Eating the Cheshire Cat

by Helen Ellis

  Mrs. Hicks said something that Nicole could not make out. Her mother moved her mouth too quickly. She barely spread her lips apart. Balling her hands into tiny fists, she pounded on the glass, but Mrs. Summers did not flinch.

  Mrs. Summers simply strolled to the gray-stoned front walkway. She sat down and got comfortable, spreading out her long denim skirt, pushing up her sleeves as if she might pull jacks from her cardigan pocket.

  Nicole noticed neighbors peeping out behind their blinds. Opening their doors a crack. Watching and waiting for the clash of two titans.

  Mrs. Summers waved hello to Mrs. Three-Doors-Down. She nodded to a woman with a trash bag half empty.

  Nicole knew her mother could not tolerate such a scene. So she wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Hicks stepped outside. What did surprise her was that she sat down to talk. She sat opposite Mrs. Summers. Both women’s legs on the walkway, both butts in the grass. Six-ticket fun-house mirror versions of the other. Fat and skinny. Fraught and frail. They spoke over each other. One whispered. One hissed. The middle-aged she-devils eloquently at war.

  Then Mrs. Summers said something that shut Mrs. Hicks up. She said it again and Mrs. Hicks’ neck jerked. In the corner of the garage, Nicole wondered what she’d said. In all her life, Nicole had failed to find the words that could quiet her mother.

  Mrs. Summers reached into her pocket, wriggled her fingers, the knuckles making waves beneath the densely woven cotton. It seemed she was trying to torture Mrs. Hicks, hunt for something in that pocket among lipstick, keys, and gum. Mrs. Hicks did not appear to draw a breath in those few seconds, her eyes on that pocket, stroking her nub as had become her gross habit.

  Nicole shifted nervously, anxious for the big surprise.

  Mrs. Summers produced something small and shiny. It was the size of a nickel, but a higher-ranked color. Nicole craned her neck forward as if that would magnify the binoculars’ effect. She had to make sure it was what she thought it was.

  As if to help Nicole as well as Mrs. Hicks get a closer look, Mrs. Summers held the object away from her body. Her elbow bent, her thumb and first finger pinched the object half a foot from Mrs. Hicks’s face. Nicole was scared at what her mother might do. But Mrs. Hicks just sat there, wide-eyed and weary. Her shoulders slumped. Her posture that of a woman defeated.

  As if to provoke her, Mrs. Summers flipped it like a kick-off coin. Falling, falling, falling, the object flickered in the glow of the lamp post light.

  Mrs. Summers caught it clean. She stood up and started back to her house.

  Nicole hugged herself to smother the shock. She was right about that item. It was her mother’s diamond ring. The same ring she had swiped when she cut out and ran. The same ring that now left her mother as idle white as the moon.

  “Where did you get that?” came Mrs. Hicks’s voice across the street.

  Mrs. Summers kept walking.

  “Wait. Where did you—” Mrs. Hicks was running now. In truth, she was stumbling in a fast, awkward manner. Her arms dangled at her sides. Flat feet upon the pavement, her head wobbled without posture like a puppet with one string.

  Mrs. Summers did not look at her. She looked straight ahead. She moved toward her own front door, seemingly confident that her neighbor-slash-nemesis would never catch up.

  But she did.

  Mrs. Hicks grabbed Mrs. Summers by the back of her sweater and hung on as if she could be dragged until Tuesday. Although the sweater was now pulled snug at the armpits, Mrs. Summers kept walking as if hindered by a weight less than the dead.

  “Where did you get that? It can’t possibly be mine!”

  Mrs. Summers stopped short, two feet from the garage. She whipped around. “You bet it’s yours.”

  Mrs. Hicks said, “Let me see it again.”

  “Forget it. You saw. Besides,” Mrs. Summers gave Mrs. Hicks a slight shove, “you’ve said all along that I’m nothing but a thief.”

  “You’ve got her?”

  “Wouldn’t that just be the cat in the hat.”

  “You’ve got her?”

  “Now, Carolyn, that’s not at all what I’m saying. But I’m surprised you didn’t think of that before. You’ve held that Tri Delta prank over my head for twenty-some years. You and Tootsie Steptoe. Setting me up for whatever reason you had.”

  “You stole Tootsie’s ring.”

