7. Designing Women
Designing Women
Rebekkah Mordecai knew one thing for certain: her life was just one missed phone call away from stardom, or so her mother kept insisting.
It was a balmy, late afternoon, the kind of day where the heat clung to you like guilt after skipping Sunday service.
The back door to Rebekkah’s small, cluttered house squealed on its rusty hinges as she swung it open, its protest as loud as the sigh she let out the moment she crossed the threshold.
The scent of something unmistakably fried (and possibly forgotten) hung in the air.
Probably the remnants of her mother’s ongoing battle with the deep fryer.
That thing had seen more chicken than the Colonel himself.
The house was a shrine to tacky mid-century decor.
Velvet paintings of Jesus, eyes soft and sorrowful, hung next to faded, framed pictures of Rebekkah’s glory days in youth choir, her face plastered in a smile so wide it bordered on deranged.
She dropped her bag onto the linoleum floor with a thud, its contents spilling out; a headshot, an old playbill for Godspell, and the last remnants of hope for a career that might just finally happen.
“This roof keeps me dry when the rain falls. This door helps to keep the cold at bay. On this floor, I can stand on my own two feet… It isn’t much but it is enough for me.
For this is my house! This is my house!” Rebekkah sang as she wandered through the kitchen.
It was a little ditty she sang each time she came home; the lyrics having somehow sprung into her mind the way that prophecies often plagued the prophets–out of nowhere, seemingly without a connecting thread of logic to pull on.
In this case, the enlightenment was pilfered from the future smash West End musical Matilda, but it wouldn’t premiere until 2011, so at this point Rebekkah was simply the dowsing rod of the musical muse, an unknowing market test for ear worms before they were introduced to the public at large.
“Blessings on this house. Hi, Mom!” Rebekkah called out in her usual singsong voice, forcing cheerfulness even as she noticed the distinct hum of conversation with a visitor, a stranger, lurking in the living room.
The living room opened before her, a museum of her mother’s insistence that everything not nailed down should be covered in plastic.
The faux-leather sofa shimmered under its protective sheath, making it look more like an art installation than a piece of furniture.
And there, perched like a queen in her throne, was Rebekkah’s mom in her motorized chair, a large glass of iced tea sweating in the crook of her elbow.
Her hair, bigger than a Texas skyline, was a monument of its own, shellacked into place with enough hairspray to warrant a fire safety warning.
And next to her on the couch, looking wildly out of place, was a stranger. Middle-aged, thinning hair, earnest. The kind of person whose only rebellion was choosing beige over khaki.
Rebekkah stopped mid-stride, her eye catching the stranger’s large notepad and voice recorder. This couldn’t be good. Or could it? Lady luck did seem to have finally noticed her existence.
“Mom, what’s happening? Who is this?” she asked, suspicion heavy on her tongue, though deep down she already knew the answer. Her mother had that look; the look of a woman about to meddle.
Her mother’s motorized chair whirred to life, inching forward like a regal vessel making its way through a royal procession as she explained, “An entertainment reporter from The Napanee Beaver newspaper, Rebekkah. They’re here to interview you!
” Her tone was filled with excitement, as though she had personally called in the press to announce Rebekkah’s imminent global takeover. Perhaps she had.
Rebekkah felt her stomach drop. The Napanee Beaver. The smallest of small-town papers, the kind that covered pie-eating contests and cow births with equal gravitas. She hadn’t exactly been hoping to make headlines there. But knowing her mother, the Beaver was only step one in an elaborate PR plan.
The reporter adjusted his glasses and turned on his recorder, “And I’m recording. So, tell me a little about what Rebekkah was like as a child?”
Rebekkah’s eyes widened. Oh no. This was going to get cringy fast.
Her mother, ever poised to turn even the smallest interaction into a press release, beamed at the question, her hair gleaming under the living room’s gaudy chandelier. “Well, we always knew Rebekkah was going to be a star,” she paused, and shot a look at her daughter. “Cross your legs, dear.”
Rebekkah, mortified but obedient, tucked one leg over the other. She knew this would only get worse before it got better.
Her mother continued without skipping a beat, “And she already is at our church. She’s in the choir, and she’s the secretary in the youth group.
