The High Cost of Living (14 page)

“Really, Mama.” Cam stood up. “If Honor asked them for earrings, what were they supposed to do? How the … heck do they know if her ears are pierced? What difference could it make to anybody except you and her in the whole wide world? Honestly, do you think the neighbors are gossiping because Honey has holes in her ears?”

“Don't call me that old nickname, I hate it,” Honor said. “What a gorgeous dress. I have to try it on at once!”

I'm in love with the wrong sister, Leslie thought. Cam fidgeted with an eye on her watch. Honor returned in the new dress, filmy and pale blue. Rosy with pleasure, she swirled. It was not particularly flattering because it billowed out below the high empire waist and made her look pregnant, but it was cut low front and back. Honor was ravished by it because her breasts showed. What were all those dresses for? Honor hardly went out. She wore them around the house, parading in front of mirrors; she showed them off to Bernie and her. Where was Honor supposed to go in them and with whom? They were the trappings of Mama's fantasies that none of them belonged in.

Of course Honor Rogers must be a girl with an ambitious mother. Honor was Mama Rogers' creation. Every cent that could be leached from the house, from the food bills, from taxes and mortgage went into or onto her. The third daughter, the last chance, the beautiful youngest princess. Maybe the elaborate dresses had no more function than the clothes made for dolls, to be put on and taken off at affairs of the mind? It frightened her. It frightened her for Honor. What did Mrs. Rogers want? What did she imagine? Leslie saw mother and daughter living in a private Victorian serial, waiting for the rest of the cast to arrive, the wicked tempter, the virtuous suitor, the lord of the manor.

Then she had to glance at Bernie, who was sitting very still and straight with his hands on his knees and his mouth crimped into a polite smile; but the line of his jaw was unusually sharp. He was clenching his teeth. As if we could carry Honor off between us. I couldn't keep a cat. I couldn't keep Valerie. It comes down to money. She clenched her own teeth. I will, I will stick it out. I'll stick out anything George hands me, I will! I'll go on my knees crawling through that obstacle course of a department. I'll earn the damned degree. I'll be so good they have to let me in, they have to accept me, because I'll be so much better than anyone else, yes, they have to. I'll do it!

Honor, perched with the blue gauze draped around her chair, was opening her last package. It held an old fashioned gold locket on a fine chain. “Mama, it's beautiful!”

“Thank your father too,” Mrs. Rogers said with cool justice.

Honor looked around. He had wandered into the kitchen, where he was doing something with a screwdriver to the toaster. “Dad, thank you for the locket.”

“The what?”

“Cal, what are you doing to the toaster?” Mama asked.

“The pop-up mechanism is jammed.”

“But we just turn it sideways, Daddy, and the toast falls out,” Honor said.

“I'll have it working in no time.”

Mrs. Rogers grimaced. Honor came to her and bowed her long swan neck to have the locket attached. “But, Mama … I did tremendously want a watch. You know? I told you.”

“And I told you you'll get one when you're eighteen. You'd only break it. You're not very good at taking care of your possessions. Cheap watches look cheap. You want a good watch.”

“But I'm always late.”

“That's no one's fault but your own. You have an alarm clock. There's a clock in the kitchen. Taking responsibility is part of growing up.… Don't you care for the locket, my darling? It's an antique.”

“It's lovely, Mama. Of course I adore it.… What shall I put inside?”

“Whatever you like, dear heart.” Mama beamed. “It's such a sweet fragile old thing. Makes me think of pressed violets and locks of hair of lovers long dead. I think photos are … a little cheap. You don't have to put anything in it until you have a memento you cherish.”

Bernie got up restlessly, apparently determined to actively charm rather than passively suffer. He headed for the locket to admire it, starting out, “It's really a lovely piece of antique jewelry.” Then he realized that admiring the locket close up would bring him nearer to Honor's half-bare breasts than seemed wise in front of Mama and he came to a sudden halt, tilting a little back. She had the sensation that invisible strands of nerve fiber ran from Bernie to herself, along with bolts of amusement and dismay as one or the other committed their little faux pas and bobbled uneasily under that pale blue maternal gloat “You could have a kind of religious souvenir—”

“Oh, we're Presbyterians. We don't go in for that sort of thing,” Mama said reprovingly.

