Chapter Five
I saw Mrs. Reilly waddle her way across the front yard, her hair still in rollers as she beat me to delivering her welcome gift. But of course she did. She seemed to believe that neighborliness was built on competition. To her, the shortest clipped lawn, the most squared hedge-bush, the handiest husband were all indications of the best Greenwood residents. And all just so happened to belong to her.
Shortly after breakfast, I watched her carry a casserole across the street, knowing she must’ve pulled it out of the freezer and thawed it in the oven to make it seem fresh. My offering took more time. But I didn’t want to wait too long. So, that afternoon, I took the salad out of the fridge and placed a platter on top like a lid before flipping it upside down.
Normally, the salad would slide right out. Sometimes I might need to give it a little jiggle or a few pats to encourage it. This time none of that was necessary. I had tested the top with my finger. It had the right resistance. It shook and shimmied as gelatin should. But as I pulled up on the mold, a waterfall of green liquid and chunks of canned fruit cascaded from the plate onto the counter, soaking my apron, the dress beneath, and my shoes. I stood frozen in the kitchen with half-congealed goo dripping down the front of my body.
I couldn’t believe it. That had never happened before. I tried to figure out what I had done wrong, how I had failed. I suppose I had rushed it. Maybe I had miscalculated when doubling the recipe. Or perhaps I had been too tired
and distracted, always anticipating Esther’s cries.
I thought about cursing, screaming, maybe throwing the mold against the wall. Perhaps I could shatter that kitchen clock that ticks too loud at night or tear apart the stamps that sat waiting—mocking my inaction—on the sideboard, rip them to shreds and watch the confetti rain down. But instead I wiped at the couple tears that slipped out and stored the rest deep within the ever-growing reservoir.
I looked at the clock and forced myself to come up with another plan.
Reaching into the freezer, I took out a peach pie I had baked in the weeks before Esther was born.
As it thawed in the oven, I changed myself for the second time that day.
The first time was when my breasts, so full of milk, leaked through my bra and soaked my top. Feeling the fullness starting to build again, I shoved a few tissues into my bra, hoping they would absorb a potential leak. I looked in the mirror and barely recognized the woman looking back at me. My skin was pale and my lips were still chapped from the stale hospital air.
I tried to fix the things I could, but no amount of makeup could hide the dark circles beneath my eyes. I ran a brush through my hair and attempted a simple French twist, but the bobby pins pressed into my scalp, exacerbating the dull headache that had been lurking beneath the surface. In a final effort to look presentable, I dabbed on a bit of mascara and looked away before I became too self-conscious to even leave the house.
I didn’t put much thought into the shirt dress I grabbed from the closet before I hurried across the street. I felt like a stranger standing in front of the house I knew well. Before ringing the doorbell, I took a deep breath, trying to settle butterflies I hadn’t expected. I had only seen this woman and her frozen smile from across the street. Perhaps she wasn’t as old as her shoes and furniture choices let on. Maybe the way she clutched her purse and daughter’s arm showed earnestness. Maybe I shouldn’t judge too quickly and
from across the street.
Standing on the doorstep, I began to regret my outfit, its buttons pulling across my chest and stomach. I certainly had more curves now but not in all the places I wanted. The dress stretched across my midsection, showing off the softness in my stomach. After having Wesley, I was surprised by how long it took for my stomach to return to its previous shape, how I still looked pregnant for months afterward. Of course this time would be no different.
As the door creaked open, I smiled and did my best to brighten my eyes.
“Welcome to Greenwood,” I said with forced cheer.
The woman stood in the open door. She was even shorter than I had thought.
“Thank you,” she replied with dimples firmly divoted into her cheeks, a smile plastered across her porcelain face. I waited for her eyes to meet mine, but they focused on my nude, scaly lips instead. I had forgotten to put on lipstick—an unforgivable sin, according to Nora.
I waited a moment for her to say more, but she held a distant stare, watching my lips, so I filled the dead air before the silence became too awkward.
“I’m Lulu Mayfield.” She continued staring at my mouth, saying nothing. I wondered if she noticed the cracked, peeling skin. Or maybe she was reading my lips. Maybe she was hard of hearing, so I began to slow my speech, raise my voice, elongating each syllable. “From across the street.” I pointed in the direction of our house.
