Misty

  Doctor Marlowe's blank stare brightened with a tiny smile on her lips.

  "I was taught the best etiquette, of course, and my mother justified the effort by telling me I was going to be a beautiful young woman and mix with the best of society so I had better behave that way. Beautiful young woman. What world does she live in? Right?" I glanced at Jade who nodded.

  "Anyway, I couldn't have been a more polite child. I always said please and thank you and never interrupted adults.

  "Usually, Daddy brought me dolls from every trip he made, some of them from other countries. I had enough toys to fill a small store. My closets were stuffed with fancy clothes, dozens and dozens of pairs of shoes and I have a vanity table with an ivory oval mirror. I have the best hair dryers and facial steamers, the newest skin lotions and herbal treatments. Being pretty is a very important thing in my house."

  I paused and gazed out the French doors for a moment. "My daddy is a very handsome man. He takes good care of himself, too. He belongs to one of those fancy gyms. That's where he met Ariel, his live Barbie doll.

  "Daddy has an even tan to go with his thick, flaxen blond hair. Lately, he wears it longer. My mother says he's trying to look twenty years younger so he can match his level of maturity. They both criticize each other like that all the time and I'm supposed to sit or stand there and pretend it doesn't bother me or else agree with one or the other."

  I could feel my eyes grow narrow and angry.

  "I can't believe how I used to think my parents were both so perfect. I thought Mommy was as beautiful as any movie star. She spent as much time on her makeup and her clothing as any movie star would. She never, even to this day, sets foot out of the house unless her hair is perfect and her clothes, shoes and jewelry are all coordinated. She complains about how my daddy tries to look and stay young, but she goes into a coma at the mere sight of a gray hair or the possibility of a wrinkle. She's had plastic surgery, or as she calls it, aesthetic surgery to tighten her skin under her chin and her eyes. I'm not supposed to tell anyone. She lives for someone to compliment her by saying how young she looks. Then she goes into this big act about how she watches her diet, only uses herbal medicines, has all this special skin cream and exercises regularly. She never tells the truth.

  "It's funny how when you're little, you miss all the little lies. They float right past you, but you don't wonder about them much For a long time, you think this is just something adults still do after being kids-- pretend. Then one day you wake up and realize most of the world you're in is built on someone's makebelieve. My parents lied to each other for years before they finally decided to admit it and get a divorce.

  "Once, when I was about twelve, my mother found out that my father had had an affair with a woman in his company who had gone with him on a trip to Texas. He made some dumb mistakes with bills or receipts, something like that, and she was waiting for him when he came home, just sitting there in the corridor off the entryway with the evidence in her lap like a pistol she was preparing to turn on him

  "I was in my room on the telephone talking with my best friend Darlene Stratton when I heard something crash and shatter against the wall downstairs. She had heaved an expensive Chinese vase at him There was a moment of quiet and then the shouting began. I had to hang up the phone to go see what was happening I practically tiptoed to the top of the stairway and listened to my mother screaming about the woman and my father and his deceit. He made some weak attempts to deny it, but when she confronted him with evidence, he blamed her."

  "How could he blame her?" Star asked, suddenly looking a lot more interested.

  "That was when I first learned they were having sexual problems. He said she was too frigid most of the time and when they did make love, she was always complaining about the pain.

  "'That's not normal,' he said. 'You've got to see a doctor about it."

  "I did see my gynecologist and he said nothing was wrong with me. You're just looking for an excuse."

  "'I don't mean that kind of doctor. You should see a psychiatrist,' he said. 'You make me feel like a rapist every time I want to make love."

  "She started to cry and he apologized for his affair, claiming some great moment of weakness after having had too much to drink.

  "I sat quietly on the steps and listened. He said he had just been lonely.

  "'I swear I don't love her. She could have been anyone,' he said, but that only made my mother angrier.

  "'How do you think that makes me feel,' she screamed, 'knowing you would sleep with anyone and then crawl beside me in our bed?'

  "He apologized over and over and also pledged that it would never again happen, but he begged her to see a psychiatrist.

  "'You're just trying to run away from blame,' she accused him again. 'You're just trying to make me look like the bad one here. Well, it won't work! It won't work!'

  "She was coming up the stairs, so I snuck back into my room.

  "For days afterward, it was as if they had both turned into mutes. If I didn't talk at dinner when we were together, no one did. They both used silence like a knife, cutting into each other's hearts, until one day my mother bought an expensive dress for an affair they were to attend and my father told her she looked terrific in it.

  "Suddenly the floodgates of forgiveness were opened and they pretended they had never had an argument. It made me feel like I was living in a dream where people, words, events just popped like bubbles and no one could say whether they ever happened. Of course, I didn't know how serious the problem really was."

  I paused.

  Emma Marlowe came through the door with a tray upon which she carried a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses. There was a plate of chocolate chip cookies, too.

  "I thought you might want this now, Doctor Marlowe," she remarked. She always called her sister Doctor Marlowe in our presence. I had to wonder if she did so when we were gone, too.

  "Thank you, Emma," Doctor Marlowe said.

  She placed it on the table, glanced at us all and flashed a smile before walking out.

