Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

I put the lasagna in the oven and some arnica on my bruised cheek and then went back out to the shop to put away the shotgun, which is when I saw my bottle, the one without a head.

I really wanted a head on that bottle. Why? I had no idea.

I'm not a trained artist, so my work is what's called "Outsider Art," untrained painting, or, in my case, 3D collage sculpture. assemblage. Oddities is a great place to do assemblage because it's full of junk—great junk, but still junk—shelves and tables full of it, unopened boxes stashed everywhere. So when Ozzie had handed me the bottle with the paregoric label, I knew I had to have it, to make a figure of a woman, not sure what woman, just that it had to be a female. I'd got one of Poppy's old doll heads out of one of the big boxes where I kept scavenged supplies—a head with dark hair, that seemed important—and found my bottle of acetone and wiped all the paint off her simpering plastic face until it was bare. That seemed right. A blank slate. Well, at least a blank face. I could relate: I'd been keeping that dumb smile on my face, a face wiped completely clean of real expression, for nineteen years.

When you're making art, it's best to follow your instincts like that, trusting your subconscious to clue you in later. I'd finished a series of six assemblage saints a couple of years ago, including Saint Sacrificia of the Church of I'll-Just-Sit-Here-In-The-Dark, who had a naked, headless green body with flowers growing out of her neck and arms, her legs planted in a flower pot that said, "Bloom where everybody else is planted." It wasn't until it was done that I realized I was tired of taking care of people. There was a reason to give up art: unneeded self-knowledge.

But this one wasn't a saint. This one was an ordinary woman with a blank plastic face over a glass body that had been full of paregoric. Fifty percent alcohol. My kind of medication. I'd never tried opium, but I was willing to. I didn't know why this bottle woman had been full of that, but I knew it was important, like maybe her back was against the wall and she might lose everything and she had a kid to protect . . .

Self-portrait , I thought, which seemed selfish, making it all about me.

But when Ozzie had handed it to me, I was pretty sure what he'd meant was, "This looks like something you'd make something from." I knew Poppy was worried because I'd stopped making things after the saints—there just didn't seem to be any point to them, any point to me —and he'd probably given me the bottle so I'd get back to work and make her feel better.

And now, for the first time in a long time, I wanted to make something. I should make something to remember Ozzie, like anybody could ever forget Ozzie, but my first thought was selfish. So not like me?—

The door rattled and I looked through the window and saw Mrs. Baumgarten, who has a real lust for ugly teacups. I have no idea what she does with them. She lives with Fernanda, her support llama, and I doubt they're having tea parties.

The CLOSED sign was up again, but as usual nobody was paying attention to that, so I went to let her in and smiled at her— Have a Cheery Boost, Mrs. B.!— and braced myself for teacup talk. She said something sweet to me because she always does, and then she cruised into the other rooms to scope out the ugly china, and I went back to my bottle.

I stared at the bottle, trying to imagine what I'd glue to it to make it me, and I couldn't think of anything, probably because taking all the time from work and Poppy just to make an image of me would be . . .

"What are you making this time, Rose?" Mrs. Baumgarten said from the doorway to the side rooms. Her voice has this soft little trill to it. Mrs. B. is not faking her Cheery Boost.

"I'm not sure," I lied. "I thought it might be . . ."

She nodded to encourage me.

". . . a self-portrait, but that just seems like a waste of time, I mean I have so many other things?—"

Mrs. Baumgarten just looked interested. "What would you add to it to make it you?"

"I don't know," I said. "I'm not going to do it. It would be a selfish use of my time."

I could swear Mrs. B. wanted to roll her eyes, but she's never rude and that would be rude. "Make the self-portrait, Rose," she said. "Maybe you'll find out some things about yourself."

"I don't need to know any more about myself," I told her.

"Oh, dear, you do," she said, the trill back in her voice. "I'll come back tomorrow when you're not busy." She smiled and drifted out of the shop, and I thought, What the hell, Mrs. Baumgarten? and then looked at the bottle again.

It would be selfish , I thought, and then I thought, Why the hell not?

I'd been sacrificing for everybody else for so long, and I'm not sorry about that, Poppy and Ozzie were worth it, but to have something just for myself . . .

I want to be selfish, I thought and went and got a tube of silicone glue, which is what I should have used in the first place, and glued that naked-faced doll's head to the bottle neck, now a woman with a blank face and an empty body.

No heart at all, I thought and decided she was going to get a heart at some point. It was the least I could do for her.

And while I sat holding the head in place, I thought again about what kinds of things I could add to it to make her me. That was the most I'd thought about me in years. Five minutes later, I let go of the head, which stayed on, but I'd only come up with one idea: poppies. Every Veterans Day, Ozzie would come back with bright red paper poppies and put them in a bag in the cupboard. There had to be dozens in there even though he always gave one to Poppy. So those paper flowers would represent both Ozzie and Poppy.

I got the bag and glued a row of the paper flowers around the bottom of the bottle. The foundation of my life. Which was now cracked because Ozzie was gone but still bright because Poppy was with me.

It did occur to me that defining myself by other people was still a kind of Cheery Boost, but at least it was a start.

Then I went to check on the lasagna.

Because Poppy had to eat.