Dolls Behaving Badly

by Cinthia Ritchie

  The phone rang while I mixed the dough up with my hands, butter and flour squishing through my fingers.

  “Laurel?” I yelled, glancing behind me. She didn’t even look up from her laptop. “Jay-Jay? Stephanie?” I yelled, but no one answered. Finally the machine picked up. I tensed, afraid it might be Francisco. I hadn’t seen him since the night we ate with Barry. It made me shy, seeing the two of them together and knowing I had opened something I couldn’t easily close.

  “Clara Richards?” a clipped and unpleasant voice wavered through the answering machine. “This is Betty Blakeslee, over at Artistic Designs. We need to meet with you tomorrow morning. Would ten do?”

  She paused as if waiting for an answer. “Our March client just canceled, and we’re left with you or a man who makes collages from eggshells.” Another pause. “Bring three or four of your strongest pieces, a short bio, and a recent photograph. Ten then?” The phone clicked, and I stood in the kitchen surrounded by spills of flour and milk.

  “Oh my god,” I said softly and then louder, “Oh my god!”

  Stephanie and Jay-Jay rushed into the kitchen.

  “Are you bleeding?” Stephanie screamed, looking around as if for weapons.

  “Collages out of eggshells,” I muttered, and then everything went dark and the dirty linoleum rushed up toward me.

  I came to a few minutes later in Laurel’s bed. She sat at the foot, tapping away on her laptop.

  “You have butter in your hair,” she said when she noticed I was awake. “I’m going to have to change the sheets.”

  “Did I faint?” I’d never fainted before, at least not when sober.

  “Junior e-mailed,” she replied. “He wants to talk. He said enough time has passed that we’ll be able to be ourselves, not pure emotion. He actually said that—‘pure emotion.’ When did men start talking about feelings? It was easier when they were Neanderthals.”

  “Is it true?” I reached out and gripped her arm. “About the gallery? The call?”

  “Betty Blakeslee is cheap. She tried to talk down the price of their house by a hundred thousand. I told her to stop being so conventional, and she requested a different agent.” Laurel punched computer keys as she spoke. “Don’t let her know I’m your sister, okay?”

  “So it is true?”

  Laurel nodded. “Tomorrow at ten. I confirmed, but don’t worry. I disguised my voice with an English accent and said I was the nanny.”

  “I can’t go tomorrow. I’m not ready.” I looked wildly around the room. “I have nothing to wear.” I jumped out of bed and was halfway to the closet before I remembered that Laurel had relocated my clothes to the hall coat closet.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Laurel said. “She doesn’t know how to spell, and her punctuation isn’t that great, either.”

  I knew Laurel was trying to give me something. “Thanks,” I said. “Really.”

  I rushed out to the living room and listened to the message over and over until Jay-Jay and Stephanie threw pillows and screamed for me to please, please, please get over myself.

  Letter #8

  Dear Carlita Richards:

  Wowee! We finally received a payment on your account.

  While the amount doesn’t come close to meeting your outstanding balance, we commend you for your efforts and look forward to continued payments.

  Think of us each time you flush!

  Pete and Paula Anderson

  Big Pete’s Plumbing and Pipes

  Thursday, Jan. 26

  My gallery interview was a fiasco. Betty Blakeslee sneered at my prospectus.

  “Barbie doll figures in your art?” she said. “One of the other galleries does that. It’s old news. The package you sent made it sound as if you were cutting edge.” Her voice dropped flat, as if it exhausted her to have to talk with someone so obviously untalented. I took a deep breath and thought of the Oprah Giant’s advice about managing conflict: Stay centered. Breathe deep. Don’t let anyone steal your focus. I breathed deep, I tried not to let anyone steal my focus.

  “These are different,” I said. “They represent a story.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Betty Blakeslee sighed. “You were sexually abused and now have a drug problem. Believe me, I’ve heard it before.”

