Blanky Prank

Hazel preferred the fetal position while sleeping. The experience was better if she had her blue and yellow blanket tucked between her knees and if Mamie, her Mother, forgot to put Granny Auntie’s Bitter Apple spray on her thumb. The vile tasting spray was made to keep dogs from chewing at itchy spots but Mamie Darnell didn’t worry for a second that the label said:

DO NOT INGEST OR ALLOW PROLONGED CONTACT WITH HUMAN SKIN.

Mamie would be damned if she was going to pay for braces for Hazel. She would be damned if she allowed Hazel any extra days of being the baby.

“If there’s anyone in this family that deserves to be babied, it’s me. And we’ll save the expense of braces for Kaye. If she even needs them.” Mamie muttered to herself.

While she muttered she considered her fingernails. Ruby red polish. Ruby red was her personal trademark. When she took off her shoes at the end of the day she would wiggle her toes and admire Mr. Elizabeth’s pedicurial genius. Money might be tight but Mamie could always justify a salon day.

Kaye, Hazel’s older sister, just turned 14, was supplementing Mamie’s alimony from Hazel’s father with what she was able to bring in, making good money modeling, among other places, at Braver’s Department Store. Mamie picked her up after Kaye’s regular fashion show on Tuesday morning when Braver’s offered coffee and pastry to anyone who showed up in gloves and wearing a girdle.

On the way to pick up Kaye, Hazel would sit in the middle seat of Mamie’s big Rambler station wagon, her short legs and grungy saddle shoes jiggling and fidgeting in the open space at the end of the long bench seat. Sometimes Mamie’s miniature poodle would be on the seat next to Hazel, suffering Mamie’s lane changes by being flung into the back of the front passenger seat. Hazel hit the back of Mamie’s seat often enough that she had empathy for Bon Beret and his plight.

Hazel, anticipating trouble at an upcoming curve in the road, would reach her hand over to Bon Beret to protect him from the g-forces her mother created. One handed, the little girl would be vulnerable and she often got bruised in the process of trying to save the dog from the perilous situation Mamie created.

When Kaye got into the wagon in the seat next to their mother, Hazel would squirm forward to see if she had a box of pastries with her. Sometimes she got petit fours or tiny Napoleons to bring home if there were extras. Kaye would pass her a pink one unless Mamie got to the pink one before she did. It worked out well for Hazel if Mamie was smoking. Mamie never ate and smoked at the same time.

“How much is your paycheck?” Mamie wanted to know.

“I got to keep the outfit this time. See?” Kaye opened her coat to reveal a cashmere sweater set with rhinestones at the collar of the shell and down both sides of the center of the cardigan and a tweed pencil skirt.

“That won’t do.” Mamie spit the words. “You’re 14. It’ll be out of style by the time you’re old enough to work an office job. Even then you’re going to look like somebody trying to get with the boss. Too fancy. Too bad I’m so curvy. I really like the color. What would you call that color. Does it have a name?”

Kaye worked her fingers at the back of her neck, inside the cardigan and pulled out her hand holding a tag. She turned her body in her seat and asked Hazel to help.

Hazel read the letters to Kaye.

“C-A-F-E-A-U-L-A-I-T”.

“Oh yeah,” Kaye said, “I got this little thing too.”

She pulled a small clutch purse out of her coat pocket. It was made of the same fabric as the skirt. She opened it and pulled out the gold chain that was hidden inside, attached to serve as a shoulder strap.

Mamie asked again, “Your paycheck?”

“Mamie, this outfit and the purse were my pay for the show. You agreed when you signed my contract that sometimes they would pay me in merchandise. Remember?”

Kaye held the purse out in front of her with both hands.

“Not my style at all. Hey Squirt, you want it? It can be your first purse!” Kaye threw the little bag behind her and it landed in Hazel’s lap. Hazel worked the clasp a few times and then held it upright in order to admire it .

