Eating the Cheshire Cat Read online

  She took her daughter by the wrist to the rumpus room downstairs. She sat her in a chair by the edge of the Ping-Pong table. From her apron pocket, Mrs. Summers produced a shot glass and bottle of whisky. She said, “Pour yourself a drink and I’ll get things ready.”

  As Sarina screwed the lid off the bottle, she took a good look at her crooked pinkies. The top joints bent toward the other fingers. Her father used to tease her. He said it was like those pinkies were trying to do a U-turn.

  On a routine physical, Mrs. Summers had asked the pediatrician, “Can these be fixed?”

  “Not in any way you’d want to,” the pediatrician had told her. “There’s no doctor who’ll do it. What your daughter’s got is a recessive trait. Like widow’s peaks and attached earlobes.”

  Sarina filled the shot glass to the lip. She held it with both hands. She whispered, “Like braces.”

  She had four more shots.

  Mrs. Summers stood behind her and ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair. She twisted it. Let it loose. Started a braid. “How you doing?” she asked and put the back of her hand against Sarina’s damp forehead. “Feeling no pain?”

  “Don’t slap me again.”

  Mrs. Summers said, “I won’t.”

  Mrs. Summers walked around the Ping-Pong table. She poured a shot. She put it in her daughter’s hands. “Drink, honey.”

  Sarina nursed the whisky. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “That’s a good sign,” said her mother. “Keep working that drink. Shut your eyes. Don’t pay any attention to me.”

  Sarina let the whisky drain into her mouth. She tried to decipher the weird sounds in the room. A giant thud on the Ping-Pong table. A lot of ripping. Then her mother took the shot glass away. She fiddled with Sarina’s wrists and hands and fingers.

  “Have another,” Mrs. Summers said. “Be a good girl.”

  Sarina could feel the shot glass at her mouth. She felt her mother tilt her head back and guide the liquid down.

  She took a peep.

  In front of her, Sarina saw her arms outstretched, her wrists duct-taped to a cinder block. Except for her pinkies, her fingers were curled into fists and taped. Her pinkies laid out and taped. The cinder block taped to the table. Her mother standing before it all.

  “Oh,” cried Sarina. She was too drunk to speak.

  “Be a good girl,” Mrs. Summers said as she picked up the ax. She lifted it, blade backwards, over her shoulder. “Keep your eyes closed.”

  Sarina did as she was told.

  On the ride home from the hospital, Sarina thought It wasn’t that bad. The last thing she remembered was her mother bringing the ax down and the crack of the first of her two fingers breaking.

  Bitty Jack

  THE SUMMER Sarina turned thirteen years old, Bitty Jack Carlson met her, crooked fingers and all.

  The afternoon Sarina arrived in Summons County, Camp Chickasaw was three days under way and no one in the cabin had taken the bunk beneath Bitty Jack. Although it had not happened since she was eight or nine, Bitty Jack Carlson was a known bed wetter. While the chances of her mattress springing a leak were slim, in the paranoid minds of just-turned-teenagers Bitty Jack’s urine could rain down like tiny anvils.

  “Not under the Pee Queen!” all thirty girls had cried to their counselors.

  On the first day of camp, Bitty Jack was banished to the empty bunks in the corner of the cabin. While the other girls played Get-to-Know-You-Games, Bitty Jack sat on her top bed, her back to the others, and wrote a letter to her parents.

  Mama and Daddy, it read, please come get me.

  Bitty Jack snuck out of the back bathroom door. She walked up the biggest hill—past the tennis courts and archery range, the road to the pool, the path to Lovers’ Leap—to her family’s house, now dubbed “The Caretakers.”

  In exchange for a small salary and year-round residency, the Carlsons took care of Camp Chickasaw grounds during the off-season and, from June to August, ran maintenance and laundry. When schools let out, the camp owners arrived with big Hellos and How-Do-You-Dos. They raised their right hands and boomed, “HOW, HOW, HOW!” They turned up the volume of the Carlsons’ quiet life. In the summer, the lake was drowned out by go-carts, by Sound of Music rehearsals, by fake-out color wars. Everyone was encouraged to scream their spirit to the sky. To Bitty Jack, even the birds chirped louder.

