Day 3
Today's short story is dedicated to my beloved grandmother and all the other suffragettes.
DOLL BABY
I could see his eyes travel toward the doll. It occupied such a prominent spot in my living room, it was difficult to miss. I shriveled at the look of contempt, but then straightened my shoulders and stood tall. I looked him straight in the eye, and dared him to challenge my choices of decoration. He gazed past me, unable to meet my eyes, drawn again to the large doll. He began to laugh, not a fun laugh, not a kind laugh, but a mean, sarcastic laugh.
“So you’re just like all the other women, huh? Somehow, I thought you were different. You know, not like a…woman.”
He was doubled over with laughter, and for a moment, I allowed myself the pretense that he was doubled over because I had punched his jeering, mocking face and followed it with a jab to the gut. No such luck. He was at least a foot taller than I was, and worked out regularly. His only response to my punch would be a return uppercut to the jaw that would have landed me flat on my ass. I was determined to retain my dignity.
“So I’m not a woman? What does it mean, anyway? Do I have to meet some particular standard to be a woman?”
For a moment, I forgot that this man was my boss, and my internship was due to end soon. I really wanted to be converted to a full time employee, but suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. His comments, from a person I had assumed to be an ally, were disgusting.
“Doll baby”, he started, but stopped at the withering look I shot his way. “Lynette, I…I’m sorry, it’s just so….so….incongruous! Not just a doll in your house, but a large doll, a feminine doll, and so prominent, so…so…like you’re…proud of it!”
Flora listened closely to this exchange from her post on the mantle. I saw her eyes narrow, her fists clench. She stirred ever so slightly. I shot her a warning glance, but she shook her head. “Not this time”, she whispered, in a voice only 1 could hear. “I am not going to sit still and listen to this any longer. You’ve silenced me long enough.”
Guilt washed over me, her words striking at the very core of my being. Silenced her…she couldn’t have used any harsher words. The voice of a woman, a strong woman trapped inside the body of a 100-year-old doll, and I was silencing her. I kept her from speaking in the past, pushed her backwards, even put her in the closet once or twice to prevent her from embarrassing me by speaking too boldly. I bowed my head to her, mute acknowledgement that it was time.
Flora stepped down from the mantle and faced Ryan. He still stared behind me, straight at her, but at first seemed not to notice she had moved. The changing look on his face alerted me to his growing consciousness that someone else was in the room with us, someone unexpected, someone…frightening. He backed off three steps and stumbled over the coffee table. He caught himself just in time so that he landed on the sofa rather than the floor. He scooted back along the sofa as Flora moved toward him, her bisque hand outstretched, offering to assist him to his feet. He shook his head, refusing the proffered hand.
“No. Stay away from me, you freak.” He stumbled over his words, fear and disgust alternating across his face.
“Freak. Of course. I am just a…what was it, doll baby?”
Flora spoke audibly for the first time. Her familiar voice moved out of my head and trailed through the atmosphere as though she were living still. It was a pleasant voice, full of sunshine and spring meadows, the voice of a woman who had lived as an artist and a teacher, and who had inspired hundreds in her lifetime.
Ryan gulped. “You…I’m imagining this, right?” He looked at me with accusation in his eyes. “You…you put something in my drink, right?”
I shook my head. “I hadn’t offered you a drink yet. You haven’t had a thing cross your lips since you crossed my threshold – nothing but laughter, that is.” I glared at him. He looked away.
Flora settled on the sofa beside Ryan. He scooted away, but her hand on his prevented him from rising. She patted the sofa beside her, and I settled down on the other side of her, only this ceramic beauty between myself and my frightened boss.
“I am Flora.”
Ryan gulped again. “I am…Ryan”, he whispered.
“I know. Lynette has told me about you. She was thrilled to finally have a job with a person who was so…sympathetic. It appears she was wrong.” Flora spoke lightly, without a trace of accusation in her voice, but her words pierced.
“I…I am…a decent person. And you? What the hell are you?”
Flora nodded. The question was fair. “I am a suffragette.”
The oddity of her form and her words were having an affect on Ryan. He was losing his fear, gaining a cocky arrogance that was not the attitude I was used to seeing from him. He stood, shaking off Flora’s hand.
“You are porcelain. You are nothing. You are a symbol of womanly virtues that apparently Lynette is willing to pander to on her own while giving the outward appearance of being a strong, intelligent woman. You are a child’s toy.”
Flora rose, her old joints creaking. “Let’s get a couple of things straight. First, I am not porcelain, I am bisque.”
Ryan laughed. “So? A silly distinction. Just like a woman.”
“A woman? Ah, yes, I am a woman. Not a child, not a toy, but a woman. A woman who remains trapped in the body of a dressed up doll, the doll I was expected to be in my childhood, on into my womanhood. A woman who was forced to march and shout and be locked up just in order to get the right to vote for the leaders who made the laws that affected me. A woman who was supposed to get married, have children, and be quiet. Well, I did…even the last part. I kept my suffragette world separate from my womanly world, my home life.”
Ryan stopped laughing. He stared at this bisque creature before him, so calm, so poised, so strong. He didn’t have any words. It was the first time I had seen him silenced.
