Ready, Scrap, Shoot

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  I wondered why. Over the past two years, I’ve come to realize that Jennifer is whip-smart. At first glance, she looks like the typical Ladue Lady of Leisure, one of the many women in this tony suburb who swan around with nothing to do but practice calorie avoidance and shop. Since I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve learned she runs her family business, keeps her straying husband in line, adores her two children, and is incredibly observant. She would make a good poker player, I think.

  As I mulled all this over, Jennifer must have sensed the weight of her disapproval, because she hastily added, “Deanna and Peter certainly are devoted to each other. They met when he was bouncing around, after he flunked out of Wash U. Her dad is one of those fishing guides who works the lakes in tourist season, hunts and traps in the winter for food. Her brother is a trapper, too. She was taking night classes to get her GED, and working as a waitress in a diner near U City, sleeping on a friend’s sofa, when she met Peter. He would stop by for breakfast after a long night of partying. His black Porsche 911 made quite an impression on all the girls, as I recall. He drove it fast and he drove it hard.”

  Translation: Deanna was an uneducated country bumpkin who managed to snag a ne’er-do-well rich boy from a prominent St. Louis family. (Admittedly I was being harsh, but there was an undertone to Jennifer’s description, and it said worlds more than mere words could convey. Honest to goodness, you needed a phrase translation handbook to understand the inner world of the St. Louis upper crust. I also knew that Wash U was short for Washington University, while U City was local slang for University City.)

  “You’d never know she didn’t come from money,” said Maggie with a bit of wonderment in her voice. “She certainly dresses like a million bucks. Their house is over off of Litzsinger. One of those decorating magazines featured it on the cover and did a huge multi-page spread on the décor and the grounds. In fact, the Fitzgeralds only live a few blocks from your mother-in-law, Kiki.”

  I made a mental note to ask Sheila what she knew of Peter and Deanna.

  “What was Edwina like? Maybe you all can help me with my research.”

  “Cut her and she’d bleed the CALA school colors. She was always one of the school’s largest donors, and she wasn’t shy about letting the staff know it,” said Maggie. “Edwina gloried in the traditions. Once I stepped on the school seal because someone bumped into me. Edwina made me kiss it! I tried to dodge her, but she planted herself between me and the hallway. This happened on one of those forty-below-with-the-windchill days, so finally I gave in. My lips nearly froze to the marble! Later I was called into the headmaster’s office because she reported me for lack of respect.”

  “Wow.” That was all I could think to say.

  “Yessirree, she was a real piece of work,” Maggie shook her head, making her simple haircut swing this way and that. “She would call the school secretary and ask her to run errands for her.”

  “You are kidding!” My mouth dropped open.

  “Wish I were. But I’m not,” said Maggie in a sing-song voice. “I also heard that the development office had to run every piece of stationery past her because she usually found fault with the printing or the paper or whatever.”

  “She only wanted the best of everything. Nothing less was acceptable,” said Jennifer. “That’s why the family business did so well under her tenure. Edwina hunted down the best brewmeisters, the brightest advertising agencies, the most promising marketing talent. When she inherited the brewery, it was a mess. Gergen muddled along, but he barely managed to keep the place afloat. In less than a year after Gergen died, she transformed it. When she sold it, the contract worked to her favor, a real rarity in this economic downturn. She was smart enough not to sign anything that kept her out of the business long term. Now she’s rebuilt everything, and she’s renamed it Gergen Brands.”

  “Wait a sec. You said she hunted down the brightest advertising agencies. I thought Peter was the Vice President of Advertising.” I remembered hearing his title mentioned in one of the news reports after the shooting.

  Jennifer chuckled. “A title isn’t a job, Kiki.”

  What in the heck did that mean?

  Kiki’s tips for improving your designs

  1. Let your pieces ferment. Instead of hurrying through, build in time to step back and reflect on your work. If you are scrapbooking, pin up the layout where you can see it and leave it alone for a week. When you return to it, you’ll recognize what’s lacking.

