Shout Her Lovely Name (12 page)

On the first day of Easter vacation, Ruby insisted Nora come along to the vet since she was the one who’d wanted a damn cat in the first place. “The Catholics’ pool will be there when we get back,” she said.

They had to coast down the hill to the Mobile station with its red Pegasus soaring above Sunset Boulevard.

“We made it here on fumes,” Ruby told the attendant. She also told him she was taking her daughter’s new cat to the vet, and that’s what the commotion coming from the cardboard box on the back seat was all about. The man peered around Ruby’s blond head, Nora waved, and his eyes drifted back to her mother’s slender neck and the front of her blue dress. Ruby was always doing things like this, making Nora go places she didn’t want to, driving like a fiend, telling her story to anyone who would listen.

The examination room had a drain in the center of the floor, for hosing down, Nora supposed, yet it still smelled of ammonia, pee, and animal fright. The walls were decorated with posters of hip dysplasia, plaque-ridden canine teeth, and opaque eyeballs. Not one picture of a happy pet. This lack concerned Nora but her mother didn’t notice because she was staring at Dr. Shapiro as he shuffled through a stack of forms, uncapped a pen with his square white teeth, and held the cap in his mouth, leaving his moist pink tongue exposed. Nora clutched Phil Donahue’s box on her lap until his claws pierced the cardboard and dug into her thigh. When she yelped, her mom furrowed her brow, a habit she was trying to break by wearing Frownies to bed every night. Then, just as quickly, she stopped and turned back to Dr. Shapiro’s glossy black mustache, freshly shaved cheeks, and cleft chin. A butt chin, Nora thought.

Dr. Shapiro set down his clipboard. His cheerful blue eyes, happy as polka dots, fixed on her mom, and Ruby lowered her lashes. “How old is Phil?” he asked.

“Phil Donahue,” Nora corrected.

“We’re not certain,” her mom said, keeping her chin down and gazing up from beneath her brows. “The Easter Bunny brought him early for my daughter.”

Dr. Shapiro examined Nora, her face, her height, trying to determine if she was too old for the Easter Bunny. Nora said nothing. It was one of Ruby’s not-to-be-broken rules: Never tell a man your age (and Nora was especially not supposed to tell when Ruby was in the room).

“Shall we have a look?” He opened Phil Donahue’s box. “Psst. Kitty . . .”

Phil Donahue hissed and swatted at Dr. Shapiro’s long fingers, and the muscles in Ruby’s neck stiffened. Nora smiled. She wasn’t quite certain why, but she didn’t want this to go well for her mom. She wanted to get it over with. She wanted to be swimming. Phil Donahue leaped from the box, and Dr. Shapiro grabbed for his hind legs. The cat writhed and spit, but Dr. Shapiro held on while Nora cajoled in her best Margaret voice, “Hello, love. It’s all right, darling.” After a moment Ruby reached over and pinched the fur at Phil Donahue’s neck so hard she pulled his cheeks back, showing all his teeth. Nora was about to object, worried that Ruby was hurting the cat, but her mom saw her expression. “He’s fine,” she declared, lifting Phil Donahue by the scruff and arranging him in the crook of her elbow, his skinny body pressed against her chest. The unspoken threat—watch yourself—was clear to Nora from her mother’s controlled tone and gaze that lingered too long, like a pinch.

Dr. Shapiro shone a light into the cat’s yellow eyes, squeezed tight to the size of slivered almonds. He examined his ears, his gums, and the pads of his feet. He guessed Phil Donahue to be about a year old. Nora flinched when he administered three vaccinations. And all the while, Ruby stroked the cat’s head. When Dr. Shapiro noticed the scratch up the inside of Ruby’s wrist, he quit doctoring Phil Donahue and tenderly guided Ruby’s hand beneath the light. “I don’t like the way this looks.”

“It’s only a scratch,” she said, but she let him hold her hand while she stared at his bald spot as if it were a halo.

All but forgotten, Phil Donahue sat beneath a chair, licking himself as if nothing had happened. While her mom blossomed under the veterinarian’s concerned eye, Nora stared at a poster of a cat’s heart. Spaghetti-length worms wriggled in and around the chambers in a complicated tangle of bodies.

“Thank you, Dr. Shapiro,” Ruby said as he ran his finger along the angry red line.

“Please, call me Guy.”

Dr. Shapiro pressed a tube of antibiotic ointment into Nora’s hands, told her to be sure she “anointed” her mom’s wrist three times every day. He told Ruby if it didn’t get better she might need to have it looked at again. He also said they should plan on coming back soon, as Phil Donahue should be neutered. He whispered the last word, as if the cat could understand. Nora’s gaze never left the poster and Dr. Shapiro nodded toward the diagram of the cat’s heart. “Strays get those worms,” he said with a lilt to his voice.

