Set This House in Order (23 page)

The doctor's voice echoes back from the cave mouth:
“—memory trace?”

“Well, I know a lot of what goes on,”
Penny Driver's voice says.
“I keep a journal—two of them. One is just a diary of day-to-day events, things that happen to us. The other is a historical record, things I know or suspect were done to us by Penny's mother. It's to help Mouse, when she's ready to start putting her life back in order.”

“Mouse is Penny?”

“Mouse
was
Penny.”

Mouse enters the narrow passageway, descending. The voices from the
cave mouth fade as she goes down; soon the only sound is the warm breath-wind, blowing past at regular intervals.

Then, right where she is expecting it to, the passage opens up again, into a space so large that its dimensions cannot even be guessed at. The miner's light is powerful, but as Mouse sweeps her head back and forth like a searchlamp, she sees only a rough stone floor stretching away into the gloom, perhaps to infinity. And yet despite its enormity, the space is somehow intimate, too; the draft has resolved itself into individual breath sounds, a harmony of snores. Mouse still can't see the sleepers, but—peering straight ahead into the darkness, now—she knows that they are close.

She takes a few steps forward and then stops, curious but nervous. What if she gets lost down here? Mouse looks for something to mark a path with, so that she will be able to find her way back to the exit passage. A pile of distinctive white pebbles—exactly the sort of thing she is looking for—appears in the lamplight as she swings her head around. She stoops, and begins to gather up the stones.

As she is doing this, she hears a new sound below the breathing: footsteps. Mouse looks up, expecting to see one or both of the Ugly twins coming back to harass her some more, but it isn't them. The footfalls are light, dainty slippers rather than hard-soled boots.

It is a young girl, about seven years old, dressed as if for a party. Her slippers are pink, and so is her dress, all silk and taffeta, festive. But her face is sad, and her eyes—brown, the same shade as Mouse's—are haunted.

She is carrying something: a small sack, velvet cloth cinched with a cord drawstring. She holds it in one hand, at waist level; the sack swings and twists as she comes forward.

Mouse drops the pebbles back onto the floor and stands up. She has a strong impulse to flee. As the girl comes nearer, Mouse can see that the dress is not as fine as it first appeared: its hem is tattered and dirty, and there is a thick brown stain running down one side. The stain looks like it could be oil, or dried blood, but Mouse knows suddenly that it is neither. It's chocolate syrup.

Mouse recognizes the dress now: it's
her
dress, or was once; a gift from her mother. A jealousy gift, the kind given not for its own sake, but to outdo somebody else's present, in this case a sundress that Mouse's grandmother had bought for her.

It happened in late summer. Mouse and Grandma Driver had gone to a matinee showing of
The Muppet Movie
at the Willow Grove Rialto. Afterwards they'd stopped on Third Street to get ice cream, and Mouse had
noticed the sundress in the window of the Little Misses clothing store. It was a simple dyed cotton dress, but something about it caught Mouse's eye. “Would you like to try it on?” her grandmother asked her, and Mouse said, “Yes, please,” even though she wasn't really that interested; it was mostly an excuse to put off going home a little longer. But the dress fit her, and looked nice on her—at least Grandma Driver thought so—so Grandma bought it for her.

As soon as they got home and her mother saw the dress, Mouse knew she was in trouble. Verna Driver remained cordial in front of Grandma, saying only, “Oh Millicent, you really shouldn't have,” but beneath her polite disapproval Mouse detected a much harsher emotion. As they stood in the front doorway watching Grandma drive away, Mouse felt her mother's hand grip her shoulder, her nails digging in so sharply that Mouse had to bite her lip to keep from shrieking. The moment Grandma's car was out of sight, Mouse's mother dragged her back into the house and slammed the door.

“What the fuck do you think you are,” she demanded, “some kind of fucking charity case? You
have
clothes,
beautiful
clothes. Why would you need to go begging for more? What do you think that says about you? What do you think that says about
me?
”

“I didn't beg!” Mouse protested. “Grandma just asked me if I wanted it. She was being nice, she—”

“Nice!” Her mother's arm shot out in an open-handed blow that staggered Mouse and left her ear ringing. “It's
ugly!
No one who really cared about you would ever give you something so hideous. I can't believe you're that stupid!”

