Bearded Women (12 page)

“Hello, Mrs. Simon,” he says to her. He gives me a hug, goes inside.

I glance at the woman scratching notes on her pad, drop my sponge in the bucket, follow my son.

“You know that lady?” I say.

“Her son is in my class,” says Jacob. “Isaiah.” He tells me all the kids tease Isaiah because his mother stands on a corner between the school and post office downtown and tells everyone the world is going to end. She’s been doing this since school started.

“Sometimes we sit across the street and watch,” he says. “People driving by yell at her, but she doesn’t shut up. Isaiah’s mad at her because his dad divorced her a year ago after she went crazy. Now she lives in a yucky apartment and his dad sends her money every month and she doesn’t do anything but yell at people. Isaiah has to stay with her every other week. He hates it.”

But Jacob tells me odd things have happened. Mrs. Simon said a light would fall from the sky and the next day a streetlight cable broke and one of the lamps almost landed on a car windshield. She said it would be a time of monsters the day before Isaiah’s dog had puppies, and the smallest one in the litter only had three legs. She said there would be an end to joy and a week later the bakery down the street from the school closed.

“The lady who worked there gave us free two-day-old cookies,” says Jacob. “Now we have to buy them from Shop Rite and they’re not as good.”

After listening to Jake I decide not to call the police about Mrs. Simon. At least not yet. You can’t go through life with four ears and not have compassion for people who get mocked or called crazy, even if you think they might really be crazy.

Tuesday when Jake and I get home from the tattoo parlour for dinner, Mrs. Simon is already stationed on our lawn in her chair.

Jacob waves and says hello. She smiles at both of us. I try to smile back but it probably looks more like a grimace. We eat macaroni and cheese in the kitchen, and from my place at the table I can see her out our living room window. She doesn’t do much other than take notes and look at her watch. There’s extra macaroni and cheese and since I don’t like it reheated I consider letting Jake take it out to her. In the end I put it down the garbage disposal. Mrs. Simon waves when we leave for the tattoo parlour. You could almost think she was a kindly neighbour sunning herself instead of a second-rate prophetess.

“Lady,” I say, “I don’t want to be mean, but you realise I could call the authorities and register a stalking complaint.”

Mrs. Simon cocks her head. “But I’m not hurting you. I’m just taking notes.”

“And I’m not calling the police,” I say, scratching the ear on the right side of my neck. “Not yet. I just wanted to let you know.”

Mrs. Simon looks down and scribbles more in her pad.

Jake crosses his arms once we’re in the car. “She’s really kind of nice,” he says. “Just crazy.”

I shake my head. I guess being stalked by nice crazy people is better than being stalked by mean crazy people, but stalking is stalking. It takes me a while to focus once I get back to the parlour. When I start playing around with a few tattoo sketches I feel a bit better.

Around eight in the evening two college-aged girls with multiple piercings in their ears bounce into the shop.

“You’re the woman on the window,” they bubble. “Can we get a picture?”

I blink at them a couple times, then glance over to Jake. He’ll probably want to take swimming lessons at the Y once school lets out, and he’s going to need new summer clothes. I look back at the girls and tell them it will cost two dollars. The girls whip out a little camera and Jake takes the photo since Zip is inking an apple onto some lady’s ankle. The girls both hug me and tell me my ears are really cool. Then they buy shirts. It feels nice to be appreciated and yet rather disturbing, like I’m some sort of pop star.

Thirty shirts have sold in the past few days and Zip says he’ll have to order more from the supplier. At least my slight celebrity is profitable. Zip is good to his word on my extra cash, gives me a hundred dollars plus another two hundred from the T-shirt sales. I treat Jacob to ice cream on the way home.

“I want a shirt with your picture on it, too,” says Jake.

“No,” I tell him.

“But a couple kids at school have them,” he says. “And you’re my mom. If anyone gets a shirt it should be me.”

“You need to be wearing shirts with sports team names or something,” I say. “Not me.”

“But you’re better than any stupid sports team,” he says. “I want a shirt with you on it.”

“We’ll see,” I say, which is what my mother said when she meant no.

Jake knows this and kicks lightly at the dashboard as he licks his ice cream.

Mrs. Simon reappears in her lawn chair on Wednesday afternoon, has her pad, a can of cola, and a sandwich in a plastic bag. She watches while Jake and I play Frisbee in the yard. Jake asks if she’d like to join us. She smiles and shakes her head no and scribbles more notes.

