Brightleaf (12 page)

“By the way,” I say, changing the subject. “Why does
that sign in front of the hotel say, ‘Welcome Voyeurs’?”

“The marquee?” Terry asks. “You mean the sign that says, ‘Welcome Voyagers’?”

Oh.

How embarrassing. I was imagining a ballroom chock full of sweaty, half naked people teeming with V.D. I cannot express how grateful and relieved I am right now. Still, the fact I read it so wrong to begin with…I may never live this down.

“I guess you’ve got some friends in that ballroom?”

Terry nods and offers me his arm. “A bunch of voyeurs,” he says, shaking his head.

We enter the grand ballroom. Deacon Coons and Belinda are both wearing
Star Trek
uniforms from the 1960s. Belinda looks surprised to see me, but they both give big waves. Terry waves back and says we missed Brent Spiner speak. He’s the guy that played the character Data on
Star
Trek: The Next Generation
—the robot with the white face. I admit to watching a few of those shows. I’m not totally ignorant about what’s happening here. Terry points out Borg, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians but there are other alien people he doesn’t recognize. He tells me he will find out because he’s interested when they came into the picture. All these characters are wearing costumes that trick-or-treaters would envy: the makeup, the hairdo’s, the complex tailoring. There is a whole family walking around dressed in
Enterprise
command uniforms, including an older boy, twin toddlers, and an infant. I point them out to Terry, and he says he thinks the mom and dad are taking it a little too far. I breathe a sigh of relief. I mean, the family is obviously having a fun time, and the little kids are getting a lot of attention, but I guess Terry’s comment helps me to gauge his level of commitment to this stuff. Whether it’s a diversion or an obsession.

What’s amazing to me is all the
stuff
for sale. It’s like a flea market on Mars.

Star Trek
memorabilia of every kind is stacked on tables. The t-shirt table is making a killing selling shirts with sayings like,
You Will Be Assimilated
,
Daddy’s Little Klingon
, and
Beam Me the Hell Outta Here, Scotty!
That last one fits my feelings perfectly right about now.

Other tables are filled with
Star Trek
action figures, bobble heads, trading cards,
Enterprise
replicas, and all sorts of hardware and knick-knacks one might find aboard a real starship, like phasers, tricorders, and bottles of blue Romulan ale. There is a Limited Edition PEZ dispenser set of Captain Kirk, Dr. Spock, Mr. Sulu and the gang for only $16.65 and tables loaded with
Star Trek
motion picture VHS and DVD sets. The books are interesting. There’s the
Autobiography of Gene Roddenberry
,
The Star Trek Cookbook
, and, for those of us interested in learning Klingon as a second language,
The Klingon Dictionary
. Then there’s
The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
, for those of us interested in hostile takeovers in outer space. Several mannequins are sporting
Star Trek
command uniforms, some of which were worn on the shows and movies. The prices on the original uniforms way exceed the price of the replicas by thousands of dollars. This guy just won the silent auction for one of the original Jean-Luc Picard uniforms. I hear him say into his cell phone, “Honey! It’s ours!” The Picard uniform is undoubtedly a new family asset. I can’t stand my curiosity. When the man gets off the phone, I feel I must know some things.

“Excuse me,” I say.

The man has a proud glow, like a new father.

“Congratulations on winning that auction,” I say. “How long have you been collecting
Star Trek
memorabilia?”

“I’m not a regular collector, but my wife and I have been wanting to buy one of these for ages. I just can’t believe we got such a good price!” They paid ten thousand.

I start wondering if Terry’s uniform is real or not. We got separated in the crowd, what with me looking at all the stuff. I weave through the jungle of aliens.

“Hello, Commander! It’s good to see you.” I look over, and there is Terry being a commander, I guess. I walk over, giving his uniform the once-over. I doubt he paid ten thousand for it, but I have no way of deciphering whether it is the real thing or not. I stand next to Terry and face the man in a mustard and black uniform.

