My Sister, My Love (17 page)

(God damn: I remember this utterly baffling and inexplicable incident, and I can assure the skeptical reader that, that evening, in my kiddy-tux, which Mummy insisted upon, as Mummy insisted upon having my hair, then a very ordinary normal-boy fair brown, “moussed” and “blown-dry” at the Fair Hills Beauty Salon, I
had not
made faces during the photography shoot but had SMILED SMILED SMILED as the damned photographers insisted. “Beau-ti-ful!”—“Ador-able!”—“Now kiss your little sister! Yesss.” I did exactly as I’d been told to do by Mummy yet still—somehow!—the prints turned out ugly; and when I think back to this incident, I can see that it was the beginning of Mummy ceasing to love me, or in any case not-loving me as much as she had; and maybe, it was the onset of what Daddy called the
Rampike lupus-blood
, kicking in.)

NOVEMBER
1995.
AFTER THE MISS NEW ENGLAND FIGURE SKATING CHALLENGE
where Bliss was runner-up for the junior division (to age ten) title having wowed the crowd as a pert little cowgirl with rouged cheeks and flying pigtails beneath a cowgirl hat set at a rakish angle, gliding/leaping/twisting/spinning in a tiny suede fringed skirt with shiny-pearl panties beneath, in a tiny fringed vest glittering with rhinestones, skating to a syncopated rendition of “Streets of Laredo,” there in the rear of Mummy’s Buick Lady Toro she lay waiting for Mummy while inside the arena Mummy was heatedly contesting the judges’ decision, and Skyler, stunned with exhaustion now that the strain of the competition was over, now that it was time to drive to the Sheraton Inn Brunswick to spend the night (where they were, somewhere in the State of Massachusetts or possibly the State of Maine, Skyler had to know since he’d been the navigator with the road map, but now he was too sleepy to remember), Skyler was touched to hear Bliss speaking earnestly to her favorite doll, a battered old Raggedy Ann nearly her size with a soft little smile, shiny button eyes and a soiled gingham pinafore, that Mummy tried numerous times to take from Bliss who had a dozen beautiful, expensive dolls, Skyler heard Bliss addressing this doll in an eerie mimicry of Mummy’s voice: “Next time we will work
harder, and we will pray harder, and Jesus will see to it that
we are number one.
”

Skyler asked Bliss what was the name of her doll, for no one seemed to know the name of this battered old doll; and Bliss shook her head vehemently saying it was a “sec-ret.” But Skyler, leaning over the backseat of the car, persisted, promising he wouldn’t tell, until at last Bliss admitted, hugging the doll to her flat little chest, “Her name is Edna Louise.”

SKYLER KEPT BLISS’S SECRET. SKYLER NEVER TOLD.

WE LOVE YOU BLISS!

YOU ARE OUR DARLING BLISS!

OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU BLISS!

GOD BLES YOU BLISS!

BY DEGREES, THOUGH PERVERSELY ACCELERATING IN THE FINAL WEEKS OF
1995 in the wake of Bliss’s heroic performance at Atlantic City in December,
*
there began to arrive, at the Rampike house at 93 Ravens Crest Drive, Fair Hills, New Jersey, flower deliveries for
MISS BLISS RAMPIKE
. (How was our private address “leaked” to the public? Daddy
was furious. Mummy insisted she “had no idea.”) Not only fresh-cut flowers of every variety, quantity, and price were brought to our house via florists’ delivery vans, but potted plants of all species from sherbert-colored orchids to blooming cacti and stunted little bonsai trees. So strangely!—after each of Bliss’s performances, whether Bliss placed first, second, merely third or, as at disastrous/triumphant Atlantic City, fifth among contenders in her age division, yet there came cards bearing joyous messages:

CONGRATULATIONS WE LOVE YOU BLISS RAMPIKE

YOU ARE A BRAVE BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRL BLISS

REMAIN TRUE TO YOUR VISION BLISS

WE LOVE YOU AND PRAYE FOR YOU

Such messages from strangers!—at first, New Jersey neighbors (not snooty Fair Hills, but “the other” Jersey), but eventually people in many states including remote-improbable Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii and nations distant as Denmark, Germany, Japan and Australia. Most of these “fans” had never seen my sister skate, you had to assume they’d seen TV clips, in who knows what contexts: “girls’ figure skating”—“American winter sports”—“cute-kid routines”—“exploited-American-kid routines.” Mummy examined each of the cards carefully, making sure that there were no alarming or mysterious messages, or cryptic symbols or signals, before passing the card on to Bliss to see, and taking it back then to file away, in Bliss’s ever-growing album of photos, clippings, promotional material and such cards from fans.