  “You know I didn’t.” Mrs. Summers reached into her cardigan pocket. “And for your information, I didn’t steal this one either.”

  Nicole tried to curl herself into a ball. She closed her eyes and hid her face in her lap. If she couldn’t see them, the reverse must apply. She covered her ears. She pursed her lips to shush her breathing. Don’t move, she told herself. Don’t move or they’ll find you. She stayed this way for a few minutes more. Then her peace was cracked open by the slam of a door.

  Nicole watched her mother storm across the street to answer Mrs. Summers with a door of her own. As if to top her, Nicole’s mother turned the knob, opened, and swung hers shut a second louder time.

  Nicole thought, What the mother-fucking hell is going on? Everything was going so well, so damned right. She had her binoculars, her freedom, her tree, and her Ree. Her life was as she liked it. She had an invisible shield. But now that shield had a great big hole in it. Cut away with a diamond as if she were trapped in a phone booth.

  Nicole stormed into the kitchen and rammed Mrs. Summers into the fridge. She caught her fall on the vegetable crisper, but dropped her wine bottle onto the tile floor.

  “What are you trying to do to me, huh?” Nicole grabbed a knife from the knife block and yelled, “Tell me! Tell me or I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” said Mrs. Summers, her skirt soaking up the white Zinfandel, one hand reaching for the egg shelf for leverage. “You’ll cut me? Oh, please. You make one move and I’ll tie your hair to your mother’s mailbox. I’ll blow my horn till the cows come home!”

  Nicole put the knife on the counter.

  “That’s not where it goes.”

  Nicole put the knife in the knife block.

  “Much better.”

  Nicole handed a paper towel roll to Mrs. Summers and stared into the faces of bunnies and ducklings as they sopped up the white wine under Mrs. Summers’s pressure.

  “You’re sending me back to my mother, is that it?”

  Mrs. Summers stuffed the paper towels into the trash can. She took off her skirt and lay the wet part in the sink. Her blouse hung over the control top of her panty hose. The cardigan hit hip level and, in the pocket, Nicole could see the precious rock’s bulge.

  “I gave that to you so you’d keep quiet about me.”

  Mrs. Summers sat down at the blue wicker table. The seat crunched beneath her. She shifted on the cushion and the seat crunched some more. “Nicole, when you came here I didn’t ask any questions.”

  Nicole remembered running, halfway crazy, halfway scared. Tri Delt alums, in the street and in her yard, in her house, in their cars, panic-stricken, somewhat drunk. Everyone screaming, chatter-boxing round the bend. In the distance, Mrs. Summers with her front door held open. She offered an alternative. An escape hatch without springs.

  She took such good care of her. Ran a bath and washed her hair. She wrapped her in Sarina’s pink robe. She gave her a slight sedative and Nicole slept for days.

  “Sarina wants something and my mother can help. Is that it?” Nicole asked. “That’s why I lose my life?”

  “You’re not going to die, Nicole. Your mother misses you. You’ll see.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That I knew where you were.”

  “She’ll call the police.”

  “They won’t believe her. Need I remind you of her very public nervous breakdown?”

  “My father will believe her.”

  “She’s not going to tell him. She’s trying to convince him she’s still fit to live at home. I told her she’d see you when Sarina won that crown. You’ll be surprised
. She really misses you. She’ll be happy to have you back.”

  Nicole imagined her mother holding her like she had held her best friend’s coffin. Maybe she would be grateful just to have her alive. Maybe she’d let her be whoever she wanted. But how long would that last? She’d be forced back to school. She’d be required to wear lipstick. Make the grade and hook a man.

  Nicole would lose the ability to watch Sarina like she had been. Once she came out, restraining orders would be enforced. Sarina’s guard would go back up. The town would sit on porches with sawed-off shotguns, waiting and watching and wishing for trouble.

  In bed that night, in Mrs. Summers’s attic, Nicole thought about her future and what she could possibly do to salvage it.

  The time with Mrs. Summers had been the best of her life. Until recently, Mrs. Summers had let her sleep in Ree’s bed. The sheets were so clean. They smelled clean. They felt clean. She slept sounder than she ever had. She barely moved in the night. But with all the social gatherings since Stewart’s parents died, Nicole found herself in the attic for hours.

