"Ben did?" Mary Anne asked. Lines of doubt radiated from her narrowed eyes as she watched her mother.
"Yes."
"Why didn't he talk to me?"
"He didn't want to hurt your feelings. But he did tell me that it embarrassed him to see you going to school and to basketball games so sloppy looking. He thinks you ought to have a little more pride than that. He says—and this is strictly between us boys, Mary Anne, because he made me swear not to tell you—he says that he is humiliated beyond words to see you walk into the gymnasium dressed in those baggy, wrinkled clothes you seem so fond of."
"Ben didn't say that, Mama. That's you talking."
"Ben mentioned it to me yesterday."
"No, he didn't. Ben wouldn't care if I went stark naked. You see, I know Ben a lot better than you do. I even know you better than you do. And Ben wouldn't say that. But you would and just did."
"Well, he's thinking it, Miss Smarty Pants. You had better believe he's thinking it. If you have so little self-pride that you can't put on a little makeup and wear clothes that fit properly, then it's no wonder that your brothers and sister are growing ashamed of you. When I was growing up a young girl wouldn't be caught dead walking out her front door looking the way you do. Now, you've got a fairly nice figure, Mary Anne, and instead of wearing clothes to show your figure off, you wear clothes to hide it. And that's unnatural. That's why I'm so afraid you'll never catch a man worth a salt."
"I hope I never catch a man like you caught."
"You have to be so smart and so superior and so cute. Remember that it was me who gave you your love of reading and literature. But I never taught you to flaunt the fact that you are smart and can use words to hurt people. Men find that very unattractive."
"Creep Marines find that very unattractive."
"Sugah, I know men. A man's a man and any man who isn't should go out with the morning trash. A woman has one job. To be adorable. Everything else is just icing. Dressing nice to catch a man's eye is part of the game."
"I don't like creep boys looking at me."
"That's what every woman wants," Lillian said harshly," or should want."
"Not me. It's too sicko-sexual for me."
"Well, if I were you, and I'm certainly not, I'd dress nice for Ben's sake if for nothing else. He's very upset."
"I thought we decided Ben never said anything, Mama."
"Get out of this kitchen this instant!" Lillian ordered. "I don't even know why I waste my time trying to teach you how to be a woman. Karen wants to put her best foot forward. She takes advice."
Mary Anne began to move toward the living room. She stopped, adjusted her glasses, and turned back to face her mother once again. She took a deep, sad breath and said," You like Karen better than you like me, Mama."
"That's not true," Lillian countered. "I love all of my children equally. I love you for different things but I love all of you exactly the same."
"You know why you don't like me, Mama?" Mary Anne said.
"Maybe everybody would like you better if you weren't so know-it-all. It's best for a woman not to know so much," Lillian snapped.
"The reason you don't like me is because I'm not pretty."
"That's the silliest, most asinine, most hateful thing I've heard in my whole life."
"It's true. You don't know how to relate to an ugly daughter. Ugliness disgusts you."
"Hush up, Mary Anne. Hush up before I slap you across this room. What you're saying is not true. I am not that shallow. I am not that shallow and I refuse to sit here and let you tell these terrible, vicious lies about me. It hasn't been easy. It hasn't been easy living the life I've lived. Nothing worked out like I expected it would. Nothing. I thought everything would be lovely and everyone would be sweet and charming. There is so much poison in the world. You must learn to see the beautiful in things. I have. I can look at the ugliest man in the world and see a prince. I swear I can. It's the product of good breeding."
"I look at the face of the ugliest man in the world and feel sorry for the man," Mary Anne said," because I know what it's like to feel ugly."
"Beauty is only skin deep."
"That's not true. It's a lot deeper than that. It's the deepest thing in the world. It's the most important thing in the world."
"You're just like your father!" Lillian spit. "You are exactly like your father. Sometimes I can't even believe you're my child. If I ever leave your father, I'm going to take the other children with me and leave you with him."
"You used to tell me that when I was little, Mama. And it scared me to death. But it doesn't bother me at all now."
"Why not?"
"Because you're not going to leave him."
