Baby Help

by Marilyn Reynolds

  “We can still get to Graphic Design Services if we leave right now,” Mr. Raley says. “I hate to have you miss the interview, but are you up for it?”

  “Let me just clean up a bit,” I say. I notice when I stand I’m still a bit trembly. Not too bad, though.

  “Jerry?”

  “Sure,” Jerry says, still clutching an ice pack to his mouth.

  “Let’s see,” Mr. Raley says.

  Jerry takes the ice pack away, revealing a swollen red upper lip. He turns his lip up and shows a bunch of tiny, bleeding cuts where his lip was slammed into his braces.

  “Not too shaky?” Mr. Raley says.

  Jerry holds out a trembling hand.

  “Steady enough,” he laughs.

  I go into the restroom and pat my face with a damp towel. My hair is sticking out all over, but I manage to pull it back again with Mom’s combs. I smooth my clothes, straighten my scarf, add a little lipstick and go back out where the others are talking.

  Cheyenne falls asleep in the van, which is equipped with built-in carseats for the Raley kids, and Mr. Raley gives us a pep talk for the interview while Jerry ties and reties his tie, trying to get it right.

  “Remember, you’re good. You’re both good, and you have a lot to offer an employer. You’re smart, you’re dependable, you already know a lot about computers, and you know how to get along well with other people.”

  “Yeah, that’s why we’re all beat up,” Jerry says, smiling a painful smile.

  “I’m not talking about getting along with lunatics, I’m talk­ing about getting along with normal people.”

  The idea that someone like Mr. Raley thinks of Rudy as a lunatic sticks in my brain. I mean, I know Rudy gets crazy some­times, but a lunatic? And what does it say about me, if I fell in love with a lunatic?

  As soon as we turn into the parking lot of Graphic Design Services, there is only one thing on my mind. I want to work here. The fountain in the courtyard, the bright colored flowers bordering walkways, the big pepper tree shading the entrance to the building—please let them like me here, I think, brushing at my skirt and patting my hair.

  “I’ll just stay here with Cheyenne,” Mr. Raley says. “I hope she won’t be frightened if she wakes up and finds you gone.”

  “I don’t think she’ll wake up, but if she does, do you know the alphabet song?”

  Mr. Raley laughs. “As well as my own name.”

  He gets out of the car and calls Jerry over to him.

  “Stand in front of me, with your back to me,” he says. Then he unties Jerry’s tie and reties it, so the bottom side is not hang­ing out past the top side.

  “Good,” he says. “Go to the receptionist, right inside the door, and tell her you have an appointment with Ms. Fallon.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  My mom is bustling around the kitchen when I get home, grilling fish and mixing it into a big green salad.

  “Just in time for dinner,” she says, getting bread from the oven and pouring water for everyone. There is a tablecloth on the table, and a rose in the center.

  “Smell!” Cheyenne insists.

  I pick up the vase and hold it out for her. She sticks her nose into the flower.

  “Yum,” she says.

  I stack phone books on a chair and push Cheyenne close to the table.

  Teresa comes out of the bathroom, straight from the shower it appears.

  “Hey, that works,” she says, taking in my “business-like” out­fit.

  “Mom figured it out,” I say.

  Teresa looks at the table, rose and all.

  “Good day?” she asks Mom.

  “Today I’ve got my energy back, and appetite. I’ll be able to work next week,” Mom says.

  “At the convention center?” I ask.

  “Yeah. They’ve arranged a schedule for me where I work as I can, between chemo. I have to be able to do a week at a time, not just day by day stuff, but that’s better than nothing. I want to stay off disability if I can.”

  “How long have you been working there?”

  “Only about a month before the cancer was diagnosed. Some­times it seems like human nature is the pits, and then people you hardly know do something really nice—like my bosses at the convention center.”

  “Bread, pease,” Cheyenne says, stretching toward the steam­ing loaf.

  “Right. Let’s eat!” Mom waves a piece of bread back and forth, to cool it, then hands it to Cheyenne.

