He follows her into the kitchen, with a cup of black coffee in his hands. He tells her how he is canning tomatoes. And cactus pickles.
She cannot believe that the soldier has retired to a farm. Now he lives in the desert alone with his dogs. Labrador retrievers.
Glad he is talking because she could never cook and talk at the same time—how had Mama done it with six kids underfoot and always hot food on the stove—she listens hopefully in between his words.
As she butters the muffins, he watches, fascinated, like a native of a foreign planet. Finally, he says, “You use real butter.”
She wants to explain that she bought it at the Coop where it’s almost as cheap as margarine. But a suspicious smell invades from behind and she makes a mad rescue of the scrambled eggs. Not enough milk after all.
“Good grub,” he flatters from between loosely fitting false teeth that make her think, oddly, of a clucking hen. “Just like Mama’s.”
He is lying. For eggs like Mama’s he should visit Carolyn or Anne Marie or Ellen or Sarah. Even George cooks better eggs. But visiting George would expose him to more than electric typewriters and he could never admit his own son was a Buddhist. Why was she the one he always chose to visit?
“English muffins,” he says brightly.
She is touched by how hard he is trying to be pleasant, attempting conversation. “Remember when we used to get raisin muffins at the day-old bakery?”
She nods, thinking about the brioches and croissants to which Kent has introduced her. She made a special trip to Safeway for these standard English muffins and she doesn’t want to feel guilty that they are not day-old. She sips her coffee and tries not to cry.
Sensing her silence as boredom, he picks up the snapshots. Two black retrievers on the front lawn of his desert home. Frisky and Miranda. Both females, but one slightly more androgynous. The back garden overflows with peppers and melons and—ah, yes—the cactus.
How can he live in the desert?
He is eating another muffin. His fifth. “Better to serve too much,” Mama would say.
He carefully wipes jam off his thumb before passing a beautiful picture of the desert in winter.
She digs out photos of recent Christmases with her sisters and their husbands and children. Brother George is off on the sidelines, a bow around his neck, clowning under the tree. Or pouring himself a drink in the corner. She notices that George is always alone. And she, being the family photographer, isn’t in any of the pictures.
The family—so much family talk—perhaps this makes him miss Mama.
“My work,” she offers, “is going well. We’ve organised three companies of office clerks this year.”
He tells her how the union is screwing him out of a pension.
“I’ve more or less settled down,” she says, glancing inadvertently at the Japanese vase. “After all those years of organising around the country I got tired of motel rooms.”
“Yeah, you can get dysentery from the water in those places,” he says. “You know I had another bladder operation?”
Why does she want to smash that damn vase against the wall? Who cares why? She’ll do it when he leaves. No, perhaps she won’t. For she doesn’t own anything in which flowers fit so well.
He pulls out another snapshot. Frisky and Miranda by the flagpole. “19.95,” he says with satisfaction, “on sale at Sears.”
Sears. One of her earliest memories is set at Sears, searching for her father lost among the long male legs at Sears in Hackensack.
He looks at his watch. “Gotta go,” he declares abruptly.
Does her face betray disappointment?
“You remember Bo Bo,” he hesitates, “stationed in Nam with me? Lives in Baldwin now. Old soldiers having a drink together this afternoon.”
She nods to knock back the tears.
“Nice neighbourhood,” he notes on the way downstairs. He is much more talkative going down than coming up. “You get many coloured around here?”
At this moment, Juana emerges from the ground floor flat.
He blushes and looks at his shoes.
His daughter notices these shoes are the same old kind with perforations on the top. Very forties. He has always worn such shoes—from Sears.
“Will you take our picture, Juana?” she asks, handing her neighbour the camera. “Will you shoot us together?”
Impermanence
Enthroned on four pillows atop a motel dinette chair, Sophie stared into the bathroom mirror, imagining an exclusive beauty parlour. The bright cosmetic lights revealed a pleasant face, until she was provoked to smile; then the braces betrayed her. Nice skin, her mother always said, “Nice skin is a blessing. Perhaps you’re too young to understand.” Such comments drove Sophie wild. An honour roll student in seventh grade, she already had a year more schooling than her mother.