  2. Chart your eye path. Close your eyes, open them, and note where you look. From there where do your eyes want to go? There should be a strong pathway, often in a triangular shape.

  3. Consider whether your piece is asymmetrical or evenly balanced. It has to be one or the other, so have you defined which it is?

  4. Photocopy or photograph your work. Often a smaller image or another medium will help your eye determine what’s missing.

  5. Give it the squint test. Stand about six feet away. Squint. What pops out at you? What seems missing?

  6. Make it temporary. Re-positional adhesive allows you to try before you commit permanently. If you have used a permanent adhesive, Undu, a solvent, can help you remove the offending item.

  Twenty-seven

  Sheila met me at her front door, grabbed me by the elbow, and dragged me down the walkway. The light from her security lamp at the back door showed how contorted her face was. “Linnea quit.”

  “What?” The wonderful, fabulous, totally unflappable Linnea had worked for the Lowensteins for more than thirty-five years. As far as I knew, quitting wasn’t an option. She could die, but she could not turn in her resignation. No, no, no, no!

  “You have to be kidding me,” I said. “Is she sick or something? Have a terminal illness? Is one of her kids in trouble? This is temporary, isn’t it?” I couldn’t imagine Sheila functioning without the help of the rock-steady African-American maid.

  “No, she scribbled out a letter of resignation on the back of an envelope she saved from the recycling. She said she couldn’t wait to go home and type up something formal. She’s dead serious.”

  “Did she read The Help and have an epiphany?”

  “This is no time to be cute. I can’t live without Linnea.”

  “When was the last time you gave her a raise?”

  “Last month. She makes more money a year than you do.”

  That wasn’t surprising. So did the pimple-faced boy flipping burgers at McDonald’s. “What happened?”

  “Not what. Who. Your mother.”

  I groaned. This was not wholly unexpected. My mother had a way of saying incredibly hurtful things to anyone who didn’t meet her expectations. If she liked you, she loved you. If she didn’t care for you, you were history on the losing side.

  “How?”

  “The final straw came when Lucia followed Linnea around and unmade all the beds.”

  “Let me guess: Linnea doesn’t do hospital corners.”

  “What’s with the hospital corners! Was your mother in a loony bin somewhere? I never heard of such nonsense. Since when did Martha Stewart send out minions?”

  I rolled my eyes. “We used to be subject to hospital corner drills. Mom’s mom was a nurse. Once Nana showed Mom the proper way—proper, that is, in a hospital setting—to make a bed, Mom became some sort of hospital corner devotee. A real fanatic. Complete with rituals and chanting. When it comes to bed making, she’s always been positively obsessive.”

  “Well, good, because she’s soon to be positively obsessive and homeless. She’ll be making, or rather unmaking beds, down at the Salvation Army hotel. I’ll toss her derriere out on the street and send her luggage flying after. I can’t manage without Linnea. Especially not with my wedding coming up. I have too much to do, and Linnea is integral to the running of my household.”

  “I agree. Bes
ides which, we all love her.”

  “Whereas your mother is barely tolerable.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  “Your mother, your problem, you fix it,” said Sheila.

  I agreed with her assessment, so I got Gracie inside, stowed my purse, and went searching for Linnea. I found her in the pantry completing what looked suspiciously like a final inventory of canned goods.

  “Linnea, can we talk?”

  “You talk. I’m busy. I need to finish up and leave.” She didn’t even turn around to face me.

  “Hey,” I said. “Please. If you are going to quit, quit because you’ve had it with Sheila. Don’t quit because of my mother. My mom is temporary. We’re only here until the roof on my house gets fixed. Honest.”

  The coffee-colored woman showed no signs of relenting, so I brought out my big guns. “You’ll break Anya’s heart if you leave. It will totally crush her. Especially now after she lived through that sniper attack.”

