Paint Me a Monster (2 page)

“Scribble sounds like chocolate caramels or ice cream,” I tell Liz, drawing more wiggly lines. She colors a yellow sun in the corner of her picture.

I push my crayons away so I can watch television.

“Yah, Rinnie,” yells a man on TV. “Yah, Rinnie, get the child out of the house.”

A big dog with a fluffy tail runs into a house on fire. When he comes out, his fur is dirty. In his mouth, he drags a boy by the pants.

“Good work, Rinnie. You’re the smartest, fastest, strongest dog in the world!” says the man, clapping his hand on Rinnie’s back.

I want to be Rin Tin Tin.

“Lizzie, if you call me Rin Tin Tin, I will do anything you ask. Say, yah, Rinnie.”

“What?” Lizzie asks.

“I’m Rin Tin Tin,” I say.

“OK. Rin Tin Tin, get me an oatmeal cookie. YAH, Rinnie! Go see if Verna’s made lunch yet. YAH, Rinnie! Hand me the coloring book on the chair. YAH, Rinnie!”

I am the strongest, fastest, smartest dog in the world. I see myself run across the brown grass waiting for it to turn green—and to save people.

“The door to the extra bedroom has to be kept shut,” Verna says. Her whisper is so soft the sound almost tiptoes past my ears. The gold tooth on the side of Verna’s mouth winks at me. It shines like the slicked-down black hair she calls a wig. It matches her clothes.

There’s a secret on the other side of the door
. My three-year-old feet creep, creep, creep forward.

The upstairs hallway is lit from below. I take off my shoes so no one can hear me. Downstairs, in the den, the ladies in Mommy’s bridge club play cards and laugh. They sound like the birds outside, tweeting loudly for the same worm. No one can see me. My toes are so close to the crack where the light peeks from under the door. I’m almost inside the room with the secret. I reach for the knob, and turn it slowly—slow-ly so it doesn’t make one squeak.
Push.
The door opens.

Light from the morning sun blinks through the blinds and makes stripes where I stand. Tiny white dots cover the green carpet like snowflakes on grass. The walls used to be white. Now they are painted with giraffes, monkeys, and elephants. It looks like a monkey is climbing into the old crib I used before I became a big girl. I look up and see a familiar shape, like an upside-down cereal bowl stuck on the ceiling, but it is the light.

“Heee,” says a voice. I turn around. The “heee” came from the crib! It came from under a green blanket. It heeed again, gurbled, and moved.

“Margo,” Verna whispers.

“I’m Rinnie. Rinnie, Rinnie, Rinnie! Please call me Rinnie, Verna.”

“Get out of the baby’s room. If Mrs. G. catches you, you’ll get a spanking . . . Rinnie.”

“A baby is in there?” I ask. “I didn’t know we had a baby. Why do we have a baby, and how did it get in?”

The baby starts to whimper. Mimi comes in and picks the baby up. Verna shoos me into the hall. Muscles make little brown hills on her arms when she turns me away.

Why is my nurse holding that baby
? “Mimi, is that your baby?” I ask. She shakes her head.

The laughter from downstairs gets closer. The bridge club follows Mommy into the baby’s room. A lady shuts the door. The hallway is quiet.

“A baby,” I say to Verna. “What will we do with a baby?”

I listen to the giggles and coos in the baby’s room.
The baby must be doing tricks
. Why else would the grown-ups laugh and give it so much attention? I can’t think of anything the baby does that I can’t do. I can roll in a ball and stretch my arms. I can smack my lips. I can do things the baby can’t. I know how to zip. I practice my tricks and want to show Mommy.

Verna opens the door. “Mrs. G, do you want the pastries put out now?” she asks Mommy. “I have the porch tables set with the pink linens.”

“’Scuse me,” I say, squeezing my way in and through too many legs. “Mommy, look.” I pat the round tummy above me. “Mommy look at
my
funny face,” I say, pointing my face in her direction. Mommy touches the top of my head and says we’ll talk after the company goes home.

“But Mommy, look how high I can reach.”

Mommy’s big hands brush mine to her sides. “Later, Margo. Later.”

“It’s Rinnie, Mommy. Call me Rinnie.” I try to get small, and I squish my way through the forest of legs to find Verna.

“What are you doing, girl?” she says.

“Tricks, like the baby,” I say, curling my head under my legs until I feel like a roundish bump.

Through my legs, I see white nurse’s shoes.

“Look at my trick, Mimi,” I call.

She makes her super-d-duper smile and points her thumb up in the air before she turns the other way.

