The First Day of the Rest of My Life (11 page)

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Authors: Cathy Lamb

BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
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Tawni smiled, so patronizing. “Designer clothes don’t hang right on heavy woman, we know that. But there are alternatives, aren’t there, Mags? Stores out there that cater to large women.” Tawni smiled, fake white teeth gleaming, then crossed her thin legs and designer heels.
“And, in fact, even when
I
walk by those stores for biggy women, I’ve seen things that I like, and I’m a size four! Four! I’ve seen bright colors, cool belts that can hide those extra cuddle rolls, ladies, and pretty scarves that cover problems on the neck and minimize attention to the face!” She pulled her shoulders back, fake boobs protruding. “Women of all sizes have choices, luckily, and the fatter ones, oops, the
heavier
women, the weight-challenged ones, can look good, too, with some focused, intense, determined attention to detail and material, isn’t that right, Mags?” Fake smile, again.
And Magdalena said, pasty white, almost frothing with fear, “My clothes can be worn by everyone, of all sizes. Now let me tell you about these fabrics.” She held up a skirt, her hands shaking. “I bought this fabric in India—”
“Come on, now, Mags! You’re a size four, too! Do you think your clothes would be flattering on a woman who is a size twelve or fatter? They wouldn’t hang right because of the lumps and bumps. Let’s not mislead the viewers! Part of being sexy is taking an honest look at yourself and taking action against your own fat.” She wiggled her shoulders, then wagged a finger at the camera. “We all have to take responsibility for ourselves! So, hit the gym, ladies!”
Portland Sunrise
cut to commercial after Magdalena, the shaking fashion designer, leaned heavily against her chair and went from pasty white to green.
The cacophony of the outrage forced Tawni into an apology. The next morning, a sulky and petulant expression pasted to her condescending face, she whined, “I’m so sorry
if
I offended heavy women.” She could barely hide her impatience. “I was trying to point out that designers don’t make these clothes for women . . . of a certain size. And that we all have a personal responsibility to ourselves and to others who have to look at us to be attractive, not fa—not heavy. But we’re all beautiful, right? We’re
all
beautiful!” Tawni swung her shoulders back, the protruding fake boobs once again at attention. “Skinny girls, fat women, we’re all beautiful on the inside! That’s what’s important. It’s not important if you’re bigger than a size eight! What we all have to do as women is bond together!”
The howling reached a deafening pitch, and with Tracy gone and no one watching the show anymore thanks to the womenup-in-arms-rebellion, advertisers pulled their ads quicker than you can say “I hate young, leggy, snooty blondes named Tawni.”
Tracy got her full-time job back, Tawni moved to Memphis, the advertisers forked over the cash again, and local and national media covered the event.
Tracy’s popularity could not be understated.
But Thacker Blunt, the station manager, by all accounts, was steaming mad. Boiling. Pissed off. By virtue of knowing thousands of people in town, a number of them in the news business, I knew that Thacker was a quack. One of my clients said she was fired from the station because she complained about how he always touched her. She didn’t want the legal fight, she did want the wowza “I Will Not Sue You” check, so she moved on. A friendly acquaintance of mine, a newscaster, said that working for Thacker is like facing a firing squad every day, wondering if the bullet will hit your aorta or your co-worker’s.
“Tracy got her job back,” I said to Georgie.
“She did. The heavenly karmas intervened in that mess. I hated the other host with the fake boobies.” She whipped out a mirror to examine the silver sparkles on her eyelids. “I’m glad they sacked her. Even watching her on TV was inviting negative back into my life and bones. When she said that stuff about fat women, my mother sat down and wrote to the station and all the advertisers on that show saying she wasn’t going to buy any of their products or watch the station unless they got rid of ‘that bitch.’ My mother used that language, ‘that bitch,’ and my mother never swears. She studied to be a nun, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” I loved Georgie’s mother. She dressed in proper blouses and proper slacks and wore a large cross every day over her bosom. She and Georgie could not be more different. They were in love with each other.
“But poor Tracy still has to deal with that manager, and she hates him,” Georgie said. “He’s sleeping with another woman at the station and he’s married and the tramp gal’s married.”
I shot her a quick look. “How do you know?”
“I know because my best friend, Elizabeth, works there. She’s got an entry-level job. She’s African American, and she’s got these huge,
gigantic
brown eyes, like chocolate drops, and she’s this cosmic wonder-girl person, the kindest in the universe, so she’s everyone’s best friend and they tell her everything. In fact, the gal that Thacker’s sleeping with now even told her that Thacker says he’s leaving his wife. She says they keep some of their sex toys—and one of the toys is this pink snake, I don’t know what that’s for, but she says they keep them in the third drawer of his desk. They go to this hotel called The Chateau outside of town every Thursday night and Sunday afternoon. Apparently the girlfriend likes to be spanked. That’s what she told Elizabeth. Spanked. With a hand and with Pop-Tarts or licorice. I don’t know the connection. That type of weirdness is out of my comfy metaphysical realm.”
Spanked. As foreplay? It made me sick, and nervous, and a flashback, appallingly clear and graphic, rolled before my eyes like a movie. I shuddered.
“Yeah, Thacker’s creepy. Elizabeth says they have young, sexy women with cleavage and bouncy butts—her words not mine—working there for about four months, then they leave. So, anyhow, call Tracy’s assistant. I put her number on your desk with the rest of the eternal messages you receive by this time every morning.”
I would.
I tried to get the image of a “spanking” out of my head. The one I remember involved an open palm, a piece of wood, and a whip.
I turned toward my office and shut the door, staring out the windows. It was raining again.
For years I tried to block out my flashbacks when they came for me. I have learned the hard way that I can fight, wrestle, and push them away, but it doesn’t work forever. They stay there, planted in my brain, until I run them through. Why is that? Is it trauma? Is it healing? My flashbacks can be triggered by anything—a word like spanking, a dilapidated house, two sisters walking together, or someone talking about a beach trip. I don’t go to the ocean; neither does Annie, as I’ve said. Too much was taken by the ocean.
I remembered a spanking. It hurt. It hurt everything in me.
Good God I wish my flashbacks would die.
 