  It surprises me that Mom seems so good with Cheyenne when I can’t remember her being that way with me. Has she changed? Or was she a better mom than I remember her being?

  “All the right stuff,” Teresa says, looking over the table.

  It turns out that Mom’s supposed to have lots of fruits, veg­etables, and fish. No meat, no fats. And then she has the special soy protein stuff that she drinks, and the fish oil capsules. It’s part of a research project going on at UCLA. Supposedly, they’ve been having good results with a combination of chemotherapy treatment and this nutritional plan.

  “Butter,” Cheyenne says, waving her bread around.

  Mom and Teresa both laugh. “Sorry,” Mom says, “that’s not on our grocery list.”

  “Look, Chey-Chey. Mommy’s eating bread without butter.”

  I take a big bite of butterless sourdough bread.

  “Yum,” I say.

  We all show Cheyenne how we’re eating bread without but­ter. She’s not impressed.

  “Butter, pease,” she says.

  She keeps slipping off the phone books. That distracts her from wanting butter, but it also distracts her from eating dinner. I wish I could go back for her high chair, and her carseat, just a few essentials would really help.

  “How’d the interview go?” Teresa asks.

  “Good, I think. Ms. Fallon said she’d call us in a few days. Her boss is out of town and she’s got to get an official okay from him before she can hire us. We had to take a basic math test, which was easy, and then she asked us about what com­puter programs we’d worked with. We each had a packet of sample work to show her.”

  “Did she interview you and your friend together?” Mom asks.

  “No, but she asked us both the same questions.”

  “Were you nervous?” Teresa says.

  “Yeah, but I’d already had sort of a hard day before I got there.”

  “Sure. That’s an awful bus ride.”

  “Well, it wasn’t that so much . . . I’ll tell you later,” I say, glancing at Cheyenne. It’s enough that she was in the middle of it, and then had to hear about it all over again with Sergeant Drake.

  Sometimes it seems like each day is more like two separate days. The one when Cheyenne is awake and almost all I can do is feed her, change her, play with her, watch her, keep her happy. And then there’s the quiet day, night really, when she’s asleep. That’s when I read, do homework, talk on the phone. It’s espe­cially like that now that I’m not in school and she’s not going to the Infant Center.

  The first thing I do after I get Cheyenne settled for the night is call Leticia.

  “Hey, girl. How you doin’?”

  “Good,” I say. “But I miss school.”

  “Heard you had a scene over at Sojourner today.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Arthur. He’s got friends all over the place. That’s his main job, you know, keepin’ in touch with his friends and playin’ foot­ball.”

  “And Leticia’s main job is runnin’ off at the mouth,” Arthur yells into the phone.

  “Get away, Arthur!” she yells back.

  I called Leticia after Cheyenne went to sleep, so we could have an uninterrupted conversation? I wasn’t thinking about Arthur.

  “With Rudy in jail, can’t you come back to school?”

  “They arrested him, but Sergeant Drake said Rudy’d prob­ably be out on bail by tonight.”

  “I just hate that,” Leticia says. “Rudy’s bein’ a dickhead,
so now you can’t come to school. What kinda fair is that?”

  “It’s not, but I don’t know what else to do. Maybe he learned his lesson today, but maybe it just made him madder and meaner. It’s not like he worries about breaking laws—he knew there was a restraining order against him.”

  “Restraining order?”

  “Yeah, Ms. Bergstrom got a restraining order on him when he and Irma went to the center looking for Cheyenne.”

  “My life is so dull in comparison to yours,” Leticia says. “I got no drama.”

  “Be glad. Your life is like living on Sesame Street,” I tell her. “I want a life like Sesame Street.”

  “My life’s not like Sesame Street, except for Arthur, who’s exactly like Oscar the Grouch.”

  “But there’s conversation, and people laugh, and treat each other with respect, and you’ve got aunts and uncles . . .”

  “No dad. Does that take me off Sesame Street?”

  “If only people with dads got on Sesame Street, they could

  only do about one show a month instead of every day,” I say.

