The Untelling (11 page)

The telephone rang, startling me and Kitten too. Following the sound of the electronic ring, I found myself standing in the middle of Rochelle’s disorderly bedroom.

Rochelle’s room was larger than mine by two or three paces in each direction, but it seemed smaller because of all the stuff she had strewn around. Standing in front of her dresser, waiting for the phone to ring again, I smelled the gardenia and soap scent of the dozen sachets she had made for herself last winter. The ringing seemed to be coming from her upper left dresser drawer. I let it ring once again before easing my hand into the open drawer, telling myself that this was not really an invasion of privacy. If I were to slide open one of the drawers of the vanity just for the sake of looking,
that
would be beyond the pale. But this was simply a practical matter. This drawer was stuffed with soft and pretty things, most with the price tags still on. The phone rang again, from somewhere nearby. I moved my hand in order to look someplace else, behind the dresser maybe, but the machine picked up. “Breathe,” said the outgoing message, “and you will know peace.” Breathing, I held a sage- colored chemise, silk, against my chest. It would look better than the lace and nylon teddies that Dwayne favored. I put the nightie back in the drawer, stifling my urge to fold it carefully or even wrap it in tissue. Next I pulled out the satin gloves, which Rochelle thought were “too much” but her mother believed were “exactly right, perfect!”

I imagined myself following in the footsteps of our housebreaker. It was hard to believe that less than a month had passed since then. I slid the glove over my right hand and up my arm nearly to the shoulder. I did the same on the left except I took my ring off and pushed it back on over the white satin. When I held my hand far from my face, the cluster of diamonds looked like a dime-sized solitaire. Dwayne would have to open a thousand locks to buy me something like that.

I admired my arms for a few moments more before sitting on Rochelle’s unmade bed. For some reason her sheets smelled of purple lollipops. Lying back on her pillows, looking at the mosquito netting draped from the ceiling, I rubbed my satin-covered fingers together and almost cried. If I had time to plan, time to save, I could be a really beautiful bride. If I had more time, I could have done things right. Sent my picture to
Jet
magazine, invited people. I wouldn’t complain if my mother made me wear pretty gloves.

Kitten crawled over me, kneading my stomach with his paws. I rubbed his black and white head until he purred like a lawn mower. I hugged him close, enjoying the warmth of his body and the softness of his fur. Even if I wasn’t getting married, Kitten wouldn’t be in my life forever. Even if Rochelle wasn’t taking him as part of her trousseau. People live longer than cats. Relationships are temporary, Hermione liked to say. Even if love lasts forever, it’s just a matter of time before one person dies on the other one.

I stretched in order to clear my head. This was not a time to be thinking about people dying or pets dying. This was the happiest day of my life. And I was happy. I felt a swirl of emotions that day, the pleasant feelings flavored with sadness. It was probably just the side effects of some sort of hormonal brew. I was happy. This I knew.

I got up and stood in front of Rochelle’s gaping closet door. Under the weight of the many dresses, coats, jackets, and blouses, the wooden rod curved like a bow. In between her suede jacket and gray tweed suit peeked a fold of white silk studded with seed pearls. I mashed the clothes to one side and pulled it free. I felt like a magician, pulling endless scarves from my sleeve. The dress was enormous and light at the same time. Yards of creamy fabric that seemed to weigh nothing.

I knew the gown would fit me. I’d known this since the first time I helped Rochelle zip herself into it. Once, when we were in this room together, drinking wine and looking at color swatches, I almost asked her if I could try it on. The words were in my mouth, trapped behind my teeth. I think she would have said yes; my best friend is a generous person. I shook my head and clucked my tongue; she never even bothered storing it properly. She just shoved this magnificent dress into her tight dark closet. A gown like this has to breathe. All the bride’s magazines tell you that. Don’t smother your silks.

I would be a beautiful bride if I could just have a chance.

It’s said that you can feel a stare before you even know that someone is looking at you, but I don’t know how long Rochelle stood in the doorway of her bedroom watching me wearing her satin gloves, admiring her wedding gown. I do know that I didn’t feel a thing. I looked toward the doorway only because the beauty of the dress was suffocating. I’d lifted my head only for air.

