How High the Moon (33 page)

“Is that real blood?” Jennifer asked while Jolene stared up at Ma with her big yap hanging open.

Ma laughed. “This poster is just a drawing.”

“Did you use real blood in the movie, though?” James asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Now, where would they get gallons of real blood from, James?”

“The hospital. They have blood there.”

Ma laughed. “The movie was in black and white, so we used chocolate syrup.”

“What about the monster?” Joey asked.

“Oh, that’s Stan. Poor guy worked up such a sweat inside that rubber suit that he had a rash the whole week we were filming.”

I think the Jackson boys were disappointed, finding out there were no real monsters or blood in the movie, and that Ma didn’t get naked. But their eyes perked right up when Ma told them how she played a lady named Eleanor Wilkinson, and how the government tested some atomic bombs in the lake where her family had a summer home and that atomic stuff fell into the water and made a lizard grow big and deadly mean. How he went on a killing rampage, and the leading man, Mack Filbin, who played a scientist (and her boyfriend by the end), had to save her by finding a way to kill the lizard.

“He chased you all over Kingdom Come, didn’t he, Ma?” I asked.

“Yep.” She lifted her leg, bare in her shorts, and pointed to a scar
on her thigh. “I got that when the monster was chasing me and I fell, cutting it on the lid of a tin can someone left near the water,” she said. “It hurt so bad I cried. Course, that was perfect for the movie, so they left that part in.”

“Wow,” James said.

Ma jumped off the car, handing me the poster. Then suddenly she wasn’t Catty Marlene anymore. She was Eleanor Wilkinson.

She raced along our house, breathing hard and looking back in a panic, like she thought she was being chased—and she was, by us—then into the Frys’ backyard. Poochie went nuts, of course, and Ma crouched down behind a bush, peeking out at him and screaming like he was the monster—which in a way, he was.

Boy, Ma was some actress! When she got down and stuck her legs out from the side of the bush and made them jump and twitch farther and farther into the open, you could have sworn that monster was yanking her out. She kicked and screamed as she tried to get loose. Screamed so loud that Mrs. Fry came running.

Ma fell back on the grass, her head landing right in Mrs. Fry’s flower patch, laughing like crazy, while we applauded her performance and laughed right along with her. “Wow, that was cool!” Jack yelled over Poochie’s barks. I leaned over and yelled at Poochie to shut up, and he backed up a little, even if he was still yapping.

“Land sakes,” Mrs. Fry said, “I thought Poochie was killing somebody out here!”

Ma sat up, and Mrs. Fry hobbled over to her flower bed, lifting a crushed stem from the ground and frowning when the purple flower top flopped sideways like its neck was broken. “You kids get out of this yard now,” she said, looking at Ma like she was one of us. “And Charlie, these weeds are growing up again, so you’d best get busy.”

Charlie looked at me. “It didn’t even rain,” he said with a shrug.

So Charlie stayed home to work while Ma signed napkins with autographs, one for each Jackson kid, and after they left, I helped Ma unpack.

Teddy had cleaned out three drawers for Ma to use (or maybe they were already empty, since he didn’t have anybody giving him hand-me-downs), so Ma had to figure out which things she wanted in there, since all her stuff couldn’t have fit in ten dresser drawers.

Ma sure had some pretty things! I took a hat, shaped like a swimming cap, with a clump of fake flowers on the side, and slipped it on my head while I dug through her jewelry case. I untangled some necklaces, grabbing at a string of pearls. I didn’t think I grabbed that hard, but that necklace snapped right in half. I gasped, but Ma only laughed. “Those are popper beads,” she said. She took the necklace from me and showed me how the little knobby end on one bead fit into the tiny hole in the bead of the other. “See?” She popped off a couple more and said, “It’s so you can make the necklace any length you want.”

“Cool,” I said as she handed it back to me so I could play with it some more. But I didn’t. I slipped it long over my head, then started digging in the big suitcase Ma was rummaging through. “This is for your balloons, isn’t it?” I said, as I pulled out a balloon holder. “They have these in Montgomery Ward catalogs. Did you order this from Montgomery Ward?”

