String Divorce by RD Larson (most motivational books .TXT) 📖

Mama Tried to Raise a Lady
by
RD Larson

Chapter Five
The String Divorce

Mama loves to dance. She can waltz and fox trot. She can do the rumba, the polka and the Texas two-step. Pop likes to watch her dance. He isn't too keen on dancing but he always says Mama is a pleasure to watch when she's dancing. There isn't any dance Mama can't do if she just sees someone else do it once.

Pop often takes us all to the Grange dances out at Blue Lake. There are no baby-sitters for us. I like to watch Mama dance, too. After about three dances, I kind of stop watching. It's a big time for us when we go out to a dance at the Grange Hall.

Mama had to know a week or so before they go dancing because she had to decide what she's going to wear. Sometimes she makes a dress or changes an old dress by putting a collar on it or taking off the sleeves. She paints her fingernails "fire engine red" and wears her girdle. Pop just wears a plaid shirt and calls it good.

The Saturday of the dance we have a big, heavy meal early in the evening. Mama thinks it's not good to dance on a full stomach so she never eats much. After dinner, Pop puts blankets and food and games in the car.

While Pop is getting the car ready, Mama puts on her eyes.

First, she cuts fake eyelashes off of a thread of eyelashes that she orders from a catalogue. She cuts off six clumps. Then, she licks each one and bends it over a pencil tip. She put a drop of glue on the first clump. Tilting her head way back so I could see up her nose, she sticks it smack in the middle of all of her other eyelashes on her upper lid while she looks in her dresser mirror. She does that with two more clumps. Then she does the other eye. Then she gets her mascara in its tiny box and mixes it with water until it's a paste. She paints her eyelashes black with the mascara paste right to the tips. She smears on eye color with a tiny brush; the color depends on her dress, but mostly it's a shiny green. Then, because she shaved off her eyebrows years ago, she draws new ones. She's really good at this. Perfect swoops, just alike on both sides. If it was me, I'd probably make one eyebrow frown and the other eyebrow go straight up like some Japanese women dancers have. Not Mama. She looks normal, only better than everyone else's mother.

One time Mama tried to make me wear my nightgown to the dance because I always fall asleep from being so bored. I said I would rather die than wear a nightgown. I would rather sleep in my clothes. Mama said she could make me; but she didn't even try after I said that. She wouldn't have gone anywhere in her nightgown either. So maybe she understood why I wouldn't wear any old nightgown to a dance.

Mama, Pop, my noodle brother and I went in the spring last year or the year before, I forget which. Mama wore a new dress she'd made. It was dark navy with fake pockets and white buttons and a big white sailor collar. She put perfume on her wrists and behind her ears. She wore a red rose in her hair and her favorite red high heels, the ones with a red bow on the top. She painted her toenails "fire engine red" too because the shoes had holes at the toe. Not much good in the rain, but probably okay for a dance.

Pop put on after-shave -- Old Spice-- and he smelled really good. He put on his brown and blue plaid shirt. We kids wore just our regular stuff.

When we got to the Grange Hall there were already cars in the gravel parking lot. Some folks were standing by their cars and talking. Mama and Pop saw Ave and Eva just arrive. They are my parent's best friends and our godparents. My brother and I went on inside. They always had cookies for the kids.

The band was warming up. Sometimes, there were only records. This night there were three men playing. One was a black man; he sang. The other two just played instruments. I ate a cookie and a brownie. My noodle brother and I established a good seat against one wall. We piled up our books, my crayons, tablet, thermos and bag of peanut butter sandwiches. We each had an old blanket.

When the band started playing some real songs, not just tuning up, my brother went off to find Arletta. Our godparents, Ave and Eva, always went to the same dances when my mother and father went. Well, maybe they went other times, but I don't know because I wasn't there. They were always there when my folks were there with us kids. They brought their kids most of the time. Arletta was their daughter; same age as my noodle brother
.
My brother could dance pretty well. Sometimes Mama danced with him in the kitchen and taught him the steps. He never looked stupid or silly when he danced even if he was a kid. Sometimes he would dance with the women, other mothers, like Mama. Mostly, he danced with Arletta and teenage girls.

Pop didn't dance except late in the evening. He was too stiff, he said. He stood around, having a beer and shooting the breeze while he watched Mama dance. Mama danced with every man who asked her and she never took a rest.

