Charlie Zelnick's dream girl, Angela Martin, punishes the boys who toilet-papered her house.

Chapter 4

Spinsters and Knitters in the Sun

"I caught a thin bat's squeak of
sexuality, inaudible to any but me."
--Evelyn Waugh

Seven inches of snow fell on Hydrangea overnight. Because it was such an aerobic workout, Angela usually shoveled her front walk and her patio herself, but today, she was standing at her patio door watching Brian and Scott pitching snow at a giant mound of the white sticky stuff.
Behind her, sitting at the kitchen table paging through a Victoria Secret catalogue, her little sister Margie rattled on and on about her new baby Wanda. "Only eight months old and already walking with a bit of an assist from Tim," Margie enthused.
Angela braced her hand against the door jamb. "What would possess Brian to throw eggs at my house? I used to babysit him. Doesn't he know how hard it is to remove egg stains?"
"He does now I'd suspect," Margie said.
"That boy isn't wearing his overshoes," Angela said. "I should make him go home and get them."
Margie flipped the catalogue closed, crossed the kitchen, and put her hand on Angela's shoulder. "Why don't you come for dinner tonight? You haven't been over in months."
Angela turned to look at her sister. "I get the feeling Tim would rather I didn't."
Margie shrugged, as if she couldn't deny it. She was shivering; her hands were blue, with venous blotches on her legs and arms. "It's like a meat locker in here; I swear you were an Eskimo in a previous life."
"I'll get you a cup of tea. Do you suppose it was some kind of teenagerish thing? Like showing off for the girls in the locker banks?"
"They're boys, Angie. Even Tim can be a Neanderthal when he gets around his hunting buddies." Margie blew the hair out of her eyes.
She needed a haircut. Angela had always cut it for her--she envied the girl that auburn color and the bob hairstyle that framed her face so well. So easy to care for.
"Maybe it's Brian's father," Angela said. She took her hand off the door jamb, moved to the stove, got the tea kettle, poured two cups and brought them to the kitchen table where Margie had returned to paging through the catalogue. "He's a peculiar man. Very cold and uncommunicative; when I walk by their house, he'll be out in the yard shoveling snow, and when I say hello, he squints at me as if I were some kind of meddling fool."
Margie sipped her tea. "Kind of like Dad, huh?"
Angela sat next to Margie, blew on her tea, tested it with a spoon, then drank. "Exactly. Did you know Daddy killed my dog? I had this little black and white spaniel."
"Angie, you've told me this story a hundred times. Daddy shot your dog for chasing cows at night."
"Sporty didn't know any better. He was an ideal sidekick for a feisty young girl. We'd get up at dawn and head for the woods. We'd ice skate on the creek, sit under a tree and listen to a red-winged blackbird sing. Too bad you never got to experience living on a farm."
"Get over it. I never even had a dog when I was little."
"That's about all you never had."
Angela glanced out the window to check on the boys. Brian had Scott in a headlock, washing his face with snow. She was about to storm out there and break it up when Brian let Scott go and they returned to shoveling.
"Brian was such a sweet baby," Angela said. "Kind of like a kitten; so cute when it's little, and then, when it grows up, it stalks song birds. Somebody needs to care about those boys!"
"I swear Angie, you're get more eccentric every day. Don't you go fussing over somebody else's problem."
"Children need role models. Did I ever tell you about my country schoolteacher, Miss Shepherd?"
Margie rolled her eyes. Angela didn't care; it did her good to talk about Miss Shepherd.
"The school was only a mile from the farm, and before Daddy murdered him, Sporty used to trot along with me most of the way. I'd stay after school and dust erasers, and afterwards, Miss Shepherd would give me books to read like Little Women and The Scarlet Letter. I didn't like them at first, but when I discussed them with Miss Shepherd, I realized why they were so much better than Forever Amber, which I'd been reading on my own."
"You're living in the past, Angie. I'm going to set you up with Tim's partner in his accounting firm. He's divorced
but . . ." "I could never date a divorced man," Angela said.
