Dolls Behaving Badly (24 page)

“And if something were wrong?”

“I don’t know. I suppose that depends on the odds of the baby surviving. Why are you asking me all this?”

“You were the one who brought up happiness.” She reached for the popcorn bowl and balanced it on her rounded belly. “What
happens if my baby dies?”

“I thought we were talking about happiness.”

“You can’t have one without the other.” She munched on popcorn. “Or maybe I’ll be the one who dies.”

I shivered and moved closer to Laurel. “You’re not going to die and neither is your baby.”

“You promise to raise her if I do?”

“Why are you even thinking about this?” I reached in and grabbed a handful of popcorn.

She shrugged and licked the salt from her fingers. For someone who thought she might die, she didn’t seem very upset. “It
could happen, that’s all, and I’d be happy knowing she was with you. You might not realize this, Carly, but you’re doing okay.”

“Sure, if you die, I’ll raise your daughter. Any special requests?” I asked sarcastically.

“Don’t cut her hair short in the summer, like Mother used to make us do, and be sure she learns to swim when she’s young.
And don’t let her wear high heels until she’s sixteen; I don’t want her ruining her feet.” She leaned over, picked up a glass
of orange juice, and took a long drink. “Folic acid,” she said, and then she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You’d
think it would bother me, wouldn’t you, talking about my own death? But it doesn’t. You think it has to do with Gramma?”

I looked at her carefully. “Have you seen her?”

“No, but last night I dreamed she was running up and down the beach. She was younger and not as fat and had on one of those
swimsuits with the skirts and she looked good, Carly, healthy and happy, and when I woke up I thought,
Whew! When I die I can visit the buffet as often as I like because no one will give a damn what I look like in my swimsuit.
”

“Laurel asked me to raise her baby if she dies in childbirth,” I said to Francisco. We were curled in his bed reading old
copies of
National Geographic
.

“That must have been tough.”

“I said I would of course, she’s my sister. But then I started thinking of all the things that could go wrong. She’s forty,
you know.”

“That’s not that old. She’s having it at a hospital, right?”

“She wanted to have it in my bedroom but the doctor talked her out of it. Women still die in childbirth. You don’t hear about
it, but they do.”

“She’ll be fine.” He patted my thigh. “Before long that baby will take over your trailer, teething toys all over. Worse than
having dogs, at least at first.” He laughed and turned toward me. “Have you ever thought of having another?”

“Dog?”

“No, baby. Another child.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought about it.” My stomach lurched, as if remembering both the comfort and misery of pregnancy.

“I’ve always wanted children. It just hasn’t happened.” He laughed wryly. “I have to know I’m leaving something behind. It’s
the anthropologist in me.”

“You could donate at a sperm bank,” I offered.

“I’d rather do it the real way.” He snuggled against my shoulder. “You know, with a woman, not a specimen cup.”

I tried to imagine it: a house, two small children running around the living room while big brother Jay-Jay tried to teach
them complicated mathematical formulas. Francisco and me both older, heavier, and more weathered, but still loving toward
one another, tender. Part of me wanted it; oh, I wanted it so much! But I was thirty-eight; by the time these children that
hadn’t even been born yet went off to college I’d be almost sixty. I wasn’t sure I was ready to devote so much time to motherhood.
I wanted to devote time to myself. I wanted to know who I was. I tried to explain this to Francisco.

“It would be different with a man around,” he said. “You wouldn’t be in it alone.”

“I know,” I said, and I did know. “It’s just that—”

“Wait!” He slapped his forehead in mock parody. “We forgot the Valentines.” Since Francisco had been in Scammon Bay on Valentine’s
Day, we had arranged to celebrate tonight, except we still hadn’t made it out of the bedroom.

“Stay here,” he said, as if commanding the dogs. I watched his ass as he scurried out of the room, muscles flexing as he walked.

“You’ve got a nice ass,” I yelled out to him.

“Think so?” His voice was muffled. “My last girlfriend thought I was too bulky.” He reappeared with a huge and ungainly package
wrapped in brown paper, which he placed gently on the bed. “Sorry it isn’t fancier. It was a bitch to wrap.”

“Oh, well.” I started to get up to get my present, but Francisco motioned me back to the bed.

“You first,” he said.

I leaned forward and pulled the paper loose. Something jabbed my palm and my fingers hit the cool feel of bone. My heart sank.
“Oh, how nice,” I started to say in a feigned voice but then I shut up because I saw what it was: a pelvic bone painted with
a silver-lavender sky, the inlet in the background.

