Ribbons/Hair/Never/There
The ribbons in your hair -
They were never there.
Miracle Legion, 'So Good'
Part One: Her/Poisonous/Bubblegum
Eugene's wedding was in the valley; he married a man named Kruper from Amsterdam who spoke a little English and smiled a lot. Big, white teeth.
" I may not speak German but I know what love is!" Eugene gushed at the reception afterwards. We all sat around, awkward, clapped cautiously as if we were watching a golf match. One of the boys from Hanson was in the band that played under the white tent they'd set outside near the shore – Curly and I approached him during their break. He was eating oysters from the buffet.
" Hey," Curly began carefully, " What are you doing these days? What happened to your brothers?" He straightened, and up close it became obvious which brother he was – the older one, with the biggest nose.
" Not much man," he said, cheerfully slurping an oyster from its shell. " What are you doing these days?" he asked, laughing to himself. Curly bristled.
We left the guy alone and returned to our dates – mine was a small, dark woman named Julia – she worked with me at the publishing company, but she called herself a singer. They'd turned the stereo on while the band took their break – Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire played – Julia hummed along, smiling at me tightly. She leaned over and put her hand on my shoulder, brought her lips to my ear:
" Thanks a lot for leaving me alone with Curly's girl," she muttered, " She's a real bitch." I looked up to see Curly examining the bottom of his champagne flute curiously.
" Have I met your date yet?" I asked, pitying him. Curly would get stuck with a raging bitch – he liked to get pushed around; he'd even pursued Rhonda Lloyd in high school. None of us ever got near her, though – she dated older men, with butt-chins. She wasn't in attendance at the wedding that day.
" Oh," Curly said, giving me a look and laughing, " Yeah, you've met her."
" She's right there," Julia said, gesturing to the now-empty stage, where a woman was sitting on the edge, looking longingly at the Hanson kid's guitar. She was blond, wearing a black, crocheted dress and cheap, black sandals. She didn't fit with Curly – she was too voluptuous, too secretive. Yeah, I knew her.
She was Helga Pataki.
" Helga!" I called out without meaning to. I felt my face flush into an easy smile – so the old broad was still around. She looked up and frowned at me, stood precariously and grabbed a drink off a passing waiter's tray.
" See?" Curly said, smiling, then looking at me: " You didn't know I came with Helga?" Helga reached our circle and Julia gave her a vulture's smile. Helga didn't offer anything in return. She stared at me, annoyed.
" Yeah, I'm still alive," I said, raising an eyebrow, surprised with her childish attitude. " Are you disappointed?" Helga snorted and drank deeply from her glass of champagne.
" Well," she said, and I was surprised with her woman's voice, which I had never heard in person. " I didn't think you'd come."
" Ah, so you're unprepared?" I asked. Julia laughed nervously, confused. Curly was still staring at his glass like it held some sort of greater knowledge. He was always completely uninterested in conversation.
" You're still in New York?" Helga asked me, perhaps wondering why I'd fly all the way to California to see a childhood friend's wedding. I nodded.
" How do you like Seattle?" I asked her.
" I'm sure you thinks it suits me," she scoffed. Everyone else in the room began to fade slowly - the way we treated people when were together! I noticed Julia wandering off out of the corner of my eye. Curly continued to entertain himself with his glass – Eugene and Kruper were dancing to 'Don't Go Breaking my Heart'.
" Are you and Curly together now?" I asked with an evil glimmer – I knew he wasn't listening. She snarled at me.
" I'm staying with him while I'm in town," she said, finishing her drink, " What's it to you?" she gestured with her chin to Julia.
" Give me a break," I muttered, " She thinks she's the next Celine Dion." Helga laughed, despite herself. The wind blew the palm trees around the tent into disarray, the plastic ceiling above us faltered.
" Brainy still following you around?" I joked. She chewed her lip.
" Actually, he married Lila," she said, trying hard to laugh but falling flat. I stepped closer to her.
" Someone who needed her even more than my ignoramus of a cousin," I remarked. She looked up at me.
We watched each other silently for a moment. Loose pieces of canary blonde hair moved across her forehead in the breeze, making me think of the image I'd always kept of my mother. Borrowed from a picture in a dusty old anthropology journal - Mom grinning and squinting with the sun in her eyes, hair swept across her face.
" How's your family?" I blurted out. She made an amused face – so you're trying for normal conversation, eh?
" Well, you know Olga always tried hard but she was never smart in the truest sense," she said with a sigh, " She's a concert violinist – tried politics but fell on her face. She doesn't know people.
" And Bob, well, he still hates his job, is thinking about retiring. Miriam is still 'on the verge', but she gets by." She shrugged, " Nothing changes. Your grandparents?"
