Dolls

Dolls

Emergency sirens blared from our living room, filling the house and echoing into the high vaulted ceilings. Goose bumps ran across my body as I sat expectantly in front of the television set. I was certain that today was the day on General Hospital when Holly would discover her husband’s ex-wife was alive and back in Port Charles. I rearranged the cushion beneath me and crossed my legs. I held a threaded needle in one hand and cross-stitch fabric in the other. I had chosen to cross-stitch a goose today. Mother would like that. I poked the needle through the fabric, in and out, creating a gray shape with tiny x’s. I was rushing to fill in as much as possible while the commercials were on. 

Ruth stomped into the room, holding a Barbie doll by her blond hair and a pair of stone-washed Barbie jeans. She looked thoroughly defeated.

“Luke, I can’t get Catherine’s jeans on. Her legs are too sticky.”

“Sure, let me see her,” I said, my eyes still on the screen where a woman with half of her face hidden by hair skulked outside a diner, eavesdropping on Holly and her husband, Police Commissioner Robert Scorpio. I grabbed the Barbie and shimmied the pants on her. 

“Why’s that lady listening in on those people?”

“She’s supposed to be dead.”

“Will you help me with the other dolls? Only Amy has smooth legs because she’s a My First Barbie.”

“Bring them in here, but I want to hear this.”

Ruth sprinted to her room, brought back three more Barbies, two Kens, and a plastic baggie full of clothes. “I can’t get the boy pants on either.” 

“Make each doll hold what you want them to wear. I have to get three cross-stitches done before Mother gets home.” I continued to shuck dolls into slacks while Anna DeVane snuck away from the diner before she was seen. Holly felt sure that someone was watching them. Robert looked away nervously. 

“I like the spooky lady. She’s got secrets,” said Ruth.

“I’m pretty sure she’s a spy like Robert and they probably worked together in the WSB.”

“That lady is hiding a scar under her hair,” Ruth said, finger combing Catherine’s long locks.

“How do you know that?” I fastened the Velcro together on the back of Charles’s green corduroy pants. 

“I just do. Look!” Ruth pointed at the television. Anna DeVane was back at her hotel room. She shut the door, leaned against it, and sighed. She walked over to the mirror above the dresser and, looking in, lifted up her hair and frowned, revealing a long scar running down her face. I gasped. “See!” Ruth said.

The credits rolled and I stared at Ruth, surrounded by dolls and clothes. She held up Catherine and pulled half of her hair over her face. 

“Maybe I could make Catherine like that lady. I could draw on a scar.”

I grabbed the doll from her. “If Mom sees you destroying your toys, you’ll never get any more Barbies.” 

“I don’t care. You like them more than I do anyway.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but I heard a key in the door. Mom walked in, carrying groceries, her face pale and sweaty. When she looked into the house, her eyes were directly fastened to me holding the Barbie doll. 

“I see you’ve been hard at work while I’ve been away.”

“Ruth wanted help with her dolls,” I said, shoving Catherine back at my sister. She took her and pulled the hair back over her face. I rolled my eyes. I could hear Mother dropping the groceries onto the counter. 

“How many cross-stitches did you get done?” she said from the kitchen.

“Just one, almost,” I said. 

My mother came back into the living room, hands on her hips. 

“I let you two stay at home alone today since there was no school. Let you watch TV so long as you embroidered some new designs for me.” She walked over to the discarded goose and picked it up. 

“This is no good. You’ve warped the weave. I can’t sew anything around this to make pillows to sell. You know we all have to do our part now that your father is unemployed. He’s out there looking for work right now! And I come home to you playing dolls.” Her voice cracked, sharp with disappointment. 

“You don’t realize how hard I’m trying to keep us afloat. I’m working myself to death, and this,” she motioned to the Barbie, “this just makes it worse.”

“Ruth needed--”

“Ruth is completely capable of dressing her dolls herself!” Red splotches broke out on her face. Sweat beaded up along her hairline. 

Ruth gathered her plastic people and their clothes and edged out of the living room.

“No, I really can’t!” she sobbed. Then she turned and ran down the hall.

