Chapter One

             

             

             With Joe, I didn't give myself any outs. And an out keeps you from getting stuck married to some guy who thinks you are his personal laundry gathering and washing machine.

             Three loads sit piled up in front of the laundry machine, at least one of which consists of clothes gathered from in between the sofa cushions, under the coffee table, and oddly enough, behind the television cabinet, levitating as a fire hazard on top of the electric plug. How a Van Halen 1984 tee shirt could wind up behind the television, I dare not ask. Instead, I pick up the phone and call my mother. In case you haven't noticed, mistakes are my strong suit.

             I tell her the story, the laundry, the piles, the Van Halen tee shirt.

             To this she replies, "At least he works." Through the phone, I can see her hand gesture out toward my father resting on the couch watch His Shows. Then she adds, "And doesn't expect you to iron it."

             No, Ma, I want to shout back, he'll just fish what he wants out of the basket leaving a trail of clean clothes on the floor behind him as a cushion for his work boots at the end of the day. Instead, I say, "How's Mark?" and listen to the tales of adventure and romance only my brother is capable of having in the middle of a retirement community in Florida. After the third conquest of a visiting successful daughter from New York, I hurry my voice and tell her, "Gotta go Mom, love you too," and hang up before she gets to the next juicy detail.

             Back to the laundry, I spin the dial to hot for the first load of what used to be white tee shirts and underwear, and then flip the switch to start, but nothing happens. Well, not nothing. The rush of water, dirty socks floating to the top, a faint raise of suds, then a brief whir of the motor, and a lighting snap. Then nothing.

         I slam my hand down on the top of the washer, pinching my palm between the lid and the body of the lifeless machine.

             

         Hearing the car in the driveway, I know at once it isn't Joe. The smooth V8 engine hum, the slamming of two car doors. Glancing around the kitchen, my gaze falls on the laundry, still piled in front of the washing machine broken for the third time that year. I turn a basket over it, shoving the stray socks into the dryer just in time to meet Joe's parents as they step through the front door. Without knocking.

         Lydia and Mr. Welkirk, as he is called by everyone, including Lydia, scan the living room for Joe.

         "He's in the pool," Mr. Welkirk announces, telling rather than asking, striding through the living room, into the kitchen, and out the back door without even saying hello or putting down the familiar bakery box, the scent of cinnamon coffee ring lingering in the air behind him as he rushes past.

         "He is in the pool," Lydia says to me.

         And I don't need to tell you that he isn't in the pool. I don't know where he is. Nine out of ten would bet working. Or at the bar.

         "Excuse me," I say to Lydia, as I stepped down the hall to page him from our bedroom phone.

         When I come back, they sit on the couch, windbreakers still on, bakery box haphazardly on the edge of the coffee table, hands folded on their laps. I smile and offer soda. They smile and drink their soda. After a half an hour, Mr. Welkirk stands up, throws his coat down on the couch, and says, "Well, I'm gonna eat."

         Lydia and I rise at the same time and follow him into the kitchen for a silent meal, eaten quickly. By the time Joe arrives, the dishes are already dried. His father nods at him and hands him the white box with grease stain spreading across the bottom, red candy striped string uncut, as he heads for the door.

         "I was working," Joe shouts out after him. "W-O-R-K-I-N-G."

         His mother throws an arm around him and whispers in his ear, "You're just like him." Then she scurries on tiptoes after her husband already waiting in their car, hands on the steering wheel, engine started.

         Quickly, I turn away from the scene and busy myself setting a plate of chicken and dumplings down on the table. It isn't warm, but it isn't cold.

         "Yeah, thanks," he says walking past to the back door. "I was working."

         "Okay," I say to the slamming screen door.

        

         The next morning, a single pink rose in a red plastic vase, the orange Gas n' Go Price tag still stuck to the side sits next to the empty Mr. Coffee. "Sorry," he scribbled on a post-it note stuck next to a coffee stain on our avocado laminate countertop.

         I unstick the post-it note and toss it in the trash with the old coffee before making new.

             Somehow, by luck or some unseen force propelling me to work quicker, I am out of the house without so much as a run in panty hose--fresh out of the pack, mind you--and not a single red light halts my flow until I reach the intersection for the interstate. My cruise to work continues without impediment as the vision of 1980s excess, called the Fair Oaks mall, rises up on the eastbound side with its now abandoned valet parking garage and Christmas lights, lit all year round, on the skinny landscape island trees which never seem to grow. As a kid, I used to pick pumpkins right under the oil-slicked spot where I now park.