As a girl, my skin crawled like a thousand red ants were biting my body when I knew that Sherwinn was watching me.
When I watched Sherwinn watching Annie or grabbing her brown curls, those red ants brought out twin fangs.
I thought our highlights glowed like a red aurora borealis over our heads. My momma, my dad, all four of our grandparents, and that one friend saw it, but no one else noticed, it seemed. The highlights were a gift from our dad, from his Irish ancestry, as much as our toothy smiles were my momma’s. My dad’s red hair was thick and longish, the hair growing past his collar. My momma cut his hair.
I remember how my dad used to sit in the middle of our sunny yellow kitchen on a pink padded chair, my momma moving around him, slooooowwly, bending to kiss him, rubbing his shoulders. Every few minutes he would swing a giant arm around her and pull her into his lap, and she would laugh and he would kiss her for a long time, her black hair forming a veil between them.
Annie and I would say, “Eeeew, gross!” and we would spin away on our white Mary Janes. I picked up our cat, Bob the Cat, and said to him, “Isn’t that gross, Bob the Cat?” but in our hearts we didn’t think it was gross.
Momma would take about five times as long cutting his hair as she would cutting anyone else’s hair. Every time, when she was done, my dad would swoop her up into his arms, her pink heels flying into the air, and she would laugh, deep and rich, her hair swinging back. Dad would say to us, “Girls, your mother needs a nap. She’s quite tired.”
Our momma would giggle, he would kiss her again, we would say, “Eeeew, gross!” again, and they would disappear into their bedroom for hours, sometimes not coming out until it was time for dinner. Annie and I didn’t mind. When our momma had her “nap,” we were allowed to watch all the TV we wanted and pop popcorn on the stove.
Dad would come down first, grin, swing us around in the air, then make hamburgers. Every time. Hamburgers. Ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes. When Momma came down, always looking happy but sleepy tired, he’d kiss her again and we’d have dinner together on our back deck if it was warm, the waves of the sea a salty backdrop to our house by the sea. After dinner our dad would put on a record and we’d dance . . . waltzes and freestyle and dance routines. He loved to dance and he loved the sea because of its depth, its personality, its freedom.
He talked about how weather is “emotional,” and how as a fisherman, and the owner of O’Shea’s Fisheries, he kept a close eye on it. Stormy nights meant the weather was furious. A golden morning meant the weather was calm, waiting for a laugh. A strong wind meant the weather was agitated, worried, or in a hurry. “Weather is a woman and she’s got a lot of feelings, so don’t mess with her.” Annie and I agreed not to mess with Weather.
Sometimes, when I saw my dad looking at me, those green eyes happy and twinkling, like the stars above our sea on a pitch-black night, I’d smile back and he’d recite an Irish poem with a thick Irish brogue.
In the misty hills of Ireland
A long, long time ago,
There lived a lovely Irish lass
Who loved her father so.
 
One day he went to fetch some wood,
But he did not soon return,
And so his loving daughter’s heart
Was filled with great concern.
 
She searched for him throughout the day,
And when a fog came in
She wept, for she was fearful
They would never meet again.
 
