“When Alice is tense, everyone’s tense. The trouble is, Alice is always tense. Besides, whenever there’s an argument, or someone has a complaint, the whole group deals with it.”
“Being a community,” I say, quoting the pamphlet Carla gave me to read when I first got here.
“Right. We’re a community, but we’re not exactly in Mr. Roger’s neighborhood.”
“And we don’t live on Sesame Street, either,” I say.
Daphne laughs her short, funny little laugh.
“Let’s get the bread into the oven and then we can do the salad,” Daphne says.
After dinner and clean-up, we all gather in the living room, chairs in a circle.
“Five deep, cleansing breaths,” Carla says.
We all sit straight and breathe in slowly and deeply, then let go in long exhales. It’s as if we are all one giant organism, all using the same lungs.
“We have a problem to deal with here,” Carla says.
“Only one?” Sandra says.
Most of the others laugh. Carla goes on.
“Remember,” she says, “no swearing, no disrespect. Use ‘I’ statements to say how you feel, none of those accusing ‘you’ statements. And another reminder. Everything that’s said in this group is strictly private and confidential . . . So . . . Do you want to start, Trish?”
“Let Alice start,” Trish says, not looking up.
“Okay by me!” Alice says, her black eyes flashing anger. She looks kind of like a fat Whoopi Goldberg, but without a sense of humor.
“First, it pisses . . .”
“No swearing, please,” Carla says.
“Okay! It pickles me off when a fudgiri goody two shoes witch like Madame Patricia here tries to tell me how to handle my own kid. She’s never had a kid so what does she know?”
I can feel the intensity of Alice’s anger clear across the room,
and it’s not even directed at me.
“You don’t have to have a child to understand that calling a child names and telling her she’s stupid is a terrible thing to do,” Trish says.
“Try that with an ‘I’ statement,” Carla says.
Trish thinks for a moment. Her hair is long and neatly pulled back in a tortoise shell barrette. She undoes the barrette, runs her fingers through her hair, then clamps the barrette back on.
“I . . .” Trish stops, then thinks a bit longer and starts over.
“I feel sorry for Kamille when you . . . when she hears her mother call her names.”
“She’s used to it,” Alice says. “And she may as well stay used to it because that’s how life is. Bitch, fat ass, stupid, I grew up on it and it didn’t hurt me.”
Lonni sighs loudly.
“Lonni?” Carla says.
“I think names do hurt. I feel hurt, too, when I see the look in Kamille’s eyes when the name calling starts. And I bet the names hurt you, too, Alice, if you could admit it.”
Alice turns sideways in her chair, facing away from Lonni.
“Maybe we could go around the room and just tell an experience we’ve had in which someone’s called us a name, and how we felt about it.”
As soon as the group session is over I get Cheyenne from the rec room and give her a bath. Then I take her to our room, where we curl up on my bed and read from her favorite book, Brown Bear; Brown Bear, What Do You See?
She points and says, “Brown Bear,” then “Red Bird,” then “Yellow Duck,” until we get to the last two pages, where she points and identifies each animal all over again.
“More,” she says.
“No. Bedtime.”
“Mommy’s bed,” she says.
“Well, okay, if you’ll go to sleep,” I tell her.
I turn back the covers and lay her down on the side next to the wall, then get undressed and into the oversized T-shirt I’m using for pajamas. I climb into bed beside Cheyenne. She is on her side, facing me. I smell the clean scent of her baby skin.
“Night, night,” I say, kissing her soft cheek.
“Night, Mommy,” she says, closing her eyes.
It is not until I hear Cheyenne’s steady, sleeping rhythm of breathing, that my mind wanders back to the group meeting—all the awful names people were called when they were children and still so tender. I will never tell Cheyenne that stupid rhyme, the one I used to believe, “Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me.”
Even Daphne’s father, who’s supposed to be so religious, called her names. “Satan’s Tool,” “Anti-Christ,” “Crucifier.”
