Bobblehead
Esther lay in a nest of pillows and blankets on the living room floor, index finger poised above the laptop touchpad. To accept or not to accept? She would like to be done with Facebook altogether — done with the bits of undigested disappointments it throws her way, the pictures of fair-weather friends and their beautiful children. But she has trouble letting go.
The worst is Wade, who guilted her into friending him after she asked him to move out and he was on the verge of a breakdown. When he was feeling better, he started posting every day. And who wants to see a picture of their ex every single day?
No one.
Still, she cannot bring herself to un-friend him. And neither can she rid herself of Facebook. There are a few old friends she actually still likes out there and some good photography. And she’s always curious to see what might wash up on faraway shores.
Like the guy she knew in college who thought being a Troubadour was a viable career choice. He’s now working in a vintage record store in Vancouver. The Tarot reader who lived in a barn raising goats is married to a fisherman in Nova Scotia, and already a grandmother. The acid-head who preached on corners that Jerry Garcia was God is running a chapter of Jews for Jesus. She would not know these things were it not for Facebook.
And now a friend request from MaryLynn — she of the gleaming teeth and long limbs. Because even if you tweak your name these days — or change it completely — you might still be found.
Esther finishes off her wine, the last of the pinot. She thinks about how much bigger the room seems with all the furniture gone, and burrows deeper into her makeshift bed.
This little house, in a nondescript neighbourhood on the edge of Toronto, had taken some time to sell, but the sale had gone smoothly and she had done well. It had been smart to buy a house when she did, and to keep it in her name only. So there was something she’d done right.
The sound of a truck rattling up to the curb brings her to her feet and to the window, where she pulls back the drapes and peers out into the damp October night.
A picker, she thinks. Good. She wants someone to adopt the old rocker she put out. After all it’s been through, it deserves a good home.
But she knows that antiques are out of fashion. And sure enough, a young man leaps from his pickup, takes a quick look at the rocker, and the box of junk next to it, then gets right back in and drives away.
The rocker sat damaged in the basement for a long time. It had been her grandmother’s, then her mother’s, and then hers. She could still see her grandmother sitting by the window in the old house, slowly rocking, embroidery resting in her lap as she waited — sometimes in vain— for her husband to come home. Her mother had rocked in it too, in the house Esther grew up in, pretending to do crosswords as she waited for Esther’s father.
But the rocker would have no place in Esther’s sleek new condo downtown.
She holds the drapes open, contemplating the last of the leaves still clinging to the tree across the street. Pieces of racoon-ravaged jack-o-lanterns lay scattered over sidewalks and lawns. It’s the night after Halloween, and there is a taste of the long winter ahead.
She lets the drapes fall back into place, gets back down into her bed, ignores the friend request and continues to scroll.
===
MaryLynn, her childhood bestie, was the first person Esther had truly loved. She was tall, lithe and blonde, with loads of personality. Now there’s a word — personality — that you don’t hear much anymore, Esther thinks. Unless it’s in the context of a personality disorder of some sort. There seem to be lots of those now.
Esther was the shorter and rounder of the two girls — the sidekick — pretty, but not beautiful, a bit self-conscious, the serious girl others came to with their problems.
But she had not been jealous of MaryLynn’s beauty or her popularity. What she had been jealous of was her friend’s sophisticated parents. Bill and Betty wore stylish clothes, discussed politics, read challenging books and took their family on far-flung vacations. When she thinks of them, Esther can still hear the clink of Bill’s ice swirling in his scotch as he read the afternoon paper before dinner. She can still see Betty offering hors d’oeuvres on pretty trays. Stuffed olives. Tasty spreads and exotic cheeses. Artfully shaped crackers.
Alcohol was verboten at Esther’s house; and no one even tried to pronounce hors d’oeuvres.
She had always thought there was something odd about how MaryLynn hovered around her father, who always said that if she studied hard and got good grades she could go to a good university back east and not be forced to attend the state college as he had been. He said that with her good looks she could accomplish anything, become anyone she wanted to be. Just look at Marilyn Monroe, he liked to say — how far she had gotten on looks alone.
Esther’s parents, in contrast, urged her to excel in typing and shorthand so that she could get a job and save money in case she wanted to take some college courses. And she did, in fact, learn to type. Eighty words per minute, no errors.