Recently, she discovered the perfect riposte, “You’re too old to understand.” At this, her good-humoured mother would roll those brown eyes. Sophie had large blue eyes. Her nicest feature. She didn’t care for the long nose; these lips were OK. But her hair—that was the most maddening, neither curly nor straight. It was almost 1960; the times called for style. “Cute wavy hair,” her mother said. “You’ll be grateful one day.” Another condescending adult phrase. She shifted impatiently on the unsteady pillows—what was taking her mother so long?
Today was Tonette Day. While her father took Dan and Jimmy fishing up the coast, Sophie was going to receive a long-awaited Tonette, “The home permanent gentle enough for a girl’s hair, yet magical enough to make her feel like a woman.” Frankly, Sophie thought she was ready for a Toni, but her mother seemed nervous enough about this juvenile version.
Sophie noticed grey clouds reflected in the bathroom window. This overcast day in the middle of their week’s vacation on the Oregon coast seemed perfect for “the ritual”, as her sarcastic brother Dan called it. Dan was leaving for the University of Washington next year and liked saying unusual words in snide ways. She didn’t know what he had to smirk about since he spent hours hogging the bathroom, oiling and combing curls that draped his forehead in a bad Elvis imitation. Probably he was making the most of his hair while he had it, worrying about inheriting Dad’s bald spot. Sophie used to kiss her father good-night on that tiny, soft dot of skin at the back of his head, but lately the spot had expanded and Dad cringed at her gesture. Now she opted for a more conventional cheek-kissing, right next to his eye, above the painful fence of stubble.
Her mother finally entered the bathroom, carefully mixing the first Tonette solution in a bowl over newspapers, so as not to stain the tile. Sophie noticed Mom’s worried face.
It didn’t seem fair that Jimmy had the prettiest hair in the family, so thick, black and silky. Definitely the best nose, straight but with an impish lift at the end. His eyes were as large as hers and, if you liked brown, quite lovely. At dinner one night, she declared Jimmy was the prettiest of them all. He had socked her on the arm so hard it ached for days. Her father had glanced around sternly, saying, “Let’s hope not.” Dan had snickered in a high schoolish way. Only Mom seemed to understand that she meant it as a true compliment. “Your sister is just saying you have striking features. She meant ‘handsomest.’”
No, she had meant “prettiest.” He was a very pretty boy. They were no prize-winning family, but she considered her little brother beautiful.
“Shouldn’t we start?” Sophie asked her mother, who was cautiously studying the directions a third time.
“Hmmm,” Mom peered at the box. Lately she had started wearing reading glasses, but kept losing this foreign appendage all over the house. Twice on top of the oven, where each side had melted differently, and the twisted frames made her look like a crazed scientist.
Sophie practiced patience, reminding herself that Mom was a perfectly competent woman, might even be an accomplished person if her father let her get a job. Besides, all her school friends were getting Tonettes or Tonis or Bobbis.
<
br /> In celebration of “girls’ day”, they had bought Pepsi and pretzels. Sophie offered her mother a soothing Pepsi.
“Not just now,” she said, “I want to finish reading this. You go ahead, dear.”
Sophie didn’t mind if she did. Now she loved her mother and knew everyone on the block found Mom the best of neighbours. Still there was so much the woman didn’t understand—about music and parties and TV shows and clothes. But especially hair. She had styled hers in Betty Grable fashion since the 1940s, maybe before that. Every morning, she curled her hair back from her high forehead and twisted up the back and sides, but not too tightly because she had to hide her cauliflower left ear.
Sophie had nothing to conceal; her little ears and neck were perfect, according to Mom. Shamefully, she sometimes wanted to disown this mother in her dumpy clothes, centuries out of date compared to the jeans Kathy’s mother wore. But it was that hair Sophie hated most, the vaseline holding it in place.
“OK,” Mom said finally. “I’ve got it down. Yes, thanks, I’ll take that drink now.”