Nobody really ever called me names until I got together with Rudy, then he made up for lost time. My mom wasn’t a great mom, but at least she never called me names. She never even seemed to get mad at me. I guess it was more like I was invisible to her. Maybe that’s worse than being called names. One thing makes you hurt and angry, and the other makes you feel like you’re made of air, like people could just walk right through you without noticing. I didn’t feel like air with Rudy. He noticed.
Cheyenne stirs slightly and rests her left hand on my cheek. I’m more than air to Cheyenne.
Tomorrow I register at my new high school. I hope I like it as much as I liked Hamilton High, but that’s not possible. It takes a long time to like a school that much. I’m back to my old keep moving pattern, but now Cheyenne has to keep moving, too. Thinking about Brittany and Ethan and Bergie, and how comfortable Cheyenne was at the Infant Care Center back in Hamilton Heights, I wonder how she’ll respond to a new center.
Sometimes I wish I’d grown up with religious parents, like Daphne did. I don’t mean her parents, but someone who’d taught me to pray. It seems like that might be better than wishing on a star, but I don’t know how it works. I ease my way out of bed and go to the window. I’ll say one thing for the desert, there are a lot more stars out here than there are back home—Hamilton Heights, I mean. It’s not really home.
I find the brightest star and wish that Cheyenne will like the new Infant Center, and that I’ll like my new school. I wish Alice would stop calling Kamille names, and that someday I can work things out so Cheyenne and I can live some place nice where people love us and where there’s no hitting, or name calling, or mean, nasty anger.
“Amen,” I say, even though I know you’re not supposed to say that to a star.
CHAPTER
6
Vicki, the person who met me at Maxwell’s Cafeteria, shows up at seven-thirty Friday morning to take me and Cheyenne to Desert Dunes High School.
“How’s it going?” she asks, after I get Cheyenne buckled into the carseat and then take my place in the front.
“Okay, I guess. I’m not really used to living with so many people.”
“Yeah, that takes a little getting used to, all right,” Vicki says. “Group living, bland foods, and no men,” Vicki laughs. “It’s worth it, though. I’d never have managed to get my life together without being in a shelter for a while.”
I turn away from watching the strange flat landscape roll by.
“Do you have your life together now?”
“Pretty much. I’ve got a job that pays the rent, got my own apartment, nobody’s beating on me anymore.”
“Truck! Wow!” Cheyenne yells from the back.
“Yeah. Wow!” I smile back at her, still feeling the whish of wind from the big truck and trailer that has just passed us.
“Of course, it’d be harder with a kid,” Vicky continues. “I was lucky I didn’t have any kids.”
Cheyenne smiles up at me. Vicki’s idea of luck is different from mine.
“The job I’ve got now is okay—hostess at Coco’s over in Palm Desert—but when I finish the computer programming course I’m taking at City College, I should be able to get something a lot better.”
“I thought you worked for the shelter,” I say.
“Just volunteer stuff a few hours a week. They helped me out so much, it seems like the least I can do . . . You know what I t
hink helped me a lot?” Vicki says.
“What?”
“Those journal writings they give you.”
“I hate doing that,” I say. “They’re too hard. Like yesterday it was to think of what I want to let go of in my life, and to write down what I can do to make it happen, what tools I need, what support system I need . . . I didn’t even know where to start. I mean, I guess I want to let go of Rudy, but I’m not even sure about that.”
She laughs. “Journals make you think, that’s the hard part. It’s the important part, though. You’ve got to get your head screwed on straight, so you’ll know not to take any shit from some guy who claims he only hits you ’cause he loves you so much.”
“How did you know what Rudy says?”
She laughs again. “They all say that. Haven’t you heard that in the group meetings?”
“We’ve only had one group meeting since I’ve been there, and we talked about how Alice treats her daughter.”
“Whoa! Remember the confidentiality rule?”
“Oh, yeah. I guess I just thought . . .”
“Right. I’ve been through it, but I’m not a part of your group. It’s okay to talk in general terms, but no names.”
“Sorry,” I say, embarrassed.
