The Shortest Distance Between Two Women (31 page)

“Steph—is there any other reason that you want to be in this pageant?”

“It gets me out of the house, which is something I need to talk to both of you about later, and I just feel compelled to address this notion of beauty and talent,” Stephie explains. “If you don’t sing, twirl a baton, play an instrument or flip a flag around your head you are not considered talented. And that—pardon me—is just a crock
of bullshit
.”

“Honey, you better not swear on stage,” Grandma advises. “Just get it out of your system here.”

“What are you going to do for the talent portion of this, considering I have never seen a baton anywhere near you and you stopped playing the flute about three years ago?” Emma wants to know as she leans in just as close to Stephie as Marty has.

“Does this mean you are
in?
” Stephie repeats.

“I was in before this conversation started, smarty-pants, so just
answer the question because now we have like less than forty-nine minutes to do this.”

And this is where Stephie
really
needs Emma’s help.

She wants to set up a kind of poetry slam for her part of the talent competition like the poetry slam they both attended when Marty was winging her way to the island with Robert, when Stephie and Emma were in Charleston.

“What in the Lord’s sweet name is a poetry slam?” Marty asks.

Now it is Emma and Stephie who are just two inches apart. In this short distance Emma can see the light in Stephie’s eyes, how much her niece wants to do this, how much she needs to do this. She holds out her hand, palm up, to give Stephie the “go ahead and explain it” signal.

“Poetry,” explains Stephie, “is the poor person’s form of wonderful literature. No one makes money at it but yet it is the most soulful and beautiful form of the literary world. This poetry slam stuff has been around since 1986, when a guy in Chicago started it. Now there’s this place called the Green Mill Jazz Club that’s like a mecca and I
so
want to go there someday.”

Stephie goes on as if she is in a trance. She has hosted slams at her school that have themes, started a Poetry Club on campus, and even competed herself all over the district, which includes five Southern states, as part of the high school forensics team. She explains how some poets and performers use dancing and music to highlight the poems and how she chooses to just stand still and let the poems create their magic.

“I love to do poetry at night when it’s dark outside and no one can see me and all they can do is focus on the words,” Stephie shares. “It’s beyond beautiful and a real tribute to the authors of the poems.”

“What?” Marty screams back.

“We’ll dim the lights before Stephie comes out in her prom dress. She can do her poem in the dark. And then she can walk off and as she walks off the stage there will just be the poem written out on a large piece of paper that the light shines on,” Emma says triumphantly.

“Oh, holy shit, Auntie Em, that is
like perfect!”
Stephie agrees, jumping up to hug Emma.

And then Stephie needs the damn prom dress and the three of them run into the house and then into the garage where Marty swears she has packed away not just every prom dress but every other thing that she is dying to burn or get rid of and they find not just one but seven dresses.

Some are Debra’s, Erika’s and Joy’s old dresses and each one is absolutely more hideous and lace-choked than the next.

It takes Stephie about three seconds to decide on the lime green dress that Emma wore to senior prom so long ago Emma is impressed that it is still in one piece. Three seconds to know that she will slit the sides, take it in a little, embellish it with everything from shoelaces to papier-mâché, lower the neckline, and wear it as if she had purchased it in Paris.

“Oh! Auntie Em, thank you for this,” Stephie whispers into Emma’s ear. “I so want to show my parents I am worth something and to make up for my mistakes.”

And as Stephie dashes to her car, and to her pageant meeting, Emma and Marty are left on the sidewalk feeling as if they have been run over by a herd of wild boars that have just spotted their first open water after their own long overdue long haul.

Emma and Marty stand there in silence as Stephie’s car turns the corner on two wheels and they see her pick up her cell phone,
roll down the window, and look at herself in the mirror all at the same time.

And without acknowledging it they both imagine what this beauty pageant-poetry slam will be like and how it will most likely forever change the face of Higgins and the Gilford family history and who knows what in the hell else along the way. They are both smiling as they think about this, and both less than two inches apart, and they both lean in towards each other so there is absolutely no space between them as Stephie’s car disappears like a firefly that has just met the darkness and turned off its light.

“You have to let them do what they want to do, I guess,” Emma says with a happy sigh.

Marty turns so slowly it is almost imperceptible but when she does her lovely gray hair falls across Emma’s upper arms and Emma can feel her soft breath against her face when she speaks.

“And what do
you
want to do, sweet Emma?”

“I’m working on it, Mother. Stay tuned,” she answers just as a real firefly scoots by and winks at them both.

What Emma still does not know is that she is not the only one working on her happiness and trying to resurrect lost dreams, old formal dresses, and a life that seems to have stopped the second the band stopped playing at her final high school prom.

