I was afraid to ask. But I did. “Whose side is Paul—I mean, whose side is Dean representing?”
Stash looked shocked. “Well, he’s on the wife’s side. Of course.”
My body sagged with relief. Men who protected criminals were as creepy as the men they represented.
Those blue eyes of Paul’s, and that smile, kept appearing before my eyes. Not that it meant anything, not anything at all. I am, after all, not into men anymore. The very thought of getting involved with any member of the male species made me feel ill.
Besides, Paul Bunyan was probably married or had been married eight different times. He wasn’t the classically handsome sort. There was no way he would ever land in the pages of a magazine. But he was huge, his hair was good, he had those blue eyes and a nice, slow smile.
I told myself to rid Paul Bunyan from my mind. The man scared me. Those blue eyes that really looked at me scared me. That nice and friendly smile and that low, gravelly voice, and that laugh that made me want to laugh along with him scared me, too.
“You can stop kidding yourself anytime.” The sharp tone shook me from my reverie, and my eyes flew to Lara, who sat across from me. Katie was at my left, Caroline across from her, and Aunt Lydia at the head of the table to my right.
“I’m not kidding myself, Lara!” Katie snapped, dropping more sour cream onto the meat in her taco. “I just know things will get better.”
“When?”
“What?”
“When? When on earth do you really think that things will get better?” Lara took out the rubber band holding her hair back and shoved her hands through it. In the candlelight she looked pale, as if she hadn’t slept in a week. “You’ve been saying that for three years, as long as I’ve known you. You smile when you say it, but you know the truth.”
“Yes, I do know the truth! My husband is a good man, and he’ll stop…” Katie’s voice faded. “He’ll stop drinking. Things have already gotten better—”
Lara rolled her eyes. “Katie, you told me earlier this week that J.D. had passed out on the couch after working his way through three bars. He just lost his ninth job. No one in town will hire him because of his drinking problem, and soon no one in Decateur or Rosemont will hire him, either!”
“So what the hell do you want me to do!” Katie turned red and tossed her napkin on the table. “You, of all people, should understand, Lara. I took wedding vows, I said all that stuff about forsaking all others, in sickness and in health, till death do us part, and I’m not going to just walk out because he’s not perfect!”
“Not perfect?” There went another roll of the eyes. “Katie, he’s not even got the ‘p’ in perfect going for him. You’ve been married how long?”
“Ten years?”
“Ten years? Four children in ten years and an alcoholic husband.”
“He’s not an alcoholic.” Katie said, but her voice was as weak as a dying rabbit. “He drinks too much. There’s a difference.”
“I won’t argue with you, not because I’m not right, but because it’s pointless. But the result is the same, isn’t it? J.D. drinks. You work all day cleaning houses, often bringing Logan with you to work because you don’t trust your husband to watch him. The man will be drunk, won’t hear his cries, won’t feed him—”
“Stop it, Lara.” Katie covered her face with her hands.
“You work all day, pick up the other kids, take them to soccer and the community art classes, you volunteer at school, then you go home, try to get your husband off the couch, fix dinner, help the kids with their homework, clean your own house, pack lunches for the next day, and at eleven o’clock at night you start writing. Have I about got it?”
Katie didn’t move.
“And this has been going on for your whole marriage. And he’s a mean drunk, isn’t he?” Lara asked, relentless.
I sat, frozen. Mean drunks were the worst. I would far rather have a friendly, horny drunk than a mean drunk for a husband. Mean drunks hit. I had seen that with precisely three of my mother’s boyfriends/husbands.
Katie opened her mouth, then shut it. Opened it again. “I can handle this situation. I’m doing what’s best for the kids.”
“You’re in denial, Katie.”
“And you aren’t, Miss Perfect Minister’s Wife?”
“No.” Lara took another big drink of her daiquiri. “I’m not perfect, and everyone here knows it. But I love you, Katie. You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. You’re the best mother I know. Your kids are so good, so sweet, and it’s because of you. Don’t forget that people talk at church. Everyone loves you. Every time someone is sick or sad, they can count on cookies from you, help from you. And yet you never, ever help yourself.”
