Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman by Alice Mattison Page B

peach-colored. It had short, yellow hair and blue eyes. The doll was startling, and it silenced me; I stopped feeling, at least for now, as if I’d wandered into something beneath me. I was the first to take it from Muriel, and I held it gingerly. Both faces had appliquéd circles of red felt for mouths. They silently screamed. “You sewed each strand of hair, one at a time,” I said.
    â€œYou make loops, then you cut them. It makes that cute baby fuzz.” Muriel’s placid pride did not quite acknowledge the doll’s strangeness. It was numinous, and nobody ever picked it up casually.
    When we began rehearsing, David and Muriel played the baby’s parents, because Katya said it was too soon to decide on roles. As the mother, Muriel stroked the baby and walked with it. Muriel’s body was muscular and efficient, and she walked fast. She always wore jeans. She made dolls, but she looked as if she’d wear a hard hat and drive a bulldozer.
    â€œThere’s something I have to tell you, dear,” said her husband. “I want a divorce.”
    Muriel turned her still, intent face in his direction. “You’re going to leave me alone with TheaDora?”
    â€œApril fool!” said David. “I don’t want a divorce. April fool!”
    â€œLover boy,” Muriel said slowly, “I have to tell you something.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œOur baby has two heads. Not April fool. Not April fool.” Muriel was bigger than David, and when she stared at him, he seemed to grow smaller. He’d gone to Yale and was barely out of college. He had told us he worked with computers.
    When David and I left together after the rehearsal, I asked, “What made you say that?”
    â€œThe April fool joke? I felt mean. That doll is so weird.”
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    T he next time I saw Ellen she had no spare children in her arms, and we tried to make a plan for her kitchen. She still wanted to keep everything, just rearrange it, and I forced myself to agree. She didn’t mention the broken pitcher. Sitting on the floor, we gathered pots and pans and crockery from her many pantries and cabinets and shelves, and then we grouped everything in categories: baking pans in a pile, sugar bowls in one corner, stacks of plates in another. Ellen’s children came home from school, and each watched us briefly before turning away. One was a rather mature-looking girl with long hair, who looked around critically but didn’t speak. The other I took to be a boy—stubby, plump, with a practical look—but she later turned out to be another girl. For the rest of the afternoon I heard footsteps or music, occasionally, from upstairs. The children played sad folk music, not what I’d have expected. Ellen and I had made matters worse, but as we worked she said, “This was a good idea.”
    â€œWhat about supper?”
    â€œWe’ll order in.”
    â€œWhat about breakfast?”
    â€œBreakfast is easy.”
    At least she didn’t have a dog running around. “Why don’t you have animals?” I said, surprised by that thought. “Where are everybody’s unwanted cats and dogs?”
    â€œI got rid of them. Three cats and a dog. Justine’s allergic.”
    â€œWhat did you do, kill them?”
    â€œNo, I didn’t kill them!” She sat up. She’d been lying on her stomach, pulling dusty bowls out from a deep shelf, getting dust on her skirt. Ellen wore wide cotton skirts in pale, swirling prints. “I bought cute things for them—leashes, little beds. Then I lined them up outside a supermarket and looked pathetic until people took them.” We stopped working and began discussing animals. Ellen had missed those pets. We had a conversation new friends have, beginning with childhood dogs, but I grew bored with her undifferentiated grief for the pets of her life. I didn’t want to be her friend, but I kept listening,