First Things First, page 19
But the young woman still (xxxxx) the young man. She got fat, fat, fatter, sad, sad, sadder, and her broken heart was driving her (xxxxx). So her worried parents sent her away to Europe for a little (xxxxx). She came home much thinner and much (xxxxx). She hated the young man now, which was much easier than (xxxxx) him.
In a few years, the young woman, who was no longer feeling young, married a doctor who (xxxxx) her desperately and bought her a mansion filled with wonderful things right on (xxxxx) Street, the best part of town. Her parents didn’t really like this doctor but they figured he was better than (xxxxx). So did the woman. She didn’t really (xxxxx) this doctor but figured she’d learn to in time. The young man was (xxxxx) and didn’t make it to the wedding. He sent along a Cuisinart instead. The young woman’s parents thought that was the end of that. Not likely, not by a (xxxxx) shot.
Shortly afterwards, the young man’s father (xxxxx) himself tragically in the head, his mother promptly (xxxxx) herself to death, and the young man inherited everything, through no (xxxxx) of his own. He had so much money then, he would never have to work again. It was all very (xxxxx).
As it turned out, the mansion he bought for his gypsy wife happened to be on the same street as the mansion of the woman and her doctor husband. He said it was an accident, purely (xxxxx). By now he had a set of gypsy twins and another (xxxxx) on the way. He was always buying new Cadillacs and smashing them up, a ridiculous habit that nobody (xxxxx) seriously. He was just like a cat with (xxxxx) lives, extended lives, flaunting them. The woman had become a writer of (xxxxx) poetry and no longer found it necessary to (xxxxx) the man. She was writing about other things now anyway. Absence makes the (xxxxx) grow (xxxxx). They were both getting older and (xxxxx), in spite of themselves.
So they decided to become friends again, (xxxxx) at first and then (xxxxx). Pretty soon, it was as though they’d never been (xxxxx).
The man teaches the doctor how to (xxxxx) and, in return, the doctor teaches the man how to (xxxxx). They have many things in (xxxxx), the two men discover. They love the same restaurants, the same sports, the same (xxxxx). After a while, they even begin to (xxxxx) alike.
Sometimes the woman babysits the gypsy twins and the new baby, who is a (xxxxx). She has never liked kids but it seems the (xxxxx) she can do for that (xxxxx) woman. She and the gypsy go shopping together, drink (xxxxx), laugh about (xxxxx), and talk about (xxxxx). Everyone thinks the two women are (xxxxx) friends and in a way they are too.
The woman and the man are glad to be (xxxxx) again after all that’s happened. They tell each other (xxxxx) and they kiss in corners on New Year’s Eve. Once or twice the doctor accuses the woman of having an (xxxxx) with the man but of course that isn’t strictly true. Still though, he says she just wants to have her (xxxxx) and eat it too.
One day at lunch the man confessed to the woman that his marriage was (xxxxx). The woman was hardly surprised—indeed, this seemed in retrospect to be exactly what she’d (xxxxx) all along. The gypsy said the man was a (xxxxx). The man said the gypsy was a (xxxxx). They would never be (xxxxx) again so there was no use trying. It was nobody’s fault.
Not long afterwards, the doctor announced he was in (xxxxx) with the gypsy. Everybody was surprised but there was (xxxxx) to be done about it now. The doctor said the woman had never really (xxxxx) him. The woman said that was true, (xxxxx) but true. There was no one to blame. They were all very civilized people, unlucky maybe, but (xxxxx).
After the divorces, which were unfriendly but (xxxxx), the man and the woman stuck together. It was the (xxxxx) thing to do. They (xxxxx) each other.
The woman soon sold her mansion and moved all her furniture down the street. The gypsy’s furniture was (xxxxx) anyway, so they sold it. The woman wanted to burn it but the man said she was being (xxxxx).
By this time, the woman’s parents had moved down south to the dream condo in (xxxxx) and she was glad she no longer had to face them. Her psychiatrist had helped her understand that she would never be able to (xxxxx) them, no matter what she did. It was the curse of only children that their parents were never (xxxxx), never satisfied.