“I am helping myself—dammit, I am! I am keeping my family together.” Katie put her elbows on the table and bent her head for a moment, then looked Lara straight in the eyes, all vestiges of pretense gone. “I can’t divorce him. If I did, he would turn on the charm for some other woman, get married, and then my kids would go and visit him, without me there to supervise. He can’t take care of them. He yells at them, Lara. I would worry the entire time they were there. And what if his new wife didn’t like the kids? What if she was mean to them? What if her kids didn’t like my kids, and yet my kids are stuck there for the weekend with their father getting drunk and a mean stepmother?”
I didn’t know what to say, but I knew enough about divorce to know that the father always got visitation unless he was an axe-wielding, drug-snorting, ex-convict son of a bitch. Katie was right about that.
“But what about you?” Caroline spoke up, her face pale, her cheekbones standing out in the light. “When are you going to choose you?”
“What do you mean, ‘choose you’?”
“I mean, when are you going to see that you matter, that your happiness matters, that you don’t deserve to be married to a drunk?”
“J.D. will get to a point where he’ll stop drinking—”
“No, he won’t,” Aunt Lydia, Lara, and Caroline said together.
“Not unless he faces a crisis,” Lara continued. “He has to hit the very bottom of the ladder, then fall off of it, then crack his head open, then wake up in his own vomit in a strange place with bars before he’ll change, Katie. If then.”
“When he’s sober, he’s nice to the children.” Her voice faded. “Usually. Sometimes. Now and then.”
“How often is he sober?” Caroline asked, but by the way she asked it, I knew she already knew. “He’s an alcoholic.”
“No, he’s not. And if he is, alcoholism is a disease.”
Aunt Lydia snorted. Lara blew air through her teeth and looked disgusted. Caroline’s lips turned in on themselves.
“Bullshit,” Lara said. “Letting alcoholics claim they have a disease lets them off the hook. It forces their families to feel sorry for them instead of kicking them out into the street. I’ve seen people with real diseases, and they did not find their disease, they did not bring their disease on themselves, by willfully drinking their way through thousands of bottles of liquor over a period of years. The only disease the alcoholics have is the disease of weakness and selfishness. And you’re enabling him to stay just as he is, Katie.”
Katie shook her head. “I can’t support the kids on my own anyhow. He doesn’t make much, but he brings in some—”
“But he drinks away all the money he brings in!” Lara snapped, clacking her fork on her plate. “You even have to pay a baby-sitter to watch the kids when you come here every week.”
“She’s a great baby-sitter,” Katie intoned, as if that explained it all. “I don’t have a choice. And anyhow, why are you so angry with me, Lara?”
“I’m angry because I’m so frustrated. Because you won’t change this situation. You won’t do anything about it.”
“Do anything about it?” Katie looked like she was going to cry. “I am doing something about it.”
“Is it working?” Lara was rel
entless.
A look of utter hopelessness settled on Katie’s features. “I am not going to get a divorce. I’m not.”
Her words fell into a silent void, I could almost see unspoken words floating over the table.
“Well,” said Aunt Lydia, “I don’t think you can claim to have a healthy vagina, then, can you?”
Silence again.
“You need a boyfriend, Katie,” Aunt Lydia said, stabbing her knife in the air. “A little boy toy. A reprieve. A man who will understand the situation and give you some good lovin’ till you’re ready to dump that bastard husband of yours and move on with your life.”
Katie looked up from the table. Her mouth twisted. Lara shook her head in a way that indicated she thought Katie was hopeless. Then she got up and hugged her tight and long. Caroline fiddled with her glass, then her hands stilled, her eyes widening as she stared at Katie. I gulped in air.
And then Katie laughed. Laughed right into Lara’s shoulder. Laughed till she cried.
“I’m in heaven,” Caroline sighed.
We women were all dressed again. Like the true girlfriends we are, we all insisted on cleaning up together. With five women, it took about five minutes. Now we were sprawled all over Lydia’s comfy furniture like limp, engorged eels.
With tired vaginas. Vaginas blessed by hot sauce and cheese, but tired. It was late, after all, and outside the stars were twinkling, the moon full and peering into Aunt Lydia’s darkened house.
