Soap Opera Sunday has almost come and gone without my addition, but in the knick of time, here's Chapter 6. Maybe you will be interested to know that this might be the last time you read about Judilou.

SOS as always is hosted by Brillig and Kateastrophe.

If you are just tuning in and want to read the work from the beginning, go to the sidebar at the right, click Soap Opera Sunday and get yourself up to speed.  Chapters 1-6 are in reverse order.

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Chapter 6

The new move to Texas had Judilou stretching her creativity and recreating her existence yet one more time.  Ever the social butterfly or barfly, Judilou met C.A. and Ray in a bar in Florida. The middle aged men were having one last drink before they hit the road to return home to the famous Gilley's Bar in Pasadena, Texas.  Over several cocktails, well, twelve to be exact, but nobody was counting, Judilou learned that the bar needed some help in the office.  Judilou considered the mention of the open job to be a clear invitation for employment, enough to pack Marvin and Shelly into the Good Times van and drive across the country to Texas.

In a little rent house near the bar, Judilou began the first of many inconsistent years of employment at the famous cowboy nightclub where she rolled coins and counted bills and rewarded herself with hundreds of cheap porcelain figurines of happy doll-faced girls and boys sharing kisses under umbrellas. 

Shelly was embarrassed that her mother worked in a bar, but the shame was overshadowed by the thrill she got from the safety of her mother's bonafide employment.  Marvin was also working and seemed to enjoy his job as manager of the Day Old Rainbow Bread store.  With the family out in the world each workday, the numerous Precious Moments figurines warmed the house and seemed to propagate and collect buckets of dust.

Shelly had a new friend, Ann Elise (AE) Ellmore, who was among the popular set of the local eighth grade and who was a rising beauty queen. Each weekend Ann Elise donned ball gowns, swimsuits and sequined costumes as she competed in beauty pageants.  The weekend routine was fairly consistent and began on Friday after school when Shelly and AE walked home from school to AE's house and ate pickles and cheese and waited for AE's mother, Lee, to get home from work at the local chemical plant. 

AE's room was decorated with white, pressed wood furniture in the French provencial style and was festooned with musical notes and pink fabric to convey AE's interest in the flute and her overpowering love of all things pink and frilly.  The girls lay on the bed eating hunks of Kraft cheddar cheese,

"Everything at your house is so much more sophisticated than at my house," mused Shelly. "Like, you eat nice cheese, and we only have wrapped slices of American, and your mother wears normal, stylish clothes and drives a Pontiac Bonneville. My mother wears a wig and drives a Good Times van." 

AE analyzed her good fortune and said, "Yeah, that's true and my dad is handsome too, but your mother has all those little statues in every part of your house."

Shelly sits up and sarcastically says, "Yeah, like it's a good thing to have Precious Moments watching you pee. I hate each and every one of their dusty, over-cute, porcelain assess.  My parents are freaks, and I guess there is not much I can do about it."  True.

Lee comes in the house through the garage door and drops her keys and mail on the kitchen counter.  Within the hour Lee has the entire living and dining rooms covered it items to pack for tomorrow's pageant.  The bright purple taffeta evening dress with its detachable puffy sleeves hangs from the dining room doorframe in a bag from Sandy's Dresses.  The matching poie de soie shoes sit in an open box from Baker's Shoes and the sequined red, white and blue mini dress lies across the dining room table.  The window seat holds the make-up chest, hot rollers, swimsuit with its coordinating high heeled shoes, body tape, various sprays and brushes and the relatively small flute, representing the relative small talent of AE.  After a layer of self-tanning creme is carefully applied, the group eats Dominoes pizza and watches as AE practices the tap dancing steps that go along with her flute performance.

Early Saturday morning Shelly and AE each take a Pop-Tart and pile into Lee's packed Pontiac Bonneville to head toward the Lifeway Unity Church for the third pageant of the month.  Shelly has no investment in AE's performance other than a win would mean a fun night and celebration at The Pork Barrel, so her mood is relaxed and open to being the helpful servant that Lee expects her to be.

"Shelly, honey, run to the car and get that plastic bag from Learner's with the tap shoes in it. AE, these rollers are piping hot, let's get them into that hair. Pop 'yer tush in this chair and let me get them in. They need to stay in for at least an hour." 