The boys were finishing up out there, making a horrible racket, scraping the shovels over the bare cement. Angela pushed back her chair, stepped toward the cupboard, where she found the Hershey's chocolate mix. It was time to forgive. They were just boys. Everybody had some good in them after all.
Margie grabbed her coat off a hook by the door, pulled her purple watch cap down over her ears.
"You find something wrong with all of them, Angie. I've got to go pick up Wanda at Mabel Blowser's. If I leave the kid over there too long, she'll pick up some awful bad habits. Like cooking and sewing. I'll call you later."
They hugged and Margie left.
Angela poked her head out the back door, calling the boys in. She was somewhat leery of the impending discussion. What would she do if they told her they'd trashed her yard because they thought she was weird? Everybody thought she was weird. Weird like Miss Shepherd.
Once she'd asked Miss Shepherd why she wasn't married. Miss Shepherd'd said she wasn't really sure. "Maybe because I'd have to give up some of myself if I got married. Some little part of my personality would die. And I couldn't see being married to an insurance salesman or a hardware store owner. The man I marry will have to have a special calling, like Charles Dickens. I've never met anyone who had that kind of ambition. I guess I'm an incurable romantic."
Angela had told her mother about what Miss Shepherd had said, and she'd talked to her father that night at the supper table about sending Angela to the school in town.
The boys tromped into the kitchen, wiping their shoes on the braided rug by the back door.
"Sit down there at the table, boys," Angela said. "I want to talk to you before you go, but we'll have some hot chocolate first. It's awfully cold for early November, don't you think?"
The boys sat down, staring at the chalk-white tablecloth, apparently waiting for the sword to drop.
Angela found the tiny marshmallows and poured hot water into two large mugs, then stirred in the chocolate mix.
"How are you two boys doing in school? Are you out for athletics?" Still no answer. She set the mugs down in front of the boys and tousled Brian's hair. "Did you know I used to babysit you, Brian?"
"I think Ma said something about that once. Look, Miss Martin. This wasn't my idea. I tried to talk Scott out of this since you was my neighbor and all."
Brian took a sip of his hot chocolate, peeked out of the corner of his eye to see if she was buying any of this. Angela wanted to take back his hot chocolate, and the tousle.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Scott?"
"We had to do it. You didn't pay the insurance. Everybody else paid the insurance." He had green eyes, slightly crossed.
Angela sat down at the table, running her hand over the tablecloth to even out a wrinkle. "So then, Scott, you don't see any cowardice in sneaking around in the dark of night, destroying what I worked so hard to make look nice?" Angela reached across the table and grasped Scott's wrist, trying to take on the intimidating presence of Sister Mary Angelica, her teacher after Miss Shepherd.
Sister Mary Angelica was mean as a rabid raccoon. She made Angela sit in the back of the room, and she called people names. The girls were all "Miss Snippy" or "Mary Jane." She favored the boys.
Angela let go of Scott's wrist. She didn't really want to be like Sister Mary Angelica. It was bad enough having almost the same name. She crossed her arms. "I'm not going to let you boys get away with vandalizing my property. Now, I want you to tell me what you're going to do about it."
"But we already cleaned it up," Scott said, "and we shoveled your snow and everything. Ain't that enough?"
"It's never going to be enough, Scott," she said. "That is unless you want me to file charges. You'll do jail time." Angela knew very well they'd most likely wind up on probation. She was hoping the boys would show some true contrition, but she'd hated making that threat. Threats antagonize people, make them want to fight back.
"Say, Angela, did you hear about the kidnapping?" Brian said. "That Dorie Bendix, the one that used to be on the Alexandria TV station. She got taken."
That poor girl. Some people were born under a dark cloud. First the crib death and now this. "Don't change the subject. I want you two back here next week same time until you can think of a way to make this up to me."
"Yes, Miss Martin," Brian said. "We'll be here. We're real sorry. It was stupid."