Then suddenly, a little band
Of leprechauns came by.
They all were very saddened.
To hear the lovely maiden cry.
 
They asked if they might have a lock
Of her long and golden hair,
Then tied the silken strands across
A crooked limb with care.
 
’Twas a magic harp they’d made,
And when the maiden touched each strand,
The music led her father home
Across the misty land.
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN
But when I saw Sherwinn watching us, those ants would attack, up and down my back, around my legs. It felt like those red ants were biting me inside, too. It was instinct taking over, I think, every part of me screaming to get away from Sherwinn.
Get Annie and yourself away from Sherwinn.
Hurry! Hurry!
 
My dad wasn’t the only one reciting poetry to me.
He did, too. It was usually about snakes.
He liked snakes.
 
That night, at home, I picked up the manila envelope again and felt an attack of poor breathing, as if the air were stuck in my kidneys. He wanted $100,000 immediately or he’d release the photos. Of course he did.
How did I know it was a man? Because he misspelled the words beauty parlor. As in, “I know you from the beauty parlor.” He used two t’s.
I don’t take easily to blackmail. I don’t think anyone does. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Impossible situation.
I knew already I wasn’t going to play this game, though. I couldn’t.
I knew what would happen if I didn’t play.
I knew what would happen if I did.
Both bad results.
Very bad.
But I will not,
I will not,
allow a man to manipulate me, or my life, again. Not again.
My breath was stuck.
6
Y
ou will learn a lot in a pink beauty parlor if you keep your ears open, including, but not limited to, how to get rid of a wart, marriage in all its glories and downfalls, dating, falling in lust versus love, stabbing your ex-boyfriend, all gossip, how men are so proud of their thingies, going broke, getting old, yeast treatments, how Jude Miller’s husband has terrible gas, and Carla’s boob job—yes, she did have one; that, the ladies knew for sure; why, they went to high school with her and she was flat as a plain pancake then.
The topics of discussion were wide ranging, frequently shouted over hair dryers.
Much of the talk was about men.
When old Mrs. Robisinni bellowed, at the exact moment her hair dryer shut off, “I had better sex with myself than I ever did with my husband,” it echoed right through the parlor.
When Rochelle Menks said, “Ladies, how many of you have the art of faking it down to perfection?” and almost all the women raised their hands except for Twyla Thorpe, who said, “I never fake it. I make him keep going till I get my pleasing done,” my momma would not explain to me what the ladies were talking about.
When Terralynn Forge said, “Men are like measles,” I thought my momma was gonna fall down with laughter.
And when a woman came in who Carman knew was having an affair with the husband of a friend of hers, Carman dyed her brown hair white with black streaks. “Like a reverse skunk,” Carman said proudly. “I have always enjoyed skunks. I can’t wait to tell Bobbie.”
But anytime you have a group of women together, you get fireworks, and Marie Elise’s French Beauty Parlor had its fair share of fireworks.
Trudy Jo had a thunderbolt sort of temper. People said she got it from her grandma, who threw rocks. Sometimes Trudy Jo had to go out back and jump up and down and screech if a hair color or highlighting job set her off. She was not allowed to do the hair of Mrs. Berns or Ms. Loyola because twice she swore at their hair. “Dammit, why didn’t you suck up that dye, hair?” she shrieked. Or, “You damn curls, I am going to cut you off and shove you up a nose if you don’t lie flat! Lie flat! Lie flat!”
Then she dove into Shakespeare. “Cowards may die many times before their deaths, and I am not a coward! Lie flat hair! I will win this fight!”
Shell Dee for some reason liked to get into the thick of the body when she was doing highlights. I don’t know why. “Did you know that if your man smokes, his penis can be shortened by an inch? An inch! So there’s another reason to hide the cigs, Duffy!” and “Your brain is seventy-eight percent water! Water, not coffee, not beer, water!”
But those sisters did fight. One time Trudy Jo was so mad at Shell Dee, she sprayed hair spray right in her face. For revenge Shell Dee dumped shampoo on Trudy Jo’s head. Trudy Jo retaliated with mousse, Shell Dee with cream rinse. It was a mess.
Another time the sisters were fighting because their oldest boys had decided to steal the principal’s car and park it in the middle of Main Street about two in the morning after plastering it with pictures of naked ladies they got from a naughty magazine. Each screeched the other’s son was “a bad influence” on their son. Trudy Jo threw a roller at her sister, who was giving Mrs. Cornwell a dark rinse at the time to cover up her white hair, and the roller broke the mirror. Mrs. Cornwell did not appreciate glass being added to her hair. She did not leave a tip.
Once a month, on the first Wednesday, my momma, Shell Dee, Trudy Jo, and Carman had dinner together. The parlor paid for it. “To keep the peace,” Momma said. A lot of wine was consumed.
One night Shell Dee danced on top of a bar and started a strip tease before my momma yanked her down. Her husband was not amused that the other men saw her yellow smiley face bra.
Another night Trudy Jo, who had had too many gin and tonics—“her weakness”—took her sister’s dare, painted herself bright orange, donned a wig of red curls, and ran through the center of town. She was recognized by many because of her bottom. Everyone said that Trudy Jo had a “wriggly” bottom, and they knew it when they saw it.
One Wednesday night they drove off the Cape, then snuck into a railcar for a “train picnic,” they called it, to spice up their usual restaurant scene. The train started to move unexpectedly and they ended up outside of Boston.
People learned quickly that the best day to come in for a perm was not the Thursday after the first Wednesday of the month.
But Marie Elise’s French Beauty Parlor thrived. Anyone who went there came out new and improved. That was the goal, my momma said. “If you look special, you feel special.” She gave me a kiss on my nose. “You are my special, Pink Girl.”
She was my special momma and I loved her to pieces.
 
