Into the Drink

Marilyn sighed and looked at her watch. The bus was late, again, and she wouldn't be back until near dark. She thought about fishing through her handbag for a dime, but the telephone booth was two blocks from the bus stop, and Momma wasn't home anyway. Running a hand through her unruly curls, she sat on the curb to await her motorized public chariot back to hell.

---------------------------------------------------------------

It hadn't always been hell- for her or for Momma- whose mask occasionally slipped, allowing a glimpse of her light-hearted past. It was an exquisite place to be a child, Geneva-on-the-Lake, with great stretches of sand and amusement parlors and plenty of interesting people. But Momma hadn't taken losing Daddy all that well, and Marilyn soon learned to be quiet and raise herself.

If she closed her eyes, and really concentrated, she could just remember Daddy's face. Or maybe she couldn't. Maybe she was placing too much weight on the eyes that stared back from the mantle- Momma and Daddy's wedding picture, his official Army photo, a snapshot of him with Marilyn on his knee. Youth that would never age, trapped behind the glass of a life cut short.

She'd been six, that day the soldier came. Almost seven. A dead father was a poor excuse for a birthday present, but Marilyn wasn't the exclusive recipient of that gift in 1944. The Allies were close, but not yet victorious, and a vicious campaign on the far side of the globe had sent a lot of emissaries knocking on a lot of doors. Momma didn't cry. Not that day. Not in the ten years since.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Momma, I'm finally home," Marilyn hollered to the empty cottage. She knew the rooms were vacant, and she'd have to go retrieve her mother.

Marilyn didn't rush as she changed out of her work dress and into some sturdier shoes. She snuck a cigarette from the silver case on the sideboard. Momma didn't like her smoking, but Momma wasn't in charge after dark. Lighting a match and taking a drag, Marilyn studied herself in the hall mirror.

"Could be worse," she thought, examining her dark mop, not quite hazel eyes, and button nose, "Cute is just going to have to cut it, no pin-up girl here!" What she really meant was that she wasn't her mother.

"And good thing I'm not," she muttered, as she grabbed a sweater and walked out the door, not bothering to lock up. She crushed the cigarette out on the sidewalk and headed downtown, the streetlamps feigning ignorance with their mindless buzz.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The early June night was balmy, and Marilyn could feel the breeze kicking up from the lake. She often thought about it as a living thing, its vast expanse stretching next door to Pennsylvania, then New York, and to Michigan and Canada. On a cloudy night, the dark waters held secrets, shipwrecks, lost hopes. On a sunny day, Marilyn liked to go down to the beach and watch the cargo barges bobbing on the horizon like bath toys. She smiled at the thought. Daddy had loved the lake, too.

She reached the motel, and hastily walked around the side of the building to the service entrance for the nightclub. The season wasn't in full swing yet, but the advance guard of vacationers was already claiming spots at the pool and at the bar. They'd be spending the summer, Marilyn assumed, Pittsburghers if she guessed correctly. Running her gaze further around the room, she found what she'd come for.

"Hi, Momma," Marilyn said, "Time to go home."

"Marilyn, my darling," Momma gushed, "You simply must meet my new friend, Harold. Yes, Harold. He's an accountant, dear, a big city accountant, all the way from Chicago!"

Before Marilyn could determine how many of the highball glasses on the table had been her mother's, Momma pulled her down into the booth. Marilyn took in the scent of whiskey and Momma's fragility.

"Hello, Harold," she said, "It's lovely to meet you, but Momma and I must be going! Past dinner time and early morning, I'm afraid!"

Momma began a weak protest, then wished Harold an 'until tomorrow', allowing Marilyn to steady her by the elbow as they walked into the now-cool evening.

"He was nice, you know," she said, "I could have stayed a while."

"Yes, Momma," Marilyn said, catching her mother as she stumbled up the steps into the house. "He seemed nice."

---------------------------------------------------------------

She'd been a beauty queen. Momma always found a way to let people know, and always with her little laugh. It wasn't quite a genuine laugh- that had died with Daddy- but it was convincing enough to charm the guests at the motel desk where Momma spent her days, and pay for her drinks in the club, where Momma spent her nights.

"You know," she'd say, "if you need to know anything about the area, just ask!"

"We'd like to go exploring a bit," they'd say, "Are you familiar with the roads?"

"Oh darlings, of course!" Little laugh... "You know, I was the Queen of Ashtabula County."

There's a photo tucked into to the mirror on Momma's bureau; her smile radiating from the faded paper- a blond nymph in a white
dress, a rose corsage on her wrist, her satin sash emblazoned "1933 Fair Queen."

Marilyn helped her mother into bed, and glanced at the photo. How she hated it. How she hated her mother for needing to see it every day, and how she hated herself for hating her mother.

---------------------------------------------------------------

She'd heard it all. Whispers about her mother. From schoolmates who knew NOTHING of her life, nothing about Momma- saying her Daddy wasn't dead, he'd left them. Lies against which she was powerless. They'd gotten no body, just a flag and an apology.

Telling her own lies, she'd left school.

"No. Momma, I have plenty of friends" she'd said, "But we could use the money, so I'm going to get a job. I'll finish later, don't you worry."

But she didn't have friends, and she didn't care if she finished. She just wanted away from the prying eyes, the wagging tongues, and worst of all, the pity. God, the unbearable pity.