  The attic was comfortable. Mrs. Summers had installed all the modern conveniences. There was a TV and a boom box, with headphones for both. Not to mention the mini-fridge. Mattress, books, cross-stitch, and cards. It was the playroom Mrs. Hicks had never allowed her. Mrs. Summers was a guardian who let her do as she pleased.

  That is, as long as Nicole stayed out of the papers. Stayed away from Sarina. Stayed missing. Stayed gone. The deal was Nicole could look but not touch. Mrs. Summers would board her in exchange for her absence.

  “We must help Sarina be all she can be. If you really love her, Nicole, you won’t interfere. Stay out of her way. Be a good girl. Be sweet.”

  Nicole had agreed, but over time, she had seen that Sarina was miserable.

  There had been so many boys, her brother, Rick, the back-seat fumblers. Stewart Steptoe. That goddamn Diller. It was high time Sarina learned that sex was not the end-all and be-all. It was not the harness Sarina hoped it could be.

  If Sarina cared for guaranteed, zombie-style, killer loyalty, she should have searched harder for Nicole when she ran. Nicole had always been what Sarina wanted. She had bent over backwards. She’d sacrificed. She cared. Yet, everything Nicole did, Sarina took the wrong way. Every way Nicole adored her was to Sarina a nuisance.

  So if Nicole’s life was to be ruined next Homecoming weekend, why wait? Why go back to her mother, when she could go down in flames? Nicole would take care of Sarina real good. She would put her out of her misery. Make her see how she felt. In fact, Nicole would be the last person Sarina laid eyes on. Sarina’s vision would close in on her, the rest of the world becoming part of her haze.

  There was a way to link herself and Sarina in history. Their names, like schoolgirls, would go hand in hand. They would skip lightheartedly into Ever After. Repeat the same move on TV and home video. Like Norville hugged Pauley. Like Conway cracked up Corman. Like Hinkley’s bullet made Reagan call Mommy. Summers and Hicks would, at last, be inseparable. Together forever. Yes, this time. The end.

  Bitty Jack

  WHEN SPRING semester ended one week later, Bitty ‘Jack’s troubles followed her home.

  Stewart insisted on coming to camp. He had worked as a Black Foot the past two summers. He was committed to helping with maintenance, as always. Even though Big Jack told him he could find a last-minute replacement, Stewart said, “Sir, I’m calling from the car.”

  Bitty Jack was not happy to hear this. In the hours following Take Back the Night, Stewart had confessed he had made a mistake.

  “It was a stupid mistake.”

  But it was what every girl fears. Not impotence or when-I-was-twelve-I-shot-twenty-squirrels. Not fear of commitment. Not two years in the Merchant Marines. Stewart had been with someone else. He had cheated. He’d screwed up. It was more than Bitty Jack could try to understand. She didn’t want to understand. It was worse than his tears.

  For months, Bitty Jack had attributed Stewart’s lack of libido to the death of his parents. He didn’t touch her like he used to. He didn’t let Bitty Jack touch him for long. When she sat on the couch, he sat in a chair. When she offered him popcorn, he stared at the movie screen. He was pulling away from her. He was distant and moody. Without him, she was lonesome, lonelier still in his bed, while Stewart paced about his inherited house.

  After a while, Bitty Jack knew that the problem must be her. Her, Stewart had lost any passion or thirst for. Her, he wasn’t interested in. Her, he didn’t love. Bitty Jack found herself suspicious when he was late for their dates, forgot to call, criticized her outfits, was thoughtless, not himself. She was afraid that there was someone else he wanted. Someone whom he’d lost. Some girl, the cliché girl, who had gotten away.

  “Sarina Summers,” he’d confessed.

  Who else could it have been?

  “But it was only one night. It didn’t mean anything, I swear.”

  Bitty Jack didn’t believe him. The two had known each other their whole damned lives. Sarina was the first woman Stewart had slept with. She was the only woman, besides Bitty Jack and, now knowing her identity, that suddenly wasn’t good. Why wouldn’t he still want her? Look at her. She had everything. She was pretty. For chrissakes, they had the same initials.

  At Take Back the Night, Bitty Jack had been hurt, but not surprised. It was as if Sarina Summers was Destiny’s pit bull, taken out for yet another walk, happy at the chance to bite Bitty Jack’s ass.

