Sounds Like Crazy
Page 14
Someone told me to pay attention.
The orchestra played a few notes.
The applause was deafening.
“. . . as Harriet.”
Ruffles’s eyes widened.
Sarah elbowed me. I didn’t move. Sarah elbowed me again.
Betty Jane’s jaw dropped.
“Oh.” I opened my eyes with alarm.
“Holly, get up,” said Sarah. “Go,” she whispered urgently.
The music rose in decibels. My head wobbled. I gripped the seat back in front of me. Inside my head, Ruffles waddled after Betty Jane, who was already sailing down the aisle while she waved at the cheering crowd. “What?”
I swayed. Sarah put her hands on my hips. I turned and, hanging on to the seat backs in front of me, I sidestepped as if between two panes of glass past everyone seated between me and the aisle. I didn’t want to be remembered as the voice-over artist who bumped her big butt across patrons’ necks and laps. At least, not more than once.
A whispered ouch told me that my heel dug into a foot as I exited the row. A backward glance showed me it was one of those shiny tuxedo shoes and not a bare, sandaled foot. Luckily.
Sarah shooed me onward like a fly. Once on the runway, I attempted to walk gracefully to the stage. The orchestra mixed with applause jumbled into an earsplitting cacophony.
My vision was divided between the events happening inside my head and the events happening in reality. In the head frame, Betty Jane advanced, waving like a homecoming queen—fingers together and hand tilting back and forth—with Ruffles closing in.
Horns bellowed and cymbals crashed.
I felt as if I were peering through a kaleidoscope.To my left and right, the auditorium of people looked like a giant box full of tiny puzzle pieces. Even with my fractured vision, I was pretty sure the stage lay dead ahead. I continued forward.
I saw Betty Jane seductively lift the sides of her dress and float up the stairs. My shin smacked a sharp angle. I fell to my knees. Ruffles toppled inside my head. The weight of her landing sent my cheek hard against the stage floor. I tasted blood in my mouth. I sat back on my heels, stunned. Then a pair of hands reached under my armpits and pulled me to my feet.
I have on a sleeveless dress, I thought, mortified. I’ve just sweated all over someone’s fingers. I whispered, “Thank you,” and stepped forward onto the Shrine stage as the music hit another crescendo. By now I couldn’t distinguish between the band in my head and the band at the foot of the stage.
Hank Azaria handed me an Emmy statuette. The applause rattled against my skull like a seven-point earthquake. Mesmerized, I watched the scene inside my head. Betty Jane turned like a supermodel, fanning arms down to her sides like a giant sunflower opening in perfect time with the dwindling music. Her smile radiated. Ruffles rushed her and took her down with a tackle.The last thing I remember was Sarge grabbing Betty Jane by the shoulders.
I opened my eyes. My room glowed with gray darkness from the fluorescent streetlights outside. I’m in a hospital? I searched the sides of the bed for a call button and found something that resembled the remote usually sitting on the airplane armrest. I pressed what appeared to be a green button. It turned on the TV.
I scanned the buttons again and was about to press when I heard, “Quite a scene at the Emmy awards tonight, Chuck.”
“I’ll say.”
On a news program, Chuck and a blond woman with snow-white teeth, whose facial expressions had been all but erased by too much Botox, both turned to the monitor behind them. The screen filled with my big purple ass sticking straight up in the air.
The camera retreated and I watched myself, Emmy in hand, manage to sit back on my knees, and then stand all the way up. I swayed slightly, reaching out my free hand for something to stabilize me.Then my other hand started waving the Emmy statuette around like a proud citizen with a flag would as I took off, zigzagging across the stage in a sharp outfighting style that would have made Ali proud. Hank Azaria was right behind me, like a swarmer or “pressure fighter,” attempting to stay close but not so close as to get hit by the statue in my hand.
“What exactly is going on here, Chuck?” The screen zoomed out to the two of them at the news desk.
“Well, according to the studio publicist, this was a skit put together between Holly and Hank.”
If Botox Blonde had an expression, it would have conveyed unconvinced.
“Watch,” said Chuck.
