Stone Cold Fox (10)

“Becky is just the cutest little thing, Rosemary. You really should be taking her to auditions. She’s a star, I know it,” Grandma Lois says. “The next Shirley Temple. Do you know who Shirley Temple is, honey?”

“No, ma’am,” I say.

“But she should smile more. Why don’t you smile more, honey?”

“She smiles plenty,” Mother responds for me, her voice low, and I know instantly that I had better start smiling more. Mother tells me later that everyone trusts a smiler. It’s important to be a genuine smiler. She makes me practice until my cheeks hurt. I do whatever she asks so she likes me.

“Rebecca needs to concentrate on school,” Mother says in a way that ends the conversation about auditions. Grandma Lois scoffs.

“I’d take you myself,” she whispers to me through the gap between the front seat and the back seat. “But I’ve already been put out to pasture.” Then she speaks a little louder. “Maybe you can come over and watch a Shirley Temple movie with me sometime?”

“We’ll see you next Sunday, Lois,” Mother says.



* * *



? ? ?

MOTHER TAKES ME on an audition for a kids’ variety show and doesn’t explain to me what that means. She doesn’t tell Richard about it. It makes me nervous but I am already enjoying the extra time alone with her so I am excited to go if it will make her happy. She dresses me in a nautical jumper with polka dots and curls my hair and does my makeup. A bright red lipstick pops out of its gold case. She holds my chin and I feel her nails press into my skin ever so slightly. She has a French manicure like always. Quick little swipes on my little lips.

I love having her so close to me.

“Blot,” she says, holding up a Kleenex to my face. “Well, bunny, you’re no JonBenét, but you’re pretty damn cute.”

I smile at her. Really. I’m not practicing. I feel the smile all the way to my toes.

She doesn’t smile back at me, but when she calls me bunny, I know she likes me, at least a little bit, and that’s good enough for me.

The room is empty except for a long table with two women and one man behind it; all of them grin at me when I come inside. I can’t seem to smile back. I’m alone. Parents aren’t allowed. There’s an X on the floor in tape. I am supposed to stand on it. So I do. The room is very cold. Now I just want to get this over with and I hope I do a good job for Mother. I wonder if they can see the goose bumps on my legs. I’m freezing.

“Sing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ for us, sweet pea,” the man says to me.

I shake my head.

“You don’t know that one?” one of the women asks.

I shake my head again. No. I don’t know that song.

“Okay, honey, why don’t you sing a song you do know?” the other woman says.

I’m still so cold and it feels like I’ve been quiet for hours. I make fists with my feet in my Mary Janes and I want to throw up because I can’t think of a song.

“Why don’t you just sing the ABCs?” the man says. I can tell he’s annoyed with me. I start to sing and I don’t know how I’m doing it. I know they can barely hear me but I can’t make myself sing any louder. The alphabet feels too long and then it’s finally over. I still don’t smile.

“Okay, thank you, sweetheart,” the man says without even looking at me.

I know I didn’t do a good job because Mother doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the week unless we’re in front of Richard.



* * *



? ? ?

MOTHER BREAKS HER silence at bedtime to read me her favorite book about a bunny and its mother. She tells me she loved it as a child because she always wanted to run away, but I don’t like that book at all. I keep that to myself, but I think somehow she knows and reads it to me anyway. Almost every night. That bunny tells his mother he is going to run away and turn into all sorts of things to stay away from her, but she promises she will find him no matter what. Why does he want to run away from his mother? I don’t think I could ever run away from mine. I can’t imagine running away from Mother, even when she hurts my feelings, but maybe if I run away, I could get all of her attention for once.

But I don’t know where I would go.

And I don’t know if she would come find me.

Her bunny.



* * *



? ? ?

RICHARD IS GONE by Father’s Day. The house sells quickly and I’m angry with Mother because I don’t want to leave. She says we have to, but it feels too soon and it feels wrong. I don’t really understand what’s happening. What about Grandma Lois? I tell Mother I will miss her and Richard and my school and the house, and to shut me up Mother scoops me in her arms and jumps right into the swimming pool with me with all of our clothes on. She’s finally in the pool with me.

Mother and I scream and laugh and splash each other. My skirt floats as I move my hips from side to side and it makes me giggle. She reaches out for me and I go to her, arms first. “How can you miss anyone or anything when you’re with me?” she asks, pulling me close. Then she cradles me like a baby. “You’ll always be with me, bunny. Right?”

I tell Mother I can sing like Princess Ariel when I’m under the water. Would she like to hear it? She actually smiles at me and says she does. We hold hands and count to three and jump up and then down under the water. I watch the bubbles come out of her nose as she watches me sing, garbled and giddy that Mother is finally in the pool with me. She lets go of my hands to clap when I finish. We’re almost out of breath and I wish we were actually mermaids so we could stay there longer.