Born Ugly

by Beth Goobie

  “Would you mind not breathing your alcohol-laden breath all over my food?” demanded Stella, breaking off her description of a no-doubt riveting, after-school home basketball game to glare at Shir.

  “My breath is not alcohol-laden,” Shir snapped back, then ducked her head to direct any possible beer fumes at her plate. Godammit, she thought grimly. She had been late getting back, and had only managed to squish some toothpaste onto her tongue before coming to the table. That obviously hadn’t been enough.

  “You smell like a beer factory,” Stella said angrily, waving her fork. “I don’t see why we should have to eat at the same table as you if you’re going to come to it absolutely reeking.”

  Blood began to beat in Shir’s cheeks. “I am not reeking,” she snapped again, shooting her sister a malevolent glance. There, within arm’s reach, sat Stella in all her glory—hair in its usual neat ponytail, makeup subtly accentuating her doe-like eyes, and looking a lot like Mom had probably looked twenty years ago.

  “You are, too,” hissed Stella. “You stink. You’re putrid.”

  Fury erupted in Shir like a live thing. She surged to her feet, only dimly aware as her hip caught the table edge. Glasses of milk wobbled, slopping their contents, and Mom and Stella grabbed for sliding cutlery with cries of alarm.

  “I am not putrid!” roared Shir, the breath raw in her throat as she leaned over her obviously frightened sister—one of Collier High’s finest, most kiss-ass students. “I smell beautiful, gorgeous! I am a goddam fucking rose—”

  Without warning, Mom was on her feet and coming around the table, her hands reaching for Shir and shoving her back down into her chair. “Oomph!” grunted Shir as her head slammed into the wall. For a long moment, everything dissolved into a loud ringing darkness. Then the darkness faded and she was back in the middle of family time—Mom yelling, Stella crying, glasses of milk tipped onto their sides and milk running everywhere.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” wailed Stella. “I’ve got my defense class at seven, and I’m going to have to change all my clothes.”

  Slumped in her chair, the back of her head in a massive throb, Shir sat with her eyes closed and listened to the furious breathing going on centimeters to her left. Mom, she thought carefully. Years of experience had taught her that the best way to assess her mother was to listen to her breathing. It wasn’t watching the woman that told you when she was going to blow, it was listening. When Mom was angry—really angry—her breath wheezed in and out like a rabid accordion.

  “You are a disgrace to the human race,” Mom hissed slowly, her breath pumping in and out, in and out. “Can’t have a conversation with you, can’t sit at the same table without a catastrophe. All day long, I’m on my feet slaving away, cleaning people’s houses, and then I come home to this. No respect, no gratitude. A dog would treat me better.”

  Dog, thought Shir, and the memory of that afternoon’s hallway limerick returned, snapping her eyes wide open. Wordless, she stared directly into her mother’s slitted gaze.

  “You disgust me,” said Mom, the words slow and final, like the tolling of a bell. “Drunk as a stone, just like your dad. Take your goddam supper and go eat in your room.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” blurted Shir, a flush searing her face. “Honest. I didn’t mean—”

  “Get out,” said Mom, pointing in the direction of Shir’s bedroom.

  For a moment longer, Shir sat rigid, staring at the face that hovered in front of her. Contorted, twisted, it glared back with a look of … hatred. Mom hates me, Shir realized with a sickening lurch in her gut. She hates me.

  Taking hold of her plate, she got to her feet and shuffled out of the kitchen without a backward glance.

  It was 7:23 PM. Alone in her room, her Budweiser high long gone, Shir was sitting on her bed, jabbing a capped pen methodically into her leg as she listened for whatever she could pick up from beyond the closed bedroom door. For the last forty minutes, things had been pretty quiet. Stella had left at twenty to seven for her self-defense course at the Y, and Mom had turned off the TV fifteen minutes ago. Which was weird, thought Shir as she jabbed the pen harder into her thigh, because Mom usually had the thing going day and night. Janice Rutz lived for the TV, keeping careful track of her favorite characters’ fashion styles and often quoting lines of dialogue from recent shows. The only time she shut off the TV was when she headed to bed, so why would it be off now, when one of her favorite shows was on and the rerun season barely started?

