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The Blab

Rita Plush

    Dale was out of her rut; she was accomplishing. She was a customer service rep with dental. The gap between her and Loraine had narrowed. There was one more stop on her list. If there was no traffic, she could make it. “...and get me to The Blab on time,” she began to sing to a My Fair Lady tune.
    She parked, but couldn’t find the entrance. So, she followed a line of people that went clear around the low-slung building. What are they all waiting for? Curious, she asked a woman.
    “Ever hear of The Blab?”
    You should only know. “I’ve heard.”
    “This is the line to get in. I’d let you go in front of me, but it would probably cause a riot,” said the nice lady.
    “No worries,” said Dale, and used to waiting for what she wanted, she took her place at the end of the queue. My sister. Everyone is waiting to see my sister. She wanted to tell people how far Loraine had come. But Loraine was Hattie Latimer now; Dale couldn’t give her away. Would anyone ever line up for me?
    The crowd began to move. Attendants marched them into the building and to the TV studio. “Don’t rush, there’s room for everyone.”
    Dale took a seat in the back row, near an exit door. Staff passed out postcards to the audience. “...&mnsp;send them back,” she heard—but so filled with nervous tension Dale was, all she could do was take the card and stuff it in her purse.
    There were cameras mounted on pedestals and camera operators. There were microphones and foldback speakers. There were video monitors. And there was Loraine. Behind that desk. The silk scarf tied around her shoulders, just so. Shocking enough to see her on TV, but the screen had somehow acted as a shield between them as she and Mama watched in disbelief—Loraine?! Is that Loraine? And though she knew it was her then, there was still a possible doubt, a could, and could-not-be Loraine. But here in the studio, there she was, in the flesh, breathing, touchable Loraine. A smiling, poised Loraine, Dale had never met.
    It’s me, Dale! I’m here! I went back and got my diploma! I finally graduated high school! I have a good job! whooped around in her brain, but Dale remained silent, in her seat by the exit door.
    This week’s guest was a giant of a sanitation worker who crafted a dollhouse that was so finely detailed, he used jeweler’s tools to construct it.
    “Tell us more,” Loraine/Hattie said with real interest. She leaned in as if she didn’t want to miss a word.
    Well, for as long as I can remember I thought I was stupid. I never finished high school because I had to help out at home. My mother... can your mother! This is about you. And then one day... A collective, “Huh!” from the audience brought Dale out of her trance.
    “You made the tools yourself?” Loraine/Hattie said. “Fascinating. Isn’t that fascinating, audience?” Cheers and applause. “And that’s not all Lou here did. Tell us about it, Lou,” she said with all the good will a person could muster.
    Came the end of the show, Loraine/Hattie waved a postcard in the air. “Don’t forget, folks, fill them out and send them in. We want to know what you have to blab about.”
    Nothing! I graduated from high school at 47, big deal! Lou built a line-for-line copy of the bungalow his daughter was born in—with furniture yet. Dale fished around in her purse, pulled the card and tore it to pieces.
    “Watch it!” a lady said; Dale almost knocked her over making for the exit. She ran to her car. What’s wrong with you? You think his dollhouse counts for more than your GED? You had a diploma to get and you got it. You took care of what was in your bucket. Be proud! You came to see your sister. Now, go see her!
    She dashed back into the studio and found an usher. “Excuse... me,” she sai,d trying to catch her breath. “Is Lor...er Hattie still here?” He gave her a bored, how should I know look. , “Could you... find out?” she said, breath still rough. “I grew up with Lor... Hattie. I’d like to say, hi.” She opened her purse, dug out a scrap of postcard. “Would you have a pen, by any chance?”
    “Christ sake,” he muttered, but reached into his pocket.
    She wrote, handed out the paper. “Dale Henkel. That’s me.” She gave a one-two poke to her chest. “I’ll wait here. Thanks so much.”