Obediently, AE sits while Lee uses the sharp point of a styling comb to section her hair and neatly roll her mousy brown hair in the hot rollers. 

"Mama, do I use the Porcelain Beige or custom blend that Sassy made-up for me?"  asks AE. 

"Sweetie, don't put any of that on yet because Sassy will be here any minute to do your make-up.  This is our best shot at Miss Pride of South Pasadena, and you need to win this one.  Sassy is going to bring her new colors and fix you up. Now, I want to you to concentrate on your notes, but you to need to put some life in those steps. I know it's hard to think about the flute music and the dance steps at the same time, but you gotta do it, baby.  And, when you have the flute pause and are just tapping, honey, tap your heart out.  Get into it with your whole heart and soul and bang it out, - use your jazz hands and smile like there is no tomorrow.  Janie Dupree is here today. You know she is probably going to use her Swan Lake piece and that costume is so damn big that the judges will give her points for the size alone. If she beats you today, she will get a spot in the Miss Pride of South Pasadena contest, and we will have to start competing in another circuit to get a spot in Miss Teen Pearland, which you know, is a whole other world.  Without Miss Pride of South Pasadena, you know that there is no Miss Teen Texas."

AE, and Shelly too, feel the significance of the day.  AE psyches herself for a win by rehearsing self-motivational phrases and is confident that she can beat Janie Dupree. Shelly, on the other hand, had been to Janie Dupree's dressing area and appraised the tall, thin girl's appearance and noted that Janie had somewhat less harsh and more naturally pleasing facial features than AE. Shelly also noted Janie's giant, white tutu with real feathers and her red, straight, satin evening dress with the ruffled portrait collar.  Shelly had great doubts that AE's forced femininity and sternly trained recitation of "Fateful Love" would compensate for her sharp nose, small eyes and lack of bust. Ever the supportive friend, and hopeful of a tasty celebration dinner of bar-b-que topped baked potato, Shelly said,

"Janie Dupree is not nearly as good as you are.  You dance AND play an instrument and Janie just imitates a swan.  Plus, her dress looks like it's made for a Barbie doll." 

While her comment was meant to soothe, it, in fact, had the opposite effect on Lee whose main mission was to ensure that AE looked like a Barbie.

The afternoon of hair spray and backcombing and constant lipstick application wore like a long church service to Shelly.  Thank goodness she put together enough change to buy a pack of cheese crackers and a Mountain Dew to fill some time and feed her gnawing boredom at the tedium that filled the church parish hall turned pageant dressing room. AE and Lee were twisted into a tight knot and every nuisance of the pageant had great significance.

"AE, you have got to make that step-ball-change POP!" chastises Lee. 

Such criticism elicits an emotional burst of hysterical tears from AE and then in response Lee begins to stream tears. The mother-daughter duo cry at the gnarling desire for perfection within the confines of imperfection.  Shelly, having ridden the emotional rollercoaster since 7:30 am, and now that lunch had come and gone with no reward, felt let down and divorced herself from the insanity of Vaselined teeth and taped breasts. The gummy effect of chewing two cheese-peanut butter crackers at one time is now Shelly's entertainment. Shelly dumps Mountain Dew into her mouth and into the cracker mix and the overflow runs down her mouth and onto her shirt.  Lee and AE catch a glimpse of Shelly sitting in the corner with food falling out of her mouth and for a brief moment they share a laugh and take a break from the pageant absurdity.  Shelly, unaware that she is the cause for the laughter, is focused on the fact that the six crackers have disappeared and her entertainment has come to an end.

Aside from riding sidekick with AE to tap, flute, stage, make-up, and acting classes Shelly's existence in Pasadena passes uneventfully week after week and month after month.  Judilou is immersed in the world of cowboy night club life and keeps an odd schedule of collecting club revenue at 3 a.m., and driving it to the barred office in a local strip mall where a team of ten women begin processing the hundreds and hundreds of dollar bills and assorted paper money and change. 

Extreme paranoia surrounds the transportation and documentation of the money that is made at the club each night. The club owner, the two managers and Judilou, who oversees the ten money counting women, are in constant contact and often are in disagreement mostly because from excess alcohol consumptionn of the part of each. On any given evening one of the ten money processing women will find her pink Wranglers on the owner's floor and her long, Farrah Fawcett hair in a tangle over his pillow. Of course, very shortly after, Judilou will fire the said culprit in a fit of rage that will be judged against her previous fits.