  Jab jab jab went the pen, digging deep into the flesh of Shir’s outer leg. On her lap sat her empty dinner plate—empty except for her right hand, which was covered with tomato sauce. When she had left the table, she had forgotten to take her fork and had been forced to eat her Sloppy Joes by hand. With Mom in her current mood, she reflected grimly, it would have been risking life and limb to return to the kitchen for cutlery. All things considered, she had gotten off easy tonight—just a bump on the head. Bumps on the head went away; the memory of the expression on her mother’s face would not. Ever. Better to avoid Mom until her mood changed, and her expression along with it.

  Jab jab jab went the pen. Shir was aiming for sore spots now, places she had already bruised, wanting to drive the pain so deep it would hit overload and fade into oblivion. And it was working—the pain was beginning to disappear. If only, she thought miserably, the pressure from her massively overloaded bladder would disappear along with it. She had to go to the can bad. Two Budweisers in quick succession had a way of doing that to a person, but for now, she was going to have to hold it. No way was she moving from this bed until she heard something—anything—that told her Mom had calmed down completely and it was once again safe to venture from her room. Abruptly, from the hall, came the sound of footsteps, each a clear half-step followed by a shuffle, the way Mom walked in her slippers. Stiffening, Shir listened to see if the footsteps turned into the bathroom, but, continuing along the hall, they came to a stop outside Shir’s closed door. A sickening swallow locked in Shir’s throat, and her heart began to thud. Eyes riveted to her closed bedroom door, she listened.

  “Shir?” said Mom, her voice muffled as if she had her face pressed to the door.

  Not angry, Shir thought slowly, assessing her mother’s tone. Well, not exactly angry. More … just dull, as if things were going pretty much as expected.

  “Yeah?” she asked cautiously.

  Her bedroom door remained closed. “You get out here,” Mom said in a monotone. “We’ve got to talk. I’ll be in the living room.”

  Without waiting for a response, she walked back down the hall. As the sound of her footsteps retreated, Shir sat bug-eyed and frozen, staring at the closed door. Talk? she thought wildly. About what? She and her mother never talked, they just yelled back and forth about chores and whose turn it was to go grocery shopping. Uneasily, Shir scooted to the edge of the bed and got to her feet, careful not to touch the bedspread with her sticky hand. Then she picked up her empty plate and tiptoed to the door. Easing it open, she found the hallway eerily quiet—no canned laughter coming from the TV, no caterwauling Celine Dion from Stella’s room. The place felt like a tomb.

  “I’m just going to use the can,” she called into the silence and turned into the bathroom. Door closed, she turned on the tap to cover the sound of her urine so her mother wouldn’t be able to figure out how much she had drunk. Then, avoiding the mirror, she sat down on the toilet and braced herself for the first painful rush. Head down, she waited the long process out. When it was finished, she washed her sauce-covered hand, picked up her empty plate, and headed down the hall toward the ominously silent living room.

  Her mother was sitting on the couch, staring at the lifeless TV. “I’m just going to put my plate in the kitchen,” said Shir.

  Without looking at her, Mom nodded. Knees suddenly wobbly, Shir walked into the kitchen, set the plate on the counter, and returned to the living room. Still her mother didn’t glance at her, just sat staring at the
silent TV.

  “Where do you want me to sit?’ asked Shir, her body numb with dread.

  “Not near me,” her mother said tonelessly. “Not on the couch.”

  Shir’s knees had never felt weaker. Walking to the far corner of the room, she slid to the floor and sat with her back to the wall. “Okay,” she said, almost choking on her own voice. “I’m sitting.”

  Again Mom nodded without looking at her. Neither spoke, the silence dense and heavy, a lump in the throat. Old, thought Shir, watching her mother out of the corner of her eye. She looks old for thirty-six. Heavy and gray, as if something is pushing down on her.