  “No,” I said a little too sharply. “It’s about running away from home, not home home but the home of societal expectations and women’s roles.” Sweat dripped inside my bra. “Once you open the door of change you can’t go back. That’s the loss part, and it hovers over everything. But here’s the thing.” I was on a roll suddenly, I felt great. “We don’t understand our own subconscious so we’re always creating what I call dirty doll obstacles and—”

  “Oh, Timothy.” She waved her hand and a swarthy man with mismatched socks trotted over. She introduced him as Timothy Tuppelo, the gallery director. I dutifully stuck out my hand but instead of shaking, he bowed stiffly and then stuck his finger in his mouth and busied himself with dislodging something from between his teeth.

  “Timothy,” she commanded, “that mediocre landscape would catch more light on the other wall.” She examined her lavender nails and rubbed something from her index finger. “Angela’s on bed rest and had to cancel her show.” She sighed again. It was obvious she resented Angela for burdening her gallery plans with a difficult pregnancy. “The eggshell man sculpted a giant penis from rolled and pressed chicken shells. Just because some men are fascinated with their dicks doesn’t mean the rest of us are.” She turned and shouted at Timothy again. “No, not that way. Toward the light, hello! Yes, like that.”

  She clapped her hands and glanced at her watch. “I have an eleven o’clock due any moment. Can you show yourself out, Clara?”

  “Carla,” I corrected. “It’s Carla.” But Betty Blakeslee was already striding down the hallway in her black pumps with their squat heels, her skirt hitting exactly midcalf. As soon as she turned the corner, I collapsed against the wall. Timothy Tuppelo hurried over with a cool washcloth, which he pressed to my forehead.

  “I think I peed my pants a little,” I sobbed.

  “Happens all the time.” His sleeve smelled of cumin and ginger. “That woman sucks the blood out of everyone she touches.” He gave the washcloth circular little pats. I sighed and slumped lower.

  “You an artist?” I asked.

  “Did a show last year with the Dockers in Seattle.”

  I was impressed. The Dockers was a well-known mother-daughter gallery team that sponsored one out-of-state show a year. The competition was fierce.

  “I weld junk,” he said. “Recycled art. This new one unfolds like a child’s pop-up book.”

  After I pulled myself together, I thanked him and veered straight for Golden Donuts, even though it was miles out of the way. I ordered four jelly-filled, three cream-filled, and four chocolate éclairs.

  “That’s only eleven,” said the skinny girl behind the counter.

  “Eleven?”

  “Twelve makes a dozen, that’s what most people order.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “I’ll have to charge seventy-nine cents for each one otherwise. It’s your choice.” She shrugged as I stared into the glass case, unsure which donut to pick: The glazed? The maple-filled? The colored sparkles?

  “I-I can’t decide,” I whispered, my chin wobbling the way it does before I cry. The girl looked startled. Then she pulled herself together and unfolded a box.

  “Bavarian crème,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “It’s what my mom eats when she’s depressed, and you’re almost as old as she is.” She arranged the donuts inside the box, tucked in the top. “Seven fifty,” she said, and I handed her my credit card and she handed me back the donuts.

  “Bye, now,” she said. My hands were trembling by the time I got out to the car, and it took me two tries to open the box. The smell of sugar and fried dough filled my nose, and I breathed deeply. The first bite was so sweet, followed by the hit of cream against my tongue,
that my eyes watered and soon I was crying, sobbing, rocking back and forth as I stuffed another donut into my mouth, and then another. I knew I wouldn’t get the show, that I would suffer the humiliation of being outshined by an oversized penis. I was devouring the fourth donut and feeling a bit queasy when the Oprah Giant’s words popped into my head: “You don’t have to believe in yourself, you just have to tell yourself that you do,” she had said (and in my sugar-drenched daze I imagined her voice to be firm and slightly sardonic, like Alice, the housekeeper from The Brady Bunch).

  “Our brains,” the Oprah Giant had explained in this week’s blog, “can’t tell the difference between a truth and a lie. It believes everything we say, and every negative thought, from I’m too fat to I’m not smart enough, registers as absolute truth in our minds.” Our task, she said, was to override the years of negative self-talk by saying two positive comments for every negative thought.