“Why are you in my room?” she said, leaning against the doorjamb. Hand on left hip.

Her tone was not exactly hostile, but it was more suspicious than curious. I wasn’t sure how to answer the question. She’d caught me unmasked, displaying the full extent of my desire. I focused my attention on my upper arms where the gloves pinched the skin. “I just wanted to look at your dress.”

“Aria,” Rochelle said, “are you all right?”

“I’m pregnant,” I said. “I’m having a baby.”

She grew silent. “What did you say?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Oh shit, Aria.” Rochelle touched her lips with the tips of her fingers. “Are you freaked out? Don’t get freaked out. This can be handled. I’ll be there for you just like you were there for me.”

“No,” I said. “This is a good thing. I’m keeping it. I’m going to marry Dwayne.” I held out my hand to her. The ring looked big and gaudy atop the slick white glove. I worked it off and tossed it to Rochelle.

She caught it easily and walked over, sitting beside me on the unmade bed. “So you told him about the baby?”

I nodded.

“And he proposed?”

“Basically.”

Rochelle scrutinized the ring on her palm like it was an interesting insect. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t like how she sounded like a schoolteacher who has only your own good in mind. “There’s nothing wrong with Dwayne.”

“No,” Rochelle said. “I don’t mean anything like that. I was just thinking about timing, that’s all.”

“He’s got a better job than we do.”

“This isn’t about money,” Rochelle said. “You should know me better than that.”

“It’s all about money,” I said, wriggling out of the satin gloves. I shouldn’t have tossed my engagement ring across the room. I should have invited her to look at it on my hand. Let her squint at it from the doorway; from that distance the clustered diamond chips looked like a three-carat solitaire. I wiggled my fingers, already missing the weight of the ring below my knuckle.

Rochelle held it between her thumb and forefinger, her own diamonds winking like flashbulbs. “Was this his mother’s ring or something?”

“It’s been in his family,” I said.

“How long?” She raised her brows. “Since the eighties?” Rochelle laughed but stopped when I didn’t join her. “It’s a joke.”

I knew it was a joke and last week it would have been all right. Rochelle teased me about Dwayne all the time. She laughed at his leather pants, at his cousin’s nickname. But now none of it was funny.

“So when is the big day?” she said.

“In a few weeks, I think. Soon. I don’t want to waddle down the aisle.”

“Well,” she said, “this is good, if it’s what you want.” Her voice seemed strained, her good humor forced. “So why did you come in here in the first place?”

“I just wanted to look close at your dress. I didn’t go through your drawers or anything like that. I don’t know how I am going to find a dress and everything in time.” I touched the clean white fabric and looked up at her.

“You don’t want to wear my dress, do you? I can’t get married in a used gown.”

“Never mind,” I said. “I don’t want to wear your dress.”

“What exactly is it that you want?” Rochelle looped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me toward her. I squirmed out of her embrace.

“I want exactly what I have.”

“And what is that?” Rochelle said.

I’d never been in a fight before. I’d never struck another human being, but I wanted to slap Rochelle hard and sharp across her cheek, surprise spreading across her face like blood. It would end our relationship completely, I knew this, but maybe it would be worth it to rub that satisfied expression from her face.

“I want what everybody wants. I’m not so different from you.” I pointed to the cardboard boxes lining the wall and the bridal magazines heaped in the corner. “Your wedding will last for just one day and after that you won’t have anything more than what I have. It will be you and your husband sitting in a room, just like it will be me and Dwayne. And you want to be happy and that’s all that I want.”

“Penny,” she said, “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.” She reached for my hand, the one I was preparing to send into her face. She took it, kissing the palm. “I really am happy for you.”

I pulled my hand back, smearing her lipstick from her mouth to her chin.

Chapter Six

I
had planned for Dwayne
to meet my family way back in December. We had been dating for about three months, long enough for me to be sure that this was more than an extended one-night stand. My mother had invited me to the house for dinner on the first Sunday of the month. I’d accepted her invitation and told her that I’d be bringing a friend.

