Shout Her Lovely Name (13 page)

In the morning, Mrs. Childers snored softly on the couch. Nora pressed her forehead against the window, scanning the street. Puddles from the sprinklers shone slivery bright on the sidewalk. Despite Phil Donahue’s absence, the sky was clear.

Mrs. Childers poached eggs, and since there was no bread for toast, she served Nora a stack of Ritz crackers with a forbearing sigh. She held her palms up for Nora to place her own hands atop while she examined Nora’s fingernails, bringing them up to her watery blue eyes. Yes, she said, Nora most definitely suffered from an iron deficiency. She should eat raisins. Then she told Nora to scoot, to go watch cartoons. When Ruby finally called, at ten, Nora told her mom about raisins and her deficiency and demanded they offer a reward for Phil Donahue.

“You’re healthy as a Shetland pony. Phil will survive one night outside. Besides, Dr. Guy says not to worry.” Nora knew her mother was smiling when she said
Dr. Guy.
Her voice hit all the right notes. “The cat is punishing me for booting him. Cats can hold a grudge, you know.”

“His name is Phil Donahue.”

“Go swim at Jocelyn’s. I’ll be home for lunch.”

Nora searched under cars, up the magnolia tree, and behind the Dumpster. Nothing.

“Don’t fret, lamb,” Margaret said. Her chair sat just beyond the carport in a patch of sun. Next to it, she’d placed a card table with a rose-printed tablecloth, a pitcher of iced tea, and a china platter of crust-free cucumber sandwiches. Donald had stayed behind on church business and they were sneaking a Sunday-morning swim. “Phil Donahue will return,” Margaret said. She’d removed her church clothes and wore her robe with the sash loosened so sunlight hit the V of pale flesh and the small gold cross at her neck. She held her cherished stack of British
Vogue
s on her lap. “A cat would be loopy to run away from you.” When she said it, Nora found she could almost relax.

“Come on.” Jocelyn pulled at her arm. She wore a new paisley swimsuit the Easter Bunny had left inside a giant pink plastic egg, which now bobbed on the surface of the pool. They swam around the circle of aqua plastic as fast as they could, trying to make a whirlpool, calling for Phil Donahue every time they surfaced for air. When Jocelyn yelled, “Switch,” the two girls turned to face the flow of water. Jocelyn’s feet were so close to Nora’s face she could feel the current ripple past her ears.

They ate cucumber sandwiches while hanging over the pool’s edge. Margaret’s scissors flashed as she snipped fashion photos from her magazines, a smile floating on her lips as if this was her idea of a delicious morning. She’d unwound her bun and occasionally asked them what they thought of a particular outfit. Nora, Margaret exclaimed, had a great fashion sense. It would have been Nora’s idea of a delicious morning too if Phil Donahue were home. She envisioned him strolling up, nonchalant, with the sun shining off his Kitty Queen–glossy fur. The two of them would regally ignore her mother for days. She finished her cucumber sandwich and flung herself backward into the water.

“She shouldn’t have hurt him,” she said to herself and the sky.

Margaret lowered her magazine. “What, love?” Her round brown eyes looked at Nora with so much Catholic sympathy that Nora found she couldn’t help herself.

“My mom beat my cat with her shoe.” Nora’s eyes stung and she didn’t mean to cry, but there was Margaret, her forehead creased with concern, reaching a hand toward Nora’s wet head. She couldn’t stop herself, she sobbed, sucking in air and water until she was coughing, nearly choking. Margaret held a big yellow towel open to her, and when Nora wouldn’t get out, Margaret climbed into the pool, the water lapping over the edge, her robe hanging on the chair. She hugged Nora to her soggy white padded bra, and Nora loved feeling her own shoulders heave beneath Margaret’s hand.

Jocelyn watched them, sidling closer to her mother. She patted Nora’s back a few perfunctory times. The crying must have seemed endless to Jocelyn because finally she jumped from the pool and ran dripping into her apartment. Nora heard slamming drawers before Jocelyn returned, her arms heaped with pantyhose.

“Josie, don’t.”

Jocelyn ignored her. “Seaweed,” she said, tossing them into the pool, “for Mermaid Island.” The legs fluttered, quivering beneath the surface as if they were alive—a sea garden for Jocelyn and Nora to splash through. She shrieked and dove, winding the shimmering hose around her arms and the pink plastic egg, stealing her mother back.

“You’ll ruin them.” Margaret’s hands left Nora. She shambled around the pool, grabbing at pantyhose and Jocelyn’s legs, slippery as white eels. “Stop it this instant,” she said, huffing. Soggy brown tentacles clung to her arms as she slapped at the water. “They’re costly.”

