Searching For Emery Boards

A Story

BY CHLOE MALLE

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Illustration by Ari Savitzky
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Barry is partial to elevator jazz during dinner. Nightly dinners are one of few traditions in the Chaiken household; it is the one time the three of them simulate the Cleaver family, and succeed.

Quietly thrumming his fingertips against the pink paisley tablecloth, Barry waits for his wife to serve herself her chicken and sautéed vegetables, so he can then serve himself. He doesn't thrum out of anxiety or hurry, but simply out of happy habit. Barry doesn't mind waiting for his wife. He loves to watch her sift through the assortment of legumes choosing only the greenbeans for her picky palate. Her subtle idiosyncrasies are what make Claire that certain femme fatale in her husband's eyes.

Penelope finds her mother's time-consuming habits neither appealing nor touching. She sighs conspicuously with the desired goal of speeding up Claire's chicken picking process, to no avail. Barry smiles a silent laugh, acknowledging his daughter's attempts to hurry her mother. She giggles back, this exchange with her father making the wait worthwhile.

Claire looks up, as if interrupted in some holy ritual. "What on earth are you two giggling about?"

"Nothing sweetheart," Barry replies affectionately. Claire doesn't feel like investigating further so she moves on directly to the traumas of her day.

"Oh Barry, it was awful, everyone in Sak's was staring at my gums." Claire laments while her daughter rolls her eyes. Penelope is not a fan of her mother's histrionics, but counters them with her own.

Claire thrives on the moments at the dinner table when she can whine freely to her husband and receive genuine sympathy and attention in return.

Today happens to be a particularly taxing day for Claire and she is not going to let it slip by without milking it for all the sympathy she can get from her husband. Not only had she bought shoes with her teenage daughter, but she had to suffer the humiliation of walking around Sak's with her mouth packed with gauze, the aftermath of her recent gum graft.

Penelope doesn't mind listening to her mother explain the details of her day if only for the simple pleasure of hearing her father's witty but sincere responses.

"Barry, that woman who we always see standing in front of Zabar's, she was in Sak's and she was staring at me I just know it. She was looking at my mouth and I could swear she was smirking."

"Darling, I'm quite sure that smirk was a smile. Smiling at how silly it is that you should feel self-conscious when you are always the best looking woman in those department stores, whether you're gums make your mouth look like Halloween wax lips or not."

"BARRY! My lips do not look like wax things, they are just slightly swollen. Good God, that's it, I'm not going out the rest of the week," she says this matter of factly, but all present know that she wants her husband to challenge it. Even Sheldon, the Chaikens' King Charles Spaniel.

Barry doesn't challenge his wife's statement; he feels it is better for her if she makes her mind up about this on her own. He replies simply, "Ah the periodontal perils of our later years," and turning towards Penelope, inquires about her day.

Penelope prides herself on the fact that her father is more interested in her than her mother. She answers attentively and articulates her thoughts on an article in The Times about the present condition of Dolly, the cloned ewe.

"Yes, well I just can't stand the idea of cloning. It just isn't how things are meant to be," Claire pipes in. She isn't quite as ignorant as she sounds; she is, in fact, intelligent. However, when battling her daughter for the attention of her husband, intelligence is not her weapon of choice.

This battle peacefully continues until half past eight when the trio adjourn, retreating towards their individual lairs. Each member of the family hiding behind some pastime: Penelope signs onto America Online, Barry peruses the New Yorker, while Claire sits on her bed with her newest endeavor, Girl with a Pearl Earring, which she is intent on finishing before she sees the movie. Yes, there they were, three little bears, though none fitting their surroundings just right.

As the evening sneaks by Claire takes to her toilette while Barry walks Sheldon. Claire is frazzled. She ransacks her dresser as one on a treasure hunt, but the booty she's hunting is nowhere to be found.

After rummaging through all her drawers she continues her search for an emery board into her daughter's room. Floating through the bedroom mindlessly, thoughts on the tool's potential whereabouts, she makes her way to the bathroom door which is slightly ajar. She is sharply confronted by her own image in the mirror facing her from the back of the door. As she slips out of her thoughts she hears the sound of deep breathing seeping through the crack of the door. Startled and worried, Claire pushes the door open quickly, images of disaster running through her mind as only mothers' minds do.

