{"id":1726,"date":"2020-11-27T02:18:10","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T02:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/?page_id=1726"},"modified":"2020-11-27T02:18:10","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T02:18:10","slug":"willey","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/?page_id=1726","title":{"rendered":"Margaret Willey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Seventies Celebrities<\/em>, Chris Gavaler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Concentrate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The spring after her miscarriage, Eva Whitman was diagnosed with such severe anemia, that her doctor recommended a new vitamin-enriched cereal that provided high levels of iron and folic acid. It was called Kellogg\u2019s Concentrate and came in a box the size of a small book, wrapped in gold foil with a large red C on the front and a metal pull-out spout on its side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nine Whitman children were huge consumers of breakfast cereal\u2014flakes, puffs, pops, the occasional box of Captain Crunch\u2014the older boys burned through a box of sugary cereal in an afternoon. Leo, always trying to save money, began buying cereal by crates of twenty-four from a local supermarket. This saved a considerable sum, but meant everyone had to eat the same flavors for weeks on end. If it was unsweetened, like Cheerios or Wheaties, they all complained about it, whining and grousing like starved children, until they came to the last box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sudden arrival of a golden container of cereal with special powers brought great excitement to the household. Eva informed her older children that, according to an ad in McCall\u2019s Magazine, the cereal contained \u201cthe greatest concentration of nutrients ever offered in a single all-purpose food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The box was light enough to seem almost empty, but inside were millions of tiny round discs of a cereal resembling aquarium food and tasting of malt and wheat and something else indescribable\u2014the tang of health. A half cup serving was all that was needed, with sugar and just enough milk to congeal the flakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eva allowed each of her nine children to taste the new cereal, but made it clear that it was off limits because of its price. This of course made the cereal irresistible to Rita, her eldest, who\u2019d begun to fear inheriting her mother\u2019s lethargy, and<\/em> her fertility. She began to secretly pilfer Concentrate, sometimes stealing a quarter cup in the early mornings before school, sometimes gulping down a few tablespoons after school, sometimes hiding on the basement stairs with a small serving before bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Eva noticed that someone was eating her cereal, unwilling to embark on an investigation, she moved the small box to a tall kitchen cupboard, where she also stored Grandma Ruth\u2019s Czechoslovakian glassware. Rita knew the kitchen cupboards like the back of her hand\u2014this from the days when it was her job every night to do the after-dinner dishes, including putting everything away. She found the cereal during one of Eva\u2019s many naps, but realized that her mother must know someone was taking it. She stood on a kitchen stool with the box in her hand, deciding whether or not to strike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, she put the box back into the high cupboard, threw on a raincoat and walked in a light spring rain to the nearest grocery store, four blocks away. Kellogg\u2019s Concentrate was indeed expensive\u2014the cost of several after-school hamburgers\u2014but it was worth it. Once home, she poured the equivalent of two servings into a bowl, added milk and sugar and quietly took it up to her room\u2014bringing food upstairs was not allowed. Rita sat cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom and ate the cereal quickly, in sugary gulps, feeling a pleasant surge starting in her belly and radiating to her chest and arms\u2014power and control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Rita was often confused about what to eat in her own house. She despised her mother\u2019s cooking\u2014stews and goulashes and heavy meat sauces\u2014dinners meant to spread little food among many. Some nights her father made a salad, always the same ingredients\u2014iceberg lettuce, pale tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes and a slosh of Wish Bone Italian dressing, which blocked the taste of the raw vegetables with its salty, garlicky aftertaste. Sometimes Eva would deep fry a two-pound frozen bag of fries to fill up the big boys, who doused them with ketchup and ate them in handfuls until they were gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eva knew that Rita was contemptuous of her cooking, as well as unsympathetic about the daily burden of feeding so many\u2014it was another sore spot between them. Eva often asked both Rita and Marty, her next youngest sister, to help with chopping and mixing and can opening; both girls performed these kitchen tasks