I see Mimi pull something from the crib that looks like messy laundry. Mommy’s bridge club is around her, still talking, talking, talking.

Mimi takes the bundle and sits in the chair with a high back.
My hide-and-seek chair.
She pulls a bottle out of her pocket and sticks it in the laundry mess. The bridge club doesn’t stay. They go to the room with candies and nuts and the table with cards.

I put my thumb in my mouth and move toward Mimi without picking my feet up off the floor. I put my head on Mimi’s bony knee. “Are you holding a baby in your lap?” I ask.

“I’m holding your brother,” Mimi says. “Can you see him?”

I dig my toes into the carpet and rise high enough to see a little blue-pink face. His eyes are closed. “Why are his cheeks moving in and out, in and out, in and out?”

“He’s sucking milk from the bottle,” Mimi says.

“Can I try it?”

“You have already tried it. When you were a baby, I held you and fed you just like this,” Mimi says.

I put my head back on Mimi’s bony knee. “Now I’m big, but I would fit in your lap.”

“I think so, too,” Mimi says, shifting the baby.

I climb onto Mimi’s leg. “How do you know it’s a brother, Mimi?” I say.

“The angels told me.”

The baby’s name is Evan, and he doesn’t do much. Mimi feeds and rocks Evan and shushes him when he cries. Lizzie and I watch as Mimi moves her arms in the air like a whirlybird and makes sounds like the wind. Evan opens his mouth and smiles. Plop, goes a spoonful of baby mush into Evan’s toothless grin.

“Bingo!” Mimi says.

“You’re like a mommy bird dropping a worm in her baby’s beak,” Lizzie says.

“Mimi, watch us,” I say, and I take my sister’s hand. We twist and turn across the kitchen, our arms flapping like crazy birds. Flap, hop, flap, hop. “We’re whirlybirds! Look, Evan, look!” we shout. I open my mouth and eat a pretend spoonful of mush.

Evan’s eyes pop like a jack-in-the-box.

“I know what babies are for—they’re ’sposed to watch us!”

“Wash up, lunch is ready,” Verna says, wiping her dirt-colored hands on the white apron covering her uniform. She reminds me of a penguin only instead of being round she is long. Verna doesn’t have extra padding anywhere.

I crawl onto the wooden bench dragging my baby doll, Dollie, to the table. Croquette, our dog, sits at one end waiting for something to drop. Next to Lizzie, she is my best friend because she sleeps on my bed, next to my legs, every night.

“Move over, Rinnie. I’m the big sister,” Liz says. “I get to sit next to Evan and help Mimi feed him.”

I scootch across the bench with Dollie.

“Hootchie kootchie, here comes the wind,” Mimi sings, twirling in front of Evan’s high chair. “Here I come,” she says, pushing a spoonful of yellow into his mouth.

“BRZZZZZ,” I say, flying my grilled cheese sandwich. “BRZZZZZ, open your mouth, Dollie, here I come.”

“Rinnie, put that sandwich in your mouth. Lizzie, sit down and eat your lunch,” Verna says. “Mimi’s the nurse. She’ll feed Evan.”

Liz sits and pulls on the melted cheese dripping from her bread.

“Ta da,” she says, licking her lips. “I made the cheese disappear.”

Dollie and I eat my sandwich, and Verna says I can have a cinnamon graham cracker for dessert.

“Lizzie, when you finish your lunch you can tickle your brother’s toes and make him smile, so he’ll open his mouth,” Mimi says.

“You can tickle Evan’s toes tonight,” Liz says, pointing to me.

“Okie dokie, pinokie,” I say, putting Dollie on the floor for a nap. “Verna, will you play with me?”

“Good Lord, girl, I have to wash dishes, polish the candle-sticks, vacuum the third-floor bedroom, dust every room up and down, and wake up your mother. It’s past noon. Then I have to see what special chore she has me doing this afternoon. The only thing this house is missing is a moat. You and Lizzie play on the swings,” she says, holding the screen door open. Croquette zooms past us and we follow.

On the swings, we pump our legs harder and harder and go faster and higher. We can see over the top of our neighbor’s apple tree. Croquette barks when the swings get close to her. I think she would like me to take her flying with me.

“Liz, why doesn’t Mommy make breakfast or lunch?”

“Because she’s getting her
beauty
sleep,” Liz says, holding her legs out to fly with the swing.

“Why doesn’t she make dinner?”

“Because that’s what Emmy is for,” she answers again. “Verna takes care of us in the day, and Emmy takes care of us when Verna goes home.”