  Although Summons County, Alabama, was poor, with a population less than a hundred, Chickasaw was an exclusive camp with a long wait list. Parents from six Southern states shipped their pride-and-joys with trunks-full of underwear labeled and pressed. The Carlsons’ jobs took up twelve hours a day, so Bitty Jack was put in a cabin to live with the rich girls. The night before each season started, Mrs. Carlson helped her daughter roll her clothes into her daddy’s army duffel bag.

  Bitty Jack got her name from her father. Mrs. Carlson had wanted to name her Mary or Tiffany Ann, a special girl’s name, but that did not happen. She came three months premature and stayed in the hospital for weeks. It seemed like she slept all the time, her lungs working hard, her veins moving blood so close to her skin. When the doctors told her mother that during labor something inside her quit working, this would be her only child, raise it right, Big Jack spoke up. He said, “I ain’t gonna have no boys, but that’s okay. This ittybitty one’ll be all right.” When the threat of death left the infant ward, her mother filled out the birth certificate. During the first rain of the summer, Bitty Jack left the hospital in the cradle of her daddy’s scrubbed, calloused hands.

  Bitty Jack climbed the wooden stairs to her house. She clutched the letter as the handrail shook with each step. The screen door whined as she let herself in. Her mother was down the hill in the laundry and her father was cutting grass farther down by the lake. In her room, the bed was made, her stuffed animals lined by seniority like she’d left them. One crack of sunlight cut through the drawn curtains and sliced her bed in half, leaving the patchwork quilt hot. Bitty Jack lay the envelope on the pattern of six frogs jump-roping that her mother had sewn as the quilt’s center patch.

  She said, “Mama and Daddy, please come see.”

  With the hopes of one of her parents stopping by for a Coke, Bitty Jack paused at each light switch on her way out of the house. She sighed many sighs. She said, “Shoot.”

  When Sarina showed up, Bitty Jack’s parents still had not mentioned the letter. She wondered if on the day she moved back to her house, she would find the envelope where she placed it. The seal unbroken, pink color tinted brown.

  Sarina stood in the doorway to the cabin. She surveyed the room at rest period.

  At this point, the girls had just finished lunch. While their counselors gossiped on the front porch, the girls fought off naps induced by ground beef casserole and too much bug juice. They lay on their beds and fondled teenybopper magazines. They freed from the staples foldout mini-posters of the latest prime-time high school hunks. They played Go Fish and Slap Jack. They painted their nails colors their mothers would never approve of. Mmmm . . . yum . . . contraband Blow Pops. They placed big-money twenty-five-cent bets on whom among them would be felt up first.

  “I’ve done it,” Sarina said as she made her way to the only empty bunk in the cabin.

  “Done what?” said the four-foot-five boobie bookie taking the bets.

  “What?” said her cohort counting out the cabin’s quarters.

  Bitty Jack knew what. Before Sarina reached the bunk below hers, Bitty Jack knew that Sarina had gone further than she had even allowed herself to imagine. Sarina walked like a young lady who had spent some time at second base. She stuck out her chest as if to show the cleat marks. Bitty Jack tugged at the weak elastic of her bra strap. She watched Sarina closely as she kept her back to the girls and further comments to herself. Bitty Jack heard Sarina’s suitcase zipper yawn. She knew that this would be the last sound from the new girl until the room was quieted.

  The boobie bookie said, “Done what?�
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  Captain Quarters said, “What?”

  Unaware, the other girls buzzed.

  The boobie bookie said, “Shhhhh!”

  Captain Quarters said, “Hush, ya’ll!”

  Sarina unpacked as the rest of the room was silenced by a series of mean looks and hand gestures. Some of the girls climbed down from their bunks, got up off the floor, moved closer to Sarina.

  The boobie bookie said, “Tell.”

  Bitty Jack felt the metal frame sway as Sarina sat down. She peered over the edge of her mattress and saw Sarina cross her legs like a woman. Sarina’s white socks were a shade darker than her skin, but nobody dared make fun of how pale she was. So as not to miss a word, the girls leaned forward like deaf dogs.

  Sarina said, “I’ve done skin on skin.”

  The girls said, “No way!” They followed with, “Agggh!”

  Captain Quarters said, “When? With who?”

  “Stewart Steptoe, and is last night near enough?”

