Outside Beauty by Cynthia Kadohata
“The map doesn’t have an inset for Davenport.”
“Say when!” Marilyn and Lakey shouted.
My mother was signaling as they screamed. It was too much pressure! I couldn’t figure out the map. The car swooped past a sign. I turned and stared at the sign, looked at the map again. “I think that was it,” I said.
“Too late,” my mother said. “I’ll get off at the next off-ramp.”
So we lost an hour tooling through the streets of Davenport. Maddie snuggled against me when she saw I felt bad.
We finally found ourselves on I-80. A young couple stood on the side of the highway hitchhiking.
“Pick them up!” we all shouted.
“They’re in love,” cried Marilyn. “Aren’t they cute?”
They looked like they were about twenty. My mother pulled to the side. In our car the woman sat in the man’s lap, and he kept kissing her neck the whole time they rode with us. I wondered if he just kissed her neck all day, no matter what they were doing. We let them off at a truck stop to catch another ride northward. Even as the woman stuck out her thumb, her boyfriend held her with both arms.
We found a deli outside of Iowa City and bought sandwiches that were almost as tall as they were wide. We ate on a blanket in a field off the highway. The grass danced around us. It seemed like a wonderful world, where you could grow up and someone would kiss your neck all day while you hitchhiked across the cornfields.
Maddie suddenly started coughing and trying to clear her throat. “Are you okay?” I said.
She nodded, but her face grew red as she coughed. I stood up, ready to do the Heimlich if necessary. Then she blew out from her nose and expelled . . . a piece of lettuce.
“Maddie, that’s gross!” we said.
Mom just shook her head. “It’s beyond me how you girls are ever going to catch husbands,” she said. “Let’s get going.”
In a few hours we came upon a series of shacks with a sign in the parking lot saying MOTEL.
“Stop here!” commanded Marilyn and Lakey. Since they were in charge of our accommodations, our mother pulled over. Such misers those girls were.
That night in the double bed the four of us shared, Maddie whispered to me, “I feel something on my feet.”
“Me too,” I whispered back.
We both screamed at once and jumped out of bed, Lakey and Marilyn following. I turned on the light and pulled back the sheet, and we saw a dozen black bugs scurrying for cover.
My mother took off the mask she wore to sleep better and also to hold the moisture in the delicate skin around her eyes. She squinted, even though that caused wrinkles. Sometimes my head was so filled up with all these little rules about beauty and comportment that it felt like there was no more room in my brain. “Why did you choose this place?” I asked.
“We don’t tell you how to read your maps,” Marilyn pointed out.
We never got into big spats, but little ones—those happened a lot. But we got over them fast. And we liked to follow a rule to always call ourselves “we” instead of “I.” It was impossible to do all the time, but we tried.
chapter two
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING MY mother went out to make some phone calls, and when she returned to the room, she said she had an appointment in Des Moines. She looked at me and said, “Get us to where we have to go, my love.”
So I leaned over to grab my map collection from the nightstand, but they weren’t there. I pulled open the drawer. They weren’t there either.
“Uh,” Maddie said.
I looked at her.
She handed me a pile of soggy maps. I caught my breath. She quickly said, “I spilled. See, I had a glass of water by the bed, and when I wet my pants, well, I forgot about the water, and really, I just . . . somehow or other . . .”
She had indeed wet the bed that night, and I had gotten up to get sheets from the manager. Even though Maddie was six, every so often she still had an accident. In fact, she wet her bed once and Mr. Bronson lectured her and made her do the laundry in the middle of the night, and she was only five at the time. She’d had to stay with him for a whole week because that was his agreement with Mom. I looked at Maddie with irritation. “That’s so—so Maddie-like!”
“You know I can’t help it,” she said, then started crying.
I pulled her to me and petted her hair. “I meant it was Maddie-like to ruin my maps, not to wet the bed.” We weren’t sure, but we thought Maddie wet the bed because she was such a deep sleeper that when she had to go, she just slept through it.
I unfolded the soggy Iowa map. Maddie pulled at my shirt. “Are you still mad at me? I said I was sorry.”
I looked at her big eyes. “Of course I’m not mad.” Maddie was frequently apologizing to someone. It was impossible to stay mad at her.
I quickly deduced that I’d need a closer view of the area to get us to the address Mom had given me, so I pulled out the phone book I’d just seen in the nightstand drawer and started hunting for a local street map. My mother wouldn’t hesitate to spend thirty dollars on a tiny jar of facial cream, but city maps that would allow us to get around our destinations more easily? Out of the question. I carefully wrote directions on the paper pad in the motel room. Marilyn packed up the motel soap and one of the washcloths.
My mother stood over me as I studied the directions. She shook her head. “My sweet, hard-working Shelby. How did I ever give birth to you?” But she said it affectionately.
We checked out and got in the car. We stopped next on a street full of small office buildings and followed our mother single file as she strode up some old stairs. We entered an attorney’s office and sat in the waiting room having orange juice and rice crackers while she spoke with the lawyer. I reached out to touch the plant next to me. Marilyn met my eyes.
“Fake,” I whispered. Our mother had told us that fake plants were the product of a weak mind.
