Durable Goods (8 page)

W
e make chocolate cake, and I give Belle a tea ball. It was my mother’s. There isn’t much chance of him missing that. My mother used to talk on the phone and dunk that tea ball. I liked to use the phone after her, the receiver still warm, the smell of her tea breath on the mouthpiece. I wished I had someone to talk to on the telephone like she did. “Oh, uh huh,” she would say, and wait a long time. “Yes!” she would say, nodding as though the person on the phone were there before her. It was
exciting. When I was little, I would get on her lap and look through her apron pockets while she was on the phone. I found Kleenex and safety pins, mostly, but sometimes something good: an earring. A shiny dime. Tickets from somewhere she’d been. She saved them all, proof of something.

I
am lying on the living room rug, staring at the radio, at the thin red line that finds the station. The radio is a big black rectangle with a long antenna, kept here on the floor, next to my father’s chair. It is always tuned to his station. I turn it on, hear the loud sound of the baseball announcers. They get so excited. I used to wonder if they were being hit, their surprised “Oh!”s sounding just like it. “Oh! Would you look at that! OH!” But they were just watching the game, telling how it was to see it. I turn the dial, get some fancy piano music. I listen with my eyes closed. This kind of music draws pictures in my head, takes me places, acts out whole
stories. Diane doesn’t like it; she always makes me change the station. But when I grow up I will play it loud in my own house, open the windows wide.

Once, when I was listening to his radio, my father came home. I sat up fast. You weren’t supposed to play his radio without asking. But he wasn’t mad. He sat down and asked me did I know how a radio worked. I told him that when I was little, I thought there were real people in there, swaying before their microphones. There were tiny girl singers in formais, little men in tuxedos, their eyebrows wrinkled from singing like Eddie Fisher. And there were little instruments: saxophones you could fit into matchboxes, pianos no wider than a quarter.

He interrupted me. “You know better than that now, though, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” I said.

“So how do radios work?”

“Well, I … I think there are tubes.”

“Yes?”

“And some electricity.”

“Yes?”

“You have to plug it in.”

He laughed. And then he told me how radios
worked. I watched his mouth move, and his eyes, so close to me now, but different than usual. I was trying so hard to listen that I couldn’t. There was a bad hole in my brain. And so when he finished and asked me did I understand, I had to disappoint him. His face lost something. I could feel him pulling back in, like a turtle. I remember thinking that so much about him was unfair. And that starting right then, there was clean space inside me that let me know it was not all my fault. It’s like looking at the pictures of those artists who paint with millions of dots. You stand close for so long and see nothing. You stand back one time and say, Oh.

D
iane comes in, stops when she sees me. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Music.”

She leans over to turn it off. “I hate that music! It’s for funerals.”

I move to turn it back on, stop. Later.

Dickie comes in the door, stops there.

“Come on in,” I say. “He’s gone.”

“Where?” Diane asks.

I shrug. Diane looks at me, then at Dickie. “Come on,” she says. “You can come with us.”

The air has gotten rare. I stand up, pull down my shirt, tighten my ponytail. “Where we going?”

“To Dickie’s house. I’ll show you the puppies.” She turns to him. “All right?”

He spreads his hands wide. “Okay with me.”

I heard about someone the radio called up. They won something and they weren’t even listening. Sometimes all it takes is to be there. I have never even seen Dickie’s house. Of course, I have always wanted to. And I am going there right now, invited like a guest. Any jealous feelings I had about Cherylanne’s being on a date go down like water in the last suck of the drain.

I
t is pale green, Dickie’s house, and it has dark-green shutters. This surprises me: I thought only grandparents had shutters. The lawn is
patchy—bald here and tufted there—like a crazy-man haircut. There is a bush with flowers nearly given up on it, light-pink things with their heads hanging down.

Dickie pulls out his keys and opens the front door, waves us in. Diane goes first, confidently, and I follow. I am suddenly shy, and wish I had stayed home.

The living room has a gold rug, a black leather chair, a pole lamp, and a sofa that looks like anybody’s. There is an empty bag of Fritos by the chair, and a newspaper, unopened. There is nothing on the walls, no curtains.

“Want a beer?” Dickie asks me, and winks.