  That gets us talking about dads.

  “Do you think there was really a time like old people talk about, when hardly anyone ever got divorced, and people didn’t have babies unless they were married, like fifty or a hundred years ago?” I ask.

  “Nah. How could that be?” Leticia says.

  “Sometimes I worry that it won’t be good for Cheyenne, grow­ing up without a dad.”

  “It’d be worse growing up around Rudy.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “It’s normal. Did you ever know your dad?”

  “No.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “I missed it though, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. But only because of TV. Don’t let Cheyenne watch any of those stupid TV programs where there’s always a dad hanging around the house—you know, how you’re careful about not letting her watch violence? Don’t let her watch dads.”

  That gets us laughing.

  Then I feel Teresa standing behind me. “Hey, I don’t want to rush anything, but I need the phone pretty soon.”

  “Oh. Okay. Gotta go. Here’s my new phone number. Call me anytime,” I say.

  It’s not until way late at night, after everyone else is asleep and I’m finishing my English paper in the bathroom that I think maybe I got just a glimpse of Sesame Street here, under my own nose, tonight.

  We were laughing and talking together at dinner, and then I was able to talk freely on the telephone without being called a slut or getting hit. Even after that awful time with Rudy today, right now, I feel pretty good. I open my journal and write about that.

  After I write in my journal, I read the rough draft of my I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings paper. I write about how strong Maya Angelou was—even though she was raped by her step­father, and then felt guilty for it, and she lived in the midst of terrible racism in the south, and her mother and father sent her away when she was only three, even with all these things she grew up to be an important writer and dancer, and even wrote a poem for a presidential inauguration. Those are the main points of what I get from the book.

  I say it better in the paper, without having it be one big run-on sentence. The book was inspiring to me, because I see that even though things may be horrible when you’re young, it’s still possible to make a good life.

  It is after three when I fold my paper into the envelope, seal it, address it to Ms. Lee, c/o Hamilton High School, and put two stamps on it. Cheyenne and I will walk to the post office first thing in the morning.

  Back in bed, I can’t get back to sleep for a while. Even think­ing I had a partial Sesame Street evening isn’t enough. In my mind, I keep seeing Rudy, his stony face first, but then it soft­ens, his eyes are warm with love. All happy days, he is promis­ing me.

  Then I see again the handcuffs locking on his wrists, and I’m sorry for him. I hope they didn’t hurt him at the station. I know it happens sometimes, especially with guys who get smart. Rudy might have done that.

  But was he worried about hurting me, or Cheyenne, when he was shoving us around? No!! And remember the wrought iron magazine rack whizzing past your head, I tell myself. You could be dead, like Daphne.

  Deep cleansing breaths. One . . . two . . . three . . . I envision the fountain, the flowers, the pepper tree out at Graphic Design Services, and Cheyenne at the park trying to throw leaves back up onto the tree—so much is good, so much is awful. Lean toward the good, I tell myself, and finally I sleep.

  Friday afternoon Sean arrives at the apartment, sleeping bag slung over his shoulder. Teresa runs to greet him. She kisses him on the cheek and he picks her up and twirls her around, laughing. I can’t help comparing their greeting to the way Mom and I greeted each other a few days ago.

  “Hey,” Sean says, giving me a quick hug.

  He leans down next to Cheyenne, who is stacking cans on the floor.

  “My name’s Sean,” he tells her.

  She hands him a can of non-fat refried beans.

  “Thanks,” he says, laughing.

  We all sit around the kitchen table, drinking iced tea and talk­ing. At first I feel awkward around Sean. We’d been best friends for so many years, when we were kids, but now we’re kind of like two strangers. He looks different. Bigger, more like a man than the boy I used to hang out with, talking all night long. I notice him glancing at me, and wonder if he’s feeling awkward, too.

  Teresa makes a shopping list for the picnic tomorrow.

  “Are your friends coming?” she asks me.

  “Leticia for sure, and maybe Jerry.”