  I put down the donut. “My work hangs in galleries around town,” I said, my voice shaky and timid, as if I had no right to say such things. “My work is appreciated by many,” I said, louder this time. I turned on the car and began driving home. Once I got started, I couldn’t seem to stop. “I am a talented artist,” I shouted out. “I am a successful mother. My sister and I have a perfect relationship.”

  The last one was harder, and my voice faltered a few times so that I almost skipped over it, but then I said it out loud, very low at first and then stronger and stronger: “I deserve the love of a good man. I deserve to have a show. I deserve to have money. I deserve—god damn it—I deserve to be happy.”

  Chapter 21

  Sunday, Jan. 29

  “MRS. RICHARDS, PSSST, Mrs. Richards, are you, like, awake?”

  I opened one eyeball to Stephanie’s face peering down at me from where I lay on the living room floor in Barry’s old sleeping bag. I immediately shut it again.

  “Mrs. Richards?” Her hand shook my shoulder. “You’ve gotta wake up. I’m totally in trouble.”

  I didn’t move. I had stayed up late after my Saturday night shift drinking wine and eating burned microwave popcorn, scared out of my mind to paint because how do you do something you love when it’s suddenly been deemed lacking?

  “I did an impulsive thing.” Stephanie slid over until she was practically sitting on my head. “I don’t, like, regret it, only the consequences, which are totally skewed out of proportion.”

  I sighed. The room was cold, so I pulled the sleeping bag over my shoulders and sat up. “Is someone dead? Did you wreck the car? What is so important that you had to wake me up at—what time is it?”

  “Six thirty-three. And I totally have a reason because, Mrs. Richards, brace yourself. I won second place.”

  “That’s nice.” I leaned my head on my knees and closed my eyes. My neck ached and my mouth felt cottony and too large, the way it often does when I drink too much.

  Stephanie snapped her fingers. “Hello, the creative writing contest? The one that’s in the paper every year?”

  It took me longer than it should have to comprehend. “Wow, Steph, that’s great. That’s incredible.” I reached over and hugged her thin chest to mine. The local newspaper hosted an annual creative writing contest each year after Christmas, and it was all very hush-hush—no one knew if they had won until it was announced in the paper. It was like being a minor celebrity for a week or two, and because of this the competition was fierce. Two years ago a housewife won the nonfiction award with an essay “borrowed” from an obscure underground literary magazine. If the editor hadn’t been up moose hunting at the time, no one would have figured it out. I worried that Stephanie might have cheated, though she didn’t seem the type. Still, who knows what someone might do for a taste of success. Would I cheat if I were granted a show and guaranteed that no one would find out? I hope I wouldn’t, I hope I’m more honorable than that, but probably I’m not. Stephanie snapped her fingers in front of my face again.

  “Mrs. Richards, have you, like, heard anything I’ve said?”

  I shook my head groggily and Stephanie rolled her eyes, started over. “My mother totally pounds at the door like an hour ago? I cannot believe you slept through it. So I open up and she’s like, ‘You’ve embarrassed me for the last time, missy,’ and she throws the paper at me, can you believe it? The woman has been an embarrassment my entire life, and now she’s playing the victim.”

  Stephanie’s lip twitched the way Jay-Jay’s does before he cries, so I made comforting little clicks with my tongue. “It was about her.” Her voice was small and trembly. “About her drinking.”

  “The poem?” I asked. Stephanie nodded miserably. “Well, you have to admit, she does drink a lot.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. She’s not your mother.”

  “No, she’s not,” I agreed. I pulled my feet out of the sleeping bag and began putting on my socks; it was obvious I wasn’t going to get any more sleep. “My mother drank, she still drinks,” I admitted. “She doesn’t get rip-roaring drunk, and no one knows but my sister, brother, and father, but she drinks and was never there for me or any of us, not really. She may have been impeccably groomed, but she was flat on her ass on the sofa by nine each night. So yeah, I know how you feel. You end up practically raising yourself, and it sucks.