“It’s beautiful.” I ran my hands over the curves.

“Feel that right there?” He guided my fingers to small cracks that ran along in the inside of the bone. “Those indicate childbirth.
This woman birthed at least one child, probably more. We know from the scratches. Childbirth scars you down to the bone.”

When he said that, chills ran down my back.

“It’s lovely,” I said. And it was, oddly yet truly lovely. “Now your turn.” I pulled a small box from my backpack and handed
it over. “It’s wrapped better but don’t feel bad, okay?” He laughed and lifted the lid. Inside were the leftover slices of
the painting I had been giving him, along with a bottle of glue and sealant. “Once you put it together, it will have seams,”
I explained. “It will look mosaic, like a tapestry or a quilt. The cool thing is that each segment tells its own story, and
when you put it together, the story changes and—”

His lips were on mine, hot and insistent. We made love again, the pelvic bone pressing my shoulder so that it almost felt
like a hand reaching out, not so much for Francisco or me but for the heat between us and, dare I say it? The love.

Saturday, Feb. 18

“D-O-D-E-C-A-R-C-H-Y,”
JAY-JAY SPELLED
at the breakfast table this morning. “C-y-n-o-d-o-n-t. G-u-e-n-o-n.”

Next Friday was the Alaska State Spelling Bee, and Jay-Jay was representing his school, having beaten out the top two sixth
graders last month at the school bee. He had looked so small standing up on the stage with the older kids; he had to stand
on his tiptoes to reach the microphone.

“It’s totally random.” He looked up from his sample word booklet. “They’ll have these easy words and then wham! They’ll throw
in a hard one.
Cruel
and
crayon
, those are easy, you don’t even have to think, and then suddenly it’s
cruciverbalist
.”

“It seems kind of mean,” Stephanie said. “No one, like, ever uses those words, at least not real people.”

“It’s not about the
words
,” Jay-Jay said. “It’s about the preparation. You get rewarded for your commitment.”

I closed my eyes and thought of soothing colors: titan buff, cobalt teal, Quinicidrone red. I planned to spend the entire
day painting and warned everyone that as soon as I put on my headphones I would be gone; I wouldn’t really be there.

“Okay if I go over to Alan’s? We’re filming his rock collection.”

“Call the minute you get over there, not like last time…”

The door slammed and soon after, the phone rang.

“I didn’t die,” he said sarcastically. “I’m staying for lunch, and Mom, Alan’s mom saw a poster of you in City Market and
said it looked like your nostrils were flaring in triumph.”

“I’m fucked,” I said as soon as I hung up. “The fliers are up. Soon everyone will know I make dirty dolls.” I leaned against
the kitchen counter. “I hope no one scrawls nasty messages over our front door.”

“Chill,” Stephanie said. “You’re totally overreacting. It’s just sex. No one cares.”

“Just sex,” I snorted. “The Bible thumpers will want my head.” I walked over to where Stephanie was sitting. “Do my nostrils
flare? Tell me the truth, okay?”

She studied me a moment. “Well, they, like, balloon out when you’re excited, but don’t worry, Mrs. R, I read on the Internet
that it’s a sign of sexual generosity.”

“Who’s generous?” Laurel walked into the kitchen dressed in a hideous red-and-blue blouse and yellow sweatpants. From the
side, with her stomach blooming out, she resembled Gramma.

“My fliers are up. Alan’s mother saw them at—”

Laurel held up her hand like a traffic cop. “Spare me the details. I need to surround myself in serenity before class. Steph,
you ready?”

“Totally.”

Laurel was prepping Stephanie as a birthing coach alternate, in case I was stuck at work when her labor hit. She gathered
up crackers, juice, cough drops, and the picture of Jay-Jay she was using as her focal point, the one taken on a clamming
trip down at Nikiski. Jay-Jay stood in the sand in his oversized rubber boots, muddy and grinning and holding up a clamshell
almost as large as his head. As soon as Stephanie and Laurel left, I pulled on my coat, tied a scarf around my neck, called
for Killer, and headed down toward City Market. I needed to see the flier for myself. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought,
I said to Killer as we walked. Probably it was half-hidden by notices for babysitters and dog walkers.

It wasn’t. The flier was large, like a theater poster, and displayed smack in the middle of the entranceway; it was impossible
to miss. My photograph smiled in a dopey manner, while my dirty dolls danced around the corners. It was garish, loud, obscene.
I froze. I couldn’t move.