My mother and the lawyer had closed the door behind themselves, but the wall was made of clear glass, and the transom over the office door was open. So I had a fair idea of what the dynamics were. The lawyer was what my mother called a “proper man.” Proper men were often disguised by fashionable clothes or hair, but you could recognize them by the way they stiffened when approached by unusual creatures, like my mother.
The attorney was a proper man of the bombastic, mustachioed Caucasian persuasion. We saw from a plaque on a wall near us that he was a member of Citizens for a Free Democracy, whatever that meant. I repeatedly heard him say to my mother, “I used to practice in Illinois, so I know the law there. And in my opinion you’re living in a fantasy world!” I could see he was attracted to her. I knew the signs. He was trying to impress her with loudness, which he thought made him appear strong. I saw sweat breaking out on his forehead as my mother crossed and uncrossed her legs. It seemed that whenever he couldn’t think what to say because he was nervous, he repeated, “You’re living in a fantasy world.” The lawyer actually reminded me of Mr. Bronson, except Mr. Bronson wasn’t a lawyer. He was a proper man of the bombastic, mustachioed Caucasian persuasion. It was odd. It was like my mother was talking to Mr. Bronson’s twin.
“Do you owe him money?” the lawyer bellowed. “If you do, you’re living in a fantasy world!”
“I do not owe him anything.”
“You said he loaned you money!”
“I said he loaned me money on an indefinite payback schedule,” said my mother.
I drank some orange juice out of the container. Marilyn shook her head at me and sighed, the spitting image of my mother.
“Don’t glug it, dear,” Marilyn said. She took a tissue out of her purse—and primly wiped off the area right under my nose.
My mother and the lawyer turned. Their eyes lingered on Maddie. Then they began to talk very softly. We stayed still, but now I couldn’t hear what was being said. Maybe Maddie’s father was why we were leaving Chicago, not Pierre. Or maybe we were running from both. Or maybe we were running to Lak
When my mother was leaving the office, she stopped in the doorway. The lawyer had turned to some papers on his desk, pretending he had already started working. My mother cleared her throat, and he looked up. “Brains must have been in short supply the year you were born. As such, you are no intellectual!” she said.
She’d told him that for our benefit. “Don’t ever let anyone push you around,” she always told us. “And I can guarantee you, people will try.” We stomped out of the office, following our mother’s lead, and got back in the car.
“What did you talk to that lawyer about?” I asked.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” was all she said.
In addition to my map responsibilities that day, I kept a lookout for Maddie’s father. Sometimes we called him Mr. KIA, for Mr. Know It All.
In the car later Lakey looked up from a history book she was reading. “What law school did that man go to, Mom?”
“It was called La Verne,” she said. “I don’t even know if it’s accredited.”
“Is Harvard accredited?”
“Of course it is.”
“Good,” Lakey said, and we knew that she knew where she would go to law school one day.
When we were safely on the highway, I stuck my head out the window again, the wind blowing my hair into a mess. Maddie stuck her head out next to me, our cheeks touching. Maddie and I were a “we” within the larger “we” that was the four of us. I wasn’t annoyed at her anymore for my black eye. In fact, I kissed her cheek and she kissed mine back. “I like you!” she shouted in my ear. Maddie always got “love” and “like” mixed up. She would say she loved a new dress but she liked her sisters.
The flatlands stretched into the distance, the sky bright blue and cloudless above it. The air smelled like nothing at all, not car exhaust or summer garbage or my mother’s perfume. Nothing at all. It was perfectly fresh.
“Let’s sing ‘John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt’ and ‘Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall,’” said Lakey.
Our mother said, “No, those songs drive me crazy. I can’t bear it. Can’t you girls think of a pretty song to sing?”
When my mother said no, she meant it. She hardly ever said no, however.
“Can we play Why?” asked Maddie. Nobody answered. I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as I could with her sitting right next to me. She did the doe-eyed thing and looked right at me. “Please, Shelby? Pleeeease?”
Rats. “Okay, one round,” I said. “We’re sitting in a car.”
“Why?” Maddie asked.
“Because Mom wanted to.”
“Why?”
“Because Pierre was pounding on the door.”
“Why?”
“Because he loves her.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . because she’s beautiful.”
“Why?”
“Because she got good genes.”
“Why?”
“Because her parents must have had good genes.”
“Why?”
“Because their parents had good genes.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the way the, whatever, what the great power of the universe wanted.”
“Why?”
“Nobody knows why. Okay, we’re done.”
“Can we play Thetheguh? Please please please? Just once?”
“Just once, I mean it. Uh, Mthegom’s puhthegurse ihthegis ruhtheged.”
“Whthegy?”
“Behthegecuhthecause shuhthegee luhthegikes ruhtheged.”
“Whthegy?”
“Oh, uhtheguy huhthegate thuhthegis guhthegame! Uhtheguy quthegit!”
She hugged me. “One more time? Please?”
“Last time was already one time. How can we have another one more time?”
She smiled widely and said, “I understood almost everything you said. Someday I’ll be as good as Lakey.” She sat back, satisfied. She loved to play Thetheguh. Lakey taught it to us, and it was how we talked if we didn’t want anyone besides ourselves to understand what we were saying.
