Walls

“It’s a disgrace, an absolute disgrace!” Gertrude sniffed, focusing on the television set sitting in her corner. “In my day, you would have never seen peoples misbehavior paraded about like they were in a three-ring circus.”
“Like relax, Gertie man. There’s totally nothing you can do about it anyway.” Shawn laughed, then coughed, remnants from his days in a pot-smokers pad. “Besides, it’s not a three-ring circus, there aren't any elephants.”
“Oh, shut up you overgrown rag! If you would quit getting high – as you call it – for more than two seconds and take something seriously--”
“Ding, ding, ding. And we move on to Round Two.” Zachary’s sarcastic comment cut through Gertrude’s tirade. “I never thought I would spend my days playing Jerry Springer and talk shows while I listen to an old Victorian house and a shag rug duke it out.” He paused. “Again.”
“I heard that young man. Oh, the insolence of youth.”
“Hey, Z-man. Did you know that they based that girl in Cheers off my old roomie?”
“Sure Shawn. And there was a giant conspiracy involving the White House and a rooster to cover it all up, right?”
Gertrude sniffed again, louder this time, her attention once again focused on Zach. It was obvious that, if she had had a face, she would have had a look of complete disgust. As it was, she settled for slamming one of her downstairs doors rather loudly. “How you can stand to sit there and play that poppy-cock all day is beyond me, Zachary.”
“Yeah, because I really have a choice in the matter.”
The battle was about to become all out when Shawn burst in again, a noticeable note of excitement sounding in his usually laid-back voice. It was such an oddity that both the house and the TV were momentarily silenced. “Hey dudes! That girl looks like Sunshine!” He motioned towards Zach’s screen, currently playing the latest Jerry Springer.
“The Cheers chick?” Zach asked sarcastically. He hated shutting up when the argument was just getting good, especially with Gertie.
“No man, Sunshine! She gave me my name…” He settled back onto the floor again, lost in memories which seemed more unhappy than pleasant. “She should have gone on one of them talk shows. Well, at first anyway.”
“I don’t think they had talk shows back in the ‘60’s.” replied Zach.
“Yeah, she wouldn’t have gone on one anyway. She loved him too much.” Shawn sighed.
“Who?”
“Sunshine, duh.” The shag rug almost visibly rolled his eyes.
Gertrude broke in impatiently. “No, who did she love?”
“Arnie. He was one cool dude, but he screwed her over big-time. Like that guy on there did to that girl. Damn near broke her heart he did.”
Shawn fell silent, and for a minute the only sound was the drama unfolding on Zach’s screen. The speakers, blaring for the person in the next room, proclaimed that Marissa had been living with Clayton for three years. It then featured a close-up of her engagement ring, flashing afterwards to a picture of their five-month-old child, Natalie.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ The host asked the studio audience. A few clapped. ‘OK, Marissa. Would you please explain why you brought Clayton onto the show?’
Marissa’s face crumpled visibly, and Gertie muttered something under her breath no one bothered to catch. ‘I met Clayton three years ago through mutual friends. We hit it off right away, and six months later we started living together. Everything was wonderful.’ She dabbed at her eyes, seemingly afraid of smudging her make-up. ‘Then a year and a half ago I found out I was pregnant with Natalie.’
‘And how did Clayton take that news?’ the host asked.
‘He proposed.’ Most of the audience laughed, then quieted as the blond-haired, brown-eyed beauty continued. ‘He said he was absolutely thrilled. But after her birth, things changed.’
The fake look of sympathy on the host’s face was almost laughable. So was the tone on his voice, but if Marissa or the studio audience noticed, they didn’t mention it. ‘Then what happened?’ The screen began to flash words across the bottom to the effect that there would be another girl like Marissa after they were done.
‘He started staying late after work…. Women… I didn’t know... started calling the house for him, and I smelled another woman’s perfume on his clothes three different times.’ Tears now shimmered in her eyes, ready to burst at the slightest provocation.
‘So you think Clayton may be seeing someone else now?’ The audience began to sit forward in their seats.
Marissa nodded her head, too overcome to speak. The tears spilled.
‘Well, Marissa, soon you’ll have your answer. We put Clayton through a lie detector test, and after the break we’ll tell you the truth about your fiancée.’
