Connecting Dots Read online

  I thought of Mabel grunting to pull up her girdle – I didn’t mean to snoop, but the door was open a crack one day – and she looked awful hot and sweaty. I didn’t know how anybody so tightly squished could loosen up.

  I had a tough three weeks, keeping the secret. So many times I wanted to tell Mabel and Fred I knew something they didn’t, to make them mad, I think. But even more than that, I didn’t want to let Lana down.

  We were eating something Mabel called stew when the doorbell rang. And rang and rang and rang. Mabel and Fred looked annoyed, then angry as they tried to ignore it.

  “Just a salesman,” Fred declared. “He can ring till his finger falls off.”

  But whoever it was seemed happy to ring off all his fingers and finally they both got up to give whoever it was a piece of their minds. I used the moment to flush the stew down the toilet.

  But in a flash I knew who it must be! I ran to see Liz in person.

  She was hugging her mom, who seemed frozen and couldn’t even manage to bring her arms up around her only daughter. Fred kept muttering, “Well. Well, I’ll be. Well, I’ll be.”

  I’ll be what? I wanted to scream.

  Then Mabel. “And you couldn’t give a body some notice? Was your finger so broken you couldn’t use the telephone? Well don’t blame me if your room is filled with the dust of two years.”

  Liz just laughed out loud at them both. But I knew what a liar Mabel was – she dusted and cleaned Liz’s room every other week. And I was about to say so, too, but then Liz saw me and stared.

  “Oh, my. Oh, my stars. It’s her. You’re the spittin’ image. Lana warned me but…oh, my.” And she put a hand up to her eyes for a moment, before reaching out to pull me close.

  She smelled wonderful and glamorous with a perfume that bowled me over. The fur trim on her jacket tickled my nose and the cold air trapped in the fur brought something fresh into the stale air of that awful house. She took off her hat – really a bow on a band – and placed it on my head.

  “We’re going to have fun,” she promised.

  Chapter Ten

  I remember coming home that last day of school before the holidays and smelling…cookies! Mabel never made cookies and Grandma hadn’t for a long time.

  Liz was in the kitchen dancing to music blaring from a small radio. She handed me a bowl and spoon and I took over dropping mounds of dough onto a cookie sheet. I scooped a glob into my mouth – oatmeal and raisins and coconut and pecans. Liz patted each one down with a fork and sprinkled miniature gumdrops on top.

  “Grandma called these Gems,” I told her happily. Somehow I felt thrilled we had this connection between us, even if it was just a recipe.

  Of course, I was in love with her – Liz. Her dark hair and hazel eyes. Her tight pants and tighter sweaters and her string of pearls. Her shoes with “kitten” heels, she called them. The way she walked – shoulders back and bosoms out and her behind shifting side to side with each step. I had been practicing all week, but I knew I didn’t look like her at all. Plus it was hard to see what I looked like from the back holding Grandma’s hand mirror.

  A song came on, a man singing about twisting. “Let’s twist again,” he begged, and Liz put down the bowl and grabbed my hands and spun me side to side like the wringer washing machine. Then we were down to the floor and up and down and Liz was laughing out loud and singing “like we did last summer,” and I thought I might wet my pants I was laughing so hard.

  The door smashed open and Mabel stood there in her coat, her chest heaving and her mouth pinched. She fumbled at the radio dial, but she grabbed the volume by mistake, and the song got louder, and so she gave up and yanked the cord out of the plug.

  “In this house,” she began, “in this house, my house, I’ll thank you to remember – ”

  Liz cut her off. “Oh, I remember, all right. I remember everything.” She picked up the cord. “I’m twenty-six years old. I’m home for a visit. It’s Christmas. And you won’t treat me like a child.” She plugged the radio back in, but she turned down the volume.

  Mabel stood there, not moving. I watched her, fascinated, even at seven wondering at the hate pouring out of her. Later that night, I imitated her face, trying to get it right, studying myself in the mirror.

  Liz smiled then. “Come on, Mom. Loosen up.” She held out a plate. “Have a cookie, for Pete’s sake.”

