Doreen Olberding was everything
that Mimi’s mother was not. She
wasn’t pretty like mother, but she was taller and she looked healthy and fit as
though she spent her afternoons playing tennis, or more likely, working in her
yard --- not napping. Her limbs
were tan and shapely, always glistening with a faint sheen of perspiration. Her clothes were clean and
crisp --- sleeveless, starched, cotton blouses with Peter Pan collars tucked
into belted Bermuda shorts that had sharp pleats in front and back pockets not
stuffed with Kleenex, cigs or someone’s pacifier, but neatly, securely buttoned
--- shut.
The Olberdings’ front yard was a severe
arrangement of short-cropped grass punctuated by juniper bushes shorn into
unnatural shapes and surrounded by rings of tidy marigolds and petunias. Neither dandelions nor rotting apples
defiled that lawn. The house
itself was a little pastel box with aluminum awnings, and a poured concrete
driveway. A not very tall chain link fence separated it from the rest of the
houses on Bobolink Avenue.
Doreen and her husband had two young
children, Bobby and Roberta. They always obeyed their parents and stuck close to home. They did not gallop wildly through the
neighborhood with the rest of the herd or play softball in the weedy, forbidden
field adjacent to the apartment buildings down the street. And they certainly didn’t play doctor
in the Schneiders’ basement on rainy afternoons. Roberta was the same age as Mimi so Mrs. Olberding tried to
encourage a friendship between the two plump seven year olds by occasionally
inviting Mimi into their home. The
house was modest, but clean and quiet --- like a church. Roberta’s room was a
pristine treasure box --- the walls painted a calming mint green, twin beds
carefully made up with floral bedspreads that matched each other and the curtains.
Charming little pillows, round and square that picked up the colors of
the flowery print and were trimmed with contrasting ruffles advanced the theme
and appeared to have been casually strewn across the fluffier pillows at the
heads of the beds. An array of
stuffed animals with their sleek, not matted, fur sat stiffly amongst the throw
pillows looking as though they’d been taxidermed --- never cuddled. The floor in Roberta’s room was
carpeted and felt soft and safe beneath Mimi’s bare feet. This room could never have been the
scene of a bloody accident like one that occurred in “the girls’ room” at home.
It was a Saturday morning so there was no
need to get up and get going.
Mimi and Anna decided to play “queen & servant.” Anna, the older sister, got first turn,
as usual, at playing the queen.
She sat upright on her bed, wrapped in a thin blanket. The blanket's worn satin
binding was detached in places and dangling by a few threads from the makeshift
cloak it almost looked like ragged ermine tails.
Resting just above her shiny, crooked bangs was a faded and wrinkled
construction paper crown salvaged from some kindergartener’s birthday
celebration. The girls hummed
“Pomp & Circumstance” which they’d heard at an older cousin’s high school
graduation and recognized as the theme from “Queen for a Day”. Mimi, wearing nothing but her cotton
underpants and shirt, its tiny pink rosette unraveling, knelt before the
queen. She had safety-pinned a
musty bath towel under her chin and wore it like the Blessed Mother’s veil over
her head. Mimi played a humble servant, hoping to
be treated with equal reverence when it was her turn to sit upon the throne of
pillows.
“I am the QUEEN,” intoned Anna.
“Yes, your majesty.” Mimi sprang to her feet and curtsied.
“You are my servant.” Anna added sternly.
“Oh yes, YES your majesty.” Mimi folded
her hands and bowed her head as if in prayer.
“MARCH!” commanded the monarch.
Obediently Mimi, a procession of one, paraded in tight
circles round and round the small space between the two beds. She lifted her knees
high and pounded the floor, which was cluttered with dirty clothes limp
stuffed animals and other debris, with her bare, pink feet. All the while
saluting her sister and in a sort of robotic frenzy, stifling giggles, Mimi repeated “yes your majesty, yes, your majesty.” Until the tender bottom
of one little foot came down directly on the pointy end of a Monopoly piece
shaped like an upright cannon. Never would a little girl receive the stigmata
in such a way in Roberta’s room.