They both turned back to the screen as it zoomed in again.
Hank reached.
I feinted left.
An animallike snarl issued from my wide-open mouth.
I raised my right arm, bent my elbow, and brought the Emmy smack down on the top of my head.
Hank immediately put a hand to the side of his mouth and yelled, “Timber,” as I landed face-first and out cold on the stage.
“Oh!” exclaimed the Botox Blonde.
“‘Oh’ is right!” said Chuck. “And that’s all the time we have tonight. Stay tuned for more on Comedy Central’s Stewart and Colbert.”
The credits rolled as Hank gripped the heels of my designer cowgirl boots and dragged my body off the stage.
I sat in my hospital bed wishing I were the proverbial tree alone in the woods.
“Holly?” said Sarah, standing in the doorway.
“Tonight at the Emmys,” blared from the TV.
“Turn that off,” said Sarah gently. I switched my gaze back to the TV and pressed the mute button.
Sarah sat on the side of the bed, but instead of looking at her, I continued to watch the video of me knocking myself out and falling over, playing in a continuous loop in a little box above and to the left of Jon Stewart’s head. Every ten seconds or so, he’d look up, cover his eyes and shake his head.
Finally, I said, “Betty Jane was fighting with Ruffles. She bit her. Sarge tried to break it up.”
Suddenly, Walter towered at the foot of my bed, in a red-faced rage. “You knock yourself out with the Emmy statue? You have to be dragged off the stage by your ugly fucking boots? You’re damn lucky I managed to get you out of the Shrine and into this hospital, where nobody can see you! This is a fucking disaster,” he screamed.
“Betty Jane wouldn’t let Ruffles have the award. They were fighting; then Sarge—”
“Shushhh.” Sarah reached over and covered my mouth.
“What the hell are you babbling about? There’s nobody fucking here but you, me, and your girlfriend,” shouted Walter.
“I’m her sister, and you need to leave her alone,” said Sarah.
“Sweetheart, I don’t give a good goddamn who you are. There’s nobody else in this room except you, me, and Crazy there in the bed,”Walter yelled. His nostrils flared like a fire-breathing dragon’s.
I pressed back against my bed. Not that it made any difference.
He pulled me to a sitting position.“You were fucking drunk.” Walter spit the words at me.The tip of his red nose was purple, as if an errant ounce of blood had rushed to that spot to serve as an exclamation point. And at that moment, facing him, I wished I were blackout drunk.
“In Walt’s World this kind of shit doesn’t happen. Not anymore. Holly Miller, Midtown waitress, has just had her last day in Walt’s World.”
{ 11 }
My mother once told me that Scarlett O’Hara was right to be more concerned about her expanding waistline than her failing marriage. I thought they both had their priorities backward. But standing there facing Walter’s rage-mottled visage, I had an ill-timed aha experience, which told me my mother was right. At least the aha worked like adrenaline on pain and I knew exactly what to do—act first for appearances and damage control, and then deal with that which should remain hidden.
Act one, I reached for Walter’s hand with the idea that I’d make like what had just happened hadn’t happened.
Act two, he stepped back.The flash of his eyes told me physical contact not initiated or invited by him also didn’t
happen in his world.
Act three, I realized that I didn’t have my mother’s sense of how to right a wrong situation when Walter said, “You’re through.”
“Does he always refer to his world?” said Sarah. I watched her as she watched Walter’s back disappear behind the closing door. Then I shut my eyes.
Ruffles sat on her pillow nursing her head with an ice pack. Her hair was tangled and matted and her face full of scratches. Betty Jane, on the other hand, sat on the couch casually flipping through a gossip magazine, her lipstick on and her hair brushed. The angry imprint of Ruffles’s teeth on her arm, which had already begun to bruise, was the only marker that remained from their stage fight inside my head. It didn’t matter.The sight of those two reality-checked the last bit of hope that I’d imagined everything.
Then my own headache served as the waking pinch, and all I could think was: I need to get out of here, get home, and find a way to fix this with Mike. Right now.
“We have to—”
“Get out of here.” I finished Sarah’s sentence. She nodded at me.
