The Dispensable Man

The Life and Adventures of Gillian McKenna

“Not to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.” -Spinoza

Part Two: Transitions

11

Gillian and Erin Baxter became friends when Erin transferred to West Jefferson High late in the semester. Erin was quiet, studious, unprepossessing, unassuming. She wound up in Gillian’s English class, where together they set the curve and took turns mopping up whenever there was an essay contest or a spelling bee. They were despised by the other girls, which was just fine by Gillian and Erin, and thus their friendship was solidified. 

Erin had come along not a moment too soon. She didn’t live far away, and Gillian spent as much time as possible at the Baxter home while her own parents cursed one another. The Baxter’s were well to do and they liked Gillian. If she went along when Mrs. Baxter took Erin shopping, she ended up with a mini-skirt or blouse of her own. Erin always brought enough money for the both of them to buy snacks at school. To Gillian, the Baxter household was a wonderful enigma. Mr. Baxter was a somewhat renowned physics professor at Tulane University. Mrs. Baxter, who was always at home, read tarot cards, operated a ouija board, and burned incense and black candles practicing magic.  Gillian heard a rumor in the neighborhood that Mrs. Baxter had torched someone’s house with one of her spells, but she didn’t believe it because Mrs. Baxter was so sweet and friendly and always in a good mood. Gillian witnessed magic of another sort when she and Erin occasionally walked in to see Mr. and Mrs. Baxter holding each other tightly and kissing. She had never seen her own parents so much as touch each other. Gillian once asked Erin in unalloyed, dumbfounded seriousness if she was sure her parents were married.

“Of course they are, silly,” Erin replied.

Gillian shook her head slowly. “That is so bizarre.”

“It’s bizarre that you would even ask,” said Erin.

Whenever the girls went into Erin’s room, Gillian made sure to reach out and touch a pair of pink ballet shoes that hung on the closet door. The phenomenon in which the presence of two otherwise unconnected individuals reveals a hidden capacity in a third occurs much more frequently in relationships than people suppose. Erin was half of one such dyad in Gillian’s life, as represented by the ballet shoes.

The other half was Gillian’s paternal grandmother, Louise McKenna.  When in her grandmother’s presence, Gillian was comforted by the fact that she was a girl, because Gramma Lou made no secret of her contempt for males. A mother of three girls and two boys, she believed that disparity begins at home, and there she practiced her misandry actively and with fervor. Her aspirations for Betty, Faye, and Melissa were profoundly unimaginative but specific: they would marry doctors or lawyers and become famous. To these ends, she utilized every available dollar to provide them with piano and voice lessons, clothes, shoes, make-up, plus whatever trappings were necessary to bring them out as New Orleans debutantes. The role of the two valueless boys was to assist in making all this happen. Arnold Jr, Gillian’s father, and his brother DW were responsible for all of the household chores while the girls primped, tried on new clothes, and practiced their scales. As soon as the boys were old enough to work, all of their earnings went to the aforementioned lessons and wardrobe for the girls. 

Over time, Gillian was able to glean that it wasn’t simply a case of Gramma Lou taking a stronger interest in the activities of girls than of boys. If Arnold Jr. or DW whined or complained about having to do all of the work around the house, Arnold Sr., with a nod from his wife, would beat them with a belt buckle until they bled. The same punishment was meted out if the boys spent one penny of their salary before bringing it home to Lou. She wasn’t an affectionate woman to begin with, but from her the boys never knew an embrace or any but harsh words. Gillian learned this in bits and pieces from various family members, but in later years she did hear, from her reticent father, one or two details. Arnold Sr., who worked as a policeman, came home every night slobbering drunk and all too ready to wield the belt, after which DW and Arnold Jr. would cower under the bed, knowing there would be no consolation from their mother. Gillian also saw the scars on her father’s back. 

Gramma Lou was into the performing arts. She played the piano, and her own keyboard excursions into dixieland jazz might’ve earned a nod of approval from Jelly Roll himself. Later in life she joined an all female ragtime band. She took Gillian to see the Nutcracker at Christmas time and liked to say that she instilled in her granddaughter a love of the ballet. This was an outright lie, as Gramma Lou instilled nothing. The instant Gillian laid eyes on the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cohorts they proceeded to bowl her over, knock her socks off, and cause such strange and wonderful stirrings that she found it difficult to breathe.  Because she didn’t yet know the words to describe the experience, she was utterly defenseless, waylaid by graceful, sensual, erotic beauty and gripped by unattainable desire and longing: she wanted look like that, to move like that, to soar through the air like that. She couldn’t help but reach out and touch Erin’s ballet shoes because in doing so she touched something deep inside herself she both treasured and feared.

The first time Erin took notice of her friend’s fascination with the pink shoes hanging on the hook, she said, “Why don’t you come to ballet with me?”

Gillian quickly sat on the bed to keep from falling down. “What?” she said.

“I said, why don’t you come to ballet class with me?”

“How can I come to ballet class with you? I can’t be in ballet with you. How can you be in ballet? Don’t you have to go to New York to be in ballet?”

“No, they have it here, too.”

“They have it here too…. they have it here too?”

“Sure. You can ride with me to lessons.” 

“But how do I do it?”

“You just sign up.”

Gillian steeled herself for the inevitable battle, resigned not to give in. Her mother hit the ceiling when she learned that Erin, whom she considered “a rich little bitch with an attitude,” had introduced her daughter to the idea of ballet lessons, which cost a whopping ten dollars per month, and declared that it was out of the question. When Gillian argued that Gramma Lou said she had a real appreciation for the ballet, Emily shot back that she should ask Gramma Lou to pay for the lessons. Gillian did just that, and her grandmother ponied up for six months of classes. Emily was stunned, but when she learned that the requisite tights, body suits, and toe shoes came to almost fifty dollars, she triumphantly declared them out of the question.  She forbade Gillian to ask her grandmother for any more money and considered the matter settled, but when Gillian joyously informed her that Mrs. Baxter would buy her ballet attire, Emily, speechless, surrendered. 

Her parents’ marriage continued to decay by fits and starts, but Gillian hardly noticed. She took to ballet like a swan to water, all else receding into the background behind leg lifts, arabesques, and pirouettes. When she began bringing home Ds and Fs from school, Emily threatened to yank her from dance class. The threat was empty and Gillian knew it; both of her parents were far too preoccupied with marital combat to follow through with anything. 

One day, on a fiendish whim, Emily took a cab to the jewelry store on Canal Street where Arnold worked. At the moment she walked in she found Gloria, the cute secretary Arnold had once driven home, leaning over him from behind, her breasts pressed against his back. In the days that followed, Emily made much ado about the breasts on the back, which somehow failed, for better or worse, to bring the marriage to a close. Arnold and Emily remained locked in misery and Gillian’s grades hit bottom and stayed there, but none of it mattered. Every week, it seemed, she came closer to achieving the power of flight. 

The large dance studio where Gillian and Erin attended classes had been gearing up for their own performance of The Nutcracker since mid Fall. The owner, Monique, had been in her younger days a senior soloist with the Paris Opera Ballet. She was tall, slender, beautiful, and spoke with a heavy French accent. As Christmas approached, when Gillian had been in lessons for about four months, the studio received a distinguished visitor.  He was introduced as Andrei, a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet. The renowned Moscow based company was in town for their performance of the Nutracker at the Saenger-Orleans Theater. To Gillian, Andrei was another species of man altogether. He had blond hair and a commanding presence, and his massive, astonishingly muscled legs looked as though they could propel him over tall buildings in a single bound. He and Monique went way back, and he popped in several times at her studio to visit and help her scope out potential talent. All of the girls watched surreptitiously, as they went through their exercises, whenever he and Monique stood to the side observing class. More than once Monique motioned him over and the two stood looking in Gillian’s direction. Andrei’s expression gave away nothing, for which Gillian was grateful. Whenever she found herself in his line of sight, Monique was leaning close, talking in his ear, while Andrei stood stone faced with his muscular arms folded, shaking his head. 

On the day the students were to receive their roles for The Nutcracker, Erin and Gillian arrived early. Monique waved Erin into her office first. Gillian watched through the glass and felt elated when the grin spread across her friend’s face, indicating she had earned a role that pleased her. Erin bounced out of the chair and held open the office door, but when Gillian entered, Monique’s expression turned serious. 

“‘Ow are yeu today, mon cheri?” Monique asked as her student sat tentatively on the edge of the chair.

“Fine, thank you.” 

Monique nodded. She folded her hands on her desk and frowned for a long time. Gillian looked at the floor, awaiting what was obviously disappointing news. 

The instructor took a breath and spoke. “I want yeu to dance Clara, the lead role.”  

Gillian glanced around, half suspecting Monique was talking to someone else in the room. “Really? Me?”

“Oh yes,” Monique said. “Yeu are best choice absolutely.”   She picked up a sheet of paper, turned it around, and placed it across the desk. Gillian leaned forward and tried to make sense of the lines as Monique continued apologetically. “Gillian, I wish eet ware not zees way.”  

Gillian, finally comprehending the contents of the page Monique had given her, danced that afternoon with a mixture of happiness and despair. On the ride home with Erin and her mother, she kept the piece of paper hidden. Erin became put out with her because she refused, at first, to disclose what part she had been given. When she finally pulled it out of her, Erin was delighted that her friend had landed the role of Clara. Gillian basked in the accolades Erin and her mother lavished on her all the way home, which felt good but not wholly for the reason she expected. Erin was genuinely proud of her, without the slightest trace of envy. She was a true friend.

At home, Gillian told her mother she’d been chosen for the lead role, then with resignation handed over the sheet of paper. 

Emily read it quickly and immediately handed it back. “Forget it, missy. She’s outta her god damned mind. Is she nuts?”

The page was a price list of items Gillian would need for the role of Clara. She danced in three major scenes, requiring three different costumes. The list included hiring a hairdresser, makeup artist, the cost of accessories and toe shoes. The total came to a little over three hundred dollars. 

“There’s no way in hell we can afford that kind of luxury,” Emily went on. “People like us don’t buy expensive costumes. You’ll have to pass this ‘honor’ along to someone else.”

Gillian called her gramma Lou, who said she wasn’t able to put up that kind of money, either.  The role was passed to a girl who attended classes on another day of the week. When Gillian told Erin, they sat down and cried about it together, Erin every bit as heartbroken as she was. Gillian was cast as a dancing girl in the ballroom after Monique dug up one such period costume that fit her. Gillian was disheartened but still dancing, which is the only thing that mattered in the long run. 

By the time school ended at Christmas break she had failed most of her classes for the semester, but this, like everything else not ballet, barely registered in her consciousness. She was vaguely aware, one evening at home, of a change in their vocabulary when her parents’ shouts came through her closed bedroom door: her mother had unwrapped her birthday present from her father; It was “a big fat lady blouse.” Her father had never before gotten her size wrong; Gloria boobs-on-the-back had been with him when he bought it, and it was she who had chosen the blouse. 

When she heard her mother yell “fuck” for the first time in her life, Gillian’s curiosity got the best of her. She walked into the living room to see Emily, who didn’t smoke or drink, kicked back in Arnold’s recliner, awkwardly holding a burning cigarette and guzzling from a bottle of bourbon. “I’m just going to be you from now on!” she shrieked at her husband. Bourbon and spittle sprayed from her mouth and her eyes bugged out of her head. It would have been comical had it not been frightening.

At the next practice, Monique again waved Gillian into her office. The instructor came quickly to the point, but the conversation still took long enough that the other girls had finished their warmup and were growing impatient. They watched Gillian use the phone on the desk to make a couple of calls, saw Monique smile and nod before the two emerged to begin the session. 

The meeting they arranged took place the very next evening at the McKenna home. Gillian’s heart began pounding earlier that afternoon and continued unabated. At seven PM Monique and Andrei arrived. Arnold was working late, fortunately, so her mother appeared relatively composed when she received the visitors. They all introduced themselves. Emily had made a pitcher of iced tea and, after the two guests settled uneasily onto the couch, she placed two glasses before them on the coffee table. She then took the chair opposite. Gillian stood near the wall and trembled. 

