— I’ve written some short stories about us before. I also might write a memoir someday. I didn’t want to overlap too much.
— Some people might think this is a memoir.
— It’s so not a memoir.
— It’s not so not a memoir, Betsy. It’s mostly not a memoir.
— It is in no way a memoir, Mom.
— Okay, so especially if it’s not a memoir, couldn’t we just do our own thing here?
— I did just whale off into the sunset.
— Right. So we could do anything together, couldn’t we?
— I took us on a houseboat ride a few chapters back.
— That was a bleak tale.
— Okay, well, what would you like us to do, Mom?
— I don’t have any particular ideas.
— I’ve always wanted to time-travel. I’d like to go to 1961. I want to see what life was like when I got here.
— Uch. I don’t think I want to go there again.
— I do.
— Why would you want to go to difficult times?
— I just want to go to interesting times.
— I want to go to times that don’t hurt.
In Which We Go to Parsons Because It’s Not a Memoir
Okay. So it’s 1961. Let’s try being sisters again, a year apart this time, very close. You can be the older sister again. There’s no Marjorie. She was never born. We’ve just graduated from college. You went to Parsons against the wishes of Mother and Daddy (your parents are our parents this time); we were both supposed to go to a state school to get husbands, but we both dreamed of being world-famous couturiers like Coco Chanel, so I follow you to Parsons and we share a big two-bedroom apartment in London Terrace because you can do that at this time. It’s Deco, Mother! Absolutely fabulous! There’s a swimming pool! Tell Daddy that Babe Ruth once dressed up as Santa for the annual Christmas party! But Mother and Daddy are beyond freaked out that we’re on our own in New York City, and Mother keeps sending letters begging us to come back to Iowa, telling us there are so many nice young men right at home, at church, sons of friends who work at banks and insurance companies, and we tell them not to worry, there are men here who aren’t criminals, and we didn’t come here to meet men anyway, and we’re happy and well, and more and more women are working now, and we like it. After college we get jobs in the garment district, you as a seamstress and me answering phones, but at night we come home and sketch and gossip (my boss is a creep, has been doing it with his secretary, has patted my bottom more than once); we design clothes for a modern working woman, separates, slim skirt suits, simple dresses with an eye to detail, seaming, covered buttons, pockets, always pockets — that will be our trademark! We create a small line to begin: one suit, three blouses, a skirt, a cardigan in three different colors (with a narrow satin ribbon trim around the neckline), one cocktail dress (with a satin ribbon and small bow under the bust, to match the cardigan), and we take it around to the department stores. We point out all the special details — the quality of the fabric, the different ways the pieces can work together, ways to take the pieces from day to night — and we are turned down, store after store, no Saks, no Bergdorf’s, no Bonwit’s, no Macy’s, no Gimbels. The good news is that Alexander’s offers us a deal, but only for the suit, and it’s a much smaller offer than we hoped for, but now we’re in a pickle, because it’s barely enough to cover our electric bill. But we shake on it, and on the 1 train we try to hide our disappointment that we didn’t become famous designers overnight. Maybe we should just go home and get husbands, you say.
— I don’t understand, why, Betsy, if you’re making this all up, it all has to be so hard. Why couldn’t we just go to New York and become successful fashion designers and meet wonderful men and live in penthouses with maids?
— That’s not a story. That’s not what a story is.
— I thought a story could be whatever you wanted it to be.
— Think of it this way: The notes in an aria aren’t random. They follow an order. Imagine how awful it would sound if you tried to sing from a score that someone had put through a shredder and then taped back together. There are still some basic principles that make a song something you might ever want to listen to. I might also point out that you sing some of the saddest songs in existence.
— Yeah, which is one more reason why I don’t want to read sad stories.
— Look, if there aren’t some bits of conflict, the results are likely to be boring, or meaningless, or very, very short.
— But there are happy stories in the world. Heartwarming stories.
— I’m not big into heartwarming. When I’m done you can write your happy story for us.
— Okay, then, I will!
— What if we were to go back to that time Ginny came over to your house and Grandpa was a racist jerk?
— Mmf. Won’t that mess with the time-space continuum or something?
— What do you know about the time-space continuum?
— I read things.
— I haven’t figured out the science of that fiction just yet, but I’m pretty sure the time-space continuum will be just fine.
The Wedding of Chappy and Althea
One day, you bring your friend Ginny home for a playdate after school. You’re having the best time: your dolls are best friends, and they’re having a doll wedding where your teddy bear is the groom because nobody has any boy dolls. Ginny’s doll Althea is the bride, with a veil made of a scrap of tulle and a piece of ribbon trim from our mom’s sewing basket. Chappy the teddy bear is wearing a black ribbon around his neck for a bow tie. Your doll Patty Ann is the maid of honor. Dum, dum da dum, you sing together. You walk Althea to the altar and stand her face-to-face with Chappy. A naked baby doll is jumped in for the minister because you forgot about the minister until just now. Ginny makes the baby doll have a deep voice. We are gathered here today to bring together Althea and Chappy in holy matrimony. Chappy, do you promise to take this doll, Althea, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold in— Wait, I don’t think that’s right, it’s not “to have and hold in”— Sure it is, so you don’t let the sickness out— To have and hold in, sickness and health, richer and poorer, until death do you part? I don’t think that makes all-the-way sense. Just say I do. I do, you say for Chappy, trying to sound like a bear who talks. Althea, do you promise to take this teddy bear to be your dear husband, to have and to hold in sickness and health, richer and poorer, until death do you part? I do, Ginny says for Althea. You both burst into giggles. You may now kiss the bride! Ginny says, and you both mash the doll and the teddy bear together, completely cracking yourselves up, and this is when Daddy comes in.
He gives the scene a good long stare. His face is perfectly still, but his eye sockets may as well have flames shooting out of them. You have no idea why, though Ginny has an idea. He leaves the room and goes downstairs to get our mother, who’s sewing in the den while I’m doing homework. Get that colored girl out of here, he says. Mother hustles upstairs and I follow on her heels, crying Mom, Mom, don’t do it. She says Shush, Betsy. I say Mom, Mom, don’t let Daddy do this, and she says He’s the man of the house, and I say Uch! and I run back downstairs to find Daddy smoking out in the backyard, and I say Daddy, Ginny is a person just like you, and he says You are asking for big trouble, young lady, and I say I don’t care! I am here from the future! We have an African American president! and he says What the hell is “African American”? And I say It means black, negro, colored! We have a colored president! There are two little colored girls in the White House! I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap just for thinking such a thing! And I say I don’t care! The future is here! This is when everybody comes downstairs, Mother holding Ginny’s hand, you right behind, and Mother is extremely worried that the neighbors might hear, what with this happening outside, and she says Walter! Betsy! Please! and I say No! and Ginny really does want to go home now, and you are rather unsure about this whole scene, and I yell loud enough for the neighbors three houses down to hear A racist lives here! A racist lives here! and this is when I get a hand to the face, but I say Go ahead and hit me! I don’t care! You’re crying now, Ginny’s crying now, saying I want my mama. Mother wipes Ginny’s eyes gently with a hanky from her pocket, says Okay dear, we’re going to get you home now. They leave; Daddy tells us we’re both grounded until we graduate from high school; that’s when I say Fuck you, I’m going back to the twenty-first century. Daddy actually laughs in my face. You just got yourself grounded until the twenty-first century, Betsy.