Chapter Seven
I don’t know how I ended up in the camera store. The only place I needed to be was the A&P next door, but somehow I found myself being greeted by the salesperson as the bell on the closing door jingled behind me. Despite my sore muscles and desire to stay in bed that morning, I knew I needed to get to the store. So I had gotten dressed, pulled up my hair, and dabbed on a bit of makeup. Then I had stood frozen in my living room, holding my pocketbook, trying to figure out how to manage a trip to the store. I had never thought through a grocery store trip so much before that moment: how I would load the car, drive the few blocks, walk the aisles, manage it all alone.
The early days were always hardest, making adjustments, finding new rhythms, trying to make it through the day when all you wanted to do was curl up and sleep for weeks. Nora stopped by as I was gathering the courage to leave. Thankfully, this time she didn’t find me in a fit on the nursery floor, though I nearly cried when she offered to stay at the house so I could run my errand alone.
“Hello again, Mrs. Mayfield.”
I snapped awake as the man behind the camera counter greeted me. Last I remembered, I had been sitting in the car as it idled in the garage. This was the first time I had been out of the house since coming home from the hospital. Feeling a tether tugging on me, pulling at a tension to bring me back inside the house, I had needed a moment before I could put the car in reverse, back out, and drive down the street. But I didn’t remember doing any of that.
I clutched my handbag as sweat began to form on my upper lip, my wobbly legs aching despite the warm shower I had taken to try to loosen them. Then there was the still-throbbing in my head that pounded at the same rhythm as my accelerating heart.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Mayfield?”
That was a good question. I hesitated for a moment before responding, but quickly decided that I didn’t need to let this nice man know that I didn’t remember having arrived there.
After a quick breath, I smiled and said, “Yes, Mr. Perry. I was out running errands and thought I’d stop in to take another look.”
“Ah, yes. It’s a nice one,” he said as he reached into the glass case and pulled out the Kodak Pony 135 without having to ask. “But you know that already.”
I certainly did. I had looked at it the last few times I’d had film developed.
I didn’t need a new camera, I told myself. Plus, if I really wanted one, I could use my stamps, but the one in the catalog was not as nice as this one.
I reached for the camera, hoping Mr. Perry wouldn’t see the sweat on my hands. The plastic casing made it lighter than I always anticipated.
“We’ve missed you around here,” he said. It had been a while since I had stopped by. I still hadn’t developed the film from Wesley’s party, nor any baby pictures. “Do you have a roll for me today?”
“I knew I was forgetting something,” I lied. “I suppose I’ll have to bring that by another time.” After I’d completed the roll with newborn photos, tiny toes, and gas-induced grins. Another thing I should add to my to-do list.
For that moment, I ignored the tug of the tether that tried to pull me home.
I pushed aside the nagging call of the grocery store and peered through the viewfinder. Every other camera I had ever used had a waist-level finder with a mirrored perspective. But with this one, I could hold it to my eye and see the direct view, the actual perspective of the image I wanted to take.
I looked around the store, framing various shots, focusing on other cameras, customers, and even the view out the storefront window. I watched people walking by, the clouds shifting overhead, birds flitting from one bush to another. Then I watched as a blue Chevy pulled into a parking spot and my new neighbor and her daughter exited. My heartbeat quickened. It was a Tuesday. Shouldn’t she have shopped the day before? Then I watched as she held on to Katherine with one hand and pulled a pile of laundry from the back seat of her car, her bun tight and her bangs in a stiff curl across her forehead.
As they walked into the dry cleaner a few doors down, Mr. Perry pulled me back into the store. “Is today the day?” he asked, calling my attention away from the woman outside the window.
“I’m afraid not,” I said as I handed him the camera. I glanced at my watch.
I had already been gone too long, and I hadn’t been to the grocery store yet.
As the tether home pulled on me, my body tightened from my calves to my stomach and up to my mind.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Mrs. Mayfield?”
“Yes, thank you for asking.” And for being nosy. “I just lost track of time and should be going.”