“What did you call them? Balloons?” Ma laughed so hard she almost fell on the bed. She took the white contraption from me, and put it on over her dress, shaking her balloons. “They’re called breasts, Teaspoon. And this is a brassiere. A bullet bra. And no, I didn’t get it from Montgomery Ward. It came straight from Frederick’s of Hollywood.” She tossed the
brassiere
on the bed and I picked it up to examine it. The
cups
, as Ma called them, were shaped more like a dunce hat than a bullet, with stitching that spiraled to a pencil-lead point.

I looked up at Ma and decided that this was what Mrs. Carlton meant by
feminine influence
. Having someone to teach you about breasts and bullet bras and popper beads.

While Ma made piles of folded shirts and skirts and hung long
plastic bags she said were for garments, I matched up her shoes like they were socks. I put on a pointy pair that had skinny heels so high that I had to ballerina-walk to reach Ma so I could show her how they made me almost as tall as her. “Hey,” she said, like she’d suddenly thought of something. “Do the Jacksons have a telephone?”

“Yes,” I said, as I clomped in circles around her. “Why?”

“Well, then I don’t have to keep running to find a pay phone so I can check in with my agent.” Ma told me to keep pairing shoes and she ran across the street to talk to Mrs. Jackson about using her phone. She was back by the time I had the last shoe lined up with its match, then headed for her bath.

“I hope you don’t mind Charlie playing your piano, Ma,” I said later, while we were setting up for our performance. “I tried to save your piano pristine for you. But Charlie’s the only one I let play it. And he always washes first.” The second I said that, Charlie shot up and hurried into the bathroom, while I got out our bag of props.

While Ma waited, she ran her finger over the top of the piano and looked at Teddy. “You were such a sweetie, buying this for me so I could improve enough to play in public,” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t sell it.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked as I pulled the flat black box out of our prop bag. “Remember these, Ma?” I said, taking out one elbow-length glove.

Ma took the glove, turning it over in her hand. “These were mine?”

“Yeah. Can I use them for our show?”

“You can keep them,” she said. “I’ve got more gloves than I know what to do with.” And that was the truth, because I’d put those in pairs, too.

I took Ma’s hand and sat her down in the middle Starlight seat. Then I led Teddy over to sit beside her. Ma goody-goody clapped
her hands like she couldn’t wait for the show to begin, so I yelled for Charlie to hurry.

I slung Teddy’s old tie around my neck, making it into a quick bow so I would look like Randolph Carter, the emcee at the Starlight. Then, while Charlie took his seat at the piano, I welcomed Ma and Teddy to
Live at the Starlight
.

While Charlie played an intro to our first number, I scuttled around him to crouch behind the piano seat so I could rip the tie from my neck and put on Ma’s gloves, because our first number was going to be classy.

Ma put two fingers in her mouth and whistled loud when I returned to the stage, stopping just for a second to kick over a scatter rug so my patent leathers would make good clippy noises on the linoleum as I sashayed.

Ma whistled again after we finished “Ain’t She Cute.” Teddy just clapped. Probably because he didn’t know how to whistle.

We were just about to break into an oldie but goodie, “Kiss of Fire,” the song Georgia Gibbs used to sing—just to help nudge Teddy into remembering how him and Ma used to kiss—when the screen door bounced with knocks. Teddy cranked his head around and gave me a hold-on-a-second finger.

But I told Charlie to keep playing. And I kept singing. Because like Jay reminded us every practice, if we gawked and stopped singing every time someone in the audience got up, one song could take two hours.

“We heard music and thought we’d come over to see what was going on,” Mrs. Fry all but yelled (which was a testament to my claim that she was half deaf). Miss Tuckle was right behind her.

“Well, we’re glad you did,” Teddy said, speaking for all of us, even if I wasn’t glad.

I gave Charlie the
cut
sign, then tapped my patent leather. I was thinking about how they had the nerve, talking right through our number like they were a bunch of afflicted Sunshine Sisters at a first meeting.

“Mrs. Fry!” Ma said, and she gave her a friendly hug. Mrs. Fry
gave Ma’s back a quick pat, her wrinkly Benedict Arnold face not even smiling as it hung over Ma’s shoulder.

“Sorry for barging in like this,” Miss Tuckle told Teddy in a regular-volumed voice that she knew Mrs. Fry couldn’t hear.

Teddy introduced Miss Tuckle to Ma. Poor Miss Tuckle. Even with a little curl in her hair, she was looks-afflicted when you compared her with my movie-star ma. A fact that made me happy, because I knew that even if Teddy had begun thinking Miss Tuckle didn’t look so bad while Ma was gone, he had to be reminded of the truth now when he saw them standing side by side.