  Sarina was the only Tuscaloosa girl there. No one knew a Stewart Steptoe but his name was pronounced with such authority they had to believe. Bitty Jack hung her head upside down. She spoke for the first time during rest period. She said, “For real?”

  Sarina jerked away from Bitty’s blood-swollen face (bifocals loose, eyes upside down, cheeks sagging like a bat). “No,” she said, “I’m lying, you four-eyed freak.”

  The girls squealed. They actually applauded.

  Bitty Jack swung her body back and lay flat, her head sinking slowly into her fire-retardant foam pillow. She thought Maybe if I don’t move, it will be like nothing’s happening. Bitty Jack stayed still while the girls’ laughter threatened to lift her body off the bed and toss it around like a bag of day-old cotton candy.

  “Go on,” said the boobie bookie. “Tell us exactly what happened. How did he do it? Was it your first time?”

  Sarina said, “Hardly.”

  “Tell,” said the girls. “Tell, tell!” they chanted.

  Bitty Jack kept still as the girls forgot about her and zeroed in on the whisper slinking out of Sarina’s mouth. As Bitty Jack listened to the story of the backyard woods, she hoped that Sarina’s bubble gum–flavored gloss would glue her lips shut. But Sarina kept her story moving with ease. Phrases like “and then he undid” and “I made myself look” and “he didn’t say anything when I” floated up and hovered over Bitty Jack like clouds.

  Bitty Jack wondered what she would have to do to hold the girls’ attention like Sarina. She wondered if she would ever outgrow what her mama called her awkward stage. Could she ever afford new glasses? Could she dress better? Wear makeup so it looked right? Would her acne ever clear? Would her hair lose the oil, gain body, gain bounce? Bitty Jack wondered what it felt like to lay on the leaves and let a boy see her from the waist up. Would he feel so good she could ignore the roots and rocks, the hiss of the dragonflies, the smell of his jeans?

  To retell a half hour of ecstasy, Sarina took all forty-five minutes remaining of rest period. She stopped when a counselor stuck her head in and called, “Who wants volleyball, who wants crafts?”

  The girls waited to see which Sarina would choose. When Sarina said, “Macramé’s cool,” their souls were captured. They would follow her anywhere. They exited en masse.

  Bitty Jack crawled down from her bunk. She faked cramps and, on the way to the infirmary, went to find her mama.

  Her mama said, “Baby, girls like that don’t grow up to be nothing special.”

  Bitty Jack said, “No?”

  “No, baby girl. This is it for girls like her. Maybe she’ll make it big in high school next year. But what do you care?”

  “She shares my bunk.”

  “Well now, that’s true. But every time she don’t treat you right, you just remember that her life will be sad in a few years. In a few years, no one’s going to think she’s so cute. No one’ll care what she has to say. She’ll get married because she’s supposed to and then she’ll disappear.”

  Bitty Jack said, “Swear?”

  Her mama said, “You know I cain’t swear, but I’ll promise you this. If you’re patient and keep your eyes peeled, she’ll get old and you can watch how unhappy that makes her.”

  Bitty Jack said, “When I get old, will I be unhappy?”

  Her mama said, “Baby girl, not if you can help it.”

  Bitty Jack did not know what she could do to help anything. She wondered if she could ever change into a woman who could. Sarina was only thirteen and already content as the center of attention. Bitty Jack was a bystander thrust out of the loop.

  As the summer continued, Bitty Jack tried to be brave. She spoke up when someone cut in front of her for shower rotation. Even when she was full, she forced down an extra helping so the girls would quit calling her Bird-Legs Anorexic. She ran the bases quickly. With each serve, she got the volleyball over the net. She read by herself. She kept away from the new girl.

  Sometimes, after curfew or whenever the chance presented itself, Bitty Jack would carry on conversations with the bathroom mirror. Maybe it was a teacher she spoke to. A counselor. Her mama. Sometimes she made up an imaginary boyfriend. She’d close her eyes and kiss her own reflection, steam up the mirror, ignore the flavor of Formula 409.

  Recently she spoke with only Sarina. She imagined a babbling, boring Sarina. One who wished she could be her friend. One that pleaded. One that begged. At first, Bitty Jack would be apologetic. “I’m so sorry.” Then sarcastic. “I’m so sorry.” Then mean. “I’m not sorry.” Then cold. She’d widen her eyes as if to say, “Some nerve.” She’d think about slapping her. Making the other girls scared.