“Stay here. I’ll get you checked out and manage a discreet exit,” she said.
I closed my eyes again. Nothing had changed, and the hush inside my head fanned the spark of apprehension smoldering in my gut.
We exited through a side door at the hospital.The cab Sarah had called idled curbside.We got in and he pulled away without a word. Sarah must have told him where we were going. By the time we reached the hotel, my apprehension had developed into a five-alarm fire of horror-soaked foreboding.
Sarah stood staring out the window at the Los Angeles skyline. “Holly?” she said without looking at me. I knew she wanted to comfort me, but I also knew she couldn’t grasp what it felt like to be exposed in such a public way. I hadn’t walked down the street talking to myself. I had knocked myself out on national television. This carried Monica Lewinsky-caliber shame. Sarah was too perfect even to be in the same universe with that kind of discomposure. And she knew I knew this. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said.
“Uh, okay,” I replied in a tiny voice. I felt way too small to handle what Sarah was leaving me to handle on my own, and at that moment, I didn’t need the reminder that we were so different. But instead of saying that, I said,“You don’t have to leave the door open.” She didn’t, and I sat on the bed wishing I too could just rinse off the whole night with a shower.
The muted sound of running water told me Sarah had begun. I planned to sit there and stare until she emerged; then Betty Jane stood up inside my head and said, “Get in here; I want to speak to you.”
“But who will—”
“Don’t ‘who will’ me. You think I don’t know about your late-night trips to visit Ruffles and conspire against me?” I felt stricken. Lately, Betty Jane had taken to downing a Vicodin and a glass of wine after a hard day. I always thought the combination knocked her out, making it safe for me to come in and visit on the nights Peter wasn’t over.“Nobody will be in control. But you come in here. You just have to trust me.” Her smoldering rage made her face alternate between different shades of red.
“Where’s Sarge?”
“Get in here,” commanded Betty Jane.
I sat against the headboard and closed my eyes. My feet were not yet on the Committee’s hardwood floors when Betty Jane said, “I am an award-winning voice on a successful television show. It is my efforts that bring in the money that finances our life. Do I get thanks? Do I get respect? Do I get appreciation? Do I get credit? No! I get grief and heartache. I get recalcitrance. I get obstinacy. I get cheap shampoo and skin-drying soap.”
I exhaled. All I am going to get is a lecture. I nodded my head just like I did as a child when my mother went on one of her crazy rants, usually because she had done something too embarrassing to face.
“I get to stand by while that fat little saint walks right over my back, crushing me with her enormous bulk, and reaches out to accept my award,” thundered Betty Jane.
“Uh, well.” I glanced over at Ruffles. My heart beat against what felt like hollow logs in my chest. “I mean it was technically Ruffles’s award too,” I whispered. I didn’t want to remind her that if the judges had gone by the edited version of the episode Walter had sent, it was all Harriet and no Violet, meaning the award was for Ruffles’s work.And the judges who awarded my work had no idea how much Ruffles had earned it. No one else would ever be able to turn in award-winning performance after award-winning performance under the same noisy circumstances.
Across the Committee’s living room, Ruffles closed her eyes and inhaled. Her face rippled with the strain of managing Betty Jane’s constant haranguing over the last year and a half since she’d started doing the voice of Harriet.
“Let me tell you,” said Betty Jane.
I refocused on her.The Silent One sat on the floor between her and Ruffles. Where is Sarge? He should be here.
“Let me tell you.” Betty Jane turned toward me. “The foundation for our cushy life and your trim figure rests solely on my shoulders. If it weren’t for me, you’d be a fat waitress eating all the cake you encounter during the week. Oh, I know you think your figure is because of Sarge. He believes in following the rules. All those years in the military made him the disciplined one. But that is a lie. All action and nonaction are because of me. Me. Not Sarge, not Ruffles, not that stupid Boy who spends all his day under furniture, only coming out if dragged by that frankincense-smelling, meditating thing over there.” She jabbed a red nail in the direction of the Silent One, but her face was inches from mine.
