So far, so good, Maye thought as she lifted Mickey’s Fisher-Price toy piano out of the trunk. She was hoping that by getting the dogs invigorated, a little energy might rub off on Ruby, too, who had been less than her usual irritable self since Maye had stumbled upon the dresses earlier in the week. She had tried to be patient with the old lady, but all Ruby wanted to do was sit in her recliner, gulp from her tumbler as she lit cigarette after cigarette, and watch old movies. She even refused Maye’s offer to pick up the latest crop of dog shit, and that troubled Maye. The old woman insisted that Maye do nothing but sit and watch movies with her, both of them saying nothing. On this afternoon, Maye entered the living room with the swarm of dogs to find Ruby on the recliner again, watching the black-and-white images of Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman.
“We watched this one yesterday,” Maye said, to which Ruby grunted.
“I told you this was my favorite movie,” Ruby growled, not even turning her eyes to Maye.
“Ruby, I don’t know how many times you can stand watching a drunk Susan Hayward almost setting her baby on fire,” Maye commented.
“Shhh!” the old woman demanded. “It’s almost to the part where she beats up her husband’s secretary in the ladies’ toilet.”
“I brought Mickey and his piano,” Maye stated. “I thought we could start our training today.”
“Pfffff,” Ruby jeered, her eyes still locked on the TV. “Start training? Start it? What do you think we’ve been doing all this time? Have you seen what’s dangling under your arms? It’s like a tire swing! You can’t wave to an unsuspecting public with fat flaps like that! You could play Ping-Pong between those two! I should have had you paint every fence in Spaulding to tighten those things up! I should make you go out there right now and lift your car!”
Maye tried to ignore the comment. “And I have a CD of Sonny and Cher’s two greatest hits,” Maye started.
“SHHHHH!” the old woman demanded. “This is it! This is it!”
On the television, Susan Hayward was in a fancy ladies’ lounge, where, with numerous women looking on, she had cornered her husband’s diligent secretary. Loony with booze, she struck the match to ignite a ferocious cat fight.
“So self-contained, aren’t you?” she asks the secretary, then steps closer to the woman, getting ready to strike. “So poised. Look at you, not a hair out of place. I’d love to see you all messed up. I can’t think of anything that would give me a bigger kick. I bet you’re like this when you get up in the morning, aren’t you, Martha? Or should I ask my husband?”
Ruby chuckled as Hayward launched herself onto Martha, clawing at her dress, yanking chunks of her hair, and gloriously open-hand slapping her.
“Oh, I could watch that all day!” Ruby exclaimed, turning to Maye with an ample grin. Then she suddenly stopped, as if she was flash frozen.
Maye had seen that look once before, in Hopkins Market, almost a week ago.
Ruby’s face had lost all expression except shock as her jaw dropped.
“What,” she said as she pointed at Maye with a twisted finger, “what are you wearing? Where did you get that?”
“The sweater?” Maye asked. “A clothes store in town, why? Can you see the makeup smudges on the collar from there? I got it stuck on my head and in the struggle to get it off, my makeup just got ground into it. Is it that obvious?”
“Which store?” Ruby asked, standing up slowly.
“I don’t know the name of it. It was a vintage clothing store downtown,” Maye explained. “Is it really that ugly? I think it’s so pretty. Cost me a fortune, with all of this beading. This is the sweater Rowena Spaulding made fun of the first time I met her, at the first faculty mixer.”
“Well, she shouldn’t have,” the old woman said as she walked over to Maye, then picked up the hem of the sweater and touched it. “It’s her sweater.”
Maye stared at Ruby. “What?” she replied. “How could this possibly be Rowena Spaulding’s sweater?”
“I sold this a while ago, found it in a box upstairs with some other old things,” Ruby explained. “Had no need for it. I need something that can breathe, something I can move in. I like to move. Gotta be able to move. Plus, I like zippers better. Buttons are such a pain in the ass.”
“Okay,” Maye said impatiently. “Back up. Rewind. I will speak slowly. How is this Rowena Spaulding’s sweater?”
