“I’ve got a job I like, and my schedule’s right flexible. I’d really like to do both.”
Mrs. Petty, she was rustling around in the laminate credenza behind her desk when she turned and handed me a bright purple pamphlet like it were some sorta medal. I knew what that meant.
“ECU is probably your best bet because you can take most of your classes online, and the commute is only a half hour when you need to go in person.”
She turned again, pushin’ them half glasses down her nose, her blond curls getting all up in her eyes. I looked around the room. It was dingier than ever. The dark green chair fabric was all threadbare, and the college course catalogs, they looked even dustier. Mrs. Petty’s head popped back up.
“Shew.” She got to wiping her forehead, slid a pamphlet across the desk, and said, “Plus, with your grades, assuming you do okay on the SAT, we can probably get you some scholarships.”
“Scholarships,” I repeated.
Now it don’t make one lick a’ sense. But me, a girl who spent her whole damn life figuring how she’s gonna have enough left over to eat, I hadn’t given one thought to how I was gonna pay for college. That would be right near like Khaki designing somebody’s house and forgetting to pick the furniture. I was getting up, realizin’ college weren’t something poor girls got to do. Just rich folks.
But Mrs. Petty, she was just jabbering on, “Yeah, between the scholarships and financial aid, if you have some place to live we could probably get you through ECU on a shoestring.”
Even I got a shoestring. “All right, then. Go, Pirates!”
I thanked Mrs. Petty even though them flickering fluorescent lights had give me some sorta bad headache.
She called, “Don’t forget to fill out those financial aid forms and bring them back to me!”
I weren’t forgetting.
“I thought you had dreams a’ going off to college and walking the campus and professors with bow ties,” Buddy said, when we was just sitting there on a real slow, drizzly day at the Raleigh market. “You shouldn’t just give all that up if it’s what you really want.”
I shrugged. I didn’t do it often, but, just this once, I let myself look deep in his eyes, my stomach all flipping around and a wreck.
“I ain’t gonna do it for real,” I said. “I ain’t the kind of girl that goes to college.” I looked up at him again, and it was like my mouth just couldn’t help itself. I had to say it. “Sometimes dreams change.”
A momma with a baby perched right up on her hip was asking me if my pickles were fermented. Khaki, she told me people was all worried about their bacteria levels. Turns out, she was right.
After the lady paid, like he’d been thinking on it the whole time, Buddy said, “I’m real glad you told me.” He paused. “Sometimes you cain’t make a dream come true all by yourself.”
Some people, they see picking vegetables from the garden as a chore. They get to complaining ’bout bending over and sore backs and dirty fingernails. They don’t like the squattin’ or kneelin’ or diggin’. But me, I ain’t like that one bit. Seeing something I planted months earlier grow is a miracle—don’t matter how many times I done it. I get down there in the dirt, planting them seeds, and even I cain’t believe something delicious is gonna come from ’em. But them little seeds, they sprout every dern time. And me, that’s when I know God’s up there working it all out for me.
My little garden, that’s where I got to feeling right normal again after my trip to Palm Beach. And it’s where I got to thinking hard ’bout my college dreams. I was real glad to get back to cooking and canning—and, you caught me, to Buddy. But the thought a’ having to see my momma, it was like a rain cloud over the outdoor wedding I could just see me and Buddy having.
Khaki and Graham, they asked me to housesit, which were right funny seeing as how I hadn’t left their house for weeks. I pulled down that long, tree-lined driveway, and I could just make out a truck at the end. My fingers and toes got all tingly and numb like. Please be Buddy, please be Buddy.
When I got closer I could make out that the truck was much older than Buddy’s—and a whole hell of a lot dirtier. Buddy, he was right particular ’bout keeping his things clean and orderly. He were real appreciative of everything he had, and he kept it real nice.
But then I figured it. And my heart screeched to a stop like a front tire trying to miss a baby bunny. All that stringy gray hair that was way too long for her age—it were my momma’s. It took damn near all I had in me not to turn around, back out of the driveway, and keep on drivin’. But my momma, she was waving at me like a kid picking up his daddy at the airport. That was the thing about my momma. When she got clean, she just expected all us to love her like nothing happened.
She got to running, hollering, “Oh, it’s my baby girl! Oh, you’re so gorgeous!”
“Hey, Momma,” I said real quiet. If her hug was neon pink, mine weren’t nothing more than taupe.