Monique appeared nervous. Andrei’s accent was heavy but he was clear and direct. “I dance in contract vit Bolshoi,” he said. “But I haf studio in New York City. Vee search all over de vult finding best talent for program nastavnik.”

“Excuse me?” said Emily.

Andrei turned to Monique, who translated. “Nastavnik. In English, eez ‘mentor program,’” she said.

Andrei nodded. “Vee pick vun dancer every year to come. Only vun. Vit most potential. She vill train for six veeks in summer vit best instructors.”

“Uh-huh,” Emily said. “In New York City, I take it.”

“Yes of course. At studio.” 

Emily shook her head. “I’m sorry Mr. Andrei, but we cannot afford that. We’re not a wealthy family.”

“It’s free, Mom!” Gillian blurted. “It won’t cost a thing!”

“What?” said Emily. She frowned at Andrei.

He nodded. “Nastavnik… mentor program… all paid. Room and Board. Transport. All classes, naturally.”

“I already called Gramma Lou,” Gillian said. She’ll come to New York with me on the plane. She can’t stay but she’ll make sure I’m settled in and everything’s ok.”

Emily shot a look at Gillian, unhappy her daughter had again gone behind her back to appeal to her grandmother. She turned to the visitors. “I’m sorry, it just isn’t going to work.”

Monique clasped her hands and looked at Andrei.

“Meeses Mckenna,” he continued calmly. “Gillian is born for dis, flexible and strong. She is made for prima ballerina.”

Monique interrupted and spoke excitedly to Andrei in his native language. It was one of the stranger sounds Gillian had ever heard, Russian spoken with a French accent. 

When she was finished, Andrei nodded and turned again to Emily. “In ballet vee haf five positions. All of dance come from dis five. Very difficult. Years to study. Your daughter learn in vun day.” He held up an index finger and repeated slowly, “Vun day.”

Monique looked almost beseechingly at Emily, who remained expressionless. 

“In Russian, is called odarenny chelovek,” Andrei said, then again deferred to Monique.

“Eet means Prodigy,” Monique said. She pronounced it ‘prawdeejhee.’

Gillian felt her intestines ratcheting down as she watched her mother’s face. Emily had worn a simpering smile the whole time Andrei was talking and began shaking her head the instant he finished.

“Yes, well, Gillian has always paid attention in her classes,” she said.  “Thank you both very much for coming to talk to us, but I’m afraid we simply can’t manage it.”

Andrei and Monique looked at each other. It was clear to Gillian they simply couldn’t believe their ears. Both of them came from cultures where a person would go to any lengths short of murder to afford their child this opportunity, and here was this idiot American woman refusing them for no reason. 

“Mom,” Gillian whimpered. “Mom.”

“Would you like some more tea?” Emily said to the guests.

Before her mother had closed the front door behind them, Gillian was in her room, crying violently, grieving a loss she couldn’t possibly imagine. Emily walked briskly down the hall and leaned in the doorway. “That foreign pervert was only trying to get into your pants,” she said. “I’ll not be delivering my child to him like a lamb to the slaughter.” She vanished for a moment, then stuck her head back in. “I’m sorry that you feel this way,” she said sternly through Gillian’s sobs. “But I must do what’s best for you.”

Within the week, their parents sat Gillian and Gary down and solemnly informed them that their father was moving out. Gillian burst out laughing. She laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop.

Her mother became angry. “What you’re doing right now is not very nice to your father,” she said.

“I don’t mind,” said Arnold. “She’s tired of all the yelling.”

Gary ran crying to his room. Gillian laughed hysterically. 

12

Days after her father moved into his own apartment, he began showing up at the house, asking to come home. Sitting on the side of her bed, Gillian could hear him in the front room. “I want my sweet wife back,” he would plead. “I want my family back.”   For her part, Gillian was indifferent, any feelings about her father living under the same roof completely curtained off. Curtains with little ballerinas on them.

Her mother, meanwhile, entertained the possibility of letting Arnold return. Emily worked double shifts to make expenses and keep up the house note, but it was a struggle. This also made it necessary for Gillian to be home with Gary evenings, bringing an end to dance classes altogether. But Gillian didn’t miss them, her feelings about this curtained off as well. 

The situation soon resolved itself. When Arnold showed up two hours late to retrieve Emily, Gillian, and Gary from the movies one Saturday afternoon, Emily confronted him, demanding to know if he’d forgotten because he’d been with Gloria. Arnold hung his head, and that was that. He’d never paid child support, and now he stopped helping with the house note. Emily lost the house. She and the kids moved into an apartment in Gretna. Gillian remembered how good it once made her feel, her family living in a home they owned. 

They arranged for Gillian and Gary to visit their father every other weekend. He had always been remote, but when the family was together this was just Dad being Dad. Now, alone with him in his dim, starkly furnished apartment, it was creepy. He sat smoking in his recliner as he always did, silent and withdrawn, while Gillian and Gary creaked uneasily across the wood floor like a couple of ghosts. 

Even so, this was preferable to some of their outings. On their third weekend, Arnold prepared home made vegetable soup and poured it into a large thermos, then put the kids in the car. They drove over the bridge to one of the seedier neighborhoods in New Orleans proper and parked across the railroad tracks from a grey tenement building. 

Arnold sat staring at the run down apartments while it grew dark, then turned to Gillian. 

“A good friend of mine lives there,” he said. “She’s sick, so I’m bringing her some soup.”  

“Ok,” Gillian said, but something wasn’t right. Her father remained in the car looking at the apartments. Long minutes later he turned again to his daughter. 

“I want you to slide over into the driver’s seat.”

“What?” Gillian said, but he was already out of the car and walking around to the other side.

He opened the passenger door. “Go on, slide over.”

Gillian moved behind the wheel. Gary, who’d been sitting quietly in the back, stood up and leaned over the seat to see what was going on. 

“My friend’s husband is kind of crazy,” her father said. “She is ill… but if he’s home, he might think I’m her boyfriend and shoot me.”

Gillian gasped. “Shoot you?”  

“If you hear gunshots, I need you to drive out of here as fast as you can.”

“But I can’t drive!”

“I’m going to show you. You already know how to turn the key.” He talked her though the movements. Her hands shook uncontrollably as she fumbled with the gear shift.

“Ok, you’ve got it,” her father said. “I’ll try not to be long.” He grabbed the thermos of soup and disappeared over the tracks and across the vacant dirt lot. Gillian sat frozen and terrified with a death grip on the steering wheel, her stomach churning, straining her senses into the darkness to detect gun fire. 

“Is daddy going to get shot and killed?” Gary asked more than once.

Nothing happened. Her father returned in an hour and Gillian moved into the passenger seat, nauseated and trembling with exhaustion. 

Immediately after her father left, her mother began nightclubbing with her sister Marietta, who was trying to climb out of her depression after being abandoned by her second husband. Gillian was already home with Gary weekend evenings, now she sat with him several nights of the week as well. Just as quickly, the alternate weekend visits she and Gary made to her father’s grew more and more infrequent, then few and far between.  

The one happy constant during this time was Erin and her family, who always made her feel welcome. Whenever possible they had her over for dinner and included her on family outings, like their annual excursion to City Park on the first warm Saturday when rain wasn’t imminent.  After a picnic lunch, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter gave them a time to meet up later that afternoon, then headed to the botanical gardens. The girls passed the art museum, crossed a bridge, and walked to the far side of Big Lake, where you could rent bicycles and paddle boats. A lot of teenagers hung out at the concession stand nearby. There you could grab a hamburger and wash it down with a cherry coke while playing pool or pinball. It was here you rented the bikes or paddle boats. The girls decided to try the latter. 

They walked down the path to the floating dock where the colorful tethered boats bobbed in the water. They spotted one of the attendants, identified by the pale yellow t-shirts the park employees wore. They waited as he helped a couple of girls- all three looked about the same age as Gillian and Erin- out of the bright blue boat. He was a short fellow with a medium build, wiry copper colored hair, and the accompanying freckles sprinkled on his cheeks and nose. Gillian noticed him not because of his appearance but his demeanor. The girls were attractive and somewhat flirtatious as he took their hands and helped them on deck, but he remained polite and professional. He thanked them for coming and began pulling the boat through the water toward the end of the dock.

  Gillian was about to call after him to hold the boat when she saw another of the park employees.  Her initial impression was that of a boy made out of gold. He was tall and well built, with wavy blond hair and deeply tanned arms, and his dull yellow t-shirt seemed, on his broad chest, golden. He saw them waiting at the turnstile and waved them over.

“Ok…wow.” Gillian said.

“My sentiments…” Erin mumbled. 

“Hi, I’m Don,” he smiled as the girls approached. They handed him their tickets. He examined them, frowning. “Uh… sorry,” he said. “This won’t do it.”

“That’s what we paid for at the concession stand,” Erin said.

He handed the tickets to Gillian. “Do you have a Donald Duck membership card?”

Gillian could only shake her head.

“No entry without a Donald Duck membership card,” he shrugged.

A voice called out from behind them. “Don’t tease the customers like that, mate.” It was the red-headed attendant. He stepped between Don and Gillian, reached down and grabbed the line to the nearest boat. Don took a step back as the other boy positioned himself in front of Gillian and bowed elaborately, but awkwardly. “My name, since no one cares to introduce me, is Benny Wheeler.” His efforts to be charming and droll were so far off the mark Gillian was embarrassed. Erin looked at the boy pitiably.

“Erin Baxter,” she said.

The boy nodded and again faced Gillian. “And who, may I ask, is this lovely creature? A wood nymph or perhaps a pixie?”

Erin covered her mouth with her hand. Gillian’s gaze followed Don as he turned away and walked down the dock. 

“Gillian,” she said finally. “McKenna.” She folded her arms across her stomach, fearing Benny would attempt to kiss her hand. 

“Gillian Mckenna,” he said. “May I suggest the lagoon safari tour at no extra charge? It comes complete with a guide- yours truly- who does all the leg work. You just enjoy the ride.”

Gillian looked at him, but she could see Don over his shoulder, in the distance, coiling some line. 

“Sounds great,” said Erin. She took Gillian’s hand and they stepped down into the paddle boat. 

The tour was entirely impromptu, of course. Benny worked up a considerable sweat peddling around the perimeter of Big Lake while cracking jokes about snakes and alligators, seldom pausing long enough to draw a breath. The girls expected an excruciating hour of his nervous babbling and were greatly relieved to find whole sections of his monologue to be not half bad. When they completed the circuit, Benny jumped ashore and helped the girls onto the dock. 

“You are precious,” he whispered to Gillian. “Where have you been all my life?” He kissed her on the nose. 

The boys’s shift having ended, the four of them spent another hour at the concession stand playing pinball and fooseball before the girls had to meet the Baxters at the appointed time at the car. Before parting ways they exchanged phone numbers. 

Evening fell as the girls made their way back over the bridge and past the museum. 

“‘Where have you been all my life?’” Erin cackled. “He actually said that.”

“He did,” Gillian laughed. 

“He kissed you on the nose.”

“I know, I know.”

“On the nose.”

“Leave me alone.” Enduring Benny had been worth it, though, because she had Don’s phone number and he had hers. 

13

Arnold showed up at the apartment one afternoon with a Honduran woman named Ritza Velasquez. He introduced her to Emily and Gillian as a recent immigrant who was alone and struggling. He’d met her in the coffee shop where he spent a lot of time, felt sorry for her, and hit upon the idea that she could be Emily’s live-in maid and baby-sitter. This would be a great help to both Emily and Gillian, he proposed, and would give Ritza a place to live. 

Arnold took pains to make it clear that the Honduran was not his girlfriend. Gillian, for her part, had no trouble believing it, as Ritza was the homeliest woman she had ever laid eyes on. She was almost six feet tall with broad square shoulders, a thick waist, frizzy black hair, and enormous feet. Her bony, angular face had been deeply scarred by acne. She stood with fists clenched at her sides, her body rigid, and stared at them with wild black eyes. She appeared to be terrified. 