with expressions of disgust at whatever was being prepared for them to eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday nights were the exception\u2014pizza night. They all loved pizza, although by her senior year Rita had spent enough time having pizza at friends\u2019 houses to know that it was ridiculous to be limited to two slices per child\u2014at Nancy\u2019s she had once eaten a whole pizza by herself, with double pepperoni. Still, there was a certain joy amongst them all when Leo carried the pizza boxes into the kitchen and they watched him peel the greasy waxed covering back from the pies. For Eva, it was a special treat and a precious reprieve\u2014no cooking, no complaining, no clean-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before she\u2019d started dating seriously, pizza night had been Rita\u2019s only culinary thrill. But she quickly learned to appreciate the miracle of having boys drive her in their cars to cafes and diners and drive-ins, just so that she could eat. It was another thing that kept her saying yes to all requests. She quickly developed her favorite dishes at the local restaurants\u2014lasagna at Mickey\u2019s, cheeseburgers from the Roxy, and hot beef sandwiches at Driftwood Diner. Sometimes her dates remarked about how hungry she seemed to always be, making jokes about it, pointing out the irony of a girl her size having such a big appetite. Rita was only slightly embarrassed by this; nothing discouraged her from eating in restaurants as often as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had also noticed there was endless food at the homes of her friends and boyfriends, households in which there seemed to be infinite snacks and treats and sodas, no hoarding, no fighting, no one caring if you took seconds or thirds. Nancy often fed her, but didn\u2019t hide her resentment of Rita\u2019s incredible metabolism. Rita had actually grown thinner during senior year, while Nancy\u2019s breasts had ballooned and her waist had thickened from the birth control pills she\u2019d begun to take. She\u2019d been trying to convince Rita to take them, but Rita had a better plan: no sex ever, but lots of almost-sex. This in exchange for endless cheeseburgers and milk shakes and shallow relationships. Thus, she dealt with both her hunger and her fear of pregnancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty was also becoming less and less willing to eat the food Eva served, but for a different reason. She was leaning vegetarian, having read criticism of the American tendency to eat too much meat. \u201cIn Japan, they eat a diet of fish and vegetable and they live longer and have healthier hearts,\u201d she told Rita.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care,\u201d Rita said. \u201cI hate fish and no one can make me eat it ever again.\u201d She was referring to days when they\u2019d been forced to eat fish sticks on Friday nights, another down side of their Catholicism, before the magic of meatless pizza had come into their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Saturday morning that she had signed up to take the SATs, Rita secretly ate not one, but two servings of Kellogg\u2019s Concentrate in order to get through the impending four-hour exam. Marty, up early and fresh from a shower in the upstairs bathroom, caught her sister exiting the bedroom with her empty cereal bowl. Through the scent of the Herbal Essence shampoo in her hair, she smelled the distinctive malty aroma of Kellogg\u2019s Concentrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty gasped. \u201cAre you stealing Mom\u2019s cereal?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need to steal it. I bought my own box.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh God. Your own box? Can I have a little?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI finished it,\u201d Rita lied. \u201cI need to be really alert for my SATs today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty was already studying for the SATs herself; she had her mind set on early admission to Michigan Tech in the upper peninsula, a move as close to relocating in a different country as she could possibly arrange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so bad at tests, Marty,\u201d Rita admitted. \u201cI don\u2019t even know why I\u2019m doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRita, everybody who goes to college does this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat college is going to accept me? My grades went down this year. Nancy says they look for that\u2014the grades going down\u2014 and then they don\u2019t want you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty had heard this too, from her advisor\u2014it kept her up at night studying and inventing extra credit projects so that her GPA wouldn\u2019t slip from a 4.5 to a 4.0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll blow it,\u201d Rita went on. \u201cI get so nervous taking tests and then all the answers seem the same. They jumble together on the page. I give up and start guessing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, don\u2019t do that,\u201d Marty instructed. \u201cDon\u2019t guess, Rita. Use logic. If you don\u2019t know the answer, take a deep breath and say, one of these answers is right\u2014and I alone will find it<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou alone? Why you alone?