“I’s looking for Graham,” she said. “But this here’s an even better surprise.”
“I’m just grabbin’ the mail.” I said it real casual, not wanting her to know I was living here. Me and my momma, we wouldn’t never have dreamed of even walking in a place like this. “Graham, he won’t be back for a few weeks. You can come on back then.”
You didn’t have to be real smart to figure it. I was as sure Momma was gonna ask Graham for money as I was that putting up lettuce don’t work no way you do it. And she was just standing there, looking like it weren’t nothing. This weren’t her first visit.
She was waiting, them huge, nothing-stylish-about-’em glasses over the makeup all piled on her face. She was still wearing them faded-out old blue jeans with the up-high waist that made her look like she got a big poochy tummy, even though she weren’t ninety pounds. I knew right well they was from a Goodwill rack. And I felt sad for her. Me, I may’ve been wandering around in Khaki’s fancy hand-me-down coat and living in this big ole house and making me a living. But me and my momma, we was the same person way deep down inside. I got to choking on the fear that I would go back to that life, that being like my momma was something I couldn’t escape. I had to get her outta here.
“So, I been dying to see you ever since we talked.” She swallowed real loud. “Let me see your place.”
“Momma, this ain’t the best time.” My voice was real rushed. And I was madder than hell. This is what she does. She ain’t nowhere to be found for months and then she just shows up expecting me to forget whatever I got going on. She stole my childhood, ain’t never helped me none, and she was just standin’ there like we was best friends.
But then she got to lookin’ sad, and, wouldn’t you know it? I was the one that felt sorry. And I reckoned that she cain’t help who she is when she’s drinking. She’s fighting real hard against that drink just like me.
Them tears got all pooled up in her eyes.
She’d got me again. “Well, maybe we can visit for a minute. But then I got to get back to work.” I pointed down the gravel path toward the trailer, feeling that sick on my stomach that Ricky might be waiting for me.
“So what you been up to?” I asked Momma.
She shrugged. “Well, you know, I’m just trying to get back on my feet, trying to make ends meet off of disability, keep my car payment made, keep the trailer payment made, you know.”
She was fishing, but I weren’t bitin’. I had just got a few emergency dollars in the bank, and I weren’t giving them up for nobody.
“Gosh, Momma. Maybe you should get a job.”
I didn’t look at her, but you just know she was real shocked by me mentioning something so crazy.
“You still down at the garage?” she said.
“No. I’m runnin’ markets for Graham and Khaki, and I’ve started me my own canning business on the side.”
She got all smiley and happy. “Maybe I cou
ld help you with that! I don’t need much, just a little to help me get through the month. And, I mean, it’s gotta be cash so I don’t lose my check. You understand what I’m sayin’.”
Lord knows, even sober, I could never, ever trust my momma. So I was trying to change the subject when we got to the door. But I didn’t need to, ’cause Momma did.
“This sure is fancy.”
Momma was looking around, real impressed by all the designer stuff Khaki’d done in my trailer. If I had showed her where I was really living she probably woulda dropped her dentures. I always told her you couldn’t drink on a empty stomach, especially when you was smoking all the time. But you cain’t tell her nothin’. It pure ate them teeth up.
“The baby sleeping or somethin’?”
The baby. You. I shouldn’t a’ worried about what my momma would think. But I were real shaky all the same. Worse, Momma thought it was all right to leave a baby at home by herself.
“Then where is she?”
I bit my lip real hard, trying not to cry. “She’s with her parents.”
Momma crossed her arms. “What do you mean, her parents?”
“Carolina got adopted.” I didn’t want to cry in front a’ Momma, but I couldn’t help it. It was true. I had give you away. “I just couldn’t do it all by myself. It was the right thing.”
I thought Momma would scream and cuss and get all crazy. But she shocked the pickled okra out of me, her chin quivering and her eyes puddling. Under that gin-soaked skin, a heart was beatin’ after all. She put her head in her hands and said, “If I’d a’ been there, if I coulda helped, we might coulda been a family.”
I felt that sadness creeping in again, the one that makes your body weigh a million pounds, the one that keeps you from getting outta bed. It coulda been different. Momma, if she’d been sober, and she’d a’ helped me out and wrapped you up tight, maybe we coulda got through. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt like drinking again so hard. Maybe I coulda done it.