As I hurried out of the store and into the next one, I felt the pressure in my breasts begin to build. I tried to shop quickly, but I hadn’t put together much of a list other than milk, bread, and something for dinner. I thought about getting some pork chops, especially since Nora said there was a sale. Or, I considered Wesley’s favorite: meat loaf. I tried to make a decision, but my mind felt heavy. Hazy. I needed something simple. I suppose that’s why the TV dinners caught my eye. Plus, we had never had them before. I doubted that Nora and Hatti had served them either. After all, wasn’t it our job to make good, nutritious food for our families? But in that moment, something quick and easy was exactly what I needed.
I glanced around the store before I walked to the freezer section. No one I
knew shopped on Tuesdays, so when the coast seemed clear, I grabbed three of each variety: beef, turkey, and chicken.
As I dropped the dinners into the cart, I swore I heard the hum of a song, not the grocery-store radio playing from the speakers above, but the same few bars of a song, whispered slightly off-key. The tune began to grow in volume, as if it were lurking behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and discovered the source.
“Oh! Bitsy.” I needed to get home, and I hoped she was not in the mood for small talk. “It’s nice to see you,” I lied again, as I tried to figure out a way to make a quick exit. I looked at my watch. I had been gone an entire hour, nearly twice what I had hoped for, and I still hadn’t checked out.
“Hello, Mrs. Mayfield,” she greeted me, with the warmth of sliced bread straight out of the bag. Katherine stood beside her mother and kept one hand on the cart, her eyes barely peering over the handle.
“Please, call me Lulu,” I reminded her.
For a moment I stopped and looked at her: the always-present dimples on her cheeks, the curl that hung to her eyebrows, the grip she had on the handle of her shopping cart so that the skin stretched tight across her knuckles. I imagined looking at her through that camera’s direct-view finder, centering her in the frame, composing the picture, not as a portrait, but as a full-length image capturing an everyday moment of an everywoman housewife with a dutiful daughter by her side. Would the image show the deepening creases beside her eyes, the strand of hair the bobby pin had missed, the lipstick painted outside the lines, the downturned lips of her daughter’s mouth?
“Are you getting snacks, too?” Bitsy asked. I didn’t know why she assumed I would be getting snacks. Apparently, she hadn’t looked in my shopping cart—thankfully.
“I needed to get a few things, for dinner and such.” I moved in front of the cart, trying to hide the boxed meals from her. She didn’t need to know what I
planned to feed my family. “We were running low.”
“Ah, yes.” I willed myself to not look at my watch. Why was she there on a Tuesday? Didn’t she follow the schedule like all the others? Then she continued, “I was grabbing a few things. For our game tomorrow.”
“Game?”
“Yes. Spades.”
Spades? What was this woman talking about? Nora, Hatti, and I had been playing spades for the last couple of years, since Hatti had moved into the neighborhood. It had always been the three of us, and Emily when she was there. We took turns gathering in one of our homes as the kids napped. It was the time when we could chat about the kids, husbands, and neighbors.
But how had she found out? I certainly hadn’t said anything, not to mention I didn’t realize we had a game coming up.
As I was too confused to respond, Bitsy spoke again, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“For spades.” Surely this woman was confused. “Nora invited me. I assumed—”
I assumed if a card game was happening, my good friend would have told me, but Nora had said nothing that morning when she stopped by unannounced. Now that I thought of it, why had she stopped by? It seemed that she had arrived to judge the state of my house, the clutter and dust that had filled the place since I had been too tired to keep up with the schedule. I saw the look on her face as she glanced around the room, trying to not be obvious, but I knew her well enough to know what she was thinking.
“Yes, of course.” Trying to hide my confusion, I sealed my lips together and blinked to keep the tears in my eyes. This woman did not need to see my hurt, but apparently I wasn’t hiding my feelings too well.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Not exactly. I had just learned that my friends were planning to get together without me. How was I supposed to feel? Not to mention that I needed to get home. I had been gone too long. Esther would be hungry. Plus, I could stand another aspirin. But this woman didn’t need to know any of that.