"You're the most hateful child I've ever met."
"You've never liked me."
"Don't say that. Don't ever say that again. You make me feel like I'm something vile. That's the way you've always made me feel," Lillian said, beginning to cry. "Go! Go on now! Get out of my sight! I don't want to look at you or think about you! Everywhere you go you make people feel unhappy. I want to think about something happy."
"Think about the big game."
"Go in and talk to your father. Try and drive him crazy like you do me."
Mary Anne left the kitchen, her head arched proudly, yet somehow her departure had the look of retreat, of irredeemable loss. Lillian leaned against the stove and began to cry soundlessly. Then she stopped and resumed cooking the dinner with an unnatural smile on her face as she stirred the greens, and forced herself to think about happy things.
Mary Anne selected a chair directly opposite from where her father sat reading the paper. Choosing a magazine from a rack beneath her chair, she began to thumb through an old edition of The Saturday Evening Post. Then she began to steal glances at her father. In her heart, she was his silent ally, a fifth columnist, in Bull's inveterate assaults on the trellised escutcheons of the Old South that Lillian shoved in front of him. Lillian spoke of the Old South when Bull was in earshot as though it were a private garden deeded to her in a last heroic proclamation by the Confederate Congress. Mary Anne looked up from the magazine and made a conscious decision to have her first real conversation with her father.
"Hey, Dad, why do you love me more than any of your other children?" she began, hoping to loosen him up with humor.
"Beat it, Mary Anne. I'm reading the sports section," he said, not unkindly. The paper did not quiver as he answered her.
"You know, Dad, you love me so much. It's about like incest. Do you know in literature that some fathers have been physically attracted to their daughters? That's pretty interesting, isn't it?"
"Hey, Lillian," Bull yelled to the kitchen, lowering the paper to nose level," your daughter's going ape crap out here. How 'bout dragging her back to the kitchen and giving her a couple of dishes to wash."
"Let's have a conversation, Dad," Mary Anne continued. "Just you and me. Father and daughter. Let's bare our souls and get to know one another."
"I don't want you to get to know me. I like being an enigma. Like a Chink."
"Let me ask you a few questions, Dad. Just a couple."
"Shoot," Bull answered, his head still hidden behind the newspaper.
"What's the saddest thing that's happened in your whole life?" she asked.
"When DiMaggio retired."
"What's your favorite book?"
"The Baltimore Catechism."
"What's your favorite poem?"
"By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, by the shining big sea water."
"Who is your favorite person in history?"
"The Virgin Mary."
"Who is your second favorite?"
"That Greatest and Bravest of all fighter pilots—Bull Meecham," Bull said; then he made a sweeping gesture of dismissal with his arm. "O.K., the game is over, Mary Anne. Go knit bootees for your first kid or something. You're starting to bother me."
"Hey, Dad?" Mary Anne asked.
"Vamoose, Sayonara, Ad
ios, Au Revoir, and beat feet it out of here," Bull snapped.
"Am I a Meecham, Dad? Can girls be real Meechams? Girls without jump shots. Or am I a simple form of Meecham? Like in biology. Mary Anne, the one-celled Meecham. Or maybe I'm higher than that. Maybe I'm a coelenterate Meecham."
"Yeah, Mary Anne, you're a simple form of Meecham. You're a girl. Now scram. I'm starting to lose my temper. I'm gonna give you a break and just pretend you're not here. I'm not gonna listen to you or answer when you speak," Bull said, hiding himself behind newsprint once more.
Mary Anne began a slow, arduously clumsy dance that began to accelerate as she circumnavigated her father's easy chair. What began as a dramatically delusory ploy to recapture her father's attention turned into a sad tarantella of girlish desperation. She began to sing as she danced around him. "Hello, Dad," she sang, tickling beneath his chin as she circled him. "Hello, Dad, it's me, your invisible daughter. You can't see me, but I'm always here. I'm always here, Daddy-poo. I can't shoot a hook shot. Or a jump shot. I can't drive down the lane or score the winning bucket. But I'm here anyway. Yoo hoo. Dad. It's me. It's the Phantom. Yes, it's Mary Anne the phantom girl, the real ghost of the old Huger Mansion. I'm always here hovering about, unseen, unheard, and unspoken to. Dad? Dad?"