“Lynette didn’t want me to speak to you. She has silenced me many times in the past as men have come and gone, men she needed to serve in order to obtain a needed job or assistance in a project. Men who wouldn’t allow her into the clubhouse unless she cooked them dinner. And I respected her wishes…most of the time.”
Flora winked at me. I nodded. “Flora, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in the closet.”
“It’s all right. I understand. I did the same for many years, keeping my feminist…I believe that’s the correct word these days, right?” I nodded. “Keeping my feminist activities locked away in my secret place while cooking, cleaning, having babies…and teaching in order to maintain the farm during the Great Depression. I saved us, I kept us from going under by working all day, then coming home and working all night. I never got a thank you, or even recognition. It was just what I was supposed to do.”
I stood beside Flora now, no longer afraid of my boss, of my colleagues, of anyone. I was ashamed of my weakness in the face of her strength, but she held my hand in a grip that told me not to worry.
“I did all this for her…for all women…so that they wouldn’t have to be silent, they wouldn’t have to pretend. Sometimes I watch…I watch the world unfold around me, and I cry.”
Flora wiped at her cheek. The painted red dot was chipping, her cheeks showing cracks where tears had worn away at the old bisque. I squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry. I wish…”
My voice trailed off. I wished I had done better. I wished I had stood up more often. All the times she wanted to speak, because I wouldn’t, because I felt I couldn’t. I felt the need to bow to men, to conform to what they wanted me to be, just as she had a century ago, working her fingers to the bone to build a world for me better than what she had.
It had worked, of course. Things were better now. They weren’t right yet. There was still so much to be done. But I had options she had never dreamed of. I was a working scientist, a field she had no chance to enter. She had loved science. When I was little, she would show me the flowers and the trees. We chased bees together, and she showed me how to safely catch honeybees with my bare hands…the secret being, of course, to recognize which was them male bee. She had told me the male had no sting, that he was weak and needed women to care for him, to bring him food, to wait on his needs. “Just like Grandpa”, I said. She nodded. “Just like Grandpa”, she agreed.
Flora moved forward one more step. She was now toe to toe with Ryan, who shifted uncomfortably, but made no effort to move back. Her gaze hypnotized him, and he didn’t budge as she put her hand on his shoulder.
“Ryan, I like you.” Flora smiled. “I think you have potential. But you think you’re smarter than you really are, and you think you understand. You have no idea why a feminist would keep a doll in her house, a doll that was once owned by her grandmother, a doll that brings memories of a woman she cherished. It seems to you that she needs to fit some grotesque model of a person, a woman who rejects everything that came before and charges on boldly without any of the silly trappings. It seems to me that Lynette does that…but she does have some places where she chooses things that are stereotypically feminine. She chooses them not because she is required to, but because she wants to, because they feel good to her.”
I nodded. In fact, I had actually been chastised by many, both men and women, for those choices. It wasn’t an easy choice for me to keep a doll front and center in my living room. Even if the doll did contain the last remaining spirit of my beloved grandmother, I could have put it in my bedroom, away from prying eyes.
Ryan must have read my thoughts. “Why don’t you just…keep her where no one can see? It would be easier.”
I nodded. “Yes, it would. But it would be wrong. It would be a violation of everything I stand for, everything feminism stands for.”
“How can that be?” Ryan was not mocking now; he seemed to be trying to understand. “A doll is the…symbol of the patriarchy. The perversion of feminism.”
“I am proud of her. This doll belonged to my grandmother. She is my grandmother. She struggled, marched, and was arrested to bring rights to women, and that is not something to hide away, or to relegate to the dust pile of history. She is real, she is living, and I will honor her. I will honor all of them. I will not disdain the past, dismiss the real women who lived it, or condemn them because they did not finish the job. I continue her work, because there was too much of it for her and her friends to finish on their own.”
Ryan kept his eyes on Flora, who was now shrinking. As I stood taller, she grew shorter. Her joints stiffened up, the twinkle in her eye once more just paint, and she stood silent between us on the floor. I lifted her with love and placed her back on the mantelpiece, once more a large doll that dominated the room and watched over the occupant.
“I can pack my things tomorrow. I’ll come in at the usual time. I can be out by noon.”
Ryan shook his head. “What the hell are you saying? Are you resigning?”
“I assume that’s what you want. After today, I mean…”
Ryan stared into my eyes. I stared back. We sized each other up, neither of us willing to blink. Ryan moved before I did, grabbing my hand and pumping it up and down.
“You are not resigning. I refuse to accept your resignation. I expect you in at the usual time, and I expect you to sign the papers that I put on your desk.”
“Papers?” I spoke out of a haze. Signing papers was not one of my duties.
“Yes, papers. The papers that I will be filling out with personnel to convert you to a permanent position. We need more people like you.” Ryan turned toward the door.
“Wait. You came over for dinner.”
Ryan turned back and twinkled his eyes at me. “Why should you have to cook for me? You’re a skilled scientist. You do not have to serve men.”
Ryan was gone. As his car purred out of the driveway, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned, and for the first time in years was swept into the embrace of a living, breathing woman, an embrace I had never expected to feel again. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone. I spoke to the doll on the mantelpiece. “Thank you, Grandma”, I whispered. There was one twinkle of the blue eyes before the doll fell silent, now forever bisque. Her work was finally done.