Bernie sank down again. But they were all gently herded toward the kitchen for cake and ice cream. When they arrived, pieces of the toaster were spread over the kitchen table. “Cal! I had the plates laid out.” They were stacked in the sink. “It's time for cake. For Honor's birthday.”

That look. Like her father. Where did all you strangers come from as I'm getting off here in my own free space? Leslie turned away in that mixture of anger and complicity her own father aroused in her, because they were in some ways too much alike. She looked like her old man—red-haired, short and stocky, neatly built, turned-up nose and brown eyes and freckles. Her old man wasn't old, her boyish, frolicking, whining daddy. She focused with difficulty on the entirely other man who did not drink and space out, but spaced out diddling with a toaster. He was immovable. Words did not penetrate. He said, “Eat whatever you want in the front room. I'm working on the toaster here. Broken appliances are dangerous.”

Close to her ear Cam giggled breathily. “Isn't he great? Nothing bugs him. He just coasts along. She can jump up and down and yell and he just says, Mmmm. Oh!” she said louder as she realized Mark was peering in the window from the porch, rapping on the glass. “Forgot to tell him about the doorbell!”

It must be raining much harder than when she had arrived, because Mark came in dripping from his mackinaw and his boots and his plastered-down hair. Even his ears dripped. Everyone—except Mr. Rogers—lined up at the window to stare at the force of the rain. Biting her lip with annoyance, Mama moved the cake and ice cream into the livingroom. Cam took Mark's arm, beefy in red and black plaid. “I'm all ready. Don't want to keep you waiting.”

But Mama invited him to dessert. “After all, it's your sister's birthday. Why leave before we've had our celebration?”

Mark showed no signs of impatience to re-enter the gale. “Ice cream and cake, sure. Happy birthday.” He looked around trying to figure out whose it was, then he saw Honor in the long blue dress. His gaze fixed on her breasts. “Wow. So this is your little sister. She's not so little, huh?”

Bernie, who was carrying plates along his arm at his waiterly best, put down his load and narrowed his eyes at Mark. Facing away from Mama, drawing himself up stiffly, he stood taller than Mark. “Bernard Guizot.”

“Huh? I'm Mark—friend of Cam's. Hi, Leslie.” He smirked at her. Something wrong. It was not the old ogling or the more recent sullenness. She felt a prickling of unease. “Funny place to see you,” he went on. “What are you doing here?”

“Attending Honorée's birthday party.” Leslie tried not to read more into his question than she should. “How are you?” Perhaps dying of leukemia or advanced congenital syphilis?

“In the pink. You still taking that karate stuff and throwing men around?”

“What's that you're talking about?” Mama's eyebrows rose.

She had to explain. It was dull as usual. Mark was wolfing down chocolate cake and Neapolitan ice cream, but she knew it was too much to hope that he would suddenly choke to death. Mrs. Rogers was daintily shocked. “It's hard for me to imagine any”—her tongue hesitated before finding a noncommittal enough noun—“a woman hopping around that way. It looks peculiar enough when young men do it. I think it's the effect of all the violence on television and in the movies, although I haven't gone to the movies in years. Don't you think it's a passing fad?”

“Mrs. Rogers, you know what the streets are like. Rape is the commonest violent crime. Don't you think it's a good idea for a woman to be able to defend herself?” Speech number two in a taped loop. Why couldn't she just say she liked to have muscles as well as fat, and she liked being healthy.

“… and I'm always telling Honor the same thing, it's not safe to go out. If Cam wasn't running around every night of the week, I wouldn't have to worry so. I don't even care for Honor being here alone in the evenings.”

“It's turned into a popular sport.” Bernie was trying to take the heat off her. “It does make more sense for a woman living in the city than swinging a racquet or running around dribbling a basketball.”

“Gee, I thought you would've gone in for …
basketball
.” Mark spoke with heavy emphasis, giving Bernie the same smirk. Oh, he'd been doing his homework.

