Mrs. Everything Read online

  Bethie would scramble out of his car and run home through the summer twilight and the air that smelled like barbecues and fresh-cut grass. A twirling sprinkler would send sprays of water arcing onto the Steins’ lawn, and she’d hear car doors slamming, kids laughing or arguing, and moms calling their children in for dinner. It felt like another world, a lost paradise, like all of Bethie’s previous summers, when her dad had been alive. The Dubinsky girls would be playing hopscotch; the Stein boys would have their bats slung over their shoulders as they ran home for dinner. Andy Simoneaux, her friend Barbara’s little brother, would ride past her on his new bike. He’d used clothespins to clip playing cards to the spokes, and they made a whirring sound when he pedaled, calling, “Hi, Bethie!” She would wave at Andy, hurrying for her own front door, praying it would be dark enough so that no one would see the wet spot on the back of her jeans. She’d leave Uncle Mel’s money on the kitchen table, underneath the white china sugar bowl with its chipped lid and its gold rim, and peel off her clothes and stand under the shower, first with the water scalding hot, then icy cold. She’d cook dinner and pick at her food, and sit in front of the television set with her mother, who no longer had the energy to knit or mend or even fold the laundry. After dinner, Sarah would sit, nodding off halfway through Leave It to Beaver or The Andy Griffith Show. Her mouth would fall open, and she’d snore. In the glare of the television set, she looked old, and frail, and powerless. After her mother had gone to bed, Bethie would slip into the kitchen, padding on her bare feet, plucking a mixing spoon out of the drawer, opening the refrigerator and shoving whatever she could find down her throat, anything that was soft and yielding. Cookie dough was best, but she’d eat ice cream and sherbet or cottage cheese, bread or cold rice or mashed potatoes, raspberry jam or chicken gravy that had solidified to jelly. Anything that was soft, anything that could be scooped up and gulped down without her even tasting it. Anything to fill the hole that had opened up inside of her, anything to fill the void, until there was no room left for bad memories or anger or guilt or shame.

  By August, she’d put on ten pounds. Her skin was broken out, with angry red pimples spattering her forehead and cheeks, and her breasts had grown two cup sizes so that all her bras squeezed. Sarah didn’t say anything about the vanishing supply of food, which she surely must have noticed. All she did was snip a copy of a seven-day grapefruit-and-hardboiled-egg diet out of Ladies’ Home Journal and leave it at Bethie’s spot on the kitchen table after she’d left for work, murmuring, “When you’re short, with a small frame, every pound shows.”

  Bethie avoided her friends, who were spending their summer days sunning themselves by the public pool or who, if they were old enough, had part-time jobs babysitting or scooping ice cream or waiting tables. She wasn’t old enough to work, and she couldn’t stand the thought of putting on her swimsuit, which no longer fit, and lying on a towel on the concrete around the pool, with so much of her body exposed. She said she was busy when Barbara Simoneaux asked her to double-date, and missed Laura Ochs’s Sweet Sixteen. Under the weather, she’d say, which was code for menstrual cramps, or she’d say, My mom needs me at home, and who could argue with that?

  Finally, one Wednesday night in August, Uncle Mel pulled down Alhambra Street and, oh thank God, the lights were on in the house, shining through the window. “Uncle Mel, I have to go,” Bethie blurted, and had her feet on the ground almost before the car had stopped. She ran across the lawn, fumbling for her key on its ribbon, hurrying through the door, and Jo was there, Jo had finally come home. She was standing in the kitchen, her legs tanned underneath her white camp shorts, her shoulders broad and strong beneath her green-and-white Camp Tanuga T-shirt. The light above the stove was on, giving the shabby room a warm glow, and the radio was tuned to the Tigers game. Jo was cracking eggs into a bowl, the scuffed pale green plastic one they always used. Bethie saw a startled expression on her sister’s face as Jo took her in, before her sister asked, “How about breakfast for dinner?” Bethie was so relieved, so glad to see her sister, so glad not to be alone, that she started to cry. Jo put her arm around Bethie’s shoulders, pulling her close.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” Bethie couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak. “Is it Dad?” Jo asked, her voice warm and sympathetic. Bethie leaned against her, the scent and the solidity of her sister’s body reassuring and familiar. “I know. I miss him, too.”