         After a few years of working at the mall, you realize that every so often a shift of culture occurs depending on the whim of sixteen year olds. However, passing fancies did not affect my store, Better Ladies. We cater to a more mature client. The kinds of people with gold cards. The kinds of people that had gold cards before the banks even thought of offering platinum ones. The real kind. When gold meant something. And my clients, and yes, we call them clients, not shoppers or customers, but clients, they say things like, when gold meant something. Very nostalgic and committed to more of the same. Same model of car every three years. Same dry cleaner/hair salon/gas station/grocery store for the last thirty. And each time they come in they expected the pants to be the same cut, the hems lines to fall respectfully below the knee, and me. Or someone like me, a salesgirl with a smile and a cup of coffee. Salesgirl.

         And, yes, salesgirl is my role. Joe, my own dose of the familiar, regularly laughs at this discrepancy. Babe, he says, they shit on you. He places his beer down on the last syllable for emphasis and gives me a condescending shake of the head.

         Either way you look at I am in pretty much the same position--work or home.

         This isn't to say that I didn't like my job or even my clients. I did. I like picking out things that made them look better than when they came in; the limited selection of the store increases the challenge and my self-satisfaction when a woman that came in a two left a ten. I like how they show me pictures of grandchildren and tell me things that normally only hairdressers get to hear. But just once I want to sell a wild paisley tube top to Esther Smelding or hear that her son instead of becoming a Plastic Surgeon like everyone planned left med school with a man he is introducing as the Son of God

         Better Ladies did manage to keep current the shading of the cashmere twin sets and shells. At least as current as you could get in muted tones. And the one or two sweaters that did make the nouveau color mark languish on the rack until clearance time when our clients are finally ready to take a chance on violet or teal.

         A glance up from the artfully folded peach twin sets in front of me reveal Mrs. Van Cleaven, a long time client, beaming at me. Mr. Van Cleaven is either very loose with the credit cards, thoughtful, or cheating on her given the number of diamonds she sports on neck, ears, and fingers. Her total carat weight must be near forty, and her age is now almost twice that. Mrs. Van Cleaven should have spent more money on moisturizers and less on diamonds. But still, she is a client and a good one at that.

         "Well, how de do," she says. "The world treating you good, Liz?"

         On top of being Mrs. Van Cleaven, she was once Miss Helen Sue Hendersen, Cotton Blossom Queen. I've seen the pictures.

         "The world does much the same as it always does, ma'am."

         "Well that's just too bad. I need your help finding something extra special to wear."

         "Certainly," I say, ignoring her "just too bad" assumption about my life. Who is better off, me who can pick my own clothes, or her, who relies on me for a sense of personal style? "What's the occasion?"

         "I am not as sure as to think I can find a delicate way to put this. Really there is no delicate way. But let me just spill it out and be done with it. I believe Mr. Van Cleaven will be passing on soon."

         "Is he sick? Did the doctors say?" I stammer, guilty for my idle thoughts of his possible adulterous ways.

         "Oh, oh, no. Not the doctors, honey. Wives just know these things. Little signs. Mr. Van Cleaven is just not himself. Doesn't seem to enjoy what he used to and mopes more. All men mope, mind you, but this is different. Like his heart is on its way someplace else." She looks up to the ceiling for emphasis, hands clasped in front her body. Only the lilly is missing. Or maybe the gilded harp.

         "So you need something to wear for--"

         "To look good, dear. I want my Steven's passing memories of me to be sweet. To be his girl again."

         "His girl?"

         "Oh, sweetie, you remember. You should, being so much closer to it than I. We've been married close to sixty years. You know wearing skirts if he liked your legs or sweaters if he liked your." She stops and smiles. "If he liked your, you know. Don't ya?"

         "Yes, ma'am, I do believe I have the picture."

         "So let's get started."

