by Robin Smith
And then it got worse. He insisted that she stay home, that she let him take care of her, that she keep his house and together they could live in their own little world of perfect family values, and for a while it did seem perfect…
Except…
Except he went with her everywhere, even to the grocery store and the post office. He insisted first on driving, and then on holding her car keys ‘for her’ while he was at work. In the early days, she thought that was chivalrous.
Except he wouldn’t let her have her own money, and why should she, he would argue, when he earned it all, he paid the bills, he bought everything? If she wanted something, she just had to ask and he’d consider it. He wanted to take care of her. So chivalrous.
Except they didn’t have a land-line telephone, just two cell phones, his and hers, because he said they were cheaper, and hers was a kiddie phone that could only call his number and 911. And God help her if it rang and she didn’t answer it. These days, she even took it into the bathroom with her when she showered. Not even Eve could tell herself that was chivalry.
Except for those tiresome old clichés—the lipstick on his collar and the motel receipts and the occasional giggle in the background when she gave in and called his cell phone on late, late nights. The drift of perfume on his clothes, oh yes, the perfume he wouldn’t let her wear at all because he said only cheap girls wore it. The love-bites on his shoulder, the scratches on his back, and the girls themselves, the angry girls, the ones who came to her house after he was through with them to sit her down and tell her just how it was.
She knew how it was.
She used to confront him, but it was nagging like hers that drove him into the arms of more understanding women. It was coming home to dirty dishes in the sink, to her mousy unkempt hair, to cold dinner or no dinner or dinners she knew he didn’t like that made him so angry. It was her fault when he hit her, her fault for not being able to learn any other way. He told her she was lucky he still came home to her at all.
Sometimes she believed him.
And that was all pretty bad, yes, but after twelve years of marriage, she had learned that she didn’t deserve to feel bad. She kept the house spotless for him, kept the yard neat, kept the curtains drawn, and kept meals on time. She had a system, and most months, she only felt these moments of misery only on the weekends, when she couldn’t get away from him, but he always went back to work on Monday and he always came home to her Monday night. Eventually.
But now…
You are so lucky I love you, Evie.
On their anniversary…
No one else would ever put up with a bubble-head like you.
After twelve years of cooking and cleaning and smiling…
You need me. You’d be nothing without me.
The camel’s back was good and broken. Eve Hopler had finally had enough.
Just walking out, running away, wasn’t an option. She had no one to call, no trusted friend to pick her up or wire her money, no family to go home to. She’d have to plan and plan carefully, but already she felt the hard knot of resolve soften into a doughy mass of hopelessness.
“But I’m going to get out,” she said, speaking aloud into the silent kitchen. Mechanically, she dished up the dinner for herself and sat down at the table. She began to eat so that she would have strength, not because she felt hunger. She was going to need that strength tomorrow. Because tomorrow, she was getting out.
* * *
She saw Tom out the door in the morning, accepting his hurried kiss on her cheek and the distracted pat to her hip that was his daily good-bye (as well as his offhand remark that she could stand to lose a few pounds. She was staring to look like a whale in this blue dress, he said. He had bought her the dress last month, how could she possibly put on all that weight so fast?). She waved to him from the window and then went into the kitchen to do the morning dishes. An observer might have thought she’d forgotten all about the day before, but then, an observer could not hear her heart pounding or feel the swimming of her stomach as she busied herself with chores. She hadn’t forgotten anything; she was waiting to see if Tom was really off and gone for the day, or if he would pull out and then come back for some little misplaced something (he did this every now and then, just to check on her). But no, he was gone, and after the dishes were washed and dried and put away, Eve stepped out of her slippers and into her shoes, picked up her purse, held her head high, and walked out the door.