How the boys worshipped MaryLynn— whispering and smirking when she walked by, making awkward adolescent attempts at sexual innuendo. Sometimes they gave Esther notes to deliver.
But MaryLynn had eyes only for Christopher, a tall, sinewy seventh grader with deep brown eyes and a shock of hair that fell alluringly over his forehead. He didn’t live in the best part of town, but his lack of expensive clothing and spending money was more than made up for by his confidence and swarthy good looks.
So there was much gossip when, as the school year ended, he could be seen riding his bike up and down MaryLynn’s street, while she lounged on her sprawling front porch pretending to read magazines, her long legs stretched out before her, crossed alluringly at the ankles.
Sometimes she looked up and rewarded him with a wide smile, revealing her shiny perfect teeth. While Christopher may have found this encouraging, Esther, from the shadows, secretly thought this broad smile made MaryLynn look like an animal getting ready to bite.
The girls were all set for a summer of ice cream and intimacy, boy-spotting and gossip. But then came the devastating news that MaryLynn’s family would be spending the summer in London.
The day before the family left, Esther and MaryLynn sat on the big front porch gouging their fingertips with safety pins, then rubbing them together in an age-old pubescent ritual.
Swear on your life that we will be blood sisters forever, MaryLynn had commanded. And Esther had solemnly sworn.
Abandoned, Esther holed up in her room listening to Simon and Garfunkel LPs and surviving on sweets. But then one day, tired of her mother’s nagging, she worked up the nerve to venture out to the park.
Kids from school— Christopher among them— were playing touch football and asked her to join.
Then one time when she was running with the ball Christopher landed on top of her, resting there longer than seemed necessary, pressing her body into the damp grass, changing everything.
After the game he rode her home on his bicycle — she balancing precariously on the crossbar, he enveloping her in his smooth tanned arms.
Her mother, who had been watching out the window, was angry about her riding on a boy’s bike and demanded to know how she got grass stains on her shorts. When Esther refused to answer she was sent back to her room, which suited her just fine. What her mother thought didn’t matter. And MaryLynn may as well have gone to Mars. There was only Christopher now.
Soon, he was coasting past her house daily, craning his neck to see if she was outside.
Not having much of a front porch to sit on, Esther developed a sudden interest in yard work— and was careful to look intent on weeding or mowing without working up a sweat that would smudge her makeup or muss her carefully curated bangs.
Christopher began stopping on the sidewalk in front of her house to say hello. And to offer her rides to the park. Things were going pretty well between them— until MaryLynn got home at the end of the summer. Someone must have tipped her off immediately because she was cool when she visited Esther to present her with a souvenir. It took her no time at all to find a new best friend — a girl they used to say was stuck up — and to transfer her affections to Richie Sparks.
Richie lacked Christopher’s swarthy good looks, but was handsome in a conventional square-jawed sort of way. And he was much better at sports.
Meanwhile, Esther and Christopher had been able to share a first kiss before his father announced that he was moving the family somewhere Out West, for more opportunity.
===
Now, Esther resists the urge to check Christopher’s timeline. When she found him on Facebook, he was living in a small coastal town in California, renovating old boats. There were no women or children in his posts— only a golden retriever peering over the side of a dinghy, splashing in the water or sleeping on the dock. But she had envied him for making it to California.
She still remembers the feeling of his arms around her on that bike, the smell of his sweat, the grass stains on her shorts.
When another truck pulls up, she scrambles again to the window and parts the curtains in time to see a young man in overalls heaving the rocker onto a pile of old furniture in the back of his pickup.
Good, she thinks. It has been rescued. She hopes a new owner will patch it up and give it new life.
Her blankets and pillows are the last things left to move to the condo. Soon new people will be living here, discovering that the faucets leak and the windows rattle, that racoons are in charge on garbage night.
===
It was MaryLynn who had damaged the rocker that time she came to visit.
She was doing post-doc work at Harvard and attending a conference in Toronto. She had seen Esther’s picture in the women’s magazine she edited and had contacted her, asking if she could grab a taxi and come for a quick hello.
Esther was reluctant — her house was a mess, her relationship with Wade a worse mess and she was going nowhere at the magazine. But she had not been able to say no.
MaryLynn arrived wearing black trousers, a white dress shirt and a vintage tuxedo jacket with shiny lapels. Her hair was short and bright red, gelled into spikes that made her look like a rare tropical bird. There were the long limbs and gleaming teeth.