  “It’s not that,” Bethie managed to say through her tears. “It’s something else.”

  Jo looked down at her. “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Uncle Mel,” Bethie whispered. She inhaled, squeezed her eyes shut, and said, all in a rush, “He’s touching me.”

  After Bethie told Jo everything, Jo’s lips turned white around the edges and she started walking like she couldn’t keep still. I’ll kill him, she kept saying. I’ll kill him. She paced the length of the living room with her tennis racquet in her hand, looking ready to start smashing things. Bethie was the one who calmed her down, the one who said, truthfully, that Uncle Mel had never touched her underneath her clothes, or made Bethie touch him under his. He’d just say that he was comforting me, or that I was misinterpreting things, Bethie said. And Mom needs the money. You know she does. Jo paced, and glared, and told her, We have to come up with a plan. We need to get him to leave you alone, and we need his money. That night, for the first time in months, Bethie ate her dinner and did not sneak out of bed to eat, and Jo told her a story, not about Princess Bethie in the dark woods in search of a magic chalice, or in the high tower, but Princess Bethie in Uncle Mel’s house on a quest for cash, and the sisters talked late into the night.

  The next night, Bethie and Jo waited until six o’clock, when Uncle Mel was sure to be home, and drove to Southfield. Jo parked in the driveway, and the sisters walked to the door. Shirley’s expression went from annoyed to surprised when she saw that both sisters were there.

  “Is Uncle Mel at home?” said Bethie. “Jo and I need to speak to him.” Her hands, her knees, even her neck, everything was quivering, but her voice was clear and steady. Shirley gave them a curious look, but she said, “Of course,” and led the girls into Uncle Mel’s office, which had bookshelves full of medical texts, and an imposing dark wood desk, where a fancy black and gold pen rested on a leather blotter. A minute later, Uncle Mel, in his suit pants and white lab coat, walked in.

  “Well, isn’t this a nice surprise! What can I do for you young ladies?” he asked.

  Bethie’s stomach felt fluttery, the way it did when her teachers handed out exams facedown, in the minutes before they said, “Begin.” She wanted to get up and run, out of the office, past Aunt Shirley and her cousins, through the gleaming kitchen, all the way back to the car. As if she’d read her mind, Jo took her hand and gave it a squeeze, and Bethie forced herself to breathe and tried to remember all the stories her sister had told her. Princess Bethie had faced the dragons and the wicked queen. She’d tamed the wild stallion and ridden on its back; she had hacked her own way through the forest of thorns before the prince ever showed up.

  Uncle Mel was looking at her. Bethie swallowed, then started to speak. “You talked to me about ‘The Road Less Traveled’ at my father’s shiva. Remember? ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood’?”

  Uncle Mel gave a cautious nod. Bethie felt her belly uncoil. The sick, sinking feeling she’d carried all summer was evaporating. What was left in its place was rage. Her chest and throat and cheeks felt hot. She kept her face still and made herself smile, and tilt her head, and speak sweetly.

  “Our father didn’t choose, though. He didn’t get to choose. Your parents chose for him. He didn’t get to say, ‘Maybe I’d like to finish high school and maybe I’d like to go to college.’ He had to drop out of school and go to work, to help the family. To help you. It wasn’t his choice to die before he turned forty-five.” She paused to take a breath, before delivering her final blow. “Or to have his daughter get pawed
by his brother once a week.”

  Uncle Mel’s face darkened. He raised his hands. “I think you misunderstood—”

  “I think she understood fine,” Jo interrupted. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. We should report you to the board in charge of eye doctors.” Jo glared at him. “Or maybe your wife.”

  In his study, behind his gleaming desk, Uncle Mel’s mouth was moving soundlessly. “I didn’t mean . . .” he finally managed. He gulped, then said, “I was distraught!”