“Hey, wait a minute. Maybe I want that!”

Mamie’s protest was insincere. Both girls knew their mother liked a bigger purse. She needed room for a pack or two of cigarettes and a lighter, her comb, a full sized can of Spray Net, a spare pair of nylons in case hers got a run and a flask the size of a man’s inside suit pocket. She kept it full of vodka.

“I like it. I want it.” Hazel folded her fingers around the envelope sized rectangle of tweed. She knew just what to use it for. She knew Mamie would take it, put it in her dresser drawer and never give it another thought.

“Well, I’m not going to argue,” Mamie said and opened her window to toss out her cigarette butt.

Then Mamie’s ruby nails and long fingers appeared over her shoulder, wiggling for Hazel to hand over the substitute paycheck. Hazel gave it back as slowly as she possibly could. Mamie’s fingers snapped and waved impatiently until Hazel let go of the purse.

Happily for Hazel, her big sister intervened, taking the purse from Mamie.

“Mamie, it’s mine to give to Hazel, not yours to take. Squirt, here it is, just for you from me. I’m glad you like it so much. You know it’ll be out of Mamie’s head in the next ten minutes.”

She threw the purse in Hazel’s direction again. The car slowed and then sped up as Mamie considered what had just happened. Her daughters were teaming up against her. It wasn’t fair.

Mamie rolled her eyes and fished another cigarette out of the pack warming up on the dashboard.

“I don’t even want it. It’s butt ugly,” was Mamie’s defense.

The rest of the drive home was silent. The only sounds were the click of Mamie’s lighter and the snap of the purse closure as Hazel opened and closed it and opened and closed it, again and again.

Hazel’s devotion to her blanket annoyed Mamie. At six Hazel shouldn’t need the blanket for comfort. Mamie’s blood boiled whenever she saw Hazel acting, in her assessment, like a baby. The thumb sucking, the fetal sleeping, the dopey flannel blanket tucked between her knees; Mamie hated all of it. As far back as Mamie could remember, Hazel had these behaviors.

She constantly threatened to toss the blanket in the living room fireplace but there had never been a fire in that fireplace that anyone could remember so Hazel didn’t worry about the threats. Hazel knew enough to hide the blanket to keep it safe from Mamie when she was at school or out in the neighborhood playing with other kids.

Kaye, Mamie believed, never did irritating things like Hazel but people always seemed to gravitate towards her younger daughter. While Kaye’s face took make-up beautifully she was a bit on the plain side. To Mamie, Hazel just looked skinny and possibly even boyish. People, however, were always commenting on her impish grin and twinkling eyes.

The child cut her bangs with a pair of scissors Mamie accidentally left out and for a six-month period their lopsidedness was pronounced. It was during this period of time that Hazel had her kindergarten picture taken. Mamie didn’t send out a single one of those messy bang pictures. Her Christmas greetings went out with one of Kaye’s modeling shots tucked inside.

It wasn’t lost on the people that Mamie sent the photos to that Mamie favored Kaye.

Hazel was smart and had a sunny, upbeat personality. Mamie felt like her youngest was able to out-think her and won people over without even trying. It was maddening.

After Kaye gave Hazel the little clutch purse, Hazel started carrying it everywhere. Since the purse had been taken away from Mamie it got under her skin to see her smaller daughter carrying it. Worse, people commented on it all the time.

“How darling she is with that little purse!” they would say. “Such a little lady. Does she have a pair of gloves inside?”

Hazel’s purse didn’t hold gloves. Inside was a small piece of security in the form of a square of fabric cut from her cherished blue and yellow Blanky. Hazel felt Mamie’s ire concerning the blanket and wanted to protect herself from its loss. She knew nothing would stop Mamie from annihilating that which soothed her.

Hazel reasoned that if Mamie destroyed her blanket, the cut she held in the purse would mean she still had a piece of it. And if Mamie took the purse away from her, she would only have a small bit of Hazel’s blanket, not the blanket entire. Hazel had no choice but to mutilate her Blanky.

