on the cover instead of under it.
"Momma had fallen asleep with her clothes still
on and was spread-eagle, alone, breathing through her
mouth and looking like she had been put into a trance.
Rodney, who still slept next to them on his cot-bed,
was sitting up, playing quietly with one of his toys.
He looked happy when he saw me looking in on him "My heart felt like a Yo-Yo whose string had
broken. All night it had gone up and down with every
sound in the building that suggested Daddy's return.
Now, it was clear he hadn't come back and I was sick
with fear.
"I took Rodney into the living room and fixed
him some breakfast. Momma woke up looking dazed
and confused as usual after a night of drinking. She
was surprised to see Daddy hadn't returned, too. "'Where'd Daddy go?' I asked her
"'How would I know? Who cares?' she said, but
it bothered her when he didn't return the next day. She
got on the phone and complained to Granny and then
two days after that, she started to call some of Daddy's
friends and I guess she found out he had left Los
Angeles. That was when she went to welfare and cried
about our situation.
"For a long time, I expected Daddy would come
back, even after I saw him that last time and he
hurried away from me. I never told Momma I had
seen him. I knew it would just make her wild and
angry and after a while, I began to wonder if I had
really seen him or just imagined it out of hope.
Whenever the phone rang, I hoped it was him calling,
but it never was. Momma was so furious she would
swear she wasn't going to take him back if he did
show up, but I knew in my heart she would.
"Granny started to spend more time with us
soon after all that. She lives in Venice Beach so it was
a trip for her. When I would go to see her, I'd have to
ride the Big Blue Bus for nearly two hours to make
the right connections and you know the buses don't
run that often."
I glanced at them.
"Well, you girls probably don't know 'cause you
probably never been on a Big Blue Bus in Los
Angeles, have you?"
"I have," Cat blurted. She looked like she had
confessed to a crime or something. "My mother didn't
know I did, but I did," she added.
"How'd you like it?" I asked her.
"It was all right," she said. "Nobody bothered
me."
"Why should they? Just because someone don't
have enough money to have his or her own car don't
mean they're rapists and serial killers, you know:' "I was just scared," she said. She said it with
such honesty, I couldn't harden my heart against her
for it.
"Yeah, well, I've been scared on the bus too," I
admitted, "especially at night.
"But I often had to ride it then because I would
have stayed at Granny's too long and I didn't want her
to have to drive me home in the dark. Her eyes
weren't so good back then and they are even worse
now.
"I got so I ran to Granny every so often because
I couldn't stand coming home from school and finding Momma drinking, Rodney still in his pajamas, and the house looking like ten slobs lived in it. Granny knew why I showed up at her house in the afternoon from time to time, but she didn't harp on it. She had tried and tried with Momma and finally just threw up her hands and declared, 'My Aretha's just one of those people who have to decide to help themselves because
they won't let anyone else do it.
"'Your momma will wake up facedown in the
gutter one day and maybe then she'll decide to do
something about herself,' Granny told me.
"She told it to me so often, I began to wish for
it, wish I would come home and find Momma outside
facedown in the street. I suppose it don't say much for
you when all you can hope for is your momma hitting
rock bottom sooner than later, but that's how it was
and I'm not ashamed of praying for it.
"That's right," I said glaring at them before they
could gasp or ask some stupid question, "I did pray
for it. I went to sleep asking God to send my momma
close to hell as soon as He had the opportunity. "So yes, I did get so I hated her. At times it was
like a rat of hatred was gnawing at my heart. I
probably will always hate her," I declared firmly. No one said a word. It was as if we were all in freeze- frame, not a movement, not even the sound of
anyone breathing.
"Not having Daddy home even once in a while
was like taking a leash off a dog as far as Momma
was concerned. She didn't have to worry about him
coming back from work and not finding her in the
house. She didn't care what the house looked like
either, since he wasn't there to criticize and complain.
At first, it was like her way of getting even with him
for leaving her. I could almost hear her say, 'He
thought I was a no-good drunk slob before? Well, he
should see me now.'
"I stayed home from school even more because
after I saw to Rodney, it was often very late in the
morning and I'd have missed the first two classes by
the time I got there.
"Then Momma went and did the worst thing of
all: she got herself a night job at One-Eyed Bill's
waitressing and helping out in the kitchen.
"By then I was able to make dinner for Rodney
and me, and I cleaned the house and did most all the
chores. That's why I told you earlier that it got so my
little brother didn't know who was his mother and
who was his sister.