“Why, yes,” I told her. Perhaps the etiquette book would suggest I go a step further and thank her for asking, but instead, I held that smile, mirroring hers, and glared at her. Then I said, “But I’m afraid I do need to be going.”
Before I could walk away, Bitsy pointed at the frozen meals in my cart and said, “I looked at those. But Gary likes things home-cooked.” Her voice may have been warm. Someone passing by might have thought she sounded kind.
But I saw the insult drip from her tongue.
Then she started humming again as she and Katherine pushed the cart down the aisle. I stood in the frozen foods, willing my breasts to not leak, the tears to stay hidden, and the redness in my cheeks to fade before I had to check out.
The sound of the vacuum cleaner greeted me as I walked into the house. I dropped the bag onto the kitchen counter. The entire drive home, I had played conversations in my mind, trying to find the right words to say to Nora, to make it seem casual, as if I wasn’t hurt about the card game, to let her feel the guilt and shame of having left out her supposed friend.
As ready as I was to expose her treason, Wesley stopped me in my tracks.
As I rounded the corner into the living room, I spotted him with a dust rag, wiping off the end table.
“Look what we did!” Wesley waved the cloth in the air. “We cleaned!”
I paused the running dialogue in my mind and looked around. The toys were put away, clothes folded, and curtains open so the sunlight poured into
the house. The half-empty glass of water I had put on the end table as I managed early labor was gone. The place looked so much better than when I had left.
As the vacuum turned off, Nora called from down the hall, “We didn’t expect you back so soon. Let me finish up the hallway.”
“You didn’t have to do this,” I said as I walked to the piles of clothes on the couch and realized they were sorted and organized by who they belonged to.
“I know. But I don’t mind. It gave us something to do. I just need a minute —”
“Really, Nora. You’ve done enough.” I meant for it to sound grateful, but apparently the tone didn’t come out right, maybe because the exhaustion was beginning to set in, as was the realization that I needed to feed Esther. I was surprised she wasn’t crying from all the noise.
Nora began, “Oh, I’m sorry—” As she should be. That was the moment I should’ve let her know how I felt, to tell her that Bitsy had let the cat out of the bag. But I couldn’t do it.
“No, I’m sorry.” I disappointed myself. How many times had I stopped myself from speaking up? But silence had been the better companion for far too long. “It’s just…I didn’t sleep well.”
“I understand. Let me put this away and we’ll get out of here, let you get some rest.”
As she wound the vacuum cord, the words forced their way out. “I saw Bitsy at the store. She told me about tomorrow.”
Nora paused as she put the vacuum in the hall closet, the same location she kept hers in her own home. “About that—” she said with her back turned to me, her voice dampened by the closet. As I waited for her to continue, I wondered if Bitsy had misunderstood. “I thought it would be good to get together.”
Now that she had been caught, I told myself, she was going to invite me.
“Nora, you don’t have to—”
“Have to what? It’s time for a game. I know it’s hard to get out of the house, so I thought we’d come to you.”
“Here?” It wasn’t my turn to host.
“That’s why we cleaned, so you didn’t have to do it.”
I looked around the house. It looked better than it had in months. And she had done this all in the time it took me to buy a single bag of groceries.
“But you didn’t even ask me.”
Nora walked toward me, put a hand on my arm, and lowered her voice. “I know. But I know you, and I didn’t want to give you a reason to make an excuse.” She called for James and then continued before I could say anything. “We’ll be here during naptime. Don’t worry about snacks or drinks.
Don’t clean anymore. I’ll set up the card table when I get here.” She walked to the front door as she continued, “I already told Hatti that we’ll play here.
And Bitsy, too.”
“Did you have to invite her?”
“Now, Lulu, I’m supposed to be the mean one.” Nora winked before she turned to watch James and Marjorie run toward the road. “Look both ways!” she yelled as they paused and then sprinted across the street. “I gotta go. But please, Lulu, get some rest. No offense, but you still look like hell.”
Apparently, I looked the way I felt.
