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Dennis Must
reads
Queen Esther
in Real Audio format.
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Perhaps the most interesting bureau drawer in Ben’s mother’s room was her unmentionables drawer. Most of the items looked fragile, the same shade of pink, coral and dusty rose, stacked in three rows like silk scarves. Further, once the compartment was drawn open, a sweet aroma wafted out of a calico sachet bag.
Petticoats, half slips, camisoles, panties, and, at the very bottom, the ballast—a chunky girdle festooned with bone stays, wire fasteners and elastic straps with catches that kept her nylon sheers from drooping like loose skin on her legs. “It doesn’t belong here,” thought Ben. He recalled an aged catfish he’d once pulled out of a pond with wire leaders and hooks decorating its mouth.
Ben had looked forward to this day. She’d promised the two of them were going on a special trip. He sat all dressed on the side of the fully made bed. His father had left early to hurry onto the golf course.
“Where are we going, Ma?”
“To a Queen Esther social.”
Queen Esther was the name of her Sunday Bible class. All women, most of whom Ben thought looked like boarded-up Victorian houses. His mother was the youngest and prettiest in the group. He watched her draw cocoa stockings up her legs, careful so as not to cause them to run, then roll their ends in cloth covered rubber bands high on her thighs.
“Are the seams straight, Ben?” she asked. Lifting up the half slip.
“Yes,” he said. She never asked his father.
“Ben, go get the clear nail polish.”
He watched her dab its applicator brush on the snag that threatened to travel a cloud stream down her leg.
“What’s a social, Ma?”
“An occasion when women get together.”
“What do they do?”
“Oh, talk. Drink tea, and there will be much to eat.” He’d seen the fresh macaroni salad sitting in a container in the refrigerator that morning.
“What will I do?”
It didn’t matter, actually. When he was invited by his father to go someplace, it meant sitting on a barstool downing several fountain Coca-Colas while studying reflections of the patrons in the giant bar mirror. It was always dusky in those places, and smelled of Lysol. His father never wanted to leave. But he and his mother took long drives in the country; she’d turn on the car radio and sing like Jo Stafford. Sometimes she’d drive thirty miles to Warren, Ohio, to visit her aunt. Ben would walk down the street to the crossing and watch the freight trains move through. Alongside the tracks a black man owned a shack roofed with metal Royal Crown Cola signs; he sold bread, milk, candy, and soda chilled in an ice trough. Ben liked to go inside and “fish” for a bottle of lime green soda. The store had a dirt floor. Black children would fish with him in the soda trough, too. They liked purple soda.
“You will do what you’ve always done, Ben . . . stick by me.”
The social was being held in a rambling Queen Anne Victorian with a grand wrap-around porch in a rural community called Harmony. Several wicker-back rocking chairs with peony cushions lined either side of the oval windowed entrance like Hotel guests taking the morning sun. When the pair climbed the steps to twist the bell, Ben spotted goats in a penned enclosure alongside the driveway.
“See,” she said, “I told you there would be something for you to do.”
Ben immediately recognized Grace McKibben when the door opened, the president of the Queen Esther class. Except he was used to seeing her dressed in black wool, layers of it—blouse, cardigan sweater, a jacket, and skirt that fell just above a short expanse of her black cotton stockings and string-tied heels. A cameo brooch was the only color in the whole expanse of garments, and it rested tight against her Adam’s apple. Mrs. McKibben always wore a pill box hat in church, too, with black netting over her chignon—a dark scrim that she might pull down over her chalky face at a moment’s notice, he thought.
But this Saturday morning, she met mother and son at the door in a dress patterned with a riot of melon peonies, like those on the porch rockers’ cushions, against an ivory background, and matching salmon satin slippers and hose. Stuck in her gray bun was a sprig of baby’s breath.
“Welcome to Queen Esther’s soirée!” exuded Mrs.
McKibben.
“Oh, Grace, you look so beautiful,” Ben’s mother declared.
“What’s a soirée?” he whispered as they were being escorted into the dimly lit vestibule.
“Shhhh,” she admonished. “It’s a woman’s social. Now be on your best behavior.”
It was a grand interior. A Matisse odalisque hung in the paneled hallway. Oriental carpets jeweled its dark parquet floors, and like young girls, huge Chinese jardinieres stood sentry at the living room entranceway. Ben could see perhaps a dozen women standing, talking to each other animatedly, all attired in muted spring dresses with white or pastel slippers. When the hostess opened the French doors, the fragrance of a sweet perfume momentarily overcame him.
“Katherine Daugherty and her Gainsborough son, Ben!’ the hostess gushed. The women all turned and smiled at the pair, one of them commenting, “Oh, Katherine and Ben, we are so glad you came.” Ben watched a fawn-colored Siamese cat with gas-blue eyes brush up against the shiny hose of several of the guests. Cookies and delicate pastries graced glass-topped tables throughout the grand room. At one end in a circular alcove with curved windows sat a home organ. Mrs. McKibben was the organist for the Second United Presbyterian Church.
