Bedtime Eyes

by Amy Yamada

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  If it had been one of my fingers, I could have covered for you, Jesse, she thought.

  Rick's face darkened with rage.

  "Jesse!" he boomed.

  At first Jesse didn't respond but after a while, he hesitantly appeared still dressed in his pajamas.

  Rick stood glaring down at him. Jesse didn't look up.

  "Why did you do it?"

  "Don't know."

  "It was an accident, wasn't it? Tell me it was an accident."

  Jesse didn't reply.

  "You didn't mean it, did you? It was just a mistake, wasn't it?"

  "No, it wasn't."

  Goco could see Rick's blood boiling over. Unable to speak, he took off his belt, made Jesse lie facedown on the floor, and started beating him. At first Jesse endured the pain in silence, but as the beating continued, he began to cry out, louder with each successive lash. Rick took no notice of his cries and swung the belt harder still.

  Coco looked on dispassionately. She felt completely unconnected to what was happening. In fact, as far as she was concerned, the blame lay squarely with Rick and his ex-wife, who had never considered the con-sequences of their actions. She knew it must hurt Rick to beat Jesse, but she felt that his pain was compensation for his mistakes. As he swung the belt, Coco's eyes were on Rick, not Jesse.

  Keeping ice on the burn seemed to be working, and a few days later the scar on Coco's face was beginning to fade. But each time she touched it, no matter how gendy, she felt that deep inside there was a deeper wound that would take much longer to heal. Now that she had time to think about it, she understood that Jesse had been jealous when she was on the phone with Greg. But surely no one had the right to feel jealous about someone he could never have a physical relationship with. -

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  Jesse knew nothing about her. And that made her hate him all the more.

  Why couldn't he have simply tried to get her attention by smiling and saying, Hey! Listen to me, too! He wasn't a baby anymore; in another four or five years he would start going out with girls. Coco wondered if it was possible for kids who had been brought up by parents who hate each other to grow up normally. Since she had completely given up on Jesse, she just hoped that he would find himself a girlfriend and leave home as soon as possible.

  A baby. That's what she was. She wondered how much difference there was between a real baby and the way she acted when she was with Rick. Jesse hadn't spoken a word to her since his beating, and that was just fine as far as Coco was concerned. She found that once she had decided to hate Jesse, she couldn't stop. Everything he did annoyed her.

  Even the sound of him locking the bathroom door to take a shower disgusted her. What was he thinking? Was he really stupid enough to believe that anyone in their right mind would want to see him naked? The more she hated Jesse the uglier she herself felt, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  Rick was completely unaware of the way she felt. Coco and Jesse hadn't been getting along together when he left for San Francisco, so as far as he knew, nothing had changed. He was oblivious to the fact that they had begun to understand each other a little while he had been away.

  Rick had a childlike innocence that Coco found reassuring and comforting, but that same innocence meant he was quite insensitive to the atmosphere of hatred in the apartment. Maybe that was the reason he had been able to put up with living with his ex-wife for over ten years.

  Coco couldn't stand that atmosphere, but she knew it was impossible to get rid of Jesse, so to stop herself from going mad she clung to Rick more than ever. And because she was always hanging on him even when they were with other people, rumors started to spread that Rick had Coco on a leash. She wasn't particularly happy when she heard what I g o A M Y Y A M A D A

  they were saying, but what could she do? Forcing Rick to keep his attention on her was the only way she could deal with her emotions and find any peace of mind.

  Rick was more than happy with the situation: he had a beautiful woman fawning over him, much younger than he was, and he wore her like a medal. He seemed just as absorbed in her as she was in him and even his coworkers were jealous. From the outside, Rick and Coco looked like the perfect couple, but in reality her mind was always full of hate. She loved him, of course, but behaving like this had never been her way of loving men.

  Jesse changed, too, possibly because of the way Rick and Coco behaved toward each other. He had been very quiet since the day Rick had beaten him, but when Coco was in the kitchen Jesse made an effort to stay close to his father.