“No big deal,” Vicki says, pulling over to the curb and stopping.
“Here we are,” she says, pointing to a sign that says “Desert Dunes High School.”
There are seven buildings, the kind I think they call “portables,” a baseball diamond and a half basketball court. Everything is painted a sandy beige, to match the surroundings I guess.
Vicki walks with me and Cheyenne into the building labeled “Office,” and we prepare to wait. That’s how it always is at schools. Get there at the appointed time, then wait and wait. I came prepared though, with plenty of toys and juice for Cheyenne, and a book for me. It’s this book called Go Ask Alice about a girl who’s freaking out because she and her parents move and she has no friends. Right now I’m wondering, what’s the big deal here? To me, moving a lot and not having friends is sort of business as usual. I can’t tell yet if Go Ask Alice is going to end up being like a friend to me or not.
After filling out stacks of enrollment forms, and more forms for Cheyenne, we go to the Infant Care Center where Cheyenne will stay while I’m in classes. It’s pretty much the same set-up as the Infant Care Center connected with Hamilton High, except I don’t know anyone here and neither does Cheyenne.
Vicki arranges to meet me after school is out, and I stay with Cheyenne to help her get used to the new place. Mrs. Seales, the teacher, gives Cheyenne a graham cracker and shows us around. We check out the cribs and the big plastic blocks, the play yard, and sandbox. I laugh when I see the sandbox.
“What’s funny?” Mrs. Seales asks.
“The whole play yard is sand,” I point out. “Isn’t that kind of like a refrigerator in an igloo?”
“I see what you mean,” she says, smiling. “But the sand in the box is clean and fine—a different texture than plain old desert sand.”
Cheyenne spots a boy pushing a small red wheelbarrow. She runs over to him.
“My turn!” she yells.
He keeps pushing.
She turns back toward me. “My turn, Mommy!”
Mrs. Seales walks over to Cheyenne, takes her by the hand, and leads her to another look-alike wheelbarrow. Cheyenne pushes it along the walkway, mimicking the boy.
“She’ll do fine,” Mrs. Seales says.
We watch the kids play while she tells me what’s expected of me—how many hours a week I need to help out in the center, when the parenting groups meet and what kind of homework I’ll need to do for the parenting class. It really isn’t that different from before, except I miss Bergie, and Christy, and Janine.
“When do you start classes?” Mrs. Seales asks.
“Monday. For today I’ll stay here with Cheyenne, so she can get used to things.”
Mrs. Seales nods. “You’ll like Desert Dunes. Have you ever been to a continuation high school before?”
“I’ve been to about every kind of school there is,” I tell her. “I move around a lot.”
“Well . . .”
It seems like maybe Mrs. Seales is going to tell me something wise, but just then one kid bops another on the head with a plastic sand bucket and she goes over to help the two of them make peace.
On Saturday, after Cheyenne and Kevin wake up from their naps, Daphne and I put them in strollers and walk them to the park. We spread a blanket on the grass and watch the kids run, free and wild, over to the teeter-totters.
“Grass and trees,” I point out. “I didn’t even realize I was missing them until we got here.”
“Yeah, all that sand and cactus gets boring after a while,” Daphne says. “This place is not like Palm Springs, where they’ve got all those developments with perfect green grass and shade trees and water sprinklers running all the time.”
“I’ve never been to Palm Springs,” I tell her.
“We should talk to Vicki, she might take us there sometime before I move. Some of the big hotels are really beautiful, and a lot of movie stars hang out there, especially the old ones.”
It seems as if I’ve looked away from the kids for just a second, but when I look back at the teeter-totter, only Kevin is there. I scan the area, but can’t see Cheyenne.
“Did you see where Cheyenne went?” I ask Daphne, my heart pounding in my chest.
“No. She was right there,” she says.
Already I am on my feet, running to Kevin.
“Where’s Cheyenne?” I yell at him.
He looks at me, blankly, then shrugs his shoulders.
“Cheyenne!” I call.