“Miss, your dog can’t come in here,” a young boy working by the vegetables said, and heads turned. Did they notice the resemblance
between my face and the one on the flier? I began to sweat, and before I knew it, I was tearing the flier off the wall. I
had one side pulled down when a hand grabbed my wrist.

“You don’t want to do that,” a voice said. I looked over expecting to see the vegetable stocker but it was an elderly man
in a bright red cardigan sweater.

“I-I don’t?”

“No, dear.” He released my arm and squinted at the poster. “It needs to be up. It’s art.” I gave him a grateful smile because
he was right. It was art, and there was nothing to be ashamed of. “You should have made the naked women bigger,” he said,
pointing toward the dirty dolls. “I can’t see their tits.”

I walked back home with Killer, only to discover the furnace had died. The house was already getting cold, so I fired up the
oven, threw a blanket over my shoulders, and called several repair shops. Furnaces were down all over town, they all told
me, and no one was available until next week.

When I mentioned that my pregnant sister lived with me, one man promised to fit us in. “The missus was always cold when it
come her time,” he said. “Slippers, bathrobes, sweaters. Now she’s going through the change and sleeps with nothing but a
sheet.”

The repairman (“Call me Ed!”) arrived later that afternoon. He was in a glum mood but cheered up when he saw the furnace.

“She’s an old one,” he said as he knelt in the hallway and opened the door that housed the furnace’s innards. “I’ll do my
best but she ain’t got but a breath or two left.”

Ed didn’t look as if he had many breaths left, either. His pants sagged around his hips and his beard looked dull and tired.
After two hours of clanking and tinkering, he declared the furnace officially dead and handed me a bill for $273.92. “’Course
that’s without the new furnie installation.” He wiped his face with a dirty rag that magically appeared from his pocket. “Not
sure how the pipes look, might have to replace ’em as well.”

A new “furnie” would cost around $750, with an extra $300 or so for installation, unless we bought it from his shop; then
they’d halve the setup charges plus kick in an additional 10 percent discount, along with a free calendar and coffee mug.
I made plans for everything to be delivered Monday and walked him out.

“Ain’t it a bitch?” he said as I opened the door and the cold snapped us in the face. He stared at me a moment too long. “You
look familiar but don’t think I ever been to this address before.” He scratched his neck. “Maybe I seen you around town.”
He shook my hand with his greasy paw and drove off in his dilapidated truck. I settled down at the kitchen table and tried
to figure out how to come up with over a thousand dollars by Monday. I was still there when Laurel got up.

“What
was
all that noise? I woke up twice and could barely get back to sleep.”

I told her about needing a new furnace and how much it was going to cost.

“We alone?” she interrupted

“Jay-Jay is at Alan’s, and Steph is out sledding.”

She pulled the blanket tighter around her. “I don’t want to be pregnant anymore. I’m tired of doing all the work. It took
two of us to get this way, so why isn’t Hank lugging thirty extra pounds and craving Dinty Moore beef stew?”

“Safeway beef stew,” I corrected.

“Huh?”

“Safeway brand; you won’t eat Dinty Moore,” I said, but Laurel only sighed and played with her bathrobe sash. “Hit him where
it hurts.” I rummaged around the cupboard for the small saucepan. “Sue his ass for child support—weren’t you talking about
that earlier? Take him for everything you can get.” I opened the freezer, retrieved my frozen credit card, and plopped it
into the pan. I planned to bring it to a slow boil in hopes of unthawing it without ruining the bar code.

“I will, believe me. It was his penis that got me into this mess. Promise you won’t say anything, but it was larger than most—not
that I cared, but he expected me to
swoon
, which doesn’t make sense when you think about it. Penis size isn’t a character attribute or something he worked to achieve.
It’s genetics, pure and simple, and aside from sex, a big penis isn’t really that useful—it can’t stop global warming or feed
the hungry.”

I scooped my credit card out with a pair of tongs and laid it gently over a paper towel. It looked okay to me, maybe a bit
shinier than normal but seemingly undamaged. I flipped it over. My signature was blurred but still recognizable.

“It’s not that I
didn’t
appreciate it,” Laurel kept on. “I just wasn’t willing to worship it, which I’m thankful for now. Look at me, Carly! Look
at the things my body can do!” She gave her massive belly a loving little thump. “I’m growing a baby, a whole separate life,
isn’t that the most amazing thing?” She reached for a package of crackers and crammed two in her mouth. “Why are you cooking
your credit card?”

I sighed and told her again about how much the furnace was going to cost and how I had to thaw my credit card out in order
to charge the repairs.