  One evening, tired of reading, Coco headed to the bedroom only to find Jesse and Rick sleeping in the bed. She felt a hot flash of rage and dropped the book she had been carrying. Rick was fast asleep and didn't stir, but Jesse woke and watched her through half-open eyes, which she thought made him look sly and calculating.

  "Hey, that's my place!" she hissed.

  Jesse got up very slowly and went back to his room without a word.

  There was a dip in the mattress where he had been lying. Coco lay awake, trembling with anger and frustration. She didn't know what Jesse was up to, but the bed was warm where he had been and that irritated her all the more.

  Rick woke up to find Coco beside him and pulled her close.

  "Jesse was sleeping here, you know," she told him seriously, as though she were reporting a crime.

  "Yeah?" he replied, disinterested.

  Thinking about it, she realized it was quite normal for a boy to go to r

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  sleep next to his father. But this was Jesse. If it were any other child, maybe it wouldn't have bothered her. But Jesse was different.

  Rick, who had no idea what she was thinking, pulled her closer. She tried to push him away but he was much stronger than she was and seconds later he had taken off her clothes and thrown them out of bed.

  Normally Coco felt there was nothing more important than being in bed with Rick and making love, but that night she was distracted and couldn't concentrate.

  The most frustrating thing was that even while they were making love, she couldn't get Jesse's face out of her mind.

  The way Jesse tried to stick to his father was not normal. When they went out together, Coco wrapped herself around Ricks arm and Jesse always held on to the other side. Coco would glare at him behind Rick's back, and when Jesse noticed her reaction he would smile triumphantly. However much she thought about it, Jesse was not a little kid anymore, so the way he behaved was just plain weird.

  Rick was happy, of course, because they both made such a fuss over him.

  One thing was clear, though—Jesse was doing it to annoy Coco.

  Jesse was very careful not to leave Coco and his father alone together, and when she caught him sitting on Rick's lap, her frayed patience finally ran out and she snapped.

  "You look like a couple of homos," she exclaimed.

  Rick looked amused.

  "Who you callin'a homo?"

  Coco pointed accusingly at them.

  She was furious, but Rick just dismissed the comment as nonsense.

  "Daddy, will you buy me something?" said Jesse, gazing up at Rick with his big, brown eyes. "And can we go somewhere together next week, too? Can we, huh?"

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  Coco just stood there. There was nothing strange about a kid trying to get his dad to pamper him, but Jesse was flirting with Rick like a woman would. She didn't know whether to pity or despise him. She felt a cold shiver running down her spine.

  Coco bit her lip and left the room in defeat. Was she really jealous of Jesse? There was no doubt that Jesse had been jealous of her when she had been talking to Greg on the phone, and now it seemed that he was having his revenge. Jesse was a little devil, and it no longer mattered to her that he was just an eleven-year-old kid. He had challenged her, and now he was the enemy.

  Eventually
, Jesse refused to even let go of Rick. He was always touching him somewhere. The only time Coco felt Rick was hers was when she was making love to him. In a way, that gave her a sense of vic-tory because she had a physical relationship with Rick that Jesse could never have, but at the same time she was choked with jealousy because the same blood ran through Rick's and Jesse's veins, and that was something she could never have.

  Luckily, Jesse's efforts began to fail sooner than Coco had expected.

  He had no real experience of getting close to anyone, so when he tried it just didn't seem natural. Even Rick began to feel uncomfortable with Jesse hanging all over him all the time: he was too old to sit on his father's lap and cuddle. When Coco saw Rick push Jesse away as he tried to put his arms around his father's waist, she was jubilant. But at the same time she hated herself, disgusted by the satisfaction she derived from seeing Jesse hurt.

  Jesse didn't know what to do. He just stood there with his head down. Rick wasn't even aware of what he had done. He had pushed him away without a second thought, and seeing him standing there, he tousled his hair as if to ask him what his problem was. He was totally unaware of what Jesse was thinking or feeling. Jesse looked relieved for a brief moment and turned to leave, but when he caught Coco looking J E S S E

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  at him, he turned away from her. He seemed to know that his plan was beginning to fall apart.