"Momma was supposed to always be home by one o'clock, but there were many nights when I know she didn't come home until three or four. She'd be so dead out of it in the morning, I could drop a frying pan next to her bed and she wouldn't as much as bat an eyelash. Lots of nights she was too drunk or tired to bother getting out of her clothes. She smelled so bad from beer and whiskey, the whole bedroom reeked like a One-Eyed Bill's. The stench would reach through the walls into my room. I'd have to open all
the windows in the place."
"Ugh," Misty said holding her stomach. Jade
swallowed hard and turned away for a moment,
pressing the back of her hand against her mouth. I
couldn't blame them.
"You get used to it:' I muttered. "You'd never
dream you would, but you do. There ain't much else
you can do, but turn the other way most of the time" "I understand," Cat said in a quivering small
voice. She was holding her attention on me. "You do? That's good, because I don't," I said.
She just continued to stare, but I felt she was looking
at her own memories now, not mine. After a moment
she seemed to snap out of it and look down again. "Granny came by often to help out and
occasionally make us a real good dinner:' I continued. "She and Momma had some big fights, but Momma would wail and claim she was doing the best she could, deserted by a husband and left with two kids to
raise and support.
"'Why do you think that man left you?' Granny
would ask her and that would be the same as lighting
that wick again. Momma wo
uld go wild, her arms and
legs and even her head swinging so hard, I thought
they might just fly off her body and bounce against
the wall along with her screams.
"'How can my own mother blame me for that
rotten man? Why is it always my fault? He was the
one who made all them promises, wasn't he? I did the
best I could with the little money he brought us. Lots
a times he brought us nothin' because he was out of
work so much. It's no loss him bein' gone, no ma'am.' "On and on she would go and I'd listen and
wonder if she really believed the things she said.
Maybe her eyes saw differently. Maybe she was just a
step or two off-center and her world was running on a
different track, you know. She always looked so
satisfied with herself after one of those explosions of
temper, like she had made important points and shut
everyone up. That's when I began to understand what
was meant when someone said 'You're only fooling yourself.' Momma really was fooling herself. She truly believed she was the victim and not us, not even me and Rodney. We were . . . just unfortunate enough
to be born.
"Like I said, I guess no matter what your life is
like, you can get used to it and just accept things as
they are. Of course, I knew other girls my age didn't
have this kind of life. Oh, they helped out with their
little brothers and sisters, but their little brothers and
sisters didn't become their children. They still thought
about boys and parties and going to the movies and
having fun. I couldn't think of anything without
thinking about Rodney being a part of it. I didn't have
a night off, so to speak," I said. "I was afraid of
bringing anyone to my house. I didn't want my friends
at school to know just how bad things were for me
and for Rodney.
"Then," I said, taking a sip of water and
thinking for a moment, "then I got so I could live
through their stories. Their lives became my life. It
was easier to pretend, to imagine my name was Lily
Porter or Charlene Davis and in my mind go home to
their houses and live with their families.
"You're all looking at me like I was crazy.
Well, maybe I was for a while. Doctor Marlowe says
I'm not crazy now."
"No one's crazy here, Star. It's an inappropriate
word, a meaningless word," she said.
"Yeah, maybe, but I sure wasn't in my right
mind. I did some things," I said. After a moment, I
added, "Things I haven't even told you yet, Doctor
Marlowe.
"Whenever I met someone who didn't know
me, for example, I would give them a phony name,
one of the names of the girls I envied and I would talk
like I was Lily Porter or Charlene Davis, describing
their homes and their families as if they really were
mine.
"A couple of times, I went to Charlene Davis's
house, walked right up to the door, pretending I was
coming home. One time, I nearly got caught doing it.
Her sister Lori came up behind me without me
knowing and asked me what I was doing.
"'I was just going to see if your sister was
home,' I said. She looked at me sideways because she
knew I knew her sister was on the cheerleading team
and would be at practice. I made believe I forgot and
walked away quickly. When Charlene asked me about
it the next day, I said I was just in her neighborhood
and had to kill some time. She didn't believe me. They
all started looking at me as if I was funny.
"I couldn't help it. I wanted their lives so much
I'd follow their mothers around a supermarket,
pretending I was with them, buying food.
"You think I was pretty pathetic, don't you?" I
asked Jade.
"No," she said. "Really," she added, when I
looked skeptical. "I can understand not wanting to be
who you are. I've felt like that lots of times." "Me too," Misty said.
"Yes," Cat said. "Me too." She looked like she
meant it more than any of us. How could her story be
worse than mine? I wondered.
"There's more," I said, now willing to tell it all.
"One time I hurt my ankle in gym class and the
teacher sent me back to the locker room to get
dressed. I noticed Charlene's looker was unlocked and
I opened it and took her blouse."
