The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 14

Walking to the bus stop with her mother after a day of eco-friendly soap manufacturing, Maribeth kept her eyes on the Cincinnati sidewalks. She didn't like people looking at her and she didn't like looking back at them. Too many faces, too many looks. When things got uncomfortable, books were Maribeths' refuge, her safe spot, but reading while walking was a bad idea for many reasons, including bumping into pedestrians and making Indigo angry.

As she watched the pavement under her shoes while crossing the street, she said, "Why is the street different from the sidewalk, Momma?"

"What?"

"They're not the same."

"Cars drive on the street and people walk on the sidewalk. Come on, let's hurry up. We're gonna miss our bus."

"I mean what they're made of. These sidewalks are hard–"

"They're cement. Or concrete. One or the other. And the streets are asphalt, I think."

"Oh, geez. What's asphalt?"

"It's poison! Don't ever walk on asphalt in bare feet, man. And in the summertime, hold your breath so you don't accidentally inhale asphalt fumes. They'll rot your lungs."

More disturbing news. Maribeth never walked barefoot. Not ever. Why wouldn't her own mother know that? And the idea that someone would walk on hot streets in their bare feet was incomprehensible. Who would do that? And why? She pushed the barefoot part of the conversation from her mind and was just about to ask why streets are paved with poison that produced poisonous fumes when it occurred to Maribeth, that was probably a bad idea. Not only did that sort of question typically result in scary answers, but the questions also made Indigo angry, which in itself was scary. Asphalt was probably related to something about the man again.

From the time she was a toddler, Maribeth had heard people say that her mother, Indigo, was a pretty, maybe even beautiful woman. To Maribeth, Indigo was simply mom but if people wanted to call her beautiful it was okay with Maribeth.

Indigo seemed to be at ease in any situation, whether interacting with friends or with total strangers. Maribeth admired that ability and her mom had it in spades.

Indigo happened to catch the eye of an attractive young man walking by. They exchanged smiles. Maribeth recognized that this was a different smile on her mother's face than the smile she gave to the mailman or the store clerk. This smile showed more teeth and gums and stayed on her face longer.

It seemed to Maribeth, that good-looking people were friendlier than other people. She recognized a pattern. They smiled more often and even when they were strangers, the good-looking people were eager to talk to Indigo, and she seemed eager to talk with them. Maribeth didn't have a firm grasp of why some people were considered good-looking and others not. Some good-looking people were tall, some were short, some had blue eyes, and some had brown eyes. There didn't seem to be a discernable commonality. For practical purposes, good-looking people were the ones her mom said were 'cute' or 'handsome' or once in a while she'd say a guy was 'hot.' Occasionally, Indigo would say that a woman was 'pretty' but for some reason, most of the good-looking people were guys.

Maribeth thought back on an incident that occurred a few months ago. Indigo and Maribeth were walking past a gym when a sweaty guy wearing a tight T-shirt with a gym bag over his shoulder jogged out of the building shouting, "Hey, hippie lady!"

Maribeth expected that his comment would make her mother angry but instead, Indigo turned and offered him a wide smile. It occurred to Maribeth that he must be one of the good-looking people even though he smelled like perspiration.

"Are those love beads around your neck?" He flashed the peace sign, a sideways grin cutting across his face.

"What do you know about love beads?" she replied.

"Not much but I'm willing to learn." He inched closer.

"Right on."

They looked at each other for a while, their smiles locked in place.

"I didn't know they had communes in Cincinnati," he said.

"Apparently, there's a lot of things you don't know."

He glanced over at Maribeth and said, "Cute little daughter you got there. Where's her dad?"

She shrugged. "Back in Cali for all I care."

"So it's like that," he said.

"Yeah, it's like that."

"So you maybe wanna go get some coffee or a burger or something?"

"Bummer." Her smile dipped. "I don't drink coffee and I would never think of eating an animal."

He slathered sarcasm onto his words. "Well, why don't we get some yogurt or a nice big bowl of hay? Or maybe we could just roll around in the hay and see what comes up."

"You got a lot of hang-ups, man," she said, "And you're giving off some bad vibes." She took Maribeth by the arm and started down the sidewalk.

He waved the peace sign above his head and hollered, "Free love, baby. Ain't that right?"

Understanding social interactions is a complicated process that involves reading and interpreting facial expressions, tones of voice, language usage, and an awareness of humor. In this realm, Maribeth was illiterate, which, in this particular case was to her advantage.

Most young girls would have been devastated if a good-looking stranger called them a 'cute little daughter' and their mother completely deflected. In a normal nurturing relationship, typically, a mom would fawn over her offspring with compliments such as, "Isn't she adorable?" or "she's the cutest thing ever" or "we get that a lot." Instead, Indigo chose to respond to the missing father/husband question without the slightest acknowledgment of Maribeth.

An incident such as this one during formative years would often leave deep emotional scars on a child, reinforcing the painful realization that her mother, the one person in the world who is supposed to love her unconditionally, simply didn't. Maribeth's cognitive disability was her armor. As she quick-stepped down the sidewalk led by her mother she was glad that she was wearing shoes and happy to have concrete beneath her feet instead of asphalt.