Things I'm Seeing Without You Page 11

  This all changed when I found Mamie.

  ‘Tilly!’ she called to me, when I showed up.

  ‘Hi, Mamie,’ I said.

  I didn’t correct her about my name. Though, what my dad said about her lucidity flashed through my brain.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘It’s my day in the salon. I’ve got to get my hair set!’

  She took me down to the on-site hair salon, and soon her head was full of pink curlers. I wasn’t sure how to start talking to her about her funeral. But she jumped right in. Before we could move forward with the planning, she said, I needed to know something about burlesque. So Mamie Lee started to tell her story.

  ‘I left Minnesota for Hollywood first,’ she said. ‘But after doing some work in the chorus lines, a promoter saw me and thought I’d be good for his club in New York. He told me I could have top billing if I didn’t mind showing a little more.’

  She blushed, but just for a second.

  ‘You have to understand, though, Tilly. It’s not like it is now with girls showing everything down there and working on greasy poles. It was glamorous! A show. And it was about the tease. At Minsky’s, I once took two whole minutes to remove a glove! The guys went crazy for it. They jumped out of their seats! What do you think happened when they saw my bazooms?!’

  I started recording Mamie on my cell phone camera, so I could remember some of this. I focused on the little flip of her white hair with her manicured hand. If she noticed me recording, she didn’t seem to care.

  ‘There were a lot of men,’ she went on. ‘But I never went in for the comedians. I was into the sax players myself. They wailed on the stuff that got us going crazy. And there was this one player who was so nervous around me. I used to look him in the eye while he was playing and wait for him to miss a note. Once I left my nipple petals on his dressing-room door. He was just a boy, really. I missed him when I quit performing, but I never did talk to him again.’

  ‘Why’d you give it up?’ I asked.

  For a moment, Mamie looked like a statue of herself, sitting there, completely still. Then she spoke out of the corner of her mouth.

  ‘It wasn’t really my choice, sweetie,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t make the jump to the movies. Couldn’t act for a damn.’

  ‘But you could have still danced, right?’

  The skinny blonde doing her hair spritzed Mamie’s curls with a spray bottle. The sunlight caught the mist and made it glow around her head.

  Mamie didn’t answer my question.

  ‘Do you still have your old costumes and everything?’ I asked.

  Mamie waved her hand like she was shooing away a fly.

  ‘I sent what was left to Exotic Land, years ago.’

  I watched her eyes droop closed in the long salon mirror.

  ‘Exotic Land?’

  ‘Burlesque Hall of Fame out there in Vegas. They got Sheri Champagne’s ashes, I hear. And Jane Mansfield’s sofa, shaped like a heart.’

  ‘Have you kept in touch with any of the girls?’

  She shook her head. I saw Mamie’s eyes go moist. The hairdresser glared at me.

  ‘We try to keep them from getting upset,’ she said, as if Mamie wasn’t able to hear her.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset anybody.’

  I shut off my phone. But Mamie spoke up.

  ‘Leave it on,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I said.

  ‘Your little camera gadget. Go ahead and leave it on if you want. It’s OK.’

  She turned towards the hairdresser.

  ‘You can set me in a minute, Jordan.’

  The hairdresser puffed out a breath and walked away. I turned my phone back on and levelled it on Mamie Lee’s face.

  ‘I didn’t want to give it up,’ she said. ‘There’s the truth.’

  She wiped a tear from the top of her cheekbone.

  ‘I married a man from back here, a friend of the family, and he told me I was through with it. He was real conservative. Nice enough, but manipulative. I learnt too late that’s the worst quality in a man. He wanted to reform me, I guess. That was his kick.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say no?’

  ‘I didn’t know what options I had. It was hard to get a straight job afterwards, so I came back to become a housewife. I guess I was comfortable enough, but I always regretted giving everything up so quick and not keeping up with the girls. My husband died a few years ago and left me some money. I’d like to put some of it towards something a little wicked. You understand me, Tilly?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’

  ‘I spent too much of my life being good. It’s killing me.’ I turned off my camera. I squeezed her hand and told her I would be back soon with a plan. Then I walked out of the commons, my thoughts already churning. Who would even attend Mamie’s ceremony if we could pull it off ? She told me she wasn’t close with her children and she had very little other family.

  I was driving back, playing my recording in the car, when the answer came to me. And when it did, I found myself pulling over to look up a number and make a call to a place I hoped actually existed.

  Daniel didn’t call that night. Or the night after.

  Of course, I had told him not to, but I was still surprised when he didn’t. I knew the last thing I told him had been an ultimatum of sorts. And I knew it had been abrupt. But I didn’t care. I was growing closer to yet another person I didn’t really know. And I was trying to put an end to that stage of my life.

  I’d already gone that route once and now that person, who had never really let me in, was gone for good. That’s why my computer was at the bottom of a lake, confusing the hell out of local bottom-dwellers. That’s why I was home planning funerals instead of getting a high school diploma.

  And I needed to get better, not worse. So, I decided I wouldn’t call again, even if I was tempted. I would let him go if that’s what it took. And in the meantime, I would try everything I could not to think about him.

