Eating the Cheshire Cat

by Helen Ellis

  What Sarina said was, “Is this a big pig or not?” She pointed to the bottom of the duck her boyfriend offered with brown, eager eyes.

  “No,” said Bitty Jack. “Sorry.”

  Bitty Jack handed Sarina’s boyfriend an orange snake. She took the duck from him and set it drifting with the others.

  “Don’t pick that one again,” Sarina advised. She licked her Lip Smackers that made the booth stink of strawberries. She examined her prize. “Stewart,” she said, “make her give me a purple one.”

  Stewart’s attention was on a pink duck with a dent in its head. Without taking his eyes away, he asked Bitty Jack to make the exchange.

  Bitty Jack knew that this was a legitimate request. Keep the customers happy, the Freak Boss had told her. Keep the suckers at your booth. Bitty Jack did not want Sarina Summers at her booth. So she said, “No switching prizes.”

  Johnny thumped her shin.

  Stewart shrugged and snatched the pink duck from the stream.

  Bitty Jack pulled another snake from the barrel. This time, a red one. She handed it to Sarina, who crossed her arms in protest. “Give me a purple one.”

  Bitty Jack dangled the red snake by the tail, its eyes rocking brainlessly above the duck-ridden water. Stewart took it and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Hey!”

  “Ree, do you want to try for a big pig or not? This is the only game where I’ve got half a chance.”

  “Fine.” Sarina kept her arms crossed, her stiff pinkies standing tall.

  For a moment Bitty Jack forgot about the ducks. She took her mind off her money, off her customers, off her snakes. She stared at Sarina’s fingers spun in gauze, set in splints.

  Sarina said, “What?”

  Stewart held out a blue duck. Blue ducks were always small prizes. Bitty Jack swapped it for a green snake without ever taking her eyes off Sarina’s white bandages.

  “What’s your damage?” Sarina said. “What’s the big god-damned deal about giving me a purple one?”

  Stewart lowered his head to watch the ducks, who seemed to be swimming faster, laughing as if they could. He began to grab at random. He yanked each duck with increasing desperation. Bitty Jack traded each one for a snake. Yellow duck. Green snake. Blue duck. Red snake. Pink. Green. Blue. Another red. Within minutes, Sarina stood like Medusa’s maid of honor. A wilted bouquet of bold-colored snakes drooping from her grasp.

  Stewart peered into his wallet. “I think we’re done here.”

  Sarina said, “She didn’t even look at half the ducks!”

  Bitty Jack refused to utter one word. Sarina didn’t recognize her. She probably didn’t even remember what she had done. Bitty Jack’s fear was eaten by anger. She kept her eyes dull and made Sarina squirm.

  “Quit looking at me!”

  Stewart took her elbow.

  “Let go of me!” Sarina grabbed a duck. “I need to teach this girl some manners!” She hurled the duck and the duck bounced off Bitty’s neck. It fell to the sawdust that covered the ground.

  Johnny Iguana stood up.

  Sarina said, “What the hell?”

  “Ma’am. You need to simmer down.”

  Sarina said, “She won’t play fair!”

  Stewart said, “We got to go.”

  Sarina said, “Hell, no!” She grabbed ducks fist over fist. She threw each one at Bitty Jack. Less than two feet away, Sarina hit her every time.

  The ducks did not hurt, but Bitty Jack fought back. With each try, she aimed a duck at Sarina’s precious face. She bet that girl had never shed tears, never felt lost, been left out, been sad. Maybe if Bitty’s ducks took off her makeup, Sarina’s boyfriend would see that she was flesh, just skin on bones. Maybe he’d leave her. Maybe she’d cry.

  Stewart and Johnny tried to hold the girls back. Sarina shrieked, screeched, and screamed. Bitty hurdled the stand. A crowd gathered as pastel ducks flew. The fight stopped when a shot was fired.

  The Freak Boss lowered his starter’s pistol. “You two, break it up!”

  Sarina said, “She started it! She wouldn’t play fair. Fire her! Fire her or I’ll . . .”

  “Little lady, I will tend to my employee. Do I need to call the authorities to escort you and your gentleman friend off the fairgrounds?”

  “No, sir,” said Stewart. He led Sarina away.

