Splintered Heart (15 page)

She watched them in the bluey moonlight of her own room, on the blue-white sheets of her own bed — kissing, caressing, stroking, wriggling, rolling, squirming, bouncing, pumping, groaning, thrusting, moaning and was herself consumed by the act of their making love.

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Chapter 18

"Mari, are you sure there isn't anything I can do?" Elena asked.

The only one that could possibly understand was Elena. She was Marian's only really close friend, like a sister, almost. But the inner voice always warned — "If Elena wants to confide in you that's O.K., but don't tell Elena your troubles!"

It was a memory of Mary Ellen Warner, best friend from the first grade to the sixth — she would give Marian the thumb on the earlobe signal which meant they were going to whisper together at recess — "You tell me your secret and I'll tell you mine!" It always stopped Marian.

Mary Ellen Warner was having a Halloween party. For weeks, that's all the girls in the sixth grade were talking about — what they were going to wear.

Marian thought about coming as Joan of Arc, but how can you be a St. Joan without looking homemade? Sixth grade girls thought homemade stuff was corny. You had to be careful, especially if your best friend was the one who was giving the party and she happened to be the wealthiest girl in the school. Being corny was the same as being a drip which was one of Mary Ellen's favorite mean words. Being a drip was as bad as having bad breath.

A week before the party, Marian picked out a witch costume from the rack at her father's store. It was the most expensive one on the rack, and though not exactly exclusive, Marian figured she'd make her witch special by wearing a lot of lipstick, and carrying a curtain rod, using it as a magic wand. Marian figured Mary Ellen would like the costume. Hadn't they invented their own secret sign language? Didn't they always agree about most everything else? What an exciting day! After school everyone got into costume. The room filled up with Dick Tracy, Bo Peep, Cinderella, Donald Duck, George Washington, the Easter Bunny and Salome with seven veils — all sorts of famous characters — but lo and behold, a girl unpacked a witch costume almost identical to Marian's and the girl was putting on a whole lot of lipstick and a ton of rouge.

Marian was very glad she had her curtain rod wand. Instead of lipstick and rouge, she used a Crayola crayon to make herself very thick evil eyebrows. It made her witch definitely more special and definitely more exclusive, which was very important, Mary Ellen always said.

The Warner house was everything that a girl's home should be — a private elevator, maids to take coats and show them down a winding stairway into the spooky wonderful room — pumpkins with candle eyes glowing and skeletons hanging from crepe paper drapes. Their bony paper feet brushed Marian's witch hat like ghostly cadavers. They played "Pin the Tail", "Charades" and ate — hot dogs on sticks, candy corn, ice cream, cake and coke. Maids served. A man kept everyone moving from games to food back to games and more sodas. Marian figured he was Mr. Warner because he was like her Daddy — tall, handsome, and telling everyone what to do.

Just when Marian was beginning to wondering where her best friend was, Mary Ellen appeared. Her gown was floor-length, creamy white satin. She had a rhinestone coronet, dangling rhinestone earrings and bracelets and when she came down the stairs you could see she was wearing gold high heels.

Mr. Warner turned on the record player and everybody watched while Mary Ellen danced with Dick Tracy. No other boy-girl couples joined in but Cinderella started dancing with Bo Peep and Salome danced with the Easter Bunny. The second dance was boogie-woogie and Mary Ellen cut in on Salome.

Marian was a tiny bit hurt that her best friend hadn't asked her for a dance, but she was also glad. Her witch hat was e-enormous. Even without it, Marian was the tallest girl in the class. With it, she was taller than the boys. Also the waistband of the witch skirt was tight. Marian wished she knew where the bathroom was but she was too shy to ask. The maids had disappeared. The man was there, but it didn't seem good manners to ask your best friend's father for directions to the bathroom.

Then, Mary Ellen called out "Albert, ring the gong, it's time to judge the costumes," and Marian realized Albert was the butler, not the father, but it was too late to go to the bathroom, because everyone was being given slips of paper on which to put down their choices and Mary Ellen's mother was coming down the winding staircase.