“A young man?” she wanted to know.

I was relieved to say yes.

The weather had been cool enough for me to wear my leather jacket. I liked to wear heavy clothes when I saw my mother; the jacket completely concealed my body and made me look slim. A supple suit of armor. Dwayne had worn leather too: black pants and a bright yellow sweater. I wished he had worn khaki or even tweed. A blazer maybe.

I had known that it was only right that I warn him, prepare him in some way for the scene at 739 Willow Street. But what should I have told him? I’d been dodging my mother’s uppercut personality for most of my life, yet I was never really prepared. And besides, this could have been a good day. Mama might have welcomed him with a firm embrace and peck on the cheek. With my mother you never knew what you were going to get.

“Dwayne,” I said, “if my mother is a little weird, don’t take it the wrong way.”

He said, “Weird how?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Well, give me an example. Is she weird like she might ask me to help bathe the dog, or weird like she might try to kill me?”

“Put your blinker on,” I said. “Your turn is coming up.”

“Don’t ignore my question,” Dwayne said over the click of the turn signal. “Crazy like what? Like a fox? Like Son of Sam?”

Using my teeth, I scraped flavored gloss off my lower lip while I let Dwayne pass my mother’s house. I needed to tell him something, disclose the shape of my mother’s madness, if not its magnitude.

“She does weird stuff when she’s angry.” I shrugged. “She’s not a psychopath.”

“For example?”

“Like one time she baked BBs into the corn bread when I was in high school.”

“Because?”

“Because she was pissed. Me and my best friend went to a college party at Morehouse and stayed out until seven in the morning. I spent two whole weeks waiting for her to punish me somehow. I came home every day expecting her to have smeared butter on my prom dress or something like that. Then one day I sat down for dinner and chomped down on hard metal. Tears came to my eyes and she was satisfied.”

“That’s deep,” Dwayne said. “And we’re about to go over there for
dinner
.”

“No, no, no,” I said. “It’s not like that all the time.” I felt hot shame spread from my chest to my face. “I mean, what I told you was true, but I don’t think she’s going to do anything freaky with the food.”

Dwayne took one hand off the steering wheel and covered mine. “Did she do stuff like that to you a lot? When you were small?”

“Not when I was small; only after my father passed. We were fine before then.”

This was an oversimplification, I knew. Hermione has told me a thousand times that things were not
fine
before the accident. They had not been as toxic as they became after Daddy and Genevieve died, but even before, our mother was not like other mothers. She’d had her quirks, insisting once that we drive all the way home from Callaway Gardens, more than fifty miles south, because she had forgotten to turn on the dishwasher. I have only fuzzy memories of these incidents, but Hermione tells me that before Daddy died, Mama was embarrassed by her personality, apologizing all the way back up I-85.

Daddy was annoyed. “Eloise, it doesn’t matter if the dishes are dirty when we get home. Don’t spoil the kids’ holiday.”

“But there could be bugs,” she said. “Lincoln, please just let me go back to turn on the machine.”

And I had to agree with Hermione that this wasn’t normal. But I also felt the need to point out that things were different before. Before, Mama may have been a little bit crazy, but she was never mean. I was never afraid of her.

Dwayne turned into the parking lot of a CME church, gravel popping under the wheels of the Crown Victoria, a retired police car that he’d bought at an auction. It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, but the parking lot was crowded. He eased the Crown between two black SUVs. He put in my favorite of his CDs, Wynton Marsalis and his daddy playing all the songs from the Snoopy cartoons, the sound track of a happy childhood. Pressing buttons on his armrest, he reclined our seats. Then he took my hand again and stroked my palm with the smooth skin of his thumb.

I told him about my dog, Vido. He was part Shar-Pei, but we didn’t know that’s what he was. We just called him a “wrinkle dog.” I’d found him at Piedmont Park when I was twelve. Mama sent him to the pound when I was gone to Bluebird Camp.

Hermione had broken the news. She held me and rubbed my back as I cried. “I told her not to do it,” she had said in a quiet voice.