“Is this your wife?” asks the man.

“I wish,” says Terry. “Bill, this is my friend, Mary Beth. It’s her first conference.”

“Nice to meet you, Mary Beth.”

“Nan-noo, nan-noo,” I say, cheerfully holding out my hand.

“What?” says Bill.

“You know, that’s what Mork from Ork said.”

“Oh, yeah. Good one! Well, see ya around, Commander.”

“See ya, Bill.”

“You wish?” I ask.

“Nan-noo, nan-noo?”

“Ya’ll take this
Star Trek
stuff way too seriously,” I say. “Anyway, how does one become a Commander? Do you pretend to drive a spaceship?”

I suddenly have this creepy vision of Terry doing all kinds of role-playing in his
Star Trek
commander suit. Pretending to drive a ship. Giving commands to those around him. Putting the ship into warp drive and lowering the shields, while those around him pretend to act on his commands. Thinking about Terry doing these fake things makes me feel weird, like my head weighs ten more pounds.

“No, it’s more like an honorary title. I’m the president of our local chapter. Voted in.”

“What do ya’ll do at the meetings?”

“Talk about
Star Trek
.”

“Seems like that could get a little boring. Seeing it’s not real and all. The things that happened on the shows seem pretty limited,” I say. “Not to put you down or anything.”

“Not true,” says Terry. “There are tons of scientific ideas and inspirational concepts
Star Trek
has introduced to the world. There’s a lot to talk about. It’s a fun way to socialize with a common interest, and we mix it up by getting involved in charitable causes. We visit children’s hospitals and sometimes get asked to birthday parties. The costumes keep it wacky.”

It all sounds fairly normal and even wimpy, in a good way. The
Star Trek
club isn’t so different than Share Group. It’s not a bad thing to be with a group that makes you feel all right for being nerdy.

“Have you seen Mavis anywhere?” I ask.

“I just saw her by the D.J. table.”

The D.J. is playing oldies music on the other side of the ballroom.

“Why play oldies music at an outer space convention? I would think they’d play something more galactic, like
Star Wars
or something.” We make our way through the jumble of people and excitement.

“We’ve got a Klingon who works at a local oldies station. He donates his time and music every year.”

I check out the D.J. booth. Mavis is requesting a song.

“Can ya’ll play, ‘Squeeze Box’?” she asks

“‘Squeeze Box,’ by The Who. That’s a fun song. Not very outer space oriented but neither is CCR,” says the Klingon, who just finished playing “Proud Mary.” “Give me a minute, and I’ll get it going.”

“I’d appreciate that,” says Mavis. “That’s my personal theme song.”

Lord, when the song starts, Mavis starts dancing alone. She dances like she’s in some kind of cowboy bar, stomping her feet with her elbows bent and fists curled into balls near her chest, and she’s kind of galloping in a circle. She’s also smiling big, and her eyes crinkle all over. Her hair is all teased up big and newly highlighted, and she’s wearing a boatload of instant tanning cream. Mavis is very tan in a way only an old carrot can be. But she sure is charming, motioning to random
Star Trek
gentlemen to join her. She’s now attracted the attentions of a Borg. Mavis is there, in the middle of the Trekkie convention, wearing her bikini-bod t-shirt, dancing with a Borg, to the words
Mama’s got a squeeze box, Daddy never sleeps at night
. Mavis certainly is not out of place; in fact, she fits right in and is having the time of her life. She motions to Terry and me to join her. I don’t budge and shake my head, but Terry grabs my arm anyway and drags me out to the dance floor with Mavis and her Borg. He’s got more spunk than I thought. I stiffly give in to the music and notice that Terry is actually a pretty decent dancer—I mean, as far as dancing on a dance floor to The Who at a Trekkie convention is concerned. He doesn’t act robotic, the way some men do when music starts playing and they’re required to dance. He’s having a good effect on me, and I begin to loosen up. Or maybe it’s the music or the whole atmosphere. My migraine is completely gone.