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a mantra. It helps you regain focus. And remember to breathe. Deep, centering breaths. Keep stretching out your legs under the table. Don\u2019t tense up, it affects your brain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow do you know all this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI read it in Seventeen<\/em>. They had a special article about how to get higher scores on tests. It works, I swear it works. Oh, and one biggest tips is to eat a nutritious breakfast. So you\u2019re set with that.\u201d She winked at her sister. \u201cYou can do this, Rita. You\u2019re smarter than you think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rita went back to the kitchen with her empty bowl, feeling fortified. It mattered that Marty believed in her. It made her feel ready to try harder. She took her bowl to the sink and rinsed it out so no one else would know she\u2019d been eating Concentrate. At the sink, she closed her eyes and tried to feel focused. \u201cYou alone can do it,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By some miracle of numerology, deep breathing and concentration, Rita\u2019s SAT scores were respectable\u2014better than average. Mr. Flock, the resident college admissions advisor, handed the scores back in homeroom; they came in a cardboard sleeve with only her name at the top. She stared at the numbers for a long time, digesting the miracle they represented\u2014decent scores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day, she made an appointment with Mr. Flock and met with him in his office after school. She needed to be sure that there hadn\u2019t been some mistake about her scores. He confirmed her hope that now there were several colleges that were likely to accept her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you sure?\u201d she pressed. \u201cMy grades aren\u2019t the greatest, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looked at her transcript and said, \u201cNot bad, really. Quite a few B\u2019s. An A in World Religion, that\u2019s good. Ouch, those Algebra grades won\u2019t help. But we can work with this, Rose. You could apply to Central. Or Grand Valley. Or maybe even Michigan State.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rita insisted, \u201cMichigan State. That\u2019s the one. That\u2019s the one. Will you help me?\u201d It was rare for her to ask an adult to help her, but she was filled with determination, now that she had her scores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Flock, perhaps seeing her as college material for the first time, this suddenly more ambitious, bright-eyed, leaning forward teenager. He knew her father\u2014nice man\u2014knew she was from a large family, knew she would qualify for massive financial aid, knew also that she might otherwise soon be in some kind of trouble\u2014a pregnancy, an early marriage\u2014 if she didn\u2019t go to college. Her sister, by contrast, was a remarkable student, but perhaps the older sister\u2014what was her name again?\u2014Rose? Rhoda? had less obvious, more hidden and unformed intelligence\u2014a late bloomer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll help you,\u201d he promised. \u201cI\u2019ll write you a letter of recommendation. I have the application forms right here. But you might want to consider applying to some other schools too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo other schools,\u201d Rita insisted, shaking her head. \u201cI need to concentrate on just the one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Flock shrugged and said, \u201cYour choice, Rose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRita. It says right there on my test score. I\u2019m Rita Whitman. Let\u2019s do the application right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The acceptance packet came three weeks later and she hadn\u2019t expected to hear anything so soon. It was the first piece of professional mail that she\u2019d ever received. She picked it up off the kitchen table, saw her name on the envelope, saw that it was from Michigan State University, felt its weight and touched its glossy logo. Even more astounding, upon opening the packet, the impossible first sentence of the letter: \u201cIt is with great pleasure…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rita\u2019s knees buckled. She sat down, holding the letter to her breasts. She felt an unprecedented rush of energy\u2014burdens lifting, clouds parting, doors opening, and something else\u2014something raw and completely unfamiliar\u2014pride. It was pride. She\u2019d been accepted. She\u2019d been invited. In that moment, sitting at the kitchen table with the acceptance letter pressed to her body, all her guilt and pessimism and resentment, all were replaced with pride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was when Rita asked her parents to fill out the financial aid forms that her plans to leave home became real to them. Before that, they heard Rita\u2019s