What meets her eyes is a disaster of a new kind. One of the few she'd avoided imagining for sixteen years. At first glance she isn't sure what her daughter is doing, but after several seconds it is clear that this is no exercise in hygiene. Penelope lies in her bathtub, suds covering much of her body. Her head tilts back in a simple oblivion, which Claire chooses not to imagine. Penelope's arm moves gently back and forth directing her right hand which is wedged between her thighs. Claire watches her daughter's chest heave up and down rythmically, creating ripples in the bathwater.

The polite thing for Claire to do would be to either slip out quietly before her presence is observed or to clear her throat loudly making her presence known. Claire does neither. She is too deep in shock and confusion, seeing a more stark and frank image of her daughter than she had ever imagined, or wants to imagine for that matter. She simply stands staring.

With that sixth sense we are said to have, Penelope feels her mother's presence and looks around sharply, breaking her rythmic cycle. A slight shriek echoes through the mirror and trembles the emery boards in the drawer. Penelope sits up in the tub, staring wildly at her mother. Claire has never invaded her daughter's privacy, sometimes to the point where Penelope wishes she would. Now, in thirty seconds, her most private enterprise has been ruined, exposed to the public. Her wild gaze turns to a blank, shocked stare and each avoid the other's eye.

Overwhelmed Claire moves backward slightly and lands her bottom on Penelope's toilet seat. "I was looking for an emery board." Claire says, with surprising clarity. The comment is not directed towards Penelope but rather to the air and, also, the emery boards.

Claire retreats into her own world, as if shell-shocked and needing time to recover. Penelope turns her head to stare at the faucet which is dripping scalding drops. They sit in silence for several minutes, Penelope watching the faucet in discomfort but also in relief. Despite the intrusive, uncomfortable nature of the situation, it offers Penelope an abrupt entrance into intimacy with her mother. An intimacy which she never expected would be achieved in this manner, but longed for nonetheless. And now that intimacy has slapped them in the face, and Penelope hasn't even had to work for it.

"I used to touch myself when I was your age," Penelope cringes at her mother's words but realizes that she is beyond embarassment and awkwardly relaxes her scrunched shoulders.

"It wasn't about being sexually frustrated. It was more my way of showing myself that I wasn't as prissy as everyone thought. You know, the kids all used to think I was Miss Prim and Proper, that I never did anything crazy. It's not true though, they just thought that because they confused shy and introverted with prissy and proper. I guess I wanted to show myself that I did wild and crazy things; I realize now that it wasn't so wild, but it soothed my insecurities back then." Claire emerges briefly from her inner world and, after her soliloquy, returns to it.

Penelope listens, continuing to stare at the faucet. Normally she would have stormed out of the bathroom with a terse, repulsed remark. Tonight, however, it doesn't seem appropriate to act normally—the situation is already too unusual. Instead Penelope sits in her tub, her arms now above water, resting on the basin, with her toes peeping out above the suds below the faucet. Her toenail polish, Chinese Vermillion it is called, gives her a Norma Desmond-in-her-younger-years quality.

"You know masturbation is just one of those things," Claire muses again,

"Most everyone partakes in it at some time or another, but it is always taboo to talk about it. Like sex, I suppose. Well, the two are related." Claire's comments have turned into a dialogue with herself to which Penelope is a mere bystander.

"I often find dirty magazines in your father's sock drawer. Not Playboy or anything that tacky, you know, nicer, more sophisticated women. Well, anyway, that's not really the point, the point is that they are there and there are only so many things one does with those sorts of magazines. I was shocked at first, but now I've gotten used to it. Everyone has their personal pastime—mine is watching Audrey Hepburn films, while your father's is, well, more active."

Penelope is somewhere between laughing and vomiting. The idea of her father masturbating is too much for her to handle but listening to her mother describe it in her twee, uncomfortable way makes it almost worthwhile. The two sit in silence again and the bath drain begins to hiss.

Penelope is pensive and happy. She smiles softly to herself and casually turns her head, making the pivotal move. Penelope looks at her mother. Claire has re-entered her own world after her confession and is unaware of her daughter's gaze. She continues to study the pearl colored tile of the bathroom floor, observing the grouting.

Furtively, for fear of Claire noticing her daughter's keen interest, Penelope continues to stare at her mother. Penelope's gaze becomes less surreptitious, and the fear of discovery seems to dissolve. Somehow, it became acceptable if Claire discovered that, yes, her daughter did in fact care.

Chloe Malle B'08 sorts her own legumes.

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