Mad Girls In Love (41 page)

A NOTE FROM VIOLET

Jennifer came home from Grandparents Day at Crystal Falls Elementary School and threw herself on Miss Betty's floral chintz sofa, wailing that she was the only child in Crystal Falls who didn't have a family. She raised her head and glared at Grandmother. “You forgot me!” she growled.

“I thought it was
next
week,” said Miss Betty, wringing her hands.

“It was today,” yelled Jennifer, pushing away from the sofa. “I'm through with you. I want to see my other grandmother
this instant
!”

“That's not a good idea,” said Miss Betty.

“It is too.” Jennifer crossed her arms and glared.

Miss Betty sighed, opened a chest, and pulled out a thick pile of newspapers. She set them in front of the child. The papers were curled and yellow, and the dust made Jennifer sneeze, but she didn't let this deter her from reading all the juicy stuff. On the top paper, the headline blared:

DERANGED HOUSEWIFE JUMPS OFF DIME STORE
'
S ROOF
. A smaller headline read:
DEATH AVERTED BY FLOODED STREET
. Underneath was a grainy black-and-white picture of Dorothy being carried away on a stretcher, the paramedics wading through surging water. Her hair was wild, and she appeared to be screaming. Behind her was the courthouse square, flooded by Town Creek.

The other papers weren't about Dorothy, they were about Jennifer's mother. Jennifer traced her finger under each word, keenly aware of Miss Betty's watchful gaze. Her grandmother was always saying that it was a blessing that Jennifer hadn't grown up around
those people
. It was a godsend that the child didn't remember her atrocious babyhood. Yet her grandmother seemed hell-bent on re-creating it for her. “She left your father for dead,” Miss Betty cried, thumping one of the newspapers. “She put you on the roof of a car and then drove off. You came within an inch of dying.”

Miss Betty held up two fingers, a tiny space between them. “Do you still wish to see Dorothy?”

“Yes!” Jennifer said, then screamed.

“Oh, all right.” Miss Betty stiffened. “I've no idea what brought this on. Surely not my absence at Grandparents Day. Did you know that Dorothy never really liked Bitsy? She preferred Mack. So why on earth would she like
you
?”

“Because she does!”

Miss Betty yelled for Papa Chick and told him to hurry up and take Jennifer over to the crazy house—her pet name for 214 Dixie Avenue.

“Come on, sugar.” Papa Chick stood in the doorway and waved his arm.

Jennifer grabbed the top newspaper from the stack and shoved it under her shirt. “I'm ready,” she called in a sweet voice. “I'll be right there.”

Later, when she showed the paper to Dorothy, all her grandmother would say was,
“
The baby back ribs were frozen, not barbecued—at least not yet. It must've been your daddy who got that rumor started.”

After this visit Jennifer whined to visit the crazy house. She was doing it to annoy her paternal grandmother. In fact, she preferred the luxury of the elder Wentworths' home on Jefferson, with its gated driveway and manicured lawn that stretched the length of one city block. There she could do what she pleased, and the maids gave her anything she wanted. “Poor little motherless child,” they'd say when Jennifer passed through the room. She was fatherless, too, but everyone seemed to overlook that. Her daddy was preoccupied with his new family: His third wife, Regina, had recently given birth to a cone-headed daughter.

Two weekends a month, Chick drove her three blocks to her daddy's house, a Victorian with a picket fence around it. In the spring, red tulips flopped through the slats. There was a pool in the backyard, surrounded by another fence, and off to the side stood an elaborate swing set—this belonged to Jennifer's half-sister, Millicent Ann, who was only a month old. On a visiting Saturday, when Jennifer stepped into the house, the air smelled of dirty diapers and Lysol, and her stepmother was yelling at her housekeepers. “I'm having a formal dinner party in
five hours,”
Regina shrieked from the head of the stairs, “and I want this dawdling to stop. Open some windows, make this house smell like a garden.”

Jennifer was standing in the marble entry hall, holding a pink Barbie suitcase. She loved it when the maids poked fun at Regina, who hadn't lost the weight she'd gained during her pregnancy. Most of it had collected in her hips and thighs. They called her “Miss Regina” to her face, but when she was out of earshot, she was dubbed “Big Mama Woo Woo.”

Jennifer set down her suitcase and followed the women into the dining room. They let her help polish the silver and set it out in precise patterns on the polished table. Jennifer had learned party planning at Miss Betty's knee, and she loved setting out the crystal salt dishes with teeny tiny doll-size spoons beside each. She was just placing the last one when Regina swooped into the dining room, her cheeks flushed.

“When did
you
get here, Jennifer? Oh, never mind. Just run on outside and play. I can't think with you standing here!” Regina rubbed her temples.

Jennifer snatched up her Barbie suitcase and hurried out to the back porch, one of those old-fashioned ones, deep enough to hold an entire set of wicker furniture, including a glider. She unzipped the suitcase, took out her paper dolls, and arranged them beneath the glider. From inside the house, she heard her half-sister's screech, followed by footsteps. Jennifer wanted to love her new sister, but her daddy and Regina were always slobbering over it. She abandoned her dolls and wandered into the kitchen. The caterers had started to arrive. Outside, the wind began blowing, sucking up Jennifer's play pretties, blowing them off the porch toward the swimming pool. Regina ran into the kitchen, over to the door. “I just pray it's not going to storm—” She broke off, staring at the paper dolls, whirling in the air. She turned, her eyes narrowed, and grabbed Jennifer's hand.

