The Craigslist Murders - Brenda Cullerton [29]
Charlotte loved the shock of oversize pink peonies set against black and white striped cotton. They were a stroke of genius. “They’re so unbearably loud,” her mother had added, shifting her body sideways, as if to remove herself from the offensive burst of color. “I’m not really criticizing, darling. We all have different ways of expressing ourselves, don’t we?”
Charlotte twitched and changed the subject. “You look beautiful, Mother,” she had said, hoping to deflect the insults. And it worked.
Pursing her lips in a semblance of a smile, her mother had no choice but to thank her. The thing is, she did look beautiful.
Long before women began to age so disgracefully; before “lethal injections” like Botox, Sculptra, and collagen, her mother was having facials twice a month and shielding her skin from the sun with hats and silk umbrellas. Neither the treasonous betrayals brought about by age or experience had touched her mother. Even at sixty-two years old, her skin remained luminously white and unblemished. So why did she continue to taunt and belittle her daughter? And what is it that made Charlotte so eager to please this woman who gave so little back?
Charlotte had always tried to be the perfect child: obedient, polite, responsible. But this undermining had been going on for as long as she could remember. Even when Charlotte succeeded, she sensed that she was, somehow, slipping. Always slipping.
Sometimes, it was physical—the sensation. A split second fit of dizziness. A moment when she was unsure of her footing. How dare her mother attack her in such a private, vulnerable place? Somebody had once said that decorating was a form of dreaming out loud. Charlotte agreed. But it was only here, within the safety of her own home, that she had ever permitted herself to fully explore those dreams. Yet still she smiled at her mother. It hurt her face, the smiling.
“Smile! Charlotte! Smile!” her mother would snarl, tugging her by the hand when she was small and looking straight into whatever lens seemed to be pointed in their direction. They were usually leaving Serendipity or Gino’s after an early Sunday night dinner. Only Charlotte seemed to understand that the papps had no interest in them. They were often just blocking the shot of some famous person behind them.
If she didn’t smile quickly enough, or the photographers ignored them, her mother would blame her. “No one likes a sourpuss,” she’d sneer, yanking her by the hair and dragging her towards a dingy maid’s room at home. It was off the kitchen. The bed had been removed and the only light came from a grated vent that overlooked an airshaft. “You can come out when you’ve learned to behave yourself,” she’d say, leaving Charlotte locked in the dark. How she’d dreaded the sound of her mother’s heels fading into the distance.
Any infraction of her mother’s rules, including touching her after she had finished dressing for her evenings out, and Charlotte was exiled to the room. It wasn’t easy, fighting the impulse to caress the yards of creamy silk or satin that her mother wore as lightly as she did the deliriously heavy scent of Joy. At first, the experience in the room was terrifying. But then, she’d close her eyes and begin to sing. Over the years, she’d also furnished the room with things that comforted her: a coarse blue blanket, a bottle of water, her Paddington Bear. She refused to bring in a flashlight or even a book of matches. Instead, Charlotte trained herself to embrace the fear; to become one with the darkness.
As she’d unwrapped her gift, a curious poster-like package, she’d wished that her mother could have read her mind. Why am I always tongue-tied with you? She was asking herself. Why, at thirty-seven years old, haven’t I learned to strike back? Just a glimpse of her gift—of the framed cartoon figure and Charlotte was shaking.
“I found this in the attic out in …”
Her mother was kneading her hands in her lap. “In,” she said again, while rubbing the fabric of the couch.
Charlotte looked at her, puzzled. “In Alpine, Mother?”
“Of