     Knock knock.
    “Door’s open,” came a familiar voice.
     Loraine was on the phone. She waved Dale in, pointed to an old rickety chair.
    It looked more like a closet than an office. A closet with a banged-up desk and barely room for the chair. Yet, for all its modest size and the dilapidated furnishings, Loraine looked as pleased as if she were receiving in the Taj Mahal. She beamed at Dale, held up a finger to signal just a minute, then, “Dale!” she said when she hung up.
    “Loraine! Or should I say, Hattie?”
    “Crazy, isn’t it?”
    “How did this all happen?” Dale said, still baffled by her sister’s turnabout from Mama’s handmaiden, to a talk show host.
    “I guess Howie showed up at the right time.”
    “Howie?”
    “The plumber. He came to unclog the kitchen sink, and piled me into his truck with his pipe wrench and sealing tape.”
    “You went off with a perfect stranger? That’s a page out of my book, but I never figured you for something like that. You were always so... so...”
    “So timid and... uninteresting. You can say it. I was. A regular goody two shoes, afraid of her own shadow.”
    Now Loraine became thoughtful. “We were in the kitchen. Howie was chatting as he worked. When he finished with the sink, he asked me about myself. I talked and he listened. He was interested in what I had to say. Who could ever speak around here, let alone be listened to, what with Mama yakking day and night, demanding to be heard?
    “Do you know what it’s like to be really listened to?”
    “Didn’t get much of chance with Mama, did we?” Dale said.
    Loraine either ignored the question, or so absorbed in her story and unable to stop, said, “He’d finished his work for the day and said, how about we go for a ride? It was just supposed to be for a ride,” Loraine said in a dreamy way, as if she too could not believe what had come of that afternoon. “But once I was out of that house... the freedom,” she said, and flung out her arms as if they’d suddenly been released from shackles. “I knew I would never go back. Couldn’t go back. I always admired you for that.”
    “You admired me?”
    “For always doing what you wanted, no matter what Mama said.”
    Will wonders never cease? But more interested in Loraine’s getaway than catching praise, Dale said, “So, you went for a ride...”
    “And... ended up in back of his truck. The sink wasn’t the only thing he unclogged,” Loraine said with a savvy look.
     “Whoa!” Dale put up her hands. “You lock the bathroom door when you brush your teeth, and now it’s beddy-bye in back of a truck with a man you don’t know from Adam? Are you becoming me?”
    “Like I told you, it was the right time. Didn’t something ever happen to you when you didn’t expect it and boom! it changed everything?”
    “Sure did! And you were it! When Mama and I saw you on The Blab. A whole new Loraine. With a whole new life. That’s what made me get my GED.”
    Loraine gaped at her, eyes wide. “You got your GED. Wow! You should be on The Blab.”
    “Me? Are you serious?”
    “Is my name Hattie Latimer?” Loraine said, and the sisters burst out laughing. Then, when Loraine was able to get a grip she said, “I’ll ask you some questions, and you’ll answer. Easy peasy. All you’d have to do is be yourself.”
    Which self are you talking about? Sometimes Dale wasn’t sure if she was who she was, who she had been, or who she was going to be.
    “Think of all the people out there who are afraid to go for the thing they want,” Loraine continued. “You’d give them hope.—If she can do it, I can!—You’d be helping them. You look different by the way. A good different. Is it your hair?” Loraine patted her own do.
    “I changed it,” Dale said. “And I took off some weight; eating better, eating smarter now. Cut out the...” she picked up an imaginary glass and tipped it back.
    “You’re an inspiration, Dale. You really are.”
    They sat in silence a moment, Loraine because she was waiting, Dale because she couldn’t speak. Me? An inspiration? “Well, if you think so...” she finally said, still not quite believing Loraine’s proposal.
    “I know so!” Loraine checked the schedule and set the date, then, “Speaking of which, did you tell Mama about your GED?”
    “I did.”
    “And she said...”
    “She wanted more raspberry jam.”
    “What?!”