  “Did you talk to Justin?” she asks Sean.

  “I just left a message,” Sean says.

  Teresa makes a grocery list and Sean and I walk to the mar­ket. It’s the first time I’ve left Cheyenne with Mom and Teresa, but when I tell her I’ll be right back she waves bye-bye without even looking up. I guess she’s pretty comfortable with them now.

  There’s a guy on the comer, asking for money. Sean hands him a quarter and I get a whiff of stale urine as we walk past him.

  “The city kind of gives me the creeps, after being in the moun­tains for so long,” Sean says.

  “I’ve never been to Sequoia.”

  “You should come up sometime. It’s beautiful, and quiet, and peaceful.”

  “What do you do up there?”

  “Repair trails, clear fallen trees and branches, maintain camp­sites, all kinds of stuff. It’s hard work—but it’s made a man of me,” he laughs, pushing up his sleeve and raising a well-developed bicep.

  “Really,” he says, getting all serious. “It saved my life to go into the corps. I don’t know if Mom told you, but I was pretty messed up for a while—drugs, and the petty crime it took to keep using, and then dealing—you know, one backward step after another.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “I lost . . . Rudy tore up your phone number . . .”

  “I knew he was bad news that day I saw him a long time ago . . . tough guy with the girls,” Sean says, disgusted. “I wondered why you didn’t call me, though.”

  “It’s not that I didn’t want to.”

  “I hear you’ve been having hard times,” Sean says.

  We stand outside the market, leaning against a shopping cart rack, talking for a long time. I tell him about the shelter, and Daphne, and how I finally left Rudy for good. He tells me about how he did a lot of things he’s ashamed of, and how he was finally arrested, and sent to rehab, and then joined the CCC.

  “There are plenty of drugs there, too,” he says. “You can find that stuff wherever you go. But I’m through with that now. I’ll start school in September, up at College of the Redwoods. I’ll major in forestry.”

  We stand talking so long, it’s nearly dark when we get back to the apartment and I’m worried about being away from Chey­enne for such a long time. No one’s in the living room or kitchen and I get a sinking fe
eling that something’s wrong. Then I hear laughter coming from the bathroom.

  Mom and Teresa are both kneeling by the bathtub, where Cheyenne sits surrounded by floating plastic cups. She fills one, holds it high, and turns it over.

  “Waterfall!” the three of them yell, and Cheyenne does it again. Mom and Teresa laugh like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen.

  1 go back to the kitchen and start making potato salad for tomorrow’s picnic. I hope it will be good with non-fat salad dressing instead of mayonnaise. My mom can’t eat mayonnaise.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Sean and I take Cheyenne to the park a little early, so we’ll be sure to get tables. Leticia and Arthur get there shortly after we do.

  “I had to bring him, he owns the frisbee,” Leticia says in mock apology.

  “Yeah, and I had gas money, too,” Arthur laughs.

  “Aunt Myrna sent this,” Leticia says, lifting the cardboard cover from a big sheet cake.

  It’s got white icing and it’s decorated with black graduation caps and tassels. “Congratulations,” it says, in big red letters.

  “Cool, huh?” Leticia says. “For you and me.”

  “Sean’s graduating, too,” I say. “And Jerry.”

  “Well, then, for you and me and Sean and Jerry.”

  Arthur reaches a finger toward the icing and Leticia bats it away. “At least let everyone see how pretty it is before you de­file it.”

  “Just a taste for the baby,” Arthur says, sneaking past Leticia’s guard and scraping a bit of icing from the side.

  “Here, Baby,” he says, letting Cheyenne lick icing from his finger.

  “Yum,” Cheyenne says.

  Arthur carries Cheyenne over to the swings and Sean, Leticia and I throw the frisbee around for a while. Leticia and Sean are really good at it.

  When Jerry arrives I leave the frisbee to the experts.

  “Walk with me to check on Cheyenne,” I say.

  Jerry’s lip is still swollen.

  “Are you able to eat, or is your mouth too sore?” I ask him.