About Karen, a short story

 

ABOUT KAREN

Honorable mention

Negative Capability Contest 1997

Anna, Karen’s mother

Look at her sitting there, Miss-Butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth. And look at her father eat it up. We don’t hear a word, not one single word from her for months and then she breezes in. Comes up behind me as I’m washing dishes. Gives me a big kiss. Bold as brass tacks. “There are phones or e-mail to warn a body,” I told her. All she did was laugh.

Does she come alone? No, drags a friend, so I didn’t have a chance to make things nice and clean. What does she say for herself? Says Marie cares more for people than clean and nice. Mocks me, she does. My own daughter.

“And just where were you?” I ask.

“Paris,” she says. “Painting on sidewalks.” Is she joking? Is that anything for a forty-two-year-old woman to be doing? At least she didn’t get an operator to ask if I would accept a collect call from Karen. How many times have I heard that?

Of course, I always say yes.

What if she were hurt or in real trouble? You never know There’s so much danger in the world.

She should settle down. Haven’t I been saying that for years? No one listens. Not one whit.

Poor Larry is talking to her just like he used when they were in high school. She should never have married him. He still lights up when he sees her, even if he’s married again.

Even her father, who thinks she tinkles pure gold, never blamed Larry for the divorce.

When I asked her wasn’t she ashamed to be the first divorced person in our family, she just looked at me like she couldn’t understand the question. I don’t care if everyone gets a divorce these days. I believe in commitments.

She refused to cook, clean. All she wanted to do was paint. She said anyone smart enough to run his own store, was smart enough to wash his own jockey shorts. And her father sat there nodding his head. He can’t even put his own underwear in the clothes hamper.

And what about Sandy. She needs a mother, although Lord knows, Jeanne is good with the child. Poor Larry was lucky to find her. They give my granddaughter the stability Karen never could.

Karen may be my daughter. I do love her. God knows, but she has been a disappointment from the day she refused to put on that pink ruffled dress. What was she? Two? Three?

Jeanne, the second wife

What’s keeping Larry? All he had to do was drop off Sandy, but no, he insisted on saying hello to his ex-in-laws. He sees them when they come into the store, he doesn’t need to stop now. I know he really wanted to see what She looked like after being in Paris. I wish She’d stayed there.

At least when She was away, I had Sandy and Larry to myself. It used to take me days to get Sandy back to normal after she went to New York to visit her mother. She filled her head full of dreams but couldn’t send her back with clean clothes. Probably thinks of me as nothing more than a laundress.

And She could have shown me some appreciation for my picking up the shards of her life. Took me weeks to get that house clean after she walked out. Of course, if I hadn’t, Larry would never have thought of me as his wife. Made myself indispensable. He was so grateful every time I cooked a meal. Spaghetti, lamb roast, pork pie. He really packed it away. Blueberry pie did it.

I had such a crush on him when we were in high school. It was only Her that interested him. He hasn’t forgotten Her, but I’m the one who will be there for him. Maybe I should go in and see what’s keeping him. No, I’ll wait. Won’t give Her the satisfaction.

Sandy, her daughter

 Jeanne almost talked Dad into making me stay home tonight, but I won. She thinks Mum is a bad influence. I think Mum is mega cool.

I hope I can go back to her loft in New York with her soon. It’s cool: no furniture and I can drop my clothes wherever I want. No prissy stuff anywhere. Last time I was there we got Chinese food from around the corner and ate it out of the carton with chopsticks. We sat on the floor, picnic style.

I’d like to live with Mum, but no way José. If I ever thought of mentioning it, it would be explosion city. Dad and Jeanne would accuse me of being ungrateful. Anyway, I’m not sure Mum really wants me there full time. She gets so involved in her painting.

Maybe when I graduate from high school, next year, I can go to college in New York and stay with Mum and Marie.

Sometimes I think Dad still loves Mum a bit. He never looks at Jeanne likes he’s looking at Mum now, but if they’re together too long they fight. Lots of times it’s about me. I wonder if I hadn’t been born if they would have gotten a divorce. Mum says yes and it’s not my fault. She said if I doubted it, I should look at how they both live and see if the two lifestyles are compatible.

Larry, her ex-husband

Karen sure looks good. Paris must have agreed with her. Maybe a little too thin. She always ate like a pig and never put on a pound No boobs still.

I’ll never tell her she was right to leave. We never spoke the same language.

Jeanne is better for me. Loves to fritter around the house. If only Sandy wouldn’t fight her so much. I suppose that’s normal, stepmother and all.

Too bad Jeanne wouldn’t come in today hello. She’s jealous of Karen. Thinks one never forgets one’s first love. She’s right but that doesn’t mean I have to compound my mistake.

I need someone to help in the store, run my house, keep Sandy in line, not someone who is always in front of a canvas.

Hells bells! Sometimes I’d come home at ten at night, dog tired and find the breakfast dishes still in the sink, the baby fed from a can. Karen would be painting. Don’t know if she’s good or bad. Never did understand that stuff.

Something about Karen — you are either enchanted by her or turned off. Her Dad, me and her Aunt Nancy were always in the first group. 

Nancy, her aunt

I’m so proud of her. I made my sister mad the way I could get Karen to do things that she couldn’t. Anna always confronted her head on. Me? I never let it get to that stage.

I remember when she was eight. Anna wanted her to wear that yellow dress to someone’s birthday. I forgot whose now. They say the memory is the first thing to go. Ha, ha! What a tantrum that kid pulled.

When she calmed down, I looked at her and said, “You don’t have to go, but the cake will be chocolate.” Or something like that. You could have ridden a bike around that lower lip. Then I added, “You could stay home. Your choice.” She got dressed real quick.

I drove her to the party. On the way she saw a snake at the side of the road. She loved snakes. Read everything she could about them.

“Stop! Stop, Aunt Nancy!”

I did. She hopped out of the car, picked it up and was about to bring it in the car. Now Anna would have made a big scene. I used a little psychology, “Can you imagine,” I said. “The screams of all those sissy girls, if you walked in with a snake?” The snake flicked it tongue.

Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. Then she looked at me. “Not a good idea, hun?”

“Put it back. We’ll pick it up after the party.” Of course, the snake was long gone when we came back two hours later. Karen found it funny, me walking through the woods calling, “here Snakey, snakey, snakey.” Boy was Anna mad not only were we late getting home. Karen’s dress was torn and filthy from tramping through the woods.

That Marie seems like a nice girl. Helped set the table. Chipped in without being asked. Polite. I wonder … probably not … not that it matters.

Marie her friend

I wish Karen would tell her parents about us. She never will. She says she’s on her mother’s shit list often enough without that.

My mother loves Karen. Says she opened the world to me, and she has.

God, Paris was wonderful. So was Provence. Six months. We both did some good work.

The Newbury Street gallery will take my work. Karen has a show in two months in Soho. It’s finally coming together for us.

She complains a lot about her family, especially her mother, but I noticed that she wanted to come back and see everyone a couple of weeks after we got back. She makes up such crazy story to shock them. Painting on the sidewalk. My god.

I thought she was kidding when she told me that her family had baked beans and brown bread every Saturday night. But that’s what we’re eating. Her mother must be a little please we’re here. Karen says cole slaw is a special treat. I never saw anyone throw an apple pie together so fast. Smells good.

Karen said she’ll scratch her chin when she’s ready to leave. Glad we booked into a motel. It will be easier than staying her. I’ll just sit here and wait.

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