Joyce Carol Oates - We Were The Mulvaneys Read online

  That wasn't exactly true, though almost. She'd taken pride as a young girl often or eleven, ironing Dad's handkerchiefs at first, and then his sports shirts, which didn't require too much skill, and finally his white cotton shirts, which did. And her own white cotton blouses of course. Like sewing, ironing can be a meditation: a time of inwardness, thoughtfulness, prayer.

  Not that she'd tell her girlfriends this, they'd laugh at her. Tenderly, affectionately-Oh, Button! Even Trisha, who was such a good girl herself.

  He'd said there was no one in Mt. Ephraim to talk with, about serious things. Except her.

  Whether God exists? Whether God gives a damn about us, -f we live or die?

  She couldn't remember when he'd said this, asked this. If it was before leaving the party at the Krausses', or after, at the Paxtons'. Before or after the "orange-juice" cocktails. The tart stinging delicious taste coating the inside of her mouth.

  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the n-ht, y'know?-and I'm so scared, almost I want to yell something weird, crazy-11/hy'd you screw me up so, God? 14/hat's the point?

  His earnest moist heavy-lidded eyes. Some girls thought them beautiful eyes but Marianne shied from looking at them, into them, too obviously. There was his quickened breath, the sweet-liquor smell. The heat of his skin that was rather pallid, sallow. A shrill girlish giggle escaped her, didn't sound like her but like an anonymous faceless girl somewhere in the night, between houses, in a boy's car or staggering drunkenly between cars in high-heeled pumps and unbuttoned coat in blurred swaying rays of headlights.

  Oh Zachary u'hat a way to speak to God!

  She shut the closet door, hard.

  The cat was pushing himself against her ankles in an ecstasy of yearning. He seemed to sense, or even to know. How long she'd been away, and how far. How hazardous, her return. Temporary.

  She knelt, hugging him. Such a big, husky cat! A sibling of Big Tom, yet heavier, softer. Head round as a cabbage. Long white whiskers radiated outward from his muzzle stiff as the bristles of a brush, and quivering. His purr was guttural, crackling like static electricity. As a kitten he'd slept on Marianne's lap while she did her homework at her desk, or lay across her bed talking on the phone, or read, or, downstairs, watched TV. He'd followed her everywhere, calling her with his faint, anxious mew?-trotting behind her like a puppy.

  Marianne petted him, and scratched his ears, and stared into his eyes. Loving unjudging eyes they were. Unknowing. Those curious almost eerie black slats of pupil.

  "Muffin, I'm fine! Go back to sleep."

  She went to use the bathroom, she'd been using the bathroom every half hour or so, her bladder pinching and burning. Yet there was the numbness like a cloud. She locked the door, used the toilet, the old stained bowl, aged ceramic-white, the plumbing at High Point Farm needed "remodernization" as Corinne called it, the bathrooms especially. But Dad had laid down some handsome vinyl tile of the simulated texture of brick, a rich red-brown, and the sink cabinet was reasonably new, muted yellow with "brass" from Sears. And on the walls, as in most of the rooms at High Point Farm, framed photos of family-on horseback, on bicycles, with dogs, cats, friends and relatives, husky Mikey-Junior clowning for the camera in his high school graduation gown twirling his cap on a forefinger, skinny Patrick, a ninth grader at the time, diving from the high board at Wolf s Head Lake, arrested at the apogee of what looked to have been a backward somersault, maybe a double somersault. Button was here, Button smiling for the camera that loved her, how many times Button smiled for the camera that loved her, but Marianne, wincing as she drew down her jeans, her panties, and lowered her numbed body to the toilet seat, did not search her out.

  As sometimes, not frequently but sometimes, she'd whimper aloud with the strain of a painful bowel movement, a sudden flash of sensation almost too raw to be borne, now the sound forced itself from her, through her clenched teeth-"Oh God- Oh Jesusl" She seemed fearful of releasing her weight entirely; her legs quivered. The pain was sharp and swift as the blade of an upright knife thrust into her.