She was glamor! Dressed in a pink gown with feather fur trim, Mrs. Warner was like movie star while the votes were being counted, thanking the children for being well-behaved as she sat on the couch. It was disloyal, but Marian couldn't help but wish her own Mamma was as beautiful.

Mary Ellen won the first prize. Bo Peep was second, George Washington was the runner-up.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends dear," Mary Ellen's Mother asked.

One by one, Mary Ellen brought forward her classmates. Marian hung in the back, she knew you saved the best for last and she was definitely Mary Ellen's best friend — hadn't they been giggling over the same jokes, sharing lunches and whispering together since first grade?

The trouble was … her head — it was getting sweaty from the witch-hat's hatband, and the witch's skirt was beginning to feel horribly tight. If there had been anybody around, even a father, Marian would have asked directions to the nearest bathroom.

Marian gave Mary Ellen the thumb on chin signal.

"Oh golly, I almost forgot, " said Mary Ellen in the tired bored tone the homeroom teacher used at the end of the day, "Mom, this is Marian Melnik." Mary Ellen gave Marian a hurry-up shove, so that Marian lurched and stepped on one of Mrs. Warner's pink shoes that was peeping out from under the feather fur hem of her gown.

Marian's face got burning hot. She wished Mary Ellen hadn't pushed her. She gave Mary Ellen their SECRET BEST FRIENDS signal, desperately hoping Mary Ellen would say something right then and there to let her Mom know that Marian Melnik was Mary Ellen's dearest, best friend.

Someone snickered. "Melnik, tell-nick," one of the girls called out in a nasty voice. Then one of the boys echoed, "Melnik, Hellnik!" And suddenly it was a game that everybody seemed to be in the mood to play.

"Teachers pet!" Miss Bo Peep cried. Someone hissed, "Smarty pants!" Others picked it up and it became a refrain. "Smarty pants!" "Teachers Pet!" "Hellnik Melnik!"

Marian did her best to ignore the jeers. But George Washington shouted, "What a drip — give her the booby prize," and that set Mary Ellen off into one of her giggle fits which got two other girls and one of the boys giggling as well. Marian gave Mary Ellen a BE QUIET thumb signal and when that did not work, she gave her best friend the SOS EMERGENCY secret crossed hands. She did the crossed hands twice, but Mary Ellen didn't even try stop laughing. Everybody was laughing all around the room and the laughter grew and grew.

Without any warning, cake, candy, soda, and hot dogs came together inside Marian's stomach. She didn't know what to do, she couldn't control it. Up it came. She put her hands over her mouth but couldn't stop a disgusting blob of half digested mish-mash from flying forward and onto Mrs. Warner's pretty pink gown.

Splat!

Marian would never forget that dreadful death feeling. She wanted to vanish. She wanted to helicopter straight up and out of the room and through the roof and be gone. But she couldn't. It seemed like a million years, but finally someone took her to a bathroom and gave her a wash cloth.

Marian removed the witch hat. Black dye from the hatband had run down and made an ugly black mark like a Frankenstein monster scar all around her forehead and ears. She sat down on the edge of the bath tub and wept.

Somebody knocked. Marian didn't answer. Someone called to Marian through the keyhole, but Marian still wouldn't answer. Finally Albert knocked. "Miss, all the other guests have gone. Mrs. Warner had me order a taxi to take you home. The taxi is waiting."

Marian managed to get off most of the black crayon eyebrows, but no matter how hard she scrubbed, she couldn't remove the monster black scar. She had to wear the tall witch hat as she emerged from the bathroom door, and proceeded through the party room with skeleton feet hitting her head, up the winding stairs and down the elevator and into the taxi, and keep the stupid awful terrible horrible pointed hat on the whole time the taxi driver was driving her home.

Even then, it took two and a half days, rubbing alcohol, four percent hydrogen peroxide, a whole box of cotton swabs before the black finally faded.

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Chapter 19

In her maid's room office, Marian turned the pages of her desk schedule forward and marked in the time and place of the screening party.

