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Ms. Calloway |
by Karen Vaughan
One listless Saturday morning in the summer of 1979, my father dragged me to Jude 'N' Jody Home Furnishings in Norman, Oklahoma—or 'Normal' as I liked to call my hometown—and hired Ms. Marilyn Calloway to redecorate my room.
"It'll cheer ya up," he promised, patting me like a dog the way he always did when confronted with my teenage emotions.
Ms. Calloway's office was dark and cramped with an oversized desk, strewn with fabric samples, taking up much of the room. Two ears of what appeared to be a statue of a horse poked out from beneath the fabric. Ms. Calloway leaned against her desk and as my father spoke, she watched me slumped in my chair, slurping Coke through a straw.
"She's a lucky girl, I see." Ms. Calloway smiled, hoping I would smile back. But I didn't feel lucky. In fact, I was sure I was extremely unlucky. I knew this from my friends. They still had their families. They still had their mothers.
Ms. Calloway's expression grew solemn as my father explained that he had recently divorced and his wife had moved away, leaving his sixteen-year-old daughter in his care. "Candidly," he whispered, as I stared at the ceiling. "She just hasn't been the same."
I stepped into the hallway and stood in front of the air conditioning unit. I took off my ball cap and let the cool air blow back my braids. I closed my eyes, and as the hum of the fan drowned their voices, I wondered: Just what did Father know anyway? He was in the city everyday running his oil company and was rarely home before midnight. Did he know I had basically stopped going to school? Did he know I had started taking drugs? No, he didn't know, just like he didn't know about the boys.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Ms. Calloway's pencil rapped nervously against her clipboard. "What budget would you like me to work with, Mr. Marvin?" she asked, her voice now buoyant.
"There's no budget, Ms. Calloway." He lowered his chin and looked her straight in the eyes. "Just give her what she needs." And he squeezed her arm long and hard until he was sure she understood.
The next day, Ms. Calloway arrived at our house perky and on a mission. She found me alone, head in hands, waiting on the steps of the front porch. The house, a two-story, brick colonial with four white columns flanking the front, sat on a large, three-acre lot and looked more like a plantation or grand manor from the road. It appeared all the more majestic, as it was the last house on the last road in the wealthiest part of town, inadvertently separating city from country, rich from poor, oil from cows. The street, called Grandview provided just that—grand sweeping views of miles and miles of flatland as far as the eye could see.
"Quite a place you've got here, young lady," she said, ignoring the door of her silver-blue Mustang as it slammed behind her. With an intentioned gait, she strode to the front porch and stepped around me. She walked to one end, then the other, and having found nothing she liked, finally settled her eyes above.
"Nice lantern," she acquiesced.
I looked up and shrugged.
The old wrought-iron lantern hung above us like a dead weight. Seeing it now, the absence of my mother suddenly felt all the more acute. I remembered how in the months before she left, I would often find her sitting alone on the front porch, drinking wine, her body still as the night air. She often retreated to the front porch after dinner, leaving Father with his logs and maps. Usually, she didn't want company, but on this night, when I asked if I could join her, surprisingly, she said yes. Her eyes were red, and I could see she had been crying. We sat together on the top step, and for the first time she told me how unhappy she was. She wished we had never moved to the new house. She wished Father had never gone into business by himself. She wished he had never hit that big well. She couldn't deal with the wives of his new wealthy friends, their endless conversations about furs, diamonds, and trips to Aspen. "You have to understand," she said, meeting my frightened gaze. "If I stay here, I'll die." I didn't realize it at the time, but she was telling me she planned to leave.
Ms. Calloway was beginning to sweat. She wore navy blue slacks and a long-sleeve, green-and white-polka-dotted shirt. I could tell by the fact that she wore pantyhose that she had not intended to be outside in hundred-degree Oklahoma heat.
"Is your Dad not home?" she asked, noticing no cars were in the driveway.
"Nope. He's at the rig."
"Oh, he's in the oil business, is he?"
"Yep."
Ms. Calloway rolled up her sleeves.