“How did your dollies get out there?” Regina's forehead wrinkled into a hard V. Her fingers tightened, the nails dug into Jennifer's flesh. “Just
look
at this! What will my guests think? Don't you
ever
make a mess like this again.” Regina shoved open the kitchen door and slung Jennifer onto the porch. “Get out there and clean up your mess. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Jennifer poked her thumb into her mouth.

“And get that dirty finger out of your mouth,” Regina snarled. From upstairs, the baby began to wail. “Now look what you've done! Oh, you miserable little rat. I can't
wait
till your father gets home and sees what you've done.”

The next day, when Jennifer returned to her grandparents' house, she rushed to find Miss Betty in the sunroom and rolled up her sleeves, pointing to the nail gashes. “Regina did this,” Jennifer wailed. “I want my real mother. If you don't let me see her, I'm showing Dorothy these marks. And
she'll
take Regina to court.”

Within ten days Miss Betty had made the arrangements for Jennifer to fly down to New Orleans.

Jennifer loved exploring the DeChavannes's house. When they weren't having parties, the dining room was dark and quiet, as if it was recovering from a long and difficult illness. But it was still a beautiful room, with the pale blue silk draperies, streaked with lemon, surrounding deep bay windows that looked out into banana trees, and the ornate wrought-iron fence in the distance. Upstairs, her mother had turned a small bedroom into a closet. It smelled of powder and expensive perfume. Jewelry hung from a pegboard, and wall-to-wall shelves were crammed with shoes and pocketbooks—the purses were gifts from Louie's mother. Jennifer sat on the floor, examining each bag while Bitsy described its features and events where it would be appropriate. What Jennifer especially loved to do was go to the racks, which were crammed with sparkly party dresses, and press her face into the fabric, breathing in her mother's smell.

Bitsy was an interior designer, and she worked two days a week with a famous woman called Sister. The famous woman had helped Bitsy dress up her dining room—the table was longer than Regina's, or Miss Betty's, for that matter, with sixteen chairs and a lovely organdy and lace cloth that skimmed the floor. Her mother had explained the different fabrics, urging Jennifer rub them between her fingers. When she grew up, she wanted to be a designer, too.

After that visit, when Jennifer returned to Crystal Falls, she spent more and more time with Dorothy. She craved the stillness of a summer evening on her grandmother's old porch, where the lilacs smelled like an old woman's neck, and the iced tea glasses didn't need coasters and none of the fabrics matched. She could spill blue fingernail polish on the floor or a cherry Coke and no one screamed or blanched. Jennifer spent many rainy mornings in Bitsy's old bed, listening to water pouring out of the overflowing gutters. She wondered if her mother had heard this, too. After breakfast, she would push a pen into her grandmother's hands and dictate letters to Bitsy, the way she'd seen her grandfather do at the bank. She wanted to know about her mother's parties, her favorite wines and floral arrangements, and if she'd ever thought of matching her dress to the tablecloth. In due time, Bitsy's answer would arrive, her handwriting difficult to read, and Dorothy would have to translate. Bitsy listed the food in haphazard order, mixing appetizers with dessert, the entrée with the soup.

Jennifer begged to visit New Orleans again, but the Wentworths, plotting to keep her in Tennessee, had enrolled Jennifer in ballet classes.

“I can take ballet in New Orleans,” Jennifer argued.

“You just can't go, and that's
that.
” Two spots of color flashed on Miss Betty's cheeks.

“I'm going to visit my mother. And
you
can't stop me.”

“Let her go for a week, Betty,” Chick said.

“Two weeks,” the child pleaded.

“Ask your father,” said Miss Betty. “You'll be seeing him this weekend.”

At dinner with Regina and her daddy, Jennifer broached the subject of a New Orleans visit. “No, absolutely not,” said Claude, shaking his head. “You can't ruin your grandmother's plans.”

“Has your mother invited you?” Regina spoke up.

“No, but—”

“Then she doesn't want you,” said Regina, spooning mashed potatoes into the baby's mouth.

“You don't want me, either,” Jennifer cried. “You just want the baby.”

“Don't be jealous,” said Regina.

“I'm
not.
”

“Lower you voice,” hissed Claude. “The maids will hear.”

“I hope they do!”

“If you say
one
more word, little lady,” Claude warned, “I'm taking all your dolls to the Salvation Army.”

“Take them,” she said bravely, even though her voice shook.

“All right, fine.” Claude pushed his chair back and strode out of the room.

“I didn't say one word, I said two,” she called after him.

Her stepmother's fork was frozen in midair, a limp strand of asparagus hanging down.

“What are you staring at, Vagina?” Jennifer's eyes glittered.

Regina put down her fork and reached for her napkin to blot her pale mouth. “You may leave the table,” she said.

Jennifer ignored her and reached for her glass of tea.

“Why, you
little…
” Regina's nostrils flared.

On her way out to the door, Jennifer leaned over Regina's plate and spit a mouthful of tea.

“I'm telling your father. He'll ground you for a year,” Regina said in a choked voice.

“You aren't my boss,” Jennifer said. Then, in a faint whisper, she added: “Vagina breath.”

“Claude?
Claude?
” Regina cried. “Take her back to your mother's
right now!
”

“Go ahead, tattletale,” said Jennifer. “But I'll be here long after you're gone.”