  You're not hurt, you wanted it. Stop crying.

  Don't play games with me, O.K.?

  I'm not the kind of guy you're gonna play games with.

  At first when she tried to urinate, she couldn't. She tried again, and finally a trickle was released, thin but scalding, smarting between her legs. She dared not glance down at herself out of fear of seeing something she would not wish to see. Already seen, in vague blurred glimpses, at the LaPortes', in the hot rushing water of a tub.

  The pain was subsiding, numbness returning like a cloud.

  Flushing the toilet, she saw thin wormlike trails of blood.

  That was all it was, then!--her period.

  Of course, her period.

  That was how Mom first spoke of it, warm and maternal and determined not to be embarrassed: your period.

  It was all routine, and she was one who responded well to routine. Like most of the Mulvaneys, and the dogs, cats, horses, livestock. What you've done once you can do again, more than once for sure you can do again, again. No need to think about it, much.

  Still, Marianne's hands shook, at the first sighting of menstrual blood she'd feel faint, mildly panicked, recalling her first period, the summer of her thirteenth birthday, how frightened she'd been despite Corinne's kindness, solicitude.

  I'm fine. I'll take care of myseif In her bureau drawer a supply of "thin maxi-absorbent sanitary pads" and snug-fitting nylon panties with elastic bands. She realized she'd been feeling cramps for hours. That tight clotted sensation in the pit of the belly she'd try to ignore until she couldn't any longer. And a headache coming on-ringing clanging pain as if pincers were squeezing her temples.

  It was all routine. You can deal with routine. Ask to be excused from active gym class tomorrow, which was a swim class, fifth hour. After school she'd attend cheerleading drill but might not participate, depending upon the cramps, headache. Always in gym class or at cheerleading drill there was someone, sometimes there were several girls, who were excused for the session, explaining with an embarrassed shrug they were having their periods.

  Some of the girls with steady boyfriends even hinted at, or informed their boyfriends, they were having their periods-Marianne couldn't imagine such openness, such intimacy. She'd never been that close to any boy, had had countless friends who were boys yet few boyfriends, with all that implied of specialness, possessiveness. Sharing secrets. No, not even her brothers, not even Patrick she adored.

  Her cheeks burned at the mere thought. Her body was her own, her private self. Only Corinne might be informed certain things but not even Corinne, not even Mom, not always.

  She shook out another two aspirin tablets onto her sweaty palm, and washed them down with water from the bathroom faucet. In the medicine cabinet were many old prescnption containers, some of them years old, Corinne's, Michael Sr.'s, there was one containing codeine pills Dad had started to take after his root canal work of a few months ago then swore off, in disgust-"Nothing worse than being fuzzy-headed."

  Well, no. Marianne thought there could be lots worse.

  Still, she took only the aspirin. Her problem was only routine and she would cope with it with routine measures.

  Marking the date, February 15, on her Purrifect Kittens calendar.

  She'd been a tomboy, the one they called Cute-as-a-Button. Climbing out an upstairs window to run on tiptoe across the sloping asphalt roof of the rear porch, waving mischievously at Mule and P.J. below. Her brothers were tanned, bare-chested, Mule on the noisy Toro lawn mower and P.J. raking up debris. Look who's up on the roof! Hey get down, Marianne! Be careful! The looks on their faces!

  Roof-climbing was strictly forbidden at the Mulvaneys', for roofs were serious, potentially dangerous places. Dad's life was roofs, as he said. But there was ten-year-old Button in T-shirt and shorts, showing off like her older brothers she adored.

  It was a good memory. It came out of nowhere, a child climbing through a
window, trembling with excitement and suspense, and it ended in a blaze of summer sunshine. She'd ignored the boys calling to her and stood shading her eyes like an Indian scout, seeing the mountains in the northeast, the wooded hills where strips of sunshine and shadow so rapidly alternated you would think the mountains were something living and restless.