  “But Steph, you have to push that aside for now. You wrote a poem and it won an award—do you know how many people would kill to be in your shoes? If I could win a contest with my paintings, I’d go for it—I wouldn’t care what my friends or sister thought. Okay, I’d care, but I’d do it anyway.”

  Stephanie pulled her oversized T-shirt over her knees and looked at me expectantly. Don’t look at me, I wanted to scream. I don’t have the energy to hold anyone up.

  “I guess we should go now.” She stood up and extended her hand to pull me up. “You’ll totally understand when you check out the yard.”

  “Yard?” I followed her to the kitchen and slipped on my boots.

  “You’ll see.” And maybe it was knowing the worst was over or having someone walk beside her, but she sounded cheerful again. I called for Killer and opened the front door. It was dark and cloudy, a light breath of snow across the porch steps. Below, scattered over the snow-covered lawn, were heaps of clothes and shoes, CDs and books, stuffed animals and candles stuck in old wine bottles. A dresser with only two drawers leaned against a spruce tree. A mattress sagged over a rock, sheets and pillows tossed around it.

  “I think there’s another load on the way so you’d better, like, keep down. My mother’s got a mean aim when she’s drunk.”

  I looked around. It was beyond sad—not only Stephanie’s meager possessions splayed across our yard, but the fact that her own mother had kicked her out without even realizing she had already been living with us for over a month.

  “I guess you’re officially living with us now,” I said. It was a stupid thing to say, a nothing thing, a comment meant to fill the silence, but it was also funny in a horrible-not-funny-at-all sort of way, and Stephanie snorted and covered her mouth.

  “Officially,” she gasped. “I’m officially living with you now.” She sat on the porch and laughed until tears ran down her face. “Mrs. Richards, oh, Mrs. Richards, that was such a totally dumb thing to say.”

  After she pulled herself together, we hauled the stuff we wanted to save into the arctic entryway right inside the trailer, a little room designed to stop the flow of cold into the house. Then we carted the dresser and mattress to the curb; in our neighborhood, the quickest way to dispose of something was to leave it at the edge of your driveway.

  “Mrs. Richards?” Stephanie said as we pulled off our boots. “Would you like to read my poem?”

  “I’d be honored.” She handed me the features section of the paper, which had been formatted like a small magazine. On the front was one of Stephanie’s school photos, along with photos of a few other winners: a little boy holding up a copy of Huckleberry Finn, a guy in a fishing hat, a woman weari
ng an artsy muumuu.

  “Someone must have clued in my mother,” she said, sitting down at the table next to me. “She never reads the features, only the entertainment section to see who’s at the clubs.” She sat back and folded her hands in her lap, a humble yet proud expression around her mouth. I skimmed through the articles until I came to the high school poetry category. There was Stephanie’s picture again, enlarged this time, with comments from a judge who called her “gutsy and bold, a refreshing new voice.”

  Mother

  Stephanie Steeley

  West High School

  Hideous sweater, holes

  in elbow, skin gray and wrinkled,

  go ahead, raise another

  beer to your ugly mouth,

  who the hell am I to judge,

  except to notice how your lips

  tremble with the memory

  of knitting needles, blood,

  that pink blue dream

  you couldn’t wait to kill.

  “This is good.” I was stunned. I knew Stephanie wrote poetry, but I hadn’t realized she was the real thing. “Honey,” I said, reaching across the table and grabbing her hands. “Sweetie,” I tried again. I wanted to tell her that her words were beautiful, that she was brave and kind and her heart, which would get her in trouble time and time again, would also be the thing that saved her. Instead I handed her the metal box where I kept Gramma’s old recipes and asked if she wanted to help me bake.

  “Mrs. Richards!” she cried. “I am totally ready to maneuver myself around a kitchen.”

  As we prepared szarlotka, one of Gramma’s favorite breakfast treats, Stephanie told me about how she waited until the last minute to apply to the contest, how she revised her poem over and over, trying to get the rhythm right, how she agonized and worried and almost gave herself an ulcer over the title.

  I worked the dough and painted in my head as Stephanie talked. Jay-Jay woke up when the pastry was almost finished, and he shoved a crumpled booklet toward me.