  “I bet Aunt Shirley would be pretty distraught if I told her what you were doing.” Uncle Mel was squirming. Bethie could see beads of sweat gleaming through the coarse hairs of his mustache, and how he couldn’t look either one of them in the face.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “A while back, our father asked to borrow money. Remember? He wanted to open a Laundromat with Henry Sheshevsky. And you told him no.”

  “Only to protect your family!” Mel said, his voice loud and self-righteous. He looked toward the door, lowered his voice, and continued, “Your father . . . he didn’t have a kop far geshefte. No head for business. He’d have lost my money, and whatever he’d invested of his own.”

  “Maybe,” Bethie said. Jo was glaring across the desk with her hands in fists. Bethie knew that her sister probably hated hearing her father insulted that way, like he was dumb, or incompetent. She could feel her heart pounding, the sound of it in her ears. “Or maybe we’d be the ones living in Southfield with a swimming pool in our backyard. We’ll never know. That’s the road not taken, right?” She gave Uncle Mel her prettiest smile. “You can’t go back to where the road diverged. But I bet you’d feel better if you helped my mother out.” Bethie squeezed her hands together so that he couldn’t see them tremble. “Whatever my father asked to borrow from you. I want you to write our mom a check.” She sat back, her stomach twisting again, her palms sweaty and her mouth dry. Now, she thought. Now he’ll tell me that I made the whole thing up. He’ll call my mother and tell her I’m a liar. He’ll start yelling, and he’ll throw us out.

  Instead, her uncle sighed and bowed his head. After a minute, he opened the top drawer of his desk. He wrote out a check and put it in an envelope with his name—Dr. Melvin Kaufman—and his office’s address embossed in the upper-left-hand corner, and put it into Bethie’s outstretched hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said . . . and, to Bethie’s horror, he did sound genuinely sad. Whatever else he’d been, whatever he’d done, he had been her father’s little brother. As much as she hated to think it, he had lost someone, too. She tucked the check into the zippered pocket of her purse. Jo stood up, and the two of them left Uncle Mel without a word. Bethie was hurrying toward the door, planning on leaving without even a “goodbye” to Aunt Shirley, but as she passed the dining room, she saw the Negro girl humming as she stood in front of an ironing board with a stack of white napkins piled on one end. Bethie stopped, so suddenly that her sister almost walked into her back. When the girl looked up, with her face immobile and her eyes wary, Bethie thought she’d used up all the courage she had for that day, for that week, maybe for the rest of her life. Then she remembered her uncle’s hands on her, the horrible stink of his breath, and that her sister was standing behind her. It made her brave enough to step forward.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Coralee, ma’am,” said the girl. Up close, Bethie could see that she was older than she’d thought, in her twenties at least. Her face was small and heart-shaped. Her two front teeth overlapped slightly, and her eyelashes curled up at the tips.

  “I’m not a ma’am,” Bethie said, and shook her head. Her eyes were stinging. “I’m just a kid.” She stepped close to the young woman, lowering her voice. “Does he ever touch you?” she whispered. Coralee’s eyes got wide. She shook her head. “If he ever does . . . if he ever tries anything . . .”

  Bethie didn’t know what to say next, but her sister did. “We’re his nieces. Jo and Bethie Kaufman.”

  Coralee nodded. “I remember.”

  “We live on Alhambra Street. Our number’s UNiversity 2-9291. Call us if you need us.”

  The girl nodded, and Bethie turned again toward the door. In the living room, there was the heavy glass paperweight with its piece of coral inside. When she was little, Bethie had loved the heft of it, the smooth curve of the glass against her palm. On her way out, she fell a few steps behind Jo and picked it up and slipped it in her pocket, next to the check. She walked out the front door and she and Jo hurried down the gentle slope of her uncle’s front yard, to where the car was waiting.