  All Mabel loosened was her top button, but she did take a cookie. Then she marched out of the kitchen.

  Liz winked at me, and when the silliest song came on, “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?” both of us laughed out loud again.

  I had no idea what was going on. When I was older, I heard someone say “you could cut the tension in the air with a knife,” and I remembered Liz’s visit home.

  I pulled my decoration out of my schoolbag – dozens of red and green strips of paper looped together. Liz said we had to hang it up.

  “Fred won’t let us. Fred said no decorations. No nails or tape or – ”

  It was like waving a red flag at a bull. I saw the glee on Liz’s face as she found the tape in the drawer and grabbed the step stool. I followed her into the living room and watched as she taped the garland to two walls, stringing it in front of the window.

  Mabel watched us. “When your father gets home…”

  Liz seemed determined not to let Mabel finish a sentence. “When Pops gets home, he can lump it.” Then she looked around. “Where are we putting the tree?”

  My heart leaped up! A tree! Mabel and Fred told me they wouldn’t have any truck with any tree – real or fake.

  Liz and I went to the church a block away and bought a tree from the Boy Scouts of Canada. We dragged it home through the snow, but we stopped at a hardware store to buy a stand first.

  “We’d better get a string of lights and this box of ornaments, too,” Liz said. “You can bet ol’ Mabel and Fred won’t have anything!”

  I giggled. I loved the way she called her parents ol’ Mabel and Fred.

  We had the tree decorated before Fred got home, looking at us like we were thieves who’d broken in. Liz was flipping through a magazine and we were both eating cookies. I secretly rejoiced every time I saw a crumb fall on Mabel’s floor. I crossed my legs the way Liz did and let my shoe dangle from my left foot like she did. This was how the Hollywood stars lived, I was sure.

  But Fred didn’t say anything about the tree. He glanced at it and then ignored it.

  Liz went out most nights. Sometimes she walked, and sometimes we’d hear a honk and she’d go running out to a car. And when she left, it was like this big empty hole was left behind. I’d go to my room and read or color or do anything to avoid sitting in the front room with Mabel and Fred.

  Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock.

  But when Liz was home, or when Lana came and they took me out, I felt like the luckiest girl alive! They found me an old pair of skates and we went to an outdoor rink. They played music, and was there ever anything as magical as skating at night, under the lights, listening to “Take Good Care of My Baby” and “Runaround Sue”? They took me to see a movie – 101 Dalmatians. They took me to see the windows at Eaton’s and Simpson’s. And Liz said, “We have to do something about your hair.”

  Mabel brushed my hair every day and yanked it into a braid down my back. It was so tight my scalp ached. Liz undid the braid and then began combing my hair the wrong way – from the ends to my head. Soon I had this fluff of red around my head like I’d stuck a finger in a socket. Then she smoothed some hair over the top and I had this big…kind of like a bowling ball on my head. She put a bow in it and said “Like it? It’s called a beehive. Everyone in California wears it.”

  I loved it! I ran for Grandma’s mirror and spent all night looking at myself this way and that.

  Liz and Lana decided both families should eat Chr
istmas dinner together. I heard Lana whisper, “That way I might be able to stand it!”

  Mabel did her usual grumping. She didn’t want to have a crowd in her house.

  “Ma – it’s your sister!”

  And she didn’t want to pull out the table and get out extra chairs and dust off the fancy plates and cook more than usual. And Fred complained about all the wasted money.

  Liz ignored them and then Lana came over and I went shopping for groceries with them and they let me help cook.

  Then it was Christmas Eve and Liz and Lana and some of their friends came and we all went to a church service. And there were candles and choirs singing and much to my surprise, there were kids my age acting out the nativity scene and talking out loud in church. How I envied them! Why didn’t I know about this? Something rose up in my heart and I desperately wanted to be at the front, wanted to be the girl in the white angel costume with a halo tied in her hair. “Fear not! Glad tidings I bring to you….”

