Cherries In The Snow (21 page)

The straphanger flips the page and I am so grateful to have
that vile column physically removed from my sight that I actually breathe a sigh of relief. Isaac Bennett. What an asshole!

Isaac's column pisses me off. It really gets under my skin. But I think the trouble starts because I have been watching
Bright Eyes
for a couple of days straight. I am trying to learn Shirley Temple's tap dance routine to ‘The Good Ship Lollipop,' but I can't do it. I keep stubbing my toe, clanking my heel against my calf. I am rewinding the tape and pausing it on each and every step. I have been doing this for hours, pause, play, and trip, and my eyes are starting to swim.

She's four! I think. Shirley Temple's fucking four, and she can do it.

I have a long interior dialogue with myself, attempting to reason, reminding the other voice that I have other talents, that it isn't the end of the world if I can't learn Shirley Temple's tap routine.

I tap and tap and tap, my toes starting to bleed. I have no neighbors beneath me, just the derelict office of a lawyer who has been sent to jail for tax evasion.

I turn up the volume.
Tappa tappa tappa
. Look at those shiny ringlets, bouncing with every perfectly executed move. The more I try to reason with myself, the more it becomes crystal clear that my main failing in life is not being able to master this routine, and that if I could, everything else would fall into place. Exhausted and bloody, I realize I can no longer live in a world where tap dance is a prerequisite for social success. I
drink four beers and then call people, but no one's home. I call the cell number David Consuela Cohen gave me.

‘I'm coming to L.A. in a few days.'

‘Oh, my God, you have to call me!'

‘I will.'

‘You'd better, girl!'

I wonder what he will do to me if I don't call.

I ring Marley again, but his cell phone is off. Frustrated, I pull a sweater on over my dress and head over to his house.

‘Hey. You had your cell phone off.'

‘Yes. I was reading to Montana.'

‘I know I'm not really invited tonight. But I missed you.'

I can smell the alcohol on my own breath.

‘Right. Well, I just got Montana to sleep, so maybe you should go upstairs and lie down.'

When I go to sleep, the room is spinning, and when I wake up, it is still spinning but slower, like a hula hoop about to hit the ground. I crawl out of bed wearing the fuschia dress I had tap-danced in, sweat stains under my arms. As my feet hit the floor, I melt into the ground like a pathetic pink puddle. I sit there for a while, feeling like something someone else's suitor would cover with his coat so they could step over me.

I start to inch my way down the staircase of Marley's house. Really, a staircase? Who has a staircase in New York? Right then I hate him for having a healthy bank balance.

‘Marley?' I call, although it sounds like ‘Marwee?' because I am feeling so sorry for myself. I hoist myself into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Then I take a tea bag from the special Sadie shelf he has made me in the cupboard and make myself a piece of Marmite on toast. I carry the tea and toast forlornly to the living room and turn on the TV. As soon as I eat I start to feel better, but I keep sniffling and sighing anyway, just in case Marley walks in. Every few minutes I moan his name
pathetically like a baby still hoping for Mama to pick her out of her crib even though she's already pooped her pants.

Between episodes of
The Powerpuff Girls
, I hear a car pull up at the house. I peer through the curtain and see Marley, Montana, and, in the driver's seat, obscured by Marley's big head, a lady. I stay glued to the sofa, desperately wanting to get up and have a look at her, but I suddenly fixate on the Zovirax commercial. It combats cold sores really fast. It has twice the healing power of rival brands. I try to memorize all the claims and all the dangers as though I am preparing for a final exam. I am so afraid of seing this woman. I close my eyes and repeat the words coming from the TV: ‘… may cause dizziness or dry mouth. Side effects include loss of appetite, headaches, insomnia.'

‘What's insomnia?'

I open my eyes and Montana is standing in front of me wearing a pink leotard and a white tutu. ‘It's when you can't—'

She cuts me off. ‘I just came from ballet. I can do an arabesque and a plié.'

‘So can I,' I say quickly. I catch my breath and ask, ‘Where's your dad?'

‘He's outside talking to my mom.'

The word stings me like an offensive word from the fifties, as though she has said, ‘He's outside talking to my coon.'

She watches me as I try to compose myself and adds: ‘My mom's name is Jolene.' She beams and then says it phonetically: ‘Joe-Lean.'