They went out the back door, sliding across the ice. Scott slipped and fell headfirst into a snowbank. Angela laughed, then bit her lip. Falling on the ice wasn't funny. Just like everything, Angela thought. The snow had two sides, so beautiful during the first snow fall, then turning to slippery hip-breaking ice. So what was the good she could get out of this experience? Perhaps a poem?
Miss Shepherd had shown Angela her own poems. One was about the ghosts of children long gone who attended the one-room schoolhouse; another had to do with a man who tried to build a tower to the sky to touch God; and there was one about flowers who talked to each other. Angela thought they were wonderful.
Angela rinsed the empty cups of cocoa in the sink, thought about calling Miss Shepherd to tell her about Scott and Brian, and maybe Dorie Bendix. When the one-room schoolhouse closed, Miss Shepherd took a job in Brainerd, about thirty miles north of Hydrangea. Angela still wrote letters to Miss Shepherd and went to see her once a year or so. She no longer wrote poetry and had burned the ones she'd written. She wouldn't tell Angela why. She seemed like a different woman, rather bitter and aloof, but Angela couldn't let her go. Angela dialed her friend Dottie instead, her girlfriend ever since PE class in high school.
Dottie answered on the first ring. She always did, probably afraid the caller would hang up and she'd miss something. Angela could see her sprinting across the kitchen, very fleet for someone who weighed close to two hundred fifty pounds, to catch the phone after the first ring. The woman didn't trust answering machines; she had an extension in every room of the house, including her outsized bathroom, where she kept the ton of make-up she always wore.
"Do you remember Dorie Billmeyer, Dottie?"
"Wasn't she the one involved in that crib death? Little Jimmy Musielewicz?"
"Yes, there was that, but she's working in broadcasting now, and she's been kidnapped. I always thought that girl would go far."
"So did they catch the guy? I'll bet it's somebody she knows. Isn't it always somebody they know?"
"I'll have to ask Charles Zelnick about it. He was her teacher," she said, shifting the phone to her other ear. She reached over and shut the gas off under the tea kettle.
"Better watch out there, Angie. Everybody knows he's sweet on you . . ."
Angela stopped listening. She hated being teased about Charles Zelnick. He asked her out at least once a year, and she always had to turn him down. He was so awfully skittish around her. If she went out with him, the Earth would spin backwards, she'd be so bored. During that eventful year with the cruel nun, Angela had noticed Charles Zelnick watching her. She remembered Sister Mary Angelica seemed to take pleasure in making fun of him. Because all of his compositions were about baseball, the misanthropic nun tagged him "Mr. Ted Williams," the only baseball player she knew. Charles never knew the answer when Sister called on him; he seemed paralyzed.
"Angela, are you still there?" Dottie said.
"Where would I go?" she said.
"Guess who I saw this morning at the supermarket?" Angela couldn't guess. "Bobby Taylor, you remember Bobby Taylor, God's gift to the fair sex?"
Angela shuddered, a feeling of melancholy descending on her, like a Mama Cass muumuu. "Who did you say it was?"
"Bobby Taylor. Aren't you feeling well, Angela?"
"I'm fine. Bobby and I went on a date once. My first."
"I don't remember that," Dottie said. "I don't remember you dating anyone at all."
"Maybe it was before I knew you. My sophomore year, we went to see Viva Las Vegas starring Elvis Presley and Ann Margaret. Bobby was a guard on the basketball team and I--"
"Twenty points a game. I was one of the cheerleaders, I should know."
"You were a cheerleader?"
"Sarcasm does not become you, Angelique. All the girls were slavering over him. He had blond hair, combed back in a ducktail, but somehow avoided the greasy-kid-stuff look."
"True. True. I remember Bobby bought me popcorn and a large coke at the concession counter where Cindy Pryor was working. The girl could not conceal her enviousness."
"I'll bet he tried to kiss you and you fractured his skull with your purse."