Emily, also convinced that Arnold had no romantic intentions towards the immigrant, felt sorry for her as well, and so did Gillian until she realized that if the woman were to move into their three bedroom apartment, she would have to double up with her little brother. Before she could plead her case the decision was made.

Arnold came around a couple of times after Ritza moved in to make sure she was settled, then again made himself scarce.  Gillian did her utmost to to establish some sort of rapport with the woman but soon realized that something wasn’t quite right with her. Ritza never simply walked through a doorway into another room. She peered around the doorframe first, often for minutes at a time. Gillian would look down the hall and see crinkly black hair and one wide eye peering at her around the corner from what used to be her room. If Gillian waved, she didn’t respond, not so much as a blink. 

Ritza was a lousy maid and an unreliable baby sitter, which Gillian found to be worse than having no sitter at all. If they arranged for Ritza to look after Gary on a Saturday so she could meet Erin, the odds were good she’d find the Honduran unequal to the task, having “checked out,” lying in bed for hours staring at the ceiling or knocking herself out for extended periods with sleeping pills.  On an evening when the woman lie comatose, Gillian went into her former bedroom to search for a lost hair pin and spotted a goodly number of wadded napkins along the wall under the bed. The two she opened contained leftover dinner food. 

Gillian and her mother both found communication with Ritza to be an eerie experience. She spoke in a soft but raspy voice just above a whisper. Often her eyes would glaze over and her chiseled features would become mask-like while Emily gave instructions on what chores she wanted done that day. It was impossible to know what, if anything, was getting through to her. Emily shrugged it off, attributing the woman’s obtuseness to the language barrier since Ritza did, at odd intervals, wash a dish or two, make a bed, fold a load of clothes…just enough, Gillian suspected, to appear on the level.  

Things quickly got weirder. On a day when Emily had taken Gary to buy some shoes, Gillian was getting ready to meet up with Erin. Wrapped in a towel, she headed toward the bath. Ritza emerged from her room and, in her raspy whisper, asked Gillian if she could watch her bathe. Gillian backed away, asking why in the world would she want to do that? To see how she did it so quickly, was the answer. Gillian refused, closed and locked her door, and postponed her bath until her mother returned. She was thoroughly creeped out, to be sure, but Ritza was so strange it was possible her objective really was to sharpen her bathing technique. This was not Gillian being naive. The woman had never expressed the slightest sexual interest in her or her mother.  Furthermore, Gillian knew Ritza’s interests lay elsewhere. Several days a week Gillian could hear her in her room, often for hours at a time, crying softly and calling out her father’s name, “Arnold, Arnold, Arnold.” Her mother also heard her, but Arnold had all but vanished, so Emily shrugged this off as well. She simply didn’t know what to make of Ritza. Gillian did her best to ignore her.  

The exact moment when sex became a focal point of enmity between her and mother, Gillian couldn’t say, but it came as no surprise. Had she sat down and thought about it, which she didn’t, she would have realized her mother had always demonized, then sought to annihilate, whatever she feared. Until now, this took the form of a malignant overprotectiveness, barricading Gillian from the world and everyone in it, whether it be a stranger on a bus plotting to steal her child out of the crib or a fiendish Russian ballet dancer luring her off to six weeks of fully funded elite training with the world’s top instructors for the sole purpose of putting his penis in her vagina. Now that Gillian was herself capable of initiating the repugnant act, she became the demon. 

“Where have you been?” Emily demanded every time Gillian walked through the door.

“I was at Erin’s.”

“Who brought you home?”

“Erin’s mom. Who else?”

“Watch your mouth with me.”

…“Where have you been? Why is your face red and your hair messed up?”

“It’s windy outside!”

…“Where have you been? You have bedroom eyes. What have you been doing?”

“What the hell are bedroom eyes?”

“Watch your mouth with me!”

This line of questioning generalized to any innocuous subject Gillian broached; for someone who disdained and eschewed sex, her mother sure had it on the brain.

“Mom, I like this skirt but it’s too long. I look like a maw-maw.”

“You mean, the skirt doesn’t advertise that you’re peddling your wares.”

“No, it’s just too long.”

“…Mom, could I get an extension phone line in my room?”

“Why would you need that? What are you trying to hide?”

“Nothing. I’d just like to have a phone in my room. Erin has her own number.”

“Then her mother’s a fool.”

Usually, Emily kept her active abhorrence for all things sexual tucked safely behind the facade of conscientious parenting. Sometimes, though, it’s true face showed itself, even if it went unnoticed.  On one such occasion, Gillian and her mother were visiting Aunt Marietta and her daughter, Moira, Gillian’s cousin. The four of them sat at the small kitchen table, Marietta and Emily sipping coffee while Gillian and Moira chattered about school. “Most of the boys at my school are jerks,” said Gillian. Moira rolled her eyes and nodded. “Yeah, this guy comes up to me in the hall yesterday, totally without warning, and kisses me. Some kid in my math class.”

Marietta, sitting on her daughter’s left, backhanded her across the mouth with such force it snapped the girl’s head back. Moira pressed both palms to her mouth. A spot of blood appeared between her fingers, and tears poured from her eyes. For a moment no one moved or spoke. Gillian had emitted a shriek of surprise when her aunt struck Moira, and she searched the adults’ faces for some sort of explanation as to what just occurred. She saw her mother and her aunt both glaring at Moira with identical livid expressions of anger and outrage. Moira, after her head stopped spinning, ran to her room. Ordinarily, Her mother didn’t like it when her sister beat up on Moira and would fuss at her to knock it off. Her silence this time was chilling.  

Gillian had always spent as much time at Erin’s as she could, but ever since that Saturday at City Park, she wanted to be home in case Don called. In fact it was Benny who called her first, early the following Monday evening. Gillian hoped he didn’t hear the disappointment in her voice. She was as nice and polite as she could be, given that she was hoping to hang up and free the line as quickly as possible in case Don called. This proved difficult. Benny kept her on the line by endlessly asking trivial questions. What did she like to do, what kind of music did she listen to, who were her favorite movie stars? Gillian kept her answers brief. 

He called again on Tuesday, same routine, desperately grasping at anything to keep the conversation going, even resorting to “what’s your favorite color” and the dreaded, “how was your day?”  Finally, on Wednesday, Don called. 

“Hi, it’s me,” he said. 

“Hi Don!” The excitement in her voice was all too apparent. “How are you?”

“I’m good. Busy. Been filling out a lot of college aps lately.”

“College, wow, that’s great. What are you going to study?”

“Engineering. Probably. Probably some kind of engineering.”

“That’s cool. That’s very cool.”

“Yeah.”

The extension sat beside a lamp on a tiny table in the hallway. With her mother at work, Ritza either AWOL or comatose in her bedroom, and Gary in front of the television, Gillian sat on the floor beside the table inside the dim circle of light and talked for hours. Benny called every day, which worked out well in the long run. He would listen to anything she said, so she could vent about the latest craziness perpetrated by Ritza or her mother. Don, not much of a talker anyway, had little patience for household drama. He seldom called, and when he did those conversations were short. Immediately after hanging up she would call Erin and tell her all about it. 

Gillian awoke one Tuesday with the idea to invite Don over for dinner. Her mother wasn’t comfortable having a boy in the house with no man around, but she relented after Gillian was able to get in touch with her father, who agreed to chaperone. 

When Benny called that evening, she had her wind up alarm clock with her by the table in the hall so she could keep track of the time. The problem was that she had gotten so comfortable with him- he wasn’t somebody one needed to impress- she ended up talking for much longer than she planned. She didn’t want to appear rude, but it was important that she hang up with him as quickly as possible; if Don couldn’t get through, she couldn’t invite him over. After talking distractedly with Benny for a short while, she ended the conversation around seven thirty and waited in the lamplight. When an hour had passed and Don still hadn’t phoned, she phoned him.

“Hello?”

‘Hi Don! It’s me. Gillian.”

“I’m eating.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I won’t keep you, I was just, um, would you like to come over for dinner? Like, this Saturday?”

After a pause, “Ok, sure.”

“Great! I guess come over anytime after six.”

“I’ll need you to recite the preamble to the constitution.”

“What?”

“If you want me to walk into your house, you’ll need to recite the preamble to the constitution when I get there.” 

“The preamble.’

“Yes. ‘We the people’ and all that. I gotta go.”

Seconds later she was on the phone with Erin. 

“The preamble?” Erin said.

“Yes. To the constitution. ‘We the people’ and all that.”

“Uh-huh. What’s that all about?”

“I don’t know,” said Gillian. “But I have to memorize it by Saturday night.”

14

Gillian memorized the short preamble by Thursday and by Friday it was popping into her head like an irritating jingle. 

On Saturday evening she answered the door with a smile. “We the people,” she began. Then her mind went blank. 

“Hi,” he said.

‘We the people,” she repeated in a panic, but the rest was gone. Stricken with shame and disappointment, she slammed the door in his face.

After a moment, he rang the bell again. 

“I was kidding!” he called. “Come on, let me in! I took three busses to get here!”

The evening went downhill from there. As soon as she showed Don into the living room and introduced him to her parents, Emily launched into a monologue about how Gillian tried on every outfit she owned in preparation for his visit. Emily was the only one laughing. Arnold had agreed to come as a favor to Gillian- he hadn’t seen her in weeks- but he was in a foul mood. He and Emily had little to say to each other. Gillian ignored them and kept up the chatter as best she could during dinner, but Don remained uneasy.  While she and her mother cleared away the dishes, Arnold grunted a question or two at the guest, who mumbled in reply. At the earliest opportunity, Gillian announced that she and Don were going outside to sit at the picnic table and talk. Her mother scowled but said nothing. 

It was a hot evening, the air close and heavy and filled with the sound of crickets chirping in the dark. The two sat on top of the wooden picnic table and looked at the moon and stars. Gillian wanted to take his hand in hers but thought better of it; her patience was rewarded a few moments later when he put his arm around her. She scooted closer and turned her face up to his, and they kissed. 

The first crashing waves of excitement- she’d been wanting to kiss this beautiful boy from the moment she saw him- gave way to hypoxia. He’d covered her mouth with his, blocking her nostrils in the process, and she wasn’t getting enough air. She pulled back, fluttered her eyelids, and smiled, giving him to understand this was only a temporary pause. He took the hint and they engaged again, with the same result. She held out for as long as possible before gasping for air.  Gillian was disconcerted but was by no means giving up. She had been nervous and apprehensive about this first kiss, afraid to make a mistake, and it was possible he was experiencing the same. This would explain why he was suffocating her rather than expressing his tender feelings. Her instincts told her to create more of an atmosphere of affection with some intimate dialogue.

She laid her head on his chest. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you for the longest,” she said softly. 

“Me too,” he said. He moved his shoulder in an attempt to nudge her head off, but Gillian pretended not to notice. A moment later he leaned back, lifted her chin, and again clamped his mouth over hers. 

Gillian accepted this resignedly- her guy was kissing her after all- until she felt his hand on her breast. She knocked it away reflexively without interrupting their kiss. He had, at least, made an adjustment that allowed her to breathe, and they were able to keep their lips pressed together. He made a few more stabs at groping her but she fended them off easily enough. After about forty five minutes the back porch light winked off, then on again, Emily’s signal that private time was over. All in all, Gillian considered the outing a success, but if she were to be completely honest with herself, which she wasn’t, she would have rated the experience as underwhelming. She and Don pecked each other on the cheek in the foyer before Arnold drove him home.

Benny had been asking her out persistently. On a day when he’d sent her a bouquet of daisies she finally agreed to meet him at the bowling alley the upcoming weekend. She found herself looking forward to hanging out with her low key, no pressure, easy-to-talk-to-pal, Benny. She didn’t mind in the least that he was head over heels with her, and if she were completely honest with herself, which she wasn’t, she would have admitted to being rather pleased with that situation. It meant she needn’t ever worry that she wasn’t interesting enough. 