“It looks like we’re all here,” the Bible class president declared. “Please sit down, ladies.” Eyeing Ben standing at his mother’s side—“and gentleman.”
The room is as large as our downstairs, thought Ben. Tufted sofas, love seats and overstuffed chairs were backed up against oak wainscoting. Timbers lined the ceiling.
“We have some minor class business to conduct before we begin the SOIRÉE ...” she hesitated, and several women giggled. Ben’s mother smiled innocently, not knowing anything more than he did. “But before that, I want to introduce you to my dear friend and companion.”
She opened the French doors to the dining room. A diminutive woman entered, perhaps a decade younger than the hostess, with marcelled raven hair, pale skin, and wearing a watery persimmon red lipstick. Mrs. McKibben wore no make-up, except white face powder.
“Lydia Hopkins, ladies.” Miss Hopkins curtseyed. The Queen Esther president grasped her hand and directed, “Go bring in the tea, dear.”
The woman was as young as his mother and, Ben thought, as attractive, too. “Where’s Mr. McKibben, Ma?”
Katherine Daugherty scowled.
“Who takes care of the goats?” he asked.
“Ben!” she hissed.
Miss Hopkins wore a crisp white waitress’ apron over a black shirtwaist dress. Its collar, unlike Grace McKibben’s, was open and exposed a flushed expanse of flesh. She had a self-effacing manner, and was given to uttering short sentences.
“Oh, you’re welcome. I’m sure.”
“Yes, isn’t it a lovely home? Grace has such exquisite taste.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t bake these brownies. Grace did. She’s a marvelous chef.”
“Does she take care of the goats?” Ben asked.
Lydia Hopkins, who stooped over to pour tea in their bone china cups, smiled. Katherine Daugherty grinned sheepishly.
“Oh, why are you so nosey?” She glanced up at Lydia, appealing for her understanding.
“Yes, I tend to the goats, Ben. I’ll take you out to meet them later this morning.”
He liked her right off. As the Queen Esther women palavered about the upcoming business of the Bible class, she’d periodically glance over at him and wink.
Soon the noise in the large room subsided. The hostess had excused herself minutes earlier, and her guests were all comfortably ensconced, waiting for the next turn of events. Ben fidgeted like it was getting stuffy.
There were occasional puddles of hushed conversation, but most of the women sat decorously mum, a few studying the sunlight filtering through the stained glass window over the double keyboard organ. When, stunningly, Grace McKibben swaned through the dining room doorway bedecked in a bottle-green velvet chapeau festooned with plastic cherries, one banana, and an orange. Throwing her arms wide, she kicked off her salmon slippers and cried:
“Welcome to Queen Esther’s Soireé!”
The ladies burst into laughter that sounded more like delighted squeals.
President McKibben sat down at the organ, and broke into a rousing chorus of “Mississippi Mud.”
As she furiously pedaled, and pushed and pulled at the concert stops—the living room literally swelling with brass instrumentation—an undernourished Aunt Jemima shimmied into the gathering wearing a red bandana—just like on the box of pancakes Ben loved so. Lydia Hopkins’ milky white face, now marred with burnt cork, and in her hands—bones.
At the nodding of Mrs. McKibben, Lydia obliged her accompanist with a stiff one minute jig and rib-clapper percussion.
The women were in titters.
Lydia curtseyed once again. When the ringmaster held her hands high in the air, requesting silence, Ben wondered if they’d visit the goats with Lydia wearing blackface.
“Ladies,” Mrs. McKibben barked, “Now for the surprise. Queen Esther’s Morality Play! But you must all take part.” Conspiratorially, she swept her chignon about and glared at each woman assembled. “But never breathe a word of this to any of our congregation. We’ve survived for thirteen years through ecclesiastical famine and scarce liturgical fortune. But the God of Mercy loves each and every one of us. Pray and be merciful, He admonishes.
And, above all, HAVE INNOCENT FUN!”
The ladies applauded, even Ben’s mother. The cat jumped up between the pair and rolled its back into his side. Ben thought the shade in the room had become rosier. As if the sky outside had begun to bleed salmon. The floral upholstered furniture . . . all of it gave off a pale carnation glow just as did the soft-hued women’s dresses. The tinted flesh of the photographs hanging on the wall. The painting over the fireplace—a pink calliope unicorn. The coral bordered carpet in the grand living room with a mimosa center. Peach roses now began opening in their crystal vases, releasing their perfume. Ben, wishing he were outside with the goats, and slowly succumbing to the chamber’s rising temperature.
Lydia Hopkins opened the double glass doors to the hallway, and switched on the tear-drop chandelier, illuminating a wide staircase with fanciful mahogany balusters. It was as if the women were sitting below a proscenium arch.