Mamie’s distain for Hazel was noticed by the people who saw her interactions with her daughters. Being the preferred daughter didn’t keep Kaye from loving her sister. In fact, being preferred created enlightenment for Kaye. She could see Mamie for all that Mamie was and certainly for all that she wasn’t.

If this enlightenment allowed Kaye to see her mother with clarity it also made Kaye want Hazel to win.

Kaye slipped into Hazel’s room after Mamie went to bed and saw her sleeping sister curled into her favorite position, her blanket between her knees as usual. Now her posture included the clutch purse in her hands which were clasped in a prayerful position as if Hazel was asking God to keep it safe. Kaye looked inside and found the cut of blanket and it became clear to her what the little girl was trying to accomplish.

Silently, Kaye liberated the purse from Hazel’s grip. She found Mamie’s favorite ruby ring in the china dish where Mamie always placed it before she went to bed. She put the ring into the little zipper pocket inside the purse and put the purse on the door knob of Hazel’s room.

Mamie never allowed Hazel to wake up naturally. Instead, she would knock on her closed door and in her gravelly smoker’s voice, make her demands.

“Get up! Hazel. Hazel. Hazel don’t pretend you don’t hear me.”

The morning after Kaye put the purse on Hazel’s doorknob was different. Mamie didn’t knock. She noticed the purse and took it, walking silently to her own room. There, she put the little purse into her own big one, then went back to wake Hazel. Hazel noticed immediately that the purse, formerly in her hands, was now missing. She asked Mamie if she had seen it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That ugly purse your sister gave you? That crappy purse you’re always dragging around like you’re so grown up? I haven’t seen it. Get ready for school.”

After driving Hazel to school and dropping Kaye off at Braver’s for her weekly modeling job, Mamie drove to Riverside Park and opened the clutch. Inside she saw the square cut from Hazel’s blanket.

“That little stinker!”

Mamie figured out what Hazel was trying to accomplish. She got out of the wagon, walked to the bridge and tossed the purse into the water. It floated for awhile and she stood and watched it moving slowly in the current until it sunk. A beam of sunlight reflected off of the gold chain strap before the purse disappeared.

Back at home, Mamie searched until she found the blanket hidden in Hazel’s room on a hanger in her closet, under her winter coat. Mamie buried it under the garbage in the kitchen garbage can. Later, after she picked up Hazel and Kaye, Mamie instructed Kaye to take out the garbage.

Eventually, Mamie discovered that the dish holding her ruby ring was empty.

“Girls!” Mamie shouted, her voice splintering into its lower, mannish smoker’s range. “Either of you see my ring?”

“Not me!” Hazel sang out from her room. She got off her bed and walked to her doorway.

“I saw it!” Kaye sang out from her room and joined her sister in the doorway, folding her arms around Hazel’s shoulders to protect her from what would be coming.

“How ‘bout sharing where you saw it with me, Kaye dear.”

“I put it in Hazel’s purse. In that little side pocket. I’m guessing you didn’t know about that pocket, right?”

Mamie appeared around the corner of the hallway leading to the girl’s rooms.

There was a stricken look on Mamie’s face.

“I ought to…” Mamie began.

Kaye shushed her by putting a finger to her lips.

“Easy enough, Mother. Find the purse and you’ll have your ring. Oh yeah, before I forget, Hazel, look what I found! Somehow this got thrown into the garbage can.”

Kaye turned Hazel around and wrapped the blanket around her neck, like a fashion model’s scarf.

Mamie noticed the way her girls looked at each other in that moment. She felt her face turning red. Kaye looked down at her sister’s head and planted a firm kiss on the top of it.

“You want to know something pretty neat, Squirt? I got another purse for my modeling today. If we can’t find the other one, it’s yours. ”

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