“I'm sorry!” Mouse squeaked, raising her own arms in a feeble attempt at self-defense. “I'll give it back, if you want! I'll throw it ou—”

“Go to your room!”
Verna Driver roared, and then, before Mouse could obey, landed another blow that sent her crashing into the wall.

The next day, all smiles again, Mouse's mother came home carrying a gift-wrapped box. “Little Mouse!” she called from the front door. “I have a surprise for you!” Mouse, reading a book in her room, did not hear this as good news; she stayed quiet. But of course her mother came and found her anyway.

“This is an early birthday present,” her mother said, shoving the box at her. “To show how much I love you.” Mouse knew that was a lie. Not the part about her mother loving her—Mouse honestly believed that was true—just the idea that love was the motive for the present. It was a jealousy gift; Mouse could tell even before she opened the box and saw the dress inside.

“Oh, it…it's very pretty!” Mouse exclaimed, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible.

“Yes, it's
beautiful,
” her mother said. “And that's not all: we're going out for dinner tonight. We have reservations at Antoine's.”

Antoine's Kitchen, which was attached to the Willow Grove Marriott, was the closest thing in town to a five-star restaurant. Mouse's mother liked to go there on special occasions. Mouse would have liked to like it too—Antoine's had wonderful desserts—but she was usually too busy pretending to have a great time to actually enjoy herself. And that was during a normal visit to Antoine's; dinner there as a jealousy gift was an event to dread.

Still, Mouse tried to be brave about it. She put on the dress and a pair of satin slippers that her mother had also bought for her, and remarked several more times how very pretty—how
beautiful
—the dress was. Her mother got dressed up too: white gloves, white high heels, big floppy white hat, and a low-cut navy blue dress with large white polka dots.

When they got to Antoine's, they were informed that the main dining room was closed, having been reserved for a wedding reception by the Hallbecks and the Burgesses, two prominent families in town (Carl Hallbeck published the
Willow Grove Reporter,
and the Burgesses owned the bottle factory that was Willow Grove's largest source of employment). Mouse would have expected her mother to be upset, but she took the news in stride, following along without complaint as the maître d' seated them in a smaller side dining room.

“Now, you order whatever you like,” Mouse's mother said. Mouse pretended to struggle with the decision, asking her mother to describe a few of the more exotic dishes on the menu; then she chose the chicken croquettes, which she knew from experience were easy to eat even when she was too nervous to have an appetite.

Their table was close to the doorway that connected the two dining rooms, and they could hear the sounds of the wedding reception going on. Verna Driver, who sat facing the doorway, kept leaning sideways to get a better view; Mouse, only too happy to have her mother distracted, stared at her place setting until the croquettes arrived.

They ate dinner, or at least Mouse did; her mother, now totally focused on the wedding party, barely touched her plate, and she ignored Mouse completely. As a result, by the time the waitress asked if they cared for dessert, Mouse felt comfortable enough to order what she really wanted: an Antoine's triple-fudge sundae. Verna Driver ordered cheesecake, then announced, “I'm going to wash my hands,” and disappeared into the main dining room.

Mouse's mother was gone a very long time. Mouse didn't mind. When
her sundae came, she dug into it, wanting to savor as much of it as possible while she was alone.

She'd gone through two of the three scoops of ice cream, and was pouring extra chocolate syrup on the third, when she heard laughter coming from the main dining room. Something about it got her attention. She set the chocolate syrup down, slid out of her chair, and went over to the connecting doorway to have a look.

A bandstand had been set up at one end of the main dining room, and the tables rearranged to create a large open space in front of it. Mouse spotted her mother right in the middle of this makeshift dance floor—her hat, like a white signal flag, was hard to miss—dancing with the groom, Bennett Hallbeck. Judging from her smile, Mouse's mother was having a grand time, but Ben Hallbeck looked trapped; he kept throwing glances at the other couples around him as if pleading to be rescued. Finally, at a break in the music, he tried to disengage himself. But Verna Driver wouldn't let him go: she wrapped her arms around him, pulled him close, and started rubbing herself against him. This brought fresh laughter from some of the spectators at the tables, but was too much for the bride, who came storming onto the dance floor flanked by her bridesmaids.