  Instead, I would concentrate on Mamie’s funeral. Now that I’d heard her story, I knew I had to help her whether my father was on board or not. But in order to do it, I had two big problems to solve. The first was finding a venue. And the second was getting in touch with Mamie’s old friends.

  I started with the first.

  Unfortunately, my early attempts were a bust. Sunrise Commons refused to do anything related to funerals or stripping, let alone a combo of the two. Funeral homes preferred dead bodies to half-naked living ones. And community centres seemed to have a limited definition of a ‘community event’. So late that morning, I went to the only other place I could think of: a strip club.

  By noon I was standing outside of a place called Harry Palmer’s. It was a dive, which is why I chose it. I had to have a better chance at a place so run down. Also, according to horny high school boys I’d once known, HP’s was notorious about not carding. So, it came as a bit of a surprise when a man in a plaid Western shirt and a leather vest stopped me at the door.

  ‘Not so fast, honey,’ he said. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘To see some sad naked women?’ I said.

  He blinked. It appeared that he had never heard this answer before. He scrunched his thick grey eyebrows.

  ‘You have to be twenty-one,’ he muttered. ‘And all ladies need a male escort.’

  ‘I was just kidding,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see any boobs. I’m Harry’s niece. I need to talk to him.’

  The man looked deeply perplexed now. He turned around, presumably to look for Harry. The leather tassels on his vest swished.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said.

  He lumbered across the room, and entered a door to the side of the stage. Immediately, I walked into the place and took a seat at a bar, which was strung with blinking red Christmas lights. I glanced towards the stage.

  Thankfully, there weren’t any girls my age working the day shift. The women dancing seemed chosen to appeal to an older cli
entele. Both dancers – one a dyed redhead with gravity-defying fake boobs and a thin Korean woman dressed like a stereotypical schoolgirl – looked old enough to be my mom. Or my mom’s mom.

  ‘You are not related to me!’ came a voice from across the club. ‘And I don’t need any new girls. Especially not underage girls. That is not something I’m interested in.’

  A man I could only assume was Harry Palmer came up behind the bar, holding a Bloody Mary with half a garden stuffed inside. He had thick black hair sticking out of a faded military cap. When he smiled, he revealed a perfectly straight row of wine-stained teeth beneath his moustache.

  ‘I suppose you could be a hostess,’ he said. ‘But that’s the best I can do. The tips are still pretty good. But you have to deal with the regulars.’

  He took a long pull on his Bloody Mary.

  ‘I’m not here for a job,’ I said.

  He swallowed.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Then it seems my drinking has been interrupted for no reason. Have a nice day. Francis will show you out.’

  He got up to walk away. The man in the Western shirt – Francis? – took a step forward. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I tried to think about what a real businesswoman would do. Someone like Grace.

  ‘Hey!’ I said. ‘I don’t intend to waste your time, Harry.’

  He turned around.

  ‘No? Then why are you still sitting here?’

  ‘Because I have a proposal that I think you might be interested in.’

  Harry crossed his arms and put on his professional look of interest. It was very similar to his regular look.

  ‘Lay it on me,’ he said. ‘You have thirty seconds.’

  I waved my arm, gesturing towards the clients of the club. ‘How many people do you typically get in here on a Monday morning?’ I asked.

  Harry pursed his lips and blew a long, wet raspberry.

  ‘I figured,’ I said. ‘What if I told you I could fill this place with respectable people from the golden age of burlesque. The only thing you would have to do is give me the space. You keep everything from the bar. I cater, decorate, and organize.’

  He looked at me again, maybe for the first time.

  ‘How old are you?’ he said.

  ‘Twenty,’ I said.

  It was hard for me not to crack a smile, but I kept it together.

  ‘What’s the catch?’ Harry asked.

  ‘The catch is that it’s a living funeral,’ I said.

  I couldn’t tell if the phrase meant anything to him. Or if he’d even heard me. Harry looked around his club, his gaze lingering on his clients. There was a man in cut-off jean shorts and cowboy boots, nursing a double shot of whiskey. Another guy by the stage had a dollar in his teeth and a trucker hat that read: ‘I Love Fat Chicks’.

  ‘Hell,’ said Harry. ‘Every day here is a living funeral.’

  Here lies the last text you’ll ever get from me.

  This was the final dispatch from the land of Daniel Torres. It appeared on my phone at exactly 9.33 the next morning while I was eating breakfast by myself. My dad was off again, who knows where, so I had no one to tell me not to check my phone at the table. I was deciding whether to respond when UPS showed up on the porch with a heavily insured package. I brought it inside and looked at the label: Exotic Land, USA.

  I’d spent the latter half of yesterday on the phone with the curator, telling her about Mamie. I even sent her the cell phone video of Mamie telling her story. She said she’d send me something overnight, and I wasn’t sure I believed her. But when I opened the box, I found a perfectly preserved black satin strapless gown, encrusted with thousands of glittering rhinestones.

  The stones were incandescent in the light of the morning. They were like a constellation plunging down the dark satin bodice to a ruched waistline. The dress came with matching mid-length silver gloves, a fringed pair of black panties, and tasselled rhinestone petals. Also included in the package were the names and contact information of ten living dancers from the golden age of burlesque.