Even Nora had the good sense to know parasites and flirtation were a bad combination.

“Bring Phil Donahue back and we’ll fix him up.” His gaze finally left Ruby and found his patient. “And, Nora, make sure you keep fresh water in his bowl.”

“Oh, she will.” Ruby stroked the top of Nora’s head. Dr. Shapiro couldn’t see how she lightly tugged Nora’s hair with her next sentence. “Nora wants to be a vet.”

Dr. Shapiro’s eyes lit up. Both he and Ruby stared at Nora with proud smiles, as if they’d all leaped forward ten years and were dropping Nora off at her new dorm. It wasn’t the first time her mom had made her over in someone else’s image. Nora dropped to her knees to retrieve her cat. Still nonchalant, he ignored her fingers wriggling on the floor. She reached toward him and he let her pet his head. He even rubbed his cheek against her palm, growing affectionate. Nora and Phil Donahue were united in their dislike for the vet.

Dr. Shapiro saw them to the front door of his office, his hand floating an inch above the small of Ruby’s back. Ruby asked him if he liked jazz and suggested that perhaps he’d like to hear an amazing piano player this Saturday night at the club where she moonlighted from her teaching job. He said that sounded fine, wonderful. Ruby gave her horn a single toot as she drove out of the parking lot.

On the way home they stopped at Safeway for two Dreamsicles and a dozen cans of Kitty Queen cat food. Ruby chucked Phil Donahue beneath the chin, saying, “One good turn deserves another.”

Donald’s Pontiac was gone when they arrived home. Nora dashed to the carport, taking both ice cream bars. Since Ruby had a date this weekend she didn’t want one anyway. She wanted to look fantastic in her black cocktail dress. “Go now,” she agreed. “His holy tight-ass isn’t home.”

“Nora, hello.” Margaret answered her knock in a gingham housedress and pantyhose. “Jocelyn’s in the kitchen.”

Margaret always wore pantyhose. Nora had seen her pull a fresh pair from between sachets in her lingerie drawer on one of the nights Nora had been allowed to sleep over. Margaret, who changed her clothes in the closet, would step out in fresh hose, chenille slippers, and her nightie, the limp pair, still bearing the shape of Margaret’s legs, hanging from her wrist. She’d make a black and tan for Donald and then watch TV from the other end of the flowered sofa while he stifled belches. At bedtime Margaret slipped into her side of Jocelyn’s bed while Nora slept on the floor in a pile of lilac-scented quilts. Donald had his own room, though most times he slept in front of the TV. Nora didn’t think much about it, just assumed that British people used cream on their cereal, said
telly
and
bum,
and kept separate bedrooms.

“Can’t swim today,” Jocelyn announced. She licked a glob of lemon curd off a teaspoon. “Donald says it’s too close to the Resurrection. Too holy for swimming. Mummy says we must listen.”

When Nora tried
Mummy
at home, like “Mummy, I’ve got to use the loo,” Ruby looked up from her lesson planning with a sour smile and told her she wasn’t
goddamned Julie Andrews.
As if Nora needed reminding.

“My cat has worms.”

“Will he be okay?” Margaret asked from the sink.

“We hope so.” Nora nodded. “The worms are inside his heart.”

Though Phil Donahue wasn’t the cat of her dreams, he did swat around the Sugar Pops Nora tossed him, torturing them until with a final pounce he’d lick off the sweet coating. He liked them so much Nora took to mixing some with his cat food. She kept his water bowl full as Dr. Guy had directed, but Phil Donahue preferred to drink from the bathtub. He’d balance on the edge and dip his tongue toward Nora’s hand, cupped just below the surface. She liked feeling his tongue under the water, rough and soft. When he finished, he’d pad out of the room, stepping high, shaking each paw.

At night, when her mom was correcting papers and watching
Laugh-In,
Nora let him out to do his business. Nightgowned and barefoot, she would stand in the dry grass and wait for him. There were no streetlights on lower Primrose. The stars flecked across the velveteen night sky were incredibly bright and as dense as the freckles across her mom’s shoulders. Nora often didn’t know Phil Donahue was back until he surprised her, turning figure eights around her ankles.

