The Carving: Celebrating Womanhood Through Stories and Skits

By Judith K. White

If we were on a trip to discover American womanhood in all its infinite variety, we might bus up and down the East Coast visiting cities, drive south stopping by farms and small towns, or travel west by train. In Judith Whites collection of short fictional tales and skits, she invites all of us to meet our fellow travelerswomen of all ages and walks of life willing to share their stories of struggles, triumphs, losses, and joys.

It has been a decade since Rosella labored over an ironing board as she did for a family for thirty years. After she outlives the parents and survives personal tragedy, she becomes the adoptive mother to the four adult children as her resolute spirit continues to dictate her every move. During an unanticipated life event, a daughter reflects on the unrequited love a devoted admirer still possesses for her mother. After an older woman reveals that she has just had a dream about a romantic liaison with a much younger former president of the United States, she wonders if the dream is a foretelling sign about the end of her life.

The Carving shares a glimpse into the challenges and delights of a variety of women as told through poignant, sometimes amusing short stories and skits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532048920

Judith K. White

Judith Kline White came of age in rural Ohio and earned degrees at both Oberlin College and Ohio State University. Her adult life includes extended periods in Central and South America, as well as Amsterdam. A lifelong lover of language, Judith is fluent in French and Spanish and conversant in Dutch, which she regularly refreshes during visits to The Netherlands. Her careers span linguist, educator, entrepreneur, and nonprofit fundraiser, including Peace Corps volunteer and trainer; founder, Foreign Language for Young Children; co-founder/co-director, Global Child, Inc.; and director of development, Latin American Health Institute. Her previous publications include Phrase-a-Day Series for Children in French, Spanish, and English; Amsterdam Trilogy, Book I, The Seventh Etching; Book II, The New Worlds of Isabela Calderon; and Book III, The Rise of Dirck Becker. With her husband, Allen L. White, she published a memoir, Autumns of Our Joy: A Tale of Romance, Stem Cells, and Rebirth. Mother of three grown children and grandmother of three, Judith lives with her husband, Allen L. White, in Brookline, Massachusetts, and St. Augustine / Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The Carving is her first collection of short fiction.

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Copyright © 2018 Judith K. White.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-4894-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4893-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4892-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905441

iUniverse rev. date:  05/24/2018

Contents

Brings on the Anxiety

Chopin’s Handkerchief

A Fantasy Life

Licorice

Send Us Help … Please

Bon Appétit

The Man Who Loved My Mother

Finger Loop: A Skit

The Carving

Various

Pea Soup and Young Men

Don’t Push My Buttons

Genuflect and Shipwreck

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Brings on the Anxiety

XENIA, OHIO

1979

AS TOLD BY MIRIAM

There she is waiting for me on her narrow front stoop just as I knew she would be, seated on a precarious white-plastic stool. I can see her pursed lips from the street. I leap from the car, certain I am in for a scolding.

Purple is the dominant hue today. The wide-brimmed lavender straw hat with a flowered band sits atop her bouffant wig. The tent dress with puffed sleeves covers her bulging breasts and belly with bright shades of pink, white and more purple. Somehow, she has managed to wedge her swollen feet into misshapen plastic purple flats.

It has been a decade since Rosella labored over an ironing board as she did for our family for thirty years. Having outlived our parents, she is our only mama now. She doesn’t drive, never owned a car. We four siblings find time in our busy lives to take her places and occasionally, to slip her a ten or a twenty.

As I step carefully up the cement walk toward her, trying not to trip in the cracks, I think of the only time I have been inside her house. A newly begun project lay on a table. A multi-colored crocheted blanket, it surely joined many of the others she has made through the years—donations to brighten the life of a hospitalized child or keep a frozen death away from a homeless man.

Bright by-the-numbers flower paintings shared walls with three framed portraits. President John F. Kennedy on the right. Martin Luther King on the left. Jesus of Nazareth in the middle in that familiar depiction where he looks into the distance, simultaneously serene and sad, perhaps anticipating his early death.

Each of my steps brings louder crunches as the clusters of empty peanut shells become thicker. As I reach the bottom stair, she cracks a peanut shell with two thumbs, pulls it apart, and pops the contents into her mouth.

Still chewing, she greets me sternly in her slow drawl, Y’all know how I hate to wait.

"I say, y’all know I hate waitin’. Rosella repeats, apparently not willing to raise herself until she has received an apology. Brings on the anxiety." she adds.

Rosella may be an illiterate southern lady, but she understands all about hours and minutes. She has also adopted a northerner’s sensitivity to time along with the emphasis on punctuality.

Sorry, Sella, I begin as I take her elbow and tug her upward off the stool. An accident on the highway. Cars all backed up.

I slip my arm through hers as we carefully make it down three steps to the walk, she balancing a sweet potato pie in one palm, a pecan pie in the other, me holding her elbow. It may be her birthday, but she insists on bringing her own pies.

As I help her inside the car and reach over ++===to fasten her seat belt, we both giggle at the effort this task takes.