  Once in a while Coco felt as though the whole situation wasn't serious at all, that it was actually pretty funny. And looking at Rick, sweet, oblivious Rick, it was impossible to imagine that he had a son and a girlfriend who were constantly hatching vengeful plots or underhand schemes behind his back. When she had that attitude she could finally begin to relax and feel loved again. But, later, when she was doing something like washing up the dishes in the kitchen, she would suddenly think of Jesse and her optimism would fail, crash to the floor and burn.

  One day the doorbell rang. Coco opened it and found a woman standing there.

  "Hi!" The woman smiled as if she assumed she was expected.

  Coco was sure she didn't recognize her and struggled to find the words to reply. Apart from her friends coming to visit, it was the first time a woman had been to the house since she'd moved in.

  "Mama!" cried Jesse.

  Coco took another look at the woman's face. She had thin lips and narrow eyes and she reminded Coco of a drawing of a peasant woman in an old picture book she'd had as a child. She was a little nervous, but as the woman was smiling so amiably, she let her in. To be more accu-rate, the woman walked right in.

  "Oh, my baby!" she gushed, flinging her arms around Jesse.

  What can this bitch be thinking? Coco instandy remembered the story about the two hundred dollars—it was this woman's fault that Coco had been forced to take care of Jesse in the first place.

  Even though she had refused to look after him, even for a few days, now his mother was hugging him and telling him how much she had missed him. Coco felt the woman was trying to flaunt her power and impress her.

  Jesse looked puzzled, but gingerly put his arms around the woman's 7 g 6 AMY YAMADA

  neck. Sure, they were mother and son, but even to Coco there was something not quite right about the picture.

  Rick came out to see what was going on, but as soon as he saw the woman, his face lost all expression.

  "Hi, Rick! You look great," she squealed.

  Her high-pitched voice seemed to shake him back to life, and he offered her a chair. Then he introduced her to Coco, but his voice wasn't the same as usual.

  Coco smiled weakly and said hello, and the woman flashed a huge smile back at her and hurriedly told her not to worry because she didn't love Rick any longer and she had only come because she was worried about Jesse.

  Coco went to make them some drinks. All she could hear from the kitchen was the woman's squeaky voice. Rick didn't say a word.

  When Coco returned to the living room with the tray of drinks, Jesse's report card was on the table and the woman was screeching.

  "Why are his grades falling?" she demanded. "Tell me! I can't believe he's doing this badly just because I'm not here to look after him.'

  Coco felt like telling her that it wasn't just Jesse's grades that were the problem, there was a lot more besides, but this woman didn't seem to know what was going on, and Coco didn't think she had the right to know.

  "You want to know why his grades are getting worse?" said Rick sarcastically. "I'll tell you why. He doesn't study, that's why!"

  She glared at Rick accusingly. He refused to meet her gaze but his tight-lipped expression and narrowed eyes betrayed his anger. It was the first time Coco had seen him with such an expression.

  "So why aren't you studying, Jesse?" barked the woman.

  Jesse started to whimper. Coco simply could not believe what she was seeing. The little brat was playing up to his mother! Could it get any worse than this? At that moment Coco hated Jesse more than ever—-more J E S S E

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  than she had believed possible. As far as she was concerned it would have been better if he had just come out with one of his usual bold, bare-faced lies: It's okay, I'll study hard from now on, Mama!

  Rick had a sick, sarcastic smile of exasperation on his lips. Coco was frustrated by his silence, but Rick loved Jesse in his own way and he had already spent over a year looking after him alone.

  Jesse continued to cry, but there were no tears in his eyes. It was just another one of his tricks, and that irritated Coco even more. Suddenly the woman turned to Coco as if she had just noticed that she was in the room and started talking to her.