"Have any brothers and sisters?"
"Yep."
"Oh. Your father didn't mention that. Are they getting their rooms done too?"
"Nope. They moved out."
"Oh," she said, blotting the sweat from her cheeks with the back of her hand. "My sister's at college, and my brother just got married."
"I see." Ms. Calloway lowered her eyes and sighed.
We sat in silence looking out over our desolate front lawn. The grass was dry and brittle and not a single tree was planted. A simple rope and railroad-tie fence encircled the lawn, as if protecting its emptiness.
"I'm sorry about your mother, Erin," Ms. Calloway finally said.
"Yep." I sighed. "Me too."
Ms. Calloway's clothes now stuck to her skin, and I watched her from the corner of my eye as she plucked her slacks from her thighs. I knew it was mean of me to keep her in the heat for so long, especially since I was cool in my cut-offs and halter, but I liked her sitting next to me, enveloping me in questions, sweating, contemplating, wanting to get inside.
I could feel myself becoming more and more drawn to Ms. Calloway, curious about this woman who was curious about me. I imagined what it would be like to be her—grown-up, independent, in charge. Ms. Calloway didn't have children, I decided. She was too smart for that. Children would only cramp her style. Tall and slender, with opalescent skin, I judged her to be in her early thirties. She wore her hair in the style of the seventies, curled upward and pushed back in a headband, giving her a savvy Mary Tyler Moore kind of look. But despite her independent, woman-of-the-world flair, I saw a wedding ring on her finger and wondered if someday her life too would be ruined by marriage.
Ms. Calloway looked backed longingly at the glass front door, the only thing keeping her from the cool air-conditioned inside. Suddenly, she stood up, brushed off her slacks, and held out her hand to help me up.
"Now what do you say we go inside and get you fixed up?"
I stood up and pulled my shorts from my crack. I opened the glass door and led her inside.
Ms. Calloway stopped abruptly. "Wow! This was not what I expected." She spun on her heels, craning her neck to take in the shiny, metallic black-and white-striped wallpaper that flashed up the stairwell like a zebra in flight.
"Oh, that's mother's fault," I blurted, immune to how natural blaming her had already become. She hired this crazy decorator when we first moved in, said she didn't want to be 'pretentious' like the neighbors."
"She accomplished that."
Ms. Calloway walked across the foyer to the living room and stood, open-mouthed with her hands on her hips, as she scanned the wild animal prints, burnt orange suede couch, and lime green-and white-striped swivel chairs. Despite its eclectic mix of colors and cultures, the living room was always my favorite room. It was here when father worked late, I would wrap myself in my mother's soft rabbit throw and sit amongst statues of African women crouching and wonder if anyone was ever going to join me again in this big empty house.
I quickly shuffled Ms. Calloway down the long hallway leading to my parents' part of the house. I passed each room quickly, opening the doors just long enough for her to peek inside. There was nothing exceptional in these rooms: just old scratched furnishings from our modest past and hand-me-downs from my grandparents. But they were all that remained of our family in happier times. I flipped off the light and closed the door.
Having completed the tour of the ground floor, I led Ms. Calloway upstairs to my bedroom. My room, a large, apartment-like space, provided endless opportunities for her imagination. As I sat on my waterbed, careful not to make waves, I watched her bound around the room, measuring here, then there, stopping only to tuck her silk shirt back into her slacks or slip her pencil behind one ear.
"You're what, sixteen now?" she asked, squinting as if trying to reconnect with what it was like to be my age. "Then what you need are quality pieces that can carry you into college and even to your first home."
I imagined it wasn't every day that Ms. Calloway had such a large bedroom and unlimited budget to work with, and for a moment, I thought I perceived a twinge of envy.
"I suppose you'll want to keep that king-size waterbed?" She shot me a quick wink. "But let's raise it on a platform and put smoky mirrors behind it. Then, we'll make a seating area over here." Within seconds, she was across the room squatting in the corner measuring out an area for a loveseat, coffee table, and television.
"Perfect. What do you think?"