Oh give it up, girlie, she says, flipping the belt away. You hit a rut, I bounce. I be fine.

Once we’re on our way, I slip into her vernacular and ask her, "Why you waitin’ outside in the sun, Sella? You coulda waited inside the house."

When I realize you late, it take me five minutes t’ get up, five minutes t’ unlock the door, five t’ set m’self down, another five t’ get up again and still another five t’ relock that door. Ain’t worth it. Know’d you’d come along sooner or later.

It doesn’t take long before I get another reprimand.

You had no business wearin’ that outfit. What was you thinkin’?

I try to imagine what she could be referring to. Is she reaching back into my adolescence? A too-short miniskirt maybe? A low-cut summer top? Has she been harboring disgust all these years?

As if my crime were unbearable, she hangs and shakes her head.

At your father’s weddin’, she says, giving me a stern sidelong look. That long dress. You could see straight through it.

It didn’t occur to me that anyone could see through black, I protested. And I was wearing black panties under it.

Thank the Lord for that. I know it was a summer day … and a hot one, but did you have to wear somethin’ so flimsy? And on such an occasion?

When I say nothing else to defend myself, she asks, Do you know where ya goin’? You know how to get to Jamie’s? Y’all know I hate getting lost more than anything’. Brings on the anxiety.

Sure, Sella. I’ve been to my brother’s new place three times already.

Apparently my reassurance is not effective. I observe Sella bend over and search in her purse for the comfort of a peanut, her breasts nearly smashing the pies in her lap.

After looking straight ahead for a few minutes, chewing with the few teeth she has left, she almost whispers,

Jeremiah, he dead, ya know.

Yes, I know. I’m sorry, Sella. Quite a while ago now.

‘Why,’ I wonder, ‘is she mentioning the death of her long-time companion now when he’s been gone for at least ten years?’

After a long pause, I hear words spoken in a whisper.

Lost my boy too. My boy. My only chile. My Micky.

Sella sighed, sounding more resigned than sorrowful, staring ahead.

You mean you lost him when he was convicted, Sella? He’s still in prison, isn’t he?

Micky dead too, girl. Jeremiah. Now Micky.

Oh, Sella, I didn’t know. When? Are you sure? What happened?

Eight years in that hole. Eight years for sellin’ a little of … what they call it? Pot? Never had no daddy. Needed cash. Just a little of that weedy stuff. Lawyer keep sayin’, ‘We gettin’ you outta here, boy. You may not have served your full sentence, but you done time enough.’ But nothin’ happened. Micky just kept on day after day—doin’ time.

I reach over and cover Sella’s hand still gripping the pie tins.

When a fight breaks out, she continues, "them guards in them towers? They don’t hold back. They jes shoot. Got my Micky in the back. Died fast, they tell me. Other prisoners? They gathered round watchin’ my boy’s blood seep over the blacktop.

Wanted to send me the body. I say, ‘Ain’t got no money to bury my boy. You killed him. You bury him. Me, I pray for him. As long as God listens, I pray for my Micky.’

Sella, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.

You my only babies now. Sella continues. You, ya sisters. Ya brother. You may have babies of ya own, but you my only babies now."

Sella stares straight ahead. She must be out of peanuts.

We bump along the narrow dirt road leading to the party, me driving with one hand, my other hand still covering one of hers. I see Jamie’s red barn in the distance, but it’s all blurry. When my eyes are awash, I can’t see through the car windshield. When I can’t see where I’m going? Brings on the anxiety.

Brings on the Anxiety was first published in Florida Writers Association Collection, Volume 9, What a Character! Black Oyster Publishing, 2017.

Chopin’s Handkerchief

1984

NEW YORK CITY

AS TOLD BY CRYSTAL PARKER

We called him Chopin. My college roommates and I. I can picture him now, as we saw him years ago. Long and thin. Shoulders stiff. Facing forward as if forcing himself with each step into the threatening world of the small campus we shared. Vaguely handsome, with delicate features. Rigidly straight, light-brown-blond-streaked hair fell just below his ears and covered his forehead. American, yet mysteriously European at the same time. Mostly mute. Gay, we suspected, especially since he moved through campus alone—until a girlfriend showed up.

Carmen seemed equally strange. Moody. Intense. Dressed every day in the same inside-out black sweatshirt paired with a solid, dark navy blue, ankle-length full skirt that moved side to side as she attempted to match her strides to his.

We met on a cross-Atlantic voyage, he once told me. On a passenger ship. Quite romantic.

Although we would never have admitted it to each other, even though we discussed our other crushes, we girls may have been fascinated by his subtle sophistication—a worldliness we lacked. We heard rumors, later confirmed. He’d attended high school in Paris, where his father served as U.S. ambassador. He spoke four languages fluently.