This same psychiatrist had also helped the man realize he would never be happy either and his trouble with those Cadillacs was a (xxxxx) wish. They were working on their problems (xxxxx), this woman, this man, and it was no wonder they had so many, considering the way their monstrous mothers had (xxxxx) them.
The man and the woman had all the same friends as before and nobody seemed to (xxxxx) that the doctor and the gypsy had disappeared. It was as though those other two had never been much (xxxxx) anyway. There was no need to get married now: once bitten, twice (xxxxx). Besides, they were too old to have (xxxxx) now anyway—it was too late for some things, lots of things, (xxxxx) things.
Their lives, twin lives, discoloured, go on and on and always (xxxxx). They still like to (xxxxx) and (xxxxx) and ( ). They still love the same (xxxxx), the same (xxxxx), and the same (xxxxx). The man is still buying Cadillacs and the woman is still writing poetry. She knows that they’re supposed to be (xxxxx) at last. What more could they (xxxxx) for? But her poems are all about (xxxxx) and the man just wrecked another one.
Today the man is out in the driveway washing the Cadillac. The woman is thinking that if she has to watch him do this one more time, she will (xxxxx), just (xxxxx). She’s in the kitchen drinking (xxxxx) and getting meaner and (xxxxx) by the minute. She knows this drinking is a (xxxxx) habit. She knows she’s just like her (xxxxx). How depressing, how (xxxxx), how true.
It seems that there are only two more things she can do in her life: stay with this man till (xxxxx) freezes over or (xxxxx) him. He’d be better off (xxxxx) anyway.
Either way, she knows she will never be free of him. This man does not (xxxxx) her, she knows that now, she’s sure he never did, she’s sure he never will. He knows her too well, all too (xxxxx). Familiarity breeds (xxxxx). She keeps wishing he’d drive the new Cadillac over a cliff and be (xxxxx) with it. She can just see the flames, she can just hear the (xxxxx), she can almost taste the gallons of (xxxxx). The one thing she has never been in her life is alone.
She goes through all the ways she could do it, one by one. The possibilities are (xxxxx). She thinks that (xxxxx) would be best—bloodless, tidy, and (xxxxx). No one will ever know. She’s sure she’ll get away with it—she’s led a charmed life. No one will even (xxxxx) her. She is above suspicion, though not above (xxxxx).
The clouds are (xxxxx), the ill wind is (xxxxx), it looks like it’s going to (xxxxx).
Life, it seems from this vantage point, tends, intends, to go on for a very long time. There is no one to blame, no one to thank, no one but (xxxxx).
TRUE OR FALSE
(1984)
Mavis singer is sitting out on the back patio reading The National Enquirer just for a few minutes while there’s no one around likely to catch her. Waiting for last night’s supper dishes to cool off in the dishwasher, she’s letting the June sun dry her hair. It’s grown back some now but it’s still pretty short and shaggy looking, which, fortunately, is the style this year. Purple is the colour this summer so Mavis’s sundress is purple. In this position, stretched out in the canary yellow (last summer’s colour but passable this year as well) canvas lawn chair, Mavis looks pregnant but isn’t.
The house behind her, financed largely by the insurance money, is breezy looking, a curious cool blue with white trim. It is an old house made over inside and out, as is the emerging pattern in this part of the city. Everything around her is brilliant and acute—geraniums, greenhouse, garbage cans, picket fence, colours blatant and blazing in the heat. It’s nearly noon but there’s nothing to get in a hurry about—she’s got all day. It’s Wednesday. The neighbourhood kids are coming home for lunch all up and down the block, zipping through the alley on their bicycles, rearing up on them as if they were stallions, glinting electrically in the sunlight.
Suddenly one boy, who is carrying a big bag of peaches under one arm, rides his bike right into the side of the garbage truck which has been lumbering from house to house and is now directly behind Mavis’s place. She leaps out of the lawn chair and runs to the boy who lies curled on his side, half on the gravel and half in her backyard. The peaches are rolling away in all directions like marbles or pearls from a broken strand.
TRUE OR FALSE?
FALSE.
Mavis leaps out of the lawn chair and runs into the house, into the kitchen which is modern and cool. She squats down in front of the refrigerator, leaning her forehead against its cold green door, holding her stomach, praying, hating herself but praying for forgiveness just the same. Bravery, she realizes, is admirable but no longer possible.