Tom had the keys to the car, but she didn’t need a car. She would walk to town, to the little store on the corner where she did most of her grocery shopping, and she would stop everyone who went in and ask for a little change for the phone. She didn’t care if she had to ask a hundred people, and she didn’t care if every one of them thought she was a bum. She would ask and eventually, someone would give her that little change, and then she was going to open up that phone book and find some sort of service for women like her (oh God, how she wanted to cringe, even thinking that! How did she ever allow herself to become a ‘woman like her’?) and they would come and get her. The important thing to remember was that by the time Tom came home tonight, Eve would be gone.
But within a few minutes, scarcely a hundred feet from the house, Eve’s surety began to slip. Was there really a service out there who would care if Tom slept around and controlled her money and only let her use a kiddie phone or would they tell her to call back once he put her in the hospital a few times and then hang up on her? Even if they would help, would they come and get her or would they want her to come to them? Would they come right away or would she have to wait by the store for hours? What if he came home in the middle of day and found her missing? What if he came home and stopped at the little store for a soda and found her there, asking people for money? What if some of the people she asked for change called the cops on her because they thought she was a bum? Or the manager of the little store? Would the cops call Tom if they picked her up for panhandling? Oh God, they might.
Eve’s stomach was tying itself in knots and her head felt hot and stuffed with cotton. She managed another few minutes of walking, but her step had slowed and shortened.
This wasn’t a good day for it, she decided. She needed to have the money for the phone already before she tried to do this. She was sure that wouldn’t take more than a few days. A nickel from the couch cushions, a dime from the pocket of Tom’s pants. It all added up, and he’d never miss it. She’d get the money first, and then…and then, she’d get out. She was still getting out. This wasn’t giving up. This was a minor setback.
But Eve’s shoulders were slumped with something that felt an awful lot like defeat. She didn’t turn around and go straight back home. That might look suspicious. She didn’t want any nosy neighbors mentioning in passing that they’d seen her march out of the house like a soldier and go right back in, and what had that been all about? No, she’d go around the cul-de-sac, just a happy housewife on a happy stroll in the happy hours of the morning. Nothing to see here, folks. No one’s leaving their husband. It’s just a little walk.
Eve had gone halfway around the block, was in fact right on Main Street, four blocks down from the little store and the promise of a pay phone, when she saw the sign: Neighborhood Yard Sale, it said. All Week Long! Support your Neighborhood Scouts! Today was Friday, the last day, and it looked like the last day of a yard sale, all right. Just a few tables with a few knick-knacks straggling across them, the ubiquitous collection of natty old furniture, some ancient fish tanks with cracks in the sides and bird cages with newspaper still in the bottoms. Boxes of books, boxes of clothes, boxes of Tupperware, boxes of toys.
There were half a dozen people moving around the yard sale, most of them obviously restocking the goods as opposed to shopping, but Eve headed on over, feeling obligated to justify her presence here. She poked through the flotsam and jetsam of other people’s lives, moving slowly through the tables and boxes until she was nearly out of it again, and there she stopped,
at a weathered old table loaded with shoeboxes and paper bags, all of them marked the same way: “Mystery Grab—$10.”
There was a young redhead stocking this table and she gave Eve a distracted once-over as she arranged her Mysteries. A little movement on the lady’s shoulder tried to catch Eve’s eye; something—a pet lizard, maybe—darted deep into the cover of the lady’s hair before Eve could get a good look at it, but now the redhead was looking right at her and Eve felt like she’d ought to say something.
“What is this stuff?” she asked, and immediately felt as stupid as Tom was always telling her she was. People did not mark their shoeboxes ‘mystery grab’ if they wanted to tell you what was in them.
The redhead merely shrugged. “Bunch of junk from the back of my closet.” She winked and sort of smiled. “Mostly old birthday presents I never looked at twice, truth be known. Shhh!”
Eve felt herself wanting to smile back. She reached out a finger and stroked the side of the nearest box. Only ten dollars. It had been years since she’d been allowed to have ten whole dollars to spend however she wanted.
The redhead gave her a long, considering stare, one hand disappearing into her hair to stroke at the pet lizard (or whatever that was) hiding there. “Tell you what,” she said. “I really don’t want to have to take all these things back home with me. Why don’t you take one on the house?”