    “Let’s leave it at that. Nothing like Mama to kill a good mood. Now, how about finishing your story.” Dale turned her palm up and out, as if to say, put it right there. “I still don’t know how you got from the back of a truck to in front of a TV audience.”
    “That’s pretty much how it was, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Feel like something to eat? I’m getting hungry.”
    Loraine called in their order. A deluxe burger with sweet potato fries and a malted for her, a salad and a black coffee for Dale.
    Dale didn’t remember Loraine with such a hearty appetite, but there she was, scarfing down that burger and fries, inhaling that malted as if she’d hadn’t eaten in a week. Maybe being away from Mama restored her desire to eat as well as to talk.
    “The whole thing was a fluke.” She cleaned her plate with the last of the bun. “They called in an emergency while we were in the truck, and...”
    “Slow down a minute. Who’s they?”
    “Oh! The TV studio. They’re Howie’s customer. He didn’t want to leave me alone in the truck, so, he found me an empty office.
     “Waiting, I kept going over our talk in the kitchen. I still couldn’t believe I was out of that house. What he said, what I said—out loud. I was actually talking to myself for I don’t know how long. And when I looked up, Howie was there aiming his cell phone at me. ‘That was some great monologue,’ he said. Monologue? What monologue? I thought he was taking my picture. But no. He’d been taping me with his phone.
     “He played it back. It was me, alright, the words just pouring out. I was saying things I didn’t even know I thought.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like taking so long to leave Mama. And how good it felt when I did. And maybe I wasn’t the only one who wanted to do things and didn’t, then finally did. I was just blabbing, but he said it was real. He said I was real.”
    “That you are, sister mine.”
    “Talk about timing... the station manager came in. Howie showed him the video. ‘How about this for a new show?’ He’s like that, Howie, not afraid to speak up. And the manager said, ‘Interesting, hold on to it.’” Loraine reached into a drawer, pulled out a pouch of Kettle Chips, tore it open and handed it over the desk. At another time Dale would have lunged at it, but now she merely waved it away. Loraine snagged a chip.
    “And then I got nervy and asked if there were any job openings.There was, clerical in Human Resources.
    “I’d never really been with other people. I liked talking to them, getting to know them. My boss said I was very engaging.” Loraine screwed up her face in a comical twist. “I’m engaging? Who knew? But the really fluky part is a few months later a show was cancelled and they needed a fill-in. The manager remembered my video. They called me in and we did some practice shoots. They ran a few, they clicked, and here I am.” She threw out her arms and her knuckles almost scraped the side walls.
    “Wow! That’s some story.”
    “There’s more.” Loraine put her two hands on top of the desk, leaned forward and heaved herself—or so it seemed to Dale—up out of her chair.
    “Oooh... my... God!” So, that’s where all the food went.
    “Due in June.” Loraine beamed, patted her baby bump.
    “My little sister is pregnant! You’re going to be a mom!” She hugged Loraine across the desk. “And I’m going to be an auntie!”
    “And Mama’s going to be a grandmother?!” they said together.
    “Can you picture that?” Loraine said.
    “A grand pain in the ass, totally. But a grand mother? You keep that child away from her, you hear me? What about Howie? I assume—”
    “Of course, he’s the dad! He’s little older than I am...”
    “Nothing wrong with that.”
    “He’s 53.”
    Fifty-three? The dad you never had.
    As if Loraine could read her thoughts: “Did you ever wonder who our daddies were?”
    “I used to,” Dale said a little wistful. “But they didn’t want us any more than she did, so what was the point?”
    “None, I guess.”
    “Well then, a man Howie’s age is mature, stable,” almost auntie said, trying for a positive spin. “He’ll make a good home for the baby.”
    “He’s married.”
    “Oh boy! Is he going to leave his wife?” Mine never did.
    “I don’t know. But I want this baby. I want to be a mom. I want to be a good mom.”
    “And you will be! Just do everything the opposite of Mama. And don’t tell your baby it ruined your life.”
    “Did we ever talk like this at home?” Loraine said, taken by their open, easy-going exchange.
    “With Mama crushing everything that didn’t include her? We lived in a shut-your-mouth house, together, but alone. And then I moved out when I was 20. You were 13. We didn’t really have a chance to...”
    “...to be sisters?” Loraine tried.
    Dale gave a tiny nod.
    A stillness came over them. Silently, they regarded each other. A warmth deep inside them began to stir and spread, as if their feelings for each other had been shorted out, and were suddenly rewired and restored.
    “I’d like to help,” Dale said. Whether Howie was all in, all out, or on the fence, she wanted to be part of Loraine’s new world. Help raise a child? You’re first growing yourself up! Back off! she said to the voice.
    “Oh! I would love that!” Loraine reached her hands across the desk as if to welcome Dale into her life. “Do you think Mama will ever change?”
    “As into a loving, caring grandma?”
    “Mmmm,” Loraine said, lost in some Walton family TV bliss.
    “I wouldn’t count on it.” Dale said, but no dream crusher she, added, “But, you never know.” Then, pushing out of her chair, “Come, little sister,” she said. “Let’s go and tell the old cow the good news.”

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