“You sure you wouldn’t like a little rum in it?” Sophie winked.
Her mother smiled thinly, gulping a tall glass of soda in one go.
As Mom pasted the solution over her just-washed hair, Sophie began to feel better. Nostalgically, she recalled being a little girl: Mom would brush her hair every night—twenty-five strokes for a princess; fifty strokes for a queen; one hundred strokes for an angel. A couple of years ago, Sophie remembered with a pang, she decided the brushings were causing split ends. Mom hid her hurt feelings and Sophie discovered the split ends continued to appear. She sipped her Pepsi, sucked on a pretzel (too many pretzels were fattening) and thought how cute her hair would look with curly bangs and a flip on the bottom. She smiled at the image of Mom and herself in the mirror.
“I always wanted a little girl,” her mother mused, painting Sophie’s hair, “and you’ve been everything I dreamed.”
The sober voice startled Sophie. Such seriousness was often followed by an unpleasant announcement—like that time she said they should be grateful for each day of their lives and then explained that Aunt Fay was just diagnosed with breast cancer.
Sophie joked, “You sound like you’re leaving me. Are you running off to join the circus?”
“No,” her mother smiled wistfully. “Once when I was a wee girl in Kentucky, I fell in love with a Romanian trapese artist. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No,” her blue eyes widened.
“Well,” Mom paused momentarily, “another time. Meanwhile, there’s something we should talk about while it’s just us this afternoon.”
Sophie watched her mother’s studious application of magic liquid to each section of her brown hair, then her nimble twisting of the strands around soft pink curlers. The pretzel sank like a tree trunk in her stomach. Breast cancer ran in families.
She took advantage of her daughter’s silence. “I’m not leaving you, but one day you’ll be leaving me.”
Sophie’s face moved from relief to bafflement to annoyance. Not the old “study hard” lecture again.
“You’ll be getting married, having children—and I hope one of them is a daughter.”
Where was she going with this?
“So it’s probably time you learned more about your body, marriage, you know.”
Sophie could feel the blush creeping up her neck, around her ears, to her cheeks and saw the other face in the mirror acquire similar colouring.
“Oh, Mom, I know all about that stuff.”
“You do?” She looked reprieved and horrified. “Just what ‘stuff’ do you know?”
“Periods and pads.” Sophie poured herself another soda. “The sisters did a special health afternoon. We all got ‘Personally Yours’ packages with flowers on them—from Kotex.”
“Yes,” her mother mused, “I remember.” She took a handful of pretzels. “But did the nuns go beyond that?”
“Beyond?”
“To how babies are made?” She chewed a pretzel slowly.
“By God, within the Sacrament of Matrimony,” Sophie said sarcastically. Of course she was dying to hear more, but maybe not here and now.
Mom laughed.
“Could we stop the permanent?” Sophie said, suddenly unsure that a flip would suit her. Why not stick with the page boy—good for full faces, according to her best friend Kathy.
“No, no,” she put the firm fingers of her left hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “We’ve gone too far to stop.”
“Well,” Sophie offered, “why don’t I get that other bottle of Pepsi while this stuff is soaking in?”
“I don’t want you dripping all over the motel’s nice rug. I’ll get it.” Turning back from the kitchen, she instructed. “Don’t move, now.”
Sophie glared at the motel’s nice rug, a weedy orange fabric that had survived several ice ages. But Mom was big on respect for other people’s property, for other people.
Sophie studied herself in the mirror, a passably attractive Martian, face surrounded by damp pink curlers. But Mom was right, too late to turn back now, all her hair might fall out.
Mom poured them each a glass, clinked hers against Sophie’s.
Sophie took a deep breath. “So give me the scoop.”
Mom raised her dark eyebrows over a tiny grin.
Sometimes the woman could get sentimental.
“Well, this is a very special moment between mother and daughter, a ‘rite of passage.’”
She mightn’t have gone far in school, but she read constantly and was, as Sophie’s father liked to say, “a well-spoken woman.” A labour leader, he knew these things. Sophie was so caught up in her mother’s speaking style, that she almost missed the short, precise anatomical description about baby-making.