  As the campers unpacked, Stewart knocked on Bitty’s cabin door. He was wearing the overalls her father had bought him his first summer at Camp Chickasaw. Day one on the job, Stewart had worn shorts to chalk the softball field. The chiggers had all but eaten him alive. The welts lasted for weeks. Stewart was miserable. So Mr. Carlson had taken him to the Summons General Store. They shopped for work clothes in the men’s department, which consisted of two round racks beside the aisle stocked with Q-Tips, chips, and Dinty Moore Stew. At the moment, Bitty Jack thought Stewart was trying to pluck at her heart strings. To bring back fond memories with soft denim and “I’m sorry.”

  Bitty Jack did not want to listen to Stewart’s apologies. His sob story retold. His dumb, dumb excuses. She turned her back to Stewart, who, as a maintenance man, was not allowed over the threshold without counselor consent. She talked with the new crop of twelve-year-old girls until her good old-fashioned silent treatment rang loud and clear. Stewart stepped backwards and away from the porch.

  Big Jack had told Bitty to give Stewart another chance. Men did make mistakes. Trusts could be broken. Most things, repaired.

  But Bitty hadn’t told her father who Stewart had slept with. For that matter, she hadn’t told him that sex was involved. If she talked about sex, Big Jack would lose his little girl. If she said Sarina’s name, she might bring back all that pain.

  But pain came to Chickasaw without Bitty Jack’s permission.

  It showed up at supper with sixteen lackeys, news reporters on the scene. As she poured her campers bug juice, Bitty Jack saw the camera lights swarmed outside the mess hall windows. She heard correspondents shout questions before they elbowed open the doors.

  “Where’s Jack Carlson?”

  “Is it true what they’ve said?”

  Luckily, Bitty’s father was not there to answer. Maintenance ate earlier. The press wasn’t prepared.

  Neither were the campers. Bitty’s girls wanted to know.

  “What do they want with your daddy?”

  “Did your dad do something wrong?”

  Bitty Jack didn’t know what she should tell them. Fresh faces lined down the table, eyes expecting an explanation. “Whatever they tell you, don’t believe it. It’s not true.” But why should her campers trust her? They’d only known her for a day.

  The owners grabbed giant cookie sheets from the supper serving line. They dumped the yards of brownies and used the sheets as buffers to block the cameras. They threatened the reporters and bull
ied them out.

  As the reporters backtracked, mikes in the air, Bitty Jack ran past them, toward her house, up the hill. She had to warn her parents. Tell them what was going on.

  The Carlsons, unfortunately, were already aware. They had their TV turned on. The nighttime news was running clips from the twelve o’clock coverage.

  Mrs. Carlson said, “Bitty, lock the door behind you.”

  Sarina Summers had fed her regurgitated lie to the press.

  Everyone believed her, Mrs. Hicks included. While Stewart was on the road and the Carlsons painting final coats on front porches, Mrs. Hicks had joined her husband on Channel 5 Afternoon Update. She’d said, yes, Sarina’s Take Back the Night speech was out of character for Tri Delta, but as the Standards Chair, she knew that some standards had to change. After all, this was the New South. Young women couldn’t be expected to hold their tongues and take it on the chin. Sarina Summers would certainly not lose her membership. She was a brave girl who should be commended, not shunned, for her courageous behavior.

  Bert Hicks said, “Let’s go to Summons for on-the-spot coverage.”

  The Channel 5 blue screen showed the Carlsons’ back door. There was the wooden plaque with the caretakers chiseled by Big Jack’s prize chisel. There was the banister Bitty’d held onto as a girl. An investigative reporter made a fist before the camera. The Carlsons heard the knocks before they saw them on TV.

  “Jack, what do we do?” Mrs. Carlson whispered as if the house was bugged.

  The phone rang before he answered. Big Jack picked up. “You’ve taken care of it?” he asked the owners. “They’re on my front porch! No. We talked about this years ago, you know it’s not true. It’s crazy! It’s a damn lie. I don’t know what that girl’s trying to pull.”

  Mrs. Carlson gently pried the kitchen phone from her husband. She rubbed his sunburned neck and guided him toward a box of Crunch ’n’ Munch resting open on the counter. She said very calmly into the receiver, “Do I have to call the authorities? Or would it be better I speak to the press? Tell me, would you, what should I do?”