The audience was aroused by the sound of bells Ben had heard on horses pulling wagons for hay rides. Leather belts festooned with silver balls inside which rolled steel bearings. The straps shook several times, to announce an appearance. All eyes were fixed on the upper level of the staircase illuminated by a stained glass window.
Lydia Hopkins cried out: “QUEEN ESTHER!”
About her neck a black strap of Christmas bells, and scantily attired in a champagne brassiere, one of those catfish-hooked girdles with catches to which her black mercerized hose were fastened, and no shoes . . . her pasty flesh, mounds of it, harnessed by the unmentionables, brocaded and laced but still looking very much like saddles or straps . . . Grace McKibben held aloft two tambourines like the tablets of Moses. Each step she descended, the harness bells jangled, accompanied by a furtive glances she, Queen Esther, shot to her admiring, but noticeably embarrassed, dark-faced Lydia.
The Bible class, at first stunned, gradually effected a smattering of nervous laughter. When Grace reached the last step, they were applauding. Ben heard the goats bleating in the dooryard. Without any prodding, the auburn-haired women sitting alongside Katherine Daugherty darted into the dining room towards the back stairway. Momentarily, she, too, appeared on the upper landing, slapping her hand against a pressure cooker she’d lifted on her way though the kitchen. She wore no shoes or stockings, a purple petticoat, and had a carrot stuck in her hair.
The guests egged her on as she flounced down the steps. Soon the women were waiting in line to be the next on the illuminated stairway. The hilarity was building.
Grace McKibben and Lydia sat on carpeted Kurdistan cushions in the vestibule, clapping robustly for each grand entrance.
Another member of the Bible class (Ben recognized her as the Union Trust bank teller’s wife, Sylvia Lowell) poised on the landing behind an ironing board, her dancing partner. Out and in she moved it in clipped tango fashion, to the snapping of fingers in the audience. You couldn’t see her entire body until she
began to do a liquid turn as she and the dancing board “male” descended the oaken stairway as partners. She wore Titian-shaded panties, and for Ben’s sake, one presumed, spools of thread cellophane-taped to her nipples.
Ben had forgotten the goats. He couldn’t even hear them. Would his mother dare do
it? The women all around her were plotting, getting ready. Finally, one of the last, Katherine Daugherty rose. Ben stood up, too.
“I want to do it,” he begged. She shook her head and sat him back down. The women snickered. Soon she, too, appeared at the top of the stairs in a red and white gingham tablecloth.
“Ohhhh,” her classmates teased, as if they were men. Katherine Daugherty held up her hand to silence the impatient, and with cunning deliberativeness, pealed the tablecloth off her body. Instead of panties, she wore a flour sack dishtowel diaper and copper wire pot scrubbers she’d strung over her breasts with kitchen twine. From behind her back she proffered an iron, and at each stair pantomimed steaming the creases out of her thighs and derriere.
The assembled stood and huzzahed. Ben heard the goats bleating.
What if Mr. McKibben comes home? he worried.
The last member of the Queen Esther class to descend the stairs was Pastor Rose’s wife, Blanche, who’d tied a length of clothesline about her upper torso and another about her waistline. To cover her bodice she’d attached labels from canned goods to the rope by clothespins. Over one breast was a Del Monte Corn label, the other—Campbell’s Pork and Beans. Two clothespins held the crushed tomato labels over her pelvis, front and rear.
The congregation had finally spent itself.
Gathered closer together—huddling actually—in the center of the capacious living room, they sat with their legs folded beneath them, some on pillows, still wearing their improvised costumes, or wrapped in bed sheets that Lydia had supplied. The detritus of domesticity—sundry pans, scrubbers, iron, ironing board, clothesline, clothespins, ersatz fruit—and even silk panties, girdle and one camisole—lay in a heap over by the organ.
They ate coleslaw, macaroni salad, potato salad, and baked beans on paper plates served by Miss Hopkins, who by now had cold cream buttering her face. Coffee was perking in the huge metal church urn in the kitchen. Katherine Daugherty made a plate of food for her son, who sat off with the cat, wondering if Mr. McKibben might take him out to tend the goats. It felt like it was getting that time of day. The dusty rose atmosphere in the room had begun to give away to a chromatic blue, and the strong fragrance of lavender sachet had evaporated . . . perhaps much earlier when Ben was watching the stairway show. Shadows had converged on the room. Several of the assembled looked pale under their sheets; others shivered in their unmentionables.
Katherine Daugherty finally stood, and gathered her clothes. The rest of the Queen Esther Bible Class did likewise.
Mrs. McKibben hovered behind her. “Did you enjoy Queen Esther’s soirée, son?”
“I did,” he said.
“Now you won’t breathe a word of it, promise?”
He nodded.
“Scout’s honor?”
Ben extended his index and middle finger.
“You’re still a little man. That’s why your mother let you attend. We don’t permit grown men in Queen Esther’s Bible class.”
He could understand why.
“Oh, Ben, we didn’t even get to feed the goats, did we,” Lydia said. “You come again. We’ll do it first thing.”
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