  Jo

  Jo and Lynnette looked at each other across the microphone in the school’s front office that would broadcast their voices over the PA system. Smiling, Jo mouthed the words “Three . . . two . . . one,” and Lynnette bonged out the introductory notes of “Mister Sandman” on the xylophone they’d borrowed from the music room. The two of them leaned forward and sang, in credible harmony, “Fellow classmates . . . bring us your dues. / We need your money, for our senior cruise. / A night of dancing, and plenty to eat / Will keep us out of all those car back sea-ats / Classmates, our savings are low / Can’t throw a party, without any dough / So please, don’t make us have the blues . . . / Fellow classmates, bring us your dues!”

  Mrs. Douglass glared at them, the way she glared at everyone, before allowing herself the tiniest smile and saying, “Not bad, girls.” Jo and Lynnie made it through the door, with its wire-reinforced glass window, and were out in the hallway when they thrust their hands in the air in triumph and collapsed against each other, laughing.

  “Oh my God, I was sure you were going to do it!” Lynnette said.

  “Do what?” Jo asked, her face innocent. The previous week, Jo had proposed all kinds of lyrics, from funny to disgusting to obscene, with increasingly offensive rhymes of “dues” and “Jews,” until Lynnette begged her to stop, leaning against the bedroom wall with tears on her cheeks, saying, “I’m going to pee my pants!” As class secretary, Jo was responsible for collecting the class dues of five dollars apiece. The money would pay for a double-decker boat that would take the kids on a post-prom cruise along the Detroit River in May.

  Giddy and breathless, Jo walked down the hall with Lynnette, who looked extra-adorable in her maroon and cream cheerleading uniform, with its short, pleated skirt. The summer had been bittersweet, wonderful and strange. Jo spent her days in the sun, at the lake or on the tennis court, the hours so full that there was little time to grieve. At night, she and Lynnette would slip down to the beach and slip out of their clothes and skinny-dip in the warm lake water, sometimes with the other female counselors, sometimes alone. “I love you,” Jo had whispered, and Lynnette had said it back. But as soon as they’d come home, Lynnette had started right up again with Bobby Carver, as if the summer had never happened. Bobby Carver, football-team captain; Bobby Carver, who, someday, would own his father’s dealership, Carver Chevrolet. “The Saturday Night Fights,” Lynnie had taken to calling their dates, shaking her head as she told Jo about how every night ended with a wrestling match in the back seat of Bobby’s car. She’d describe Bobby’s wet kisses, his octopus-like hands, the way he was always attempting to grind his erection against her, without seeming to particularly care which part he was grinding against. “Is it even dry-humping if he’s, like, pushing it into my arm?” Lynnette wondered, and Jo told her, solemnly, “I believe that Plato and Socrates had debates about the exact same thing,” without letting her face show how it sickened her to imagine Lynnette and Bobby that way. She was brave enough to tell Lynnette that she loved her, but not, it seemed, brave enough to demand that Lynnie end things with Bobby.

  “Funny,” Lynnette said, elbowing Jo in the ribs and looking up at Jo fondly, in a way that made Jo’s heart do a flip-flop in her chest. “You’re so funny. You should have a TV show, like Lucille Ball.”

  “Only if you’ll be my Ethel,” Jo said. Jo had no desire to be o
n TV. She dreamed of being a writer, or a lawyer, like Perry Mason. That wasn’t an ambition shared by many of her female classmates, and Sarah had scoffed the few times Jo had brought it up. Lynnette, meanwhile, didn’t even want to go to college. Jo thought that Lynnie wanted a life exactly like her own mother’s—a big house, a few kids, enough money to pay for help with the cooking and cleaning so that she could spend her afternoons playing bridge or mah-jongg or doing volunteer work. As much as she loved her Lynnie, as much as she wanted to believe that they could be together forever, Jo wasn’t so starry-eyed that she couldn’t see the truth. Making a life with a woman would be hard. And Lynnette, her sweet, slightly daffy, lazy friend, Lynnette of the strawberry-sweet lips and clever tongue, Lynnette who never read a book that hadn’t been assigned in class and never finished her own homework when she could get Jo to do it, whose knowledge of current events and the world did not extend past the campus of Bellwood High, was not made for the struggle. She would not try—or even want—to remake the world. The idea of turning down Bobby Carver’s marriage proposal and running away with Jo would be as alien to her as planning to live on the moon.