Her other two sisters laugh and the echo of their laughter beats them into the backyard where they all discover their baby sister standing with her hands on her hips, legs braced, and a very wide smile on her face.

“Oh my God, you
were
stuck in the toilet and it was when Mother was trying to potty-train you and for some insane reason you went back really far on the seat thingie and you sat there for a really long time,” Debra retorts as she gives Emma a hug.

“Didn’t I cry?” Emma wants to know.

“Cry? You?” Erika snorts. “You
were perfect
. You just sat and waited for someone to come along and rescue you. I think you’d still be there if Mom hadn’t needed to pee.”

“You were probably sitting there and designing gardens,” Joy pipes in, laughing. “You were just the cutest, most perfect little thing that ever lived.”

All three of her siblings line up in front of her and then Susie Dell comes whistling up the sidewalk to join them and Emma has a quick moment to regret what is about to happen. She sees Joy, Erika, Debra and Susie Dell as potential members of a firing squad who are about to throw one horrid childhood story after another at her until she drops to the ground and surrenders.
What in the holy hell have I done?

Emma had bravely called each one of her sisters and Susie Dell and invited them over to her house for the evening and then brazenly suggested they leave their weapons in the car for one night just in case one of them felt compelled to act on their wild sisterly impulses.

Her backyard party idea was met with a variety of sisterly reactions that should have tipped Emma off to a night of potential debauchery, lies and bravado. But it surely did not tip her off to what really might happen.

“You mean not yell or scream about the way Debra always left her fingernail polish bottle open?” Joy had asked.

“Does this mean I have to forget about the time Joy put plastic wrap on the toilet seat?” Debra had teased.

“What, sit and listen to
more
Gilford family stories?” Susie Dell had wailed with a laugh.

“Yes,” Emma had told each one of them firmly, not sounding as scared as she felt. And she was still not sure what would happen until she heard their voices sounding light and friendly as they enter her yard. “Welcome to the first ever Marathon Moment of Possible Salvation, where each and every one of you gets a chance to spill your guts, fill in the blanks and tell it just like it is.”

“Like
that
never happens,” Debra laughs.

“Thanks for having us over like this, and by the way, this is a fabulous break before the last-minute reunion mania,” Erika adds. “Is there a special announcement? Or do you just want to get us liquored up so you can make fun of us and then tell us all to fuck off again?”

“The latter, if things go my way,” Emma only half-jokingly admits. “And really, can you even remember the last time we were alone, just us kids? And not in the middle of some family function, tragedy, yelling match or drunken brawl?”

“Oh no,” Joy moans. “And I was
so
hoping for a combination of all of those this evening.”

What Emma really wants to do first but can’t is to share the conversation she had with brother-in-law Rick, the bastardly heathen. He’d shown up unexpectedly at her house just an hour before her sisters were scheduled to come over for the bonding-and-forgiveness party of the decade. Emma had all she could do to keep herself from slamming his head under the garage door until he started to talk, and then she listened and didn’t interrupt once.

His conversation must for now remain secret, because Joy
would freak and ruin everything. Rick was there, he admitted, because he needed help to deal with Joy who has a drinking problem. Not just a little swigging-down-mimosas-with-Debra-at-Sunday-brunch drinking problem, but a blacking-out-in-the-kitchen, hiding-bottles-all-over-the-house, burning-the-rug, sleeping-untilmidafternoon-and-then-starting-it-all-over-again drinking problem.

“My God,” Emma had whispered, almost unable to speak because of his revelation.
It’s Debra
, she thinks.
Debra who has the problem. Not Joy
.

And then when she thought about it Emma realized that she should not be shocked by this news, considering Joy’s behavior at every family gathering, reports from Stephie, which Emma now realizes were totally underinflated, and the now obvious fact that Bo and Riley never want to be home either.

Rick had recited a litany that included attempts at counseling, visits to the doctor, one failed try to get Joy to an AA meeting, and everything from screaming and hollering to begging and then, finally, walking away. Or, in his case, running away.

Suddenly Emma saw everything. The way Joy’s habits started changing drastically several years ago. How she always brought extra drinks with her to every party. How her sons started getting more and more quiet every year. And the most horrid, terrible thing of all—Stephie coming over to her house all of the time and wanting to stay there and be with her so often.

And because Debra also loved to drink and was usually louder and more obnoxious, it had always seemed as if Debra had more of a problem. No, Rick had said, shaking his head. Debra just drinks to let off steam, to celebrate. Half the time she drinks to just piss us all off. She just wants us to think she drinks all of the time so she has an excuse to tell us all off because, truth be told, Debra’s not the happiest camper in the tent.