Sexual intercourse was not what she expected. Or wanted.
Mom seemed to be glowing as she inspected each roller for dry hair, then removed the pink antennae, one-by-one.
Sophie couldn’t believe her mother’s description. “But that’s disgusting!”
Mom looked hurt, confused.
“Who thought this up?” Sophie asked desperately. “There must be a better way. I mean, it’s all hairy down there and stuff.”
From the twitch in her mother’s mouth, she knew she was trying hard not to laugh, or cry.
“When you’re a little older,” she began, then catching Sophie’s irritation, she digressed. “There are hormones, urges, when a woman gets close to her husband.”
Of course Sophie had had crushes. She liked to imagine Tommy Truax brushing against her as she closed her locker … Raul Garcia dancing close, kissing her neck, but … well, Sister told them it was dirty down there.
Wearing her bizarre glasses, she read more instructions. “Time for the neutraliser. First I’ll raise a window, or two.”
Although Sophie was sorry her embarrassed mother had to run off opening windows, it gave her a moment to settle. Mom had never lied to her, yet details weren’t her specialty. They’d be home next week and she would check the facts with Kathy.
The pungent neutraliser stung her nose and eyes. “Are you sure this is the right ingredient?” Sophie asked nervously.
“Of course,” she finally snapped at her daughter’s squirming questions. “I’ve had dozens of permanents. Just sit still and grow up.”
In silence, the mother concentrating, the daughter sullen from reprimand, their morning ritual was completed.
Mom finally spoke through neutraliser tears. “Maybe this was the wrong time. Maybe you’re not quite ready to learn about sex.”
Sophie fumed. “When this part is done, just leave me alone. OK? I mean, I’ll wash out the neutraliser and set up the hairdryer by myself.”
“OK,” she was doubtful. “Don’t get the dryer near water.”
“Mother, I know about electricity. I’m a big girl now.”
“Yes,” she smiled into the mirror, “I think you are.”
/> Sophie tried to forget their conversation as she sat alone under the hairdryer’s pink balloon writing post cards to her friends at home. She had to finish these today or they’d arrive back in Denver before the cards. Mom had taught her this—stay in touch with your friends, ask about their lives, show your appreciation. So she wrote carefully distinct notes to Sara and Rhonda and Kathy about walking along the sandy Oregon beach, eating mountain blackberry ice cream (her father’s favourite) at Ida’s Parlour of Sweetness, beating both her brothers at miniature golf with a score Dan still disputed.
Zero hour. In the suspense of unpinning and brushing her hair, she had almost forgotten ‘the conversation.’ Well … the bangs were a little tightly wound, but the rest was, yes, perfect! She picked up her mother’s hand mirror and checked the back, grinning. Just like that cute actress, Shelley Fabres. Kathy would be sooo jealous.
A tentative knocking on the door.
“You still alive in there?”
“Oh, Mom, come and see.”
The handle rattled.
“Sorry,” she quickly unlocked the door, swivelling this way and that so the hairdresser could admire her craft.
“Lovely,” her mother said. “Curly!”
She could see tears remaining in Mom’s eyes. That putrid neutraliser. Sophie kissed her mother’s soft cheek, “Thank you. Thank you! It’s just what I wanted. Sorry I got pouty at the end.”
“That’s OK. I have my faults, too.”
Sophie shrugged. She preferred the competent, off-beat Mom to the weepy, uncertain one. Still, there was something about this new mother that allowed a funny kind of friendship. Arms around her hairdresser, she breathed in the scent of Vaseline, and said, “Thank you.”
They were clinking glasses with the last of the Pepsi as the males arrived, loud-voiced and carrying two enormous fish.
“Don’t drip on the carpet!” Mom rushed forward, dropping sheets of newspaper under their feet.
“P-hew,” cried Jimmy, “what’s that smell?”
Dan laughed, “That’s what girls smell like when you leave them alone too long.”
The Night Singers Page 9