  "Please don't worry about any of this. You see, the problem is I hate Rick. And it annoys the hell out of me when I think that I wasted ten years on him. I know it's none of my business, but to be honest, I really can't understand why you've moved in with him."

  Coco observed her calmly, taking no notice of the bile she was spout-ing. Her face actually wasn't that bad, but the hatred that consumed her made her look twenty years older than Coco. Damn, she was ugly. Coco couldn't bear to think that it was being with Rick that had, over time, made her so repulsive. She wore loud, unfashionable clothes that didn't suit her and made her look uglier still. In fact, Coco felt sorry for her.

  She was a pathetic human specimen.

  Coco was amazed by the incredible effect hatred could have on a person. She shuddered when she realized that she herself was dangerously close to being consumed by the same passion.

  "Damn! You're nothing but a stingy, cheating prick!" spat the woman, as she continued her tirade of Rick s shortcomings.

  It took a moment for Coco to process what she had said. She looked over at Rick, shocked, but he smoked his cigarette in silence. The woman continued to rant at him, Hecks of saliva flying out of her mouth. Coco found it hard to believe that a woman could treat a man she had once loved like this.

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  Finally, Rick spoke.

  "You don't belong here," he said in a low voice. "Would you kindly leave?"

  She had brought it on herself, but the woman turned pale and her lips began to tremble.

  "No, I'm not leaving," she retorted. "Jesse is my son."

  Jesse was looking down at the floor with his hands in his pockets.

  Coco was seized with the impulse to rush over and cover his ears.

  "Jesse, does she look after you right?" asked the woman accusingly.

  Since she was having no effect on Rick, she had now decided to switch the direction of her attack.

  "No," replied Jesse.

  Now it was Coco's turn to hold back her anger.

  "And does she cook for you?"

  "No."

  "Does she ever wash your clothes?"

  "No."

  "Well, how about your room? Does she clean your room?"

  "No."

  Coco's head was reeling as she listened to Jesse trying to get at her through his mother. It seemed that
he just couldn't stop the stream of lies. Coco began to wonder if he had the sign of Satan tattooed on the back of his head under his hair.

  "I don't think this young woman knows how to look after Jesse,"

  concluded the woman with an air of authority. "I think I'd better take care of him from now on."

  "Coco has been doing just fine," said Rick calmly. There was no anger in his voice.

  "But you heard what he said. Jesse, you want to come home with me, don't you?"

  There was no reply.

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  "Honey, I'm living with a great guy now. You'll like him. He can be your new daddy."

  Jesse remained silent. Rick held his breath, waiting for his son's reply. The choice was his.

  Coco's heart was in her mouth. If Jesse agreed to leave, she would finally be free of the torturous burden she'd been struggling under for so many months.

  The three adults waited anxiously for Jesse to speak. Each second seemed like an hour. Coco half expected him to try to get out of it by starting to cry again, but he finally answered.

  "I think I'll stay here for now."

  The tension in the room suddenly eased. I'll stay here far now. Even Coco had to admit that it was a stroke of genius. It was enough to please Rick, and yet at the same time it was also enough to pacify his mother.

  "Oh, my poor baby. My poor, poor boy!" wailed his mother, pretending to be upset by the whole thing.

  Coco looked on in amazement. This stupid bitch really didn't have a clue. She had no idea how much it upset Jesse to hear her cursing at his father. Giving birth itself wasn't anything special—the important thing was bringing a kid up and understanding him. She didn't know anything about Jesse. She didn't realize how clever or how cunning he was, or what had made him like that. She was completely ignorant. Maybe she could raise a kitten or a puppy, but she didn't know the first thing about bringing up a child. She could never be a real mother.

  Coco didn't feel anger toward Jesse's mother anymore. And anyway, she was ugly. Coco didn't know if it had anything to do with living with Rick or not, but it certainly had nothing to do with her. She could harp all she wanted on what Rick had been like in the past, but Coco wasn't interested. She didn't want to hear it. She only cared about the Rick she knew now.