Part 37 (2/2)
”No, he didn't. Ben wouldn't care if I went stark naked. You see, I know Ben a lot better than you do. I even know you better than you do. And Ben wouldn't say that. But you would and just did.”
”Well, he's thinking it, Miss Smarty Pants. You had better believe he's thinking it. If you have so little self-pride that you can't put on a little makeup and wear clothes that fit properly, then it's no wonder that your brothers and sister are growing ashamed of you. When I was growing up a young girl wouldn't be caught dead walking out her front door looking the way you do. Now, you've got a fairly nice figure, Mary Anne, and instead of wearing clothes to show your figure off, you wear clothes to hide it. And that's unnatural. That's why I'm so afraid you'll never catch a man worth a salt.”
”I hope I never catch a man like you caught.”
”You have to be so smart and so superior and so cute. Remember that it was me who gave you your love of reading and literature. But I never taught you to flaunt the fact that you are smart and can use words to hurt people. Men find that very unattractive.”
”Creep Marines find that very unattractive.”
”Sugah, I know men. A man's a man and any man who isn't should go out with the. morning trash. A woman has one job. To be adorable. Everything else is just icing. Dressing nice to catch a man's eye is part of the game.”
”I don't like creep boys looking at me.”
”That's what every woman wants,” Lillian said harshly, ”or should want.”
”Not me. It's too sicko-s.e.xual for me.”
”Well, if I were you, and I'm certainly not, I'd dress nice for Ben's sake if for nothing else. He's very upset.”
”I thought we decided Ben never said anything, Mama.”
”Get out of this kitchen this instant!” Lillian ordered. ”I don't even know why I waste my time trying to teach you how to be a woman. Karen wants to put her best foot forward. She takes advice.”
Mary Anne began to move toward the living room. She stopped, adjusted her gla.s.ses, and turned back to face her mother once again. She took a deep, sad breath and said, ”You like Karen better than you like me, Mama.”
”That's not true,” Lillian countered. ”I love all of my children equally. I love you for different things but I love all of you exactly the same.”
”You know why you don't like me, Mama?” Mary Anne said.
”Maybe everybody would like you better if you weren't so know-it-all. It's best for a woman not to know so much,” Lillian snapped.
”The reason you don't like me is because I'm not pretty.”
”That's the silliest, most asinine, most hateful thing I've heard in my whole life.”
”It's true. You don't know how to relate to an ugly daughter. Ugliness disgusts you.”
”Hush up, Mary Anne. Hush up before I slap you across this room. What you're saying is not true. I am not that shallow. I am not that shallow and I refuse to sit here and let you tell these terrible, vicious lies about me. It hasn't been easy. It hasn't been easy living the life I've lived. Nothing worked out like I expected it would. Nothing. I thought everything would be lovely and everyone would be sweet and charming. There is so much poison in the world. You must learn to see the beautiful in things. I have. I can look at the ugliest man in the world and see a prince. I swear I can. It's the product of good breeding.”
”I look at the face of the ugliest man in the world and feel sorry for the man,” Mary Anne said, ”because I know what it's like to feel ugly.”
”Beauty is only skin deep.”
”That's not true. It's a lot deeper than that. It's the deepest thing in the world. It's the most important thing in the world.”
”You're just like your father!” Lillian spat. ”You are exactly like your father. Sometimes I can't even believe you're my child. If I ever leave your father, I'm going to take the other children with me and leave you with him.”
”You used to tell me that when I was little, Mama. And it scared me to death. But it doesn't bother me at all now.”
”Why not?”
”Because you're not going to leave him.”
”You're the most hateful child I've ever met.”
”You've never liked me.”
”Don't say that. Don't ever say that again. You make me feel like I'm something vile. That's the way you've always made me feel,” Lillian said, beginning to cry. ”Go! Go on now! Get out of my sight! I don't want to look at you or think about you! Everywhere you go you make people feel unhappy. I want to think about something happy.”
”Think about the big game.”
”Go in and talk to your father. Try and drive him crazy like you do me.”
Mary Anne left the kitchen, her head arched proudly, yet somehow her departure had the look of retreat, of irredeemable loss. Lillian leaned against the stove and began to cry soundlessly. Then she stopped and resumed cooking the dinner with an unnatural smile on her face as she stirred the greens, and forced herself to think about happy things.
Mary Anne selected a chair directly opposite from where her father sat reading the paper. Choosing a magazine from a rack beneath her chair, she began to thumb through an old edition of The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post. Then she began to steal glances at her father. In her heart, she was his silent ally, a fifth columnist, in Bull's inveterate a.s.saults on the trellised escutcheons of the Old South that Lillian shoved in front of him. Lillian spoke of the Old South when Bull was in earshot as though it were a private garden deeded to her in a last heroic proclamation by the Confederate Congress. Mary Anne looked up from the magazine and made a conscious decision to have her first real conversation with her father.
”Hey, Dad, why do you love me more than any of your other children?” she began, hoping to loosen him up with humor.
”Beat it, Mary Anne. I'm reading the sports section,” he said, not unkindly. The paper did not quiver as he answered her.
”You know, Dad, you love me so much. It's about like incest. Do you know in literature that some fathers have been physically attracted to their daughters? That's pretty interesting, isn't it?”
”Hey, Lillian,” Bull yelled to the kitchen, lowering the paper to nose level, ”your daughter's going ape c.r.a.p out here. How 'bout dragging her back to the kitchen and giving her a couple of dishes to wash.”
”Let's have a conversation, Dad,” Mary Anne continued. ”Just you and me. Father and daughter. Let's bare our souls and get to know one another.”
”I don't want you to get to know me. I like being an enigma. Like a c.h.i.n.k.”
”Let me ask you a few questions, Dad. Just a couple.”
”Shoot,” Bull answered, his head still hidden behind the newspaper.
”What's the saddest thing that's happened in your whole life?” she asked.
”When DiMaggio retired.”
”What's your favorite book?”
”The Baltimore Catechism.”
”What's your favorite poem?”
”By the sh.o.r.es of Gitchee Gumee, by the s.h.i.+ning big sea water.”
”Who is your favorite person in history?”
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