I shifted on the bed, sending a wave rolling to the other side. How alive my room felt with a woman's presence. Ms. Calloway checked her watch and a sudden pang clinched my gut. Don't go yet, my mind said. Please don't go. But instead of telling her so, I just said: "Yes, yes, it's perfect."
Ms. Calloway walked to the window and stood quietly. At first, I thought she was admiring the swimming pool or maybe the tennis courts. Surely she must be thinking 'this young lady is nothing more than a spoiled little brat whose daddy gives her everything.' But Ms. Calloway's gaze was far out into the wide expanse of the Oklahoma emptiness.
"They call 'em the ten-mile flats," I said, joining her at the window. Cow pastures dotted with black rigs stretched across the horizon. A mare and its colt nuzzled at the fencepost. "Sometimes I just sit here and look out for hours."
The room was silent, except for the familiar trickle of water twisting down the slide. After a long moment, Ms. Calloway spoke: "You know," she said softly, pausing to glance behind her as if to make sure no one else was in the room. "You don't have to stay here." She turned and met my gaze, her expression so severe that I took a step back.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean . . . You can go anywhere."
Anywhere—that word: so unknown, so enormous . . . so all encompassing.
I crumpled my face and scoffed: "Oh yeah, like where?"
"I'm serious. I don't know. Just somewhere beautiful." Ms. Calloway tucked me under her arm and pulled me close. "Imagine . . . green rolling hills as far as the eye can see."
We stared out over the dry, scorched, crumbling grass and forlorn trees. I tried to picture green meadows and flowing streams, but the only life this August heat had not destroyed were the bagworms in the evergreens.
"Of course, I don't mean now, but college. You could go then. Just think. You could meet new people. See the world!" She let out a sigh and fell silent again, as if contemplating her own loss. "Well, at least that's what I would do if I were in your shoes."
But what exactly were "my shoes"? All I knew was that since my parents had divorced and my brother and sister had moved away, I felt completely alone. Our lives had changed so fast. We were going along fine, just another happy middle-class family living on a cul-de-sac. Then suddenly, Father quit his job of twenty-five years as a petroleum geologist for a large multinational oil company and struck out on his own as an independent oil entrepreneur. He began investing in dozens of wells, scraping together what little he could for a piece of the profit. But each time Father would make a little money he would throw it right back into the ground. His strategy finally paid off.
But even with our newfound wealth, few aspects of our lives changed immediately. It was true that the new house was much bigger than the small ranch-style home we grew up in. And mother did finally succumb to hiring a housekeeper, but not before we promised to never to call her a maid and to always sort our own laundry—whites, darks, delicates. And although Father did finally buy himself a Mercedes, it was the only real personal extravagance he allowed himself, keeping it his entire life. We may have moved to the wealthy side of town, but we still ate tuna casserole for dinner, went to public schools, and hung out with the same troubled, middle-class kids from our old neighborhood. In essence, if my shoes were different, I had not yet realized it.
I stared at Ms. Calloway, confident and serene at my side, and felt a sense of wonderment, even longing. Here was a woman—a stranger at best—telling me what I longed to hear. There was a way out. I too could leave.
Ms. Calloway opened her pad and read her measurements aloud to herself, ticking them off with a pencil.
"I guess that does it." She grabbed her purse from the chair and gave me a quick pat on the shoulder. "I'll get some ideas together and bring you some swatches next week."
"What's a swatch?"
"A fabric sample, silly."
And with those words, Ms. Calloway blew down the zebra stairway, leaving me with more than just the promise of a new bedroom suite. The seed had been planted. The possibility of new places, distant places—where sadness and loss were not just covered up with new fabric and paint—was taking hold in my mind.
I pulled my knees to my chest and watched another day slip into darkness.
Karen Vaughan lives in the jungles of Costa Rica. Her wanderlust has driven her to live in Switzerland, Italy, Kansas, France, Bali, New York City, India, Israel, Boston, Atlanta, and Oklahoma. Currently a travel writer, she speaks four languages, has been an event producer, writer, and translator.
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