“Who takes care of Verna and Emmy?”

“We do. We make sure they have someone to love.”

“Do we take care of Mimi, too?”

“Yes, and we’ve done a good job, because when Mommy has a baby, Mimi always comes back to us.”

I think of Mommy waking up so late. Now I know why she is beautiful.

I am four years old. My mother holds my hand. Her white cotton glove covers my fingers. Lizzie is on her other side.

We are in a roomful of people waiting to see someone who is important. He’s a friend of Daddy’s, and he teaches football for Ohio State University. His name is Woody Hayes. We have gray and red party ribbons in our hair.

“Are the girls twins?” I hear people ask.

“Almost,” Mommy answers.

Lizzie and I are dressed in our pink organdy dresses. Starched crinolines hold the skirts of the dresses out like open umbrellas. I am admiring the freckles on my arms and legs and how small and round they are. The only things I can see are legs and shoes. I practice balancing on one foot by putting one black patent shoe on top of the other.

Mommy bends and whispers fast and hard, “I don’t want to tell you again. Stop twitching. Be still like Liz.”

“I’m prettier than Liz, aren’t I?” I whisper back and suck my top lip inside my mouth.

“No. Pretty is what’s inside you. Pretty girls listen to their mommies.”

What does that mean? Can Mommy see inside me? I didn’t listen. Mommy must think I’m ugly. I suck harder.

Liz is on the right side of my mother, and I am on the left.

When Gaga’s big red car stops in the driveway, we hear the brakes and watch her head poke forward and back and forward again like a chicken’s. Pop Pop says her head moves that way because, “My wife’s just too damn short to be driving a Ford Fairlane.”

The first thing I see when Gaga gets out of the car are her galoshes. “Everyone needs galoshes,” she says, but I don’t have any. I have boots. Before Gaga rings the doorbell, I whoosh open the door and yell extra loud, “Gaga’s here!” so Lizzie will come downstairs.

“Lizzie and Margo what good hugs you give!” she says and hugs us back.

“It’s Rinnie. Rinnie like Rin Tin Tin,” I say, frowning.

“So it’s still Rinnie is it? Then Rinnie it will be.” Gaga’s mouth pushes her cheeks and eyebrows up. “Well, I’m glad to see you, Rinnie.”

“Yay, Gaga’s here,” Lizzie and I jump in circles around her. Croquette barks and joins the jumping. Gaga bends, to kiss us and leaves the smell of baby powder and red lipstick marks on our cheeks. Croquette gets pats on the head.

“Evan’s taking a nap,” I say.

“Well, I have something special for you two, darlings,” Gaga says.

Magic words! We hold our breath. We know “I have something special” means we’re going on an adventure.

Verna comes from the kitchen. “Can I take your coat, Mrs. Samuels? You just missed your daughter. She’s at the beauty parlor and won’t be back for who knows.”

“Thank you, Verna. I dropped by to see my grandchildren.”

Gaga places her coat and cap across Verna’s arms. I don’t know why one side of Verna’s hands are so much lighter than the other side. Maybe it’s because she’s tall and there isn’t enough brown to cover all of her.

Gaga moves to the steps, sits next to us, and reaches into her shiny red purse. Out come pieces of paper the same size as her thumbs.

“Tickets!” she says very fast. “We’re going to the Paragon to see a movie,
Swiss Family Robinson
. It’s about resourceful children like you.”

The hurry in Gaga’s voice makes resourceful sound like a good thing.

The Paragon! The Paragon! We’ve never been to the Paragon or anywhere to see a movie.

“Is Mommy coming?” Lizzie asks.

Gaga shakes her fluffy hair side to side. When it flies around it looks like one color, but when it stops, her hair is the color of a chipmunk married to a squirrel.

“Will Daddy and Pop Pop come?” Lizzie asks.

“Nooooo,” Gaga stretches her arms around us. “Just us. It’s the perfect outing for grandchildren and their grandmother on an autumn afternoon.”

“Yippeee,” we shout. “When, when, when do we get to go?”

“I can’t stay until your mother gets home, so I’ll call her tonight, and we’ll decide,” says Gaga. “Now I have to get to the groceries. It’s Thursday night, and Pop Pop expects fish for dinner.”

She stands and gets her coat behind the mirrored closet doors. Gaga’s head doesn’t reach the shelf above the coats. She has to stand on the footstool we keep in the closet, in order to reach her cap.

“Help me balance while I put my galoshes on,” Gaga says.

A key clicks in the front door and Emmy shivers in. Raindrops pitter-patter from her short coat.