After Lara’s diatribe with Katie, Aunt Lydia insisted we change the conversation and discuss taking control of our vaginas, not letting the heat of passion with men get in the way of our strength as women, and not letting our vaginas lead us astray. Next Lydia encouraged all of us to pull away from the table, just a tad, and look at our vaginas.
It was hard to do. I am nowhere near as limber as Aunt Lydia, and my giant watermelons kept getting in the way. Finally, I pushed them out of the way with both hands and dared myself to catch a peek at my vagina.
Yuck. I am sorry. I do not know why men, and some women, would be remotely attracted to such a wrinkled, fleshy, sometimes foul-smelling organ. I do not.
I put my head up real quick. I noticed that Lara did, too. We both reached for our daiquiris in those long, curvy pink glasses.
“Visualize peace with your vagina,” Aunt Lydia intoned. “Peace!”
I visualized my vagina and couldn’t drink any more daiquiri. Yuck again. Yuck that Robert had been there. Yuck that he’d squirted some of his stuff into me through that hole. Yuck that my vagina had never given me much pleasure, but had caused me a ton of pain.
Katie put her head up, too, then Caroline, then Aunt Lydia.
“Well, I looked at my vagina,” Caroline said. “It looks the same as it’s always looked. Would you pass the pitcher of daiquiris, Lydia?”
“You need a new awareness of your vagina, Car-o-line!” Aunt Lydia boomed.
“Let’s take your vagina, Katie!”
“Oh dear God, let’s not,” said Katie.
“Dear God, thank you that Lydia didn’t call my name,” Lara muttered.
“You need to forgive your vagina, Katie! Forgive it! It got you into trouble before you realized what a lout J.D. is. A lot of trouble. You must forgive it. Here.” She gave Katie a handful of strawberries. “Put these on your vagina, and tell your little flower that you forgive it, that the strawberries are there to offer it sweetness and comfort and peace.”
“You have got to be kidding, Lydia,” Katie said, pushing her red hair away from her face. “You want me to put these strawberries on my privates?”
“Yes! I do! None of us need to see, we don’t want to see! It’s between you and your little flower! You don’t want your little flower to shrivel!”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind shriveling a little bit,” Katie said, pondering. “In fact, if I could shrivel off fifty pounds that would be pretty nifty—”
“You must concentrate, Katie.” Aunt Lydia pleaded, spreading her arms wide. “Forgiveness is only an inch away! Put the strawberries on your little flower, and make this sound.” Aunt Lydia made the sound of the ocean, the waves crashing back and forth.
“Why the sound of the ocean?” asked Katie. Her hands disappeared under the table. I wanted to make very sure that those strawberries stayed on her plate and didn’t go back in the communal bowl.
“Because the ocean’s waves flow like forgiveness. Feel that forgiveness, Katie. Be that forgiveness. Allow that forgiveness to surge into your body, wave by wave. Now, Katie, strawberries down, your voice on! We must conquer our vaginas!”
Katie closed her eyes and did a very good impression of the waves breaking on the shore. Maybe in her past life she really had been a mermaid.
Next Aunt Lydia crooked a finger at Lara. “You need to allow your vagina to be all your vagina can be! She is trapped, lost, unable to escape. She feels such a responsibility towards the rest of the body, that she can’t leave, even though inside she’s angry and repressed. Here!” Aunt Lydia tossed a napkin to Lara, then shoved the salt shaker her way.
“Put this napkin under your rear and shake salt over your little flower.”
“What?” Lara asked. “Salt my vagina?”
“You heard me! You are a damaged young woman who is still living under her father’s fat ass. And don’t deny it. You need to rid yourself of that man like I need to rid my shed of dry rot. Put the napkin under your rear so you don’t get salt on my chair, and then shake salt over your little flower.”
“Lydia,” said Lara, taking another huge gulp of wine, “you have really lost it this time.”