Mother sighed and went back into the kitchen. “What am I to do with you two?” she said. “Go wash your hands, Luke. You’re making dinner while I lie down.”

I walked into the kitchen and emptied the grocery bags. Mother poured herself a glass of water and drank half of it at the sink. She paused. Didn’t look at me when she said,

“Broccoli, hot dogs. Macaroni and cheese. Your father will be home in an hour.” She filled her glass again and left the kitchen.

I folded the paper grocery bags, unaware of the tears sliding down my face until they hit the brown paper. I tucked the bags under the sink and wiped my eyes. Be like Anna Devane, I told myself. Hide how you’re feeling so you can get the job done. Super spies don’t crumble under pressure. 

An hour later, Mother, Ruth and I sat at the kitchen table eating. Dad still wasn’t home. Between bites, Mother looked at the clock on the wall, her jaw tight. The house smelled of broiled hot dogs, pasta, and fake cheese, but all the food tasted the same to me.  I chewed slowly, careful not to make a sound. Ruth had no compunctions. Her fork clanged against her teeth or scraped against her plate. Surprisingly, these little noises went unnoticed by Mother. Finally, Mother plopped the last bit of broccoli into her mouth, and stood, leaving the room without a word. Ruth shrugged and wiped her plate clean with a piece of white bread. 

“I hope we can watch more General Hospital again,” she said. “I want to see if the scarred lady really is a spy.”

“Me too,” I said, picking up Mother’s plate and stacking it onto mine. 

I was washing dishes in the sink when the front door abruptly opened and my dad stepped through. As he walked in, his weight shifted unevenly from one foot to the other with an unnatural sway. He was headed in a beeline to the master bedroom when he saw me in the kitchen staring at him. He staggered over and leaned against the counter for support. That’s when I caught the sharp, sour smell of alcohol on his breath. I turned back to the dishes. The bubbles were almost gone, and the water was still greasy and brown from the hot dog pan. My dad reached out and ruffled my hair. I stood there rigid, a fox caught in a trap. 

“You’re a good boy,” he said. “You always help out your mother.” 

The smell was stronger when he talked. I turned my head away and down. My hand picked up a butter knife but it was slick and slipped out of my grasp.

“Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land,” he said, his hand sliding from my skull to down my back, resting between my shoulder blades. “That’s Exodus, you remember that?”

I shook my head, pulled out the plug from the sink. The water escaped in a loud rush. The sound startled my father and he withdrew his hand.

“Rhinehart!” My mother’s voice reverberated down the hallway. “Can you come in here please?”

My Dad sighed and looked around at the air, his body sagging toward the floor. He placed both hands behind him, palms flat upon the counter and heaved himself up. 

“Well, the cat’s out of the bag,” he said. 

Mother barreled into the kitchen. 

“Luke, go play with your sister. I need to have a word with your father.”

“But I haven’t finished the dishes--”

“Go! I want you to keep her occupied. She has her dolls out again.”

“But you said I wasn’t supposed--”

“As long as you play dolls with your sister, it’s okay. Now leave.”

I lolled my head from side to side. It bothered me to leave the dishes undone. I liked the feel of a clean kitchen at the end of the day. I took one last glance before I turned the corner. My father’s head dangled from his neck, a disconnected satellite. He was smiling at my mother, half sheepish, half wolf. Her body was tense, her stance rigid. 

“I cannot believe this!” she said.

I ran to Ruth’s room and shut the door behind me. 

“Dad’s home,” she said, her dolls arrayed around her in a sunburst pattern. A few of the dolls held brightly colored animals in their arms.

“What’s going on with Catherine and Charles? Did they adopt the Care Bears?”

“They babysit them sometimes.”

The voices of our parents echoed in the background, my mother demanding, my father placating. 

“I see they’re still wearing the same outfits.” 

“I don’t like dressing them.” 

“But they’re fashion dolls,” I said, picking up my favorite, a platinum blond Barbie that I’d named Crystal. She was resplendent in peach chiffon and a sparkly vinyl bodice. 