Mavis looks pregnant and might be. She isn’t really worried one way or the other. Where she comes from, these things are, if not exactly taken for granted, then certainly taken in stride.
* * *
For as long as Mavis Clay could remember there was always a summer fair in Indian Mound. It was held the last weekend of August in the open field just east of town which must have been owned by somebody but was never used for anything else. The dilapidated barn in the middle became the exhibition hall, crammed full of Indian Mound matrons in flowered dresses fanning themselves with newspapers and examining the prize-winning beets, pies, peach preserves, and afghans. To the right of the barn, where all the cars were parked, the little kids could play horseshoes or go for free pony rides. To the left were the smaller livestock barns and the performing ring.
Mavis went to the fair every year just because it was something to do for a day at the end of the long hot vacant summer. That particular summer, when Mavis was fifteen, she went to the fair alone and ignored everybody she knew. She hadn’t been home for a couple of days but she figured the family probably hadn’t missed her much, there were so many of them. They were all there (except for her oldest brother, Jack, who was already in jail) plus a whole parcel of relatives, some from out of town even, come to make their annual visit to Indian Mound, rather like paying your respects. But Mavis ignored them all, even her little sister, Beth, who clearly adored her and kept waving madly in her direction.
Mavis stood with her back to all of them where they sat, squinting and sweating, ranged in lawn chairs and on upside-down milk cans along the side of the pig barn. She was watching her best friend, Molly Florence, on her horse, Starr, in the first round of the barrel racing. She was sucking on an ice cream cone in her new blue short-shorts and her white sandals. Her hair in a ponytail straight down her back felt silky in the sunlight, her skin in the heat felt succulent.
Suddenly two German shepherds ran into the ring, snarling and chewing at each other’s throats. Starr pranced sideways and then reared up, throwing Molly to the ground. Snorting and bucking, the horse came right at Mavis who did not move a muscle. Some man grabbed her by the hair, snapping her head back, and yanked her out of the way just as the horse plunged headfirst screaming into the dirt right where Mavis had stood. Molly lay curled in the middle of the ring as the two dogs rolled around in the mud beside her and people came running from all directions.
Mavis wandered away across the field, past the barn, and perched on the hot hood of somebody’s car to watch the little kids riding around in circles on those gentle fat ponies. As it turned out, Molly wasn’t seriously hurt—a broken leg was all. Mr. Florence shot the damn horse.
TRUE OR FALSE?
TRUE.
Accidents will happen.
For Mavis, it was the kind of day that later you go over and over again in your mind, looking for clues, and still later you find yourself running face first into parts of it, patches or chunks of it, at inappropriate moments. It was the kind of day that has nothing to do with anything else but itself . . . the kind of day that marks both the end and the beginning of something . . . the beginning of living dangerously, yes, but the end of what?
* * *
Just after lunch (herbed cream cheese and Hungarian salami on a toasted bagel), Mavis Singer walks the four blocks east to Murphy’s Corner Grocery. She is careful to lock and double-check the door behind her. There are starting to be more and more burglaries in the neighbourhood and Mavis is afraid of being robbed, afraid of losing all her treasures again. The back alley is empty, unchanged, as if nothing has happened. Maybe Mavis can believe that nothing did.
Usually Mavis goes to the Safeway at Chesterfield Mall but she only needs a few things today. To tell the truth, she secretly prefers Murphy’s anyway, partly because her best friend, Tess Berry, shops there and partly because of the store itself, which is dimly lit and jumbled, in an old-fashioned way, aromatic, with the barley, brown rice, and other grains stored in big red barrels in the back corner. They do not carry Kraft Dinner, Sara Lee cakes, or Coke. Murphy, if there is such a person, is long gone—to the country, Mavis assumes, the grave, or the bank. The clerks and the stock boys are all foreigners, transplanted from tiny humid overpopulated countries, striking Mavis as loyal, sincere, and happy to be here.
TRUE OR FALSE
TRUE.
Mavis is secretly overwhelmed by the vast selection at the Safeway and when the cute little checkout girl says, “Have a nice day!”, Mavis only nods grimly, knowing that she says the same thing to everyone and wanting to tell her to suck eggs.