“I couldn’t,” Eve protested, averting her eyes. But her finger was still stroking that shoebox.
“Lady,” the redhead said gently, “I guarantee you, you’re not going to find priceless jewels and a Mickey Mantle rookie card in there. Just a bunch of junk. But if it makes you happy…and, you’ll pardon me, but you sure look like you could use some happy…go ahead and take one.”
Eve had it on the tip of her tongue to protest some more, but then she surprised herself and didn’t. She picked up the shoebox instead, feeling a bone-deep gratitude that put her ridiculously at the edge of tears. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t mention it. Have a nice day.” The redhead winked again, then turned away and continued the very boring business of stocking her table.
Hugging her new box to her chest, Eve went home.
The house that greeted her when she opened the door was empty and well-lit and quiet, just as though it had never missed her, just as though she’d never tried to leave it behind. It welcomed her back without comment, much the same way Eve herself welcomed Tom back at the end of every late, late night. Eve sat down on the couch to open her Mystery Grab present.
Opening the box was more fun than she’d had in the last two Christmases. When Tom had been wooing her, there were always exciting and unexpected little gifts, but married life had taken those away. Now his idea of a Christmas or birthday present were kitchen appliances, along with a few snide comments about how she could use all the help she could get.
For a moment, depression at her near-escape tried to crush down on her, but she fought it back, steadfastly concentrating on the pleasure of this moment. She lifted the top of the shoebox away and looked down into a treasure chest of closet-clutter. Stuff from the back of her closet, the redhead had said. Mostly old birthday presents. Well, there certainly were some eclectic gift-givers in that family.
There was a pair of gloves with matching earmuffs, both of them looking brand new if somewhat on the cheap and tacky side. They were wrapped protectively around a pair of candlesticks, tarnished brass ones that looked (to Eve’s admittedly uneducated eye) very old. There was a package of gold foil star-shaped stickers, a few bottles of unopened nail polish—the glittery kind favored by the very young—and, individually-wrapped, half a dozen glass penguins, each in a different pose. The newspapers wrapping them, Eve saw were dated from 1913. Underneath, a hand-knitted scarf in bands of many shades of brown filled the rest of the shoebox.
A good haul, all in all, and one that would definitely have been worth ten measly dollars. Eve arranged her new prizes on the coffee table, and then lifted out the scarf to see if it was really as long as it looked.
Something fell out of the knitted folds and lightly thumped to the carpet. A long, flat box, made of the heavy-duty cardboard that had been popular many decades past, when they made such things to last. Magic Party Wands! declared the lid of the box. Family Fun for Little Witches! There was even a line-drawing of a ‘50s-style happy child, a girl, wearing a pointed witch’s hat and grinning from ear to ear. ‘For stages 5 and up,’ the box added, which was a very odd sort of typo, especially for something as commercial as this. THREE ticks per spell! it went on to say proudly. Wand Recharger sold separately.
Eve picked up this second, very intriguing box and opened it. Inside, the box had been form-fitted to hold its contents and lined with cheap velvet so nothing could be scratched. Eve endured a slight tinge of nostalgia as she sniffed the musty, unbreathed air of the Magic Party Wand box; these days, such things would be packaged in plastic, the kind that would dimple up and split the moment you looked at it cross-eyed. But no, back in the day, they made things to last, and the Magic Party Wands had been preserved for all time.
The box’s back claimed seven wands, but there were only six of them left. The hilts were contoured to fit small hands and painted a brilliant blue to attract young eyes. About eighteen inches long and tapered to a dull child-safe point, the wands themselves were a gleaming white. Along the pale lengths, ornate script in glittering blue, green, or gold letters named each wand: Color-Fun, Bubble-Bind, Insta-Toad, Pretty Pony, Flutter-Fly, and Slippers.