  The Freak Boss told Johnny Iguana to take a walk, then looked at Bitty Jack sterner than her father ever had. Bitty Jack turned away from him to discover a booth with no players, money scattered like ticket stubs, strewn from her apron.

  The Freak Boss told her that this night would be her last. Even though she was a good worker, she had to be the example. She had fought with a customer and turned her back on Pick a Duck. Unlike Johnny Iguana, who could not be replaced, no offense, Regulars like Bitty Jack were easy to find. Besides, their relationship was getting too serious. He bet her parents would agree. He would drive her to the bus station. She was banned from the fair.

  Nicole

  FOLLOWING WHAT Mrs. Hicks was already referring to as the Report Card Incident, Nicole spent the evening locked in the upstairs bathroom. It was a safe place for her. Hospital clean with no windows.

  Her father had returned from the Zoo Mania coverage. Nicole knew he was in the house. She had heard the car pull in. She had heard him call, “I’m home!” Usually, when Mr. Hicks returned from assignment, Nicole would rush to meet him, open his briefcase, and rummage through papers for a little something brought back for her. Usually, it was a pencil with the logo from whatever event he had covered printed on the side. Special Olympics. Alabama Pledge Week. Nicole owned a clay pot full of them. It once housed a cactus Nicole had watered like a geranium.

  Nicole knew what her mother was doing. She was downstairs telling Mr. Hicks her side of the story. Her version would involve lies and scandal, plots and schemes, a manipulative best friend and a wishy-washy daughter. With enough persistence, Nicole’s mother could make her husband believe anything. After all, for sixteen years, she had made him believe that she knew best for their daughter.

  Nicole opened the medicine cabinet. She saw her father’s electric razor stationed between her mother’s pastel cans and cloudy jars. She picked it up and felt its weight. For as long as she could remember, she had heard its buzz every weekday afternoon. She had heard her father complain that it was in his contract to keep a clean shave. She wondered if her mother missed his beard. Nicole had seen it in photo albums. It was red even though her father’s hair was jet black. But she couldn’t be sure this was true anymore. On the top shelf, three boxes of Grey Be Gone sat at the ready.

  Nicole hadn’t thought of what her flunking out would do to her dad. At the time, it had seemed such a logical choice. Mom versus friend. Friend wins in the end. Now, here she was: hidden away. Soon to be a family embarrassment. And, still, Sarina was playing hard to get.

  Nicole opened her mother’s makeup drawer. She struggled with clasps and camouflaged locks. She ran her fingertips over muted eye shadows. She toyed with mascara wands. She twisted lipsticks out of gold ribbed containers and brought them to her nose. Everything smelled rosy. She wondered how long she could stomach this quiet, lonely place.

  She went for the eyebrow tweezers. She picked out a pair of cuticle scissors. She opened cabinets and more drawers, slid back the sliding door to the bathtub, and gathered a sharp bouquet of instruments. There was so much to choose from: orange sticks and nail files, safety pins and pink plastic razors, hair accessories and hot roller clips with the rubber ends bitten off.

  In a way, the tools were beautiful. So many points and slick edges begging to be touched. It was a pleasure she doubted anyone else could understand. In this room, Nicole could appreciate the good stuff.

  * * *

  Nicole had cut herself for the first time when she was twelve. She caught her brother masturbating. It was an accident. It really was.

  She went to Rick’s room to get him for supper. She knocked on his door.
His stereo was blaring. She thought she heard “Come in.” So she opened the door and there he was: naked on a towel, humping his football. Rick opened his mouth, but was at the point of no return. His body rocked in spasms. His cream came uncontrollably all over the pigskin.

  Nicole ran to the kitchen and, for want of distraction, offered to open a can of corn for her mother. As the can turned beneath the electric opener’s round, pronged blade, Nicole let her finger travel too close. It was just a nick, but the blood went everywhere, in the corn, on the counter. Mrs. Hicks went ballistic and sent Nicole to her room.

  That night when her father brought her a dinner plate, Nicole refused a second helping of Tylenol. Left alone, she removed the dishtowel that she was supposed to use to apply constant pressure. She studied her cut. She spread its mouth and let the blood start again. She let one drop drip onto her comforter. The air-conditioning burned the wound, but Nicole treasured the pain. It released all anxiety, all embarrassment, all the fear that Rick would never forgive her, never talk to her again, never pal around. It was a fair trade. She wore that scar like a badge.