“You,” she hissed. I pressed my body against the wall behind me and she leaned in.“You would say it is everyone’s efforts, and out of altruism, I have let you live in your little bubble of delusion. And how do you thank me for all that I have done?” Her nose almost touched mine. I wanted to push her away but I was too scared to move.“You thank me by backing her.” She pointed at Ruffles. “Supporting her. All of you support her.”
I heard the front door open. Betty Jane turned and I tried to shift away. Her arm shot out and blocked me. Sarge paused in the doorframe, shielding the Boy behind him.
“Well . . .” I hung my head. She backed off.
“I have managed all five of you in addition to putting in a full day’s work and bringing home the money. After all, I am the one they always want.” She paused to inspect her manicure while I alternated between trying to find the best way out of this escalating rant and the mounting anger I was trying to hold back. “For all my efforts, what thanks did I get? My fat little saint wanted to start saving. She wanted to cut the bare necessities that I must have to survive, like my car service, my clothing allowance, my Charmin toilet paper.When I asked her why she was not cutting down on the Ruffles she ingests morning, noon, and night, I received no answer other than, ‘Look at the credit card balances.’ What do I care about credit card balances? I win awards.”
The best way out prevailed and I said, “Yes, you win awards. And I agreed, no cheap one-ply toilet paper. I—”
“My work won that award, Holly,” said Ruffles. Her words felt like a slap. She didn’t need to be difficult at this moment.
I tried to convey alliance with my eyes while I said,“I know, uh, but as Betty Jane said, all of this is because of her efforts.” I needed Ruffles to acquiesce here. I didn’t want this fight.
“No,” said Ruffles matter-of-factly,“I won that award. I won it on my own, with no thanks to her.” Oh, God. Oh, God.
Betty Jane turned. Ruffles stood. I moved toward the door.
“Do something!” I screamed at Sarge. He stepped forward.
Betty Jane held up a hand and, without taking her eyes off Ruffles or me, she said,“No. I have had enough of all of you running roughshod over me.You all are ingrates. Especially you,” she sneered at Ruffles.
Ruffles, still bloodied and battered, didn’t flinch. “I won that award,” she repeated. “On my own. No thanks to you.”
“No, there’s no testing. No power,” I said frantically.“Ruffles just wanted to set the record straight.That’s all.You win too.You won too.” I knew I was babbling.
“You always choose wrong, Holly. Always wrong,” said Betty Jane.
Peter had said the same thing to me about my choices when I told him I was taking Sarah to the Emmy awards show. “No matter how many miserable years I’ve stuck by you,” he’d said,“all it takes is one comment by Sarah, and you toss me aside like garbage. You always choose wrong, Holly. Always wrong.”
“Now I am going to make a choice that will give you time to think about your bad choices and how they have resulted in this latest mess,” said Betty Jane.
“What choice? What are you going to do?”
“I am going to leave,” she said.
This brought me up short. “Oh,” I said. Betty Jane was actually going to give me what I had wanted for the last fourteen-plus years. “Well, uh, if that’s what you think is best.”
“You transparent little worm,” said Betty Jane,“I will do what I think best. And what I think best is to take them with me when I leave.This way you will have plenty of peace and quiet to think about your choices.”
“What . . . what do you mean, take them? You can’t take them,” I pleaded.
“Tut-tut, a bad memory to go with bad choices,” said Betty Jane. “You forget that I control the Committee. Me. Not you.” She pointed at me. “Not you.” She pointed at Sarge. “Not you.” She pointed at Ruffles.
“She didn’t point at you,” I said to the Silent One.“Do something.” He shook his head.“You’re just going to sit there and pray while my life goes down the drain?” My bitter words bounced off the walls of the Committee’s living room. His suffering expression whipped my surging panic into a homicidal rage.“What good are you anyway? You let her go crazy.You won’t make her behave? You’re useless. Useless. All you do is sit there and pray. You don’t help when I need something. I hate you. I hate you. You’re useless!” I screamed. He sat quietly on his cushion with sad eyes. I wanted to beat that anguish right off his face.“At least bow your fucking head!” I yelled. Grief pulsed at his temples.