I do not go away, but the Grounds are ample—almost travel—.
She’s tried Jungian, Freudian, Transactional
Analyses, even Rolfing, the instructor’s knuckles
kneading her skin, fingers pushing up
her nose, fists down
her throat, his dog barking
next to him. She’ll tell you the issues
have lodged themselves in her connective tissue
or confide in you about the therapist
who lies in his Naugahyde recliner,
the rips in it camouflaged with masking
tape to keep the stuffing from popping,
and the day he reached deep inside
himself, pulled out his own
caked-on secret, showed it
to her, and how she fled—
because she knew for him there was no cure—
to a braless humanist who played Hindu
music and had her pound
a battered paisley pillow and yell
about her mother and father.
Acquainted with every pamphleteer, she’s anchored
herself to a small green chair and watches
neighbors pack their cars for summer travel,
longs to go anywhere, always prepares a bag
twice—once for luck, once to be ready—
and when she doesn’t leave, she runs out
to buy the latest self-help book and slowly returns
each folded item to its own familiar shelf.
CECILY KNEW THAT her call to Deidre would surprise and perplex her. But she also knew that Deidre would be confused and upset—actually furious and humiliated—after her lunch with Cecilia and Celine.
Celine had promised to immediately report to Cecily what had happened at the lunch and she kept to that promise. Cecily knows that Celine carries around a certain amount of guilt—at least as much as Celine is capable of—from the rumor her father started about her so many years ago, and that Celine’s given her far too much information about her escapades with men (and women). Celine clearly talks to Cecily in a much more explicit way than to anyone else in the family, maybe because Cecily’s considered on the fringes of the cousin clique—pretty much always has been. My parents certainly pushed Cecily aside after Manny’s statement about her and how it spread throughout the community. They could not tolerate any gossip that worked against them or the family, which they pretty much considered one and the same.
Celine always prefaces what she says to Cecily with a nervous giggle and these words, “Cecily, promise me you’ll not put this in a play.” “Of course,” Cecily always replies. But Celine does worry a bit that Cecily has too much information about her and this does make her a little anxious, which works well for Cecily, for it allows her to ask favors of Celine and get information about the family she otherwise would not have.
Cecily was right. When she called Deidre as soon as she arrived home, Deidre seemed disoriented not only by what she had just experienced, but also by Cecily’s invitation to take her to lunch in a few weeks. She did not want Deidre to feel she was crowding in on her, so giving her some time between lunches seemed a good tactic. At first Deidre said, “No, I don’t think so. I’m tired. Really tired.” Cecily responded, “I understand,” in her most empathetic voice and then enthusiastically said, “We’ll have a good time! I promise. You’ll see. Anyway, it’s not right now.” Deidre hesitated, then agreed with a wishy-washy, exhausted, “Okay—I guess.”
Like Deidre, Cecily was fed up with the suburban writing groups she had attended and felt far more talented than those women and the occasional retired man who would wander in and within the year die or just disappear. They would gossip too much about successful writers, rather than focus on the language that brought these people their honors. Also, they were sticky friendly to each other—until one got published. Sure, they were outwardly excited for the person, but, no matter how minor the magazine from which the acceptance arrived, when the happy writer left the room, their tongues would turn to swords, which they drove into the work of the temporarily high-spirited, absent one.
Cecily knew she deserved better than these women who would just as soon pass their time bragging about their children’s accomplishments or, better yet, their husbands’ promotions, or in their worst moments, the best sales going on at the high-end shopping mall. They continuously flattered each other’s work as long as the playing field was level—the unspoken code was that no one could stand on any stepstool of success, no matter how low it was to the ground.
There was one woman who started to achieve some outside recognition, which she knew to keep to herself. Then she suddenly left the group. Ultimately, she moved away. When she disappeared, they mocked her work a lot, especially after her writing started to appear frequently in high level literary magazines. Such was this atmosphere. Interestingly, however, they all adored Cecilia. She was their backyard star. Cecilia sightings were always discussed. This made Cecily nauseous, but she kept her feelings to herself, pretending how much she, too, adored her cousin. She had to admit they did treat her quite well because she was related to Cecilia, although this, also, made her sick. Right before she left—at the last session she attended—Deidre showed up as the new person. Cecily could tell from the look in her eyes that Deidre really did not want to be there either.
Cecily had recently quit her therapist, Dr. Mann, who in truth was a stupid man. He incessantly bragged about himself, taking up at least ten collective minutes during a session to tell about his comings and goings or some psychiatric paper he or some other therapist had delivered at a conference. The one paper that sticks in my mind the most was about Sylvia Plath and that most likely she had PMS and if she had only gotten an early diagnosis, she could have been saved. I hated how he spoke so authoritatively about this talented, dead woman’s innards.
It seemed to me a worse intrusion than being alive and discussed in such a way. Clearly I identified too much with the possibility of this. It was as if someone were barging into my life, my story—reimagining the facts of it with me too far away, completely unable to explain or fight back. My total frustration over this proved, once again, I still had more work to do on myself in the art of letting go of what anyone says or does above the ground.