In Nebraska I lost I-80 in Omaha. We ended up in Waterloo, which my mother said was bad luck for Napoleon, but not necessarily for us. Lakey said authoritatively that Napoleon was a military genius who could work for days without sleep. He taught the world the art of maneuverability in war, and when the world learned its lesson, Napoleon began a descent as spectacular as his rise. Lakey was really, really smart. If she ever became president, I hoped she would give me a job.
For hours and hours outside the car window, Nebraska came and went. No offense to the state, but I did not think much of it. I was getting tired of traveling, and it was awfully flat. Plus my butt was sore from the car seat. The Sand Hills made a game attempt to rise from the flatness. All in all, however, we judged Nebraska a bust.
In Wyoming the car broke down. We walked to a phone booth, and our mother called a list of numbers for mechanics. Finally one answered. I heard my mother use her most flirtatious, manipulative voice as she cajoled him. Then she hung up with satisfaction and said, “He’ll be right here with the tow truck.” In a few minutes we were watching as our mother flirted with the mechanic, a young guy who lifted Maddie and Lakey together with one arm while Maddie screamed with delight and Lakey frowned just slightly, perhaps thinking of how, since we were going to see her father, it wasn’t right for our mother to be flirting with this man. After the car was fixed, Mom decided that Rawlins was a good place to spend a night. Marilyn counted the money and said, “Can we sleep in the car?” We were trying to save enough so that we could play the slots in Nevada. Then the four of us could become millionaires and retire before we started working.
We’d tried the slots once when our mother was in Las Vegas. We got chased away by a man who said we were underage. But before he did that, we won two hundred dollars in quarters. That took us just a few minutes, so Lakey figured if we made two hundred in ten minutes, we could make a fortune in a week.
But we didn’t keep going to Nevada. That night we sat in the mechanic’s office watching TV and eating popcorn and candy, which was all a sort of bribe while our mother disappeared with the mechanic. I watched impatiently. I don’t know why, but I was impatient with my mother lately. I didn’t tell anyone this because our mother had always been our undisputed queen. She tutored us on everything except school.
We girls had been in training as far back as I could remember. When I was seven, our mother took Marilyn and me to the safe-deposit box where she kept her jewels. Perhaps I remember it as more grand than it was. But to me, it was splendid, and it was all appraised, the occasional phony piece parceled out to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. “Even poor women like to look nice,” said my mother. “A man who gives a woman a fake diamond is not a man at all,” she said. “It’ll all be yours when I die, girls.” She said this last in a cooing voice. At the bank I picked up the gems and weighed them in my hand. It was as if I were weighing my future. She said her collection was then worth “seventy-five.” She meant $75,000 retail. She took a bracelet from my hands and turned it in the light. She gazed at Marilyn and me proudly as we leaned against each other, gaping. “You understand,” she said softly. “I can tell you do.” She clasped a strand of pearls around Marilyn’s neck. She and Marilyn admired the pearls, which looked strangely like a gleaming noose around my sister’s throat. My mother suggested we each take one item home, to spend the night with.
At home later I sat in the bathtub for an hour wearing only the bracelet. I held up my wrist to the light or laid it on my stomach and watched the diamonds glisten wetly.
And now we were somewhere in Wyoming watching television. When we got bored with TV, we went outside to lie in a field. It was a hot night. Marilyn said she liked the mechanic. “He’s kind of like L
“How’s he like him, then?” I said. Lying in a field made me feel just right.
“Well, he’s kind of strong, kind of tall, and kind of nice.”
“Larry’s real nice. He got us ice cream once,” I remembered.
“He did?” said Maddie. “Me too?”
“You were in a baby carriage.”
Larry was a handsome philosopher-hunter. He was the handsomest of our fathers. He’d read actual philosophy books—like, real ones. I used to figure, What did it matter where we came from and where we were going? We were here. I still mostly felt that way, but sometimes I also wondered about things.
We continued to lie and stare at the stars. “If Mom likes rich men so much, why did we stop here?” I said.
Marilyn shot me a look and said, “She likes other things, too.”
I ignored her look and said, “Like what?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Marilyn said.
“But I want to know now,” I said. Sometimes, lately, I felt impatient even with Marilyn. She whispered something to me, and I said, “What’s F-E-X?”
She rolled her eyes, and then I got it.
“Let’s twirl!” Maddie said. I looked lazily at her. She was always wanting to hold hands and twirl, but it made me dizzy. Maddie said she liked feeling dizzy. “Pleeeeeeease?” Maddie said. “Pleeeeeease?”
So I stood up, and my sisters followed. We locked hands and leaned back a bit and moved our legs as fast as we could, around and around. I couldn’t help giggling. Maddie screeched excitedly. Lakey quit first, collapsing to the ground. So we all lay back. “I feel sick,” Lakey said.
We heard our mother shouting, “Girls! Where are you?”
We sat up. “Here, Mom!” we shouted. She rushed over.
“Where were you?”
“Right here, Mom.”
She and the mechanic stood over us. She put out her hands, and Maddie and Lakey each took one. We returned to the car.