Teddy led Mrs. Fry and Miss Tuckle to the empty seats on both sides of Ma, saying he’d stand. Miss Tuckle cranked her head up and smiled at Teddy, so the last thing I was about to do was sing some romantic song about kissing! I told Charlie to do “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” instead.

Boy, Ma sure did like that number! She started Teddy and Mrs. Fry clapping. Then she got up and danced, right on our linoleum stage. “Pick up the tempo, Charlie,” Ma said, snapping her fingers in time until Charlie got his fingers working at the same pace as her snaps. Then Ma started singing with me. Shouting a few
go, go, goes
into the chorus for good measure. Ma didn’t sound anything like Teresa Brewer. She sounded better!

And when we closed off the show with the Penguins’ “Earth Angel,” Ma took over the whole chorus and told me to do the
ooos
and
ahhhhs
in the background. We sounded like a real act!

When our program was over, Ma took my hand. Then she took Charlie’s hand and slid him off the piano seat. She had us make a line, lift our hands together, then drop them as we bent at the waist to take a bow.

“Oh, that was fun!” Ma said, her face flushed and her voice breathy when we stood back up straight.

Teddy yelled, “Bravo! Bravo!”

“That was wonderful,” Miss Tuckle said. “And it’s easy to see where Teaspoon gets her talent.” Ma made her hand do that oh-please-I-don’t-deserve-your-praise wave, but she was grinning.

I was picking up the props, and Charlie was picking at the piano keys again, when Mrs. Fry stood up. She smoothed the front of her housedress and leaned closer to Miss Tuckle, talking half-deaf loud. “She couldn’t let that child be the center of attention even once, now could she.”

Miss Tuckle’s face went pink.

After the big show
, Ma stretched out on the couch for what she said would be a “little” nap. But she didn’t wake up until suppertime. And after she ate, she took her makeup and hair case into the bathroom.

“Where you going, Ma?” I called through the door. With the water running, she must not have heard me, so Teddy answered from where he sat at the table doing a crossword puzzle. “To The Dusty Rose, I’d imagine,” he said.

Ma came out about half an hour later with her hair sprayed in stiff waves. She was wearing a pretty pencil skirt and a flimsy sweater she called “a knit” that clinged tight over her bullet bra. A thick belt held her knit in place.

“What are you looking so pouty about?” she asked me as she slipped into some pretty pumps.

“I want you to stay home with us,” I said.

Ma laughed and gave me a hug. “Tell you what. You can come with me. I’ve told everybody there about my pretty baby girl, and I didn’t have even one picture to show them.”

I looked over at Teddy, and Ma giggled. “What are you looking at
him
for? I’m your ma. And if I say you can go, you can go.”

Teddy looked up, a
not-
so-Jesus-gentle look on his face. “I wouldn’t exactly say that The Dusty Rose is an appropriate place to bring a ten-year-old child,” he said.

“It’s okay, Teddy,” I told him. “When me and Ma lived in Peoria, I was only four and five, and we went downstairs to the bar every night.”

Ma went over to Teddy and nestled her nose against the side of his neck. “You could come with us to make sure your girls stay safe, you know.”

Teddy scrunched his shoulder up and leaned his head against it so that there was no room for Ma’s face. She looked hurt as she backed away.

Teddy set his pencil down. “Teaspoon, could you leave your Ma and I alone for a minute?”

“Yeah, go in your room and pick out the prettiest dress you have,” Ma said, giving my butt a playful slap. I hurried to do as Ma told me, shutting my door behind me.

My closet didn’t have one thing pretty in it, since the best dress I had was lying crumpled in my hamper, mustard stains down the front. So I found my second-best dress. A pink-and-blue plaid that had a skirt full enough that you could hardly tell the hem was crooked. I flung myself and the dress on the bed, then pulled off my dirty socks to see if my blisters were healed enough to wear my patent leathers. Like I heard Mrs. Bloom say, the right accessories could save any outfit.

That’s when I heard Ma shout, “What’s
that
supposed to mean?
Then waltz out of her life again for another five years
?”

“Catty, lower your voice. Please,” Teddy said. “Teaspoon will hear.”

But I wasn’t going to hear nothing, because I flicked on my radio and cranked the sound to ten.