"Beat it, Mary Anne, you caught a bad case of the weird somewhere today," the face behind the newspaper ordered.
Mary Anne knelt down and hugged her father around the knees. He made no response to her gesture at all.
"Dad, I have something very important to tell you," she said, in a voice that could not stop singing. "I'm pregnant, Dad. Yes, it's true. I'm pregnant."
She stopped and waited for the newspaper to drop beneath eye level. Bull was reading an account of a Celtic-Knickerbocker game that had gone into overtime.
"You didn't hear me, Dad. I'm pregnant. I'm going to have a baby."
Rising again, Mary Anne resumed her dance around the chair. This time she pulled at her father's earlobes and tousled his hair. "I'm pregnant with your grandchild, Dad."
"Get off my back, Mary Anne. Go to the kitchen and help your mother fix dinner. All I want to do is read the goddam paper."
"I'm pregnant by a Negro, Daddy. A huge, fat-lipped, kinky-haired Negro named Rufus. Did you hear me, Daddy? Your son-in-law is a Neeeegrooow. And your little high yellow grandchild is going to come up to you and say 'Pappy.' I didn't want to tell you this, Dad, but since we're baring our souls to each other, I feel I ought to tell you he's also a pacifist. A pacifist homosexual. But you'll get to like him after a while. Dwarfs are easy to like. Especially when they're crippled. And retarded."
"Cut your yappin', Mary Anne. Go do your homework," her father said.
"I'm leaving, Dad. But I want you to know I can see through your gruffness," she said, reaching the first stair. She had stopped her song. "I can see right through it. And I want you to know that I understand. Just me. Just me."
As Ben awaited his father's call to dinner, he lay on his back, shooting a basketball toward the ceiling of his room over and over again. It was the wrist snap he worried about most before a game. If the wrist failed him, then the touch had fled and he would be forced to challenge the tall men who dwelled beneath the basket with swift drives that they would quickly move to intercept. Karen opened his door softly and asked," Can I come in, Ben?"
"Sure, Karen," Ben answered, although he was somewhat puzzled by her visit. When he saw her entering the room, Ben realized how very few times he and Karen had ever spoken to each other without another member of the family being present. "How's school going?"
"Fine. I'm the third smartest girl in the seventh grade."
"That's nice, Karen," Ben said.
"Guess what, Ben."
"I give up."
"I had my first period this week. That means I'm a woman now. That's what Mom said anyhow."
Ben resumed shooting the basketball toward the ceiling. Three times he shot, making sure his hand was parallel to the ceiling when he had followed through.
"What kind of grades did you get on your last report card, Karen? Mama told me you did real well."
"Mama says I can have babies now. You can't have a baby until you've started having your period."
"Have you talked to Mary Anne about this . . . thing?" Ben asked.
"Yes. She told me you'd want to hear all about it."
"Yeh, that's great, Karen. I'm sure glad you told me. Are you all keyed up for the big game tonight?"
"I was one of the last girls in my P.E. class to have a period. I was beginning to think I was never going to have one."
"Yeah, that must have been a big worry."
"I tried to tell Matt, but he didn't even know what I was talking about. He ran away. Matt is such a child sometimes."
"Yeah. Poor ol' Matt," Ben said, twirling the basketball on his middle finger. "Hey look, Karen, it's been a lot of fun talking to you, but I've really got to get my mind on the game."
"I'm going to be sitting with some girl friends from my school. We'll be right under the scoreboard. Will you wave to us during warmups?"
"Sure, but you'll have to watch close because I can't let Dad or Coach Spinks see me."
"These friends want to meet you after the game. Is that all right too?"
"Meet seventh grade peasants! Me? Of course, Karen. This is all so silly."
"They want me to get your autograph too."
"C'mon," Ben said, grinning.
"No, they want it."
"You're kidding. You're kidding. You've got to be kidding."