She enlisted her father to drive her to the bowling alley. Benny, the son of a mechanic, had his own car and greeted her in the lobby when she arrived. He shook hands with Arnold, who was in a much better mood this time and who, after the two spoke for a few minutes, was put at ease by the frank, ingenuous young man. He smiled at Gillian and told her he’d be back in a couple of hours. 

As it did when they talked on the phone, the time passed quickly. Gillian had a whole new batch of crazy Ritza stories to share plus a live reenactment of the “can I watch you take a bath” incident that had Benny in stitches. 

“Why would you want to do that?” she whimpered as she backed slowly down the bowling lane clutching an imaginary towel at her throat, her eyes popping with fear. 

Neither of them knew how to bowl, but Gillian noticed Benny flung the ball with such force it either landed in the gutter or exploded the pins into a strike. Her impression of him had always been that he was skinny and weak, but now she saw sinews and knotted biceps when he took the ball from the return. “Hey Benny!” she said, laughing and pointing. “You got muscles!” He blushed so deeply his freckles disappeared. 

She had another good chuckle when they took a break and went to the snack bar. She wondered why he was behaving in such an odd manner at the counter, then realized he was excitedly counting his change because he had enough to buy her not just a soft drink but a hamburger as well. Before either of them knew it they looked up and her father was waiting for them by the desk. 

“That’s a nice kid,” Arnold said as they drove home. “I like him much better than the other guy.” 

Gillian was initially disgruntled, then remembered it really didn’t matter. She seldom saw her father anyway. 

When she did see her father, it was usually when he stopped by the apartment to check on Ritza.  He looked in on her the way doctors in hospitals look in on their patients: if they can locate a pulse they declare all is well and high tail it out of there as quickly as possible.  Ritza, however, made this difficult. The instant Arnold set foot through the door she came flying in from her room and glommed onto him, pleading in two languages to please take her back to his apartment and let her live with him. Gillian waited for her to fall to her knees and throw her arms around her father’s thighs as he was leaving. It never happened, but it might as well have.

On weekend nights when she didn’t work, Emily went out with her sister Marietta. This created a problem one Saturday when Don had asked Gillian if she would like to go for a ride with him in his parents’ boat and her father was unavailable. She told her mother that she would take the bus, a two and a half hour ride for the sixteen mile trip from Gretna to Lake Ponchartrain.  Emily wasn’t about to let her daughter waste five hours in public transit for a three hour date, and she didn’t feel like fighting. Gillian was adamant about going, so she let her take a cab. 

She arrived at the marina in the early evening. Don took her for a quick spin in the boat. The water was calm and the sky was beautiful, but the pink and gold sunset’s promise of romance vanished with nightfall. Before a single star was visible Don pointed the prow toward shore, and minutes later they were tied off back at the dock. There followed a repeat performance of the picnic table affair, with stifling kisses and fondling bouts of the attack, parry, riposte, counter-parry variety. 

Don stood abruptly, walked across the deck and propped his foot on the opposite gunwale. When he spoke he kept his back to her.

“So what’s the big deal, anyway? Do you think they’re made out of glass? Are you afraid I’m gonna break ‘em or something?”

She waited for him to turn around. It soon became clear he wasn’t going to.

“No, I don’t think they’re made out of glass,” she said. She meant it to be funny but it came out sounding defensive. The boat’s gentle rocking and the hypnotic sound of the water lapping hollowly against its fiberglass sides put her into a reverie. What was the big deal, indeed? 

“Explain it to me, then,” he said. He still hadn’t faced her.

The explanation that popped into her head she recognized immediately as meaningless drivel, but it was all she could come up with. Perhaps, she thought, it would carry more weight when she said it out loud.

“It’s not the way I was raised.”  

No, she was wrong. It sounded just as idiotic out loud. 

He came back to her side of the boat and sat down several feet away from her. 

“Right. Whatever that means. Is that what you tell the other guy you’re seeing?”

“I’m not seeing anyone else.” And then it hit her.  “Are you?”

“Maybe. And if I were, I would’t blab about it. That’s not the way I was raised.”

On the cab ride home, Gillian wondered who the other girl was. She was beautiful, no doubt, and she probably wasn’t a prude, either.  This evening was a test that Gillian had failed, obviously. Don wanted to see how she measured up. By the time she arrived home, her stomach hurt so badly she could hardly stand upright. 

Arnold had never fully given up trying to get back with Emily and often pushed to have a “family dinner,” ostensibly for the purpose of staying in touch with the kids. Emily occasionally went along with it. Gillian had mixed feelings. She wanted to be close to her father but he was never interested in one-on-one time with her. When he suggested they all go out for a seafood dinner at a popular canal street restaurant, she asked if Erin could come along, too. She wanted someone to talk to, and a friend’s presence might prevent a conflagration between her parents. Arnold suggested she bring that nice kid he met at the bowling alley instead. Sure, Gillian shrugged.

Arnold and Emily really liked Benny. He was polite and respectful, and Arnold was impressed with his responsibility and ambition. Benny’s mother had died many years before. Now it was just him, his older brother, and their dad. He was never one much for school, Benny told them, but he was good at fixing cars, and he planned on one day taking over his father’s mechanic shop.  Benny had a car, a canary yellow sports convertible with a black top he called the Yellow Submarine. Arnold loved it that he and his father had refurbished most of it together. Gillian only half listened, having heard it all before. Besides, it was the first time she’d ever tried raw oysters and she was trying to figure out if she liked them or if they were going to make her puke. Then Benny said something that caught her attention.

“What?” she said, far too loudly. Everyone at the table looked at her, as did people at several other tables. 

“I said I was thinking about enlisting.”

She shook her head. “No. No, you’re not. Why would you even consider doing that?”

“I guess…to serve my country,” he said. “Plus If I enlist, I can pick what branch I’ll go in. They call it ‘military occupational specialty.’ I think I’ll have more time between signing up and shipping out, too. If I’m drafted, they take you pretty quick. That’s what I heard, anyway.”

She stared at him incredulously. Gillian was not in the least bit politically savvy, but in 1967 the number of troops in Viet Nam had increased to half a million, and Washington, New York, and San Francisco saw violent protests about the more than 15,000 American deaths so far.  She knew all she needed to know.

“What about a deferment?” Arnold asked.

“I was never going to college. Some guys can pull strings to get into the National Guard.” He shook his head.

Gillian crossed her arms over her abdomen and bowed her head, sick to her stomach. It wasn’t the oysters.

15

The notice was taped to the glass on the main entrance to the Maison Blanche department store at the Westside Shopping Center: Annual Fall Fashion Show- Auditions Today for runway models- 11:00 AM- sign in Young Miss Department- 2nd floor.

‘That’s only an hour from now,” Gillian said. “Can I audition, Mom?”

Emily shook her head. “Dozens of girls will be trying out. Girls with experience.”

“It won’t hurt to try.”

“We’ve got a lot to do today, Gillian.”

“I’m sure it won’t take long. Especially if I don’t make it.”

“I can’t do what I need to do and watch Gary at the same time. I said, no.”

“If you let me try out,” Gillian whined, “I’ll never ask you for another thing as long as I live.”

“That’s supposed to convince me?”

“We usually eat lunch around eleven thirty anyway. Gary won’t be any trouble then. I’ll meet you at the drug store.”

Emily frowned down at the top of Gary’s head. “Don’t take too long,” she sulked. 

About seven girls were already in line at the table set up at the entrance to the girls’ department on the second floor. After giving her name, age, and phone number to the assistant at the table, Gillian waited with the others in a row of chairs outside an office at the back of the store. 

It didn’t take as long as she expected. When her turn came, Gillian was brought in to the fashion coordinator. Miss Pomie wore heavy, dark makeup on her pasty white face, lots of gaudy jewelry, pince-nez on a silver chain, and her jet black hair in a severe French knot. Her black linen suit was starched to a crisp, and she moved about in a sweet, heady cloud of fragrance. She flashed straight white teeth and began talking the instant Gillian crossed the threshold. 

“So you want to be a model, eh? Let’s have a look at you!” She made a winding motion with her hand. “Turn, turn, slowly turn.”

“Uh, yes Ma’am,” Gillian obeyed, then realized she had no idea what to do with her arms. She held them out slightly as if she were being frisked. When she completed one revolution, Miss Pomie hoisted a heavy book off of her desk and handed it to Gillian.

“Place this on top of your head.”

Gillian swallowed a laugh. She’d only seen the book thing in comedy routines and thought it was a myth. She balanced the volume on her head precariously.

“Walk around a bit and see if you can balance it,” said Miss Pomie.

Miraculously, the book stayed put.

“Very good. You’ll do fine. You’re thin and graceful and you have lovely eyes.”  She donned her pince-nez, picked up a mimeographed sheet of paper from her desk, and handed it to Gillian.  “Practice these exercises. First rehearsal is at three o’clock sharp, two weeks from today. Please send in the next girl.”

Despite her mother’s warning never to call boys- “it makes you look too needy and they lose respect for you”- Gillian, after agonizing half the day about it, decided to phone Don and tell him she’d been picked to be a fashion model. His other girl was probably not a fashion model, and she imagined it would impress him. 

“Hello?”

‘Hi Don! It’s me. Gillian.”

“I’m eating.”

“Oh. Sorry. Well…I’ll let you go then. A really weird thing happened to me today, I’ll tell you about it some other-”

“Uh, it’s okay, I was gonna call you anyway.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. My parents won’t be using the boat next weekend. I’m gonna take it out, if you want to come along.”

“Sure! That’ll be fun!”

The week couldn’t pass quickly enough. She slept badly and gastrointestinal pains nagged without letup, but these were a result not of anguish but a sort of elated apprehension. Clearly, Don had not written her off, but the upcoming boat date might still be some sort of test she dreaded failing. The first fashion rehearsal loomed as well. The triumph of being chosen having faded quickly, the realization set in that she had no idea what she was doing. The exercises Miss Pomie had given her were actually a series of maneuvers with a book on her head but, distracted as she was about Don, she now couldn’t take two steps without her Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary falling to the floor with a thud.

That weekend, Gillian and Gary went to her father’s for one of their rare visits. Arnold, sitting sullenly in his recliner, wasn’t thrilled about spending Saturday alone with his six year old, but he didn’t stop Gillian from leaving. She decided not to push her luck asking for cab fare; this time she would take the bus. Her father’s apartment was closer to the lake anyway.

She had packed several of her best outfits to chose from, and she took extra time and care fixing herself up. When she stepped off the bus at the marina after the hour long ride, she was nervous but she felt ready. Then calamity struck.

Don had invited Benny. As Gillian stepped onto the boat, her date emerged from the cabin while Benny, standing by the wheel, smiled at her hopefully. Furious, she swept across the deck like a flash fire and lit into Don. 

“This was supposed to be a date with you and me! Why is he here? You should have told me you were asking him along!” 

Don, completely taken aback, opened his mouth once or twice to speak, but Gillian didn’t give him the opportunity. While elaborating that what he did was dishonest and inconsiderate, a voice in her head began making accusations. The voice was her mother’s, insisting that this was a setup between these two boys to trap her alone in a boat in the middle of Lake Ponchartrain.  When Don realized he’d never get a word in edge-wise and went back into the cabin, she turned to Benny, her anger now infused with paranoia.  

“You and I are friends,” she snapped. “But that’s all we are! That’s all we’re ever going to be!”

The boy looked so heartbroken she instantly wished she could take it all back. Without another word he turned away despairingly, exited the boat, and began walking down the pier toward the street. Gillian watched after him helplessly. Don emerged and saw that Benny had gone.

“What did you say to him?” he demanded. 

Gillian hung her head. 