" As of two months ago, I'm a true orphan," I said, and was embarrassed at how easily the words had rolled off my tongue. The loss of my grandfather had hit hard, and was still tugging at me.
" What about you?" I asked, clearing my throat gracelessly, " I mean, what's your life like?"
Helga scowled, " What the hell, Arnold?" she said, angry, " Am I some sort of occasional amusement of yours? I'll be damned if you have the right to know anything about my life."
" Helga, don't start with the mood swings," I muttered, glancing around for a moment, forcing myself out of her world. The skies had grown darker, people were huddled near the center of the tent. I saw Sheena laughing with Nadine, their faces pink with alcohol and memories.
" I'm sorry," I heard Helga mutter as I watched them – rare words from her lips. I looked back to her and studied her more carefully than I had before. I hadn't seen her since we were nineteen years old – she was angry with me because of my half-assed attempts to keep in touch since what had happened – a few drunken, three AM phone calls. Sobbing apologies.
Remembering those nights made my knees shake and nearly buckle – Helga watched the champagne in my glass tilt with my almost invisible shudder.
I shut my eyes for a quick moment – the others in attendance had already faded to the background, the music had softened in my head. But Helga's presence in front of me was still too bright and evident, it was giving me a headache.
" God," I said, " Don't apologize. Not you." I heard thunder in the distance and opened my eyes – she still had hers fixed on me as the wind strengthened and whipped her hair about wildly. She shook her head slowly, and for some reason the movement was very obvious, despite the swirling maelstrom that was picking up around us. I heard surprised shrieks from Eugene's groomsmen as the rain began, blowing inside the tent with the intense wind. Helga's empty champagne glass dropped from her hand and rolled across the floor.
" It was . . . your baby," she said suddenly, raising her voice against the noise of the scattering wedding party and the rain, which was coming down harder now. Her voice was a tiny squeak amidst the roar of thunder, and I grabbed her shoulders to keep her from blowing away. It occurred to me that I should have done this ten years ago – held onto to her in the storm.
" I know," I told her. I did know. I had known. I had waited to hear her admit it, but I'd always known.
" You were the only one," she said, stepping closer to me – she would be in my arms if I just wrapped them around her shoulders. " Back then," she added, so I'd know that she hadn't stayed single all the years since she'd been gone. I smiled, and listened to the shouts of Eugene's friends and family as the posts that had been holding the tent to the ground were ripped up by the winds. I followed Helga's eyes and watched as half of the gigantic tent took to the skies – flapped wildly in the wind as the wedding party tried to hold the other two posts in place. Eugene's mother was helping him put the wedding cake in an over-sized cardboard box. He looked over at Helga and I and gave us a shaky thumbs up.
" Shit, we should have known," I said, not sure if she could hear me over the noise of the struggle and the squall. " Still a jinx after all these years," I smiled back at Eugene and pulled my wife into my arms. My wife. I laughed to myself at the idea. But we'd never gotten a divorce. Helga snuggled against my chest; we were both wet from the rain that had blasted us when the tent had flared up – now, as I held her, Eugene's father and cousins lost hold of the remaining posts, and the tent flew away into the hurricane, like Dorothy's house caught in the tornado – we all watched it spinning with its white and yellow stripes until the black clouds swallowed it up.
People were gathering as many wedding gifts as they could carry and running to the nearby shops on the boardwalk. The pelting rain was beginning to feel like hale, so I grabbed Helga's hand and pulled her, running, toward the boardwalk. For a moment I thought I was hearing things – but I turned to see her laughing, splashing through the puddles as we went. I told her she was crazy, but I don't think she heard me – thunder roared at us from the sky. We ran past the Hanson brother Curly and I had been harassing earlier – he was holding his guitar protectively, and looking up boldly into the black sky.
" It's a shame," he shouted as we went by, looking past the ruined wedding party to the raging ocean, " And me without my surf board!"
Helga and I ran past the crowded doors of coffee shops and boutiques, found an empty space in an alley between a bagel place and a book store. I put my back to the wall and pulled her against me again, let her press her face to my neck, her tears lost in the mix of rain and noise.
As the storm slowly began to quiet, I saw Curly standing near the beach, still holding his champagne glass. Curly. He had been her date for our senior prom, too – the night everything began. I had gone with Lila, who had been revealed that night to be a cheater – she'd been fooling around with Stinky all year. I was almost happy to let her go – she was a high-maintenance pain in the ass; while other guys were getting blow jobs from their high school girlfriends, I was making magazine cut-out collages of hearts and flowers to appease her highness. As Gerald had once said – " Man, she has you by the TAIL, doesn't she?" It had still destroyed me when I found out she was cheating on me with a doof like Stinky. But Lila had always gone for doofs.