Nora pressed her back against the side, waiting for one of them to notice she wasn’t part of the game. She’d pretty much exhausted that particular burst of sorrow over Phil Donahue, though she managed a few more sobs. When Jocelyn and her mother kept up their game, the chastising giving way, eventually, to laughter, Nora blurted, “My mother didn’t come home last night.”

Margaret halted. Instead of sympathetic clucking and a return to Nora’s side, she sealed her lips tight. Right away Nora knew she’d said something wrong. She thought she might cry some more, but she was all dried up.

“Is your mother home now?”

Nora half shrugged, half nodded, uncertain which answer would work best. A hummingbird paused over the pool. Its wings thrumming, it hung there, suspended for a long moment, before switching directions and darting away. “She had a date.” Nora didn’t mention Mrs. Childers.

When Margaret stood, water streamed off her body. Her pale stomach rolled over the top of her pantyhose. From what Nora saw, she didn’t have the silver stretch marks her mom lamented over in front of the mirror. “We’ve had enough,” Margaret declared, climbing from the pool.

“Why?” Jocelyn objected.

“Do as I say.” Margaret wrapped Jocelyn in a thick towel and tossed one to Nora as well. “Spit-spot.”

Jocelyn scowled. Margaret scooped the pantyhose from the pool, draped them over her chair. Nora wondered what Donald would think when he saw the harem of pantyhose exposed in his carport.

“You’ll have to come in and wait until your mother gets home.” Margaret tsked and marched smartly toward the apartment door. She was mumbling to herself about Ruby and about Nora, who had switched from an opportunity to a responsibility.

When Nora bent to pick up her shorts, she saw Margaret’s scissors lying on the carport floor, and she didn’t mean to, but she found herself edging them along the concrete toward the pool and then jabbing the tips into the plastic, nothing more than a wee nick. She needed something new to think about, all that leaking water, while she waited for Phil Donahue and her mom.

Ruby and Dr. Shapiro rang Jocelyn’s cheerful doorbell. Nora saw that they were holding hands. Her mom’s cheek grazed his shoulder as if she were petting him with her face.

“Is Nora here?” Ruby wore a breezy smile.

Margaret kept Jocelyn behind her, as if she needed protection.

“She’s been here all morning, I’ve fed her lunch and washed her hair.”

“One less thing to do.” Her mom laughed and held her hand out to Nora.

“May I speak with you in the kitchen?” Margaret asked.

Jocelyn and Nora stayed on the front porch with Dr. Shapiro. They made a small, awkward clump, like people waiting for a diagnosis.

“Who are you?” Jocelyn asked.

“The vet.” He stuck out his hand. “Call me Dr. Guy.” He kept his other hand in his pocket, jiggling coins. The tails of his shirt hung over his khakis in a sloppy, jaunty fashion. He rocked in his loafers, then smiled wide and easy, as if he had nothing better to do than chat with a couple of kids on a stranger’s front porch. Nora didn’t trust him with his butt chin.

“Her cat ran away.”

“Yes, strays do that,” he said. “I wouldn’t worry too much. Maybe he needed a night on the town.” He play-socked Nora’s shoulder. “Do you dance as well as your mom?”

She rubbed her arm as if he’d hurt her. What kind of vet was he? She hated her mom for making her unworthy of Margaret’s attention.

“I thought you were the boyfriend,” Jocelyn said.

Nora cringed. It was another of her mom’s not-to-be-broken rules: Let the man call himself boyfriend. Nora had heard her advise friends over the telephone:
Don’t scare them off. Aloof. Aloof. Aloof.

Right then her mom stepped out. Her lips were thin and tight as Margaret’s. “Let’s go,” she said too quietly, as if she were counting to ten in her mind. It’s what she was supposed to remember to do when she was angry with Nora. What she should have done last night with Phil Donahue. She did it now, refraining from saying anything else because she had an audience, but Nora saw her frown lines deepen. Halfway to their apartment she said, “Margaret thinks I need church.” Then she forced one loud
ha,
sharp as a pinprick.

“From what I know of you, I think Margaret is absolutely right.” Guy laughed. He didn’t know not to tease her mom when she got like this. “Come on, it’s a joke.”

Her mom called her into the bathroom to talk. She smelled the armpits of her dress and tossed it in the dry-cleaning pile. With one hand she unhooked her bra and dropped it into the sink, then she began scrubbing the lace with a bar of soap. “Why did you tell them you were home alone?” Ruby and her pale nipples stared accusingly at Nora from the mirror, as if she had two sets of eyes.