I smile, look down, and then hear the faint urgent sounds of puppies. “Is that them?” I ask. “The puppies?”

“They’re in the kitchen,” Dickie says. “Come see.”

Diane has stretched out on the sofa, kicked off her shoes, closed her eyes. “Go ahead,” she says. “I’ve seen them a million times.”

They are in the corner, in a cardboard box lined with a once-pink blanket. They are in their own
made jumble, paws over heads over rumps, tails sticking out every which way. When they see Dickie, they leap up on wobbly legs, push forward toward him. He kneels down, holds his hand out to them. “I swear they think I’m their father,” he says. He pats each head, and I am amazed to see their tails wag. Their eyes are shiny-new, and their coats, when I touch them, too soft for this world. I sit down on the floor beside them, sigh, smile. “They’re so cute,” I say. This is not it. What I mean is more. I want them. All of them.

Dickie stands up. “Yeah, they’re cute. But another week and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with them.”

I stop petting them. “Can’t you sell them?”

He laughs.

“Or give them away?”

“Maybe some,” he says and goes to the refrigerator, takes out a Lone Star. “Beer?” he asks again.

And I do an amazing thing. I say, “Yes, please.”

Dickie laughs.

“Can I?” I say.

“Hey, Diane,” he calls. “Should we get your sister drunk?”

Diane comes into the kitchen, leans against the wall, looks at me. “What the hell,” she says. “You want a beer?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“So have a beer,” she says. Her voice is not her own. She is in her own movie.

Dickie opens a bottle of beer, hands it to me. I take a sip, nod. “It’s good.” It is not, though; it’s bitter. But I like it anyway.

“I’ll have one,” Diane says, sitting down at the table, and when Dickie gives it to her, I see this is old for her.

I take another swallow, watch the puppies. “Do you think we can have one, Diane?”

“No.”

I pet one head, another rump, feel along the side of yet another leg. “Why not?”

“Oh,” she sighs, tips her chair back on two legs. “It would be too much work, something like that. I don’t know. He wouldn’t want a dog.”

“What if we just came home with one? He’d see how cute she is. He might like her.”

“Try it,” Dickie says. “They need another week, then take your pick.”

“Shut up, Dickie,” Diane says, but it is a warm thing, not what it seems.

He comes over to her, picks her up like she is nothing. “Come here,” he says, and starts carrying her off. She is laughing, relaxed. I hear their voices disappear down the hall.

I drink more beer. The puppies are sleepy, arranging themselves like toys. I wonder where their mother is.

I hear low talk from Dickie and Diane. They have closed a door behind them. I actually don’t mind. It is nice, sitting in a new place by myself. By the time I finish the beer, I am making plans. I have this confidence, like a good new outfit I’m wearing on the inside.

I can have a puppy. I can have a boyfriend. I can have a good husband, live in a house with him. I go into the living room, think how I’d decorate it. Well, curtains, for one thing; it is only civilized. And something baking in the oven, to make smells you can almost hold. Some plants. Some pictures we would pick out together: “Do you like that one?” “Well, of course, if
you
do, dear.” Yes, and an ashtray
for guests who smoke, and a candy dish, all with wrapped-up toffees.

In the mornings I would have my friends over. There would be a big blue plate of doughnuts, powdered sugar and whatever else they wanted, and we would talk about what we were going to do that day. “Well, he is taking me somewhere tonight, but I sure don’t know where,” I would say, and my friends would rustle a bit, excited and glad for me to have a romantic husband. Millions of times I would tell them it wasn’t always so easy for me. “Oh!” They’d wave their hands. “You are just so lucky! You have always been so lucky!”

“Well,” I would say, “I know it seems so.”

I would vacuum with a new loud cleaner, wash clothes and hang them out on my own rope lines. I would be a mother to beautiful children I would fold into my skirts and keep safe. At night we would all watch our favorite TV shows and if someone wanted to talk, well fine let them.

I sit in the black chair, close my eyes. This makes me dizzy, so I open them again. I hear someone
coming down the hall and I stand up. Diane comes into the room, smiles at me. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

She leans closer. “Did you drink that whole beer?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit!” She starts to laugh.

“Shit!” I say, too. It’s easy as pie.