She reached her hand toward mine. “I’m Bitsy Betser.”
Her voice was quiet, understated. I leaned in and asked, “Betsy?”
She cleared her throat and said with more volume, “Bitsy.” She emphasized the vowel as we shook hands. Bitsy’s palm felt small and cold, perhaps partly because mine was so warm from holding the steaming pie. I waited for her to invite me in, in part to set down the pie, but more
importantly, so I could take a look. I wanted to see what she had done with the place. I felt it urging me inside, pulling me to step across the threshold, but I resisted for the moment.
“Welcome to the neighborhood. I brought you a little something.” I spoke loudly enough that the entire street could probably hear me.
“That’s kind of you. You didn’t have to.”
Of course I did. We both knew that. It was part of what we did, of what was expected of us. And her response was part of the game: feign modesty. “I was happy to,” I told her. Nothing like starting a relationship with a lie.
“Well, thank you,” she said as the smile lessened. But the closer I looked, the more I realized it wasn’t really a smile. Sure, her cheeks were dimpled, but they grooved even when she wasn’t smiling. It was a static, forced upturn of the lips. But they remained closed, as if guarding something—perhaps conversation, because the woman didn’t seem like she wanted to talk much. I wondered if Nora had gotten Bitsy to talk, but she rarely needed two people to have a conversation.
Feeling the heat of the pie and a fullness beginning again in my breasts, I decided to take matters into my own hands. “I hope you don’t mind if I set this down.” Bitsy didn’t budge at first, but as I moved toward her, she began to step back.
“Oh, yes, sure.”
She moved out of the doorway and motioned for me to come inside.
In the day I had spent creating a liquid pool of lime gelatin and fruit carnage, this woman had been making herself at home, so much so that she even had a portrait already hanging in the front hall. It’s not what I would’ve hung there. The Betsers looked back from the picture, Bitsy in the middle, surrounded by her smiling husband and their sons. The Betser boys all looked at the camera, their eyes bright and open. Not a single hair looked out of place. Except for Bitsy. She looked different—taut skin and no gray hair.
While she was surrounded by three happy family members who all looked in the same direction, Bitsy looked off to the left, her eyes dark, her lips flat, a lock of hair flipping outward, as if a flag that no one noticed.
The living room was arranged with armchairs flanking the davenport, which looked even worse up close—a putrid pattern of green, brown, blue, yellow, orange, and red floral, as if a subdued rainbow had exploded into a forestscape onto the couch. She had lamps and knickknacks arranged on side tables, and china already filling the cabinet in the dining room.
But she had done more than simply place her belongings in the house I had imagined as my own. In the short time she had been there, she had already covered the far wall in the eat-in kitchen with new wallpaper. I paused in the doorway for a moment, taking in the faint blue background, the color of the sky on a calm day as it broke beneath the cloud line. Thin, gold lines curved and intersected, creating a series of butterflies that swarmed the walls.
“Well, looks like you’ve been busy,” I said as I gathered myself and walked into the kitchen. I placed the pie on the counter next to the Hamilton Beach food mixer (eleven books). Organdy ruffled curtains (one-and-a-half books) framed the kitchen window, while the five-piece coppertone aluminum mold set (one-and-three-fourths books) hung on a pegboard. I wondered if she used them for cooking or decoration.
“You collect stamps, too?” I asked before turning toward Bitsy, who watched me with surprise. She walked toward me and took the pie from where I’d placed it on the counter and moved it to the stovetop, as if correcting my mistake. “I’m sorry—” I began. Apparently, I had made myself too much at home. I brushed my bangs from my eyes, seeing more clearly that, though I may have known this house better than she did, it was not mine. But before I could complete my apology, a small voice interrupted.
“Who is it?” a little girl called from behind Bitsy. She spoke normally to her mother, answering my question of whether Bitsy was hard of hearing.
The girl looked different from her mother, an elongated face and no dimples, though her hair was a similar shade of brown.
Bitsy reached for the girl’s hand. “This is Katherine. And this is Mrs.
Mayfield,” she introduced us to each other. “She brought a pie.”
“Peach,” I told them. “Like what we grew on my family’s farm.”
