The Painted Table(35)

“Call me when it’s over,” Nels says as they exit the car. He drives off, tire chains clanking through fresh drifts and Saffee’s mittens left on the backseat.

Joann agrees to split a fifteen-cent box of popcorn but objects to Saffee’s request for a Holloway, which, she says, would loosen her teeth. Saffee’s tongue explores to see if the damage has already been done. She follows Joann into the darkened, half-full theater and is relieved when her mother selects a row near the back. When seated, Saffee slouches low in her seat.

The red velvet curtains open, and Saffee is willingly abducted into Scarlett’s capricious world of extravagant gowns, plantation garden parties, and covert romance with roguish Rhett Butler. When Melanie suffers premature labor and Scarlett must deliver the baby, Saffee covers her eyes. But this discomfort is nothing like what is to come. When the union   Army burns Atlanta and the angry inferno backdrops Scarlett’s perilous wagon ride, Joann gasps. She grips Saffee’s arm and drags her out of the row of startled viewers, stepping on toes with no apology.

“Mom!” Saffee hisses. “What are you doing?”

“Shh! Sit down!” someone demands.

With Saffee still in tow, Joann shoves through the swinging doors to the lobby. Her eyes dart, looking for a place of refuge, but she sees none.

“Mother! What’s going on?”

Joann’s face is flushed and her breathing rapid. She stumbles to a far wall and weakly slumps to the floor. Her unbuttoned coat slips from her shoulders. On the wall above her is a framed poster of bare-chested William Holden. He looks down on lovely, placid Kim Novak seated on the ground, encircled by a flowing pink gown. The scene, from a coming attraction called Picnic, mocks the show of real life playing on the lobby carpeting below it.

Joann’s nervous hands clench and unclench. Fire, again, has triggered a fearful episode.

Seeing her mother’s terror, Saffee feels a mixture of compassion and mortification. She looks around, hoping there is no one else in the lobby. Mr. Jenkins, the theater manager, watches them from behind the concession stand with his cleaning rag paused in midair.

“I have to get out of here.” Joann’s voice is desperate but quiet. She seems to be making an effort to calm herself. “Saffee, help me get home.” She waves an arm. “Pull me up.”

Saffee steadies the arm and lifts upward but is unable to bring Joann to standing. She is afraid the movie will be over before they can get out the door. She can’t let classmates see her struggle with a disoriented mother.

“Come on, Mother. Get up. Let’s go.”

Joann maneuvers to her knees and with Saffee’s assistance inches up the wall, knocking Holden-Novak askew. Once upright, she smoothes her hair and orders imperiously, “Saffee, go to Mr. Jenkins over there. Tell him to give you money back for two tickets.”

“No, Mother, I’m not going to do that. We need to leave.” Saffee straightens Joann’s coat, buttons it, and hurriedly guides her to the front double doors. With a bare hand, she pushes against the cold glass patterned with swirls of ice. The winter storm, which for more than ninety minutes had been forgotten, assaults with cruelty.

Saffee remembers that her dad expects them to call, but she cannot bear the thought of returning to the lobby, soon to be full of people who would gawk at them. They lunge into the wind. Saffee glances back over her shoulder and sees Mr. Jenkins peering out, his face distorted by the ice on the glass door.

Joann, her bare head lowered, heedlessly strides through the drifting snow. Wind quickly penetrates their clothing. Saffee holds Joann’s arm firmly with two hands as if worried she might run off, but also to keep them warm. As they hurry along, she is stricken by the role reversal. How has it happened that she, the daughter, is caring for her bewildered mother?

By the time they reach home, Joann’s exertion in the cold has restored her senses. Nels, surprised they hadn’t called for a ride, meets them at the door.

“We came home early, Daddy, because Mother . . . she didn’t like the movie.”

Without a word, Joann heads to the bedroom and begins to undress for bed.

Saffee follows. “Mom, do you want me to help you?”

Joann shakes her head no.




Later Saffee lies awake, replaying the frightful evening. It didn’t seem that Joann believed she was in real danger from the fire on the screen, unlike that summer night when she tried to push Saffee to some kind of safety under the Norway table. But again flames had triggered irrational behavior.

She’s heard that it’s illegal to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Saffee shudders. The nightmare could have been even worse.