"Why don't you tell me never, for that's what you mean!" he shouted. He stalked off, down to the basement to whir his electrical saw, to do damage to something instead of to her.
I followed Kitty into the bathroom, hoping I could talk as one woman to another, but she was preoccupied with staring into the mirror. "Hate gettin old," she moaned, peering closer into a hand mirror, while the theatrical lights all around showed every tiny line she considered very noticeable.
"I don't see any crow's-feet, Mother," I said quite honestly, liking her much better now that she was acting more or less like a normal human being. If sometimes I slipped up and called her Kitty, she didn't demand that I correct myself. Still, I was warily suspicious, wondering why she didn't demand my respect as she had before.
"Got ego home soon," she murmured, staring more intensely into the mirror. "Ain't right t'Cal what I'm doin." She grinned broadly to see all her teeth, checking for yellow, for bad gums, going over her hair carefully looking for gray. "Gotta put my feet on home ground--let em all back there see me again while I still look good. Looks don't last foreva like I used t'think they would. When I was yer age, I thought I'd neva grow old. Didn't worry bout wrinkles back then; now all I do is think about em, look t'find em."
"You look too closely," I said, feeling sorry for her. I also felt edgy, as I always felt when I was shut up in a room alone with her. "I think you look ten years younger than your actual age."
"BUT THAT DON'T MAKE ME LOOK YOUNGA THAN CAL, DO IT?" she shouted with bitterness. "Compared t'me, he looks like a kid."
It was true. Cal did look younger than Kitty.
Later that same day, when we were eating in the kitchen, Kitty again spoke mournfully about her age. "When I was younga, used t'be t'best-lookin gal in town. I was, wasn't I, Cal?"
"Yes," he agreed, forking into the apple pie with a great deal of enthusiasm. (I'd studied
cookbooks for months just to make him his favorite dessert.) "You certainly were the best-looking girl in town."
How did he know? He hadn't known her then.
"Saw a gray hair in my eyebrow this mornin," Kitty moaned. "Don't feel good about myself no more, don't."
"You look great, Kitty, absolutely great," he said, not even looking at her.
How terrible she was making middle age seem even before she got there. Truthfully, when Kitty was all dressed up, with her makeup on, she was a magnificent-looking woman. If only she could act as pretty as she could look.
I'd been with Kitty and Cal for two years and two months when she informed me: "Soon as ya finish school this June we'll be headin back
t'Winnerrow."
It thrilled me to think of going back where I happily anticipated seeing Grandpa again, and Fanny. And the prospect of meeting the strange, cruel parents of Kitty intrigued me. She hated them. They had made her what she was (according to Cal), and yet she was going back to stay in their home.
In April Kitty came from a shopping trip bearing gifts for me--three new summer dresses that fitted this time, expensive dresses from an exclusive shop, and this time she allowed me to select really pretty new shoes, pink, blue, and white, a pair to match each dress.
"Don't want my folks thinkin I don't treat ya right. Buyin em early, for t'best is all picked ova. Stores rush sununa at ya in winta, shove winta at ya in summa; ya gotta move quick or be left out altogetha."
For some reason her words took the thrill away from the beautiful clothes that were bought only to prove something to parents Kitty said she hated.
Days later, Kitty took me to her beauty salon in the big hotel for the second time, and introduced me to her new "girls" as her daughter. She seemed very proud of me. The shop was larger, more elaborate, with crystal chandelier
s, and hidden lights to make everything sparkle. She had European ladies who gave facials in tiny cubicles, using magnifying optical glasses through which the specialists could peer and find even the smallest flaws in the clients'
complexions.
Kitty put me in a pink leather chair that raised and lowered, tilted back, and swiveled, and for the first time in my life I had a professional shampoo, trim, and set. I sat there with the plastic apron about my neck and shoulders, staring into the wide mirror, scared to death when Kitty came in to inspect me that she'd say I looked horrible, and pick up the shears and make my hair even shorter. I sat tense and ready to jump from the chair if she chopped off too much. All eight of her "girls" stood around to admire Kitty's artistry with hair. She didn't hack it up. She carefully layered, snipped, and when she was done, she stood back and smiled at all her "girls."
"Didn't I tell ya my daughta is a beauty? Ain't I done improved on nature? Hey, ya, Barbsie, ya saw her when she first came--ain't she done improved? Kin't ya tell she's been fed right, treated good? She's my own kid, an mothers like me shouldn't brag bout their own, but jus kin't help it when she's so
beautiful--an mine, all mine."
"Kitty," said the oldest of her girls, a woman about forty, "I didn't know you had a child."
"Didn't want any of ya t'disrespect me fer marryin so young," Kitty said with the sincerity of truth. "She's not Cal's, but don't she look like him, though, don't she?"
No, I didn't look like him. I took offense, and added another block to my tower of resentments that was bound to topple one day.
I could tell from all the faces of her girls they didn't believe her, yet she went on insisting I was hers, even when she'd told them differently before. Later, when I had the chance, I told Cal about that. He frowned and looked unhappy.