Saturday night, before the date with Dr. Guy, Ruby and Nora stretched out on their twin beds, sharing a bucket of chicken. Ruby lounged in a lacy black bra and sheer black hose; a triangle of pubic hair showed dark below her bellybutton, a wine spritzer rested on her stomach. She dangled a cigarette from her fingers. Nora’s 7Up was tinged pink with the treat of one splash of wine. Phil Donahue nibbled shreds of thigh meat off Nora’s palm.

“Nora-bean.” Her mom had the soft, confident voice she got after a glass of wine. “Pick out my dress.”

Gathered in her mom’s closet like a knot of beautiful women, her mother’s dresses mysteriously held their shapes on the hangers, like Margaret’s pantyhose, all curves. Nora stood on a chair and shuttled through, chose the black chiffon, arranged it across the empty bed. Her mom then motioned for Nora to take off her own nightgown, and she slipped a red spaghetti-strapped mini dress over Nora’s shoulders, saying, “Let’s see this on a beautiful girl.” Nora loved everything about the dress, the cool fabric pouring over her, the rhinestones clumped in the bodice where breasts would someday appear. Mostly she loved her mom calling her beautiful.

“Makeup?” Ruby asked, setting the makeup-mirror bulbs to candlelight. She brushed iridescent pink eye shadow on Nora’s lids. Mimicked how she wanted Nora to close her eyes, hold her lips while she brushed on mascara first and then lip-gloss. “This skin is the best thing your father left you,” she said softly, her breath warm on Nora’s cheeks. She didn’t often bring up Nora’s father. She mentioned him now as casually as if she were describing weather. Other times Nora might have seized on the words
father left you
but not then. Right then all she wanted was her mom’s creamy complexion and for her mom to skip the date with Dr. Guy, to stay home so Nora could have her all to herself. Ruby slicked her signature shade of lipstick, Frosted Rumor, over her lips, turned up the volume on the stereo, then petted Phil Donahue, who was stretched across Nora’s bed lazily watching the two of them through half-closed eyes as if he didn’t care what they did.

“We love veterinarians, don’t we?” her mom asked him. His fur rippled and he tilted his head into her hand. Little beads of drool formed at the side of his mouth. “You’re a love-glutton.” She shimmied her behind with her glass held high above her head, singing loudly and out of tune with her favorite song, “Ruby Tuesday.”

The two of them danced in the speck of space between the beds. The next song, “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow,” was faster and Nora bumped hips with her mom. Phil Donahue watched, purring and kneading away at Nora’s bed, remembering when he was a kitten.

When the song ended, Ruby stepped into her dress. “Zip me, Beanie.” She smelled of cinnamon and roses. She bent into the closet for shoes, and immediately she started screaming, “Goddamn it. Fucking asshole cat.” She sniffed high-heeled shoe after high-heeled shoe and hurled each one over her shoulder. “Your fucking cat sprayed them all.” Shoes flew from the closet in an unending assault. Even in the best of moods Ruby wouldn’t tolerate ruined clothing, shoes, or accessories. “Shit. We should have neutered the son of a bitch right away.” She flung a black pump hard at Phil Donahue, who dove under the bed.

“Don’t! Mommy! Remember, consistent love . . . consistent love.”

Ruby bent down, frantically patted the carpet, and finally yanked the cat out by his hind legs. Her face was red, and her breath came in bursts. She stalked to the back door holding Phil Donahue by the scruff of his neck and hurled him out.

Nora howled.

In trying to grab the cat, Ruby had smeared a long pink gash of lipstick onto her cheek. “Find the least stinky pair,” she hissed.

They knelt on the floor smelling shoes and finally settled on a pair of black mules. With her mother in a rage Nora knew better than to cry for Phil Donahue. Instead she slumped on the couch, twisting the red satin in her hands, the front of the dress drooping from the weight of the rhinestones.

When the babysitter arrived, Ruby offered Nora her cheek for a goodbye kiss. “Your cat will be fine,” she insisted. Then she continued, talking more to herself than to Nora, “Thank God he’s a veterinarian, hopefully desensitized to cat piss.”

As soon as Ruby left, Mrs. Childers and Nora called for Phil Donahue. Nora held her sitter’s hand as they walked past Jocelyn’s window. Inside, pots of white Easter lilies glowed like candles on either side of the sofa. The outline of Donald’s round head shone darkly in a pool of watery blue light from the TV. Margaret and Jocelyn must already be in bed. Nora wanted to knock, to ask about Phil Donahue and let them see how upset she was, but Mrs. Childers said absolutely not, why turn a situation from bad to worse by letting others see her traipse through the neighborhood in a cocktail dress, as if there weren’t enough to talk about already. Mrs. Childers made them turn around when her ankles started hurting.