  And Mt. Cataract like a beckoning hand, for just Button to see.

  Here. Look here. Raise your eyes, look here.

  In the warmly lit kitchen rich with the smell of baking bread there stood Corimie leaning against a counter, chatting with a woman friend on the phone. Her blue eyes lifting to Mananne's face, her quick smile. The radio was playing a mournful country-rock song and Feathers, incensed as by a rival male canary, was singing loudly in rebuttal, but Corinne didn't seem to mind the racket. Seeing Marianne grab her parka from a peg in the hail she cupped her hand over the receiver and asked, surprised, "Sweetie? Where are you going?"

  "Out to see Molly-O."

  "Molly-O? Now?"

  That startled plea in Corinne's voice: Don't we prepare Sunday supper together, super-casserole? Isn't this one of the things Button and her Mom do?

  Outside it was very cold. Twenty degrees colder than that afternoon. And the wind, bringing moisture io her eyes. It was that slatecolored hour neither daylight nor dark. The sky resembled shattered oyster shells ribboned with flame in the west, but at ground level you could almost see (sometimes Mananne had stared out the window of her bedroom, observing) how shadows lifted from the snowy contours of the land, like living things. Exactly the bluish-purple color of the beautiful slate roof Michael Sr. had installed on the house.

  In the long run, Dad said, you get exactly what you pay for.

  Quality costs.

  Marianne's heart was pumping after her close escape, in the kitchen. There would be no avoiding Mom when they prepared supper. No avoiding any of them, at the table.

  Yet how lucky she was, to have a mother like Corinne. All the girls marveled at Mrs. Mulvaney, and at Mr. Mulvaney who was so much fun. Your parents are actually kind of your friends, aren't they? Amazing. Trisha's mother would have poked her way into Mari- anne's room by now asking how was the dance? how was your date? how was the party? or was it more than one party? did you get much sleep last night?-you look like you didn't. Another mother would perhaps have wanted to see Marianne's dress again. That so-special dress. Even the satiny pumps. Just to see, to reminisce. To examine.

  One of the rangy barn cats, an orange tiger with a stumpy tail, leapt out of a woodpile to trot beside Marianne as she crossed the snow-swept yard to the horse barn. He made a hopeful mewing sound, pushing against her legs. "Hi there, Freckles!" Marianne said. She stooped to pet the cat's bony head but for some reason, even as he clearly wanted to be petted, he shrank from her, his tail rapidly switching. He'd come close to clawing or biting her. "AU right then, go away," Marianne said.

  How good, how clear the cold air. Pure, and scentless. In midwinter, in such cold, the fecund smells of High Point Farm were extinguished.

  No games. No games with me.

  Just remember!

  At the LaPortes' she'd bathed twice. The first time at about 4:30 AM, which she couldn't remember very clearly and the second time at 9:30 A.M. and Trisha had still been asleep in her bed, or pretending to be asleep. The gentle tick-ticking of a bedside clock. Hours of that clock, hours unmoving beneath the covers of a bed not her own, in a house not her own. Toward dawn, a sound of plumbing somewhere in the house, then again silence, and after a long time the first church bells ringing, hollow-sounding chimes Marianne guessed came from St. Ann's the Roman Catholic church on Mercer Avenue. Then Mrs. LaPorte knocking softly at Trisha's bedroom door at about 9 AM, asking, in a lowered voice, "Girls? Anyone interested in going to church with me?" Trisha groaned without stirring from her bed and Marianne lay very still, still as death, and made no reply at all.

  Later, Trisha asked Mananne what had happened after the party at the Paxtons', where had Marianne gone, and who'd brought her back, and Marianne saw the worry, the dread in her friend's eyes Don't tell me! Please, no! so she smiled her brightest Button-smile and shook her head as if it was all too complicated, too confused to remember.

  And so it was, in fact: Marianne did not remember.

  Unless a giddy blur, a girl not herse!f and not anyone she knew, Coughing and choking dribbling vomit hot as acid across her chin, in a torn dress of ream-colored satin and strawberry-colored ch-fj-n, legs running! running! clumsy as snipping shears plied by a child.

