Part IV: Spin – The Mermaid Dress: #3 (Chapter 68)

After caring for Ruby, I sat by the living room window to wait for Daddy Platts.

Mother fussed over a thread hanging off the mermaid dress and sipped a beer.

Daddy trod up the steps leading into the apartment building, a sag in his shoulders and a missing spring from his step.

He’d be different once inside. “Daddy’s home!”

“So, what else is new?” Mother said.

Daddy Platts breezed through the door, shoulders straight.

I ran to him.

He swooped me up. “Hi, Princess. How’s my girl today?”

“Fine. Look at Mama. Don’t she look b-eaut-i-ful?”

Daddy whistled and shook his head as if he were seeing Mother for the first time. And maybe he felt that way as Mother paraded in front of him, kicking back one foot.

Years later, when Ruby would say that Mother was the only woman Daddy Platts truly loved, even though there had been a succession of other wives, women, and children, I would remember this moment.

“Take her picture, Daddy!”

I loved photographs – back in Sioux City, Nana had albums and boxes of sepia-tone photographs of Mother, Uncle Charles, and Aunts Gwen and Sal when they were scraggly depression kids in the late 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s.

But Mother and Daddy Platts had snapped very few pictures of themselves, Ruby, or me, and those snapshots lay scattered in drawers all over the apartment.

“I don’t want any goddamn picture,” Mother said.

“Please, please, please?”

“You do look good, Rosie. The best.”

“Well, I don’t know. I feel fat.”

“Sweetheart, you sure don’t look it.”

Mother took a swallow of beer and stood sideways at the mirror, patting her flat tummy and sighing. “Maybe just one.” A string of ponytail fell on her shoulder. “I gotta fix my hair.”

While Mother fussed with her hair, Daddy Platts got out his good Kodak, the one with color film. He loaded up the flash unit, a round gizmo that took a bulb filled with silver filaments.

“Okay, I’m ready.” She posed, hands on hips, one shoulder higher than the other, her eyelids half closed, her red lips puckered.

She had drawn a black mark on her left cheek.

Daddy snapped the picture, and the flash exploded into a white light. For an instant, Mother’s dress flashed red. A smell, like hot alcohol and vinegar, filled the room, and the bulb smoked.

“Your eyes were closed,” Daddy said, trying to pull out the used bulb without burning his fingers. “Let’s snap another one.”

“NO! God, I’m half blind as it is!”

Daddy put the camera down and walked toward her. “It’s okay,” he said, hugging her and patting her head.

“Don’t!” she yelled. “You’re fucking up my hair and makeup.” She pulled away from him and, hands shaking, lit up a cigarette. “Sam, get me a beer.”

I stood there, mute, not wanting to move.

“Well, what’ya waiting for?”

“Leave Sammy be,” Daddy said. “Besides, I need to talk to you.”

“I want a beer! Samantha Anne, get your ass into the kitchen!”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’m gonna smack you if you don’t mind.”

“Rosie, she’s just a kid. Look, I’ll get your beer; but we need to talk.”

“I’m not gonna raise a brat!”

“Sammy’s no brat.” Daddy turned to me. “Honey, I need to talk to your mama. Why don’t you check on Ruby?”

I didn’t want to leave; Daddy looked so tired and sad. “Okay.” I went into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. I pulled Ruby from the crib and felt her diaper. Still dry. I gave her another Lorna Doone and set her on the floor where she played with some blocks and gnawed on the cookie.

I quietly opened the door and listened.

“Here’s your beer,” Daddy said. “Now listen to me. I think I’m onto a gig. I mean a major gig, not the penny-ante crap I’ve been getting into the past two years.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No – I mean it this time. I’ve got a chance to play in a real band this time. But I’ve got to see this fellow Martin Bates tonight.”

“But I gotta work tonight.”

“Call in sick or something, Rosie. This is too important.”

“Me call in sick? So you can go off on a wild goose chase? Right.”

“Look. It’s just for tonight.”

“Bub, if I start cutting out on the fucking job, we’d all starve.”

“Okay, okay. But I’ve got to try. I’ll just leave the kids here, say, about a half hour while I talk to Bates. It’s safer here than in the car.”

“God, I don’t know. They’re awfully young.”

“Jesus, Rosie, I don’t want to do it. But just think. If I land this huge gig, you could quit that sleazy job.”

“Sh-sh-shhh! The kids might hear.”

“Okay, okay. But I’d never forgive myself if I blew this opportunity.”

A pause. “Well, be careful, and don’t be gone too long.”

I opened the door a crack and could see Daddy Platts looking into space. “Just think of it, honey, you could be a real wife and mother. We could be a real family.”

Mother slammed her eyelash curler into her makeup case and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. Then she said, “Damn. I gotta get going. Sammy!”

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Ruby.