"You God-damned, whore!  I gave your trailer-park-going-nowhere big ass a job that pays for your son's fit medicine, and now you've gone and fucked the owner.  Do you think Cheri Sue wants to find out that her husband is banging some bimbo in the office?  Do you think Cheri Sue will fire me if I keep a pack of whores working here?  Yes, she will, and No, I won't be fired, but you will be. Take your barrel-racing belt buckle and get outta here and don't contact Raymond or you'll find yourself shot in the head." 

A shot in the head had occurred before, and it was the hope that Carol Ann, the slut in question, would take the warning seriously and fulfill her needs elsewhere.

Miraculously, Marvin stays employed at the Day Old Rainbow Bread shop, and for once Shelly's life is fairly consistent for three years, despite the odd cowboys who frequent her home in the middle of the night, the countless drunks that spend time on her couch, and the occasional bashed window from a disgruntled employee.  Shelly spends much of her time at AE's house serving as a member of the court to AE's impending stardom. 

When Judilou announces to Shelly that she is going to Mexico for a short trip with Raymond, it is not surprising or unsettling to the teenager, but some weeks later when Marvin announces that he is going to Mexico to find Judilou, it is somewhat disruptive to Shelly's stability.  Emotionally, she is not afraid that her parents are gone and she is alone in the house at sixteen years old, nor is she upset at the absence of Judilou and Marvin's presence -- quite the contrary, Shelly is delighted to have the house to herself.

After Marvin and Judilou have been gone for a month, Shelly decides to make some changes in the dumpy little rent house and starts with an afternoon and evening of wrapping and packing the hundreds of Precious Moment figurines that clutter the small house. Having no place to store the fifteen cardboard boxes full of big-eyed children and geese, Shelly stacks the boxes along one wall of the living room and decides that the best way to conceal the boxes would be to smear a small layer of stucco on the boxes and paint them like a fake wall. 

A couple of trips to the hardware store have Shelly learning the finer points of mixing concrete, and creating a mock wall that in the end is wobbly, uneven and does not quite reach the ceiling. Shelly accents the top of the wall with potted plants containing ivy that hangs down a couple of feet.  To further disguise the faux wall Shelly places the sofa in front of it. Artwork would certainly be the best choice to complete the decoration, but Shelly wisely doubts the stability that the smear of stucco brings to the packing boxes and realizes that a hanging painting would certainly topple the construction.

Shelly revels in her independence and freedom from Judilou, Marvin and their twisted lifestyle. She begins to live life in a way more natural to her: She awakes at 5:30 am, jogs a mile to the city pool where she swims for thirty minutes, and jogs home where she has a healthy breakfast and reviews her homework before heading off to school.  Judilou left money for the utility bill and Shelly has money from her job as a part-time telemarketer for a local insurance company to buy food.  After school she works at the insurance company and then heads home to prepare dinner for herself and complete her homework. Early to bed, Shelly is content living her life within the lines of relative normalcy.  When Judilou and Marvin return after nine weeks in Mexico, Shelly is depressed as she tears down the wall and upacks the Precious Moments.

The nine-week hiatus cost both Marvin and Judilou their stable jobs. So, when Judilou came to Shelly with news of the next family move, Shelly was not surprised, nor was she upset about moving. In fact, she old Judilou in a matter of fact tone,

"I'm not moving this time. I can probably live with AE and Lee and pay rent to them with money from my job. I have one more year of high school, and I'm not going to start over again." 

Contrary to Judilou’s nature, she did not engage in battle with Shelly, nor did she demand that Shelly get into the Good Times van and head west to Colorado with the family. Judilou packed the van and hitched the U-Haul containing the fifteen boxes of Precious Moments and drove away from Shelly, forever.

Comments

[hokgardner]

You can't stop now. I'm hooked.

[Wholly Burble]

My goodness--such detail, and what a way you have of expressing emotions through these details, reactions, etc. You've created some very interesting and real characters that I now feel I know--so are you sure you're not going any further, or do you think there is nothing else you want to share about these people?

[bitsy parker]

No, not stopping the story, just killing Judilou, at least for awhile. She's getting on my nerves!

[Secret Agent Mama]

LOL @ her getting on your nerves.

GREAT JOB, B!!