Mavis

Dr. D brought a new t-shirt over to the house today, and you’d better believe I’m wearin it. It’s purple and says,
Trailer Trekkie
. But that ain’t nothin; Dr. D brought Mary Beth her own red stretchy
Star Trek
outfit. She won’t try it on, though.

26

Do Not Read

July 21, 1990

Dear Diary,

Grandmother has her bridge club over and I have ZERO to do. I put on that record I got at the flea market, the Osmonds’ Crazy Horses, and it could have been funny if I had a friend to laugh at it with me, the way Margaret and I did with the Perry Como Christmas Special last year. But now I would never laugh at Perry Como since becoming his devoted fan. I am serious. I would completely die before I’d tell a soul. That’s what being bored does to people. Turns MTV watchers into diehard Perry Como groupies. Also being bored makes people who have nothing else to do write to a diary. So now I will finish writing my confession, otherwise known as
The Huey Incident. Where was I? I have to go back and check. OK. I had the thing (rat head) in my backpack. I did not want to carry the thing in my backpack overnight. So I had to act fast. After school, I borrowed some tape from the librarian and took it to the girls’ bathroom. I used the handicap stall, so I’d have as much space as I needed and would not accidentally drop the thing in the toilet, and taped the notebook paper around it, like wrapping a present. The thing suddenly turned into a gift. Then I pulled from my purse the tube of tan frosted lipstick, rubbed it all over my mouth…and I did it: I kissed the notebook paper with the gift inside. Then I scrubbed my mouth really good with toilet paper and washed my lips with actual soap. Red lipstick would have been an improvement, but nobody wears red except hookers. Then while I was running towards Huey’s locker, I thought it might be a good idea to give the gift a name, like Otis or Curtis or Tony. I decided Tony was good. Not everybody locks their lockers because there is not a big problem with stealing at my school. Some kids put their locks on and make them look locked because they are too lazy to do the combination every time. I checked Huey’s. It was locked. My head was starting to hurt, and I started to imagine that Tony was gnawing a hole through my backpack or threatening to rot on the spot. And then OUT OF THE BLUE Huey and two of his dorky friends, his fellow Indiana Jones fanatics, walk up to his locker and Huey opens it. I wish I had a periscope like in the movies so I could sneakily read his combination from around the corner. Then one of the dorky friends steals Huey’s Indy hat off his head. The friends started running around, throwing the hat back and forth, keeping it out of Huey’s reach like boys do. So I very quickly walked past Huey’s locker and chucked Tony in there, praying to God he would see it,
instead of overlooking it for several days. I walked away as fast as I could. I’m going to need to take another break in telling this story. I’ll come back to it in a few days or months….X

27

Doyle Reveals Another Mystery

Mary Beth

“It looks like ya’ll two done kissed and made up,” says Mavis to Terry and Doyle. “If I didn’t know no better, I’d say ya’ll was a hot item.”

“I’m still holding out for you, Mavis,” says Terry. He is wearing a pale blue starched shirt with jeans. The starch was probably fresh at 7 a.m., but now at 7 p.m., it’s got a series of horizontal creases along the midsection.

Doyle says, “I would say the good doctor and myself have come to an understanding as to why I hesitated at his grocery reading a few weeks ago. I felt that I might be handling privileged information, so to speak.”

The
Star Trek
thing was Terry’s big secret.

Everyone is sitting around holding paper plates sagging with casseroles, Hungry Jacks and salad. We’re all stuffing ourselves senseless before Share Group. Jimmy and Winslow are sitting side-by-side debating politics (Winslow is a liberal democrat, and Jimmy is libertarian), while Mavis and Vanessa chat about Vanessa’s cousin, who is an actress in one of those prescription drug ads. Vanessa says, “You know the commercial with the smiling black lady riding her bike through a field of pink flowers, while that voice in the background tells you about all the terrible side effects? That your liver could die and you could get hives, and gout and all your teeth fall out? That’s her.” Eleanor is whirring about, collecting dirty paper plates, continually tidying, and wiping up stray drips and crumbs. She’s my favorite boarder at times like this.