  "Help yourselves," Doctor Marlowe said

  I took a glass of lemonade because my throat was dry from talking so much Star poured herself a glass, but Jade and Cathy didn't. Doctor Marlowe helped herself and drank with her eyes on me. I thought for a moment. My talking about my parents had opened closets stuffed with memories I had labeled and filed away, memories I had thought were buried forever.

  "I remember the cards, so many cards, cards for everything. Neither of them ever missed the other's birthday or their anniversaries."

  "Anniversaries?" Jade said. "How many times were they married to each other?"

  "Not just that anniversary. They celebrated anniversaries for everything. . . first date, their engagement, stuff like that. Many of them were secret, but I could easily imagine what they were for," I said, looking at Cat. "Like the first time they made love."

  Cathy turned a shade of pink

  "I also think they did get married twice," I added for Jade. "The first time, they did it for themselves and the second time for the relatives. They always talked about renewing their vows when they were married twenty years. They made it sound so romantic and wonderful, I was even looking forward to it. I was supposed to be the maid of honor, carrying flowers. I might just go to someone's wedding that day."

  "What do you mean?" Star asked with a confused smile across her pretty face. "Whose wedding would you go to?"

  "I don't care whose it is. Anyone's. I'll check the newspapers and just show up and watch them get married and imagine the two people are my parents and everything was as wonderful as they said it would be."

  "But . . ." Jade uttered with a look of confusion.

  "As beautiful as they said it would be!" I screamed at her. She just stared. Everyone was quiet. Tears were burning under my lids.

  "Take another drink of your lemonade," Doctor Marlowe said softly. "Go ahead, Misty."

  I drew in my breath and did what she said. Everyo
ne's eyes were on me. I closed my own for a moment, counted to five and opened them again. Doctor Marlowe nodded softly.

  "You want to stop?" she asked.

  "No," I snapped. I drank some more lemonade.

  "My mother still has those cards," I continued. "She doesn't want me to know she still has them, but she does. I saw them in a box in the back of her closet. There are lots of funny cards, cards my daddy sent her for no special reason except to say how much he loved her or how beautiful he thought she was and how lucky he was to have her."

  I fixed my eyes on Doctor Marlowe.

  "I've asked you before," I said, my voice dripping with rage, "but how can people say such things to each other and mean it so much at the time and just forget they ever said them?"

  I saw she wasn't going to offer me an answer, so before she could ask her usual "What do you think?" I just looked away again and continued.

  "When I was a little girl, I did think I might become as beautiful as my mother. People used to say I looked like her. We had the same nose or the same mouth. I've got Daddy's eyes. I know that, but that's okay because he has beautiful eyes. Mommy will reluctantly admit that too, even today. She doesn't want anyone to think that someone with her good looks would marry an ugly man. It's kind of a. . what do you call it . .

  "Paradox?" Star offered.

  "Yes, paradox. Thanks. Anyway, what I mean is Mommy didn't mind my mimicking her,

  experimenting with makeup and trying to get my hair exactly as she wore hers. She took it as a compliment. I tried to walk like her, eat like her, talk like her because I thought that was what Ma '. my father fall in love with her and I wanted my father to always love me," I said.

  "I asked my mother why I don't have a bigger bosom, and she told me I was fine because I was perky. Perky and cute, that's me. I feel like I'm twelve," I said.

  When I glanced at Cathy, she looked guilty and actually folded her arms over her own large breasts. Like she could ever hide them, I thought. I sighed and went on.

  Suddenly Cathy took such a deep breath, we all paused to look at her. Her eyes were directed to the ceiling and she had her hands pressed against her bosom like someone who was reciting a prayer. I looked at Star who shrugged. Doctor Marlowe sipped some lemonade and waited. I hated her patience, her damn tolerance and understanding. Where were her bruises hidden, her pain and disappointments? I felt like turning my rage on her. She saw the angry look in my eyes,

  "Let's take a bathroom break," she said.

  "I don't have to go," I said. I wanted to keep talking I knew she was handling me. If there was one thing I hated more than anything, it was being handled.

  "Well, I've got to go," Jade said and sauntered out as if she was a runway model.

  Star looked over at me, then stood up.

  Cathy's eyes narrowed before she looked down again.

  And I sat back against the cushions of the couch and wondered what it was about this little group that made me able to share the deepest secrets of my put-away heart with them.

  3

  When Jade returned, she plucked a cookie from the tray and sat. Then she thought for a moment, leaned over and took the plate to offer one to Cathy, who gazed at them as if they were forbidden fruit.

  "It's only a cookie," Jade said. "Don't consider it a life threatening decision."

  Cathy gingerly took one off the plate and brought it to her mouth slowly, barely opening her lips.

  "Girl, it's not poison," Star said sharply and took a bite from the cookie in her hand as if to prove it.

  I looked at Doctor Marlowe and saw something in her eyes that told me she was very interested in how we behaved toward each other. For her, this was as much an experiment, perhaps, as it was for us.

  She turned back to me and nodded. I looked out the window and made them all wait. After all, they had interrupted me, hadn't they?

