Bearded Women Read online

  Doodles of squares and triangles made while talking on the phone with my mother.

  Mom calls every night and asks how I am doing.

  I say I miss her company. I miss her sympathetic glances. I miss the way she’d rub my shoulders without asking.

  “When will you be home?” I don’t think I’m whining, just being honest and lonely.

  Mom isn’t sure how much my grandmother will recover—she can’t speak or move her left hand, but she can feed herself. Mom says she might need to stay in Arizona for a while. She does not explain how long “a while” would be.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  I want to cry, but I am an adult so I say I broke another pair of shoelaces this morning. We laugh. She says my father broke shoelaces all the time.

  I think about my father when I’m alone, but I’m usually not alone much. I picture him, a nine-foot-tall ghost sitting in the plush recliner, watching me as I talk with my mother, nodding at our conversation. He’s in the house like a lamp or a potted plant, so much a fixture that I don’t think about it, would only notice if he were gone. The air would smell a little differently.

  At work I start to think the rent-to-own guy is scared of me. He doesn’t come in to the stationery store for three days. I feel bad because I was honestly hoping he was interested, thought I was kind, and wanted to ask me out for pizza. People say it’s who you are on the inside that counts, but when you don’t look like everyone else, most folks have a hell of a time getting past the outside. I’ve only ever gotten attention from creepy guys, ones who want to have eight-foot-tall kids.

  In the evening I sit at the bakery near the front of the store, a space where they have small round tables clustered together with a scattering of chairs. Fitting on a chair is difficult, but I swing my legs to the side and pretend I’m five-foot-five. I eat day-old cookies and read the newspaper and glance over at the bakery girl. My mother’s absence makes me avoid home because I’m worried something will happen and no one will be there to help. Better to be alone in public, to wait for the bakery girl to look over at me and smile.

  Sometimes I don’t answer the phone in the evening, don’t want to speak to my mother because I’ll start crying. When we talk, half the time the only thing I can say is, “When are you coming home?”

  Tuft of hair cleaned from a brush.

  I toss it in the little trashcan beside the sink while I draw water for my bath. I’ve been losing more hair since Mom’s been gone. Maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s age. My hair plugs the drain of the claw-foot ceramic tub. It’s the one my dad used, but it can barely fit all of me. I’m sure I’m not getting all the shampoo out of my hair. Mom usually helps with that, dumps cups of water over my head until the suds are gone. When I get out I lose my balance, always fear this even though we have a plastic mat on the bottom of the tub. As I fall I imagine bashing my head against the back of the tub, cracking my skull, blood running rivulets into the water, but I land squarely on my tailbone, let out a yelp because there is no one to hear me. It hurts to fall from four and a half feet up. I sit in the tub for seven minutes while the water runs out. Sore, sore, so sore. When I get out I keep to a crouch, no higher than I have to be. My backside pains. I think about calling the hospital, hope I didn’t fracture anything, but I don’t want an ambulance to come because I fell on my rear. I grit my teeth and decide to wait until morning, assess the size of the bruise. I dry carefully, use my dad’s thirty-year-old towels. They are threadbare. Mom sewed two towels together to make one large enough to dry all of him.

  My father, filmy and sympathetic, sits on the easy chair in the living room. I ask how many times he fell like this. He shrugs because there were too many to count. When my mother calls, I almost tell her about my fall but stop just before I mention it. She couldn’t do anything but feel guilty half a country away, and I’ve already told my dad. I wonder how big my father thought my mother was, if she ever swelled to seven or eight feet while he was still alive, or if she stayed five-foot-three. I wonder if my father’s parents were like Mom, prone to growth, outsizing their normal bodies even if no one else could see it.

  Mom collected my Dad’s advertisements, glued them in scrapbooks. He’s always with little kids to accentuate his height. Some of the kids look at him with wonder and others with slight fear, like he’s a fairy tale giant. I hate fairy tales because giants are evil and stupid and eat people. I sympathize more with the giant than with Jack, go to sleep recalling his tumble off the beanstalk. It must have hurt.