"Oh, Joe, I could dance for hours," she would say as she whirled up to him after a dance. He would give her a drink of his beer. She always made a face and had the punch instead. It was just like that every single time. A taste of beer, a funny face and then she’d take the punch from his other hand and sip it. Then she’d whirl away, dancing.

I was drawing cows and cowponies in my tablet, when I looked up. A real cowboy had come in the door. He was wearing a red cowboy shirt and cowboy boots. He wore an old cowboy hat with a high crown. It had two dents in it on either side. He had a bushy mustache, black as Candy, my dog at home. I jumped up, thinking I wanted to ask him about being a cowboy.

See, I was going to be a cowboy and own a ranch when I grew up.

Before I could get over there, he started dancing. He was dancing with Mama. It was just like they were horses that were hitched to the same wagon. Whenever she turned, so did he. When she went backwards, the cowboy went forwards. They dipped and dived. They kind of looked like birds, too. It was so pretty to watch them dance first a waltz, then, a rumba, and then a fox trot. Everyone stopped dancing to watch Mama dance with the cowboy in the red shirt.

The band played some sad music and their dancing made everyone sad. Then they played something fast and Mama did the jitterbug with the Cowboy. He danced right out from under his hat. Everyone laughed. When they stopped, everyone clapped and clapped. My noodle brother and I clapped hard too.

Mama went over to Pop; he handed her a glass of punch. No beer. She smile at him, you could see her eyelashes from where we were sitting. Pop laughed. The Cowboy in the Red Shirt came over to Pop and Mama. They all laughed. Pop shook hands with the cowboy.

Ave went up to my mother and asked her to dance. It was a slow dance. Ave wasn't near as tall as Mama. Once Mama said to Eva that Ave danced light on his feet. Round and round the people danced. Without the cowboy it was boring so I went back to drawing horses and cows.

After awhile, Eva came over to sit by brother and me. She rubbed my back for me. I was getting pretty sleepy. I was full of peanut butter sandwiches, cocoa and cookies. Mama was still dancing. Pop was talking to Ave.
Then the Cowboy in the Red Shirt came back in the door. He went straight to Mama who was dancing with Mr. Peterson. The cowboy tapped him on the shoulder and danced away with Mama. Twirling and spinning, her navy dress flowed around her. Her legs were pale and flashing as their dance turned into to a rumba again. Her high heels clicked on the floor.

The music got faster and faster. They spun. They glided. They danced and danced again. Then the band took a rest.

I didn't see Mama for a while. When I went in there to the ladies room, she was repairing her face, "Fixing her face," she always said. Pop always said, when she said that, "What? Is it broke?"

"Hi, Mama." I said, nestling.

"Hi, Baby Rose. Did you see your Mama dancing?" She hugged me with her elbow because she had her makeup in her hands.

"Yes, it was beautiful. Like in Cinderella." I told her, honestly thinking it was.

"I just love to dance, Rose." She smeared some more green shiny stuff on her eyelids. The brown part of her eyes were so big they looked black. She was pink from dancing. Her "fire engine red" lips smiled. She kissed a paper towel.

There it was -- a perfect kiss. I folded it up and put it in my pocket. Maybe I could draw a kiss like that. I sighed. It was nice to have such a pretty mother.

She went out. I tended my business and left the rest room.

When I got out, I looked around. Where were all the people?

I rushed to the door. The people were standing around on the gravel.

Two men were fighting. One was my Pop. The other one was the cowboy in the red shirt. I watched, scared stupid for Pop. Then, Pop banged the cowboy right on the chin. He fell down, cussing and swearing.

Pop walked away. The people started coming back in. I ran out toward Pop. Mama was screeching like crazy. Right by the car.

"Jo-SEPH! I want to go home. Jo-SEPH," she hollered

My brother rushed out of the Grange Hall with the blankets, books, and other stuff. He threw it in the back seat and got in.

"Baby, get in the car now." Mama said. I had been going off to look for Pop. What if he was hurt? But when Mama spoke like that, no matter what was happening, I minded. It usually meant something important.

She stalked across the gravel in her high heels. Sometimes it looked like she almost tripped. I watched as long as I could see her in the lights from the parking lot.

The cowboy got up and went back into the Grange. I looked at my brother. He was crying.

"Oh, shut up, you baby," I said to him. "They always make-up after a fight."

"Pop shouldn't have hit him."

"Well, maybe she shouldn't have danced with the cowboy so many times."

We got into a fight ourselves. Finally, when nobody had won, we