Our paths crossed his frequently because Heather, Amy, and I were all majoring in Italian. In our attempts to master the language, we dedicated our study hours to cramming for grammar quizzes and deciphering Italian literature. To perfect our accents, we frequented the language lab where Chopin worked as an assistant. We also lunched in a designated Italian Conversation Corner of the cafeteria. Sometimes he joined us. Although grateful for the company of an expert, we felt intimidated by his legendary native command of the language. Besides, conversation with Chopin could be halting and awkward even in English.

Alone in our room, we three friends entertained each other by mocking his gait, his frown, and his mumbled responses to our cheerful hellos. I can’t say he ever behaved disdainfully toward us, in spite of our relative naiveté and inexperience. Rather, he seemed indifferent to everyone without being exactly snobby. Certainly, he appeared moody, but Could he also be disturbed? we asked each other. Even mentally ill? Simply involved with his own thoughts? Or only shy? The girlfriend seemed to have abandoned the idea of majoring in art. She disappeared after one semester. In any case, I could never have imagined then that I would one day fall dangerously in love with him.

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After graduation, Heather went directly to graduate school in California, and Amy flew to Italy, perhaps in an attempt to snag an Italian husband. In spite of my parents’ objections— You’re a small-town girl, Crystal, from a podunk college. How are you going to thrive in an overwhelming place like that?—I moved to New York City with the goal of somehow continuing to improve my Italian skills.

It seemed at first that Mom and Dad were right. I registered with an employment agency that sent me on so-called interviews for jobs which either didn’t exist or were totally inappropriate. Most of the time I sat in the agency office reading magazines. Apparently, the staff had few connections.

So I set off on my own and made the rounds of personnel offices in any business, organization, or agency that sounded vaguely Italian or Italy focused. Agenzia Nazionale del Turismo. Consulato Generale d’Italia. Italian Trade Center. Centro Primo Levi.

"Not bad language skills for an American, Signorina Parker, but we hire only native speakers," they all said.

Eventually I found work at the International Monetary Fund, as a receptionist to an Italian economist. Perhaps not worthy of a college grad, but oh well. I willingly lowered my employment standards in order to be surrounded by the romance of the Italian language most of the day … and at least I could pay my share of the rent.

Occasionally, I sought out other Italian speakers for lunch dates, Italian film showings, or lectures. The night scene scared me, though. Even with a miniature mace pistol hidden in my fist, I felt unsafe out alone past 9:00 p.m. and my so-called social life suffered.

When a guy who identified himself as Erik telephoned me out of the blue, at first I didn’t understand who he was. Then I recognized the voice delivering an enticing invitation. Thanks to that phone call and what followed, NYC opened up its varied charms and fascinations. Never again did I think of him as Chopin.

I hadn’t known Erik’s family owned a home in the Upper West Side. With his dad on leave from an overseas assignment, Erik was free during school breaks to explore the city and he invited me to join him. In fact, for the next two months of summer, he researched and planned our evenings and weekends.

Slowly, Erik opened up, both entertaining and enchanting me with tales of his twenty-two years living alternately abroad and in the U.S. Born in Czechoslovakia, he began his education at an international school in Washington, DC. Next came middle school in Geneva, followed by two years of high school in Rome, and graduation from Lycée Montmartre in Paris.

He hinted that his father got those assignments not because he was a trained or capable diplomat, but because of his wealth—apparently enough inheritance that Erik and his younger sister, Justine, benefited from hefty allowances. The words trust funds were uttered several times, but I didn’t really understand what that meant. In any case, Erik refused to allow me to pay for any of our shared amusements. Here’s a sample from early June.

Erik called and asked, Might you have a full-length summer gown of some kind? Pretty fancy, maybe with a light shawl? I hope so, because this Friday night I’m giving you an evening you won’t forget. I owned none of the requisite clothing, but I borrowed it from my roommate’s older sister.

How could I not fall for Erik that night? The two of us swept up in a limousine that dropped us at Lincoln Center. The rush of people moving in tandem toward the theater. He in a tux, holding my hand. His after-shave enveloping me as my spiked sandals click on the pavement. My flowery, yellow halter-dress billowing in the breeze. We seemed to be floating together through space.

Once we were seated inside the theater, the lights dimmed and a sudden hush enveloped the expectant crowd. I glanced at the faces around me and realized that they, like me, wanted to hear every note, every word of Puccini’s La Bohème.

Knowing the story of Mimi’s struggle, of lovers separated by death, I foresaw an emotional ride, but I began weeping during the overture and the tears never stopped. Erik reached into his breast pocket and handed me a neatly folded white handkerchief, put an arm around me, and left it there for the remainder of the performance. I felt cared for, protected, even coddled, as my emotions rose and fell with those of the tragic heroine.

I had every intention of returning the handkerchief after laundering it, but instead I kept it. Every morning when I opened my top dresser drawer, I saw it, all cleaned and pressed. A remembrance, perhaps, but also an example of how sympathetic and affectionate my friend could be.

That one evening would have been thrilling enough to last me the entire summer; however, so much more followed. Picnics in Central Park. Theater. Films. Lectures. All memorable. The one most anticipated by me? A personal tour of the Museum