The voices of our parents grew louder, but their words unintelligible, masked by the plaster walls. There was a clatter of dishes, a chair sliding to the ground.   

“I don’t want them to wear clothes,” said Ruth, her face resolute. “I want to play with them like this,” she said, stripping the Ken doll of his shirt and pants. She held him up in the air, waved him back and forth. He was a shiny peach award, arms akimbo, smiling at all the world, completely indifferent to his situation. Lucky guy. Ruth threw Charles to the the carpet and snatched up Catherine, had her nude within seconds. She tossed Amy at me. 

“Here. Help.”

“Seriously? They aren’t going to wear anything?”

“No,” she said, her face manic with glee. “They are going to have a naked party.” She laughed and grabbed Derek.

“Ruth, this isn’t--”

Ruth leaned over to me and whispered under her breath. “They’re mine. And this is what I want to do with them. I’ll let you play models later.”

I let out a deep breath. “Fine. But this is too weird.”

A few minutes later Ruth had all the dolls naked and lined up against the dollhouse. 

She clapped her hands, taking it all in. “They’re free!” she said.

Without clothes, the doll smiles were even more vacant, even more oblivious. It disturbed me. I glanced around the room for something to adorn them. I spotted a bunch of plastic eggs leftover from Ruth’s Easter basket and brought them over. Ruth had two Barbies in the air, their legs splayed wide and their pelvic mounds touching. She banged them together over and over. 

“Ha ha!” she cried.

I grimaced. “Hey! If it’s a party then they should at least have party hats, right? That would make sense!” I cracked open a blue egg and placed the round half on a Ken doll’s head, put the more oval end on a Barbie. “See? Much more festive!”

Ruth smiled. “Yes. They can wear hats. Only hats.” She cracked open a plastic egg and put them on the dolls she’d been scissoring. She laughed. I hadn’t heard anything from the rest of the house in a while and was feeling a little more relaxed. Ruth’s excitement was infectious. It was a delight to see her so animated. It seemed like a special occasion. 

“The naked Easter party is a success!” she said, crowing at the top of her lungs. I smiled. We took turns parading the dolls around the dollhouse in a circle. 

Ruth’s bedroom door opened. My mother stood there, her mouth and her eyes wide, larger than I thought capable. Ruth had a naked Barbie in each hand. They both wore a brightly colored egg shell and their faces were touching in a simulated kiss, smacking sounds provided by my sister. I was holding a naked Ken doll topped with an orange egg shell as he did the splits with his arms raised up. Mother’s hand was covering her mouth. Her face lost all of its color. 

“Stop!” She swooped in and grabbed the dolls from my sister and tossed them across the room. An egg shell cracked as it absorbed the impact with the wall. I dropped the Ken doll as if it were hot to the touch. Mother’s face grew red, her words choked out of her as she stared me down.

“Go. To. Your. Room. Now. Don’t let me see your face until morning.” 

My father peered into the room from behind my mother. “What’s the matter?” He placed his hand on her shoulder, but she immediately shrugged it off.

“Maybe if you stuck around long enough you’d notice what goes on under your own roof!” 

“They’re just playing dolls,” he said.

“Sex games with dolls!” she yelled.

“That’s not true!” I said, then I wondered if I was lying. Was being naked the same as sex? The Ken dolls didn’t have penises. They didn’t even have nipples. 

“No TV for a week!” she said, as I squeezed past her, “And I don’t want to see you even looking at her dolls again!” Ruth started to cry. “And you, young lady, don’t even think I don’t know what you are up to!”

Later, once everyone had gone to bed, my father came into my room, wearing his pajamas, smelling of soap and fabric softener. He sat down on the edge of my bed. 

“You okay, champ?” he said, running his hand over my forehead, the skin on his palm coarse and dry. I nodded. “Your mom lets little things upset her. Best not to worry about it.” He smiled and patted my chest. I watched him exit my room, a shadow framed by the hall light. I curled up into a ball and hid under my pillow. My mind travelled back to General Hospital. Holly and Anna were going to meet this week and Robert would have a lot of explaining to do.

~SA