Terry and Doyle go back for second helpings. They stand near a folding table loaded with casseroles. “I still don’t get it, Doyle,” says Terry. “What kind of groceries did you see on my receipt that would tell you I’m a
Star Trek
commander?”

“I was alerted by the peculiar combination of pita bread, hot wasabi, and Fierce Grape Gatorade.”

“You gotta tell me how you do that, Doyle. Nobody could guess that.”

“The gift of grocery reading is inherent to the Stubb family.”

“Inherited?” asks Terry.

“Inherent,” says Doyle as he lifts a spoonful of broccoli casserole to his tiny lips. He pauses before saying, “Built into our genetic make-up.”

I’d like to ask Doyle if he also comes from a long line of lazy eyes, but I’m trying to stay as quiet as possible. Listening and stirring the casseroles, pretending I’ve got something better to do than eavesdrop, and hoping no one will interrupt before Doyle reveals Stubb Family Mysteries.

“Wow,” says Terry. He and Doyle both reach for the last biscuit, but Terry pulls his hand back and gestures to Doyle to take it. A little bit of déjà vu plays in my head. Like I’ve seen this before, only backwards. There goes one of my things against people from New Jersey down the toilet.

Doyle looks around while he takes a solemn bite of his Hungry Jack. His good eye looks thoughtful, while the lazy eye seems to scan the room vigilantly. He finishes chewing and speaks:

“Wasabi is Japanese; the pita, Mediterranean; and the purple Gatorade somewhat galactic. Combine foreign plus foreign plus somewhat galactic and you’ve got
Star Trek
. If per chance the purple Gatorade had been a strawberry Yoo-hoo, I would have said
Star
Wars
. Although I’ve made no mention of the barbeque pork rinds and vast amounts of chipped beef on your receipt, I’ve learned quite a bit about you, Dr. Dorrie.”

For a few seconds Terry appears concerned about the implications of pork rinds and
vast amounts of chipped beef
, but he changes the subject.

“What about animals?” asks Terry, motioning to Floyd. “I guess there’d be no way you could read a domestic animal, seeing it only eats what its owners feed it.”

“Animals have a preference,” says Doyle. “The dog makes choices concerning the dropped fragments he eats.”

Doyle drops a piece of broccoli on the floor in front of Floyd. The poodle sniffs it and looks up at Doyle like he’s waiting for some real meat. Next, Doyle drops a piece of lettuce. Floyd eats it.

“I’ve seen it all,” says Terry picking up the broccoli with his napkin. “Whattaya make of that?”

Doyle says, “This tells us two things.”

I’m all ears now, stirring the broccoli casserole till it falls apart and begins to resemble greenish orange soup.

“This dog has suffered exceedingly from indigestion sometime in his life, and wishes not to repeat the incident, explaining the overlooked broccoli. But…the choice of lettuce reveals something more diabolical.” He pauses. “This poodle has been stolen from its original owners.”

Doyle’s lazy eye lands right on me. I’m not in the mood for challenging the lazy eye, so I look away.

“Stolen?” says Terry. “How about lost?”

“Stolen,“ says Doyle with his good eye looking real serious, like he’s the Hercule Poirot of the canine community. Doyle is annoying now, like he thinks he’s got a mystery to solve. Like he’s been waiting to solve this his whole life. That lazy eye sure is a tattletale. It’s screaming to be covered by a black patch.

Terry looks at Floyd and at me. I keep on stirring the broccoli. What am I going to do? I can’t have Terry Dorrie finding out I stole Floyd from his backyard during an attack of neurosis. Even though it happened before he became my gynecologist and friend and whatever else he may be.

Someone asks about Marcelle, which thankfully shifts Terry’s attention. At least he quits focusing on Floyd’s gastronomical fortune.