  During the off-season, her parents caught her at this all the time. While her mother watered the outside houseplants, she would spot her daughter through an open window.

  “Big Jack,” she’d say, “come get a look at this!”

  As he ran, her father’s key ring jangled on his hip. Before he saw her, Bitty Jack would scream and tromp off to her room. She would crawl under her bed where there was just enough room for her to keep her glasses on. She would ignore her mother’s calls because she knew, at supper time, her daddy would come and get her.

  Bitty would hear the stairs strain and the door open and his weight sink the springs. Her daddy would sit patiently at the foot of the bed and say, “Come on outta there, kid. You ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of. You’re okay. You’re just practicing for life and your mother thinks it’s cute.”

  Bitty would immediately slide out from under the bed, but remain just as flat as she was before.

  Her father would say, “Who’s Daddy’s little rake?” Then he’d step on her toes and pull her rigid body upright.

  When Sarina caught Bitty Jack talking to the bathroom mirror, she said, “Who the hell are you talking to?”

  “Nobody.” Bitty watched her reflection burn red from ears to nose.

  Sarina stepped out of the bathroom. She shouted to everyone in the cabin, “Get a load of the freak show! Bitty Jack Carlson’s talking to herself. She’s got no friends so she’s talking to herself!”

  “No way!” called the boobie bookie.

  “Freak!” called Captain Quarters.

  “Freak show! Freak show!” The girls chanted and, to keep the rhythm, Sarina beat a broom handle against the bathroom wall.

  Bitty Jack washed her hands until the bell for afternoon activity sounded. She twirled the pink Carress and wished for camp to hurry up and end. She wished for embarrassing moments the likes of which her parents gave her. From those, her daddy always helped her recover.

  Her daddy was good at relieving Bitty Jack’s blues. He let her help him with duties at Chickasaw assemblies. When Maria Von Trapp took the stage on Play Night, Bitty Jack steadied the spotlight and shook a cookie sheet to make thunder. She hosed down canoes at lake races. She gathered the bases after softball tournaments.

  Bonfires were what Bitty Jack liked most.

  Once a
week everyone would gather down by the lake. They’d squeeze onto the bleachers and form rows on the grass. On the other side of the lake, Big Jack had stacked ten logs in teepee formation. He’d stuffed twigs and straw inside. It was the makings of a beautiful fire. Bitty Jack was small enough to fit inside that teepee. When she heard the campers’ cheers echo across the water, she knew it was time to get down and do her thing.

  “Fire, fire, we want fire! F-I-R,” clap, clap, clap, “E!”

  With a Chock Full O’Nuts can rimmed with sulfuric acid and a mayonnaise jar filled with sulfur and charcoal dust, Bitty Jack would get on her knees and elbows and fit her body halfway between two logs. She’d empty the powder mix in the center of the twigs. She’d sit the Chock Full O’Nuts can behind the powder pile and tie a string around its middle. As the cheers got louder, she’d scoot out and run to meet her father fifteen yards away. On his count of three, she’d yank the string and the acid on the chemical combo would cause a small explosion and start the fire. As the heat burned her cheeks and the cheers continued, Bitty Jack would bask in the glow of a job well done, the flames so high, and her daddy’s clear pride.

  Near the end of the season, Sarina promised to show the girls how to give head on the field-trip bus. She said, “If I have to, I’ll use my Sweetarts roll.” She cut out of breakfast early to be the first in the showers. The other girls could hardly protest.

  Usually the girls showered before dinner and socials, but that morning, they were going to the Alabama State Fair. It was stationed in Summons County the last weeks of summer. There would be tenth-grade boys on the Chickasaw bus. High school boys were worth extra prep time. All the girls agreed.

  With travel rollers, curling irons, crimpers, Water Piks, and hair dryers, they blew fuses every other day. Bitty let her shoulder-length brown hair dry naturally. While the girls rescued roller clips from the drain, Bitty Jack would sit on the porch and paint her short nails pink. At times like this, she did not mind the other girls. When a fuse blew, the girls would screech and a half made-up counselor would trudge to the main house to make a report. The owners would call Bitty Jack’s house and, with his overall chest pocket full of fuses, Big Jack would make a trip to the dysfunctional cabin. He was reliable.