” She nodded proudly, as if the Beaver reporter was about to be knocked off his feet by this bombshell revelation, “She has great penmanship. She gets that from me.”
“Mom…” Rebekkah interjected, her face flushing, “Stop it.” The reporter scribbled something down, possibly, great penmanship, a surefire way to secure that record deal and an above the fold headline.
But her mother was undeterred, “Well, you do. She really does. You know, people ask her to write letters for them or… or notes… or sometimes a… uh, a grocery list.” She clapped her hands together as if this was something the Pope himself should know about.
“Remember that one time Mrs. Stalwart asked you to write her grocery list because her arthritis was so bad last winter?”
Rebekkah’s eyes widened in horror, “Mom… don’t tell that story!” But the damage was already being done. The Beaver reporter was furiously jotting down notes, likely already imagining the headline: Local Talent Writes Shopping List for the Elderly.
Her mother’s face lit up with mischief, clearly enjoying herself, “Well, you did. Sit up straight. She’s so modest. Her father and I…
sit up straight!” She barked the command like a drill sergeant.
Rebekkah obliged, though she shot her mother a warning look.
“Her father and I always joke that she’ll never become a doctor. ”
Rebekkah groaned internally, knowing exactly where this was headed.
Her mother glanced at her as if on cue, grinning like a Cheshire cat, “She’ll never become a doctor because…”
Rebekkah sighed, falling into the well-rehearsed trap, “Because you could read my prescriptions.”
Her mother exploded with laughter, the kind of shrill, cackling laugh that made everyone in the room feel uncomfortable. The reporter, to his credit, remained composed, though he blinked rapidly as if trying to keep up with the whirlwind of chaos that was unfolding before him.
Rebekkah’s mother wasn’t done, “That’s another thing Rebekkah can do. Comedy! She’s very funny.” She wagged a finger at the reporter, as if letting him in on some juicy industry secret.
Rebekkah leapt at the first chance to derail the train of humiliation, “Was that the phone? We might not have heard it ringing.” She paused, listening to the non-existent sound, then forced her face into a pleasant smile as she explained to the bewildered reporter, “It doesn’t always ring, you know?
It might have been WWJD calling about the Trinity Radio Hour. ”
Her mom, refusing to be outdone, yelled from her chair, “Go check in my room, it might not have rung in the kitchen. And check the mail!”
Rebekkah, her smile broken and her face now a mixture of embarrassment and fury, stood frozen for a beat before darting toward the kitchen.
As her daughter disappeared, Rebekkah’s mother leaned closer to the reporter, her voice filled with determination, “She’s going to be a big star.
I feel it, you know? I really feel like this is going to be her big break. ”
The reporter smiled awkwardly, trying to play along, “What a big break! So, tell me about this new radio hour on WWJD for Rebekkah and her band, Trinity?”
The Beaver reporter shifted on the plastic-covered couch, the squeak from his movement cutting through the silence like a bad punchline.
He was doing his best to keep up, his pen scribbling wildly in his notepad as if the sheer force of his writing could contain the chaos unfolding before him.
But it was clear, he was a little out of his depth.
His beige jacket, ill-fitted and slightly frayed at the cuffs, seemed to recoil from the overwhelming presence of Rebekkah’s mother, who was now craning forward in her motorized chair with the zeal of a stage mom two seconds away from dragging her child onto the Tommy Hunter show, if it was still on the air.
The house, suffocating in its decades-old decor, was a tribute to Rebekkah’s mother’s unwavering grip on the past. Over the mantle, a large, crooked portrait of Rebekkah’s father gazed down in stern judgment, his thick glasses magnifying the disappointment in his eyes, frozen forever in the 1980s.
On the wall beside it, a sequinned cross, possibly bought at a church fundraiser, glittered gaudily in the dim light.
The oppressive atmosphere was cluttered by a too-large coffee table, cluttered with TV Guides, old church bulletins, and an empty ashtray despite the last cigarette being extinguished there by Rebekkah’s father over a decade ago.
If it weren’t for the smell of chicken grease mingling with the faint scent of lavender air freshener proving inhabitation, you’d think time had forgotten the place.