The host then brought Clayton, a fairly attractive young man, onto the stage. The crowd applauded and booed alternately as he proclaimed his love for Marissa. Swearing he would never hurt her and was too busy taking care of her and Natalie for an illicit relationship, he abruptly switched face to say she was just insecure and paranoid and that she should know him better than to suspect him of something like that.
The camera cut, and Zach suddenly began to tell home viewers how to get tickets to the show.
“He did it.” The certainty in Gertie’s voice startled Zach. Shawn, still thinking about Sunshine and Arnie, barely glanced up.
“Seen this episode already or something?”
“No, I know because he’s just like him.” Gertrude spat the word. Wanting to know who ‘him’ was, Zach wisely kept his mouth shut. Gertie would continue if left in peace. She did, drawing a breath all the way from her foundations. “He’s just like Luke. Arrogant and on top of the world, like he could get away with anything. He tore Clara apart and never looked back. I’ve never hated a man more than I hated Lucius Peredone.”
“Who’s Clara?” Shawn asked.
“She was the prettiest little thing. Hair as blonde as pure-spun gold and big brown eyes. She was the talk of the town, Clara was. Lucius swept her off her feet and they were married without her parents consent when she was 17. He brought her here to live when I was just built, maybe about Zachary’s age.” She paused. “He also brought Savannah.”
“Don’t tell me. Luke was a closet Mormon.” Zach really didn’t feel like hearing some sob story about a long dead girl, no matter how fins-spun her hair. In case no one else had noticed, he was playing a soap opera right now. He didn’t need to hear about one too.
“Nah, Z-man, you got it all wrong. She was the maid.”
“And you know this how?” Great, now not only was he being reminded by Gertie of the fact that he was the youngest of the group, he was being shown up by a stoner shag rug.
“He’s right, you know.” Gertie said, ignoring Zach’s muttered ‘Go figure.’ “Savannah was beautiful too, in her own way, but no one noticed it except Lucius. Not white folks, anyhow. She was just the quiet colored girl who brought them their coffee in the parlor. But Lucius noticed.
“It all started when Clara’s mother fell ill. It was pneumonia or bronchitis, I can’t remember now.” Her voice grew dreamy, and Zachary found himself getting interested in spite of his no soap opera policy. Shawn preened, well, as much as he could without actually saying anything, proud that he’d been the one to know about Savannah. “But Clara moved home for a month, and Lucius stayed here.
“It wasn’t Savannah’s fault. She wasn’t more than 15, a little slip of a thing. I watched as she tried to fight him, listened as she threatened to tell Clara. But it was normal then, and it would have been hard for her to get another job without Lucius’ recommendation. No one would have cared that she had been wronged. She was just another disobedient slave girl, why should they?” The bitterness in Gertie’s voice cut like a knife.
“So what happened? Clara found out?” Zach asked.
“Savannah began showing her pregnancy about 4 months later. Lucius pretended not to notice.” Gertrude let out a long sarcastic chuckle. “But Clara did. And she figured it out faster than I can open a door. Lucius left.”
“I thought they would have just fired the maid, dude. What with it being normal then and all.” Shawn sounded genuinely puzzled. Zach wasn’t all that clued in himself, though he wouldn’t have admitted it for the world.
“All I said was that he left. I never said he didn’t come back.”
“Oh.”
“He went on a ‘business trip.’ It went from one month, to three, to four, and then five. I guess he figured Savannah would have had her baby and been gone by then.” Gertrude laughed that same long, mirthless, sarcastic chuckle. “ Oh she had her baby alright. But Clara kept her on. She wanted to show Lucius, confront him with what he had done. I think, in some ways, she was hoping that it wasn’t true, that Savannah was lying, that it was somebody else’s baby, you know? That her Lucius, her darling Luke, wouldn’t have done that to her.”
“Sunshine was like that at first too. She wouldn’t believe it. It was so hard to watch her, man. She would sit there, with all the evidence in front of her, and cry and cry. I was scared she was going to do something to herself, like slit her wrists or something.”