When we go inside to eat dinner, Jake says, “She made good cookies for Isaiah’s birthday treat last month. We should ask her to bring some next time she comes.” I decide it’s not a bad idea, send Jake outside with his request. It’s the least she can do since she keeps staring at me.

Wednesday night Izzy calls the tattoo parlour and asks if she can come back and live with me. She says things at Burke’s are awful.

“Has he yelled at you?” I say.

“He yells at Mom and she defends him,” says Izzy. “She says he’s the only really understanding guy she’s ever met. It’s a load of shit.”

“Is your mom home?” I say.

“She just left for work,” says Izzy. “That’s why I called you now.”

“I need to talk to her about this,” I say.

“You know she won’t listen to you,” says Izzy.

I bite my lip and say I’ll call Lee tomorrow.

On Thursday I phone Lee on my lunch break, maybe not the best idea because I think I woke her up.

I say Izzy called me. “She’s not happy.”

“She’s adjusting,” says Lee.

“She says Burke still yells at you,” I say. “I thought you guys were going to start counselling.”

“We will when he can work it into his schedule,” says Lee. “Everyone is adjusting now. Izzy is learning what it’s like to have a dad again, and Burke is figuring out how he needs to act around kids. They’ll be good for each other. He’s helped me so much, you know. No other guy has ever done that. Izzy just needs to give him a chance. She’ll be fine.”

Lee hangs up the phone.

I think about calling her back but I don’t. I know she’s a stubborn woman, won’t listen. And I hate telling others how to parent.

Thursday afternoon Jake and I find Mrs. Simon in her chair on our lawn with a paper plate on her lap filled with chocolate chip and sugar cookies. She hands me the plate cheerfully while telling me that my second set of ears look slightly pointed at the ends and that’s probably a bad sign. I thank her for the cookies.

At work we have sold almost one hundred shirts. People are popping in and out of the store, wanting to get photos with me and paying five dollars for the privilege. The fuss is strange because I’ve been working at the parlour for a few years and nothing like this has happened. Zip says I was just keeping too low a profile and not to doubt the power of merchandizing.

The annoying part is when people take pictures of me without permission. Tonight I’m near the back of the shop sterilizing equipment and all of the sudden there’s a flash like lightning and some college guy is hightailing it out of the store.

“Asshole,” I yell and glance over to Zip who winces and looks at the floor. I glare at my black and white image on the tattoo parlour window. Before Jake and I leave, Zip gives me a large check for shirt royalties. It’s money Jake and I need, so I don’t press the issue further. I tell myself things will get better, that all the stupid publicity will die down and I’ll still get my extra hundred a month.

Friday afternoon Mrs. Simon has moved closer to the house, is halfway between the sidewalk and the porch.

“Other people live here, too,” I tell her. “They might have problems with you taking over our lawn.”

“But I’m not hurting anything,” says Mrs. Simon, knitting her eyebrows like sitting in the middle of our yard should be the most natural thing in the world.

“I don’t care.” I walk around her and grab the arms of her lawn chair, heaving back with my whole weight. I can’t budge her. She’s too heavy.

“That’s it,” I say, stomping around the chair to face her. “I’m calling the police.”

“Mom,” Jake says, “she gave us cookies.”

“The cookies were very good,” I say, “but this is an invasion of privacy. Mine and my son’s. I could file a harassment charge and get you arrested without much trouble.”

“I’ll move,” she says, “I’ll move.” Mrs. Simon stands up and touches the back of her chair, looks at me with sad eyes. “But don’t you understand I’m trying to help people? I’m making them aware.” She sounds genuinely hurt and I can’t help but feel a little sad for her.

“You need to understand that I need my lawn,” I say quietly.

Mrs. Simon turns and drags her chair back to the sidewalk. She doesn’t look at me or Jake when we leave. Jake grumbles for a while about Mrs. Simon’s cookies and our chances of getting more of them, but Zip gives him a sheet of temporary tattoos and my son invests the rest of the evening putting them all over his arms.

Jake spends Saturday afternoon with me at the tattoo parlour. When we get home for dinner at five, Mrs. Simon and Izzy are sitting on the front porch, chatting. Izzy has a suitcase.