“Well, I borrowed it, we wore the same clothes, I told you, we were like twins,” Ruby said. “Me and Wendy, who you know now as—”
“Rowena Spaulding,” Maye surmised, feeling that all the air had just been punched out of her like a Seal-a-Meal bag, which was quickly replaced by the urgent, uncontrollable need to get the repugnant sweater—plus any remaining skin cells from its previous, hideous owner—off her. Away from her. “Oh God. No wonder it got stuck on my head, it’s got her evil all over it!” She squirmed as she struggled to take it off, neglecting to undo the buttons, which were a pain in the ass, first.
“Get it off me!” she screamed as she tugged at the sweater. “Get it off! It has mean cooties all over it! Please tell me you got this dry-cleaned.”
“I sold a lamp to buy cigarettes and dog food last week,” Ruby informed her. “No, I did not have it dry-cleaned.”
Maye continued to struggle, now with the neckline of the sweater lodged all the way around her flushed and sweating head.
“God,” Ruby sighed, and with a cigarette lodged between her lips, she tried to help Maye, who was flopping about irritably like a big, fat-armed fish. “Hang on, I’ll help you. We have a ways to go before Susan Hayward burns her house down. Stay still and I’ll get it off your head. Stay still. Aw, Christ. You really should be wearing a shirt underneath that. I can see your boobies, we’re gonna have to work on those, too.”
Only after Maye relaxed somewhat was Ruby able to yank the sweater all the way off her head, and as the brilliant red color dissolved from Maye’s face, Ruby looked at her and shook her head.
“Now look at what you and your hissy fit went and did,” she said, pointing at Maye’s scalp line, the thickest part of her skull. “You went and got yourself a rash there, a little burn, all around your head, like the rings around Saturn. I hope you’re happy, because that was stupid. Now you have to be in the pageant with a face scab.”
Maye’s head did sting, a sting she had felt once before.
“Um,” she said self-consciously, “can I borrow a shirt?”
“Sure,” Ruby replied. She waved disgustedly and trudged upstairs, her filthy slippers making a muffled thud on each step.
“I was just beginning to like that sweater,” Maye called as the old woman rooted around upstairs. “And I can’t believe Rowena Spaulding was your best friend. I just can’t see it. What was she like when she was young?”
“She wasn’t Rowena then, she was Wendy.” Maye could barely hear Ruby answer. “She liked to have fun, she laughed a lot, we always had a great time together. She was just like any other girl, nothing special, just nice.”
The old woman came back downstairs carrying something green with a zipper up the front. When she got to the living room, she handed it to Maye, who put it on without so much as a glance.
“Here you go,” Maye said, handing Ruby a used tissue she found stuffed in the sleeve of the terrycloth tracksuit jacket Ruby had worn the day before. Ruby promptly stuffed it up the sleeve of the tracksuit jacket she was wearing today.
“So that’s why she hates me?” Maye asked. “Because of that sweater?”
“Well, if you ask me, I bet it’s like when you get the flu or something and you throw up green-bean casserole through your nose,” she concluded. “I bet it’s something like that.”
“I think I follow you,” Maye replied. “Like when you throw up something that wasn’t what made you sick, but you can’t ever eat that food again and just the thought of it makes you queasy.”
“Exactly,” Ruby said. “I can’t eat tuna casserole anymore because of t
hat. Fish shot out of my nose like it was a cannon. That ever happen to you?”
As her stomach was doing a tumbling act of its own, Maye resisted opening her mouth for fear of what might come shooting out of it. She just shook her head.
“Happened with corn once, too. Those were like bullets. One even bounced back and hit me,” Ruby added, then quickly turned toward the television. “Hup, look at that, there goes the house, up in flames. Grab your baby, ya stupid drunk! Run! Run!”
“So because I wore this sweater, Rowena is going to forever hate me,” Maye said.
“My guess is yes,” Ruby answered. “She may be the high and mighty Mrs. Spaulding now, but she’s still the girl I knew, and that girl can hold a grudge. She’s got everything she ever wanted—a big-shot husband, a grand, fancy house on a hill, and a crown that she didn’t earn, but she can stay pissed for a long time.”