Dwayne listened and warmed my hands between the two of his. I hadn’t run out of things to say, but I stopped talking and squeezed Dwayne’s fingers until my nails went white. “But I’m okay. I don’t want you to think that I’m scarred for life or anything like that.”

Dwayne didn’t speak; he looked into my face with worried eyes while rubbing my hand in time with the cheerful jazz pouring from his speakers. I was unaccustomed to this sort of kindness.

I unfastened my seat belt and leaned toward him as it snapped back into place. I kissed Dwayne hard on his mouth, wanting to climb down his throat, find refuge in the warm pit of him.

He put one hand to the nape of my neck, fingering the tight curls there, and used his other hand to undo his own seat belt. I smiled into his mouth. In the privacy of my mind I whispered
IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.

He jerked away like he had heard me. “We’re going to be late.”

“We’re already late,” I said, pulling his face back to my own. “I don’t care.”

He turned to look at the clock on his dashboard. “Girl, you made me lose all track of time.”

I leaned back in my seat and watched a woman walking through the parking lot. She moved with the rapid tick of high heels. The silver buttons on her trapeze coat were open, flashing a snug-fitting gray dress underneath. When she got within a few feet of our car, she shook her finger at us and laughed with a broad grin that crinkled her eyes shut.

“She reminds me of my mama,” I told Dwayne.

“That’s not how I pictured her.”

“I mean, that’s what she was like before.”

“Before what?”

“Before everything.”

He smiled. “Let my mama tell it; that’s how she was too. She likes to pull out old pictures of herself looking all slim and everything and then she says to me and my sister, ‘Look what you two did to me.’” He chuckled. “You need to meet my mama one day. She’s a trip.”

While he was talking, I watched the pretty lady in the side mirror. She climbed into her butter-colored luxury car and started the engine.

“Let’s not go,” I said to Dwayne, clutching at his meaty upper arm. “Can we just go back to my house? Rochelle is out of town until tomorrow. It could be just us. We can listen to CDs. Drink some wine.”

“Make some love,” he said with an open grin. “It don’t matter to me, but won’t it make your mama mad if we just don’t show up? From what you said, I’m not trying to get on her bad side.”

“Please,” I said. “Please. I don’t want to go. Let’s just go back.”

I hoped that my mother was not still angry about last December’s no-show. That situation was compounded by the fact that Hermione and Mr. Phinazee hadn’t made it to that particular dinner either. “But at least they called,” Mother said. “I didn’t know what had happened to you.” I’d apologized again, not offering any explanation for myself. When I called last week to tell her I’d be coming to dinner with Dwayne, she said, “Am I to take you seriously this time?” I didn’t explain that I was serious last time, that every interaction with her is serious for me. I just said that yes, ma’am, I would be there.

For the occasion Dwayne borrowed Head Cheese’s burgundy Jetta. The repo man was looking for it, but it should be safe outside my mother’s house for a couple of hours. An air freshener dangled from the windshield, filling the car with the Christmas scent of pine.

“Right here,” I told him. “Don’t pull in the driveway. Leave the car at the curb.”

He sat in the car and looked. It wasn’t a nice house. Before Daddy and Genevieve got killed, we lived in a nice split-level on Bunnybrooke Drive. It was red brick with optimistic yellow shutters on the windows and lime-green electric appliances inside. The backyard was big enough for a pool, and saving for this had always been an abstract family goal.

We moved into the Willow Street house after everyone had been in the ground for a few months, once Mama realized that the insurance wasn’t going to be enough to subsidize our lifestyle. The house, 739 Willow Street, wasn’t shabby, exactly. The split-level on Bunnybrooke was nicer, with its finished basement and extra bedroom for company, but the house on Willow Street was good enough for the three of us—two bedrooms, one bathroom, tiny closets, like all the others on the block. But my mother’s house seemed steeped in sadness in a way that her neighbors’ houses did not. Hermione blamed it on the sprawling hickory-nut tree in the middle of the yard.

“It sucks all the nutrients out of the soil. That’s why we can’t have flowers or even grass like regular people.” She said this nearly every time we were in this house together. “And, Mother, what if there’s an ice storm? One branch could tear a hole in the roof.”