  I almost stay home from work the next morning—probably would if my mom were here—but I grit my teeth and walk. After a half block, it isn’t bad.

  Just before lunch, the rent-to-own guy comes to buy tape.

  “Hello,” he says, making eye contact for three seconds before peering down at the tape.

  “Are you going to wait until I invite you out for pizza?” I say.

  He looks up and gives me a small smile when I hand him his change. It’s progress. Maybe a six-foot-tall guy won’t be as cowed by me as a shorter one. We’re the same height when I’m on my knees, which makes things almost normal. It’s a decent kissing height. I blush after he leaves, usually don’t think about kissing people other than cheek-kissing my mother before work.

  Bakery bag with two-day-old peanut butter chocolate chip cookie crumbs.

  I gain weight because I’m in love with the bakery girl. At least I think I’m in love with the bakery girl. She says hello when I walk to the counter and her eyes do not seem to widen at my size. She asks how my mother and grandmother are doing.

  “They’re okay,” I say

  “My grandmother had a stroke,” she says.

  “My grandmother is small,” I say. “Frail.” I worry she thinks my whole family is like me—gangly and huge.

  “So was mine,” she says. “Give your grandmother my best. I know how you feel.”

  Of course she doesn’t, but I’m not going to correct her.

  It’s easy to love people who are kind to me, but I’m never sure how to interpret kindness. Maybe the bakery girl is just a nice person. Maybe I don’t love her but her niceness, though I’ve always been in love with her delicacy. At the bakery I sit and eat a lot of bread so I can be around people. They have free jam and napkins on a small table in the corner. The jam comes in tiny rectangular tubs, plops on my bread in that perfect four-sided shape.

  Crumpled grocery receipt for three frozen pizzas, two frozen chicken fingers meals, two teriyaki chicken meals, four cans of tomato soup, two chocolate bars with caramel.

  I go to the store without a list. Mom always did the shopping. My trip is liberating and unhealthy. At home I bake a frozen pizza, sit on the couch, eat the whole thing though I had a lot of bread at the bakery. Mom would stop me, but I’m too hungry and have a lot of body to fill. A knock on the door. Mr. Wilson on the front step. He has his knitting needles, a bagful of yarn, and smells thickly of smoke.

  “Thought I might come by and sit a spell,” he says. He turns on the television, finds a channel with baseball. I take out the pantsuit that Mom and I started pinning before she left. Haven’t worked on it since. I sit on the couch.

  “You need a gentleman caller,” Mr. Wilson says. “One who’s not seventy-five. Here’s a picture of my nephew.” He takes his wallet out of his pocket. “A handsome boy. Thirty years old and no girlfriend. He does things with computers.”

  “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around,” I say, glancing at the tiny photo he shows me. It’s hard to judge appearances based on a picture the size of my thumbprint.

  “Shit,” he says, “nobody knows when they’re going to go. Just look at me here. I’ve been smoking a pack a day for sixty years and I’m still kicking.”

  I explain my heart problem. Mr. Wilson shakes his head. “You can’t listen to everything docto
rs say. I never have.”

  Mr. Wilson excuses himself for a cigarette. My hands and feet feel no warmer after his pronouncement, but for a moment I consider the disturbing possibility I may outlive my father. I’ve figured on dying at the age of thirty-two since I was eighteen, so this is slightly upsetting, but I’m certain any plans I make will trigger the heart condition I know is waiting to erupt. I have never considered my body an ally. Mr. Wilson seems to think of his as a partner in crime.

  Box of stale raisin bran.

  My mother has been gone for a month and I hate raisin bran. I am learning to throw away my instant oatmeal packets so they do not collect by the coffee maker.

  I haven’t seen the rent-to-own guy for two days, but at noon he brings in a pizza box.