‘What a pretty name.'

Just alert enough to be sneaky, I venture, ‘I bet your mom is very pretty.'

‘Oh, about average,' says a tall blond woman with an ear-to-ear grin. She is an Amazon, with endless legs and muscular arms. Her mouth is obscenely huge, her scooped nose clearly a
slightly crooked rhinoplasty, but her eyes are gigantic and green, two spinning orbs anchored in place by lush lashes. She is almost gorgeous, a beauty who has been dragged through the hedge backward and then gone back for more.

‘Mommy!' squeals Montana, and hugs her leg. ‘Are you staying for lunch?'

‘Jolene,' I say lamely.

‘I know, right?' The strapping blonde laughs. ‘Stupid fuckin' Dolly Parton fans as parents.' She has a husky voice and punctuates each sentence with laughter.

‘
Mommy!'

‘Sorry, baby.' Jolene looks at me and shrugs her shoulders like it's me and her against Montana. ‘Now I owe her a dollar.'

‘Yep. I've been feeling the pinch myself ever since Montana came into my life.'

‘And what a happy day I bet that was,' jokes Jolene, and I laugh. ‘Hur-hur-hur.'

‘I have two hundred and seventy dollars in Mommy's curse box.'

‘I'm saving to send her to college,' booms Jolene. ‘Fuckin' Harvard.'

‘Mommy!'
squeals Montana, and collapses onto the sofa in delight.

Jolene sits down beside her. ‘I went to Harvard.'

‘Gracious,' I say, still waiting to be introduced.

‘For a little while I dropped out to become a stripper. Toured the country. Never strip in Alaska.' She points a manicured finger at me and lets her legs flop apart as her skirt rides up her thighs.

‘Uh, okay.' Jolene is not exactly what I have been led to expect. This is not some lentil-eating do-gooder. This woman is, how do you say it? … bonkers. Bonkers, and wearing very
expensive
stockings.

‘We were all saving money for college or medical school. I made good money stripping, but not as much as the other girls. I haven't got that much up front, not like you. Wow, what are you, like a double D?'

‘Just a D,' I stutter.

‘They look bigger.' She squints at me. ‘Maybe 'cuz you're so short.'

‘Thank you.' I press myself as far back into the sofa as it will allow, wondering where the hell Marley is.

Jolene fixes me with her green stare and says, ‘He's gone to the corner to buy eggs. I'm cooking my specialty.'

‘Eggs!' exclaims Montana. ‘Eggs! Eggs! Eggs!'

‘Bonky eggs!' says Jolene.

‘Oh, God,' I say, and then try to soften it by adding, ‘I'd better get dressed and get out of here.'

‘Oh, no, honey,' says Jolene, ‘you're invited. This is all in honor of you. Marley doesn't know that, of course. This is my way of meeting the new girlfriend without causing a scene and getting you all stressed. Gotta make sure the woman who's hanging around my daughter all week isn't a crack dealer! Man, do you look stressed! C'mere!'

‘No,' I whisper.

‘Don't worry, I'm coming there.'

She straddles me and starts kneading my shoulders with her huge hands. ‘I'm a licensed massage therapist.'

Montana changes her singsong from ‘Eggs! Eggs! Eggs!' to ‘Girlfriend! New girlfriend!'

‘That's right,' says Jolene as she karate-chops my spine, ‘this is Daddy's new girlfriend and he likes her very much, so let's be extra nice to her.'

‘Nice!' screams Montana, ‘Nice! Nice! Nice!' and throws herself into my lap, face squashed against my bosom as her mother presses my neck with her thumbs.

Just then Marley walks through the door. He looks like he's going to be sick. My eyes are ablaze with terror, like a cat with a thermometer up its ass. Seeing Marley clicks Jolene into a different mode and she unhands me so fast I feel like I am being dropped. Montana melts out of my lap like a clock in a Dalí painting.

‘I see you and Jolene have met, then' is the best he can manage.

‘Man, is this one a doll,' says Jolene, which is true in the sense that I sat there absolutely silent while she molested me. ‘Okay, let's get this show on the road,' she barks, clapping her hands. ‘Who wants a bonky egg?'

‘Me!' shrieks Montana.

‘What's a bonky egg?' I ask, praying it isn't a type of massage.

‘Follow me to the kitchen.'