“I can’t stand it there,” she says. “Last night I hit Burke when he yelled at Mom. He hit me back and Mom yelled at both of us to cut it out. I called him a bag of rat shit and he called me a little cunt. He grabbed my arms and shook me, then I gave him a shiner.”

Izzy pushes up the sleeve of her T-shirt to reveal four dark oval blotches.

“Oh God.” I slump against the porch railing. “Is your mom home? Does she know you’re here?”

Izzy shakes her head. “She was taking a nap when I left.”

I call Lee and tell her Izzy’s at my place. I don’t have time to ask her what the hell she’s thinking living with a child abuser before she slams down the receiver. Ten minutes later Lee pulls into our driveway, erupts from the car with her hair uncombed and makeup smeared. Burke steps out of the passenger side, stands beside the car with his hands in his pockets. He’s wearing dark glasses and is smaller than I remember, maybe five foot four. He glances down and toes the pavement. Just looking at him you wouldn’t think he was a bastard who hit kids.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Lee says. “I woke up and you weren’t there. Get your ass in the car right now.”

“Not until you break up with Burke,” says Izzy. “He treats you like shit.” Izzy glares over her mother’s shoulder at the accountant. She’s almost as big as Burke, and stockier.

“What the hell is this about Burke hitting Izzy?” I say.

“They slap each other like kids,” Lee says. “It’s not bad.”

“It’s a grown man hitting a twelve-year-old,” I say.

“He didn’t hit,” says Lee, “he just grabbed her arms. Izzy shouldn’t have been in the room, anyway. When Burke is mad he says things he doesn’t mean.”

Mrs. Simon squints at Lee and Burke in turn.

“I don’t care,” says Izzy. “He’s not going to be my dad, and you’re not going to be my mom if you marry him.”

Lee grabs Izzy’s wrist and tries to haul her off the porch, but Izzy hardly budges.

“Lee,” I say, “let her stay the night if she wants.”

Lee doesn’t stop tugging. Mrs. Simon bounds up and grabs Izzy’s other arm, pulls her toward the house.

“What the hell,” says Lee.

“She doesn’t want to go,” says Mrs. Simon. “It’s not a good place for her.”

Lee stomps off the porch and back to the car. “One night,” she calls to Izzy, “but you’ll have to come home tomorrow.”

Izzy clenches her jaw as her mother and the bastard drive away.

Jake and I are both hungry and there’s not much time before I have to be back to work, so I microwave a couple of frozen pizzas. Izzy drags her suitcase inside the house and Mrs. Simon, good to her word, slinks back to the sidewalk. Even though I’m hesitant about it, I invite Mrs. Simon to eat with us because I’m happy she helped get Lee to leave. Mrs. Simon wanders around the kitchen while the pizzas are cooking, peers into cupboards and drawers. I wonder what the hell she could be looking for, if she thinks my silverware may give her clues about my true nature, but when she finds the plates in the cupboard she sets the table.

While Mrs. Simon is busy I think about calling child protective services, flip through the phone book until I find the number. I scribble it down on a notepad and stare at it for several seconds, but in the end I don’t call. I can’t. Izzy is safe now, and maybe this is the sort of wake-up call Lee needs to leave Burke on her own. Shouldn’t it mean something to her that her daughter has run away? But I remember too well how hard it was to leave a guy I thought I loved, even though he treated me like shit. For six years I stayed with my boyfriend, despite his hard words. I told myself things would get better. I told myself Jake needed a dad. I finger the ear on the left side of my neck. My boyfriend really loved those ears. I miss that.

At dinner Mrs. Simon and I let the kids talk about school while we give each other sideways glances. I take Izzy and Jake to the parlour in the evening. Izzy brought half of her clothes and her school books, so she’s set for a few days. In the car she tells us what Mrs. Simon told her as they sat together in our yard, how she started seeing little pinprick lights about a year and a half ago, started sensing things were going to happen before they did, started being struck with messages.

“The streetlight did fall down,” says Jake. “It was cool. Glass everywhere, like an explosion.”

That night I make up the couch bed for Izzy who frets over her mother.

“Maybe she won’t come back,” Izzy says. “Burke hates me. I hate him. I want to stay here for good.”

“I don’t know how much I can do since I’m not your mom,” I tell Izzy. Unless I call child protective services. But Lee helped Jake and me when I left Jake’s father, when we didn’t really have anywhere to go. I don’t want to see her prosecuted.