Mouse didn't wait to see what happened next. She did a quick about-face and hurried back to the table. As she was climbing back up into her seat she knocked over the chocolate syrup; she felt it pour onto her dress and let out a cry of dismay.

There was a final explosion of laughter from the main dining room and then the band struck up again, loud. A moment later Mouse's mother reappeared at the table. She was still smiling, but the smile had become brittle; she had lost her hat, and her hair was disheveled. “We're leaving now,” she said tonelessly.

“OK,” said Mouse. With a fatalistic bow of her head, she stood up and let her mother see the chocolate syrup stain, which some frantic swabbing with a napkin had only made bigger. The dress was ruined; but Verna Driver didn't yell at Mouse, or hit her, only clucked her tongue once, the sound like the cocking of a gun. “We're leaving,” she repeated.

They exited Antoine's through a back door, Mouse so frightened now that she barely noticed they'd left without paying. As they crossed the parking lot, she looked back forlornly at the restaurant, a receding oasis of laughter and light.

Then they were in the car. Mouse went to buckle up and realized that there was no way to fasten her seat belt without smearing chocolate syrup
on it. This posed a dilemma: it was an ironclad rule of her mother's that she must always wear a seat belt in the car, but it was an equally ironclad rule that she must never dirty or soil the car; sticky messes, as from candy or melted ice cream, were especially taboo. Reasoning that it was best to go with the infraction that would leave no lingering trace and was thus most likely to be overlooked or forgotten, Mouse let the seat belt dangle, and arranged her dress carefully so that no part of the syrup stain touched the car's upholstery.

Her mother buckled her own seat belt and started the engine. She drove in silence for three or four blocks; then, without warning, she slammed on the brakes, hurling Mouse into the dashboard. Mouse wasn't badly hurt, but the sudden shock overcame her, and she burst into tears. Verna Driver smiled thinly and drove on.

The ride back seemed unusually long. Mouse was grateful at first; she was sure now that her mother had other punishments in store for her, and that they would begin in earnest as soon as the two of them were behind closed doors, so she was in no hurry to get home. But as her sobs tapered off, she became more aware of her surroundings, and realized that she didn't recognize the street they were on. They had detoured somewhere. Mouse looked ahead, and saw a sign at the next corner with the words
SOUTH WOODS PARK
above a right-turn arrow.

They didn't turn right; they turned left, going deeper into Trash Town. A series of further turns down shabbier and shabbier side streets brought them ultimately to a dead-end lane with no signpost or street lamps. Verna Driver hesitated at the head of the lane, as if she herself were reluctant to enter here, but she did, easing the car forward.

Only about half of the lots on the lane were occupied by real houses. Most of the rest held trailer homes; one was vacant, overgrown with weeds, and on one a burned-out log cabin rotted in the moonlight. A Doberman Pinscher chained up in front of the cabin barked ferociously as Mouse and her mother drove past.

They drove to the very end of the lane, to the last lot, where a dilapidated clapboard house stood dark and abandoned. It wasn't in quite as bad shape as the log cabin, but it was getting there: the roof sagged, and one of the side walls had started to buckle; every window Mouse could see was either broken out or boarded shut.

The house had no garage, just a pair of tire ruts that ran into the side yard. Verna Driver steered her car in there and killed the engine. Mouse, who knew something very bad was about to happen, sat frozen, breathing as
lightly as possible, as if by being quiet she could somehow fool her mother into ignoring her.

A vain hope. There was a click as Verna Driver unbuckled her seat belt, and then she said, with a mournful sigh: “Little Mouse. You ruined your dress.”

She sounded so sad that it was Mouse who ended up being fooled, thinking momentarily that she wasn't mad, just horribly disappointed. “I didn't mean to ruin it,” Mouse told her. “It—”