Indigo
Daddy was the most ambitious Milazzo since Flavia Milazzo made the family fortune. He was a butcher and a rancher; and he opened Flavia, Nebraska’s first supermarket, Blue Girl’s, on my tenth birthday.
Early that morning, hours before the opening day ceremonies, I woke up under the frilly white canopy over my bed and saw Daddy grinning. He pointed to a ruffled, lacy blue organdy dress and blue patent leather slippers that lay on the end of my bed. And then he placed a crown of artificial columbines on my head. her father makes her take baths in milk to lighten her skin
Blackie
Happy birthday, Princess.
I felt as magically beautiful as Flavia Milazzo in the painting at City Hall. I didn’t mind the stiff fabric scratching my skin. I was so excited I could scarcely wait to get dressed and go into town. But my mother came into my room wearing a narrow, lavender linen shift. Her crazy black curls were pulled into a thick pony tail that stretched her white face across thin, flat cheekbones and slanted her eyes.
Violet
Are you helping her get dressed, Blackie?
Indigo
Mommy! Mommy! I look just like Flavia Milazzo.
Violet
Are you?
Blackie
It’s her birthday.
Indigo
Mommy! Daddy says I’m a princess.
Violet
Don’t you think she’s old enough to dress herself?
Blackie
Jealous of your own daughter? Or me?
Violet
She’s old enough to dress herself.
And then Mommy smelled Daddy’s fingers; and Daddy shook his head. But Mommy got hysterical anyway. She always got hysterical if Daddy and I were alone. It took her an hour to calm down before we could leave the house.
The opening day ceremonies for Blue Girl’s market began at noon with parade down the main and only paved street in town all the way to the new store, which stood on the most official block in Flavia, Nebraska between City Hall and Flavia Milazzo’s house. My father and I waved to the crowd from the back seat of a red Mustang convertible. I got to cut the shiny, blue eight-inch ribbon tied on the steel and glass doors of the most modern structure that ever had been built in Flavia, Nebraska. The crowd sang me ‘Happy Birthday.’
I was quite pleased with the progress of my tenth birthday party as I greeted the crowd and handed out pieces of the five by five foot sheet cake that had been shipped all the way from a bakery in Lincoln. Daddy stood under a tree smoking cigars with the mayor. My mother sat near me on the lawn in front of the store, eating her cake. She glared at me over her plate.
Violet
You’re cutting those pieces too big, Miss Priss.
Blackie
She’s having fun, Violet.
Violet
She’s too young, Blackie!
Blackie
Did you want to cut the ribbon, Violet?
Violet
You’re going to be sorry you spoiled this child.
Blackie
She’s a beautiful girl, Violet. Men will always spoil Indigo.
Violet
Yes, Blackie, she is beautiful. But she’s strange. Men don’t like strangeness in women.
I had the feeling she was about to get hysterical again. I told my parents I had to go to the bathroom. But I didn’t go to the bathroom. I sneaked next door into Flavia Milazzo’s house. It was the first time I was here by myself. This tiny house--as frail and thin-skinned as the old matriarch herself must have been when she died at 109.
I forgot my mother had the floors redone. The stink of varnish pierced my nostrils. She ruined the floors! How could she make them shiny? Those spindly legged tables and chairs weren’t shiny. Those bald Persian rugs with ragged fringe weren’t shiny. It smelled so bad in the house; I thought I might be able to throw up--the varnish fumes mixed with the smell of roasting meat. I heard men yelling at each other about spitting the pig.
I'd never seen a pig spit before. Smoke rose from a pit which had been dug in the middle of the store’s gravel parking lot. Several men stood around the pit, positioning a pale, stiff pig with a heavy stick running from its mouth in front through its asshole.
My mother was such a weakling. She was so squeamish that she never touched raw meat without wearing rubber gloves. She wouldn’t even let me come into the kitchen while she cooked. This was the first time I’d ever seen raw meat. I wanted to see more! I ran outside.
Indigo
Daddy! Daddy! I saw the pig!
That was the day I decided to become a butcher. I wasn’t afraid of meat--I was a Milazzo.
Daddy never let me butcher anything larger than a goose until my fifteenth birthday. That’s when he let dress the star of my birthday barbecue, a young boar. Butchering the pig created a weird mixture of feelings in me--the thrill of carving an animal as large as I was, the horror of feeling its warmth and fleshiness; and the uneasiness of dissecting what seemed too familiar to kill.
That night, I woke up from dreaming that I was a pig, and that somebody tried to slice open my abdomen. I had a searing pain in my crotch, and I felt something warm and wet on the inside of my thighs.
Indigo
Blood! AAAAAAAAAAAH!
My parents ran into my room, their gaping eyes and mouths mirroring my own terror. I told them about my dream.
Violet
No more knives!
Blackie
Don’t get hysterical, Violet. We just won’t be cutting any more pigs, that’s all.
Indigo
I don’t want to butcher anything small!
Blackie
No cattle, young lady.
Indigo
If you won’t give me anything larger that a suckling, I just can’t be a butcher.
It’s just as well that I decided not to be a butcher anymore--as soon as I started menstruating, boys followed me around.
