-dollar designer suit, but it was casual nevertheless. The inky black velour made her sunflower pin look especially malevolent. Maybe that’s because I’m tired, I thought.

  Brenda had told me that the job would be a quick in and out. I just had to pop down to a recording studio of my choice and record, “Yes,Your Highness,” a few times and collect a fat check. I’d asked the production assistant to book Al Basi’s studio over on Fiftieth Street. I’d met Al before I started on The Neighborhood and I’d needed a place to practice using the microphone. He was a decent guy and he gave me a really good deal.

  “Al was nice to us, so I want to help him out.” I noticed the driver glance in the rearview mirror. He always did this to make sure I wasn’t talking to him. I pressed the button to close the barrier between us. People whispered about me talking to myself. Ruffles and Sarge always argued that it was because I’d become careless. Betty Jane and I were sure only one person could be the source of that rumor—the driver—and he was now safely on the other side of the glass.

  “I have to suffer in a three-by-three box so you can help out that lecherous, unwashed creature?” snapped Betty Jane inside my head to the Committee.

  The booth wasn’t that small.

  “Holly,” said Sarge inside my head, “you will recall that to assuage Betty Jane’s claustrophobia, I took over and walked the booth for precise measurements. It was, in fact, ten-by-ten.”

  “It felt smaller,” said Betty Jane.

  “I’m sure it did.” I sighed. “We’re still going there.”

  “The sculpted foam lining had a bad odor.” Betty Jane sniffed. “I had to spray half a bottle of Chanel No. 5 to manage.”

  How could I ever forget that one? Betty Jane had refused to speak until the booth smelled nice. Unfortunately, her version of nice was Chanel No. 5—not the half-price eau de toilette, mind you, but the genuine article. The stuff cost two hundred and sixty dollars a bottle. I had to use the emergency credit card to buy it. In the week we practiced at Al’s, Betty Jane used a bottle a day. My mother was so angry she called me herself. I didn’t even like the way it smelled, but it didn’t stop me from asking my mother what pissed her off more, that I bought five bottles of two-hundred-and-sixty-dollar perfume or that I didn’t buy them for her.We hadn’t spoken since.

  “The foam was moldy,” said Ruffles inside my head.

  “Thanks for the support.” I sat back against the leather seat with arms crossed and ignored all of them for the remainder of the drive.

  I arrived to mayhem in the studio.The director, casting director, a writer, and a couple of suits were all crammed into Al’s recording room. This cast of characters was supposed to be safely far away in Los Angeles. Worst case, according to Brenda, was that they might want to be on the phone while we recorded. Why hadn’t I asked them to book a better studio?

  “Holly, there you are,” said Al. He pulled me aside to fill me in. Turned out the studio people were in town and had decided to stop in for the recording. Also turned out one of the suits shared Betty Jane’s impression of Al’s. And with that, I saw my afternoon disappearing and the brief session extending into what surely would be oblivion.

  Fifteen minutes and one bottle of Chanel No. 5 later, Betty Jane decided to expand, “Yes, Your Highness,” into a monologue.

  “No changes in the script,” said the director through the talkback.

  I fought to regain control. Betty Jane held on. “The script is stupid.” I sank onto the Committee’s couch. Because she was in control, those words came out of my mouth.

  “Read it anyway,” he said.

  “Do you know who I am?” said Betty Jane in response. Here we go. And it proceeded downhill from there in a childish, “I know you are but what am I” fashion between Betty Jane and the director. Then Betty Jane appeared in the Committee’s living room.

  “Who’s ...?”

  Before I could finish the thought, my body fell off the stool in the booth. Nobody’s running the show right now. I panicked. Ruffles lifted her bulk and moved to the center of the room. My head would have straightened if my body hadn’t been passed out on the floor. When the smelling salts were waved under my nose, I found that Ruffles was in control.

  Everyone left the booth.

  “Let’s try this again, shall we?” said the director icily through the talkback.

  “Yes,Your Highness,” said Ruffles though my mouth.

  “Okay, different voice, but I like it,” said the director. “Say it again, but this time draw out the yes and keep the whole phrase under one second.”

  “It appears that the fat saint has things under control,” said Betty Jane to me inside my head. “I am taking a moment.”