It’s around 10 p.m. I’ve just come in from the port-o-let, and I’m fixing to climb in the bed when the doorbell rings. Whoever it is, we don’t want any. Mavis is probably in bed, so I step into my slippers, tie my robe, head down the steps, and look out the peephole. Terry Dorrie is standing out there holding a pillow under one arm and a bottle of wine in the other. I smooth back my hair, rearrange my robe, and creak open the door.

“Got any rooms? I’ll pay my rent on time and clean up after myself,” Terry says.

He’s wearing the same wrinkly shirt from earlier, but his face has a weariness it didn’t have at Share Group. Even though he’s noticeably tired, I love how close he’s standing to me, so close I can smell the soap on his skin. My heart beats a little faster as I let him in. I never in a million years would imagine Terry would want to stay at the Rapturous Rest.

“I can’t go home until she’s gone.”

“Who?” I say.

“Lizzie Borden.”

“I thought you liked her staying there.”

“She’s crazy. Also, she’s made some…how do I say...”

“Made more lasagna?”

“No, more like…she keeps making romantic overtures.”

“Really? What does she do?” I’m disturbed but also curious. I don’t know how to ask without sounding eager to hear what Jeanine is doing. I try to imagine the kinds of things that would constitute an overture. Maybe she prances around in see-through negligees and lights candles all over the house at night. Maybe she asks Terry to bring her towels when she’s in the bathtub or begs him to give her a back rub. I can’t say I’ve ever tried to make any advances on a man, so I wouldn’t know where to start. Jeanine must read
Redbook
.

He puts a finger to his lips and motions me to join him in the kitchen. He whispers, “I don’t wanna wake anybody.” He finds a corkscrew in a drawer, opens his wine and pours a glass. “Want some?” I shake my head, wanting to pick up the conversation where we left off.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” I say. “Not that you have to, but I guess I’m just surprised to hear about the romantic overtures and all.”

He laughs and says, “Lets see…for one, tonight I was stretched out on the sofa reading, and she came over and started massaging my feet.”

“She did?” I practically gasp. I’m shocked that Jeanine would have the gall to massage Terry’s feet. His ex-wife! What if Terry had a girlfriend? Doesn’t she think about anyone but herself? I can just see it: Jeanine, blonde and svelte, acting all innocent about trying to find a dog, but all along she’s waiting to pounce. As much as I hate this picture, there’s something in me that can’t wait to find out what happened next. I try to sound casual when I ask, “What did you do? You know, when she started rubbing your feet?”

“It was embarrassing, so I pulled my feet in and told her they probably stink.”

“That’s good.” I hesitate, so I don’t sound overeager then ask, “What did she do?”

“She told me she would wash them for me.”

“Your feet? Wash your feet? You’re kidding.” I don’t know how to ask this without offending him so just ask anyway, “So is that one of ya’ll’s things? From before, when you were still married? Foot washing?”

“Of course not,” he says. “But I think she must be feeling a little lovelorn, and her living in the house again is making her feel like we’re still married or something. I don’t know.”

Duh. Even
I
know that when you start having romantic dinners and conversations by the hearth in front of a roaring fire that it might-could make the individuals involved start feeling sappy.

“Lovelorn, huh,” I say. The drama is killing me. “Anyway, what did you say when she said she’d wash your feet?”

Terry looks at me over his glasses and smiles. “You’re pretty interested in this, aren’t you?”

I look at the ground, like I could care less, and say, “It’s not like I need to know or anything.”

“Well, I felt sorry for her. So I let her.”

My mouth falls open. “You did? What did she do? Run get a bucket of water?”

Terry shakes his head.

“So she didn’t wash your feet?”

“She did.”

“With a washcloth?”

“No.”

“What? With some baby wipes or something?”

“Her mouth.”

“I don’t get it,” I say.

“She used her mouth.”