comments about applying to Michigan State through the fog of other, more pressing concerns in the household. Even when the acceptance letter came, it still seemed a remote possibility than she\u2019d actually go off to continue her education. It had already been settled in their minds that Marty would be the first of the Whitman clan to attend college, on a full scholarship of course; Marty who studied constantly and attained perfect scores and had a photographic memory for history and geography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now their eldest daughter was presenting them with a long and tedious form, requiring detailed information about their finances. They both reacted with consternation; money was never talked about openly in the family; it was as forbidden a topic for discussion as sex. After glancing at the form, Leo pushed it away from himself at the table, sending it closer to where Eva sat. \u201cYour mother will do it,\u201d he said. \u201cShe knows more about our actual budget.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a lie; Leo paid the bills, he was the source of all monies for the household, but since matters of the children\u2019s education were firmly in Eva\u2019s realm, he backed away from helping with the financial aid form, to Rita\u2019s dismay. She knew that Eva was the one who would most resent the intrusive questions\u2014family income, family debt, family budget, financial projections. It was like giving her mother a list of all the things she resented most about their situation. The financial aid form would be an excruciating task for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an entire week, Rita brought it up daily as calmly as she could manage, given what was at stake for her and the looming deadline for the application. Every time she mentioned the form,<\/em> Eva\u2019s expression collapsed into aggravation. She would exclaim, \u201cI told<\/em> you, I\u2019m working on it,\u201d or \u201cDo I look like I\u2019m doing nothing?\u201d Three nights in a row she said she\u2019d get to it after dinner. But dinner came and went and the form was still centered on the desk where her father calculated the monthly bills, and it was still blank\u2014not even the names had been filled in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days before the mailing deadline, Eva sat down at the desk and lowered her head to the pages while Rita hovered nearby, wringing her hands anxiously. A series of questions about household budget costs\u2014food and medical expenses\u2014caused Eva to toss the pages into the air in a rage; they wafted to the floor where Rita scrambled to retrieve them. \u201cHow dare <\/em>they ask me these things?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind her, Rita had begun to softly cry, keeping her head tucked to hide her tears. But when she spoke, her dismay was obvious, her voice clogged with emotion. \u201cPlease, Mom,\u201d she begged. \u201cPlease, just do it. Put down anything. It doesn\u2019t have to be true. Please, please, fill out the form. I need this. I really need this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eva turned around at the desk, astonished to see that Rita was crying, her daughter who never cried. Rita was holding out the pages, her hands shaking, mascara smeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, for heaven\u2019s sake.\u201d Eva snatched back the forms. It was perhaps her first awareness of how urgently her daughter wanted to leave. Enough to beg. Eva said quietly, \u201cWatch Marie for me. She needs a diaper change. I\u2019ll be in the bedroom. Give me an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight. Okay.\u201d Rita was deeply embarrassed to have broken down in front of her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Eva left the kitchen, she put the forms on the counter and reached to the topmost cupboard, standing on tiptoes in her terry slippers. She pulled out her box of Concentrate and shook it, frowning because it was nearly empty. She finished it, pouring out a bowl, adding a splash of milk. Then she disappeared with the cereal and the financial aid form into her bedroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the living room, Rita pulled Marie out of the playpen; her diaper was so soggy that it squished urine onto Rita\u2019s arms. Marie fussed while Rita changed her, squirming and arching her back. Rita, usually annoyed with Marie, experienced a rare moment of compassion for her youngest sister. \u201cI know,\u201d she said. \u201cI know, I\u2019m stuck here too.\u201d She turned it into a song: We\u2019re both stuck, we\u2019re both stuck, we are the Whitmans, our lives suck.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marie, amused that Rita was singing, began to clap her chubby hands in approval and then asked in her baby voice, \u201cOutside?