  Ruffles saved the day.The big surprise came when the Boy took control to do the dog barks in the script. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d heard the Boy speak, and I had no memory of him ever being in control. But Sarge assured me that the Boy had taken over before, so it would be fine.When I asked for more details, everyone glanced at the locked closet in the Committee’s living room. Then I realized that the Boy hadn’t spoken since Betty Jane had arrived more than a decade ago, and I felt like a rebellious teenager with friends encouraging dangerous behavior.

  When he took control I couldn’t breathe. The Committee’s living room started to shift and rush. Sarge moved in front of the closet while Ruffles tried to walk toward me. I shook her off.

  “Action,” echoed through the Committee’s living room.The Boy said,“Ruff, ruff,” out of my mouth. I pulled him hard. I heard the third “Ruff ” fading in the sound booth as I took control.

  “You nailed it,” said the director.“That was the exact level of anxiety I wanted.”

  I wiped my clammy forehead with the back of my hand in relief. I wasn’t about to let the Boy have control again.

  When we left, Betty Jane hadn’t returned.Two days later she was still AWOL and Peter was not returning my calls.

  { 7 }

  Betty Jane returned after five days, proffering an olive branch and a pledge of friendship. I felt like I did in sixth grade, when one of the popular girls befriended me, and I welcomed Betty Jane’s warmhearted attention with open arms, ignoring the fact that she had timed her return with the start of our workweek. Ruffles reminded me that fifty pounds was the only difference between me and my twelve-year-old self, and Betty Jane’s leash didn’t look any different from that of that popular girl whose motive turned out to be access to my homework. When I told her she was wrong, Ruffles said, “Just don’t choke on your new collar.”

  Peter didn’t forgive or forget, but when you’ve been repeatedly punished by people like my parents and Betty Jane, Peter’s form of retaliation wasn’t sharp enough to cut a wet napkin. He and I were back to our usual state of affairs after a couple of weeks.The kicker was that by mid-August, Betty Jane and I had sort of become friends.

  By the third week in August, Mike said he wanted the cast and crew at a conference room table to review the story lines. When we left for the studio, Betty Jane declared she was taking a day. Most likely to shop, sleep, get a facial, or whatever it was she did when she was not in my head torturing me and the rest of the Committee members. She had no use for these meetings because she was the character of Violet personified. She didn’t care what anyone thought or wanted. Betty Jane did Violet the way she considered best. Late last fall, when the network guy, who insisted on testing me himself after our first four episodes had aired on TV, asked her to make a certain word sound more “violet”—the color, not the character—she flashed my eyes at him and made the word sound exactly the way she wanted it to, which was not, according to him,“violet.” Mike told him that he couldn’t argue with the ratings, but it was this t
ype of behavior from Betty Jane that earned me my diva reputation and then some.

  Around midday, Walter and one of the suits showed up and Mike called a break. Looking for a way to pass the time, I stumbled into a conference room, where two writers were discussing a new story line. I stood by the door listening.

  “That character sounds pretty interesting; let me see the sketches,” I said.

  They stopped talking and looked over at me with annoyance. I didn’t need Betty Jane when I wanted something. I held out my hand. One stared at me while the other began scribbling furiously on his notepad. No surprise, since he was the one Betty Jane tore apart the most. She ignored his cues, embellished in places he asked her not to, and basically did what she did best: exactly what she wanted. Once, during a reading, after making several cutting remarks about the dialogue, Betty Jane had sweetly said, “Well, what else can I expect from a lowbrow hack of a writer like you?” Since nobody knew about Betty Jane, or any of the other Committee members, of course they all thought it was me saying these things, even when I said them in her voice. No amount of ingratiating on my part could fix the situation. Halfway through taping the first season, I stopped trying and instead turned my focus to Betty Jane. She agreed to lighten up if I didn’t balk when she did things her way. The result was a Mexican standoff between Betty Jane and the writers, with me caught in the middle.

  I signaled impatiently to the writer with my outstretched hand.

  “Sure.” He handed me a sheet of paper.“We just have a general outline of what Harriet—that’s her name—looks like.”

  I read the character synopsis: family member, overweight, sharp wit, who turns up to collect her inheritance and threatens to expose Violet and undermine the hold she has on her neighbors. Ruffles’s hand froze in her bag of potato chips.