  I went to bed that night, not with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head, but with thoughts of becoming a famous actress one day. I had one of Liz’s magazines. Photos of Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth and Elizabeth Taylor, who was a movie star when she was twelve. And I ripped out a picture of someone with a beehive so I could do it myself when Liz went away.

  Because of course she would.

  Chapter Eleven

  Fred put his foot down when it came to hanging stockings from the mantel. But there were some presents under the tree. I couldn’t believe there were four for me!

  Liz took her time waking up, and she seemed a little unsteady on her feet. I noticed she had some mascara under her eyes, and her breath smelled funny when she hugged me. She wore a silky wrap that crossed in a V and it kept slipping open over her chest. I stole peeks at her tanned bosom and the little gold chain that hung there. This was glamor.

  Mabel glared, her mouth pinched. “This is the Lord’s birthday and I’ll thank you to dress decently.”

  Liz yawned.

  Mabel knit me a sweater as a present. I was shocked because she told me many times living with them was gift enough. I pulled it on over my head and saw the sleeves were too short.

  “You’ll have to add length,” Liz said.

  “I’ll do no such thing. It’s not my fault her arms are too long. Why, she’s like a monkey with those arms!”

  (Being called a monkey really hurt. A boy at school called me a monkey because I had hairy arms. So I shaved them. With Fred’s razor. Mabel had a fit.)

  Liz gave me a book about a girl called Nancy Drew and a new outfit for my Barbie and then…in the last box was a Ken doll! Barbie’s boyfriend!

  “It’s just out,” Liz said. “I went to three Sears Roebucks to get it and still had to line up.”

  “I love it!” I ran to my room and got Barbie and then I introduced her to Ken and made them kiss. Fred banged his fists down on the table and was up and across the room, grabbing Ken out of my hands.

  “No!” he yelled. “None of that in this house!” He held Ken up over his head.

  “Dad! Knock it off. You’re being absolutely Victorian!”

  Liz, Fred, and Mabel shouted about all kinds of things I didn’t understand. I took Barbie and Nancy Drew and went to my room. Even the hot dog was better for the moment. I started reading Nancy Drew.

  Liz knocked on my door – with Ken – and told me she needed my help in the kitchen. We put on music but Liz wasn’t happy and hardly talked to me.

  The others came and Dick opened a bottle of sherry. Even ol’ Mabel and Fred and Hazel and Ernie had some. I snuck a bit and it was very sweet. We sat down, and Lana made us wear paper hats.

  Dick carved the turkey and after only one bite I offered up my prayers of thanks. Delicious! Just like Grandma’s dinners. And there were real vegetables and gravy.

  Mabel complained. “Don’t know why peas in the can aren’t good enough for you. They’re good enough for us.”

  “No they’re not,” I said. “They’re awful!”

  Lana hurried in to praise Mabel for her mashed potatoes. “Not one lump, Auntie!”

  (Well, of course not. Earlier, I had watched Mabel whack the life out of those potatoes with the masher.)

  But somehow, the dinner went wrong. No matter what anyone talked about, Fred and Mabel complained, and Hazel and Ernie joined in. The blow-up came when Liz talked about someone called JFK and how wonderful he was and how fashionable his wife was and how lucky she felt living in California.

  Fred pushed back his chair and said, “That’s enough. You think you can come waltzing back in here after the shame you put us through. You think you can talk nonsense about politics and movie stars and I don’t know what all. But the day Americans voted in a Catholic president was a sad and terrible disgrace, and we won’t talk about it in this house! Do I make myself clear?” And he stared at all of us.

  Dick said, “Hey wait just a minute, buddy. You can’t tell us what to think or do or say. Kennedy is doing a great job, and furthermore – ”

  “Get out! Get out now, the lot of you. I’ll not have anyone eating at my table who thinks a Catholic president is a good thing.”

