Queen of Hearts - Veronica Lake
Much of the credit here goes to Nico, who provided a much needed prompt.
Oh, and this is not a poem.
Oh Sister, Where Art Thou?
The reason I grew out my bangs
in fourth grade was because my mom said it would be like Veronica Lake.
Our
favorite movie was Sullivan’s Travels
and we would sit on the couch together and watch it. We’d watch it together on
rainy Sundays under the dinosaur blanket that smelled like Dorothy. I’d sing
along to the score on mornings that I was home sick from school. I’d mouth the
lines while dozing against my mom’s small shoulder. I’d dream that I was The Girl,
sitting at the fire with a circle of kind hobos, faithful Dorothy at my side.
This
dream would often carry into morning. I would take it to school with me and
outside on the padded puzzle piece floor I would lean against the covered slide
and try to explain my games to my cohorts:
“So you’re
the driver of the car, and you’re driving the van, and you’re the chef inside
the van, and…”
“Why
is there a chef inside the van?”
“Because there is a kitchen in
the van.”
“This game is dumb.”
I
yearned to live in the world of Sullivan’s
Travels and my mother’s declaration about Veronica Lake gave me hope. I
spent all summer waiting. I’d scowl at the mirror impatiently, pulling at my hair,
yelling at Dorothy to shut up her barking.
By
the first day of the fifth grade, my bangs had grown over my left eye and I was
ready. The night before, I had laid out my clothes on the floor. There were two
outfits: a long dress with a crepe paper rose my mom had help me sew on and a
set of “hobo clothes” (oversized pant and jacket, and a jaunty hat that was once
my dad’s). In the morning, I had so much trouble deciding which to wear, that I
missed my school bus. My mom was pretty annoyed and I fiddled with the rose and
stayed quiet as she drove me.
When
I walked in to the school, in that dress, with that hair, I really felt like
Veronica Lake. I had perfect posture and held my head high. I only spoke with
quotes from the movie. Nobody really knew what to say back to me and some of
the kids looked at me weird. Also it was a little hard to see out of my left
eye.
None of this deterred me,
though. I found other fires to stoke my imagination. My homeroom teacher,
Mister Melbein had a big chin and a bulbous nose and was just handsome enough
that sometimes I pretended he was Joel McCrea.
He’d
call on me during math:
“Nicole,
could you come up and show us the next number in the series?”
“Why, Mr. Smearcase, aren’t you
getting a little familiar?”
“Um.”
The semester drew to a close. I averaged
a “Meets Expectations” on my report card, Mr. Melbein commenting that I showed
promise but was “often distracted.”
I spent spring break at my
cousins’ house. Carrie was obsessed with High
School Musical. We spent most of our time there in her room that smelled like
her stupid cat. We watched the movie twelve times in eight days.
When
I got back to my house, the night before the first day back at school, I
noticed that my hair had grown longer. I hadn't looked in the mirror in over a
week. I let Dorothy* sleep in my bed that night.
May
came, unseasonably warm, purple lilacs opening, and I was looking more and more
like Veronica Lake. But it was too hot for my long dress or my hobo clothes, so
most days I wore T-shirts and shorts to school.
One day, during our section on Greek
Myths, Mister Melbein was telling us the story of how Odysseus stabbed poor
Polyphemus in the eye and there was a picture of them fighting each other in our
book of myths (it was a book for kids). All of a sudden, Jennifer Rosen blurted
out, “It’s Nicole!” and obviously she meant the Cyclops and everyone laughed,
even Mister Melbein. Then he stopped laughing and took Jennifer outside the
class.
That evening I asked my mom to
take me to the hairdresser on Saturday. She put down her book and asked me in
an even voice, “Are you sure?”
On Saturday, I sat in the swivel
chair and mumbled a goodbye to each clump of blond hair as it hit the linoleum
floor. Walking out the door, I watched with both my eyes as the clumps were all
swept away to mix with the dark curls and brown strands and on and on – all of
the hair that had collected that day.