  With those words, she turned to face me. The angry brown eyes softened, grew blurry. “I do love that child,” said Linnea. “She’s like one of my own. I fixed her warm milk with vanilla in it to help her calm down, poor lamb.”

  “What would we do without you? Especially Anya? Without you, she’d starve to death. Please don’t leave. For Anya’s sake, I’m begging you. I’ll talk to my mom.”

  “You think that’ll do any good?” Linnea raised an eyebrow at me. I noticed she also took her calloused hands out of her pockets where they’d been jammed along with her pencil and pad.

  “Not one bit. But I owe it to you to try. I’ll also take Mom with me as much as I can. Keep her out of your hair.”

  Linnea sighed. “I guess you better show me how to make hospital corners. The Good Lord tells us not to be stiff-necked with pride. I’ll do what I gotta do for that girl of yours.”

  “Ours,” I corrected Linnea. “That girl of ours.”

  Twenty-eight

  Tuesday, May 4

  “Take her with you. Or take me. Better yet, let’s send your mother back to your house in Webster Groves. Bill Ballard can perform a civic service by shooting her,” said Sheila the next morning. “It would be a mitzvah.”

  Mitzvah is Hebrew for “blessing.”

  “I’ll see if I can get Mom to come to the store with me.” I finished my toast, rinsed the plate, and put it in the dishwasher. Linnea had rescinded her letter of resignation, but after a quick pow-wow in the laundry room, Sheila and I concluded this was a good time for Linnea to take a week off. With pay.

  This morning, I’d fixed myself a piece of dry toast and a cup of weak tea. I offered to make eggs for Sheila and Robbie, but thankfully they declined. My stomach was in an uproar. I worried whether I could cook without racing to the powder room, but I was game to try. As it was, when I opened the refrigerator for the butter, the smell of leftover tuna fish salad made me heave.

  Luckily for me, Anya contented herself with a bowl of cereal.

  “You okay, honey?” I asked.

  “I guess.”

  “Have any bad dreams?”

  “No. I think the milk Linnea made me helped a lot.”

  “It probably did. Mom? How about coming to work with me? I could use your help.”

  She peered up at me from an over-stuffed chair in front of Sheila’s flat screen TV. “I don’t want to miss Katie Couric. I like her.”

  “There’s a television in our office. Don’t you want to see where I work? What I do?”

  “We drove past it. Squatty little building in a ratty neighborhood.”

  That was true. “Yep. But it’s what’s inside that’s really special.”

  “I’m comfortable here. I hate to get up.” She had appropriated that particular chair as her own. When she wasn’t sitting there, she put a book or her purse on the cushion to save her seat.

  “All the people I work with are dying to meet you.” I threw in this white lie as a sweetener. They weren’t dying to meet her, but they did regularly die of laughter at some of her more famous antics, such as tearing apart an album I made for her so that she could use the pieces to make her own version. That particular album cost me $300 in supplies and took weeks to make. When she mailed me a photo of how she’d chopped up the photos, I nearly wept. I could have sent her duplicates for less than $10, if she’d only asked. Instead, she’d butchered wonderful original family pictures.

  “I guess they are interested in me. That makes sense. I’m sure you can use my help.”

  She hoisted herself from the chair and wobbled before taking a step. I rushed to her side. “You all right?”

  “I get woozy sometimes if I’ve been sitting too long. I need to use the bathroom before we go.”

  The color of her skin was grayish, and her hand felt clammy in mine. I re-doubled my determination to call Amanda. Maybe Mom needed to see a doctor here. If so, I would need her medical records.

  Maybe if I called Amanda from the store phone, she’d answer.

  Maybe pigs would fly, and Lambert Field would add a couple new runways devotedly only to porkers.

  Anything was possible. Possible but not likely.

  Twenty-nine

  To my surprise, Mom and Dodie got along like identical twins accidently separated at birth. They seemed to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. Mom regaled Dodie with stories about her days as a chorus girl in off-Broadway musicals. Her one big claim to fame was that William Warfield heard her sing and said, “You have a bright future ahead of yourself, young lady. You just need a lucky break.”