“What is the matter with you?” Don said. ‘Yes, I did ask you both here. He’s been drafted. He wanted to tell you himself that he’ll have to go in a couple of weeks and-”

He was unable to finish, as Gillian had taken off in a dead run. Within seconds she could see him up ahead, rounding the corner to leave the marina. She picked up her pace, caught up with him and stood in his way. She was barely intelligible when she spoke, as she was shaking with sobs and tears were streaming down her face. 

“I didn’t mean any of it. I’m nothing but a horse’s ass. You’re the one I should be with. You’re the one I want to be with. If anything were to happen to you I would die.”

For a long moment he stared at her in surprise. Then he cupped her wet, red cheeks in his hands and told her he loved her, that he had loved her since the moment he saw her. When she gasped that she loved him, too, she realized she meant it. She embraced him tightly and pressed herself into him as hard as she could; he encircled her with his arms, and she felt the strength of his affection.

As evening came and they walked hand in hand along the wharf back to the boat, Gillian was aware of a shift in the scenery, almost as if the sun were setting in the east and the lake’s expanse now lie to the south. The illusion disoriented her pleasantly and she steadied herself against Benny’s side. 

When they arrived, Don was unsurprised. “Are we going for a ride or what?” he said. 

It was a cool, breezy night made even cooler by the wind as they sped across the dark water, but she didn’t feel the cold.  Benny wrapped her up in his jacket and held her from behind. She sank back into his body as a warm, peaceful feeling came over her. Every few minutes he would kiss her on the cheek. When she looked up at the night sky, she again noticed that things were out of place, as if the moon and stars had wheeled around one hundred and eighty degrees. It was a fleeting impression that vanished when she closed her eyes and concentrated on the wind on her face. 

Benny drove her back to her father’s. They stood on the porch a long time and talked about the weeks ahead. Benny would be very busy in the next few days with packing and medical tests and other things the army required, but he would get all that out of the way quickly so that they could spend as much time together as possible. Before he drove off they embraced, and he kissed her cheek. Gillian’s heart fluttered when she realized he was still too shy to attempt a real kiss. 

She waved goodby and stood alone on the porch for a while, prolonging the moment and trying to comprehend her surroundings, which were still somehow off kilter. All at once she understood, and smiled, and went inside. 

For the first time in her life, the world was right-side up.

16

They agreed that during the first week, while Benny prepared to ship out, he would call around seven, giving her time to finish homework and dinner and anything else she needed to do, such as practice her modeling exercises. Gillian found she could sashay around the house indefinitely without the dictionary ever once hitting the floor, her improved equilibrium the result of a state of being she had never, until now, experienced: equanimity. Gone were the days of waiting anxiously by the telephone. She always had something to look forward to, that is, the next time she talked to Benny, and it was a peaceful anticipation. 

By the end of the week he had completed his preparations and came over evenings to see her. They sat and talked nestled on the couch, the room bathed in the soft, flickering blue glow of the television with the sound just above a murmur. Usually her mother still was at work, with Ritza peeking around the corner at them from her bedroom down the hall. Whether it was on the phone or when they were together, they talked and laughed as easily as they had always done. They never wanted for subject matter, and they made no distinction between the simple and the profound, moving casually from cars and albums they liked to how they would begin their lives together when he came back from the war. 

He called her “Pixie,” or “Pix” for short, as often as he used her name, and every time he did, she remembered the day they met and how wrong she had been about him. This always caused her heart to quicken, for it made her realize that it was by sheer dumb luck alone that she had not missed out on this. While they sat together, she would sometimes catch him looking at her with an expression she could not describe, but whether it was awe, or wonder, or gratitude, or something else, it seemed to mirror what was in her heart.

When Emily was at home, she gave them their privacy in the living room. Ordinarily, this would have been out of the question, but the irrefutable truth of Benny and Gillian had, apparently, a mind altering effect on her mother. And even if she had glanced in at them to make sure propriety was being served, she would have caught Benny in the act of treating Gillian like a porcelain doll. He would take her hands and place his fingertips gently on hers; or stroke her hair and touch her face delicately, as if he were afraid she would break; or he would hold onto her, her head resting on his shoulder, and not let go.

Emily was not the only one under the influence; it seemed to affect everyone with whom they came in contact. When they went to the shopping center to grab a malt at Stumpf’s drug store, people smiled at them as they passed. The waitress, a tired, shuffling, white haired woman who had worked there for twenty years, wordlessly surprised them with two slices of apple pie, no charge.  At school, Gillian’s antagonists and detractors ceased their litany of insults, intuiting, perhaps, that she no longer heard them. Even Ritza, whose face was twisted in a perpetual frown, grimaced happily when she peeked down the hall at them sitting together on the couch. 

If the outer world was a reflection of her inner one, it was just as true the other way around. She hadn’t had a stomach ache for quite some time. And she was startled by a fleeting revelation, just a flash of a glimpse, really, of her mother and father not as life giving, life sustaining, and angry, gods, but as a couple of schmucks named Arnold and Emily who had a couple of kids.

“Show me some mad modeling skills,” Benny said. It was the Saturday evening after Gillian’s second fashion show rehearsal. Benny had brought Pizza over for everyone. After they had eaten, Emily left to go out dancing with Marietta. Ritza had cloistered herself in her room. Gary wandered in occasionally but for the most part entertained himself in the room he shared with his sister, glad to have it to himself. 

“All right,” Gillian agreed.  She stood, hefted the big Merriam-Webster off the coffee table, and walked to the end of the living room. “Prepare to be astounded.” 

“Astounded, got it.”

She set the dictionary on her head but it fell every time she released it. “I can’t get it to stay,” she complained. After several more tries she grew increasingly frustrated. 

“Oh, forget the book,” Benny said with a careless wave. “You won’t have to balance a book at the show.”

“No, no, just a moment.” At long last it remained on her head, wobbling precariously as Gillian stood in an ungainly crouch with her arms out for balance. Afraid to turn, she cut her eyes hard to the left to look at Benny. “See?”

“Yes, that’s great!” he said. 

Gillian made a couple of false starts but had to still herself again when the dictionary threatened to fall.  She kept glancing over at Benny, who smiled encouragingly. 

All at once she stood bolt upright, the book obediently in position, and strode across the floor as lithesome as a cat. She turned so quickly and smoothly at the opposite wall the dictionary remained motionless in space. She glided back across the room with the same long, supple gait, struck a pose with her hands on her hips, and smirked at Benny. 

He blinked at her for a moment, his mouth open, his face red. “Oh my god,” he rasped. “That was… astounding…”

The dictionary fell with a loud thud as Gillian ran and jumped onto the couch next to him. “Told you!” 

“That was seriously impressive,” Benny said. 

“Thank you.”

“Can you teach me to do that?”

“Walk like a model?”

“Yes. I really, really want to learn how to do that.”

“All right then.”

He took his position at the end of the room. “I’m ready.”

“Ok, pull your shoulders back and push your hips forward, that’s it, and tilt them upward.” From the couch she directed these movements with her hands. 

“Like this?”

“Perfect. Now, when you walk, take long steps with your feet crossing over the center line. Land on your toes and never put all your weight on your heels.”

Benny thought a moment, then moved across the room executing Gillian’s instructions with an added, exaggerated back and forth motion in his shoulders. 

Gillian shrieked hysterically. 

When he made his turn, he sucked in his cheeks and tossed long, imaginary tresses provocatively. Gillian fell off the couch, howling, as Benny made his way back across the floor and struck the same pose as Gillian had.

“All right, what’s so funny?” he demanded. 

It was almost a minute before Gillian, still in convulsions, could speak. “I’m laughing,” she eventually gasped, “because you actually look… pretty good!”

He resumed his place on the couch. “Twiggy had better watch out,” he said. “I’m gunning for her.”  He put his arm around her as she curled up next to him, slowly getting her breath back, and they sat quietly for a time. After a while Gillian got up, closed the pizza boxes, straightened the kitchen, and turned on the television. Magnus the Marvelous was already halfway through his movie. She switched off the lights, laid across his lap, and put her arms around his neck. 

“What time does the bus leave?” she asked. It was their last night together, as he was leaving early the next morning for basic training.

“Seven.”  He stroked her hair and caressed her face, lightly tracing with his fingers its outlines, her cheeks, chin, eyelashes, as if trying to memorize it. Gillian at this moment would have surrendered to anything, but looking up at him she realized how diffident he was, that he was afraid of breaking the trust, and it was this to which she surrendered. 

When the time came for him to go, they stood in the open doorway, and he took her face in his hands. “I hope you’ll wait for me,” he said. “I really think this is the start of something special.”

“Of course I’ll wait for you. How can you even ask that?”

They shared a tender, perfect kiss. When he turned and walked away, Gillian felt as if something had been ripped out of her. She closed the door, as they agreed she would, and sat down on the couch. She felt empty, with the overwhelming premonition that she would never see him again, and she willed him to come back. When she looked out the window, he was already coming up the walk. This time there were lots of kisses, and when he left he kissed her hand, just as she had been afraid he would do on the day they met.

She received six or seven letters from him every week while he was in basic training, and she sent him just as many.  He did his utmost to remain upbeat, injecting humor into everything. He told her about the terrible food, how far they had to run, the oddball characters he met. He loved making himself the butt of the joke. Were he to be believed, he was always the one responsible for the screwups causing the whole unit having to run extra miles, do additional pushups, take a double turn of duty. 

Before Gillian could blink, he’d been shipped overseas. They continued to write daily, not missing a beat, but the tone of his letters changed. He began to talk about camaraderie and serving his country, but his humor had been replaced with forced, superficial cheer. She could tell he didn’t want her to worry, but occasionally things leaked out through the cracks. “Gotta run, Pix,” he signed off in one of his shorter letters. “Time to slop up some mess from the mess hall, then I’m off to follow the leaders in this joke they call a war.”

Gillian in her correspondence made absolutely certain that he knew she loved him, missed him, and that her life, by comparison, was a stroll down a catwalk in a department store fashion show. 

Dear Benny,

Well we finally had the fashion show. They set the stage up in the rotunda on the ground floor of the store. The backdrop was a fancy white lattice wall decorated with plastic foliage and flowers and it looked really good. (Don’t forget about the lattice wall with the plastic foliage. It figures heavily into the story later.) 

There were ten of us girls altogether, but Miss Pomie, our instructor, gave me the prettiest outfit in the fall line. It was a navy blue and white suit with a red necktie and a floppy, navy blue straw hat, and I wore wrist length white gloves. We weren’t supposed to wear any jewelry, such as bracelets or watches, because after we made our walk we were to take our jackets off and lay them over our arms before we left the stage. Channel 5 televised the show, and they had their TV cameras set up all around. I was nervous at first, but after a while I relaxed. Miss Pomie hired a professional to do our makeup, and when she was done I hardly recognized myself. I had also gotten pretty good at doing the model walk- not as good as you, of course, but I figured I’d get by. (Have you forgotten about the lattice wall with the plastic foliage?)

I checked my look one last time in the mirror, then took my place in line with the other girls backstage. When they called my name, I headed out onto the runway. Everything was kind of a blur, but when I made my turn and came back, Miss Pomie was nodding and beaming at me. I wore  big smile myself at that moment. Maybe I could actually make a career of this, I thought. I finished my walk and took my place on the stage- yes, you guessed it, right in front of the lattice wall with the plastic foliage.

When all the clothes had been modeled, the announcer would call our name again, and we were to step forward, remove our jacket, lay it across our arm, then step back again. When I heard my name, I stepped forward and removed my jacket. Well, actually I didn’t, but I tried to. You see, I’d forgotten to take my watch off. The band had a little chain on it which was hung up in the jacket threads. I couldn’t get the stupid thing off. The girl next to me starting hissing, “Go, McKenna!” I fought with the jacket for a minute, then finally tore it off with a good yank. There was a slight ripping sound but I don’t think anyone in the audience heard it. Ms. Pomie was shaking her head with her arms folded as I stepped back and returned to my place up against (say it with me) the lattice wall with the plastic foliage.