The evening had been a disaster – I spent the after-prom party in the bathroom of Rhonda's house with a bottle of GreyGoose vodka. I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, thinking. Every once in a while someone would try the door, but I'd locked it. Only Helga had the gall to pick the lock.
" OUT!" she'd shouted, somewhat trashed, and not happy to find me sulking when she busted in. " I've had to pee for over an HOUR and I'll be DAMNED if I'm going to do it with you in here."
" It's a free country," I'd grumbled, not budging.
" Damn you!" she'd shrieked, stomping her foot and taking me off guard with her genuine anger, " Will I ever get you out of my hair?"
" What are you talking about?" I asked in a groan, bringing my sleeve to my forehead to wipe my brow. Helga took the bottle of vodka from me as I did this, placing it on the counter.
" Get out," she said.
" Make me," I challenged. I didn't – and still don't – know why I was so persistent on staying where I was that night. Everything might have been different if I'd just gotten up and left. Gone home. Made myself some coffee. Gone to sleep.
I wonder now if I regret that I stayed.
Helga had eventually pushed me into the tub and closed the shower curtain around me while she used the facilities. I heard the toilet flush, heard her straightening her vixen-like red gown, washing her hands. I didn't move, I felt dead. The bathtub seemed like a good enough resting place at the time.
" You can come out now, and continue your self pity," she'd called, opening the curtain and peeking at me. After some silence: " Are you okay?"
" Give me back my GreyGoose," I'd muttered. She snorted.
" What a pathetic excuse for a human being!" she accused, " You didn't see that coming, football head?" I cringed. She hadn't called me that in years. It had been years since we'd even spoken, actually, save for an awkward English assignment where our teacher had paired us together.
" What do you know about my life?" I'd offered, not in the mood to put up much of a fight.
" I knew all along that Lila was a big phony, that's what," she claimed smugly.
" You should have told me," I moaned. I heard her sit down on the edge of the tub, but didn't look up.
" Like you would have listened," she admonished. She was right. I wouldn't have. Lila was the Golden Girl, and Helga had a reputation for stretching the truth. I thought of her 4th grade sensationalist newspaper.
" Well," I said, pushing myself up a bit in the tub, " That's over." Helga was silent for a moment. She handed me the vodka.
" I was going to go back to the party," she muttered, " But what's the point? They're all signing yearbooks and taking pictures – I hate that crap."
" I like that crap," I said, making a face as I swallowed a mouthful from the bottle. Helga took it from me and drank some herself.
" So why don't you go out there?" she challenged, knowing I wouldn't. I shrugged.
" Its time I asked you a few things," I decided, nodding to myself. She laughed, sounded almost nervous.
" About what?" she asked, pulling a hand through her hair. It looked golden in the low light of the bathroom. The wallpaper was pink, I remember. She looked beautiful, but in a way only I could truly appreciate, because I'd seen her grow from an awkward girl to a precious, awkward young woman. She looked down at me, waited.
" What's your story?" I asked, taking the bottle back and drinking from it again. It burned all the way down, but the aftereffect was sweet. I wondered briefly if I was finding Helga so lovely because of my intoxication – but no, it was more a memory of her that I was admiring. She didn't answer my question – only took another drink – so I asked another.
" Do you remember the day we met?" I asked, smiling despite myself, " You were walking to school, all alone."
" You gave me your umbrella," she said, her voice small. Before I knew what was happening, she was crying, her head in her hands. I didn't know what to do – I reached up and touched the small of her bare back, right above where the low cut of her dress fell. When she didn't turn – only cried harder – it seemed natural to pull her down into the tub with me. Her weight pressed onto me comfortably, and I let her arms curl around me, mine around her.
" Its okay," I whispered. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Helga Pataki was sad. Hell, I was sad myself. School was ending. Lila was gone – it was more the fact that I'd lost her to a backwoods buffoon that stung, but she was gone nonetheless. It seemed perfectly in order for me to hold Helga, to try and stop her tears. We needed each other more than we needed that vodka.
I don't remember much more of that night, appropriately. I don't even remember the next morning, to tell you the truth – I remember hearing from Gerald that Rhonda's mother found Helga and I locked up in the bathroom when she went in to clean around ten o'clock that morning. She walked in on us slumbering peacefully (and clothed, thank God) in her bathtub.
The day after prom was our last in high school, and Helga didn't come. I made a cameo despite a raging hangover, and then went home early. I thought about Helga all day, about the fact that my shirt was on inside out when I got home from the party, that her poisonous bubble gum scent was all over me, even parts that typically didn't see the light of day. I tried to push it out of my head.
Then Ruth McDougall showed up.
((Part Two will be posted shortly.))