  When Nicole left the bathroom, she found her mother camped on her double bed, her back waffled against the blue wicker headboard, the bright flowers on the bedspread twisted in her fists.

  “Your father and I have discussed it. He thinks you’ve punished yourself enough by ruining your future. I disagree. I’ve taken your license. No car privileges for a year. You want to be a tenth grader so bad, you can be one whole-hog.”

  “But Mom—”

  “Don’t But Mom me. No telephone. No TV.”

  “But I have to call Sarina.”

  “Nicole, don’t try me. Say that name again and, I’ll ground you till you’re grown!”

  Over the course of the summer, Mrs. Hicks came close to keeping that promise. She let her daughter out of the house only to get the mail and take out the trash. Nicole wore down the driveway. Every time she got to the end, she would linger at the mailbox, staring across the street for any sign of her friend. Sarina was never there. No glimpse of her in any window. No front-lawn acrobatics.

  Nicole knew that Sarina had called. She’d heard her father greet her by name. She’d heard her mother remind him of the conditions of her punishment and tell Mr. Hicks to hang up the phone.

  So Nicole reverted to the girls’ old tactics. She shone a flashlight out her bedroom window. She called the Summers and let the phone ring half a ring. When she took out the trash, she raised the metal mailbox flag. Anything to signal Sarina that it was safe to sneak out of her house and into the Hicks’ kitchen and up the stairs to Nicole’s bedroom.

  But Sarina never showed. Between their two houses, Cheshire Way was always bare. No sign of a young girl running shoeless so as not to be caught. Sarina, it seemed, had little time for childish ways. Nicole, however, had all the time in the world.

  By the end of the summer, Mrs. Hicks had washed her hands of Nicole. She was more self-involved. She was doing her thing. While other mothers took their daughters to the pool, Mrs. Hicks kept tan by lying out in her backyard on the abandoned trampoline.

  She said, “I don’t want to explain myself to those women at the club.”

  Nicole said, “Why do you have to explain yourself?”

  Mrs. Hicks slid her feet into purple-soled orange flip-flops. “Because that’s what good friends do.” She crammed a paperback into her straw bag and gathered her beach towel, still warm from the dryer. “Now, let me alone before the sun moves to the front yard.”

  Mrs. Hicks spent her free time with her husband, who did not know what to do with a daughter who simply sat in her room. Without the activities her mother pushed her into, there was nothing for Mr. Hicks to attend. No football games, no PTA. With no distractions, Mr. Hicks lavished attention on his wife.

  One afternoon, Mr. Hicks came home unexpectedly. From where Nicole sat on the stairs, she could survey his corner of the den. He sat in his reading chair by the fireplace that had never been used. He crossed his legs, an inch of pale skin peeking out from between his cuff and sock. He took the rubber band off the newspaper and laid it over his lap. But he never looked down. For over ten minutes, he stared through the sliding-glass doors, into the backyard. At one point, Nicole crept to the window in Rick’s bedroom to see what exactly captivated her father.

  Mrs. Hicks lay on her back on the center of the trampoline. Her sunglasses covered the tops of her cheeks. Her stomach browned like baked Apple Betty. She touched the bun on the top of her head. She ran her fingers over the oil on her arms which were so thin, Nicole thought they might possibly be hollow.

  Mrs. Hicks picked up her water bottle lodged between two springs. She swirled it and doused her chest with the backwash. Tucking her towel around her waist, Mrs. Hicks got to her feet and wobbled to the edge of the trampoline. She swung her body to the grass and, as she went toward the house, Nicole returned to her spot on the stairs.

  Nicole heard the glass door slide open and her mother exclaim, “Well, this is a surprise!”

  Mr. Hicks patted the arm of his chair.

  Mrs. Hicks hesitated. “You must be joking.”

  Pat, pat.

  Nicole watched her mother secure the towel and sit where Mr. Hicks had asked. From under the newspaper, he produced a small gray velvet box. When he popped it open, Mrs. Hicks gasped, lost her balance, and toppled onto the carpet.

  “I know that it’s gold, but why wait another twenty-five years to give you this?”

  Her mother got to her feet and plopped her bottom on top of that paper. She took the cocktail ring from the box and pushed it down her index finger. The diamond it sported looked too big to be true.

