With Gladys on a Sunday
You're standing there in Betty's house, the two of you with rooms your own.
"Can you believe it?" Gladys asks.
"It's all a dream." You mean what you say.
She'll be home soon, least that's what she said. You walk the hall towards Betty's room.
"Do you think we'll all stay here?" You ask, looking back on Gladys and seeing how she sways.
"I think we should." She says with a certainty. You notice her stiffness and how little she moves.
"You won't leave again, will you? You're better here, with us." You hesitate dryly, referring back to Clifford Perry and the sabotage and all the death that came before. Gladys Witham needs a savior, just as you did once when you needed a home.
Inside Betty's room you stare at it, so empty. Every sound in the house makes an echo and you fear it.
"Kate I-" She moved up on you so suddenly. You flinched just a little, weren't expecting her just there.
"Gladys? What is it?" She sits on Betty's bed.
"I don't know what I've been doing. It's been wrong. Ever since James."
"Sometimes we do things and we don't know why we do them." You say this somehow, quickly, without thought.
"Sometimes I do things and they're wrong, but I do them again." She raises to look up at you at a loss for sanity or words. "Why do I do that. Kate, what's wrong with me?!" Vera hit you hard and when Gladys left it just made sense. Seeing her now though, you know it wasn't right.
You sit beside her and the window is open, the air blows softly as you stare back out down the hall.
"What were you thinking Kate, before?" Something occurred to her then but it wasn't in your head.
"Before, when?" Could've been anytime, about anything.
"When your father died and you came back to the rooming house. Were you sad? Was it different?"
"Oh then. Guess I felt free." You clear your throat. To talk of this now is to remember life as a forgotten play. Was she thinking about James and all the death that was actually sad. Before, you felt awful to feel that way but now the feeling is a blessing.
"How was life then? Did you... mourn?" She asks. Rather strangely. You want so to know what's wrong.
"I mourned the delay of my happiness. My childhood. The way I hated myself." You look away towards the air that drifts listlessly through the window. "I mourned that there were things I could never take back." You look up at her and she smiles.
"It was really horrible there, wasn't it."
"Over now. It hurts but its gone.."
"Why the drinking then? You were so mad at me. Do you even remember." You fidget feeling off. You had hated her then, remember?
"How would you feel if you were finally free and the person you loved had already moved on."
"Wh- I think I missed a step." She says, causing a smile to grow on your face.
RING-A-LING-A-LING
The loud obnoxious phone rings out from near the kitchen, you hear it and spring to answer, leaving Gladys alone in the room.
"K-Kate?!" Betty yells, through the phone at the other end of town. There's laughter behind her and the sound of many people.
"Betty?" You holler, through cords and all that distance.
She's running late at the rooming house. Dropping off her key for the very last time.
"Should we come get you?" You ask. But the connection's fuzzy and she misses what you say.
"Another hour!" Was all you heard and the phone-line clicked. Again she was gone.
"It'll be a little longer," you say softly to Gladys Witham who had drifted slowly down the stairs during your call. She stands before in the doorframe, a ghost of her old self, a ghost of what she once was. "Come on, we'll have a drink." You walk determined to the fridge. There is lemonade there because you put it there, lemonade and three empty glasses. Lemonade for the house.
"So do you love her then. In that way?" The voice surprises you, the question bold. She notices your panic. "I mean because before. what you said about the person you love."
"After that kiss…" You begin to speak, "When I came back, I met Ivan. I didn't know what I'd done wrong."
She sits down at the table and waits as you pour her a tall cool glass.
"She was scared then, everybody knew." Gladys adds, a bit of story you should've known. "The whole factory! The way they looked at her..."
"What do you mean?" You ask. "How did they look?" Gladys folds over onto the table, she's broken and you see.
"Like they'd seen a circus freak or a dwarf. Bearded lady? Chimpanzee!" She shakes her head and holds at her face. "They looked at her like she was born wrong and I'd have to stand by her and let them." There is anger in her and you see it. "Someone told about the kiss."
"But no one was there." You panic. "It was only Leon, and he wouldn't."
"No, someone was there. We never did find out who. But it was different for her once you left. The whole world wanted to lock her up. And they stared Kate, they all talked." You fiddle with your shirt feeling ashamed for what had gone on.
"Not you though?" You ask, as if to say: why not you?
"Never. She's a hero."
"I've always thought so."
"Yeah, and what about me?" She looks to you, a weariness in her eyes.
"You..." You start. But there are no words for what Gladys is. She's that person who instills all emotions. At one second anger then the next pure elation. You smile without words.
"Too confusing." She notices.
"No, its not that." You've never been good at talking to Gladys.
"You do know that with Ivan, Betty was just trying to be like other girls."
"Ivan..." You breath huskily. He's gone from you now too.
"That Helen." Gladys moans, anger in her stare. "Ivan changed Betty." Gladys says, surprising you for the second time.
"She seemed to love him," you say. But Gladys scoffs and holds her head.
"Sorry Kate, but you're wrong about that."
"She did though, it was obvious."
"If Betty loved him, why would you date him?" She hits you with it and it stings. "You didn't see her before with the looks and the stares. She asked me to make her over. Asked Vera to teach her things."
"What kind of things," you ask, feeling left out and now ashamed.
"The kinds of things that could convince other people that maybe she never kissed another girl." When Gladys stares at you now you look away but the truth is suddenly obvious and you hate yourself for not seeing it.
"I hate that no one talks to me."
"I'm talking to you right now."
"Late!" You yell, knocking your glass from the counter and down to the floor. "Great." you say, looking down at it as if it means more.
"She slept with him." Gladys sighs. "He was her first."
"He wouldn't." You gasp. All the truth at once is always too much.
"He did and it changed her. Once it happened she was done."
"But I-"
"You got engaged." She says. You hear it. You hate it.
"Gladys, why didn't you tell me?"
"If I knew, why didn't you?"
You hold your arms and look down at the spilt juice thinking maybe you should leave it there. Things always just break.