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Rita took her outside and pushed her in the stroller. Marie sang to herself as Rita propelled her, something atonal and incomprehensible. She had always been a fussy, inconsolable baby, and was now a cranky toddler; she\u2019d been born into the unluckiest days of the Whitman family, when all hope for order and serenity were past. Rita had always felt vaguely sorry for Marie, but not enough to attend to her. She was too uninterested in babies by the time Marie was born and she often felt, on the rare occasions when Marie was in her care, that she herself would never have children, never, ever, not even one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eva emerged from the bedroom in a mere half hour with an empty bowl and the finished and signed forms. \u201cThanks, Mom,\u201d Rita called from the living room, where she was holding Marie on her lap, reading When We Were Very Young<\/em>. When Leo came home from the shoe store, he also signed the forms and asked Rita if she wanted him to take the return envelope to the post office the next morning on his way downtown Rita said \u201cI\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was afraid to trust anyone else with mailing them on the last day before the deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mother and daughter never spoke of the financial aid meltdown\u2014Eva\u2019s rage, Rita\u2019s tears, the way that they\u2019d stared into each other\u2019s eyes for a moment, seeing each other\u2019s raw emotions. Rita was plagued with a lingering sense of guilt and shame about it. She had not wanted her mother to know how desperately she needed to leave. Although of course, Eva knew. Or did she? If Mom knows, does she care? <\/em>Rita wondered. This question troubled her for days after the forms were sent in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night, long past everyone else\u2019s bedtimes, Rita climbed down from her top bunk and wandered to the kitchen, thinking she might make a sandwich out of white bread with oleo and sugar and cinnamon\u2014a recent nightly indulgence. Before she reached the kitchen, she heard a rustling sound\u2014someone was already there, opening and closing cupboards. Rita stood in the doorway, letting her eyes adjust to the semi-darkness. It was her mother, leaning against the kitchen sink in her bathrobe. She ate from a small bowl held close to her mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRita,\u201d Eva called softly. \u201cWhat is it? Are you having trouble sleeping?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Rita said. \u201cMaybe a little.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWould you like some cereal?\u201d Eva picked up the box and shook it. \u201cYour dad bought me a new box.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s okay.\u201d The cereal no longer appealed to Rita. \u201cI was just going to eat some bread to help me sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you worried about college?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rita was surprised to be asked. She wasn\u2019t used to her mother showing curiosity about her life. She repeated, \u201cMaybe a little.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll do fine. You\u2019re a smart girl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rita pulled a piece of bread out of the metal bread box. The compliment confused her. \u201cAre you <\/em>worried about me leaving, Mom?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eva had finished her cereal. She put her bowl into the sink and ran water into it. \u201cI\u2019ll manage fine. I\u2019ll be back to my old self in a few months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rita wanted to ask: What is your old self, Mom<\/em>? She wanted to entreat: Please don\u2019t get pregnant after I leave.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlease, Mom,\u201d she said aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving the kitchen, Eva turned slightly. \u201cDid you need something?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m good,\u201d Rita said. \u201cI\u2019m finished here.\u201d She put her plate in the sink and wiped the sugar and cinnamon from the counter. On her way back to bed, she came face to face with her middle brother Paul in his pajamas. He passed her without speaking and after a moment Rita followed him back to the kitchen, where he was now standing on a chair in front of the cupboard where Eva kept her cereal. Rita was about to sneak up behind him and scold him for stealing, but something stopped her. Hadn\u2019t the cereal helped her? Maybe it would help Paul. She surrendered to this rare moment of empathy and left him to his foraging, hoping he might find something in the tiny golden box to relieve his hunger, give him strength, ease his longing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Margaret Willey <\/strong>has published work in many genres\u2014shorts stories, novels for teenagers, poetry, essays, and folktales for children. She has received many awards for her books, most recently from The Society of Midland Authors in the category of Children\u2019s Fiction for her Young Adult novel, Beetle Boy<\/em>. Her current work is fiction and non-fiction for adults. \u201cConcentrate\u201d is from an in-progress short story collection set in the 1960s. She lives in Michigan. Her website is: www.margaretwilley.com<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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