  Mrs. Hicks whispered, “We can’t afford this.”

  “What we can’t afford,” said Mr. Hicks, “is to see you so unhappy.”

  Mrs. Hicks kissed her husband and Nicole held her breath as she waited for them to break apart like decent parents did. When she finally took in oxygen, Nicole felt lightheaded. Her parents were arm in arm, lips still locked, walking dazedly toward their bedroom. The reading light shone on the empty box on the chair. The towel that hugged her mother’s waist lay deserted on the floor.

  When school started, Nicole’s mother drove her to the Central West bus stop located in the parking lot of Central High East. For the past two years, Mrs. Hicks had split car-pool duty with Mrs. Summers. This year, Sarina would be driving herself. For her repeat performance, Nicole would be in her mother’s charge.

  Mrs. Hicks flicked the automatic lock from her side of the car. “I hope you realize that your actions affect everyone. I have to miss my early mornings at the gym. When I go at nine, it throws my whole day off.”

  “You could give me my license back.”

  “Get out of the car, Nicole.”

  Nicole jerked her feet up off the floor mat and felt September’s heat suck her out into the day. She felt so tired. So unprepared. Before Nicole let go of the door handle, Mrs. Hicks gunned the engine and doubled out of the fifteen-mile-an-hour school zone. Alone in the crowd, all Nicole could think about was finding her friend.

  Sarina was nowhere.

  Nicole walked toward the bus stop where kids were packed under the aluminum shed. They were scattered in clumps in empty parking spaces. They looked older than she remembered. They made a lot of noise. As she got closer, she recognized the new tenth-graders. Last year, they were the ones who tried to muzzle in as she and Sarina walked through the halls. Now they were the first to tell new kids exactly who she was. Here comes Nicole Hicks, a flunkie, a retard, a loser held back. Nicole hugged her spiral binders, one for every subject, close to her body. She waited for a miracle.

  Sarina skidded to a stop to answer her prayers. She honked her horn and, with one hand on the steering wheel, pushed the passenger door open and waved. As Nicole slid inside the gift Sarina’s father had delivered by way of the same moving company that transferred him out of the Summers’ house after the divorce,
the other kids gawked.

  Sarina said, “Let’s roll!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m taking you to school, Nicole. With your mom pulling that Rapunzel crap, this is the only way I can see you.”

  Nicole was astounded. Thrilled. Chilled. Too-good-to-be-real-ed. She flung her arms around her friend.

  “Hey.” Sarina squirmed. “I’m driving here.”

  “I’m sorry, Ree.” Nicole wiped away tears with her wrists. “I’m just so glad to see you.” She rubbed her eyes and regained focus. “You’re . . . you’re like a dream.”

  Sarina merged into the two-lane main road. She turned the radio way up. She poked the seek knob. As morning drive-time teams teased the winning caller (“Oops, I don’t know, Bob, seems like this is number 99 not 100.” “Naw, Jerry. You sure?” “Oh, Gawd, don’t hang up, don’t hang up!”), Sarina said, “Yeah, yeah, I love you too.”

  For months, Nicole had imagined what this moment would be like. When she finally had Sarina back. When she at last, once again, had Sarina to herself. But now Nicole was unable to say anything. It was an awkward silence that lasted close to five miles.

  Sarina said, “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but do you think it’s dyslexia?”

  Nicole stared out the side window. She recognized the Central West bus route. There goes Krispy Kreme. There’s one, two, three Bridal Boutiques. Amoco. Texaco. British P. Gulf. As soon as she smelled the bread from the Sunbeam factory, the West campus would be just around the corner. She said, “You’re born with dyslexia.”

  Sarina leaned toward Nicole. She checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror. She said, “Well, I don’t know. I’m just trying to help. Oprah had on kids who were totally messed up from the chemicals their schools used to wipe the blackboards. One girl’s breasts were bleeding because the vents were shut for like a hundred years.”

  Sarina stopped the car outside the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the parking lot of Central High West. She offered information about varsity cheerleading practice that had started two weeks earlier. “People think we have it easy, but it’s worse than JV. Look at this.” Sarina twisted in her seat, pulled out her blouse, and lifted it to show Nicole a large bruise above her hip.