“I'm not a good sport,” Bernie said. “When I'm forced to fight, I fight dirty and I fight to win.… Would anyone like some more delicious cake? Can I cut anyone another piece?”

As Mark finished his plate, Cam grabbed it. “Now that we've eaten, I guess we should run along.” She pried him out still looking back at the cake and at Honor.

“Really!” Honor said when the door had opened to the wind and the water and shut again with a slam. “Where does she find them?”

Mrs. Rogers only smiled.

Soon afterwards Bernie and Leslie escaped. His left rear tire had gone flat and he had to pump it up while they both got soaked. Then they huddled in the car cold and wet and furious, with the rain drumming on the metal roof like a personal attack. “Like to get him to take a poke at me, that asshole,” Bernie groused. “I could lay him out.”

Leslie looked doubtful. “He's solidly built. Why bother?”

“Because that's the only kind of strength he'd understand. You judge too much by broad shoulders. I know how to fight at least as well as you do and a lot dirtier, I bet.”

“You're taking over his macho code. You think knocking him down proves you're a better man.”

“It's an impossible bind. The old story of the images in other people's heads. But don't you ever intend to use all that training in mayhem?”

“It's the relationship it gives me to my body I value, not fantasies about breaking somebody's head because they're nasty to me.… I think he's heard something.”

Bernie finally got the car engine to turn over. “I have to go to work at five. Let's get a drink. There's a gay bar where nobody'll pester us. Come on. Have a drink with me and I'll drop you home before I turn myself in to À Votre Plaisir.”

“For once I feel like a gay bar. That woman!”

“When will Honorée go through a normal adolescent rebellion? When will she tell Mama to soak her head in a bucket of piss?”

“I suppose we're her rebellion.”

“Poor Honorée!” Bernie chuckled. He started rolling a joint with one hand while driving through the flooded streets till nervously she took the makings from him and rolled it herself. Handed it back lit. “Ah, service. Know what's better than service with a smile? Service with a whimper.… I don't mean to imply you deal from less than a position of strength, I'm chattering. If the dope doesn't cool me out a little my head will fly off.”

From the car they ran from the neon-rimmed door, pelted by the hammering surf of the rain coming horizontally, lashing their faces. They staggered into the dim reddish interior, almost empty, not even smoky yet. The bartender gave them a look of vacant hostility, then recognized Bernie. “You're crazy to come out today. If I didn't have to work, I'd stay in bed in this crazy weather.”

“That's where I should have stayed, in bed, but I'm too wet to care. An Irish coffee.”

“The coffee sounds good.” Leslie shivered. “Black and a shot of that Remy Martin there on the side.”

Bernie's teeth were actually chattering. They hung their sopping jackets over a couple of chairs and sat in a booth. The pulsating wail from the jukebox did not bother her. She warmed her hands against the mug. “Instead of coming here, you should have gone home and changed before work. You really are cold.”

“Frozen.” His teeth were chattering wildly, but as he sipped the Irish coffee gradually the shaking stopped. She took his hand between hers artificially warmed from the mug, and began chafing it. He said, “Yes, take care of me a little. I'm feeling ever so sorry for myself.”

“You want to know what the worst thing for me was?”

“That dude's entry all smirking with knowledge of exactly what labels to apply.”

“That'll make trouble,” she said slowly. “But, no, actually. When I found out Honor is only seventeen
now.”

“Oh!” He laughed. “She's such a baggage. She said fifty times she was seventeen already. She makes complete fools of us both. But Mama's not only a nuisance but evil.”

“She's our opponent at tug-of-war. Honor means everything to her, which is a bad idea all the way around, but what else has she got? She's bound to lose. Honor is seventeen anyhow, not seven. She'll leave home.”

“I hope so. Sweet Mother of Mary. But I wonder. Does Rapunzel get away from the witch? It's a fight to the death.” His hand between hers turned and firmly squeezed the topmost of hers. Immediately she took her hands away and put them around her empty mug. “Why won't you let me be affectionate sometimes, Les? When I feel affection. If I was a woman friend, you wouldn't be offended. Is it a kind of strong physical repulsion?”

“I'm sorry. Maybe it's habit. I'm not used to being touched.”