And there were gifts as well: little-girl gifts of dolls and stuffed animals; hand-knitted wool caps with tassels, hand-knitted mufflers, mittens, leg-warmers; handmade little skating skirts and vests in unusual fabrics like felt, taffeta, corduroy. There were handmade little tinsel tiaras. Often there were photographs of Bliss skating beneath bright lights and, at times, alarmingly up close, taken by fans who’d gotten within a few feet or inches of her, for Bliss to inscribe in her childish hand—

—to be returned in stamped self-addressed envelopes.

Wistfully Bliss asked, “Do all these people love me, Mummy?” and Mummy said proudly, “Darling, yes! They love ‘Bliss Rampike,’ they are our ‘fans.’”

The most beautiful gifts were likely to be entire skating costumes, some of them in expensive fabrics, crushed velvet, pleated Fortuny silk, shimmering gold lamé, with tiny bodices covered in seed-pearls, aurora borealis crystals, gold-dust.
My beloved Crista wore this when she was crowned Miss Royale Ice Princess at the Miss Royale Ice Capades in Bangor
,
Maine
,
1957 when she was ten years old
,
please wear this in Crista’s memory. God bless you dear Bliss we love you.

“OH, SKYLER! IS THAT FOR—ME?”

It was. Of course it was. On January 30, 1996, which was Bliss’s sixth birthday there were many cards and gifts from fans but one singular gift was the strangest and most wonderful of all.

The Marriage of Miss Finch and Cock Robin
was a tableau of life-sized birds with “real” feathers, all of the birds dressed in old-fashioned finery. The birds were stiffly arranged inside a Plexiglas cube each side of which measured approximately ten inches so that the viewer could look into the box from any angle and, if you gently lifted the lid, you could touch the birds. Miss Finch the demure little bride, was a small bird with a delicate snub-beak, sparrow-like wings and a rosy head and breast, in a lace wedding gown with a long skirt, a trailing train, and a veil; Cock Robin was a suave bridegroom, considerably larger than Miss Finch, with an uplifted grayish head and sparkly eyes you might almost think were real and a splendid russet-orange breast, in a gentleman’s frock coat and tails. The bride and groom were being married by a black-feathered bird with a chunky beak
and a benign if somewhat unfocussed look and in attendance were a dozen smallish birds in exquisite replicas of old-fashioned human attire: sparrows, chickadees, warblers. And how realistic the birds’ feathers, though the birds themselves, their little bodies, were stiffly/awkwardly posed.

This unprecedented gift had been brought to the house by special delivery, according to Maria, who took it from the “delivery man” who’d offered to carry it into the house for her, which was not necessary since the package wasn’t that heavy. Maria brought it inside to place beside the day’s more ordinary mail on a table in the small room opening off the foyer, that Mummy called the den; and when Skyler returned from school that afternoon, Skyler wanted to open it, as he opened most of Bliss’s packages for her, while Bliss looked on, but had to wait until Mummy and Bliss returned. (For Mummy and Bliss were always away, somewhere: each day at the rink, for Bliss’s lesson and skating practice, but also at one or another of Bliss’s appointments: hair salon, where Bliss’s “naturally dingy” hair, as Mummy called it, had to be “lightened”; pediatric orthodontist, for Bliss had “an overbite, that has to be corrected”; pediatric nutritionist, for Bliss required weekly injections of vitamins and “growth stimulants” to enable her to “keep up with the competition.”) And when at last the elaborately wrapped package was opened by Skyler, and
The Marriage of Miss Finch and Cock Robin
was revealed, both children and both adults, Mummy and Maria, were astonished.

With widened eyes Bliss stared into the Plexiglas box. Skyler saw an expression almost of dread, or fear, pass over his sister’s wan little face,
The Marriage of Miss Finch and Cock Robin
was too wonderful to be borne. “Oh Skyler! Is that for…me?”

Skyler had to resist the wisecrack
Who else is it for? You know damned well it isn’t for me.

How enchanting, a wedding of birds! And such exquisitely attired birds! Little Miss Finch in her wedding dress, in the bashful pose of a real-life girl-bride; and swaggering Cock Robin in frock coat and tails, head set at a rakish angle, chunky beak just perceptibly open. Mummy laughed: “‘Cock Robin’—he looks just like Daddy, doesn’t he?” Mummy searched for the card which Skyler, typical careless child, had crumpled
with the wrapping paper, and discovered it to be an old-fashioned Valentine, with a red satin heart on its cover. Mummy read aloud:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CONGATULATIONS BLISS

LOVE & KISSES FOREVER

YOU NUMBER ONE DEVOUT FAN WHO WOULD DIE FOR YOU

Neither Bliss nor Skyler was very interested in the identity of the mysterious
G.R.
but Mummy was curious, Mummy was suspicious searching in the torn wrapping paper for a return address: but there seemed to be none. By this time, Mummy’s sensitive nostrils were picking up a very strange yet somehow familiar smell, a sickish smell, still faint, remote, yet alarming, so Mummy, ever-resourceful
gringa
employer, enlisted Maria to lift the lid to the box and to “put your head inside, and tell me what it smells like.” And so it turned out, to Bliss’s and Skyler’s surprise, that the utterly wonderful
Marriage of Miss Finch and Cock Robin
was hastily bundled up in torn wrapping paper and carried away by a grave-faced Maria, even as Bliss protested: “Mummy, that’s mine. Where is Maria taking it? That came to me—‘Miss Bliss Rampike.’ I saw it. That is mine.”