  “I’m asking you out for pizza,” he says. “I hope you like pepperoni.”

  We eat in the break room. My boss is happy to allow us that small courtesy. I think she worries about me.

  The rent-to-own guy says his name is Dale. He wants to get a degree in accounting. He lives in an efficiency apartment above a record store, three doors from my bakery. He likes playing hockey and watching old comedies. Marx Brothers. Laurel and Hardy. Three Stooges.

  I tell him I like sewing and do not skate because I have no balance.

  “I bet you’d look amazing if you tried skating,” he says.

  “I look amazing enough already,” I say. “And I bet I couldn’t find skates to fit.”

  “Just glide in your shoes,” he says without blushing.

  I tell him I’ll think about it, wonder if he wants to take me skating to see my slapstick crash on the ice, to make other people stare, but no one aside from my mother has ever bought me pizza, so I decide to interpret it as a mark of his sincerity.

  Band-aid wrapper and two small pieces of waxy paper peeled off adhesive backing.

  I cut myself while chopping tomatoes for a salad because I’m tired of pizza and want something fresh. I’m not used to paring knives. They’re tiny and slippery in my hands. The cut is small but stings like hell because of the acid from the tomatoes. Still, I am pleased with my meek little salad and independent attempt to eat vegetables.

  I tell my mother about the salad when she calls. She is proud of me. My grandmother has not yet regained feeling in her left hand. She probably won’t. There is no one to care for her except my mother, because my grandmother doesn’t trust nurses. Mom will be gone for a while longer. I take a deep breath and try to still my worries.

  After telling her good-night, I walk three blocks downtown for the sake of walking. The bakery is closed. I scan the second-storey windows, most of them apartments, wonder where Dale lives and if he’s looking out of his window and down at me.

  Bakery bag with two-day-old lemon poppyseed and blueberry muffin crumbs.

  I take a short lunch and get off work a half-hour early, go to buy day-old muffins and find the bakery girl is on break, sitting at the tables near the front of the store. I ask if I can sit with her for a moment. She nods. Getting into the chair is particularly awkward. I feel like I stretch across half the room. The bakery girl doesn’t comment on my length, just asks about my grandmother. I watch her fingers as she tears the muffin in pieces.

  “I’m a cashier at the stationery store on the next block,” I say.

  “I wondered if you worked around here,” she says.

  “You did?” I'm surprised she’d have thoughts of me other than the obvious why the hell is she so tall?

  The bakery girl says she lives two blocks away in a duplex with her cat. She hates cooking, which is why she works in a bakery. Baked goods fringe benefits.

  I tell her I made a salad the other night and it was a big accomplishment. She laughs. We are having an actual conversation. The bruise on my rear hurts like hell because the chair is so hard, but I am past caring. The bakery girl returns to work at five, says it was nice to talk with me. I float home. I do not tell my mother about the bakery girl. Don’t want to get her hopes up.

  Empty box of tissues, empty package of lozenges, three empty cans of chicken noodle soup, three empty cans of chicken and rice soup, empty box of soda crackers.

  I get an awful cold, an achy head-throbbing cold, spend three days hobbling from the couch to the kitchen. On the third day, when the garbage is overflowing, I pull on a bathrobe (my father’s old terrycloth) and haul the bag to the curb.

  Mr. Wilson yells from across the street. “Thought you might be dead or something.”

  “Sick,” I sniffle.

  Mr. Wilson nods. Half an hour later he bangs on my front door, carries three boxes of tissues, a carton of orange juice, and a box of chamomile tea bags.

  “I hate chamomile tea,” he says. “But the wife gave it to me and it works.”

  Mr. Wilson offers to sit with me, but I tell him no. I am learning how to be alone and don’t want him to catch my cold. (I don’t say the smell of his cigarettes gets to me after a while.) I sit by the television and sip from the carton of orange juice, appreciate not having to worry about refilling a glass.