“Lost it? Lost it? I haven’t lost it. You women all have issues, except maybe Caroline, and they stem from the bereftness, the desperation in the very core of your being, in your very essence, your very womanliness. You’ve let men make decisions in your lives for you, decisions you should have had the strength, the vagina strength, to fight back, to fight for yourself, to walk away. No!” She banged her fist on the table. “I’ll correct myself! You should have had the strength to grab your vagina and run away!”
Lara sighed, grabbed the napkin, sat on it. We watched as she shook salt on herself.
“Can you tell me the significance of the salt, Lydia, before I turn myself into a hairy snowball?”
“Salt represents purity! Innocence! Strength! By sprinkling yourself with salt you are anointing your inner being, starting over, starting fresh!”
I tried not to laugh as Lara gave a few more shakes to the salt shaker, but the laughter bubbled in me until I thought it would burst out my ears.
“Now, Lara, make the sound of a rattler!” Lydia swung her fists through the air. “A giant rattler!”
“A rattler?” Lara asked, still shaking that salt shaker. “You mean a rattlesnake?”
“Yes, indeed I do!” Lydia said, her braids flying. “A rattler will swallow other animals whole. He’s fierce and has a strong stomach. He’s independent. He does what he wants. He shoots venom out of his mouth. That’s what you need to be more like, Lara! A rattlesnake.”
“Sounds good to me. I know there was that wily snake with Adam and Eve,” Lara said, and then she made a rattling sound with her mouth. I was very impressed. She really sounded like a rattlesnake.
Katie made the sound of waves breaking, Lara made the sound of a rattlesnake. They weren’t bad together.
“Caroline, you take these flowers, right here in this vase, and you twine the stems together, nice and easy. And when you have a long line of flowers, then you wrap them around your waist and let them droop towards your vagina.”
“So I’m making a flower belt?” Caroline asked.
“No, not like a flower belt,” Lydia said with a scowl. “A flower vibrator! You may have a healthy relationship with your vagina, Caroline, but you need some lust in your life, some hot and heavy and passionate lust, so you make yourself a flower vibrator! And when you’re threading those stems together, you make a sound like
this.” Aunt Lydia made the sound of a bee.
“A bee? You want me to make the sound of a bee?”
“Yes, a busy, busy bumblebee!”
“So, this is a buzzing vibrator?” Caroline smiled. She was up for anything.
“It’s a vibrator of passion. The bees buzzing represent your lust coming to life, your passion.”
Soon the sound of the buzzing vibrator joined the rattlesnake and the crashing waves.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Lydia’s hard glare shut me up real quick, though.
“I am shocked at you!” Lydia intoned, no smile at all lighting her features. “Laughing at our healing! And you, with so much healing to do.” Her face softened. “This is for you, Julia.” She grabbed a salad plate and two forks. “Put the plate over your little flower.”
“What?”
“Put this plate over your little flower. No, not like that, turn it the other way so it’s upside down.”
The laughter started bubbling in my throat again. Oh, well. I put the plate over my little flower.
“Take these.” She handed me a fork and a knife. “Now drum the fork and the knife against the plate so your little flower can hear it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Pretend you’re a drummer, Julia! The plate is your drum, the fork and knife your drumsticks. You need to drum the pain right out of your innards, pound the hurts from the soul of your womanhood, banish the tragedies from the memory of your vagina. You must start anew, but first you must get rid of the memories that have held your vagina captive, that have caught your vagina up in a vicious circle of fear. Take out the anguish and despair, and then give your vagina permission to have a new, safe, loving life, my dear Julia.”
The whole idea was starting to sound good to me. At least I was smart enough to recognize that I needed healing, and if silverware and a plate can help, I was game.
I closed my eyes and slowly drummed the fork on the plate, tuning out the buzzing, the ocean waves, and the rattler. It made a clinking sound. I desperately wanted to get rid of all the memories of my mother’s boyfriends, wanted to get rid of the memories of all the times my own mother didn’t protect me or, as Aunt Lydia would say, “my little flower.” I felt a surge of fury rise in me, but stamped it down, as per usual. Long ago I came to the conclusion that fury with my mother and my childhood, and indulging the aching loneliness that seemed to follow me around like a dark phantom, never accomplished anything.