"I'm not either. They made me promise to get it before the game."
"Why do they want it? I mean, it seems ridiculous to me."
"You're the star. Here's some paper."
"This must be a great group of friends you've met here, Karen. They sound like real nice girls. What are their names?"
"Cynthia Waters and Mary Helen Epps."
"O.K.," Ben said as he wrote, speaking the words aloud. "To Cynthia, the most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes on, Passionately yours, Ben Meecham. And to Mary Helen, the most gorgeous creature on earth, Adoringly yours, Ben Meecham."
"Thanks, Ben. They'll love that. I'll see you at dinner."
"Before you go, Karen," Ben said rising and walking to his window," do you know about . . . well, let me put it this way. You know. Very simply. You were talking about how you could have a baby now. Do you know about how you have babies and all that kind of stuff?"
Ben could feel a blush moving the length of his body, one that in a matter of seconds would be a full five feet, ten inches tall. It was the first time that he ever thought a blush could have a measurable, quantitative dimension.
"Sure, Ben," Karen said simply. "You have sexual intercourse with a man."
"Yep. Well, it's been great talking to you, Karen, and I'll see you later on. It really has been great talking to you."
"Bye, Ben."
"Oh, Karen," Ben called.
"Yes."
"Congratulations on being a woman."
"Isn't it great?" Karen said and left the room.
The late afternoon consisted of a series of chance meetings, quiet conversations, and controlled showdowns all dedicated to the belief that Ben required a matrix of silence for his fury to build against the invaders from Peninsula High School. When Lillian announced dinner, she did so in a barely audible whisper to Karen who bore the news to her father in a hushed voice, then carried it to the other children upstairs as though she were a nun carrying news of a friar's death. She mounted the stairs with estimable lightness.
"Is this all I get?" Ben asked when he joined the others at the dinner table.
"Your father makes out your menu before the game, sugah," Lillian said.
"Toast and tea isn't enough," he argued.
"You got to have a light meal, otherwise you'll blow your cookies all over the place," Bull explained.
"Hey, Dad, you know what I can do?" Matthew asked.
&
nbsp; "Wait a minute, Matt, I'm talking to Ben. I think you can drive on this team son. They play man-to-man and that ought to be a piece of cake for you. At the beginning of the game, drive down the middle to see what they got. If somebody tries to stop you, lay the ball off."
"You know what I can do, Dad?" Matt repeated.
"Hold your horses, Matt. If you can get their big man, Sanders, in foul trouble early in the game, then it ought to be a piece of cake for the whole team. Now that little pimp of a guard they got, Peanut Abbott," Bull said; opening the newspaper and checking the name, "Yeah, that's the pogue's name. Well he says in the paper and I quote, 'Meecham will be lucky to score a point. We're going to cut his water off good.' How do you like them apples? Huh? I guess that gets your blood boiling. Huh? How about it?"
"Yes, sir," Ben said.
"Hey, Dad," Matt said.
"What in the hell do you want, Matt? For crying out loud."
"If you'd just listen to him, Bull," Lillian said.
The family stared at Matt, waiting for him to speak. Instead he rose from the kitchen table, went to the cupboard where the canned goods were kept, and removed a quart can of peaches. He set the can of peaches on the table in front of him.
"I can eat this whole can of peaches in less than sixty seconds," he announced.
A moment of quizzical silence passed.
"How do you know?" Lillian asked.
"I've been practicing," Matt answered.
"So that's where my peaches have been going."
"Here's fifty cents that says you can't," Mary Anne said, tossing two quarters on the table.
"I've never heard of this sport," Ben said.
"That's because I invented it," Matt answered.
"You're going to spoil your dinner, Matt," Lillian warned.
"Does it include the juice?" Karen asked.
"Of course," Matt said," the juice is the last part. That's my specialty."
"Why don't you take up baseball or something, Matt?" Bull said, spearing three slices of beef roast with his fork and reaching for the gravy.
Mary Anne went to the sink and returned to the table with a can opener. With dignity, Matthew opened the can of peaches and sat poised with a huge spoon he had selected from Lillian's silver service.