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Do you hear a tambourine?

by Donna Lamb

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Mostly the drugs helped me sleep but I lay there with my eyes open and never felt less like sleeping. I hurt, but not so bad; the drugs helped with that too. It wasn't pain that kept me awake.

Regret, I guess. Regret not for the things I'd done but for the things I hadn't. I'd never learned a foreign language or gone to Europe. I'd never tried hang-gliding, or Indian curry; I'd never had children or gotten a teaching credential.

And I'd never left the house dressed as myself.

Everybody in town knew good old reliable Bert Zim. Worked at the hardware store for thirty years, running it for ten of those. Sister married the town liberal -- the three of them took turns running for town council but never got elected.

Bert played Santa's helper at Christmas, even though he never claimed to be Christian. Bert gave money to the town food bank, volunteered in the hospital on Sundays, walked twenty-six miles for breast cancer research.

Everybody loved Bert. Boy, they'd sure miss him when they needed an emergency snowplow driver or a lifeguard for the river or a patsy for charity poker.

I didn't mean to feel sorry for myself; I'd done all those things because I'd enjoyed them. I'd do most of them again, except maybe being the clown in the dunking booth that Halloween when I caught pneumonia.

Everybody loved Bert but I'd never let anyone get to know me. The me that I'd kept hidden since before I'd been old enough to tie my own shoes. The me who didn't go away to summer camp as a kid or to band camp in high school or to college after passing the SATs because I feared having a roommate who might discover my secret.

The me who ordered women's clothing from obscure catalogs and kept a P.O. box in a town thirty miles away just for receiving my treasures. Treasures I kept in an old armoire locked in the basement.

The real me -- Betty.

Sometimes, once a month or less often, I'd make sure all the doors were locked, that no one expected me anywhere, that I didn't expect any company and then I'd take out some of the fine things I'd bought for Betty, for the real me. Many of them were impractical but all of them were lovely.

Underthings, stockings, dresses, gloves, blouses, skirts, shoes, hats. Sometimes I wore a few of my nice things around the house, staying away from windows or even leaving all the lights off. Wearing my own things, my pretty treasures made me feel a peace I felt no other way.

A sweet peace that made my ordinary world both more bitter and more bearable.

I lived alone, cooked and cleaned for myself. As I got older, I ordered fewer things from secret catalogs, visited my treasure trove less often and wore my Betty clothes only rarely. I told myself that I'd finally outgrown that phase of my life but I never could lie well, not even to myself.

Someone would find that armoire, in a month or two, or six. Maybe they'd wonder about old Bert. I thought about getting up and going down to the basement to destroy the only evidence that I, the real me, had ever lived.

Empty out the armoire, burn the precious things in the grate, carry the ashes out to the trashbin in the alley. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't have the strength.

After taking my late night set of pills, I didn't even have the grip in my hands to throw back the coverlet and stand up. What did it matter?

Now the cancer had come to take me away from my life as Bert. Maybe the peace of the grave would be a little like the peace I'd felt when dressed in my own clothes. I hoped so. I thought I'd find out soon enough.

Maybe in heaven, I could be myself, Betty, all the time. I couldn't believe that because I didn't believe in heaven except in those peaceful moments, alone, unseen, in the dimness of my bedroom when I became myself. Yes, that would be heaven.

I must have fallen asleep finally because I woke up with the sun shining in through my windows and the sweetest, happiest song I'd ever heard playing somewhere. I got out of my bed and followed that song into the jingle jangle morning.