How cute. Eve touched the smooth, cool shaft of one of the wands, smiling to herself. Just the thing to liven up some Halloween party in the ‘50s. She could easily imagine a roomful of children happily chasing each other around the house, zapping and being merrily zapped in turn. She wondered though, why had makers bothered to put names on the wands? She didn’t think the kids would really confine themselves to only those ideas. And some of them were pretty abstract ideas, to be honest. What was ‘Slippers’ supposed to do?
But Color-Fun, now, that one was pretty self-explanatory. Eve picked that one up and tapped the pointed tip against her palm as she looked around her living room. The walls were still the nice, neutral white they’d been when they moved in. Dull. Drab. Lifeless. She’d always wanted a nice, sunny living room. Tom said he liked white walls. They looked cleaner, he said. She thought they looked lifeless and tired. Smiling at herself, Eve raised her Color-Fun wand and said, “Yellow!” And gave her wrist a hard flick.
Nothing happened.
Well, of course, nothing happened. What had she really expected?
Then again, ‘yellow’ was an awfully broad description. Eve swished the wand through the air thoughtfully, then said, “Marigold!” and flicked again.
And screamed, leaping to her feet in the middle of a stridently marigold-colored living room.
She gaped in horror down at the wand in her hand, holding it stiffly out from her body as though it were a smoking gun. The letters naming it were no longer the bright, glittery blue they had been, but an equally glittery green.
Eve’s first thought as the inescapable reality of the yellow walls sank all the way in was one of pure fear. Tom liked the white walls. He was going to be furious when she saw they were changed.
Her second thought was actually one of perfect mental stillness: A “…”of non-speech in absolute clarity.
And her third thought, dragging her eyes down into the velvet-lined box against her will, was, ‘Insta-Toad’.
All at once, Eve thought she might be getting out today after all.
* * *
Eve did not cook dinner that night. She sat at the table in the dining room all day, holding the wand in her sweating hand so tightly that it frequently cramped up. She put it down only long enough to rub her aching fingers, wipe off her fear-damp palms, and once run to the bathroom to throw up. But when she finally did hear Tom’s car muscle up the driveway (on time tonight, no doubt expecting a nice, hot
dinner and a smiling wife to clean some other woman’s kiss from his undershorts), a curious sense of calm fell over her. She heard the door open and she took a deep breath. She heard her husband come just two steps into the house and then his heavy footsteps paused.
“What in the hell happened here?” he demanded, and for the first time in all their years of marriage, he didn’t just sound angry, but furious. Really and truly, dangerously furious. It would not his open hand tonight, but a closed fist.
Just for an instant, the thought that Eve was a grown woman preparing to stave off not just a slap and an exasperated sigh but an honest-to-God beating with a toy magic wand rose up and swallowed her whole. But the walls were yellow, she reminded herself, struggling free of paralytic fear. The walls were yellow and that meant she was getting out. “I redecorated,” she called, and adjusted her grip on her wand.
This, clearly, was not the answer Tom expected, but he wasn’t at a loss for words for long. He came fast down the hall to the kitchen—the kitchen that was brazenly empty of dinner-smells, no less—but now Eve was ready for him. When he appeared, one flick of her slender wrist answered back twelve years of fear and misery, and the next thing Eve knew, the room was knee-deep in amphibians.
Eve stared around her in amazement. She had expected one toad, maybe even a Tom-sized toad—one 180-pound toad splitting out the seams of Tom’s suit and wearing what had been in her mind a comical expression of Tommish surprise—but what she got was one hundred and eighty 1-pound toads. Tom’s clothes were limp cases for dozens and dozens of warty toads; they grappled their way free of boots, humped out of socks, croaked and pawed at one another from different hemispheres of his slacks. The feel of them crawling all over her feet and ankles was…well, not entirely awful. On some level, it was actually spiritually satisfying. She looked down at the wand in her hand, at the letters scrolling up its smooth side (they had turned from gold to a dull used-up grey; Well, of course. The recharger was sold separately). Slowly, a smile splintered out from her frozen lips.