Mummy said: “That thing is not for you, Bliss. That ‘gift’ should never have been allowed into this house, it has come by mistake.”

“It has not. It is not a ‘mistake.’”

Bliss’s voice was rising dangerously. A bright frantic look came into her face, her eyes were narrowed. It was the look that sometimes came into Bliss’s face for just a moment, fleetingly, like a struck match, when she skated badly, or fell. Skyler, too, was demanding, “Mummy,
why
?”

Both children would have rushed after Maria, but Mummy blocked the way. Sharp lines in her forehead, that stern bulldog set to Mummy’s jaws, she said: “Nooo you don’t! Both of you. Go up to your rooms and do your homework and enough of this. Bliss, you will be celebrating your birthday with your family, tonight—Daddy is going to be home for the occasion. And we have gifts for you, ever so much nicer than—”

“I want that gift! I want
Miss Finch and Cock Robin
—it came for
me.
”

“Bliss, you’re making Mummy angry. Mummy has told you to go upstairs to your room. You are not going to play with that repulsive ‘gift’ so just pretend it never arrived. Maria used very bad judgment to have brought it into this house, and—”

“Mummy, it is
mine.
It is
mine.
Those are my birds, Mummy! They came for ‘Miss Bliss Rampike’ and that is
me
, that is
not you
Mummy! That is
me
! You know that is
me.
That is
not you
, Mummy!” Bliss began to scream, white-faced and furious as Mummy struggled with her. Skyler looked on astonished for it was rare that his little sister became emotional; Bliss never raised her voice, even when others were shouting and clamoring, and Bliss did her best to stoically stifle sobs when she was in pain. Now she cried, furious: “I want my birds! I want my pre-sent! That came to me from a special friend! Somebody who likes me! I own that, that is mine, my friend sent it to me! You can’t take that from me, Mummy! He meant it for
me
! He likes
me
, Mum-my, and not
you.
He’s my friend! I want to be with him! I own my birds, Mum-my, you can’t take my birds from me, I’ll tell Daddy on you! Daddy said to me once, Tell me if Mum-my hurts you, if Mum-my makes you do anything you don’t want to do, and I will tell Daddy that you
do
! I will tell Daddy that you
do
! Lots of things, that you
do
! I will tell Daddy you stole my birds! I hate you, I will tell Daddy what the doctor does! I don’t want to be ‘injected’! My bottom hurts, where I sit, from being ‘injected.’ And I don’t want that thing in my mouth! I don’t want that nasty ‘bite’ in my mouth! I will tell Daddy! I want my birds! My birds came to
me
! My birds—”

Hurriedly Mummy called for Maria to take Bliss away: “The child is hysterical. She’s being ridiculous. Take her up to her room, Maria, and calm her down. It’s the least you can do, you’ve caused this by being so careless, take her upstairs
now.
”

And so it was done, though not without resistance on Bliss’s part, and Skyler, who’d been astonished by his little sister’s outburst, asked Mummy what was wrong? why couldn’t they keep Bliss’s gift? and Mummy said, crinkling her nose, “The thing is—what d’you call it—‘taxidermy.’ Real birds! Those were real birds! You could tell, they looked so strange, not like manufactured birds would look, and I could smell through the glass
that something was wrong. They’ve been treated with something like formaldehyde, and stuffed, and their eyes are glass, but their bodies are real, their feathers are real, and they smell of rot. Ugh! Don’t tell your father, Skyler. Not a word about any of this.”

Little suck-up Skyler quickly assured Mummy he would not ever tell Daddy: “I promise, Mummy.”

Poor Mummy was agitated, trembling, as she hadn’t been in some time, gripping her little man’s shoulder so it hurt, but Mummy’s little man stood unflinching. How like the old days it was, for just this interlude: a frenzied infantile wailing somewhere upstairs, and Skyler with Mummy, at a distance from it, just the two of them.

THE MARRIAGE OF MISS FINCH AND COCK ROBIN
IN ITS PLEXIGLAS BOX
disappeared at once from the Rampike house, as if it had never been; and was never sighted again; yet in the room off the foyer called by Mummy the den, a faint, sickening odor of decay/rot would linger for a very long time.