  Out in Molly-O's stall, at this hour? But why?

  This safe, known place. The silence and stillness of the barn, cx- cept for the horses' quizzical snuffling, whinnying.

  Marianne wondered if- back in the house, Corinne was consulting with Patrick. Is something wrong with-?

  Judd, too, had looked at her-strangely.

  He was only thirteen, but-strangely.

  Marianne took up a brush and swiftly, rhythmically stroked Molly-O's sides, her coarse crackling mane. Then lifted grain and molasses to the wet, eager mouth. She clucked and crooned to Molly-O who had roused herself from a doze to quiver with pleasure, snort and stamp and twitch her tail, snuffling greedily as she ate -rom Marianne's hand. That shivery, exquisite sensation, feeding a horse from your hand! As a small child Marianne had screamed with delight at the feel of a horse's tongue. She loved the humid snuffling breath, the powerful, unimaginable life coursing through the immense body. A horse is so b-g, a horse is so solid. Always, you respect your horse for her size.

  She loved the rich horsey smell that was a smell of earliest childhood when visits to the horse barn were overseen scrupulously by adults and it was forbidden to wander in here alone-oh, forbidden! Brought in here for the first time in Dad's arms, then set down cautiously on the ground strewn with straw and walking, or trying to- the almost unbearable excitement of seeing the horses in their stalls, poking their strangely long heads out, blinking their enornious bulging eyes to look at her. Always she'd loved the sweetish-rancid smell of straw, manure, animal feed and animal heat. That look of recognition in a horse's eyes: I know you, I love you. Feed me!

  So easy to make an animal happy. So easy to do the right thing by an animal.

  Molly-O was nine years old, and no longer young. She'd had respiratory infections, knee trouble. Like every horse the Mulvaneys had ever owned. ("A horse is the most delicate animal known to man," Dad said, "-but they don't tell you till it's too late and he's yours.") She wasn't a beautiful horse even by Chautauqua Valley standards but she was sweet-tempered and docile; with a narrow chest, legs that appeared foreshortened, knobby knees. Her coat was a nch burnishedred with a flaglike patch of white on her nose and four irregular white socks-Button's horse, her twelfth birthday present. There is no love like the love you have for your first horse but that love is so easy to forget, or misplace-it's like love for yourself, the self you outgrow.

  Marianne hid her face in Molly-Os mane whispering how sony she was, oh how sorry!-since school had started she'd been neglecting Molly-O, and hadn't ndden her more than a dozen times last summer. Her horse-mania of several years ago had long since subsided.

  It had been a mild horse-mania, compared to that of other girls of Marianne's acquaintance who took equestrian classes and boarded their expensive Thoroughbreds at a riding academy near Yewville. Flanng up most passionately when she'd been between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, then subsiding as other interests competed for her attention; as Marianne Mulvaney's "popularity"-the complex, mesmenzing life of outwardness-became a defining factor of her life. Competing in horse shows wasn't for her, nor for any of the Mulvaneys. (At the height of his interest, at fifteen, Patrick had been a deft, promising rider.) Dad said that the "great happiness" in horses, as in all of High Point Farm, was in keeping it all amateur-"And I mean real amateur."

  It was more than enough, Dad said, for a man to be competing in business with other men. Maybe an occasional golf
game, squash, tennis, poker-but not seriously, only for friendship's sake, and sport. A man's heart is lacerated enough, being just an ordinary American businessman.

  Of course, Dad admired certain friends of his, business associates and fellow members of the Mt. Ephraim Country Club who were "horsey" people (the Boswells, the Mercers, the Spohrs), but the thought of his daughter taking equestrian lessons, competing in those ludicrously formal horse shows, was distasteful to him. It was rank exhibitionism; it led to fanaticism, obsession. You don't want animals you love to perform any more than you want people you love to perforni. Also, it was too damned expensive.