My mother always said the tree was fine. That it gave shade. Kept the electric bill down.

“It looks okay,” Dwayne said. “The way you described it, I was expecting to see the Munster house. It’s okay. Just needs some paint or something.”

I knew that this was more a matter of simple maintenance. Just last summer Mama had hired workers to install aluminum siding.

“Maybe not paint,” Dwayne said, staring out of the window. “But something to spruce the place up a little bit.” He got out of the car and walked around to open the door for me. I hoped my mother was watching through the picture window as I took his hand and rose from the clean new car.

“Front door or side door?” Dwayne wanted to know.

“Front,” I said. “No, side.”

“That’s your sister’s minivan in the driveway?”

I nodded.

“Then she went in the side. Let’s go in the way she went in. Front door is for company anyway.”

We walked up the driveway with our pinkies locked. Hermione and Mr. Phinazee’s van was filthy, as though they’d driven across the country, not just across town. Dead bugs studded the windshield and red dirt decorated the sides like painted-on flames.

Dwayne peeked in the window and said, “That’s an upscale baby seat. How much do you think something like that costs?”

I turned and hugged him. “I’m so hot. I’m so scared. I should have drunk some wine before we left, to take the edge off.”

“No drinking for pregnant ladies.” Dwayne kissed me quick on my forehead and pressed the bell. “Don’t worry. It’s all good.”

My mother came to the door with a red-lipsticked smile. “Why did you come to the side door, Ariadne? We don’t want to make the gentleman walk through the kitchen.”

Dwayne smiled. “No trouble at all.” Then, ignoring her extended hand, he dragged my mother into a confident embrace.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise and then she melted into the hug, closing her eyes and leaning into Dwayne’s bulk. She looked as though she wanted to press her cheek to his, to raise one foot from the floor like a young girl greeting a returning soldier.

I watched her and I envied them both. I envied Dwayne the warmth of my mother’s touch. I would have liked to ask him how she smelled. If she still wore L’Air du Temps. Were her arms thin? Was she developing a little pouch of a stomach?

And of course I envied her position inside his embrace. One of the few places where I felt protected and secure.

He released her and she smiled. “It’s good to know you. I hope we’ll be seeing a lot of you.” She turned back toward the stove. “I’m still cooking. Take him into the den to meet everyone.” As she waved us away, I noticed the engraved gold band, still on her left hand.

When we were in the hallway in front of a collection of my baby pictures and Hermione’s, I said, “Was that okay?”

He shrugged. “I was just trying to come in smiling.”

“I think it worked.”

“But she didn’t even say hello to you,” he said. “I didn’t appreciate that.”

I squeezed his hand. “Welcome to my life.”

We lingered in the corridor leading to the added-on den. The hallway was lined with photographs—studio portraits, framed snapshots, magazine prints. People we knew, people we didn’t, us and celebrities, all clustered in this hallway. Captured in a cheap poster frame was a Sealtest ice cream box featuring two smiling sisters. The girls were not Hermione and me.

We’d met those girls in Piedmont Park the day that a photographer was scouting for little black girls. I was five and Hermione was ten. Daddy was there too, barbecuing. Steaks for himself and Mama. Hot dogs for the kids.

This was just after the playground had been renovated with the addition of a large spiral slide. Everyone wanted to ride. We stood in line, standing on fragrant wood chips, with about twenty other children. Then, fighting claustrophobia, we pushed into a column and climbed a twisty staircase that took us to the top of the barber pole slide. It gleamed like chrome and was griddle hot, burning the backs of our legs as we swirled down, squealing, ramming into a clog of boys and girls at the bottom. It was fun and I had run to my mother to tell her so.

“Stand up straight,” she said. “There is a photographer here. He’s taking pictures of girls to put on the ice cream box. Tell your sister.”

I ran back to the slide, trying to stand up straight and trot at the same time. I whispered to Hermione, who smiled. She had been chubby even then, but didn’t know yet that there was anything wrong with it. We smiled all afternoon, rode the swings together, clearly sisters, wearing identical red shirts and striped shorts. We hoped that the photographer would think we were cute.