  I got on the phone right away, and called them up one by one. I spoke with a former Broadway actress first, a woman with a breathy voice who got into the trade when she couldn’t get acting work. She was now a retired theatre teacher in Arizona. I talked to a pin-up girl who lived in a mobile home with all her memorabilia, the sole curator and visitor of her own mobile museum. ‘I remember Mamie,’ she croaked. ‘Great rack on that little lady!’

  I talked to a woman once arrested for indecency who volunteered for her church these days. She’d danced with live cockatiels on both arms until one of the birds attacked someone at a show and she had to give them up. I talked to two dancers who never threw in the towel. They still performed on the revival circuit, jumping out of clam shells at the age of eighty-nine.

  In the end, I got five out of the ten to confirm. Three others were maybes. Two were too sick to make it. Still, it was a start. I decided to take a ride out to Sunrise Commons to share the good news with Mamie.

  It was a perfect spring day, and on the way, I rolled down all the windows and took deep breaths of fresh air until my mind felt temporarily defogged. It wasn’t until I got to the parking lot of the home that I remembered Daniel’s message. Now that it was in front of me, I wanted to write back. It would be so easy to dash off a text. Instead, I pressed a button and my screen went dark. Then I grabbed the dress and went inside.

  When I got to the reception desk, I was told Mamie was not available because she was ‘recovering’.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked the woman with the giant teeth. ‘Recovering from what?’

  ‘Mamie left the grounds yesterday,’ she said. ‘She wandered to a diner five miles from here. On the way back, she had a fall.’

  ‘What kind of fall?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said. ‘Are you family?’

  ‘She hates her family,’ I said.

  ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave,’ she said.

  I just stood there for a few minutes in the lobby after that, watching the receptionist tap away at her touchscreen, as if everything were completely normal. Eventually, though, I told her I needed to use the restroom. Then, I headed down the hallway towards the restroom where I took a jagged left turn towards the passageway to Memory Care.

  Mamie’s door was closed, but it wasn’t locked, and when I stepped inside, I was surprised to find no one on duty. Instead, I found the shades pulled and the lights off. I had to wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark before I could find the bedside light, and when I flipped it on, I got my first look at Mamie in the shadows.

  She was on an IV and there was a large bandage across her forehead. Her hair and make-up weren’t done, and I could finally see the age in her face: the thick lines from her mouth to the bottom of her chin, the loose cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes. I set the dress down on a chair and moved closer. Mamie’s pupils opened to the room.

  ‘It’s you,’ she said in hoarse voice.

  I sat down on the bed and put my hand over Mamie’s, which was cool and soft.

  ‘Oh, Tilly,’ said Mamie, ‘I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of things.’

  I squeezed her hand.

  ‘You don’t need to apologize for anything,’ I said.

  I picked up Mamie’s hand and saw that her fingernails were speckled with patches of old nail polish. Either she had gone without a manicure, or she’d scratched them in the fall.

  ‘I’m not supposed to have visitors,’ she said. ‘They even turned my husband away.’

  Her husband, I remembered, was no longer alive.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘They told me I could stay.’

  I got up and prowled around Mamie’s dresser, looking over her beauty supplies. She had never completely left the glitz of her dancing days behind, even in assisted living. And sure enough, at the base of the mirror, there was a row of candy-coloured nail polish.

  I picked the one that looked the brightest and made my
way back over to the bed. I lifted her hand and held it gently. Then I uncapped the nail polish and began to apply a rich red coat to her right thumb.

  ‘Here is what’s going to happen,’ I said. ‘You are going to be strong for three more days. That’s the soonest I think I can get things together. But I’m going to do it. It’s going to happen.’

  I moved from Mamie’s thumb to her pointer finger, painting as delicately as I could, but my hand wouldn’t stop shaking. Mamie looked up at me. I kept talking.

  ‘There’s going to be a big party, full of all your friends, and it’s going to be scandalous and amazing and nothing bad is going to happen because sometimes everything is perfect.’

  I painted the rest of the row and blew on Mamie’s fingers. Mamie rested her unpainted hand on my back. And when I looked at her, it was hard to tell how present she was. There was something glassy about her gaze.

  ‘Will you put it on?’ she asked.

  I looked around.

  ‘My dress,’ she added. ‘The one you brought. I want you to try it on.’

  I glanced over at the dress, draped on the arm of a chair. I’d never even seen Mamie look at it.

  ‘I brought it for you,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ said Mamie. ‘I want to remember what I looked like.’

  It took me a moment to understand what she meant, but it came to me soon enough. I walked over to the chair where I’d set the gown. Then I went into Mamie’s small bathroom and took off the jeans and tank top I’d been wearing. In the cramped room, I raised my arms and pulled the filmy dress down over my body.

  It was a little big in the chest, but otherwise it fit well. It made me look like I had an hourglass figure for the first time in my life. I glanced at myself in the mirror, made sure the zipper was tight, and came back into the room. Mamie looked at me when I appeared. She smiled.