In that pink beauty parlor with the crystal chandeliers and gilded mirrors, that’s where Annie and I spent the first years of our lives.
We loved it. Loved the women who loved us, loved the conversations, the friendships, we even loved it when Trudy Jo and Shell Dee got in cream rinse fights and when Carman drank champagne and burst into love songs.
“You are my one trrruuueee love . . . I cannot liiivvve without you . . .”
But Annie won’t go to beauty parlors again. “I can’t go. I won’t go. There are some things in life we need to get over, we need to suck it up and deal, but there are some things in life we can’t get over and we should quit angsting about it and accept it. I have accepted that I will never walk into a beauty parlor again and the smell of hair spray will always make me miss Momma. Here’s the scissors. Start cutting.”
If she didn’t want hair spray in her life, I got it. Snip snip.
A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of Grandma’s kitchen, I cut Annie’s hair.
She turned this way and that when I held a mirror up to her.
“I look like a horse.”
“No, you don’t.” I laughed.
She pulled the mirror close to her hair. “Do you think our hair is getting redder as we age?”
I had noticed the same thing. I put my face next to hers and we studied ourselves in the mirror, that red sheen that so very few people could see. “Yes. It is.”
“It’s like Dad’s still with us.”
“That Irish blood.” How I missed the man with the Irish blood.
“Yep. Probably where I got my temper.”
“I’d definitely blame the Irish line for that. You are a spitfire.”
“And you aren’t? When you’re onstage, you’re a volcano.”
“Spewing rocks and lava, plumes of ash.”
“Definitely the Irish in us.”
“Yep,” I agreed, but I did not say this: When I’m onstage, I’m a lie.
 
The man with the Irish blood was huge and had a huge laugh and a huge smile and a huge heart.
When I told him I wanted to be a detective, he bought me a fingerprint kit and we went around town taking people’s fingerprints. “You’re sharp and you’re as determined as a bull dog, Madeline. You’d make an excellent detective.” He said that in all seriousness, so I took myself seriously. I could do it because my dad said I could.
When Annie said she wanted to be a doctor, she got a doctor kit and he took her to the café to take people’s blood pressure and check people’s ears. “Annie, you’re a compassionate person and you like learning about the human body. You’d make an excellent doctor.” He said that in all seriousness, so she took herself seriously. She could do it because her dad said she could.
When I changed my mind and decided in second grade that I would be the president of the United States, he brought home a podium so I could “practice giving speeches that will rally the American public!” He helped me write my speeches, and when I gave them he draped an American flag around his shoulders and boomed, “Please welcome, the president of the United States of America, Madeline O’Shea!”
When Annie changed her mind and decided she wanted to be a sculptor, he bought her a chunk of clay and they made sculptures together in the garage. “Sculptures are the finest art there is,” he told her. “They’re reflective of what’s going on at that time, in that place, in that artist’s mind. They’re full of talent and thought and planning. You’re going to be a famous sculptor so let’s take our time.”
And they did.
Our dad made time for us. He had a fishing business and many boats. He had a wife he adored. He had two girls. He made us feel like we were the most important people on the planet. Because to him, we were.
He also loved being of Irish descent and regaled us with sayings and songs.
May the luck of the Irish possess you.
May the devil fly off with your worries.
May God bless you forever and ever.
And . . . May you live to be a hundred years, with one extra year to repent!
We spent a lot of time dancing with our parents. Our dad taught us Irish poems, Irish songs, and Irish jigs. He loved life, he loved us, we knew that. I have carried that love with me my whole life.

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