  There was silence, I remember that. And then Liz stood up. I thought she was going to shout, but she didn’t. She was real quiet when she spoke. “I’ll leave. I’ll leave now, tonight. I’m glad I left two years ago. I’m not ashamed of who I am. And I’m glad I came back. It wasn’t a misunderstanding back then, and now I know it for sure. You are dreadful people. Dreadful. And you can stick all your ignorant Irish prejudice right up your Blarney Stone!” She pushed back her chair and got up from the table, and then she said, “And you should be ashamed of your hypocrisy. You don’t, any of you, go to church. Any church.” She shoved in her chair and left.

  Lana ran after her, and Dick sat at the table. He pulled his flask out of his pocket and poured it into his ginger ale. The others didn’t notice. They were staring at their plates.

  I crept away and went to Liz. She was putting clothes into a suitcase and was still so calm. Lana was crying.

  Liz paused in her packing. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I really am. I meant to stay for a few weeks. I meant to talk to you about…well…things. But I can’t. I can’t bear to be in this house one more day. I ran away before. I had to. They wouldn’t let me be, wouldn’t let me live my life. I had a boyfriend once and they…they acted as if I was a prostitute. They said the ugliest things. He was Italian and when they found out, well!” She looked at Lana and they smiled at each other. “They come from a dark and ugly place. The world is changing, Cassie. People like me want to let go of old ideas and prejudices, and people like my folks want to cling to a past of remembered insults and hate. It’s what they live for.”

  I couldn’t stand it. “Take me with you.”

  “Oh, honey. I wish I could. But I can’t just take a minor across the border. There’s so much paperwork and legal…”

  She saw the expression on my face and took pity. “But you could come visit…. Maybe this summer. I’ll see to it, I promise.” She looked at Lana. “Maybe you could come, too. Bring Cassie with you. You’d love San Francisco. So much is happening there.”

  There was a pause and a look went between them and then Lana said, “Sure! That’s a great idea. How ’bout it, Cass? You and me on a road trip?”

  I knew a cue when I heard one. “You bet!” I said, knowing that it wouldn’t ever come true.

  Chapter Twelve

  Liz left Christmas night. She hugged me. She said she wouldn’t forget me. She said she wanted to tell me about Rita. She said, “No matter what you hear, don’t listen to them. Promise?”

  I promised, but what I promised wasn’t clear.

  Dick and Lana went with Liz. Fred pulled down the tree and threw it outside, lights and all. Mabel banged about in the kitchen. I stay
ed in my room and wished, like Nancy Drew, I could escape in my roadster and take off after crooks.

  In the morning I saw my garland hanging out of the garbage can, red and green dye on the snow.

  I would not have believed life could get worse. But after the thrill of Liz, everything seemed awful. Mabel and Fred barely spoke to each other, let alone me. One day I realized Mabel was sleeping in Liz’s room and not with Fred. One night I was sure I heard her crying.

  I didn’t want her in Liz’s room. She didn’t belong there. And I wanted it for myself.

  I stole again. Bits of lunch like before, but sometimes books or toys or pieces of clothing. This time I was careful to stick one or two items into other kids’ pockets. What a thrill when some poor fool got caught. Mrs. Lane gave me a funny look sometimes, but I just stared right back. Innocent.

  No one remembered my birthday, March 16. So I stole a Twinkie from Patsy and I stole a Nancy Drew book from Sandy.

  After school, I snuck into Liz’s room and took a frilly nightgown from her drawer. I didn’t write steal because I was sure Liz wouldn’t mind. Then I had a party for myself in my room and ate my Twinkie with Rita and Grandma watching me.

  One night Fred didn’t come home for supper. He wasn’t home when I went to bed. Fred never did come home again. The police found him in a ditch not too far away. Dead. His car was crashed up. They think he had a heart attack and swerved.

  This time I got to go to the funeral. It was very small and I didn’t know anyone except for family. There were other family members there, but I didn’t know them. They stared at me, and I stared right back. Liz didn’t come home. She sent flowers, but I saw Mabel take them from the stand by the casket and bring them home. I thought she was being sentimental, but later I found the vase smashed in the garage and the flowers – yellow daisies – thrown on the compost heap at the back of the yard. I picked one daisy that wasn’t crumpled and placed it between the pages of Nancy Drew.