I really think Randy is just being kind.
I’ll definitely have to tell the Sisterhood about my uncle’s house. But after we split the check, Becca needs to go to a dental appointment and Marilee wants to stop and visit her dad at the auto dealership on Colorado. Now that she and her dad are getting along better, Marilee doesn’t need anyone with her for that visit. So I go back to The Pews and wait tables for a little longer before I go back home. All the time, I’m thinking about how I can word my confession to the Sisterhood.
That’s not the only reason I’m sitting out here on the balcony trying to find the stars in the night sky, though. It’s my mother. She found a flyer from the play I’m going to be working on. It’s called The Dust Bowl Nativity and I could see my mother frowning as she read about it. The flyer was printed on brown recycled paper with black ink. My mother likes her advertisements in full color on high-gloss paper.
“I was going to tell you,” I say to her. I’d set my books down on the table in the room my parents and I share as a living room. We have a burgundy leather sofa and chair set that was passed down to us after my aunt’s latest remodeling project downstairs. “It’s a play. I’m going to be Mary’s understudy.”
I had stopped at the refrigerator outside this room on my way in and I had a pear in my hand. It was an imported pear, of course. My mother will not buy any common fruit because she heard once that we are what we eat and she doesn’t want us to eat fruit that isn’t good enough for us.
“Mary, like in the Bible?” My mother’s frown clears. She sits down on the sofa, still holding the flyer in her hand.
I nod. “It’s only an understudy part, but I have tickets if you want to see the play. Maybe Dad will be home by then and he can go, too.”
I take a bite out of the pear and, once I break the skin, the air smells of the fruit.
“Of course I want to see the play. I always said you’d do well in Hollywood. Your aunt should see this, too. It’s not every day a Winston stars in a play.”
Part of me isn’t surprised she doesn’t mention my father. I can’t let her continue to think this play is bigger than it is though. “It’s a small production. Experimental theatre. And I won’t be starring.”
“Don’t let them kid you. If it’s any kind of a nativity play, Mary is the primary person. Without her, what do they have? Some man walking across a desert beside a donkey.”
“I’m the understudy. That means I only go onstage if the regular actress is sick or something.” I see my mother’s face. “Which won’t happen. The play isn’t going to be around long enough for someone to catch the flu or anything. The director already told me not to count on any stage time.”
“They didn’t choose you to be the lead?” My mother looks up at me as though she just now understands. “Who do they think they are?”
“You know how it is, Mom.”
I take another bite of pear.
“Are they blind?”
“It’s not easy to get a part in a play.”
“Did you tell them you were the Rose Parade Queen? You’re not just a beginner, you know.” My mother is frowning at me again. “Those are called fragrant pears. They’re grown to be particularly juicy.”
I take a tissue from the box on the table beside the sofa and hold it in my hand to catch some of the juice.
“Maybe next time I’ll have a better part,” I say as I take a final bite of the pear.
“I just wish—” my mother begins and then stops.
My mother doesn’t finish her sentence, but she doesn’t really need to. I know her wishes. She wishes that everything were perfect. Me. The role. The play. The way things were perfect before our problems started. The house, the cancer, my dad’s drinking.
None of it’s perfect anymore, especially me. Not that I was perfect before I had cancer, but my mother thought I was close enough that it kept her world balanced. When I was declared cancer-free, I thought my mother would mentally put me back on the pedestal she had me on before. I didn’t exactly want back on the pedestal, but some days now I think it would be easier than dealing with my mother’s continual disappointment in me.
My fall from grace was not gradual. It came the day I became sick.
I wrap the core of the pear in the tissue in my hand.
“How was your day?” I say to my mother, hoping to move her mind off of my imperfections and onto the routine imperfections of the rest of her day. “Did you talk to the man at the dry-cleaning place?”
My mother takes her dry cleaning to this place every Friday and picks it up every Saturday.
“He said my blue knit needs some repair.”
I nod. My mother has a series of suits that she wore to her last job, which was as a secretary. She hasn’t worked since we came to live in my uncle’s house. She makes a great show of examining the Los Angeles Times classified ads every Sunday afternoon, but none of the jobs meet her requirements. They don’t pay enough or sound important enough or have enough advancement possibilities. Still, even though she never applies for any of the jobs, she insists on keeping her suits ready. She rotates the suits for dry cleaning and, of late, the report from the cleaner has been that they need repair.
“The dry cleaners didn’t do a good job on the last bit of mending, though, so I don’t know. They didn’t even match the color right.”
For the first time in my life, I notice that my mother is looking old. She’s only in her mid-forties, but she has a look about her as she talks about her blue knit suit that makes me think of parchment in a museum. Her face has a frail look like she’s ninety. She has made a career out of being grateful to her brother for supporting all of us. He pays for our bills and my father’s rehab. I wonder if my mother would look younger if we didn’t rely on my uncle quite so much. That thought makes me feel disloyal, though. My mother has done everything she could for us all.
“Maybe I could fix it for you,” I say with a nod at the suit.