Words fail me. I wasn’t expecting that. Then I say, “She cleaned your smelly feet with her MOUTH?”

Then he says, “She cleaned out my toe-jam with her tongue.”

I’m speechless.

He looks really happy.

I stand up, “No way! I am sorry I asked. That is totally disgusting!” The image of Jeanine, that tramp, slobbering all over Terry’s feet like a dog makes me ill. And to think he liked it.

Terry starts laughing.

“Hey, your feet belong to you,” I say. “You are entitled to get your feet squeaky clean in whatever manner suits you. I don’t care.”

He is still laughing and shaking his head. “No, no, no. That didn’t happen.”

I don’t know what to believe.

He says, “When she asked if she could rub my feet, I was blunt. I told her that I didn’t think it was appropriate since we’re divorced, and especially since she was the one who left me in the first place.

“I probably hurt her feelings, but too bad. Then she went to her room and put on a nightgown and came back out. She said she was setting the timer on the coffee maker for the morning, but I gotta say her nightgown
would make a Victoria’s Secret model want to hide behind a tree.”

“Because it was so ugly?” I ask.

“It was a beautiful nightgown, and extremely sheer.”

I was right about Jeanine prancing about in see-through negligees.

“What did you do?”

“I asked her what she thought she was doing and she said, ‘Putting on the coffee.’ That’s when I grabbed my pillow and keys and left. I was scared to sleep in the same house with her.”

“You think she’s…unstable,” I say.

He shrugs, “Who knows.”

“Maybe she came back for you and not her dog.”

I’m standing in the kitchen with my arms crossed over my robe while he sips his wine and sits on the counter.

I say, “I’d think you would be excited that she’s making passes at you. Seems to me like a lot of men would like that.”

He looks at me like I’m really stupid and says, “What kind of a person do you think I am?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

Then he says, “The Devil can sometimes do a very gentlemanly thing.”

“What?”

“Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“But what do you mean when you say ‘the Devil’?”

“Come on, Mary Beth. I mean, it’s not like I’m without defects, but I have standards.”

“Maybe you should introduce Jeanine to Winslow.”

Terry tilts his head like
that’s not a bad idea
, then says, “Hey, you better get some sleep. Sorry to bother you with all the sad and torrid details of my life.”

He’s not bothering me one bit. I could listen to him speak with his New Jersey accent all night.

I show him the room that will be his new home until Jeanine leaves. Until the dog returns.

When I wake up at six, I’m keenly aware that Terry is somewhere in my house. I quickly get dressed, grab my toothbrush, face scrub and a washcloth, and head for the kitchen. Eleanor is already at the sink, brushing her teeth, so I start the coffee while I wait for her to finish.

I say, “You’re up mighty early, Eleanor. Have some big plans today?”

Eleanor whacks her toothbrush on the side of the sink and drops it in a plastic baggie. “I have no plans. I didn’t sleep a wink all night, thinking about Ned… We were kind of an item, you know.”

I set the can of Maxwell House on the counter, flip the switch on the coffee maker, and say, “No Eleanor, I did not know you and Ned were an item. I don’t remember you two being that close.”

“There were things you didn’t see.”

“While he was living in the carriage house?” I ask. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know about that, or ya’ll would have been out on the street
on the double
.” Eleanor knows I wouldn’t have the heart to kick her out, but I have to keep up the act. Sounds more like a fantasy, but you never know. Stranger things have happened besides Ned and Eleanor being a secret item.

“Good morning, ladies!” Terry enters the kitchen wearing a coat and tie with his laptop under one arm. “The coffee smells delightful.”

“Dr. Dorrie?” says Eleanor. “What are you doing here?”

“I haven’t had a chance to tell anyone you’re staying here,” I say. “If you hang out a little longer Mavis is gonna heat up an egg casserole.”

Terry pours himself a cup of coffee and seems joyous as a puppy. He tells Eleanor, “I’m here because I have company at my house, and there isn’t enough room for me.”