  Dodie heard this fable and was impressed. “When Old Man River says you’ve got talent, you are indeed on your way!”

  Unfortunately, Mom got a bad break instead. She had fallen in love with a stage door Johnny, my dad, and when he asked her to marry him, she consented. They eloped two days after she met Mr. Warfield. “I threw my promising career right out the window along with my overnight bag. I was willing to make the sacrifice. You see, I’d always wanted a family of my own.”

  Why? I wondered. You never seemed happy to be our mother. You didn’t enjoy being at home. You didn’t like cooking or cleaning or caring for us.

  Of course, it did mean she’d have all of us to boss around, and a plausible reason not to continue facing the rejection and discipline that was a natural part of show business. A family was an all-purpose, no questions asked, type of excuse that transformed Mom’s lack of ambition into sainthood.

  Dodie, bless her heart, seemed fascinated by my mother’s stories. She listened with appreciation, and even asked questions. It seemed my mother had found her audience in one of the lost tribes of Israel. That made Mom happy. Dodie seemed content as well. The two of them hung out in Dodie’s office and watched television together. This allowed Dodie to be here, but stay off her feet, and Mom to be here, but stay out from under my feet.

  Margit approved of my mother’s visit. Her round face beamed like a full moon at me. “This is good. Bringing your mutti along is good. You are a good daughter, Kickee.”

  Since Gracie was a rescued purebred and not a “mutt,” I figured Margit was talking about my mom.

  At one time in my life, I lived for praise. Fortunately, I’m growing past that. Praise is like a shine on your shoes. It only matters if the leather underneath is solid. Oh, praise looks good, it’s flashy, but substance wins over fluff any day in my book.

  “Mom, I need your help.” I set her down at a table smack-dab in the middle of the store and showed her how to assemble kits. Before long, she had the task down pat, continuing a running commentary on her life to all and sundry as she divvied up supplies.

  “You know, I taught Kiki everything she knows about scrapbooking,” said Mom. “Yes, I was ahead of my time.”


  To say that this amazed and astonished our customers would be an understatement. “Shock and awe” prevailed in our store. I briefly considered amending her story, but Dodie put a hand on my shoulder. “She is happy. What difference does it make? If you don’t want to get old, hang yourself when you are young.”

  Bolstered by that cheery Yiddish aphorism, I climbed into my car and headed for CALA.

  I walked the marble hallways to a frosty glass door with gold lettering: Lane Carlée, MFA, AFP. With her shoulder-length cloud of soft blonde curls and big eyes, Lane could double as an angel in a Christmas pageant. Lane adjusted her black velvet headband, looked me over carefully, and offered me a seat. Her desk took up every inch of space. How they got it into that tiny office, I couldn’t even imagine. Actually, I could imagine. Some poor schmo must have disassembled it and reassembled it piece by piece.

  “May I offer you a cup of tea?” said Lane. “I understand you were there at our May Day celebration. As you might imagine, all of us here at CALA are still in shock over the tragedy. Mr. McMahan suggested that we order a memorial album that we could display, and I emailed Mrs. Goldfader immediately. We’d like two copies, one for the family and one for our library here at CALA. We’re hoping that a tribute to Mrs. Fitzgerald’s life might go a long way toward expressing our grief. Edwina Fitzgerald supported this school and our mission in countless ways. She insisted that her grandchildren follow family tradition and attend here. Just as CALA has been a tradition in your family as well.”

  “Miss Carlée—”

  “Lane,” she corrected me.

  “Forgive me if I’m being rude, but what on earth is that?” I pointed to an unusual vase, about fifteen inches tall with a pebbled brown surface. A thick white starfish hung off the top, near the mouth, and a row of seashells added a further ornamentation.

  It was, by far, the ugliest desk accessory I had ever seen. Adding to the general weirdness was an obviously fake bouquet of pink silk lilies.