My mother looks at me as though I offered to fly to the moon and get her a hunk of green cheese for her dinner.
“You know I knit,” I remind her.
“Of course,” my mother says. “The group you have with those friends of yours.”
My mother gives a wave of her hand.
I nod. She never has learned to call us the Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches. In the past, I’ve wondered if she has a block in her mind about the Sisterhood because it was part of my cancer days. She never liked anything that had to do with my cancer.
“I’m going to invite my Sisterhood friends to the play, too. I know they’d like to meet you and Dad.”
“Your dad won’t be back by then.”
“Oh.” I can’t remember the exact date when my dad left to go to the rehab place, but I miss him. “He must be still doing good there.”
My dad calls every week or so and talks to my mom. Usually, I’m not home when he calls, but I have managed to talk to him a couple of times and he sounds more sober than he has in years. When I miss the call, my mother tells me what my dad said.
“It would be lovely to see your friends,” my mother says, sounding like it would be anything but lovely.
Still, she should meet them. Judging by the look on her face, she might just back out of going. Then she asks me, “Are you going to invite that guy, too?”
“What guy?”
“The one who walked you to the door the other night,” my mother says. “I heard his voice when you were talking.”
Fortunately, I know my mother could hear the sounds of us talking, but there’s no way she could have heard the actual words we said. I’m glad of that.
“I’m not sure Randy can come.”
My mother didn’t press me on it, but it’s all enough to have me sitting up here on the balcony looking for the stars when I should be in bed sleeping. Everything around me feels like it’s going to change or has already changed and I just haven’t noticed until today. My mother isn’t seeing me clearly. Marilee is
off talking to God somewhere. Becca, who never falters, is upset about justice.
And Randy either wants to be my knight in shining amour and rescue me or he is expecting something of a physical nature in return for a place to stay and he’s the last person I should trust. I wish I knew for sure what his motive is.
Some days I don’t know much about anything when it comes to my life. These are the times when I like to look up at the night sky. I see a few faint stars and something that looks like a bright star, but is moving so fast it has to be an airplane. I can’t help but wonder as I look up if God is up there looking down at me as I try to keep my toes warm by curling them into the hem of this old flannel robe.
I’d like to think He sits at the edge of heaven and looks down at someone like me. I give Him the Rose Queen wave just in case He is looking. He doesn’t send a thunderbolt down on me for my nerve or anything, so maybe He’s not as much like my uncle as I thought. It’d be kind of nice to think He might even be waving back. I wonder if there’s a God wave.
I look down at the robe. I have a couple of satin robes in my closet with matching nightgowns. But, when I’m upset, I always reach for this old flannel robe. It used to belong to my dad and my mom gave it to me when I was sick with chemo so I wouldn’t ruin my nice robes. This robe and I have been through a lot together.
Now, it comforts me. Maybe things will seem a little more normal tomorrow. Lizabett is supposed to meet me at The Pews for lunch. Maybe I’ll ask her to write in the journal so you’ll see it’s not just me that thinks things are changing. Of course, Lizabett always seems to think things are changing. Maybe it’s because she’s the youngest and always feels like she’s scrambling to keep up with everyone else.
Hi, this is Lizabett and it is Sunday morning. Carly let me read some of what she’s been saying (there are a couple of stapled pages which are a no-read for the Sisterhood so I didn’t see those, but I saw the rest). I have to admit that I am a little worried about things changing, too. Not for all of the same reasons as Carly is worried. With me, it’s my brother.
I’ve gotten used to Quinn being a Christian so I’m not so worried about that, but I’ve never had to sit on the sidelines while Quinn has been in love before and I find that I miss my brother. He used to nag me all the time, but now he doesn’t seem to even notice me. I coughed the other day three times and he didn’t even seem to hear me. I thought I would like that, but, well, I don’t completely. I miss the old mother hen. That’s what I call him when he worries about me.
Guys are a mystery, aren’t they? Whether they’re related or not. I heard about Randy’s offer to Carly even before I read about it in the journal. Carly seems to think it’s just a generous offer, but I think I’ll have Quinn talk to Randy. None of us want Carly going out with some guy who is going to rush her into doing something she’ll regret. Besides, they haven’t even gone on a real date.
I don’t think Carly is considering Randy’s offer, but she shouldn’t. She’s going to be the understudy for Mary. That should mean something, especially on a Sunday morning like today.
Carly and I walked down to that little French bakery and had croissants and jam for breakfast. Then we came back to our room at The Pews to start getting Carly ready for her part in the play. I borrowed some of Quinn’s books for our research. I know how it is for actresses. They have to feel their part. Even Lucille Ball had to know what character she was playing. It’s even more important for Carly because she’s playing Mary, the mother of Jesus, and everyone in the whole world probably has some opinion about what Mary was like. Most of the pictures I’ve seen of her just show her with her head bowed, but I don’t think any mother of a young child spends her life with her head looking down like that even if the baby in her arms were Jesus.
