The dresses that my mother made were beautifully cut and daringly, anti-Bryantly colorful, graced with embroidery on the collar, tiny jewels at the neck, lace and velvet trim at the sleeves and hem. She caused a small sensation when she swanned down the road in one of her own creations. More than once, I saw a lady grab her sleeve and demand, “Where did you get that? Can I buy it from you? You MADE it? Please, please, make me one!” I feared that someday an admirer would peel my mother like a banana, and run away clutching the purloined gown like a golden fleece.
Totems and Familiars: Neil Marcus
2007
I thought my mother was very beautiful, but it was hard for her to feel that way. Grandma Fannie had sown land mines along that road years ago. When it came to Mom’s weight, Grandma’s fuse was permanently lit. “My God, Carole, I’m surprised your husband hasn’t left you already. You look like a chazzer! How can you even leave the house?” After one of Fannie’s pep talks, Mom wouldn’t come out of the bedroom for days. Yet I suspect that if Carole had been pretty in the same way that Fannie was, Fannie would never have forgiven her for that, either.
* * *
—
Mom set the menorah on the table and draped her hair with a cloth. She lit the first-night candle with the Shammes candle, and we prayed, V’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Chanukah, O-main. Rivulets of pastel wax crept down the arms of the menorah.
We passed around the browned kugel, the amber bowls of matzo ball soup, the brisket, the tzimmes—an edible museum of Jewish culture. The finale was Carole Sue Lehrer’s Famous Homemade Strudel. When dessert was reduced to microscopic flakes, our parents took pity and said, “Okay, kids,” whereupon we bolted to the living room and clawed at the gift wrap like uncaged vilde chayas.
The small packages were for the first night. Hefty eighth-night gifts waited at the far end of the couch.
I already knew what was inside my big package. For years, I’d been given the same two-feet-by-one-foot box. I was five when I got my first Chatty Cathy doll. She’d seemed so big that she could have been my unbending sister, blond and blue as apple pie.
Cathy could talk if I pulled a cord out the back of her neck:
Will you play with me?
Let’s change my dress.
Please brush my hair.
Where are we going?
I’m hungry.
Carry me.
I hurt myself!
I’m sleepy.
I love you.
Tell me a story.
Cathy sounded like a child gargling hot glue.
* * *
—
Like me, Cathy went away for repair; not to Children’s but to the Doll Hospital downtown. Cathy’s voice box was actually a tiny record player mounted inside her chest, easily broken during even mildly vigorous play. The girl had cardiac issues—hence the succession of new Chattys. I’d demanded to be taken to see the Doll Hospital. I was so disappointed that it was just a tiny storefront on Elm Street with hundreds of dolls wedged inside its dusty cases.
When I was little, Mom had sewn us matching outfits: Mommy dress, Riva dress, and Cathy dress, cut from the same bolt of cloth. Now that I was ten, Mom and Grandma had begun buying me A-line shifts that hid my spine. I didn’t feel safe, I just felt sad.
My dolls had stopped being my companions and become excuses to make elaborate dollhouses instead. Castles made of appliance cartons, with Morton Salt turrets and corduroy carpeting cut from scraps of my trousers. I was better at loving those houses than loving my perfect pink dolls.
CHAPTER 11
Have Fun Storming the Castle
Whenever I came home from school, the first thing I did was to head to Mom’s bedroom to check on her. More than once, she’d been taken back into Jewish Hospital between the time I’d left for school and when I’d hopped back off the yellow bus.
Her bedside table was colonized by tipsy ranks of amber bottles, by tumblers of flat Coke and small bowls smeared with crumbs. My father’s side was marked by whiffy ashtrays and crinkled packs of Kents.
Mom shrouded the bedroom windows with blackout shades. My parents’ king-sized bed turned invisible as an aircraft carrier in fog. Those shades gave her night when she needed it.
When I was ill, Mom installed me on Dad’s side of the mattress. We’d watch TV and fill out crossword puzzles until she fell asleep. Then I’d be hemmed in beside her all night, listening to her snore, while Dad was banished to the couch, the reek of his cigarettes reminding me that I was an interloper. When I turned twelve, I begged to be allowed to stay in my own room when I was sick. What a ludicrous victory.
* * *
—
The house on Laconia would have crumbled like a sandcastle were it not for Grandma Fannie and Dora Holiday.
Mom had hired Dorie Holiday back when Doug was born, while Mom was still bouncing between Children’s Hospital and my parents’ first apartment. Dorie was called our “housekeeper,” but that didn’t come close to describing her role in our lives.
Dorie was around Dad’s age, roughly forty years old. A bespectacled chain-smoker, she was skinny as high-tension wire, with swooping cheekbones and a high forehead. Subtle freckles ornamented the deep brown of her skin.
Dorie had a husband, Joe, and a daughter, Georgia. Georgia was ten years older than me, and looked at me with a smirk I couldn’t comprehend. On occasion, Dorie would stay too late to take the bus back to Over-the-Rhine, so Dad would drive her home. I liked to go on these nighttime drives; Joe would be waiting on the sidewalk outside their apartment building, but I always wanted to go upstairs to see the rest of her home. I never did. Dorie guarded her privacy. I once asked why her nickname was Scat; she muttered something about chasing a cat when she was little, but later she explained that it was because of the way she sang. I hadn’t even known she could sing.
Once a year, Dorie left us for two weeks of vacation, during which the Holidays would go back down to Georgia, the place for which their daughter was named. I tried not to think about the fact that every minute that Dorie gave our family was stolen from her own. I was terrified that someday she’d stop.
Whenever Dorie left, Doug and Mark and I would go to live with Grandma Fannie and Grandpa Sam. Their living room was a symphony in muted gold. The china cabinet was full of pink crystal dishes rimmed in chased gold bands; the drapes were raw silk, in an aureate color that matched Uncle Lester’s hand-painted chinoiserie mural. Not that my grandparents were born with such rarefied tastes. My very upright grandfather was a scrapper as a teenager (reputedly, Sam ran money for the Jewish Mob, sailing to Cuba with cash packed inside a so-called “money suit”); and Esther Fannie Newmark came over from Chernigov, Russia, when she was five months old. Right away, she was determined to be modern. Her wedding photo shows a poised beauty in a flapper’s gown. Next to her, Samuel is tall and imposing and mustachioed as Errol Flynn.