I start to march around the room. “I shit, you shit, he shits,” I say. Then, confidentially, “Conjugation.”

“My God, Dickie,” Diane says, “look what you did.”

“Oh, no, Diane,” I say. “This is
me
talking.”

Dickie comes into the living room, tucking in his shirt. Then he pulls a comb out of his pocket, pulls it expertly through his hair. He looks at me for a minute, then smiles. “Hell, she’s shit-faced.”

Diane is suddenly serious. “This is bad, Dickie. Jesus. We can’t take her home like this.”

He raises an eyebrow. “She doesn’t have to go home. Let’s take her out to dinner with us.”

Diane looks at me, hands on hips. “You want to come?”

I am their pet girl. They are having a good time with me. “I can make us dinner,” I say. “I’m a good cook.” A vision: us at the table, an embroidered cloth in place, pastel bowls of potatoes, corn, green beans, a square meat loaf, apple pie waiting on the side. Me saying, “Pass me another beer, will you?” and Dickie saying, “Damn, she
is
a good cook, Diane!” and Diane getting, oh, yes, just a teensy bit jealous. Diane is beautiful, but all she makes are brown-sugar sandwiches.

“Let’s go to A&W,” Dickie says.

Well, that’s fine, too, of course. My contentment is thick and lasting, like butter on bread. A&W is fine.

B
y the time we arrive home, I am sober again. It is seven in the evening. Dickie and Diane let me off, then drive away. I regret their going, though I knew, of course, it would come to this. I stand by the side of the road, sighing. The sun is low in the sky, deep red.

“Katie!” I hear Cherylanne calling me from her bedroom window. “Hey, Katie!” Then, as I get closer, “Where have you
been?”

I go into her house, climb the stairs slowly. She is waiting in her bedroom, dressed in a flowered bathrobe and her pink fuzzy slippers. She has silver clips on either side of her head, to make spit curls. There is a thin layer of cold cream on her face, making her appear slightly ill.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“Where have you been?” she answers.

I lie down on her bed, stretch out luxuriously. “Drinking with Dickie and Diane. Drinking beer.”

She stands still, then offers, as though offended, “I doubt it.”

I shrug. “Doubt it. That’s where I’ve been. I had Lone Star beer. I bet you can smell it on my breath.”

She steps closer, leans in, sniffs delicately. “All I smell is onions. You’d better eat some parsley right away.” That tip she got from watching
Miss America
, I know.

“I don’t care if I smell like onions,” I say. “I like onions.”

Cherylanne sits on her dresser stool, regards me carefully. “Did you really drink beer?”

“Sure did.” I hold my arm up in the air, let my wrist flop, my fingers fall. Say I had some rings and bracelets on; I’d look like Cleopatra herself.

“Huh. Well, I wouldn’t be so proud and mighty if I were you. It’s a dent in your character. It’s something, once you’ve done, there’s no going back.”

“What do you mean?”

She turns to her mirror, fiddles with her clips. “You just can’t go back. Now you have gone and drunk alcohol.”

“Well, la de dah.” I make a scared face. “I guess I’m going to hell now.”

She stands up. “Since you are in such a bad mood, you can just leave. I had plenty to tell you. But now you can just forget it. Why don’t you just go drink some more?”

I rise, languidly. “I think I will. I think I’ll have a big, fat whiskey.”

Cherylanne is painting her toenails. Hard. She is trying to act like I’m not there. And here is some blessed and new strong thing: I don’t care.

I
come into the house, see him at the kitchen table. He is reading through a stack of official-looking papers. “Where you been?” he asks.

“Cherylanne’s,” I say.

“Doing what?” He doesn’t look up.

I lean against the door jamb. “Oh, we went and tried clothes on at the PX. Then we played cards. I won every round. We ate some popcorn. And some cheese.”

“Uh huh.” He turns a page. “Where’s your sister?”

“Beats me. I haven’t seen her.”

He looks up, something in his eyes, then changes his mind.

“See you,” I say. I go up into my room, lie on my bed, stare at the ceiling. My brain is saying my name to itself. That is all. Just my name.

W
hen Diane comes home, he calls us into the kitchen, tells us to sit down. This could be anything. We sit straight, not looking at him or each other.