Sometimes Dr. Mann would describe some recent trip he had taken with his wife to what he thought was “a really fancy place”—while Cecily would be thinking, “Yes, on my nickel.” Or he would attempt to critique some highbrow art movie he had just seen, straining to be the quintessential intellectual. He even kept out a blurry newspaper clipping of himself with four other aging, bald men—all therapists, at a meeting of little consequence—for months on the coffee table in front of where his patients sat, so no one could miss it. It was distracting and Cecily, like I am sure anyone who saw it, felt obliged to say, “Oh my, what is this? Is that you?” When this not-so-subliminal script was presented to Cecily, it prompted a ten-minute discussion on the circumstances of the photograph, during which he became too animated, causing his face to swell and become garishly bright, so that he looked like a red balloon blown up to the very brink of orgasmic explosion.
Cecily felt that Deidre was definitely a better person with whom to speak and someone who could be of far greater use to her than he. Anyway, he already did not approve of so much of her behavior, nor would he have of what she now had in mind. Actually, he would have been appalled. Anyone would have been. Here his appraisal would have been focused and accurate.
She picked the same place—the Arts Club—as Cecilia had chosen. She wanted Deidre to remember how badly she had been treated. It was a large part of her plan. Cecily was already there when she arrived. Deidre looked more worn out than Cecily had remembered. Cecily stood up as she came over and shook her hand and said, “How happy I am that we’re finally, officially meeting. That awful writers’ group really didn’t count.” They both nodded their heads in agreement. Cecily gave her the enthusiastic focus she knew she had not received from Cecilia, or for that matter Celine, for Celine, as she reported it, had been instructed by Celie “to just talk about myself a lot.”
Initially, Cecily kept the conversation at a light, airy level—nothing rushed or pushy in her speech—and that did eventually help put Deidre at ease, for her discomfort at being there was obvious. She spoke too softly and not very much, and just took delicate sips of her soup, leaving half of it.
Having a hearty appetite, almost a lust for the food, Cecily ordered the shrimp with pasta. It must have been contagious because Deidre ordered it too, and began to eat with a gusto she did not have at the beginning of their meal. Cecily watched, astonished, as Deidre started to impale the large shrimp with her fork and swallow them whole. She did this with the pasta too, stabbing at it and chewing it with large jaw movements. She had become all accelerated motion.
Finally, when they were almost finished with their entrees, Cecily sighed and stared at her. Then she said one word:“Cecilia.”
“Yes?” Deidre replied, as neutrally as she knew how to do. It was only then her pace slowed.
“You know her.” Cecily said this not as a question, but as a statement.
“Yes, yes I do. Somewhat. Just a bit.” Deidre replied with great hesitancy and some amount of sticky melancholy and then she asked, “Is she as beautiful as your Aunt Rose?”
Cecily tried to control how frustrated and infuriated she was by this question and just said as evenly as she could, “I’m not here to talk about Rose.” So sickened was she by everyone’s Rose sickness—her own included.
“What do you think of Cecilia—what do you think of her?” Cecily insisted.
“Think-of-her?” she answered.
She said this haltingly, sounding like a Rogerian therapist who just repeats the patient’s words back in the form of a question. But it was clear Cecily would have none of this and for the first time Deidre felt a slice of Cecily’s well-known impatience and large forcefulness—which she intended.
“Do you like her poetry?” She wanted her voice to sound borderline accusatory.
“Well, yes,” she said. “In truth, I really do. Do you?”
Cecily gave a huge sigh. It was almost as if a puff of smoke came out of her mouth at that moment. She did feel dragon-like. She replied, “It’s okay. A little self-serving, wouldn’t you say? But okay.” Then she paused and leaned forward and said, “Have you read ‘Small Green’? It appeared in Poetry.”
“Yes,” she replied. “It’s sad. I especially liked the Emily Dickinson epigraph.”
“Well, she didn’t write the epigraph,” Cecily snapped. “Do you know she never goes anywhere, except to the dress shop, an occasional lunch, and to give a few local readings? Mostly, she just sits in her apartment, in that tiny writing room of hers. Except, of course for— ”
Cecily then stopped and looked at Deidre as if Deidre were supposed to finish the sentence, which she did not, would not, could not. Cecily had now moved into high gear.
“Except for what?” Deidre finally, carefully, with her best innocent voice, replied. Cecily could see a stringy residue of shrimp caught between her teeth and that made Deidre’s seem all the more vulnerable.
“Except for what?” Cecily said too loud. “Except for what?” she continued. “Don’t you know about the critic?”
Cecily then took Deidre’s hand, patted it and said, “Don’t be shy.” Deidre looked at her palm and then wiped it on her slacks. She did not want Cecily to see this, but she did. Cecily knew she was becoming successful in making her feel uncomfortable. Her look demanded a response.