It was something to do, a way of fighting. Marian wasn't quite certain what she was fighting. She thought she was fighting to win back her husband, to get things back to the lovely loving way they had been before Andrea.

The date was two weeks away. There were only two weeks to make preparations for the battle.

* * *

Armand greeted Marian in the salmon colored ante room of his salon. "What brings you here my dear girl? What can we do for you?"

There hadn't been much time in Marian's life for beauty parlors. Now, it seemed a matter of survival.

"I thought you could fix me up," Marian faltered.

Armand stood back, looking Marian over, up and down, everywhere, inspecting and surveying. But that was Armand's way, that was why she was there. He was like a Doctor. He would evaluate her and prescribe what was needed to make her ready for the battle.

"You certainly do have a big group inside there today," Marian was looking into the treatment room to avoid Armand's eyes.

Armand smiled his pixy smile. "It's that time of year. All my girls are worried about grey hair, wrinkles, and those few extra pounds — spring is just around the corner."

The salon was filled with silver and blond-haired older women. With heads in bubble dryers, pink and blue sausage curlers, clips, pins, nets, the ladies looked like a garden of thistles, bobbling and nodding in the hot breeze from the hair dryers.

Marian hated the idea of joining them.

"Armand, you've got to help me!" Words came tumbling out. "Make me fabulous.
 
Do
 
something
!"

"Of course we'll do something. Didn't you see what we did with Miss Elena? Henna's much more subtle than the dye she's been using, don't you think?"

She'd always assumed Elena's hair color was natural. But every woman had secrets, why not Elena?

Armand arranged the appointments and gave her a salmon-pink paper on which he'd written them down. "You're a divine lady, but when we get through with you, your husband is going to find you more fascinating than ever."

What Armand was suggesting was exactly what Marian had in mind.

* * *

Rickey's
 
was two flights above the Salon. It was like a gym, but unlike a gym in that all four walls had full-length mirrors. The room resonated with Latin drums from a quadraphonic stereo.

Rickey came on from all sides the moment she emerged from the dressing room in her leotard.

"The body is a temple, baby doll," Rickey said, with his hands on Marian's stomach. "Now let me teach you how to breathe....Exhale...Inhale! Ooo-la-la, that's good, baby doll." He danced her over to a corner of the floor. "Everybody down!"

Rickey made them roll up, circle and twist, stretch, lie on their backs and kick high, then higher until they were dripping with sweat and out of breath even though they still flat on their backs, on the floor.

"O.K. Dance time!"

'Dance' was standing up exercises that had to do the muscles of waist, buttocks, and inner thighs. He lined the women up in front of the mirrors. "Go baby, go honey, that's it, yeah!" The syncopated rhythms, the bodies doubled by the reflection in the mirrors made the room seem as if it were overflowing with chorus girls.

"Lift! Stretch!" Rickey called out. His body was a piece of sculpture. He was dancing along with them, coaxing them into frenzied exertions, as he demanded, "Push babydoll! Contract babydoll!"

Rickey called it "contract," but it was bumps and grinds — movements of sexual activity, not just objective exercise routines. He put his hands on either side of Marian's hips from behind, guiding her through a pelvic rotations. She guessed she was supposed to think of him as another kind of doctor, so she kept right on, pushing and contracting, looking straight ahead, trying not to think of him as a man. It wasn't easy. Every muscle, curve of his torso and loins was blatantly obvious and in close proximity.

It wasn't embarrassing. It was amusing, and curiously exhilarating.

"Ooo-la-la, look at honey-child here!" Rickey patted Marian's behind, while cajoling the other women who were pop-eyed, watching sideways while focusing straight ahead on the mirrors. "Your love muscles, baby dolls, you got to keep those love muscles working!"

* * *

There was a telephone call.

There was the usual "hello." The intense listening. No conversation, no sound, just the incredibly silent silence. Time seemed to become a vaster expanse of larger, longer, broader deeper dimension. The blackness of the telephone became blacker, its gloss glossier. The thick carpet she was standing on felt thicker, the light bulb in the lamp seemed brighter; the smells of cooking and of the perfume she was wearing were exquisitely pungent.