* * *
When Mavis Clay was sixteen, she was involved in a serious single-car accident on the Old Post Road one August night. She and Molly Florence were cruising the countryside with two Indian Mound brothers, Zack and Bub Hammer, Mavis in the front seat with Bub and Molly in the back with Zack, a mutually satisfactory arrangement the two girls had decided on in the Rainbow Café before ever getting into the car.
The car went out of control for no apparent reason, rolled three times, and came to rest on its roof in an irrigation ditch. Molly and Zack were shaken up and bruised not badly hurt, so Zack ran back down the road for help while Molly stayed with Mavis and Bub. They had both gone through the windshield and lay crumpled together in the rotten water, the single intact headlight shining right on them and the radio still playing. Molly got down in the ditch with them and held their heads and sang silly songs in a crying, crooning whine until the ambulance came. When the police arrived, there was some question about drinking and driving but, as it turned out, Bub Hammer lost the sight in his left eye and that, it seemed, was punishment enough—no charges were ever laid. Both he and Mavis were in the hospital for weeks. The doctors assured Mavis that the scars on her face would disappear in time. They said she was damn lucky to be alive.
When Mavis Clay was sixteen, she nearly died.
TRUE OR FALSE?
FALSE.
This is a carefully constructed story that Mavis Singer wants her new friends to believe because she thinks it makes her somehow more valuable, more precious to them.
What really happened was that Mavis got disgustingly drunk at Molly Florence’s sixteenth birthday party and fell or walked through the picture window of Molly’s parents’ house. She lay face down on the lawn in limbo until somebody found her and drove her to the hospital. The blood and the dew on her face were both wet, one warm, one cool, both wet, the same only different. And Bub Hammer lost his left eye in a barroom brawl.
When the bandages were finally unravelled and removed, Mavis was, more than anything, surprised. The disfigurement wasn’t that extreme, not grotesque or repulsive or anything like that. She thought she could even grow fond of the scars someday, take a kind of perverse pride in them eventually. They were like trophies, tangible proof of something . . . pain, survival . . . mortality or immortality or both.
The scars did fade with the years, as the doctors had promised, and now they are like lace or slugs, depending on the light and her frame of mind.
* * *
When the phone rings the first time it is Molly from Indian Mound, who lives in the city now, too, in a low-income housing project with her husband, one-eyed Bub Hammer, and their two kids. She works sporadically as a bun-wrapper in a bakery downtown. Molly and Mavis used to write back and forth a lot when Molly and Bub were still living in Indian Mound but they seldom see each other now. Molly, who has always been a loyal sort of woman, is constantly calling to suggest they get together for lunch, coffee, bingo, but Mavis always puts her off. Today Molly wants to go over to the Chesterfield Mall and shop around. Mavis, who is defrosting the fridge and feeling mildly irritated, says, “You wouldn’t know me if you knew me now,” and rips the telephone out of the wall, for once and for all.
TRUE OR FALSE?
FALSE.
This is what Mavis, who really is defrosting the fridge and feeling mildly irritated, would like to say and do. Instead, she says, “Oh, I can’t today, Molly, I’m expecting the TV repairman this afternoon,” crossing her fingers behind her back. The TV set works fine—for a thousand bucks it should. Then the two women talk affably for a few minutes about the transit strike, their folks back in Indian Mound and, of course, the indecent heat. They talk just long enough so that Mavis can hang up gracefully and not feel guilty about it.
* * *
Mavis Clay could usually count on running into Danny Singer at the Rainbow Café. She and Molly and the rest of the crowd hung out there all summer, pumping coins into the table-side jukeboxes, slurping up milkshakes and chips and gravy. Usually Danny would slide silently in beside Mavis in their booth. Sometimes he parked his convertible right in front of the café and he and Mavis would go out and lounge against it for a while. This was when Molly would disappear—she wasn’t stupid, she knew when she wasn’t needed or wanted around anymore. She knew when to leave them alone, those two . . .
Danny in his cowboy boots and jeans, a pack of cigarettes stuffed up the sleeve of his black t-shirt . . . Mavis in love.