“A crown she didn’t earn?” Maye repeated. “Wha—how—you mean that she…”
“Rode to glory on my coattails?” Ruby sniped. “That’s exactly what she did! What, you think she could do the splits? She could only do it if she bent her knee behind her, and that’s cheating! No, she didn’t earn it! She slid right onto my throne after I got kicked off because she was the first runner-up! Rowena Spaulding is no queen, she’s a lady-in-waiting!”
“You mean to tell me that woman forced you out of your crown and then took it?” Maye said, feeling the anger in her rise up as quickly as the volume of her voice. “She stole your crown. She stole it, the thief! How have you not killed her yet? Oh my God! I hate her! I hate Rowena Spaulding! She is such a revolting hag!”
“I like to think of her as a fury,” Ruby said more calmly than Maye thought she could be. “I’ve been living with this for fifty years. Fifty years I’ve been waiting to take back what’s mine. And that’s why we are going to beat her. Once and for all, we’ll settle this. Once and for all, we’ll see who ends up with the crown.”
“We’d better,” Maye said. “I think Melissabeth is going to be hard to beat. She’s some champion opera singer with lungs of gold and the voice of a thousand angels.”
“Opera singers, those broads are a dime a damn dozen,” Ruby pooh-poohed. “A singing dog that plays piano? Once in a lifetime, sugar. What you’ve got there isn’t a talent segment; it’s an act. Where is he? Where’s your star? Show me what he can do!”
“Really?” Maye said. “Are we really going to start training? This is wonderful! I brought his piano, and I have a CD player that I just need to plug in. Mickey! Mickey, come!”
The white, tan, black, and gray speckled dog bounded into the living room accompanied by Puppy, who was apparently loath to leave his new friend’s side.
Maye popped the CD into the player and positioned Mickey’s piano just as it had always been in class, with the dog sitting behind it. She cued up the song and pushed “play.” The first notes of “I Got You, Babe” floated through the room.
“Tinkle, Mickey!” Maye called. “Tinkle!”
Mickey just looked at her.
“Tinkle, Mickey!” Maye called again. “Tinkle, tinkle!”
Mickey did not lift his paws up onto the keys, and he did not begin. He looked at Puppy, who was sitting pensively on the couch, then at Maye and back at Puppy, and did nothing.
Maye stopped the music.
“Mickey, what’s the matter?” Maye asked. “You love to do this in class!”
“Maybe he’s embarrassed in front of the other dogs,” Ruby suggested. “Are you sure he can really play piano?”
“I’m positive!” Maye insisted. “And he does this in front of other dogs every week in his class! He’s used to it. What’s the matter, Mickey? Let’s try again, okay?”
She pushed “play” again, the first note of “I Got You, Babe” sounded, and Maye gave the command, but still Mickey simply sat there with no response. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t lift a paw.
“Oh, hell,” Ruby said, throwing her arms up. “This isn’t working. I’ll go get you the matching pants to your jacket, and when I come back down we’re going to make you do the splits.”
“He did this the night before last in class,” she told Ruby. “He was fine. In every single class, she plays the song, he hears the notes, ‘dum dum dum, de dum dum,’ and he starts!”
“You mean like that?” Ruby asked, pointing to Mickey, who now had one paw on the keys and was looking at Maye in anticipation.
Maye looked at Ruby, who nodded just once. “Keep going,” she whispered. “Keep humming.”
“Dum dum dum, de dum dum,” Maye continued, to which Mickey lifted up his second paw and placed it on the keys, much to Maye’s surprise.
“‘We are young,’” Maye said softly. “‘Heartache to heartache, we stand.’”
“Woooo, wooooo,” Mickey began to sing along.
“‘No promises, no demands,’” she went on. “‘Love is a battlefield.’”
“Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo wooooooo!!” Mickey sang.
“Holy shit,” Maye said after a short pause as she rubbed her temples. “I’m going to kill Gwen.”
“Let’s try another song,” Ruby suggested, sensing Maye’s distress.
“That’s a great idea,” she agreed, and eagerly cued the CD player to another track.
The light, plucky notes of a keyboard sounded, followed by a deep, rich voice.