The two old friends, girls no longer, sat in the living room — Esther on the couch and MaryLynn on the rocker — “catching up.”
I remember this chair, MaryLynn had laughed, from your mother’s house back home. I can’t believe you still have it!
She talked about her doctoral thesis, which was about discrimination faced by women in the arts. How she had gotten tenure and decided to keep teaching even though money was no longer an issue after her father died.
She became increasingly excited as she talked, waving her long arms around like weapons. Then she planted her heavy boots on the rocker's worn leather seat and hugged her knees to her chest.
Esther told how, after following a boy to Canada, she took some English and journalism classes and had ended up writing for the magazine. She saw no reason to say she had started out typing there and had worked her way up.
It’s sort of a fashion and lifestyle magazine, no? MaryLynn asked, rocking faster. I mean from what I could tell. I saw your piece on how to manage stress by eating right, sleeping well and exercising.
Yep, Esther said. That was me. Nothing like what you’ve been doing, of course. But it’s fun. And I hope to write about more substantive issues as time goes on.
She told how she was living with a guy named Wade she had met in a journalism course and how he had dropped out of school to start a construction business that wasn’t going well.
What’s that like? MaryLynn asked. Living with a man?
Well, Esther said, it has its ups and down. I mean like everything else.
After her second glass of wine she confessed that she couldn’t have children, and that that was a sore point between them.
MaryLynn stopped rocking and grew serious.
I was in love with a boy, once, she said, gripping the rocker’s arms. When we were girls. Maybe you remember? She paused for a moment, then said, but you were my first love.
Esther remembered the blood on her fingertips.
MaryLynn regarded her for a moment, then started to hoist herself up and lean forward.
That’s when one of her heavy boots went through the rocker’s leather seat, and she got stuck there, struggling to get free.
Oh my God, she said. I didn’t mean to … I just ….
Suddenly, Wade came barreling in through the front door.
He was a tall man — not fat, but big — the kind of guy who took up a lot of space. He was still good looking, as he had been when Esther first met him, but his drinking had made him puffy and red-faced.
He stood looking at MaryLynn in astonishment as she tried to work her leg back up through the punctured leather seat.
Hey, he said to Esther, who’s this? Your new boyfriend?
MaryLynn stopped struggling and gave him a patronizing smile.
This is MaryLynn, Esther said. You know, my childhood friend? I'm sure you remember me telling you about her.
Well, Hello there, MaryLynn, he said with exaggerated politeness. Would you like some help freeing your leg from the rocker?
Esther excused herself and went to the kitchen to check on the beef stew simmering on the stove. It was a recipe she had always liked, passed down from her grandmother through her mother. But now it embarrassed her. If she had known MaryLynn was going to show up out of the blue, she would have planned something more elegant.
She stirred the stew, opened another bottle of wine, and grabbed a glass for Wade.
Back in the living room, she saw that MaryLynn had successfully extracted her leg and was sitting on the couch with Wade — somewhat closer than necessary, Esther thought. She filled their glasses and pulled up a chair.
===
Dawn now. Esther rises and goes back to the window to see if the rocker had really been taken away, or if she had merely dreamed it. She thinks about how she had forgiven MaryLynn for destroying it — had even forgiven her for staying in Toronto long enough to lure Wade up to her hotel room. Esther was by that time tired of arguing with him about getting married and adopting a child. He was on his way out, anyway.
What she had trouble understanding, was what Wade had told her later— that MaryLynn had said she slept with him to get even with Esther for stealing her boyfriend when they were girls.
What a sick-o, he had said. Using me to get back at you for something that happened when you were kids!
Esther pulls the drapes shut tight and stands for a moment looking around the empty room, then rolls up her blankets and pillows and takes them out to the car.
She is ready to go now, but unable to resist one last look at the box of junk remaining at the curb. And there on top of the old clothes and discarded books is that Bobblehead Queen — MaryLynn’s gift from London so long ago.
Esther laughs when she sees it. No one will want that stupid old thing!
And then she plucks it from the pile, wipes it off on her jacket and takes it with her into the car.
MaryLynn was, after all, the first person she had ever loved.
Susan Smith is a Toronto writer who used to be a journalist and now writes fiction. She has a few literary credentials, still likes some of her old friends and loves the word Zoetic.