Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

among the people cramming the sidewalks, like I’d seen in movies and TV shows. But most of all, I wanted togo to a Broadway show. My mother and I belonged to the Show Tunes of the Month Club and received a new Broadway cast album every month. I had memorized every song from all the great shows, and the best songsfrom the bad shows. My mother adored Broadway songs but not New York City, which she said was full of thieves, drug addicts,and degenerates.

“What should we color?” Izzy was sorting through a six-inch-high stack of coloring books.

“Is there a nurse in there?” I asked Dr. Cone, nodding toward the window.

“A nurse?”

“Who helps you with the patients.”

Dr. Cone laughed. “I’m a psychiatrist. I’m a medical doctor, but I just work with thoughts. Addiction, obsessions. I don’tdeal in bodies.”

“Oh.” I wondered if my mother thought psychiatrists were as big a deal as the doctors who dealt in bodies.

“Bodies!” Izzy said, and waved a coloring book in front of me. The Human Body was printed on the front.

“That looks cool.” I gathered crayons from around the table and grouped them according to color.

“Let’s do the penis.” Izzy opened the book and started flipping through the pages. My face burned and I felt a little shaky.

“What color are you going to do the penis?” Dr. Cone asked, and I almost gasped. I’d never heard an adult say penis. I’d barely heard people my age say penis. The Kellogg twins were the two top students in our class, and they never said words like penis.

“GREEN!” Izzy stopped at a page that showed a penis and scrotum. The whole thing looked droopy and boneless; the scrotum reminded me of half-rotted guavas that had started to wrinkle as they shrunk. Words were printed on the side and lines directed each word to what it was naming. This penis was larger and far more detailed than the one I’d barely glanced at on the anatomy drawing we’d been handed in sex ed class last year. In fact, upon receiving that handout, most girls took a pen and rapidly scratched over the penis so they wouldn’t have to look at it. I was too afraid of the teacher to graffiti my paper. Sally Beaton, who sat beside me and was afraid of no one, saw my pristine page and reached from her desk to mine to scribble out the penis. Izzy picked up a green crayon and started frantically coloring the penis green. I wasn’t sure if I should color with her or not. If it hadn’t been a penis, I would have. But it was a penis, and Dr. Cone was right there. Would he want a girl who colored a penis taking care of his daughter? Then again, his own daughterwas coloring a penis! And I had to assume he or Mrs. Cone had bought her the book.

“Help me!” Izzy handed me a red crayon. I nervously started coloring the tip.

Dr. Cone glanced over. “Jesus, looks like it’s pissing blood.”

I froze. I felt like my heart had stopped. But before I could say anything, or put the red crayon down, Dr. Cone wanderedout of the kitchen.

Izzy and I finished the penis. I was relieved when she turned the page and we colored a uterus and fallopian tubes. Orangeand yellow and pink.

That day, neither Dr. nor Mrs. Cone appeared to go to work. And they didn’t get dressed till around noon. In my own house,both of my parents were showered and dressed by six thirty. My father walked out the door Monday through Friday at seven a.m.Dad was a lawyer. He wore a tie every day, and only removed that tie at the table after we’d thanked the Lord for our foodand prayed for President Ford and his wife. A framed color picture of smiling President Ford hung on the wall just behind my father’s head. Ford’s gaze in the picture was aimed directly at me. His eyes were a feathery suede blue. His teeth looked like short little corn nibs. An American flag undulated behind his head. Sometimes, when I thought father or when people talked about their dads, I envisioned President Ford.

My mother’s work was mostly in the home. I’d never seen anyone busier than Mom. She made the beds every day, vacuumed everyother day, swept every day, grocery shopped every Friday, made breakfast and dinner every day, and mopped the kitchen flooreach night. She also taught Sunday school at the Roland Park Presbyterian Church. And she was really good at it. Sometimesthe kids colored pictures of Jesus while Mom read them Bible verses. Sometimes she played Bible bingo with them. But the bestpart of Sunday school was when Mom played the guitar. Her voice was thick and husky, like her throat had been carved froma hollowed-out log.

Mom said Jesus didn’t care that she didn’t have a pretty voice, but he did prefer it when I sang along. Harmony came naturallyto me and it made my mother proud when I harmonized. So every Sunday, with an audience of eight to fifteen little kids (dependingon who showed up), Mom strapped on her guitar and we stood together at the front of the church basement classroom and beltedout songs about Jesus. The kids were supposed to sing along, but only half of them did. Some just played with their shoes,or nudged and whispered to their friends, or lay on their backs and stared at the water-stained ceiling. When they reallystarted to lose attention, we sang “Rise and Shine,” because all kids love that song.

There was a thirty-minute break between Sunday school and church services. During that time, Mom went home to drop off her guitar and fetch Dad, while I ran off to practice with either the youth choir (during the school year) or the summer choir (during the summer). I preferred the summer choir, as it was made up mostly of adults and only a few teenagers—the majority of whom rarely showed up. I didn’t feel self-conscious