  I’m ill for four more days, have several delirious one-sided conversations with my father. I tell him about the bakery girl and the rent-to-own guy, know he understands my uncertainty because he felt the same way when he met my mother. I know his colds were this bad since both of us have too much body to rid of the virus.

  In most of the pictures I’ve seen my father is close to my age, but I can imagine twenty-some years added to his frame, imagine his hair greying and thinning, imagine us sitting side by side on the couch with heating pads on our knees after long days of commercial-making and paperclip-selling. After I’ve taken my cold medicine and am floating in that hazy space between wakefulness and sleep, I can feel his long thin fingers brush against my hands and face.

  When Mr. Wilson deems I am well he brings me takeout, extra spicy Thai food. The curry is so hot I use half a box of tissues, but Mr. Wilson says the spices are cleaning out nasty things in my sinuses. I flush bright as a chilli pepper, but feel better afterwards. Less clogged. My father smiles from the armchair.

  Cellophane wrappers from two packages of shoelaces.

  Dale says that at the ice rink they don’t care if you skate in your shoes. I buy new ones for the occasion. Mom is happy to hear I have a date. I wonder how my father courted her, what they talked about since she’d spent a semester’s art class staring at him naked.

  We arrive at the rink at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning because Dale says most people won’t come until after ten. Ice makes me even less graceful than usual. Dale has chunky hockey-playing skates, whirls around the rink for twenty minutes while I tiptoe at the edge. He grabs my hand, tugs me away from the side, says he won’t let me fall. I let go and slide toward him, peer down at my shoes. His hands hold mine, pull me gently. For about fifteen feet. I slip. Pitch forward because I don’t want to land on my rear again. Careen on top of him. He did not realise my weight, curses as we both go down. Dale’s knee twists in a painful way, although not one that requires medical attention. We hobble to his car. I am excruciatingly apologetic. So is he. This is because we both work in customer service.

  I don’t see Dale in the stationery store the next day, almost walk to the rent-to-own place to find him and apologize again. He was such a bright possibility. He bought me pizza. That night I mope and use a few tissues. He doesn’t come to the store the day after that. I tell myself he was probably one of the creepy guys, repeat this idea for five days until I believe it.

  “I’ll call my nephew,” Mr. Wilson says when I explain the incident with Dale. “He’s a strong boy. Lifts weights. Could pick you up and cart you around town with one hand.”

  My mother gives me sympathy. “That’s too bad,” she says, “but not your fault.”

  I think on the other end of the line she’s s
miling. After a week I can smile, too. If Dale would hold a grudge just because I fell on him, the relationship wouldn’t have worked. Beside me on the couch, my father shrugs. I know he waited twenty-seven years to find my mother.

  Mr. Wilson says his nephew will visit soon and we’ll go out for dinner.

  Mom’s absence isn’t comfortable, but it’s usual. Something I can accept if I break it into small increments. She will be gone another week. That idea is manageable. Larger periods of time are still difficult, so I don’t think about them.

  Bakery bag with two-day-old sugar cookie crumbs.

  The bakery girl has a break at four-thirty. If I only take a half-hour for lunch, I can leave work early and have a muffin when she does. I learn the bakery girl likes crocheting and her cat is named Cinnamon. I tell her I like sewing. She compliments my new lavender pantsuit and says the colour goes well with my complexion. No one has ever said anything about my complexion before.

  When I look away I know her arms and legs are growing. Her shoulders widen. Her back straightens until I am certain she is at least eight feet tall and our hands are the same size.

  Ears

  The second pair of ears are on the sides of my neck. They’re a little smaller than my head ears and can’t actually hear anything. All four of my ears are pierced, four holes each in the top ones, two holes each in the bottom. Most of the time I forget about the second pair, don’t even notice them when I’m looking in the mirror. When I go out I wear turtlenecks and scarves because I’d rather not be stared at, but when I’m at work at the tattoo parlour I let them show. Customers tend to think they’re some sort of self-imposed body modification.