I’m not too sure how it would be for a young mother to hold the baby Jesus.
Fortunately, the play doesn’t spend much time on that part, so Carly won’t have to be a convincing mother.
Not that she has to be a convincing anything since she’s only the understudy.
One thing I know for sure though is that Carly would wow everyone if she just had a chance to walk across the stage. I wonder if the real Mary was as pretty as Carly. Of course there’s the glowing-Madonna thing the original Mary had going. It would be hard to compete with that.
When I first met Carly years ago, I envied her. I wanted to have hair like hers. I wanted to have fingernails like hers. And her clothes—I wanted to dress like her.
Carly is definitely the prettiest of us all. And, it’s more than that. She just looks expensive.
The surprising thing for me as I got to know Carly, though, was that the best part of Carly is herself. She doesn’t know how special she is. Sometimes people get so stuck on looking at her hair and her clothes that they don’t take the time to look at her. But they should. Carly is at the top of my list. That’s why I think she should be a star.
Chapter Five
“Move Queen Anne? Most certainly not! Why it might some day be suggested that my statue should be moved, which I should much dislike.”
—Queen Victoria when asked about moving a statue of Queen Anne for her own Diamond Jubilee
One of our rules in the Sisterhood is to treat each other as we would like to be treated. Rose, our counselor, brought this Queen Victoria quote to us one day early on in the Sisterhood meetings. Rose wanted us to know that we are a group of equals and need to treat each other that way. Just like the queens had done. We made ourselves a crown that night out of yellow yarn and passed it from head to head to show we were all the queen. I had more fun with that crown than I did with the one I wore as the Rose Queen.
I learned that night that it’s easy to be queen if you don’t mind sharing the crown.
There is nothing equal in the theatre. This is Carly and I’m taking a break to write in the journal while Lizabett makes a couple of phone calls. I never knew Mary was so important. Of course, I knew she gave birth to Jesus, but it didn’t end there.
I was half joking earlier about what my mother would tell the neighbors if I had a visit from an angel, but as Lizabett and I have been digging into the books she has, I’m beginning to wonder what Mary’s mother could have possibly thought.
I’ve never thought about Mary’s mother before.
I don’t even know what I would think if I had a daughter. Lizabett is back and sitting back down at the table again. We don’t say anything and Lizabett keeps looking at the books.
One of the books I read earlier tells about Mary. I knew she was young, but I had no idea she was probably thirteen or fourteen. I guess they didn’t have Children’s Protective Services back then. And I knew she was unmarried, but I had no idea she was engaged to be married.
“Her mother can’t have known about the angel visit,” I say to Lizabett, putting down the journal. “If she did, she would have forbidden Mary to keep talking to the angel.”
Joseph was a good catch. He seemed prosperous and kind. Surely, her mother knew the angel’s prophesy could change everything between Joseph and Mary. If Mary’s mother was anything like mine, Mary would have been grounded until she forgot all about the angel. Most mothers want their daughters to marry the dependable guy and not listen to the angel.
“And look at all the blue.”
I don’t know what it is with all of the blue, but as I look at picture after picture of Mary, I see her wearing so many shades of blue. Sky-blue. Robin’s egg–blue. Powder-blue. I think the wardrobe person should pay attention to Mary’s blue in the play. I wonder if Mary ever really even had a light blue garment. I know they had dye back then, but dyed cloth would be more expensive. Except for Mary’s clothes, all the material in the play was brown. Maybe the dust look will be more accurate than blue would have been.
But then maybe Mary came from a rich family. Maybe she had the San Marino address of her day. It doesn’t say any place that she had to be poor exactly. Maybe a light blue dyed robe was like having a Gucc
i handbag for her.
“Imagine having a secret like that?” Lizabett says as she sets down the book she’s looking at.
Well, I can certainly imagine having some secrets. “She wouldn’t be the first young teenager, not even in a good neighborhood, to be pregnant before she got married.”
“Yeah, but to be pregnant because of God! While you’re still a virgin!” Lizabett is looking a little shell-shocked herself. “That’d be like—I don’t know what it would be like. People wouldn’t even believe her, would they?”
“No more than you’d believe me if I said I was having Elvis Presley’s baby.”
“But Elvis Presley is dead.”
“I know. That’s the point. It’s impossible.”
Lizabett shakes her head. “No wonder Mary didn’t tell anyone.”
I’ve been flipping through a book of nativity paintings and reading about the symbolism in the paintings. “I don’t even think she told Joseph about the angel’s visit.”
“Wow.”
“She must have been lonely,” I say, thinking of the secrets I’ve kept. Secrets never make you feel closer to anyone. You’ve always got that hidden thing between you and them.
“I’d rather be lonely though than tell my fiancé that I was pregnant, especially because he’d know he wasn’t the father. He probably wouldn’t believe the God thing.”
“This does sound like great stuff for a play, doesn’t it?” I look up from my book. “I never knew it was so filled with drama. It could be Days of Our Lives.”
A Dropped Stitches Christmas Page 5