Ruby tried to mimic Margaret’s accent. “‘She’s a wee vulnerable child.’” It was a horrible attempt. “Margaret thinks I don’t have your best interests at heart. She thinks you’re in danger.”

Margaret had pulled on her dish gloves to wash Nora’s hair. She’d raked her rubberized fingers over Nora’s scalp, scrubbing twice before she combed cream rinse through, furiously yanking at the snarls. Never before had Nora washed her hair twice. She was beyond clean. She was sanitized.

“Catholics are ruthlessly judgmental.” Ruby squinted at Nora, swished the bra back and forth beneath the running faucet.

Nora almost told her mom about the pool, now draining from the bottom, its sides slowly folding in like a morning glory. She was afraid her mom would laugh her approval rather than make her go confess.

“Why aren’t you talking to me?”

“I miss Phil Donahue.”

On Tuesday night they were invited to dinner at Hamburger Hamlet with Dr. Guy. Right away things didn’t go well. First, he called to say he couldn’t pick them up because he had a veterinary emergency. Her mom scratched the air with two fingers when she repeated it so Nora knew she didn’t believe him. Then they waited for him in the parking lot for twenty-three minutes by her mom’s Timex.

“It happens.” He shrugged when he arrived. “I just put forty-seven stitches in a rottweiler.”

“What happened?” Nora asked.

“Hit by a car.”

“I hope Phil Donahue is okay.” Nora jammed her brows together with concern and her mom reached over to smooth them out. She was constantly warning Nora about her bad habits.

“Felines are smarter than canines,” her mom said. She sniffed Dr. Guy’s shoulder. “You don’t smell like dog.”

“And that’s a good thing, right?”

Ruby led the three of them into the restaurant, past families seated in booths, swaying her hips in her green capri pants. Dr. Guy pressed his steady hand on her and reminded her she wasn’t delivering cocktails. She claimed she had the same walk for the freezer aisle at the grocery store, and he said he was surprised there wasn’t a thaw. That made her happy. She suggested sharing a shrimp Louie, but he wanted a roast beef sandwich. She pouted, said a turkey club would be fine. Halfway through his placing their order, she interrupted, changed her mind to the Louie after all. They looked like any other family on a Tuesday night: the mom smoking and looking out the window, the dad lecturing about multiplication facts, bike safety, or cat-care tips. Nora played the kid, unscrewing the lid on the saltshaker. The food came and Dr. Guy made little moaning sounds with each bite. At first her mom nudged him and grinned like it was a private joke. When he didn’t stop, Nora could tell it got on her mom’s nerves. Ruby finally crushed her cigarette into her salad before she was even halfway done.

“That’s disgusting,” he said.

Nora kept her eyes cast down.

“I had no idea vets were so sensitive.” Ruby unfolded a napkin over her plate so it looked as if they had a cat-size corpse on their table.

“Well. Okay,” he said in the parking lot. “Thanks.” He removed a toothpick from his mouth to kiss her mom’s cheek. Then he slipped it right back in.

“Thanks for removing it first,” her mom said. She leaned toward him and bit the toothpick as if they were playing tug of war. He relinquished it.

“I’ll call you,” he said, backing toward his car. “Sorry. I’ve got to check on the rotty. Good luck finding Phil Donahue.” He waved to Nora.

On the way home her mom banged the steering wheel with her fist.

Ruby mimeographed
REWARD FOR LOST CAT
signs and borrowed a stapler from her school. The next afternoon, they walked the neighborhood, not saying much, just walking and stapling. They passed Donald, sweating in Bermuda shorts and a plaid shirt buttoned up to his neck, as he patched the pool in his carport. “Looking for the Manx?” The way he asked frightened Nora because his eyes and voice didn’t go together. One gleamed and the other pitied.

“What happened?” Ruby pointed at the pool.

“A slow leak. Have a private moment?” he asked Ruby.

Nora hung back, fearful. Nothing he said would be good news.

“Saw your Manx,” she heard him say. Ruby looked over her shoulder at Nora, her eyes wide with sympathy or hope.

“She was trotting down the sidewalk when a car”—he slapped his hands together hard—“braked.” Ruby flinched. Donald looked at Nora, who dropped to a squat, pretending interest in a pill bug, and then he turned back to Ruby. His voice grew oddly loud and fake. “A family got out of the car, a mum and a dad and a boy. The three of them fussed over her, called the Manx, and she jumped in their car.”