When it was time to file off stage, I found I couldn’t move. My hand was behind my back, and my watch chain was now hooked in the plastic foliage. Frantically, I tried to free myself before it was too late. It was no use. It was my turn and Miss Pomie was motioning for me to walk, so I walked. 

The lattice wall was was so light weight, it easily toppled over onto my back and the backs of the other models on stage. I heard screams, gasps, shouts, groans, laughter. Long after the show was over, store employees were still struggling to separate me and the cursed wall. The only thing hurt was my pride, Ms. Pomie’s former high opinion of me, and my career as a fashion model. 

Thank you for your letter today. Write me again! Please stay safe! I love you and miss you! 

Yours forever,

Gillian.

She was particularly happy with this letter. She knew he’d get a kick out of it- they could always crack each other up. She reflected that, before she’d met him, a mishap like the fashion show would have sent her spiraling into a crisis of shame and humiliation; to Benny’s girl, though, it was just a mishap. She saw herself now through his eyes: beautiful, capable, desirable, and important, not one of them an adjective she would have used to describe herself before he came along. Benny had roused her from a lifelong nightmare she didn’t know she was having, and she awoke to find that she was a person she wanted to be, and this a world she wanted to live in.

Which was why the news of Benny’s death hit her the way it did.

17

She might have been able to deny the premonition or the phone call, but not both.

The premonition came in the form of an early morning dream: Benny, sitting on a footlocker writing her a letter; a concussive flash of light; screams, whirling fragments, a telephone ringing. She awoke, filled with dread, and listened to her mother’s footsteps as she walked down the hall and answered the extension. After a muffled conversation, her mother came in and told her Don was on the phone. Gillian went into the hallway and took the call.

Don’s parents knew Benny’s father, and they had just learned what had happened. Benny’s helicopter hadn’t been fueled properly, couldn’t get off the base, and crashed on its own airfield. Benny didn’t make it. 

Gillian’s knees went weak. As Don told her what happened, she slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. Choking and sobbing, she engaged him in a macabre debate.

“How can something like that happen?”

“It was- well I guess it was kind of like friendly fire…”

“It’s not true… it can’t be true…
“Yes it’s… it’s very hard to believe.”

“It’s not possible.”

“I’m so sorry…”

Don didn’t know how to end the conversation. She seemed to think that if she could get him to say it didn’t happen, then it didn’t happen. His impression was wrong, though. It wasn’t doubt fueling Gillian’s confusion, but certainty. She was certain Benny was dead. And she was equally certain they were going to spend their lives together. 

She spent the day in bed clutching an eight-by-ten black and white photo of Benny in uniform that he’d sent her from basic training and crying herself to exhaustion. Her mother stayed home and wandered tearfully through the house. She would look in helplessly at her daughter, walk down the hall past Ritza’s closed door, where the Honduran could be heard sobbing inside, then to the living room where Gary lie curled up on the couch, crying in distress. That evening, Emily left briefly to bring back some food, but only she and Gary ate. Ritza wept long into the night. Gillian slept fitfully, awakened by nightmares of exploding helicopters. She then cried herself back to sleep, delirious with the same horrifying images. 

The next day, depleted and numb, her tears fell silently. She could hear her mother’s steps creaking across the wood floors, the television on low for her brother, and Ritza still weeping in her room. Gillian ate a light breakfast early in the afternoon, after which she was able to sleep for a couple of hours. 

Her father stopped by after he had gotten off work. He sat on the side of Gillian’s bed and did his best to console her. As soon as Ritza heard his voice, she emerged from her room acting dopey, staggering as if drugged. “Take me with you hun-nee,” she bawled. “Too much grief here, take me with you!” 

Emily grasped her by the shoulders and tried to steer her back to her room, but Ritza jerked away and stretched her arms toward Arnold. “I cannot stay here! I cannot stay here!” 

Arnold said a few more words to Gillian and then attempted to leave. Ritza followed him down the hall, pleading to go with him. Before he could get out the front door she flung herself to the floor and wrapped herself around his knees. “Please, please, hun-nee!” Gillian came down the hall and stood watching the scene.

“I’m seeing someone,” Arnold mumbled. This turned out to be the woman Gillian knew as “the soup lady.” Every time she visited her father, he would call her and insist they have a conversation. It was forced and awkward and Gillian always got off the phone as quickly as possible.

Her father managed to extricate himself from Ritza’s vice-like grasp and step quickly through the door, slamming it behind him. Ritza lie sprawled, blubbering. When Emily and Gillian attempted to help her to her feet, she snarled curses in Spanish and began to flail convulsively. She tore at her clothes, kicked wildly, and yanked out clumps of her own hair. Emily put a hand on her shoulder, trying to to calm her; Ritza screamed as if being murdered. Emily and Gillian backed away, now in a panic as to how to help her. She seemed to be having a massive seizure. Then somehow amidst all this Ritza stood up and, while spitting and foaming and rolling her eyes deliriously in a bawling rage, she walked down the hall to her room and slammed the door behind her.

They stared after her in amazement for several moments, then Gillian returned to her bed. She could hear Ritza sobbing dismally. Eventually Gillian became aware that the house was silent, but she had no idea how much time had passed. It might have been hours. She sat up quickly in alarm, then hurried to Ritza’s door. She knocked several times calling out, “are you ok?”  Hearing no response, she went in. She found Ritza sitting on the floor by the window, rocking back and forth. Her eyes stared upward and thick foam issued from her gaping mouth. Several prescription bottles and a few pills lie strewn around her. 

Gillian shrieked for her mother, who came running in, as did Gary, who stood in the doorway, bug-eyed. 

“She took a bunch of her pills!” Gillian said. 

Emily hurried into the kitchen and rifled through the phone book to call the hospital. She found a separate number for emergency services but it was several minutes before someone took her address and dispatched an ambulance. Then she called Arnold, who fortunately was at home. 

“Jesus Christ oh my God I’ll be right there,” he gasped and hung up.

The ambulance took forever, arriving just ahead of Arnold. The driver and his associate, men in white uniforms, set their stretcher down in the living room. Emily led them to Ritza, who was on the floor, unconscious and breathing stertorously. The two men yanked her upward by the arms, banging her head against the wall in the process. They dragged her like a sack of potatoes to the front, stepping on her legs and feet repeatedly, and flopped her onto the stretcher. Emily followed closely, wringing her hands and admonishing them to stop banging Ritza around like that and stepping all over her. Arnold arrived in time to see them shove her into the back of the ambulance. Emily accompanied him to the hospital.

Gillian sat on the couch at home with Gary and stared bleary eyed at the television until her mother called a couple of hours later. Ritza was still in the ER, she said. She was going to be all right but they didn’t know how long before she’d be transferred to a room. She told Gillian that she and Gary might as well go to bed. Once again she slept fitfully but, exhausted as she was, better than the night before. She didn’t hear her mother come in. The next morning, Emily told her that it had been most of the night before doctors stabilized Ritza and admitted her to a room. She and Arnold were allowed to see her for a few minutes. When they walked in, Ritza was awake and immediately began wailing, “Why you not let me die, oh why you not let me die?” Nurses quickly made them leave. 

When the phone rang later that morning, Emily answered. Gillian, sitting on the floor with Gary while he played with his toy cars, figured it was the hospital calling about Ritza. After several minutes Emily hung up, then came and stood in the doorway. That was Arnold on the phone, she said. He’d returned to the hospital this morning. Between Ritza pitching a fit on the floor and the ambulance drivers snatching her around, she was all over black and blue, he said. When he’d arrived that morning she picked up where she left off, sobbing and begging to go home with him, so he took her home with him when she was discharged. 

“I’m not letting her back in this house,” Emily vowed. “I’ll not have it.”

Relieved, Gillian returned to her bed and tried unsuccessfully to sleep. Her mother prepared lunch but Gillian couldn’t even look at food. Ritza’s vacating the premises was good news, but her suicide attempt and the ensuing drama, two days after Benny’s death, had really taken it out of her. Her stomach hurt as bad as she could remember. She got out of bed and began walking the floor- perhaps she’d feel better if she were moving around. She felt dizzy and wobbly, not having eaten since the day before, but the act of putting one foot in front of the other provided a welcome distraction. Through the living room window she saw the mail truck pass and decided the fresh air would also help. 

In the box was a letter from Benny. Her hands shook and she was crying uncontrollably as she tore it open.  It was his last maneuver, he wrote, he had a month’s leave coming, he couldn’t wait to see her, he was going to give her a monstrously loving kiss, and that’s as far as she got before she blacked out.  

She was unconscious only for a few seconds. Through the kitchen window, Emily saw her crumple and flew out to the mailbox. Gillian was already coming to as her mother helped her to her feet. 

“He’s alive,” Gillian gasped. She held up the letter gripped in her clammy fist. “He wrote to me.”

Emily brought her inside and steered her to the couch. “He’s coming home,” Gillian said in a tremulous voice.

Emily read the letter, looked at the envelope. “No, honey. You know how long it takes his mail to get here. Look at the post mark.”

“He’s going on his last flight, then he’ll leave right after that.”

Emily read it again and shook her head. “You see he’s talking about his last maneuver. His last helicopter flight.”

Gillian started crying again. She looked at her mother pleadingly. “But it feels like he’s still with me. It feels like he’s right here in the room.”

Later she called her father, then Erin, read them the letter, asked them what they thought. They sadly agreed with Emily’s assessment. It didn’t stop Gillian from anxiously awaiting the mailman every afternoon.

It took ten days to ship his body home for the funeral. The casket was open. Benny’s face and lips were swollen and his skin appeared to be peeling off, as he’d been burned in the helicopter crash. He looked like a different person. The service was held outside at the cemetery under a pale, hazy sky. One expected rain at any moment. While mourners arrived, a young soldier approached Gillian. His name was Robert, he said, but Benny called him Robby. He was a good friend of Benny’s and he had seen the helicopter go down. He’d rushed up to the wreckage and had been with Benny as his friend drew his last breath. 

“You must be Pixie,” he said. “I recognize you from his description. He really loved you. He thought the world of you.” He delivered to Gillian a piece of mail, addressed in her own handwriting. It was the last letter she had written to him, clenched in his hand, but not yet opened, as he lay in the wreckage. Gillian took the envelope, which had blood spatters on it. On the back, Benny had written, “Love never dies.” 

She held the bloodstained letter in both hands and stared down at those words throughout the service. After the chaplain gave the eulogy, the rifle party fired a three shot salute. She recoiled violently at each report. She saw Benny’s father and brother follow closely as the uniformed pallbearers carried his flag covered coffin to the grave site. Other attendants had given every mourner a rose to place on the casket. When it was Gillian’s turn, she lie across the coffin for a last embrace and cried emptily. Later, a uniformed officer handed her a folded up American flag.

18

Gillian had become quiet, withdrawn, and she remained exhausted. Everything required great effort, even keeping up with her appearance. Strangers might not have noticed anything out of the ordinary, but to those who knew her, she was a disheveled mess. Her eyes were usually red and swollen. Her gastrointestinal woes came back with a vengeance; when she wasn’t lying abed sluggishly, she was doubled up with stomach pains. Don phoned early on to see how she was doing, but she had no interest in talking to him. After a couple of short, one sided conversations, he stopped calling. Erin spent a lot of time with her, as did her cousin Moira. Both girls occasionally spend the night as well, something that was possible now that Ritza was gone and Gillian had her own room again. One of the more soothing thoughts she would turn to, in darker moments, was the fact that the creepy, crazy Honduran was out of their lives forever.   

Each evening, Gillian told herself that she was going to school the next day, and each morning she was unable to summon the wherewithal to rise and dress. She remained in bed until the late morning, wandered about the house for a while around lunchtime, then returned to bed in the afternoon. When she did venture out, she walked around in an apathetic haze.  One afternoon the security cop at Stumpf’s drug store caught her trying to steal eye shadow. She looked up at him so dully he just shook his head and jerked his thumb toward the front exit.