“Oh, how nice,” Bitsy said. “Did you pick them?”
Yes, from the bin at the A&P. “No, I’m afraid the orchard’s out of the family now.”
“Can we have some?” Katherine interjected. She was so beautiful. A satin ribbon—the same color as the gold flecks in her wise, hazel eyes—held her hair away from her face, but the ends of her long locks were tangled. I wondered if Bitsy had to sit her down at the end of the day and brush out the knots, just as Mama used to do for me, one hand on top of my head as the other pulled the brush through my hair. She didn’t like it when I told her it hurt. If I ever tried to stop her by reaching back, she would smack my hand with the flat side of the brush. Standing in Bitsy’s kitchen that day, I swore I could feel the pain in my knuckles as if Mama had just paddled my hands.
“Not until after dinner. After vegetables. What do we say about sugar?”
Katherine’s smile faded as she recited, “A sweet tooth makes for a round belly.”
I watched Bitsy’s gaze go from my mouth to the pie and then to my stomach. My hands reflexively attempted to cover the paunch that pulled at my dress. I knew I should’ve chosen something different to wear. The look on Bitsy’s face proved it, the smile having faded as her eyes grew wide.
“I’m sure it’s delicious, Mrs. Mayfield,” Bitsy said.
“Please, call me Lulu. Is Katherine your only child?” I asked in an attempt to make small talk. The portrait—and Nora—had told me otherwise, but in the moment, I grasped for a way to change the subject.
“We—Gary and I—have two boys. Jake’s sixteen and Larry’s…” She paused for a moment, looking to the floor as her lips moved, but no sound came out. Then she continued, “Fourteen.”
I waited for her to say more, to say where they were, why they weren’t coming to say hello, but we simply stood in silence, me watching her as she looked at the linoleum.
“Are they here?” I pressed, glancing down the hall.
Bitsy put her hands in her apron pockets as she said, “They’re away. At school.”
“The academy,” Katherine offered. “Getting discipline and edgy…edgu… edga—”
“Education.” The word came out faint, as if catching in Bitsy’s throat on the way out.
I wanted to know more—where they were, how long they had been there, if she wanted them there—but I recognized her downward gaze, the furrow of her brow, the way she stuffed her hands into her pockets. While some might dig for more information, I understood how it felt to want to remain quiet.
So I turned to Katherine and asked, “And how old are you?” The girl held up her hand with all four fingers and her thumb displaying her age. “Five.
Wow! My son is almost five. He just turned four. Maybe you could play some time.” I looked at Bitsy for approval. She continued watching my lips, but as the wall clock ticked in the silence, she made no attempt to add to the conversation. I took it upon myself to fill the awkward pause and spoke to the girl again. “Would you like to meet him sometime?” Katherine nodded.
As the girl began to tell me all the games she liked to play, the wallpaper caught my eye. I watched as beams of sunlight lit some of the butterflies so that they shimmered, sparkled, and even…fluttered.
I blinked and reached for the counter to steady myself. Then I dared to look back. A single butterfly caught in the sun’s rays. And I saw it again, the
flap of the stenciled wing.
I closed my eyes as the room began to spin. “I’m sorry,” I interrupted Katherine from whatever she was telling me. “I’m afraid I need to get going.”
“Oh,” Bitsy said. Or maybe she asked it. I didn’t hear the tone and I didn’t look at her. I peeked at that butterfly, waiting for it to move again.
“I’m afraid I need to get home.”
We said our goodbyes as I walked to the front door. Then I ran across the street, the world spinning around me, my full breasts aching with each step.
Esther’s cries called to me as I walked inside, but the butterfly haunted me as I held her.
As my milk let down and Esther nursed to contentment, I thought of the flutter that I knew couldn’t have been real, a trick of the sunlight that danced across the gold lines that ignited my imagination. That was the only explanation.
And I thought of Bitsy. She looked different up close—smaller, older, even more uncertain than when I saw her stand on wobbly legs from across the street. The woman barely spoke, didn’t make eye contact, shared little else other than that forced smile that seemed designed to act as a fortress. The question was: What was it guarding? What did that woman—with the butterflies trapped in the walls—have to hide?