"Why?" Jade asked with a grimace.
"To wear it later, when I was alone at home in
my room. I pretended I was her and I lived in a nice
house with a real mother and a father. Her daddy
works for the city. He's some kind of traffic manager,
makes good money, and her mother always looks
stylish. They come to the basketball games and watch her cheer for the team. She's about my size, too, so the
blouse fit real good."
"What happened when she found her blouse
was missing?" Misty asked. "Did they accuse you?" "No. The teacher made everyone open her
locker and she looked in all of them."
"How come they didn't find it in yours? Where
did you put it?"
"I didn't put it in my locker," I said. "I told you
I wanted to take it home with me so I hid it under my
skirt and no one dared look there. They just thought
someone had come into the locker room and robbed it.
Things like that had happened before. Charlene had to
wear her gym uniform top for the rest of the day. "About a month or so afterward, I brought it
back and left it on the bench near her locker.
Everyone thought it was weird. It was weird," I
admitted.
"No it wasn't," Cat piped up. Everyone looked
at her. She didn't hide her face this time.
"Why not?"
"I don't just want to be in someone else's
clothes; I want to be in their bodies," she confessed. Everyone was quiet. The air felt so heavy and
even with the lights, a thick shadow seemed to hang
over the ceiling and walls.
"Well," Doctor Marlowe said. "Why don't I go
check on the pizza for us? It's getting close to that
time."
She rose and looked at me.
"I guess you'll continue after lunch, right?" I nodded and she left us. As soon as she had,
Jade turned to me.
"I'm sorry I was nasty to you before," she said
and then quickly added, "and I'm not trying to show
you any pity so don't get mad at me."
"It's all right," I said. "About now, I could use
some, I suppose."
"I suppose we all can," Misty said.
"As long as we don't depend on it," I said. "It's
a little scarce outside this place. My granny says if
you wait too long for pity, you'll miss the train to
happiness."
They all smiled, even Cat. Everyone looked a
lot more comfortable. It was like we were all trying
each other on for size, making adjustments here and
there and finding ways to make it work.
"Your granny sounds like a wise old lady," Jade
said.
"She is. Well, I guess I am hungry," I said. "Least we'll get something out of this, lunch. I ho
pe I
didn't spoil anyone's appetite."
"Not mine 1" Misty blurted and put her hand
over her mouth.
And then we all laughed.
It felt good, like some of that sunshine after the
storm Granny always expected.
3
Doctor Marlowe had a table set up for us in her closed- in back patio. There were large windows facing the pool and yard and a sliding door. It was still raining lightly, the drops zigzagging to outline odd shapes on the glass. Birds flitted from tree to tree, probably excited by the sight of worms that had come out of the dampened earth. The birds were about to enjoy a little feast too, I thought. When I caught sight of my reflection in the glass, I saw I had a smile on my face. It happened so rarely these days, it took me by surprise and I touched my cheek as if to be sure it was me.
I don't often look at birds, I thought. I know they are there where we live with Granny, but I just don't take the time to notice or care. Here, with such beautiful grounds, bushes, hedges, flowers and a small fountain, I felt different, almost as if I was out of the city. I imagined it wasn't as big a deal for the others. They looked like they took it all for granted . . . big houses, birds, trees, flowers and fountains.
"I see your gardener took out those oleanders," Jade said, remembering what Doctor Marlowe had told us the day before. "Yes. I hated to see them go, but they were dying and had to be replaced."
"My mother doesn't know one flower or bush from the other on our property. She only knows they cost a lot," Misty muttered. "She deliberately got a new gardener recently who's more expensive." She smiled and added, "Because it's part of the agreement she has with Daddy that he has to maintain the property. That was one wham-barn of an argument-- the new gardener," she told us gleefully. She had a mischievous looking little smile on her face.
Sophie brought out a jug of lemonade and the pizzas. It occurred to me that if we weren't brought here by our parents, courts and schools, the chances of the four of us sitting around a table and having lunch together were almost as small as Granny winning the lottery. Maybe we had passed each other in some mall or in the lobby of some movie theater, but I was sure we had never looked at each other and actually seen each other. Up until now we were as good as invisible to each other.
"I wasn't sure if everyone liked pizza," Doctor Marlowe said as she took a seat. "It's just a good bet."
"I eat everything," Misty said.
It was something I would have expected Cat to say. She was the one who looked like she could afford to shed some pounds. However, when she ate, she ate like a mouse, nibbling with hesitation like she thought she was going to be caught doing something illegal.