  Mom shifted slightly as if coming gradually awake. “I’m ready to give up,” she said, her eyes still on the TV. “I don’t know what to do with you. Every day, day in and day out, you’re a misery to me and your sister. You don’t do nothing except that it’s for yourself, and I’m tired of you coming home drunk and staggering around like you own the place.”

  Taking a quick breath, Shir fought to rise above the fear that smashed in on her. “Mom—” she began, but the words died on her lips as her mother turned and looked directly at her.

  “Don’t Mom me,” hissed Janice Rutz, rage deepening every line in her face. “The only time I’m your mom is when you want something or you’re in trouble. Other than that, I just pay the rent. Well, I’m not doing that for you anymore. You’re sixteen now, I don’t owe you anything. If I want, I can call the Children’s Aid and get them to come fetch you, or I can just kick you out. The law can’t do anything to me for that, not when you’re sixteen. I don’t even have to give you your clothes. I can kick you out and sell them at a thrift shop, get back a few bucks for all the money I’ve wasted on you. Then I’ll be rid of you for good.”

  Wordless, Shir stared at the woman across the room. This wasn’t the first time her mother had threatened to kick her out. It happened every few months. Once, when Shir was nine and they were living in a different apartment, her mother had gone so far as to push her into the outside hall and lock the door, then leave her out there, bawling and screaming for twenty minutes before letting her back in. It was one of the many things she had done, so many, Shir couldn’t remember most of them now. Sometimes her mother just seemed to have to let off steam.

  But tonight felt different, quiet and considered, as if Janice Rutz had thought things through ahead of time, worked out her exact words in advance.

  “It was a bad day,” said Shir, suddenly desperate, the words dragging themselves up her throat. Lord knew she didn’t want to talk about this, didn’t want to have to drag it out of herself, kicking and screaming and covered in shame, to lay it flat and helpless before that cold, dull face across the room. But she had to try something. If she didn’t, she could be outdoors tonight in sub-zero weather, knocking on Gareth’s door and asking for lodgings.

  “A boy wrote a poem about me,” she said hoarsely, her eyes clinging to her mother’s face. “A mean one. Then he read it to me in the cafeteria. In front of a bunch of kids.”

  Silent, her mother simply looked at her.

  “It went like this,” Shir said thickly. Slowly, the shame rising in her cheeks, she recited the limerick. Branded into her memory, it wasn’t difficult to recall, but each word was a burr, sticking in her throat. When she had finally finished the last line—for a dog to find—she sat with her head down, waiting for her mother’s response. But from the other side of the room came nothing. In the apartment to her right, Shir could hear a muffled TV, and downstairs, a child was crying, but in this room was only silence.

  Sick with dread, her fear covering her like a cold skin, she looked up to find her mother watching her. The expression on Janice Rutz’s face was odd—neutral, but at the same time, slightly curious, as if for the first time it had occurred to her to wonder what it would be like to actually be her daughter Shirley Jane. The way you would think about a stranger, thought Shir, staring back at her. Someone you saw on the street.

  “That’s why you got drunk?” her mother asked slowly.

  “Yeah,” said Shir, keeping her tone dull, without obvious hope.

  Her mother nodded, her gaze still on Shir’s face, looking at each part separately, then all of it together, as if adding up its collective misery. “Kids are mean,” she said, “and they’re meaner to you than most. Some of the things your teachers have told me over the years … Well, there’s no excuse for kids treating someone the way they treat you. But there’s no excuse for your behavior, either. I won’t have no more of it, Shir. I won’t.”

  Shir nodded, a shuddery relief heaving itself up her throat.

  “One more chance, then,” her mother continued grimly, “but that’s it. No more drinking. No more yelling at your sister. No more making me nag you to do your chores. And you go to all your classes and pass everything, you hear?”

  “I’m passing,” Shir assured her quickly. It was a small lie—there was only algebra, and she should be able to push that up to a D if she started paying attention.

  “No more drinking,” her mother repeated firmly. “No yelling. And you’ll do your chores.”

