Haywire by Brooke Hayward (android based ebook reader .txt) 📕

source of embarrassment to me. “Now, look,” she’d say consolingly, “I understand how awkward it is to make explanations about being a nonconformist, I really do. But you have a perfectly legitimate excuse: blame me. Tell your friends that I’m eccentric, old-fashioned, whatever you wish.…” Of course, that was a specious argument since my identity was totally wrapped up in hers, but I couldn’t articulate that. Besides, I was awed by her code of ethics, her skill at defending it, and her contempt for external opinion. I admired her even at my own expense. Once she took a position, she never yielded it. We found that the best way to get around her was deviously. J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the biggest best-seller of its time, was forbidden to me because, Mother maintained, it was so convincing, so contemporary a piece of writing it would seduce me. Into what I couldn’t determine without reading it, so I filched a copy from Father, who was desperately trying to buy the movie rights. It remained hidden in my underwear drawer for years.

A Streetcar Named Desire, with my beloved Brando, was another example. Too provocative, she said, too overstimulating for someone my age to handle emotionally. All my friends went to the Saturday matinée at the Pickwick Theatre without me. (Ironically, Irene Selznick had offered my mother the role of Blanche du Bois in the original Broadway play, but on Father’s advice she’d turned it down, another reason for my interest; Mother, however, was not to be swayed by that rationale.)

Had she ever been young and crazy and susceptible to ill-considered escapades? Heedless? Flighty? Had she ever been awakened in the middle of the night by pebbles thrown at her window? Rocky Fawcett used to climb up the tree by the side of the house, I’d wriggle out the casement, and we’d recline side by side on the sloping shingles of the roof until dawn, Rocky with a six-pack of beer and I with my heart in my mouth at the idea of what my punishment would be if either our German shepherd or Elizabeth heard us whispering. Had Mother ever eaten a live centipede? On a ten-dollar bet, I’d chewed and swallowed one during the intermission of the school’s annual modern-dance program at the Greek amphitheatre; crunch, crunch; the audience was riveted. “Oh, my God!” hissed Mother. “Why do you always do these things for effect?” Had she, on a dare, ever boldly courted the town prostitute, rung the doorbell of her small frame house, admired her bottle of Chanel No. 5, and talked her into buying tickets for the school production of The Pirates of Penzance? This resulted in my being called into the principal’s office again. “Brooke, dear,” said Miss Campbell, with a sigh, “I have here a check for four dollars made out to the Greenwich Academy and signed ‘Patsy Pine.’ Is this—em—a valid signature?” “Yes, Miss Campbell.” “How did you happen to obtain this—woman’s signature?” “Well, Miss Campbell, during lunch hour I thought I’d apply myself to winning the ticket contest, so—” “Brooke, dear, I’m going to ask you to return this check: we can’t have people like Miss Pine at school functions. You know what I mean.” “But, Miss Campbell, she lives all alone and has no friends.” “I’m sorry, Brooke, I can’t bend school policy because Miss Pine is lonely.”

Had Mother ever been an intrepid shoplifter? Not likely. I, on the other hand, was celebrated among my friends for my cool savoir-faire when it came to scooping up scarves—as many as twelve at once—from the counter at Woolworth’s and exiting the store without any telltale ends peeping through my fingers. Once, finding myself penniless on Mother’s Day, I enjoyed the pleasant irony of shoplifting the biggest potted plant I could carry out Woolworth’s front entrance (not only to take home to Mother, but to satisfy my theory that, by exuding an air of complete authority, anyone could get away with anything).

Had Mother ever lain awake half the night dreaming about how Marlon Brando would make his first appearance in a green M.G., tires grinding up the gravel (I could definitely hear them if I listened carefully); how he would charge up the front stairs, brushing aside our dog’s vicious attack, and gather me up in his arms? “Goodbye, everyone!” I would cry with glorious abandon, and out we would sweep to the M.G., never to return. Had Mother ever really been in love?

Had she loved Father madly, impetuously? Bridget, Bill, and I wanted it to be so. We badly and unrealistically wanted to believe that if Father came to the house for a visit, there might be some reconciliation between them. On one occasion we thought we might actually see them together in the same room again.

“Your father is driving out here Friday night,” announced Mother. “Kenneth talked to him this morning, and he said to tell you girls he’d be delighted to take you to the Father-Daughter Dance at the Academy.”

“Ooh, goody,” we said, thinking we’d set up a foolproof encounter.

“He’s coming early so he can spend some time with Bill, too,” went on Mother. “You know how to offer him a drink and so on; Kenneth and I have made plans to go out to dinner that night.”

“At six o’clock in the evening?” asked Bridget.

“Oh, come on, Mother,” I said, exasperated. “Stop running away. He won’t bite you. You act as if he’s Heathcliff.”

“Good God!” Mother clutched her throat melodramatically. “It’s physically impossible for me to have the simplest, most prosaic conversation with Leland, but to have to be charming, here in my own house? I’m much too cowardly. Within minutes all my good intentions and control would desert me. No, Kenneth and I will go out to dinner.”

As much as she liked to congratulate herself on her ability to refrain from open hostility, once after I accused her of making Father inaccessible to us, she replied, “Your father’s one of