Not long after the funeral Benny’s brother, Jimmy, called her. When he had first been deployed, he told her, Benny had written him with instructions about his car, the little black and yellow sports convertible: “If I don’t make it back from this circus, I want Gillian to have the Yellow Submarine.” She never could figure out how to operate the stick shift, though. Her father made a stab at teaching her, but it didn’t take, and she would eventually return the car to Benny’s brother. Jimmy gave her one of Benny’s favorite shirts, which she slept in for a year until it all but disintegrated. 

Gillian’s grief had occasioned a temporary veneer of patience and decency at home, but this was shattered mere days after the funeral. Early one  afternoon Emily answered the phone in the hall, and from her impatient mutterings, Gillian, halfway listening from her room, could tell the caller was her father.

“Yeah…yeah… mm-hm… fine…yeah…”  A moment of silence followed, then an abrupt “What? You married her?”

Emily had blurted this so loudly that Gillian sat bolt upright in bed. Gary came running out of his room. 

“She won’t kill herself!” Emily shouted into the phone. “There’s not going to be anything hanging over your head the rest of your life! She said that to get you to marry her!”  She slammed the receiver on the hook. “That stupid ass son of a bitch!” she shrieked. “He married Ritza!  Two days after she got out of the hospital!”

Gary stared up his mother, mouth agape. “But…we don’t like her!”

Gillian knew two things for certain: the first was that her mother was wrong, Ritza could very well kill herself; the second was that her father’s bride was back in their lives to stay. She ran into the bathroom and threw up. 

For the next two days Emily practically lived on the phone with Marietta or Maria, crying and cursing- “what’s wrong with that piece of shit half wit, how could he do this to me,” and so on. The three sisters began meeting at Emily’s house for long round table discussions trashing men in general and Arnold in particular over coffee and donuts. 

Arnold’s nuptials stuck deeply in Emily’s craw, even though their divorce was close to final and even though she knew he never stopped seeing his regular girlfriend, the one Gillian referred to as “the soup lady.” She was so put out over the marriage that she lost all patience with Gillian’s teenage melancholy. “That’s enough of this bullshit, I’m tired of you laying in bed, stomach pains or not. And get your ass back to school!” 

Back to school Gillian went, one or two days a week at first, but even when her attendance was slightly more regular, she was never fully present. Erin looked after her, made sure she wrote down homework assignments, sat with her quietly or tried to distract her with chatter as the situation warranted. Teachers treated her with forbearance, and even girls who had tormented her since middle school welcomed her back with sincere condolences. 

It was all the same to Gillian. Her brain operated mechanically in the present, but her heart had never left the world she and Benny lived in. Every day she read and re-read his letters that described this world, in which they would have two dogs, five kids, and would never fall out of love. He still nervously told jokes at the boat ramp trying to impress her, became elated at the bowling alley when he realized he had enough change to buy her a burger, made her laugh in her living room, treated her with astonishing respect, accepted her for who she was, thought she was the greatest girl ever, and kept agony at bay.  

Whether she was ready for them or not, the old routines re-emerged, including Gillian and Gary’s hit or miss visits with their newly wed father. Ritza, who undoubtedly knew about the soup lady as well, spewed jealous hatred at the nearest target: Gillian. While she visited her father, his wife screamed curses at her in Spanish, then did the same at Arnold for having his daughter over.  “Puta” was Ritza’s favorite epithet for her.  Arnold, cowed by Ritza’s fury, did nothing to discourage this. “She can’t be a whore,” he once mumbled ineffectually. “She doesn’t get paid.” 

Despite Ritza’s enmity, Gillian kept trying to establish a connection with her father. She suggested spending a little time away from his apartment and from Ritza, but this produced mixed results. One evening they ate burgers at a drive thru. They conversed unremarkably, then Arnold took a pencil from the glove box. He drew a diagram of a vagina on a wrapper and began explaining where “the good spot” was and how to get to it. Gillian, mortified, could only choke, “No, no, I don’t need to hear that- put it away- you shouldn’t-”  

Emily had never stopped going out dancing with her sister, Marietta, but after Arnold’s marriage she did so more than ever. Ritza was no longer around to look after Gary, but Gillian, who still had no interest in a social life, was available to take up the slack. Sometimes Marietta’s daughter, Moira, would babysit with Gillian while their mothers went out and tripped the light fantastic. 

The two woman became fixtures at an establishment called Club Soiree. Marietta would come over early so that she and Emily could get dolled up together. Gillian often heard them prattling. At first, Club Soiree seemed to her an enchanting and magical place, but soon her impression of it was more that of a lonely hearts meat market. 

“It’s so wonderful to go dancing again!” Emily would frequently proclaim. “At last I’m free!”

Marietta smirked at Gillian. “It’s just a bonus that the men stare at us.”

They did more than stare, Gillian knew. Marietta, who had been clubbing since her husband left, had been bringing men home from time to time. Moira told Gillian that she tried to steer clear of these gentlemen, since the moment her mother’s back was turned, most of them began grabbing her breasts and buttocks and suggesting places to rendezvous. Gillian understood her cousin’s decision to say nothing about this to her mother. She remembered Marietta smacking Moira hard across the mouth, blaming her when a boy at school had gotten a little bit fresh. Nor would Gillian mention such a thing to Emily. Her mother hadn’t exactly condoned Marietta’s striking Moira, but she had no problem with the logic of it.

It wasn’t long before Emily began dating.  The first was Riley, or Mr. Riley to Gillian, who never learned if that was his given or his last name.  Emily bragged that Riley was the best dancer in the place, all the lonely hearts with their eyes on him, but that he was interested only in her breasts.  He asked her to dance every dance, she said, jitterbug or slow. 

Riley had thick red hair that was, in Emily’s opinion, very attractive. She’d always wanted to be a redhead herself, but Arnold hated red hair and wouldn’t let her color it.  After Arnold left, she died it a bright, fire engine red. That’s why she wanted to dance with Riley at first, because she liked his red hair and they made quite the flamboyant couple. 

“He’s overly interested in my breasts,” Gillian heard her mother say to Marietta, although she couldn’t tell if she were bragging or complaining. It was probably the former, since her mother wore low cut dresses  and, as she informed Marietta, pushed her breasts up against Riley’s chest whenever they slow danced. 

Riley took her out to dinner, on picnics, and they went as a couple to Club Soiree. Gillian met him one night when he came calling.

“Well, what do you think of Mr. Riley?” Emily asked later.

“His hair is a wig, Mom.”

“Excuse me?”

“His hair is a wig.”

“It is not a wig! And I don’t want you talking that way about him. About anyone!” 

Gillian and Gary went along on one of the picnics. They piled into Riley’s car, and when he sat behind the wheel, he began barking in a loud, gruff voice.

“Doors closed, check! Key in ignition, check! Seat belt on, check!” He took a moment to make sure everyone else was buckled up. “Passenger seat belts on, check!” 

Gillian and Gary looked at each other. 

“Rearview mirror, check!  Ignition on, check! Transmission in reverse, check!”

That evening, Emily asked Gillian if she enjoyed the picnic.

“Mr. Riley is kind of strange, isn’t he, Mom?”

“Excuse me?”

He’s just a little strange.”

“He is not strange. And I don’t want you talking that way about him. About anyone!”

One night Emily came home at four in the morning, fit to be tied. She woke Gillian slamming doors and cabinets and cursing out loud.  Gillian, half asleep and blinking in the brightly lit kitchen, listened to the story. Mr. Riley had taken Emily to Tujague’s, an expensive restaurant. Emily had been thrilled. When the meal was over, he asked her if she cared to go for a little drive.
“Whatever you like,” said Emily. 

He then proceeds to drive in one direction for almost four hours. After one hour Emily began politely inquiring where they were going.

“Nowhere in particular. We’re just driving around.”

That continued to be his response as Emily’s demands for an explanation became louder and more frantic. “My children are at home by themselves! Take me back! Turn around and take me back now!”

After almost four hours of driving he pulls into a rundown motel in Orange, Texas.  Emily refuses to exit the car and relentlessly insists he take her home immediately.

“I can’t,” he says. “I’m too sleepy.” He tells her he has a blinding headache and won’t be able to drive back unless he goes to sleep. Emily figures it’s a delaying tactic to get her into the motel room, but he konks out, snoring loudly. She puts up with it for a while. 

“Then I lost it,” Emily said. Gillian nodded and went back to bed. 

Yet, that was not enough for Emily to end the relationship. The death blow came the next time they went to Club Soiree. Emily was still angry and refused to dance with Riley. As she later told Marietta, he was partnered with another well endowed woman, intentionally dancing close to where Emily was sitting. They executed a turn and the woman’s arm came up and knocked Riley’s hair piece off of his head. It landed on Emily’s table. 

Her second boyfriend was Dave Riva, a short, fat, bald man of Italian descent with a pencil thin mustache. Emily liked his big brown eyes and friendly disposition. He was an excellent cook, and he would come over and prepare wonderful Italian meals. His relationship with Emily became a casualty of bad timing. The two were sitting on her bed talking before dinner, and he reached over and placed his hand on Emily’s breast at the precise moment Gary walked into the room. Emily gasped and slapped the offending hand away but it was too late, the boy had seen. He went promptly into Gillian’s room and told her what had just happened. The act itself was troublesome enough; both of her children knowing about it made it an unforgivable trespass. He wasn’t even allowed to stay for the dinner he’d cooked.

Whenever they were between men, the sisters would sip coffee at Emily’s kitchen table and compare notes about the prospects at Club Soiree. On this occasion Moira had come with her mother, and she and Gillian walked into the kitchen to peruse the contents of the refrigerator just as Emily was talking about her latest suitor. 

“He’s very rich,” said Emily. “I’ve only danced with him a couple of times, and he’s already talking about buying me a house!”

“A house, my my,” said Marietta. “That’s all well and good, I suppose, but I don’t know that I’d put myself in that situation.”

“What situation?” Emily asked.

“Where I’d have to be available around the clock.”

“They’d be too busy making passes at me.” It was Moira who said this. She had mumbled it, more or less, but everyone clearly heard her, and Gillian, partly in surprise and partly in dread, held her breath and waited for a violent response from Marietta. She was surprised again when it didn’t come. Apparently her aunt was in too good a mood; she looked at her daughter not in rage but disdain.

“Why would they want you when they could have me?” she said. “You’re not even pretty.”

Gillian quietly exhaled in relief. Aunt Marietta’s insults were bad enough, but at least she had not flown out of her chair and slapped Moira across the mouth. Later that night, after she’d read a couple of her favorite letters from Benny, she wondered what was worse for poor Moira: being blamed for those men’s sexual advances, or not being believed. Just as troubling was the realization that those were the only choices. Her heart went out to her cousin, and at the same time was grateful she didn’t have to endure such a predicament herself. 

19

Harold Schulz, Emily’s third boyfriend, was a bookie twenty years her senior. He was tall, bald, humorless, and never went out without a hat. He wasted as little time as possible in taking control of Emily and her living situation. Within six months he found a suitable deal and, as soon as he’d completed the cash purchase, installed the family, and himself, in a large two story in Terry Town. He owned another place, a beautiful home in Lakeview, occupied by his ex-wife. He promised that he would soon evict her so that Emily could have that house as well. Emily would have none of it, however. Schulz had already told her that he and his wife had had a daughter together. The girl was killed as a teenager when she fell off her horse and broke her neck.“That woman lived there with you for twenty years,” Emily said. “That’s her home.”

Schulz paid for the house utilities, Emily for her credit card purchases- mostly her clothes and those of the kids- and some of the groceries. Since Schulz made his money in sporadic lump sums and Arnold paid no child support, Emily continued to work as much as she could at a cafeteria in Oakwood Mall.

Schulz, Emily, and Gary each had their own bedroom on the ground floor. Gillian’s bedroom, along with two others, was upstairs, a situation with which she was immensely pleased; she had been promoted from being her little brother’s bunkmate to the queenly sole occupant of a whole floor. She designated one of the rooms a sitting room, and one that remained unfurnished her “exercise room.” For the first time in her life she had her own bathroom. She referred to the upstairs as “my wing.”