Daphne is running behind me.
“Look over there,” I tell her. “I’ll take this side.”
I run past the playground, past the picnic tables, thinking of kidnappers and child rapists, vicious dogs and rattlesnakes. I get a glimpse of yellow on the other side of a handball backboard.
“Cheyenne!” I call again, running to the backboard. Relief floods through me when I finally see her, short chubby legs going as fast as they can. Again I call to her, but she doesn’t turn back. I catch up with her and pick her up.
“Down!” she says. “Daddy!” she points in the direction of a group of three guys sitting near a barbecue pit. One of them is wearing a black and silver Raiders T-shirt, just like Rudy’s.
“Come on, let’s go back and play with Kevin,” I say.
“Daddy!” she says. “I want Daddy!”
I walk over closer to the men. “Look, Cheyenne. That’s not Daddy, it’s just someone in the same kind of shirt.”
Just then the man stands, showing a big belly.
“See, Sweetheart,” I say.
She clings to me, face up against my neck, so I feel her tears.
“Daddy,” she whispers. “Miss him.”
I take her back to the swings and push her for what seems like hours. She doesn’t cry any more, or ask about Rudy, but she is very quiet for the rest of the day. How is all this affecting her, I wonder.
On Thursday, my birthday, it’s just an ordinary day. I write in my journal first thing in the morning. I’m feeling better about my journal now, partly because in the Go Ask Alice book, that girl writes in a diary and it seems to help her figure things out. I’ve got plenty to figure out, so maybe it’s helping me, too.
Today, the questions are: What is important to you? If you could create something beautiful, what would it be?
These are hard questions for me. Cheyenne is important to me. And I want to live a good life. I want to be happy. But how? As far as creating something beautiful, I’ve already done that with Cheyenne. But I can’t paint a beautiful picture because I’m no good at all at art. I’d like to create beautiful music, like the guy in that movie “Amadeus.” But I don’t know anything about music and I can’t sing at all, except to Cheyenne. She likes
my singing but I don’t think anyone else does.
If I were still at Hamilton High, at that Infant Center, Bergie and the other moms there would have a little party for me. We always do that when it’s someone’s birthday. But I guess they don’t do that at Desert Dunes. Either that or Mrs. Seales hasn’t checked my records to see what my birthdate is.
I’ll admit that by the end of the day I’m feeling kind of sorry for myself. It is my eighteenth birthday after all, the day that was supposed to be my wedding day. Not that I’ve ever had a real birthday party or anything. But my mom usually sends me a card. And Rudy gave me some cologne last year, and Irma baked a cake for me. She was all out of candles, but still, it was a cake, and they knew it was my birthday. Here, no one even knows. I guess if I weren’t so shy I’d tell people, but that wouldn’t be like me at all.
I remember a song my mom used to always listen to—a classic, she claimed. It started out “I’ve got a feeling called the blue-oo-oo-oo-oos since my baby went away. Lord I don’t know what to do-oo-oo-oo oo. . .” I always thought it was kind of a stupid song, even if it was a classic. But it makes sense to me today because that’s how I’m feeling—blue-oo-oo-oo.
After dinner though, just when I’m feeling totally sorry for myself, I notice Daphne and Patricia exchange sly looks. They leave the table. Carla gets up, turns out the kitchen light, and sits back down. Then Daphne and Patricia come back with a cake, eighteen candles lit, and place it in front of me.
“Happy birthday to you,” they sing. “Happy birthday to you.”
I start laughing and crying all at the same time.
“Don’t go getting sentimental on us,” Daphne says.
“Make a wish!” Carla says.
I watch the candles burn lower, not even able to figure out what to wish for.
“C’mon,” Alice says. “We don’t want wax on our icing!”
“Just like Alice to worry about her piece of cake on your birthday,” Patricia says. Everyone laughs.
“Well, damn it! If I don’t worry about me who will?” Alice says.
I blow out the candles. I just wish things could be better. That’s all I know to wish for.
Baby Help Page 6