“There’s no other way.” I held the card in my palm. It felt slippery and warm, like holding someone’s hand. “It’s just that…remember
how I told you I had had a little bit of trouble with my finances, right? Well, the credit counselor has really straightened
me out. I’m down to just a few thousand on four cards, my interest rates are manageable, and by next year I should be totally
debt free.” I almost mentioned the Oprah Giant’s diary program but slammed my mouth shut at the last moment.

Laurel smeared jelly over the crackers and licked her fingers. “Do we have any Chunky Monkey left? And maybe a little bit
of chocolate sauce to go over it, and whipped cream and oh, Carly, if I could have a cherry on top it would be perfect. I
have a busy afternoon ahead of me.”

I got out the ice cream, fixed Laurel a sundae, and decided to make one for myself, too. I sat down beside her and dug in.
“Remember the time…,” I began, but she was already waddling her sundae back to the bedroom. “Knock if you need to come in,”
she said over her shoulder. “I’ll be working through most of the afternoon and will probably take off after supper to do the
rest in person. You seeing Francisco tonight?”

“He’s giving a talk up in Healy.”

She didn’t answer, so I put the ice cream away and decided to make bread. Gramma used to say that baking bread was like giving
birth, that it took a long time, was often painful, and you never knew what you’d end up with but knew you’d love it nevertheless.
She baked bread every Wednesday, the middle of the week, six dark and dense loaves filled with herbs and nuts. My favorite
was caraway seed and rosemary bread, which Gramma made with just enough buttermilk to give it a tang, but I was sticking to
a basic white and whole wheat flour mix. My loaves were usually misshapen and soggy in the middle, but we ate them anyway,
tearing off pieces and smearing them with margarine while they were still hot.

After the yeast bubbled (“It trying to talk,” Gramma used to say. “Imagine the stories it know”), I added shortening, salt,
sugar, and milk, then measured out the flour—the final and most important step, according to Gramma, who varied the amount
according to the weather, precipitation, and time of day. Afternoon bread demanded more flour, so I added an extra handful.
Then I began to knead. It was my favorite part, the whole reason I baked bread: the feel of the dough, sticky yet determined,
and how it clung to my hands one minute, retreated the next. It was a dance: punch, fold, press, pat. Gramma never followed
a recipe when she baked bread but it always came out perfect, at least to us, though she always found a flaw. I don’t think
she was ever completely happy with a loaf. I lightly patted my ball of dough with oil. Some people oiled the pans instead,
but Gramma claimed that disrupted the natural
istota
, or the heart and soul, of the bread. I covered the dough with a dish towel, placed it on top of the warm oven, and checked
the clock. As I waited for it to rise, I looked over my
Woman Running with a Box, No. 13
painting. It was one of the last in a series of fifteen, and the woman was racing in the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, her hair
flowing behind her as she mushed across the Bering Sea. Scattered across the sled were a slew of dirty dolls: Suck Me Sammie
hung from the front rails; Pearl Necklace Polly and Darcie Do-Me-from-Behind sat on the supply pack, arms raised like beauty
queens waving from a float. On the floor Fisting Fred bent over, his overly large ass exposed for all the world to see, each
gigantic cheek covered in newsprint: “due to the economic decline,” it said on the left side, and “according to witness testimony”
on the other.

“I’m fucked,” I said to Killer. The Iditarod is regarded as sacred, the last great race in a state slowly modeling itself
after every other state in America. Insulting the Iditarod is like insulting Jesus. As luck would have it, the ceremonial
start took place in Anchorage the same weekend my show opened.

“I’m really, really fucked,” I repeated to Killer. But the dough magically rose, and I stuck two misshapen loaves in the oven,
the warm and yeasty smells filling the air so that all night I felt loved and protected.

6:55 a.m.
Mrs. Richards? It’s Ed. I was over the other day about the furnace call and realized you’re the gal from the art poster they
was talking about after church. Never thought I’d meet a real-life celebrity. The missus wants to know if you’ll autograph
the repair bill, it would give her—
Click.

12:56 p.m.
Carla! This is Jenny Jeffers, remember? We worked together at the Captain Cook a couple of years ago. I just saw the advert
for your art show. Wow. Sounds like you’ve been getting laid a lot. Let’s get together and—
Click.

4:23 p.m.
Hey, Really Real Girl, if I pay you fifty bucks, will you spank me with a Ping-Pong paddle?

Monday, Feb. 20

“If there was music playing in the background of your life, like a Hollywood movie, what song would it be?” Laurel sat on
the floor beside where I had been sleeping, her hands folded across her belly. “And choose carefully—that one song would have
to stay with you your whole life.”