Jolene makes her way through the cupboards as if she has never left. Her fingers mold to the handle of the pan, the lid of the bread bin, as though she might never let go again. She takes out the almond rice bread. ‘First, you cut a hole in the bread with a cookie cutter. You wanna do it, honey?'

Montana reaches up and presses her little hand hard over the circle, and when she lifts it, the bread is marked, like the face of a lover on the pillow.

‘Then you heat up the frying pan, add a little butter – just a very little, we don't want to get fat like Aunt Tula, do we? – and wait for it to melt.'

We wait. Marley clears his throat.

‘Then you crack the egg and pour it into the hole.'

‘Mommy, you said “hole,” you owe me money.'

‘Bullshit!' gasps Jolene. ‘Who told you “hole” was a rude word?'

‘Tom McEwan.'

‘Tom McEwan? He's five! What does he know?'

Montana accepts this argument and falls silent. Jolene carefully flips the egg-and-bread concoction over. The smell of burning butter begins to make my beer-soaked stomach queasy.

‘You eat eggs?'

‘Yeah, sure. Why wouldn't I?'

‘Oh, it's just that I had it in my head from Marley and Montana that you're a really healthy eater.'

‘I am a healthy eater and that's why I get fried eggs once a week as a treat.' Marley looks very embarrassed. He is standing at the other end of the kitchen from me, but I see his cheeks pinken.

‘Now hum to yourselves, kids!' Jolene demands.

I began to croakily hum ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop' because humming helps me control nausea. I'm starting to feel a little bit better until Jolene booms, ‘I like it! Great tits
and
she can sing!'

I hum louder and Marley looks at the eggs as though they contain the key to the universe.

‘You owe me more money, Mommy.'

‘For what?'

‘Tits. You said she had “great tits.” '

‘We count that as a bad word? I don't think we should, honey. Tits are beautiful, all shapes and sizes and colors. Big nipples, little nipples, perky ones, pointy ones. Nope, I don't think “tits” is gonna cut it.'

‘Mommy, you said “cunt.” '

‘No, I didn't, I said “cut.” '

‘Oh.' Montana sighs. ‘Well, usually you say “cunt.” '

To reiterate: Jolene is not what I expected. And she smells quite strongly to me of surreptitious cigarettes. Speaking of which, I wonder what Marley was smoking when he described
her to me. Is this the right woman? Was there a case of mistaken identity? How the hell does he describe me to other people? ‘Oh, you'd love my girlfriend Sadie, she's a deaf-mute who travels the world rescuing orphans from war-torn areas.' I'm as good at the sell as anyone – I invent countless different names for cosmetics that are all exactly the same color. But this, this is something else. He's taken her color – Obnoxious Blond – and listed her as Spun Gold, Marigold, Dewdrops in the Garden, Chelsea Morning. Well, now at least I know where an eight-year-old heard the phrase
fuckhead
. And smelling the cigs on the organically pampered skin of a health freak, I also see how an eight-year-old who says ‘fuckhead' has a swear box.

The bonky eggs are better than they smell, and as I eat them I realize, I need them. I have a real live hangover. Just as my focus is starting to return, Jolene says to Montana, ‘You were so much better than the other girls in ballet today. Why don't you do a dance for us!' and it all goes blurry again.

We all sit on the sofa and watch Montana dance. Marley sits next to me and that tiny little gesture brings me such relief. Of course, it's not like he would really go over and have Jolene sit on his knee – or, more likely, hop onto hers – but I'm feeling a little crazy. He squeezes my thigh from time to time and it's good to know his touch can be as comforting as it is exciting. ‘Plié!' cries Montana. ‘Jeter!' she booms, accidentally invoking the baseball player rather than the ballet pose she hops into. No one corrects her. She isn't very good, but she enjoys herself. What a waste of a great tutu, I think.

‘Now listen, sexy Sadie,' says Jolene, ‘I have to get out of here in a minute, but before I go, I have to tell you, I love Grrrl.'

‘You do?'

‘Well, not for me, obviously, but what a great idea!'

‘What's the idea?'

‘You know. Ugly. Back in the day I would have rocked it for sure. How rad would it have been to wear that shit when I was stripping? Fuck those assholes, right?'

‘Shit. Fuck,' notes Montana, reaching into her bag for a diary and writing the words down.