It was then Deidre remembered the question—the question about the critic. She restated it—“Did I know about the critic?” It was clear to Cecily that Deidre did not quite know what she wanted to say, but finally replied, “I remember the poem ‘The Interior of the Sun.’” Then, suddenly not being able to control herself, she blurted out, “Did he hit her? Did she let him? Is he the one in that poem? Is he the Herr M in the poem? Is he?” The questions were not really for Cecily—for Cecily to answer—it was as if she were asking the air, which seemed to grow too thick for her, for she coughed and could not clear her throat for several seconds.
Cecily laughed a too-loud laugh. Definitely what Deidre said had pleased her.
Cecily waved her hands and said, “Hit her? He raped her.”
“Raped her?” She said in a voice she could barely find. Then added, “Well, I’d heard that rumor, but—”
“Yes,” Cecily glowed. “It’s true,” she continued with great relish. “It’s just been unequivocally established.”
She then looked around the dining room a little self-consciously to see if anyone else had heard her, but they were pretty much alone except for a well-dressed couple at the far end of the room. They seemed so dignified from this distance. She thought, “They must be talking about something artistic.” She wanted to be invited into their conversation. She was certain if she were surrounded by such people she would not have to be here trying to plot something with this silly woman. She would be recognized for her talent and not need to deal with the Deidres of this world. She staunchly believed, “If given the chance, I could rise above everyone, literarily and literally, especially my family.”
“Poor Cecilia—” Deidre started to say, when Cecily interrupted her.
“Poor Cecilia, you say! I heard about the lunch! What did she give you? Tell me. What did you come away with?”
These words, “What did you come away with?” almost seemed to make Deidre cry and Cecily saw her look over at a table, where she guessed it all had happened—or rather, where nothing did. As Cecily followed Deidre’s eyes she could tell Deidre felt she knew her every thought, her every feeling, and Deidre’s face looked scorched. She turned toward Cecily and spoke with an equal dose of forced strength and growing upset, her body starting to lean downward, becoming ungracefully slumped toward the table.
“He actually raped her?”
“Yes. And she deserved it.”
“No one deserves that,” Deidre quietly replied, trying to pull herself together.
Cecily smirked, then put her now completely sweat-filled hand on Deidre’s, and asked her in a slowly paced, yet piercing way, “Do-you-hate-her?”
Again, sounding like a Rogerian therapist, but now dazed, she said, “Hate her?”
“Yes, hate her.”
“No,” she answered, unconvincingly.
“Well, you had to have hated her after that lunch.”
Deidre then woke up to the obvious question and asked, “How did you know about the lunch? You called almost to the minute I arrived home that day.”
“I have my ways,” Cecily said with great authority and a certain amount of pride.
“Yes, I did hate her after the lunch, but I don’t anymore,” she said halfheartedly. Now looking quite scattered, she quoted a line from Cecilia’s poem, the one Cecily had mentioned earlier, as if just muttering to herself:
Acquainted with every pamphleteer, she’s anchored herself to a small green chair …
Then she said she had to leave. That she was feeling sick. However, as sick as she was, when she looked at Cecily it was clear to her she still did not know what it was that Cecily wanted from her and she meekly asked, “Why did you invite me here?” When this question was met with just Cecily’s intended silence, Deidre’s fingers nervously pinched the still crisp, white tablecloth. Finally, she gulped out, “Yes, remembering the lunch does make me hate her.”
“Good!” Cecily said, patting her same hand, and adding, “Perhaps now we can begin.” She then laughed and said, “Wasn’t that the last line in Portnoy’s Complaint? Wasn’t that what the therapist said to Portnoy?” However, Deidre’s anxiety had completely taken over and she could not focus on anything literary.
“Begin what?” she blurted out.
“Help you what?”
“Hurt her, of course,” Cecily whispered. “You know you want to. And remember,” she continued, “I can help you. I do have some amount of clout in the poetry world.”
Deidre looked like she was going to vomit. She took Cecily’s hand off hers, stood up, and said “I think I ate a bad shrimp. I’m going to be sick. You’ll have to excuse me.” She then ran out of the room. Cecily heard her in the hallway cursing, “Damn artist’s stairs.”
Cecily smiled, thinking, “Mies van der Rohe wouldn’t have been pleased.” But, reconsidering, and knowing a little about his huge ego, she thought, “He probably wouldn’t have given a damn, maybe even laughed.” Then she saw Deidre race toward the elevator and disappear.
Cecily wasn’t bothered by this at all. She had set in motion what she had intended—Deidre would not forget their conversation. She was sure of this. Cecily knew she would see her again, and she knew Deidre could be of great help to her with her plans, which she was just beginning to assemble—and, hopefully, to construct even better now that the rumors about the rape had proven to be true. It was clear Deidre did hate Cecilia—hate that Cecilia had promised her something and had given her nothing. It was also clear Deidre was ambitious and that they had this in common. Cecily thought, “She’s just weak, but I am strong, so in a way we’ll make a good team.” Her guess was that Deidre would try to run from the Slaughter family, try to make it without Cecilia, without her. But she knew Deidre would return to her, that her flight was only temporary.