"Not exactly. We held hands during the movie; he had awfully sweaty palms." That was downplaying it some; holding hands with Bobby Taylor was akin to playing spin-the-bottle with her cousins. "Afterwards we went to the Coffee Cup and had cheeseburgers. We talked about my plan to graduate after my junior year. I remember at that time I'd been thinking of joining the convent."
"You didn't tell him you wanted to be a nun! Tell me you didn't."
"When he took me home, I figured I'd better kiss him good night. A little peck on the lips wouldn't hurt; but it wasn't a little peck on the lips. He tried to put his tongue in my mouth."
"You are such a prude. If it'd been me, I'd've been the one trying to put my tongue in his mouth. Did he ever ask you out again?"
"I thought he'd badmouth me with the other boys, but he called and called and I kept telling him that I'd have to ask my parents, who were never home. Finally he got the hint."
"I hate you, Angelique."
"What's Bobby doing these days?" she said.
After that date she began to think that maybe it was just Bobby. Maybe she'd be attracted to another boy. She agreed to go to the prom with Steve Mercer, a senior who would most likely be his class's valedictorian. Same thing only worse; he'd had a chipped tooth, and when he'd kissed her good night, he'd cut her lip. No boy or man excited her the way they did the other girls, not even James Dean or Marlon Brando.
"Angela, you space cadet. I already told you Bobby is a football coach in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Would you believe he teaches math? Remember the coach had to beg Father Alquin to change his Algebra grade that time?"
Father Alquin had been the most effeminate man Angela had ever seen. After the Steve incident, she began to worry about her sexual preference. But that couldn't be. She was repulsed by the other girls' bodies when she showered after PE.
"That doesn't surprise me. I suppose when he couldn't make the college team, he got serious, just like the rest of us."
"So you dumped Bobby Taylor. You're worse than I thought."
"I was so confused about sex in those days."
"If you ask me, I'd say you're still confused about sex. Why don't you take Stanley up on his little overtures?"
"Something about adultery bothers me; then there's always the worry that if he'd cheat on his wife he'd cheat on me."
"The way I hear it that marriage is already history."
"That's another reason for me to mind my p's and q's. I don't want to be cited as the ‘other woman' in divorce court."
"That would hilarious; I'd pay money to see that."
When Dottie finally hung up, Angela inspected the kitchen wall. She'd painted it a nice eggshell white. She gave it a new coat once a year, whether it needed it or not. Little things meant a lot when you lived alone. It could use a few appliques, maybe different colored butterflies. Angela went to the closet to get her overshoes. She had to be at the insurance office in twenty minutes or so. Stanley had given her the morning off.
Stanley Truex, her boss, now there was an attractive man, too young, but very beautiful, with his rolled up sleeves and the chest hair peeking out over his T-shirt; Stanley never wore a tie. And he smelled like English Leather. Angela's age didn't seem to bother Stanley. She knew she didn't look any fifty-one, but she couldn't see why a man in his thirties would have any interest in her; yet, he was always touching her and bumping into her accidentally on purpose; it was enough to file a harassment suit.
She'd have to confess this to the priest, even flirtation with Stanley was a violation of the sixth commandment. Religion had been ingrained in Angela since she'd been a little girl. She still had the little magnetic statue of The Blessed Virgin she'd won in one of Sister Mary Angelica's spelling bees. It was one of her favorite things, although it was probably worth only about fifty cents. It glowed in the dark, and she kept it by her night stand.
Despite her attractive boss, Angela was dissatisfied with her job. Stanley would not let her sell policies. He said she was too valuable as an office manager and receptionist. Maybe she could apply at the Shopper full-time. She'd been writing a gardening column for several years and had always loved to write. Mrs. Zelnick, who also belonged to her garden club, complained about her unreliable son.
#
Angela bought a newspaper in the stand outside the American Family Insurance Office, tucked it under her arm, and turned the key in the door. When she looked up, she could see Stanley ambling down the street, heading her way. He'd been drinking again.  

MENGELE'S DOUBLE is a work in progress. Comments appreciated. A completed novel by Dave Schwinghammer, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Amazon.com.