         First we circle the store together, and I note what her eye lands on, what she checks the fabric on. Then, I pull down outfits in the several sizes that hover around her own. My selections include the smaller sizes for the tops and some larger items in the bottoms. If a woman wants to ask for another size, she would much rather ask for a larger top than a larger bottom. Joe really got a kick out of this part; why don't ya just get her her size, he asks. Because, I answer, you never ask a lady how old or what size she is. And it is good salesmanship--selling the illusion. If anyone should have known about that, Joe should. Our beginning together consisted of some sales pitch he feed me about a nice life in the country with appliances that worked and a pack of kids. But now you ask him about kids or babies, and he taps on his wallet while giving you a blank stare.

         "How about you try this bunch on and I'll try to find you some more? Give a shout if you need anything."

         Without saying anything, Mrs. Van Cleaven disappears into the lushly appointed dressing rooms in the back of the store. The Victorian stylings back there rated better than all the furniture in my house put together, with the exception of the two 1970s rust-colored lounge chairs, the husband waiting chairs that the owner, Louis, thought just great, but didn't fit in with the mauve and seafoam, no matter how they were arranged.

         I stop for a minute to catch my breath before continuing the quest to make Mrs. Van Cleaven appealing for Steven's passing. Which she's didn't even know about for sure. Just hoping maybe? For a brief second, I think about life without Joe. I let my mind wander over what outfits I would choose to mark his passing. A nice black pantsuit, maybe, with diamond earrings to set off the little bit of gray which would shimmer like threads of silver in my normally dull black hair and then Mrs. Van Cleaven's voice rings out from the back.

         Before I can get there to politely knock on the door to ask if everything is going well, Mrs. Van Cleaven busts out of the dressing room wearing the first outfit we selected--an almost leggy black skirt with a maroon twin set, size twelve on her size sixteen bosom. Thankfully, she had the sense not to button the cardigan.

         "This is it," she proclaims. "Divine." She stands on bare tip toes and angles her legs Betty Grable style. "Just charge it to my account and send the old things home." With that, she slipped her feet into her sensible loafers and trudged out the door, tags still on and all. Alarm censors shoot off like fireworks on either side of her. Heads turn, she smiles more.

         I barely make it through the rest of the day without smiling, drive home in fact without cursing once, eager to just get home and tell Joe about Mrs. Van Cleaven. He'd just laugh his ass off. And amazingly enough, his truck rests in the driveway, cooling oil melodically making its steady dripping ping back into the pan. Things look up for me.

         In the house, his shoes and socks begin a line dividing the living room with his pants a little further up. His shirt in the doorway to the kitchen. His watch on the counter by the back screen door. Joe floating belly up in the pool. Empty beer cans bob precariously next to him like barnacles about to attach to a whale.

         "But he worked," my mother's voice quickly chides, with my own adding "and hard at that." Joe roofed all kinds, but hot stuff is his specialty, so that's what his boss sent him on. All the time. No break to cool off aside from the beers after work and the float in the pool. I get this. But still sometimes, I wish he would just wait for me.

         After counting the number of floaters, disturbing him isn't worth it. I don't even bother to change out of my work clothes; I just slip off my heels, place them neatly in the laundry nook off the kitchen to the left of the mountain of undone laundry, and proceed to make hamburgers for the grill. Maybe Joe would fire the outdoor unit up or maybe not. If not, they'll be mini-meatloaves fresh from the oven. Ketchup would be the vegetable if you didn't count the onion soup mix stirred in the ground chuck. Letting rolls defrost on the counter, I leave the whole scene to escape to the bathroom.

         The bathroom. My land of last resort. The one place that Joe will not enter without assurance that no girlie product is unveiled waiting to reveal the mystery of menstruation to his never fully grown-up, boy mind. So I stocked the bathroom with magazines and comfy sweats. And a pillow in the linen closet. Perfect for keeping the water spout from denting my head as I curl up in the tub with last month's Women's World. Fighting the insanity of dieting plans followed by three tiered cream cakes, I flip through all the pages without finding anything suitable to read.

         The pool filter sucks at air, and the screen door smacks into place. Expecting to hear Joe call out for me, call out for his supper, I brace both my hands on the edge of the tub, holding on to stay in or to hoist myself out, I could not say. But the call did not come. I listen, waiting: His footsteps, wet and heavy trod past the bathroom door. The television blares a commercial for bass fishing lures before the staticky wave of channel flipping. The hum of the air conditioner. Joe snoring. I throw the magazine down on the faded blue bathmat and press my palms against my eyes. My life is not supposed to be like this.