“Well, Clara never did anything like that, but that was more because it just wasn’t done. You didn’t go out and drown yourself in the Potomac River because your husband slept with your maid. You looked the other way. You know, something like divorce just wasn’t done either.”
“Well, people did break off marriage engagements, didn’t they?” Zach interrupted.
“Of course. Why?”
“Because I think our Marissa is about to do just that, and if either of you want to find out I suggest you shut up. I don’t play this episode for another three months, and I’m not telling you what happens if you miss it.”
“Oh, for the Good Lord’s sake!” Gertie muttered, mad at being interrupted by this upstart appliance, but even more upset at herself for wanting to find out what happened next. ‘I’m going to be as bad as the busybodies next door.’ The man was so much like Lucius though, and she wanted to see if she was right. Focusing on the screen almost as eagerly as Shawn, she waited for the other shoe to drop on the girl on stage.
The Host held a yellow envelope. ‘Inside this envelope are the results of the test, Marissa. Are you ready?’
“They should like put a drum-roll or somethin’ in with that, man. They put enough fanfare in it.” Shawn sighed, feeling utterly sorry for the girl onstage who looked like his Sunshine.
“Thank you, my point exactly!” Gertrude declared.
As Marissa said yes, and the Host opened the yellow envelope, the studio audience held their breath. Was Marissa just paranoid, or was Clayton really the asshole everyone wanted him to be? Because if you took a minute to think about it, Shawn decided, no one really wanted Clayton innocent. That was boring. He mentally shook his head, seeing as he couldn’t do it on the outside. Ready to embark on a mental diatribe, he jumped as he was rudely interrupted by a shriek of indignation from Gertie. The owner of the house had changed the channel, and now they wouldn’t know the fate of Marissa for another 90 some-odd days. Zach was needling Gertie about her response, and though he tried, tuning them out was almost impossible.
“Thought this was all just one big disgrace anyway. You’re pretty worked up for someone who cant stand talk shows.”
“It is a disgrace. I just wanted to see what Marissa would do if Clayton did cheat on her. Because, unlike Clara, she had the option to leave.”
“Speaking of which, what did Clara do? I mean, she did leave him, didn’t she?”
“No, she couldn’t. She stayed with him, because like I said, divorce just wasn’t done. But it wasn’t happy here anymore, not even when she had children of her own… That’s what sickens me about these talk shows and things like that. People know now that its wrong, but they still do it, because TV normalizes it.”
“Yeah, Gert. It’s like, if they did it and they’re on TV, it makes it all okay. Sounds like free love in the 60’s.” Shawn sighed. “And it’s not okay, any of it.”
“And Arnie thought it was?”
“Sure did. He brought Linden into their apartment, into their bed, and said it was all okay because it was just a little bit of free love, and there was sure as hell enough of that to go around. It was the stupidest thing in the world, dude. Sunshine really loved him.”
“Christ, you’d think assholes from TWO different time periods would be enough. You’re telling me we got three now?” Zach was utterly disconcerted. Didn’t anyone have any happy endings anywhere?
“Yup.” Shawn shook his head. “She forgave him the first time, but he kept doing it.”
“Did she leave him?”
“You know what, man?” Shawn sounded almost surprised. “I don’t know. I was given away just after she found out the second time.”
“Let’s hope she did, huh, Shawn?” Gertie’s voice was softened as she thought of Sunshine and Arnie. At least she had known the ending to Clara’s story…She tried to imagine not knowing and then realized she didn’t want to. Her mind flashed for a second to Marissa. What had she done about Clayton? She jerked herself out of her reverie, and laughed.
“Look at us. A house, a shag rug, and a television all sitting here depressing ourselves with stories that no one but us will remember in a few weeks anyway. We’re all getting old!”
“Yeah, Gertie, but we remember, and that’s what counts. Even, if like with Sunshine or Marissa, we don’t know the endings of the stories. As long as we remember them dude, then its all good.”
“I suppose so.” Gertie sighed.
There was a long silence punctuated only by the noise coming from Zach’s screen as the three perused the annals of memory. Zach especially seemed to be looking for something. He spoke suddenly.
“Oh, by the way, Gertie?”
“What, Zach?”
“About Clayton and Marissa? You were right.” He paused. “And…she left.”
Gertie and Shawn just smiled.