“I was born in the wagon of a travelin’ show,” Cher lamented.
Mickey simply sat there, looking at Maye.
“Come on, Mickey!” Maye cried. “Please! It’s ‘Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves’! This is a great song! Think of all the fun we could have with it!”
The dog wasn’t buying it and didn’t make another move, even though the music kept playing. Maye shut it off.
“Dum dum dum, de dum dum,” Ruby whistled, and Mickey put his paws back up on the piano keys.
“Well, Mickey,” Maye said, slapping her hands on her thighs in resignation. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a song.”
14
Two Women in the House—and One of Them a Redhead
M aye arrived at Ruby’s in the morning armed with Mickey, a copy of Pat Benatar’s Greatest Hits, and a padded mailer that UPS had delivered the night before.
It was clear to Maye on that disappointing afternoon that Mickey had been trained to play piano to one and only one song, thanks to Gwen’s resistance, where music was concerned, to spread her wings and fly beyond the eighth grade. Maye decided she truly hated her for that.
But the moment she inserted the CD and pressed “play,” Mickey hopped right behind that piano and began wailing like he was a hairier Billy Joel. And that was how it was decided that Maye’s talent segment would be a song that reminded her of being tongue-mugged during a bad double date in the back of a van with bar stools as seats. Even Puppy had come over to give Mickey a lick of approval.
Maye shuddered as she handed the package over to Ruby, who smiled broadly with anticipation as she inserted the bootleg tape, which Maye had used her honed and sharpened eBay skills to win, into her dusty VHS player.
Ruby clapped her hands together and stepped back, eager to see if the “Love Is a Battlefield” video was as repugnant as Maye had recounted. A minute into it, the old woman clearly saw how it could bring down the house.
“Look at all of those shimmies!” she exclaimed with glee. “All you gotta do is shimmy here and shimmy there—don’t worry, we’ll get you a good support bra for your water balloons—snap your fingers a couple of times, and you can pull off that dance number. That elfin-looking girl in the video is even wearing a headband, so we can hide that scab around your head.”
Maye did not look happy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just never had visions of myself onstage in front of my new town trying to win a pageant by wearing a skirt of rags and having a dance-off with my dog, who is dressed as a pimp.”
“Mickey’s a perfect pimp!” Ruby argued. “We’ll get him a little
white polyester suit and paint his front fang gold. You wait and see. You will shimmy to glory, and put Rowena Spaulding in her place.”
“I hope you’re right,” Maye added. “I’m still worried about Melissabeth.”
“Psh!” the old woman spit. “Anyone can go up there and sing a little opera! Opera shmopera. Fa la la la la! You’re going to go up there and entertain them! You’re going to get up there and give ’em a show! That is gold! That is what counts!”
“All right, if you can show me how to do it, I’m game,” Maye asked. “Just out of curiosity, I want to know what Rowena did for her talent segment?”
“Please,” Ruby began to laugh wholeheartedly, a rumble that came from deep within what was left of her lungs and sounded like a diesel engine missing a cylinder. “Whaddya think? She braided her hair, put on a gingham dress, and sang ‘Over the Rainbow.’ Can you believe it? Predictable. Milk toast. Bo-ring. Christ, all I had to do was show up and they basically handed me the crown. Now, let’s practice shaking your totties.”
“What?” Maye laughed.
“Your bazongas,” Ruby replied, stretching her arms out sideways and shaking what a medical examiner would call her bazongas, but with that sudden movement, they didn’t so much shake as they did almost completely orbit her body.
“Rowena Spaulding is a revolting hag!” she screeched as she shimmied from side to side, swinging her totties out like seats on a YoYo carnival ride.
“You’re good at that!” Maye commented.
“I come alive in front of an audience,” Ruby shouted, her bazongas in full velocity.
Maye tried to avert her eyes from the whipping carnage and stretched her arms out to her sides, too, mimicking Ruby’s grinding and shaking.
“Rowena Spaulding,” she shrieked, “is a vile, sorry little bitch!”
Ruby abruptly stopped her shimmying, doubled over, and burst out laughing. “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte!” she cried, holding her sides. “That’s good! That’s good!”