  “Yeah, sure,” agreed Shir, swift gratitude blooming in her chest. Never before had she realized how much she loved this apartment, with its tacky windowsill knickknacks and threadbare carpet. The couch her mother was sitting on, for example—right now, Shir felt as if she could sit and stare at it, loving it, forever.

  “I’ll do all of it, Mom,” she gushed enthusiastically. “Everything you say—everything.”

  For a long moment, her mother looked at her. “You have been a real burden to me,” she said finally. “You and your dad, for sixteen years, even though he’s gone now—nothing but a burden.”

  Shir sat motionless, the blood thick in her cheeks. “Well,” sighed her mother, picking up the remote control, “that’s all I have to say, I guess.” She switched on the TV, and, dismissed, Shir fought her way up past her wobbly knees and dragged herself out of the living room.

  Five

  The store was busy with the usual late-afternoon rush, kids coming in to buy an after-school Pepsi, adults stopping by on their way home from work to pick up something for supper. Both cashiers had lineups at their tills and Mr. Anderson was circulating the floor, checking with customers to see if they needed assistance. Alone in the storage room, Shir loaded several boxes of spices, salt, and baking soda onto a trolley, then pushed open the Employees Only door and glanced out to make sure no one was in the vicinity. In spite of her caution, two children dashed, squealing, around the end of the produce aisle as soon as she had wheeled out the trolley. Pausing to let them pass, Shir found herself tuning into a conversation two aisles over that was taking place between her boss and Mr. Hrizi, an elderly man who seemed to live solely on sardines, pickled onions, and tomato soup. At least, that was all Shir had ever seen him buy.

  “Here, let me get that down for you,” said Mr. Anderson. “It’s a bit of a reach.” The scrape of cans being lifted off a shelf followed, and Shir grinned knowingly. Tomato soup, she would bet her day’s wages on it.

  “And how is Sarge doing these days?” she heard her boss ask. “Any improvement?”

  Sarge was Mr. Hrizi’s pet terrier. Two weeks ago, it had come down sick, leaving Mr. Hrizi to walk the several blocks to Bill’s Grocer alone and at half his usual shuffling, seventy-something pace. The first time he had made the solitary trip, Mr. Anderson had noticed him come into the store without tying the terrier to the stop sign out front, and had asked about the dog. Mr. Hrizi had gone on at length, all about fevers and convulsions and dog puke on the carpet. Shir had had enough after the first ten seconds, but Mr. Anderson had stood there listening, as if the terrier was his favorite grandchild.

  “Right as a penny!” declared Mr. Hrizi, and Shir could hear the smile in his voice. “He’s begging for cookies again. That tonic you dropped off really did the trick.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Anderson with a note of deep satisfa
ction. “It worked with my son’s dog and he had some left over, so I thought, why let it go to waste? Will you let me carry that up to the till for you? And did you know we’ve got a sale on tomato soup today? I—”

  Voices fading, the two men moved up the aisle, and Shir let loose with another grin. Sale on tomato soup? she thought, starting off with the trolley. Not that she had noticed, but, hey—Mr. Anderson could declare sudden sales for special customers any time he wanted. Steering the trolley into the baking aisle, she stopped next to the spice rack and began opening boxes. Cinnamon, cumin, curry, she thought, picking up a bottle and studying it. There was something about spices—just looking at their rich, vivid colors made her feel different, as if something warm and pulsing from deep inside the earth had entered her body, dissolving its customary heaviness. This particular spice was such an intense shade of yellow, it was like holding September in her hands.

  As she took out several bottles of curry, the front-entrance bell jangled and the store filled with the sound of laughing male voices. Her attention focused on the spice rack, Shir didn’t give it any notice. People came and went constantly at Bill’s Grocer—some of them were cheerful; some of them weren’t. But as the laughter progressed through the produce section, she found herself tuning in. One of those voices, she thought, tracking it carefully, was familiar. In fact, it was too familiar—at least since this past weekend. Those snorts and guffaws coming down the produce aisle belonged to Wade Sullivan, she was sure of it—Mr. Blind Love, Mr. Love-by-Braille for a toonie.