  "I know my father wanted more children. That was actually the first big fight I can remember," I began, still gazing out the window. Slowly, I turned back to them.

  "This was before my mother started to have her problems with sex, I guess. My father didn't know my mother was on birth control pills. All the time she was pretending to be trying to get pregnant. One night he found them and went into a rage, but not right away. He didn't come charging down the stairs screaming or anything

  "My mother and I were downstairs watching television. She liked to do her toenails while she watched one of her nighttime shows and I was mimicking her as usual, doing my toenails, too.

  "Suddenly, Daddy appeared in the doorway. He had taken off his tie, and his shirt was unbuttoned. His hair looked like he had been running his fingers through it all day.

  "He stood there staring in at us quietly for a few moments. Mommy looked up at him and then continued working on her nails

  "'Guess what I just found, Gloria,' Daddy said sweetly, so sweetly I thought it was something they had both been looking for a long time.

  "Without looking at him, Mommy said, 'What?'

  "'I was looking for that designer belt I had bought you last year because I remembered you wanted the same one in a different color, so I opened the bottom drawer in your armoire to look at it and check the name on the belt and to and behold . . .' he said still quite calmly.

  "'What is it, Jeffery?' she asked impatiently, raising her eyes reluctantly.

  "He opened his hand and revealed the box of birth control pills. There were a number missing. I didn't really know what it was. I still thought it was something they had been searching for, maybe some important medicine.

  "She stared for a few moments in silence.

  "'You had no right to go searching through my things, Jeffery.'

  "'So you're going to turn this around? Make me the bad guy?' He waited for a moment. Despite my age, I sensed that the silences between them were like those just before big explosions. I remember holding my breath and my little heart pounding as if there was a woodpecker in there trying to get out.

  "'What about your lie?' he continued shaking his head. 'Not deceiving me? Not pretending you were really as interested in having another baby as I was and making me feel bad that you weren't getting pregnant, so bad that I actually went to have my sperm count checked? That's not the big bad thing here? Birth control pills! You've been secretly taking birth control pills all this time?'

  "'Don't get so dramatic about this, she said nonchalantly, but I could hear the tiny cracking in her voice, a note of fear.

  "He nodded, looked like he was going to turn and walk away, and then spun around and heaved the small pink box of birth control pills across the living room so hard that it smashed against the numbered print my mother had bought at a gallery on Rodeo Drive just a week ago and shattered the glass. The pills went flying all over.

  "'You idiot!' my mother cried.

  I was practically under the sofa.

  "'How could you lie to me about this? How could you do this?' Daddy cried.

  "Mommy just went back to her toenails while he fumed in the doorway, his face so red, I thought the blood might shoot up and out of the top of his head. "'I didn't want to disappoint you,' she finally said.

  ""What?'

  "'I didn't want to tell you that I wouldn't have another child. I knew how much you wanted one, so I just kept them out of sight,' she offered.

  "'I don't understand,' he muttered.

  "She looked up again.

  "'Look at me, Jeffery.'

  "'I am looking at you,' he said.

  "'No, take a good look, Jeffery. I used to be a size two and no matter what I do, I can't get back because my hips will be forever too big and no matter how hard I try, diet, exercise, personal trainers, whatever, it doesn't help. If having one baby does this to my figure, what will two do?'

  "'Your figure? Your figure! That's what you're worried about?' he cried.

  "'Oh, don't try to fool me, Jeffery. Men,' she declared, 'make their wives ugly and fat and then go looking elsewhere. Just like
every other husband, you'll go looking at other women,' she said. 'If I don't stay beautiful,' she added practically under her breath.

  "I remember I was shocked to overhear her say that having me ruined her figure. Daddy walked off. She finished doing her nails, picked up her copy of Vogue and walked out mumbling about how unappreciated she was.

  "After she left the room, I remember I found one of those pills and thought if she could change things, go back in time, and use one of those little pills to keep me from growing in her stomach, she would. Even then, that young, I understood that. I took the pill and crushed it under my foot.

  "What I didn't understand was that was the beginning of the end way back then."

  I sat back and thought for a moment. No one spoke. Doctor Marlowe sipped some of her lemonade and waited.

  Gazing at the floor, I went on talking like someone in a hypnotic state. I could hear myself, but I sounded as if I was talking through a radio.

  "It's like you're living in this magical world inside a big balloon and slowly the air is leaking out. As time passes, the walls and the ceiling begin to close in on you. It gets stifling and all you want to do is break out."

  I gazed at the others. They all looked lost in their own thoughts, each of them really looking sad, but not for me, as much as for themselves, I thought.

  Doctor Marlowe looked pleased, very pleased about how everyone was. It was as if I had proven she was a good therapist or something. Great, maybe I'll get a certificate of achievement at the end of the session, I thought.

  I took another deep breath. Why did I feel like I was lowering my head under water each time I spoke?

  "When I was almost fourteen, it really began. My father's trips began to take longer and longer. I seemed to notice and care more than my mother did. He missed my birthday. He called from New York, but not until very late in the day. He asked me how I liked my present, but I sensed that he didn't know what it was, what my mother had bought.

  "'Was it something you were wishing for?' he wanted to know.