The first few months of work went well. She'd taken a job in Geneva as a medical secretary. Bus down to the hospital in the morning, type and file all day, bus back home at night. Get Momma, eat dinner, and do it all over again. No one there had found out yet. She prayed they didn't.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Their morning ritual included a cup of coffee, some toast and jam, and not talking about nighttime. Amidst forced conversation about what the Pittsburghers down at the motel thought the Pirates would do that summer, Momma suddenly looked serious.

"The fair's coming up in a couple of months," she said.

"I'm not doing it, Momma," Marilyn said, not for the first time, "I'm not Queen material."

"Oh, darling, we could fix you up a bit," Momma replied, "Get you a pretty dress..."

"I don't need 'fixing' up," Marilyn snapped, "And I'll thank you not to think I do."

"Darling, I..." Momma had enough grace to look sheepish, but Marilyn was out of patience.

"If you're done trying to turn me into you, I have to go catch my bus."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Marilyn didn't take notice of the commotion in the hallway. She was so lost in her own thoughts that until another secretary came to get her, she'd had no idea that anything was askance.

"Uh, Marilyn," Katie said, her brow furrowed and her voice tight, "You're going to need to go down to the emergency room. Doc Sutton is asking for you."

"Did I muck up a transcription? I'm usually so careful," she chastised herself, "but why emergency and not his office?"

Then she heard her. Momma. Marilyn's thoughts raced, and she quickened her pace, trying to keep her heart rate down as her footsteps sped up.

"I'm the Queeeeeen....I'm the Queeeeeen..." Her mother's voice sounded ragged and foreign, with no trace of her little laugh. Marilyn burst into the exam room, stopping short at the sight of her mother, lipstick smudged, dress stained, her blond hair bedraggled.

"Momma... I...Doc? What's happening?"

"I'm the Queeeeeen...."

"Momma! Stop!" Marilyn's sharp words had little affect on her keening mother, who paused to catch another ragged breath before her wailing resumed.

"Jack Rutter found her like this on his way into town," the doctor said in a low voice, "You know, she's, er..."

"Drunk, sir. I know. Do what you have to do." Marilyn turned on her heel and went back to the office.

---------------------------------------------------------------

It took less than a day for the entire hospital to know what their entire hometown already did. Those at the hospital told everyone they knew, and it didn't take long before all of Ashtabula County knew their former Queen was now the county souse.

"Momma, let's talk about this," Marilyn said over their toast and jam and coffee the morning after Doc Sutton had signed her discharge, declaring her as dry as he could get her.

"There's nothing to talk about, darling," Momma said, "Just a little lapse in judgement. I'll be fine and back to work in a day or two."

"I don't want you to go back to work, or back to the bar, or back to the hospital," Marilyn replied, "I want us to pack up and leave. We'll go get a fresh start."

Drawing up all the dignity she could muster, Momma had put her foot down. "Your father built this house. He would never forgive me for leaving it OR this town. He loved that lake!"

"Okay, Momma," she said, "We'll talk about it another time."

---------------------------------------------------------------

The height of tourist season meant a sea of changing faces, all running together as Marilyn made her way from the bus. She vaguely listened to their chatter; she'd long ago stopped finding amusement in guessing their accents. She held her breath as she made her way down the sidewalks, only exhaling when she found Momma at home.

They filled their evenings with banalities, taking too long to chew each bite of dinner, rushing to bed early in defiance of the long summer twilights. Momma only once more brought up the fair.

"Marilyn," Momma said slowly, "Did you know Jane Hardwick is entering the pageant?"

Jane had been a classmate. Not a nice one, at that.

"No, Momma, I didn't." Marilyn kept her tone dismissive, not wanting Momma's plea to escape.

"Well, maybe you..."

"NO! That's that."

Momma looked like a wounded animal. Marilyn tried to muster an apology, but the words wouldn't come.

---------------------------------------------------------------

July drifted away, leaving the humid town to thrive on the sparse but hopeful August squalls coming off the vast lake. Marilyn kept a close eye on the calendar and on Momma. Clearing the dinner table, she spoke before she could stop herself.

"Momma," she said, softly, "Would you like to go to the fair this year?"

Momma's eyes lit up.

"Oh, yes, darling, let's. Shall we go to the pageant?

"That's exactly what I was thinking, Momma," she said, "Let's go to the pageant."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Jane didn't win, and Marilyn allowed herself a little smile at her expense as she and Momma watched a tall brunette from Saybrook become royalty. Glancing at her mother, Marilyn was relieved to see she didn't seem wistful for her past, or disappointed that her daughter wasn't on the stage.

"Cotton candy before we head home, Momma?"

"Oh, yes, darling, of course," Momma said with her little laugh, "Why not?"

---------------------------------------------------------------

Marilyn didn't hear the door open that night. She'd slept the sleep of an evening spent in fresh air and carnival noise. The urgent
knocking and shouting of the town's only police sergeant was her alarm.

"Yes, yes," she cried, "One moment."

Throwing on a robe and throwing open the door, she was met by a grim face with bad news to bear. Her mind flashed back ten years, to a soldier in this exact same spot, as if his footprints had been invisibly burned into the stoop.

"Yes, Sarge, what is it? Let me go get Momma..."

The officer's expression cut her off.

"Momma's not in her bedroom, is she?"

---------------------------------------------------------------

They'd found her sandals by the pier, her wedding ring carefully tied up in a handkerchief. Her footprints, not yet washed away, told the story of a queen; the note she'd left for Marilyn told the story of a mortal. One who'd loved her husband- a husband who'd loved the lake.