Had she thought about them much, the living arrangements might have caused Gillian a moment or two of concern. Schulz had not ensconced her on the second floor, like a princess in her tower, because he liked her; he had, in fact, hated her intensely from the moment he laid eyes on her. She had been watching TV sprawled on the couch, lying indolently against the throw pillows with one leg casually over the arm, when Emily brought him to the apartment for the first time. Gillian was still very much depleted by Benny’s death, and instead of jumping respectfully to her feet so that her mother could introduce her to her guest, she had glanced up at him for a moment- for less than a moment- then returned her attention to the tube. Had she looked up again, she would have seen Schulz’s face livid with indignant rage. 

He called her, not affectionately, “Duchess.”  If he decided to take them somewhere in his automobile- out to dinner, for example- he gave her thirty-five minutes to get ready; at 35:01 he started leaning on the horn. In another minute he drove off without her. He gave her a tongue lashing if she left a light on upstairs; sometimes  she’d come home and find every bulb on the second floor on top of her dresser. One afternoon she arrived home from school during a rainstorm. Schulz was at the kitchen counter making book. For half an hour, Gillian pounded on the door, shouting. Furious at being interrupted, he finally let her in, shaking his fist at her. “If you were a man I’d punch the shit out of you.” She told her mother about this incident, and Emily blew up at him. Gillian gave him a sneer and flounced upstairs. 

It wasn’t long before she learned Schulz had been sneaking up to the second floor in the wee hours. Emily would catch him in Gillian’s bedroom in the middle of the night. He appeared to be watching her sleep. She overheard her mother questioning him about it. 

“What were you doing up there?”

“I heard a noise, but it was nothing.”

“A noise? You mean, like the noise you heard the other night?”

“Yes. I don’t know if she keeps the windows locked or not. Burglars always get in that way. Why do you think they’re called ‘second story men’?”

As she eavesdropped from the landing, Gillian waited for her mother to light into him; no way in hell she’d buy that lame excuse a second time. But Emily tacitly accepted this explanation, and others just as feeble, every time she caught him. As it was for Moira, the lesson for Gillian was clear. 

Gillian had always looked forward to the weekend excursions to Westside Shopping Center and lunch at Stumpf’s Drug Store with her mother and Gary; she did so now more than ever. They provided a thread of continuity from her childhood to the present- not necessarily a good thing in and of itself, but because they took place in public, the outings were predictable and relatively calm. Now, too, Emily no longer had to count pennies, which translated to a more relaxing day for everyone. 

While Gary dawdled over his lunch at Stumpf’s one afternoon, Gillian slid from the booth and headed to the magazine rack. Vacillating between Seventeen, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan, Gillian became aware that a boy was standing next to her thumbing through a Popular Mechanics.  After they exchanged a few quick glances, the boy spoke.

“You go to West Jeff, don’t you? I think I’ve seen you there.”

“Yes,” she said. The boy was completely unfamiliar to her but was okay looking. “I’ve seen you, too.” He was older, probably a senior.

“Do you know Tammy Keller?” he asked.

She thought. “Um…no, I don’t think so. I’ve heard of her, though.”

“Steve Landry?”

Gillian shook her head. 

“Anyway, a few of us go to this place called the Star Palace. They have dances there once a month. Ever heard of it?”

“The Star Palace… maybe.”

“The dances are just for teenagers. There’s no alcohol or anything. Some of the parents volunteer to chaperone. There’s one next weekend. You should come.”  

She looked at him sideways. He was asking her out, but not really. 

“I just… show up?”

He shrugged. “Sure. I’ll meet you there.”

It had been several months since Benny’s funeral. She wasn’t interested in this guy, but she thought she might like to hang out at a dance. It was worth taking the chance; she didn’t know him or his friends, and that was a plus; they had never picked on her. 

“My name’s Larry.” 

“Gillian.” They shook hands. “Do you work on cars?”

“Huh?” 

She nodded at the magazine he was holding. 

He looked down and seemed to notice it for the first time. “Oh. Um… no. No, just looking at the pictures.” He put it back on the rack. 

Emily and Gary walked up, and Gillian introduced them.

“Very nice to meet you, ma’am.” In the Southern tradition, Larry waited for the lady to extend her hand before he offered his. Emily nodded as they shook, impressed. 

“Larry was telling me about a place called The Star Palace,” Gillian said. “They have dances there once a month. Just for teenagers, no alcohol, and they have parents chaperoning.”

“Is that so?” said Emily.

“Is it all right if I go this Saturday? Larry and his friends will be there.”

The timing couldn’t have been better. Emily’s standard response to such a request was a flat “I don’t think so, honey,” but it was the first time since the funeral that Gillian had expressed an interest in re-engaging in life, and the source was this polite, clean cut, properly reared young man. 

Gillian chose for the dance a hound’s tooth mini-skirt with orange and gold print and matching jacket, a bright orange blouse, brown boots, and hoop earrings. She hadn’t thought much about her night out during the week, but once she’d gotten dressed up she was glad to be going.  She turned off all the lights and went down a few minutes before she was to ride with Schulz and her mother to the Star Palace.

“Where’s Mom?” she asked Schulz. He was at the dining table with a couple of notebooks and a stack of one hundred dollar bills in front of him. In his hand he grasped another thick wad of the notes, which he stopped counting the moment he saw Gillian descend the stairs. He eyed her angrily, jaw set, red in the face. 

“In the back. She’ll be out in a minute. Please don’t interrupt me again.” 

She walked up to the opposite side of the table and looked at the pile of bills. She waited for him to resume counting, but he just sat scowling at her. It was impossible not to irritate the man. She  took the top C note and waved it over her head while doing a little dance. “This is mine now.”

Schulz’s expression never changed. “If you were my woman, you could have it.”

Gillian replaced the bill. “Ew. I don’t want your grubby money.”

Emily emerged from her bedroom. “All right, I’m ready, honey.” She stopped and gave Gillian the once over. “I guess that’s all right. Let’s go.”

On the way, Gillian felt vaguely nauseous. For the first time, someone had referred to her as a woman. That was jarring enough, but it was her mother’s disgusting boyfriend who had done so, with his money and his rules and his anger, which turned out to be nothing but frustrated perversion. She had been Benny’s girl, and that’s the way she wanted it.

The Star Palace, a large, featureless, corrugated steel cube at the back end of a community park in Gretna, had been a gymnasium before the city converted it to an auditorium and dance venue. They arrived close to seven-thirty. Gillian waved goodbye to her mother, then heaved open the heavy steel door. 

Inside, the enormous room wheeled slowly from the scattered beams of a dim mirror ball placed too high in the gym rafters. The din from an obviously local rock and roll band, set up on a low stage at the far end of the room, reverberated endlessly off the bare tin walls and cement floor. When her eyes adjusted to the dark, she found she was standing next to an elderly gentleman perched vulture-like on a stool. She gave him her fifty cents and he stamped the back of her hand. It was still early so the place was nowhere near full capacity.  She walked the perimeter of the dance floor to make sure Larry hadn’t arrived yet. The bleachers had been pulled out on one side, so she took a seat a couple of rows up and near the door to wait for him.

People arrived in a steady stream, singles, couples, a group of four girls, a pack of six boys. She saw a girl from her school, a little while later a guy. Both of them recognized her as they walked past and waved to her. Gillian waved back. 

An hour passed. Kids now packed the dance floor and gathered in the bleachers as well. It was cold outside and she’d kept her jacket on, but with the sweating crowd she was soon sweltering. An adult, no doubt one of the fathers volunteering to chaperone, climbed past Gillian in a hurry, and she turned to watch where he was going. Up near the top of the stands a boy and his girl were making out, and it was getting hot and heavy. Their mouths were pressed together, his hand squeezed her half exposed breast, and her dress strap had slipped off her shoulder. The man pressed his hand to the guy’s back and shouted something- Gillian couldn’t hear what through the blaring music. The couple looked up, startled and flustered. The man stood by for several moments while the boy faced forward and the girl arranged herself, then he left them alone.

In another half hour Gillian understood she’d been stood up, and in a confused panic realized she was about to cry. She didn’t give two shakes whether or not she saw Larry again; it was something about being left alone. She climbed off the bleachers and fled in tears to the exit at the back of the room. It led to a long, wide hall. The bathrooms were located near the far end.  Nearby was a room that had probably been used to store sports equipment and was now converted to an oversized closet. It was full of coats and jackets, and Gillian, sweating profusely, took hers off and hung it up where she could find it. She went into the bathroom, repaired her makeup as best she could, then stepped back out into the hallway. 

A tight knot of five or six guys stood talking down the hall. The music wasn’t as loud back there and she could tell they were speaking in Spanish. The guy she recognized from school emerged from the boys bathroom and spotted her. He hesitated a moment, then came over. He looked concerned. Apparently he could tell she’d been crying, but he didn’t say anything about it. 

“Why don’t you come dance with us?” he said. He gestured toward the door into the big room.

Gillian didn’t feel like dancing. All she wanted to do was wait for her mother and go home. 

“Thanks but I’m meeting someone,” she said. “I told him I’d wait for him back here.”

“Ok. We’ll see y’all inside.” 

When he left she was alone in the hall with the six Spanish speaking guys, and they moved quickly towards her. Four of them grabbed her shoulders, arms, and waist and pulled her into the coat closet. In a sudden panic she struggled against them but with their numbers and strength it was as if she had no control of her limbs, like a puppet. The other two closed the closet door from the outside. Gillian started to yell but they boxed her ears, covered her mouth and eyes, and threw her on the floor. Her back spasmed in pain when she hit. Her head throbbed and her ears were ringing. They left her skirt on, pulled it up above her waist, tore her underwear off. They reached under her blouse and grabbed her breasts. One of them kissed her brutishly, cutting her lip. They bit and bruised her neck, their sweat, cologne, and alcoholic stench repellant, like the smell of boiled wine. She was penetrated repeatedly, but that pain soon became indistinguishable from that in her back. Again and again she begged, “please leave me alone,” eliciting their only English words, “no can do.” When one was finished he switched places with one of the guys guarding the door, but she lost her sense of time, then all awareness of everything else. She didn’t know who she was.

She sat in a corner of the closet, huddled in a ball. She couldn’t stand. She began to remember bits and pieces but had no recollection of any of the guys’ faces. After a while she felt she might be able to get up. When the dance ended, the first of those to retrieve their coats found her standing in the closet. Her attackers had straightened her up when they were finished but her lip was still bleeding. The people putting on their coats said something, but it was mostly unintelligible to her, so she said she was all right. She found her coat, put it on, and went outside. 

The cold braced her somewhat. Still trying to catch her breath, she exhaled steam into the night air. She wandered into the parking lot and found Schulz and her mother, already waiting. She tried to behave normally as she opened the car door and got in, but her mother noticed her lip and the hickies on her neck and started an interrogation. Gillian told her it was no big deal, she’d kissed a guy and made out a little, but it turned out his ex was at the dance and she’s the one who slapped her and cut her lip. Emily, her temper rising, declared that this was the last time Gillian would come to this place. Gillian didn’t argue. She wouldn’t be caught dead at the Star Palace ever again. 

When she tried to get out of bed the next morning, pain seared her low back and pelvic area, as if all of her humiliation had gathered there. She could make no sense of it. Had it been her dress, her makeup? Had she made eye contact so that she seemed to be flirting? As she tried to understand what she had done to deserve the assault, she followed herself, from a distance of several feet, it seemed, as she made the slow, painful journey from her bed to the landing to the top of the stairs. 

She paused with her hand on the rail and beheld the descending steps. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had. Something about her that she couldn’t name drove six strangers to rape her and her own mother’s boyfriend to proposition her. Whatever the unnamable thing was, it had been a part of her ever since she could remember, only now it filled her with dread.

Whatever other thoughts accompanied these feelings, Gillian knew that Benny’s world was gone for good. So was Benny’s girl.