Between Roberta’s twin beds stood a
chest of drawers that measured up to Mimi’s nose. Displayed upon the dresser top, like a diorama in the county
museum was Doreen Olberding’s collection of Betsy McCall dolls. There were three dolls, each eight inches tall, each dressed impeccably down to her white anklets and buckle
shoes. There was a blonde, a
brunette and a redhead and they were having a tea party. At a little round table draped with a
perky, polka dotted cloth the three girls sat on carved wooden chairs, staring
at each other and at a delectable miniature cake and sandwiches. In the center of the table was a vase
of Lilliputian tulips and daffodils that Mimi could almost
smell. Over to one side of the table, but also standing on the petit point rug was a fancy bird cage made of wire formed into delicate tracery hanging from a filigreed gold stand. In the cage was a single, minuscule
yellow bird poised to sing. It looked just like mother’s canary. Mimi felt as though she was peering
into one of those fabulous spun sugar Easter eggs at a scene so delightful that
it was like a glimpse of heaven.
How she wanted to reach up and touch one of the dolls, examine her lustrous, unmussed doll hair, the springy net crinoline beneath her party dress and her tiny white socks and panties. Of course,
she did not. Roberta’s mother
towered above the scene watching them look. She supervised the viewing like a nun patrolling the classroom during a
spelling test --- ready to slap any dirty little hand that might reach in to
disturb the paradise she’d created.
The prim perfection of these dolls was not to be violated --- unspoken,
but understood.
Gazing, transfixed at the scene, Mimi
recalled a day when she and Anna were smaller and mother let them play with two
dolls that she’d preserved from her own childhood in the 1920s. They were baby dolls with soft, floppy
bodies and delicately hand-painted porcelain heads. Their vacant eyes rolled open and shut behind thick, bristly
eyelashes --- slowly at first wtih the girls' gentle rocking --- but eventually
faster and faster as their game evolved from playing house into a winking
contest. Who could make her baby
blink the fastest? Of course when
mother shoo’d them down into the basement to play one drizzly day Mimi and
Anna took the dolls with them and the poor old dolls had not survived being
dropped on their heads on the cold, hard concrete floor. When they were a little older Mimi and Anna each received a
“Mitzi” doll --- not “Barbie” --- for Christmas. Mitzi was less expensive, she was prettier and made of
softer plastic than Barbie who seemed frigid and forbidding --- like she didn’t
really want to play with children.
Mitzi’s hair was red and abundant.
It wouldn’t matter if you cut some of it off --- she had plenty. Mother seemed to understand about dolls and she was also
good at providing real, live babies for Mimi and Anna to practice their
maternal skills on --- though never in the basement!
At Christmastime Mimi and Anna were
invited into Roberta’s room to witness Betsy McCall’s holiday party. The dolls were wearing wonderful
dresses of taffeta and velvet in deep jewel-like colors with satin sashes that
matched the bows in their hair.
Two of them wore dark tights and red shoes while the other had
lacey anklets and black patent leather “MaryJanes.” There was a glosssy make-believe turkey
on the table and adorable miniature dishes of mashed potatoes, carrots and
peas. At that size, even
vegetables looked delicious. A plate of tiny cookies had no doubt been left out for a plump
but petite Santa Claus. Opposite the gilded birdcage, its occupant
still waiting to sing, stood a Christmas tree festooned with colored balls and a glittering star at the top. Neatly arranged beneath the tree was an array of
darling little gifts --- each neatly wrapped in
patterned paper and tied with a bow or a fluffy bunch of scissors-curled
ribbon.
Mimi swallowed hard. A warm sensation of shameful longing
rose from her bottom all the way up her back and across her tightening
scalp. She coveted those dolls,
Roberta’s matching bedspreads and curtains, the safe, soothing carpet beneath
her feet, the mother who stayed awake and paid attention all day --- but mostly she yearned for the mysterious little gifts --- not realizing that under their festive wrapping was nothing but Styrofoam and blocks of wood.
Recent Comments