But then Momma, she said, “All of us.”
I squinted real hard. “All a’ who?”
“You, me, Carolina, and Ricky.”
“Momma,” I said, “Ricky’s always been a no-good son of a bitch. You cain’t be family no more once somebody’s tried to kill you.”
All she said was, “Ricky wants you back.”
It were like one of them digital billboards had switched. All my being grown and a woman and smart went out and a silly girl come back. That silly girl I’d been when I agreed to movin’ in with him, when I didn’t ignore how sorry he was, when I didn’t worry ’bout having a baby with him.
But then I thought a’ Buddy, my stomach flipping right over. And it weren’t just because he was so handsome. He was sweet and good and kind and strong. He was the kind of man that don’t just walk away when things get tough. I shook my head at Momma. She might’ve tried her whole life to keep it from happening, but looking into them dark circles under her eyes, I got to realizin’ it: I deserved better.
Khaki
ENOUGH PROBLEMS
When you spend your days surrounded by wallpaper books and fabric swatches like I do, creativity-boosting music flooding the room, it’s easy to get lost in a daydream. Sometimes in those spurts I feel like giving everything away, quitting my job, and finding a moment of peace with my husband and my children. I can picture myself in the midst of an open field, sitting and reflecting, or hiking by a beautiful mountain stream. I dream of something simpler, free from the burdens and restrictions, the travel and stress, the frivolity of so many of the things that make this life what it is.
I think it’s normal to daydream about a different life, but it seemed like those fantasies of spending my days surrounded by my children, not missing a single moment, were happening more and more often, making me wonder if that really was what I wanted.
Of course, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I felt more confident walking into an important meeting in a killer Manolo pump. And, while sometimes I hate Scott for that, I mostly love him for teaching me that while things don’t define me, sometimes they can make me feel taller, wiser, and more confident.
I could only imagine what he and Clive must have been feeling standing underneath an arch of flowers pledging their lives to each other in matching, custom Armani tuxes. I’ve always cried at weddings, but I think now that I’ve been through two myself the tears flow harder. For one, they are a reminder of the first man I pledged to love forever who went on before me. For two, they make me realize how incredibly blessed I am to have finally ended up with the boy who made me feel like I could do and be anyone, even my crazy, dichotomous, mind-changing-every-two-seconds self. I realized as I laid my head on my husband’s wide shoulder, wiping my eyes, that, while it wasn’t realistic to give away all my worldly possessions and spend my life sitting in a field of hay, it was realistic to pare down as much as possible.
I’d already decided to sell the store, and, while I firmly believe that volunteering is a nice thing to do, it’s not necessary to be in charge of every organization in town. I promised myself I would write several resignation letters when I got home. Every hour I was away was another hour of my children’s lives that I was missing out on.
For me, happiness has always been about a mix of things, not just one, and this was perhaps the hardest time I had ever had finding a balance, listening to my heart and blocking out the outside forces. But I think being able to carve your own path is a part of growing up. It’s being able to say to the world, “My family comes first,” without needing to apologize for it.
In the midst of Clive’s handwritten vows, Graham leaned over and whispered, “I was embarrassed to tell you before, but this is my first . . .” He paused. “This is my first wedding where it isn’t a man and a woman.”
I smiled. “Why’d you say it like that?”
He shrugged. “I hate the term gay wedding. With the over-the-top flowers, gourmet food, and party music, aren’t they all a little gay?”
I put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Scott turned his head at that exact moment, which set me off all over again, and I got tickled. Once that happens, there’s no turning back. I removed a hanky from the clutch Scott had picked for me for the occasion and tried to pass off my shoulders, heaving with laughter, as sobs of happiness for the gorgeous moment where my two friends were pronounced married.
Scott winked at me on his way down the aisle, and I stood to clap with the thirty or so other family members who were there to witness one of the most important days of my friend’s life. “They are so fantastic,” I said to Graham. “You should see how hard a time they’re having getting a baby.”
“They’d be killer parents.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Maybe don’t put that line in your letter of recommendation to the adoption agency.”
We both laughed and then, with my straightest face, I said, “So, I hope it’s okay with you, but I think I’m going to be their surrogate.”
I felt a little mean when I saw how ashen Graham’s face got.
I laughed, and the color returned to his face. He bumped my hip with his. “That was not funny.”
After champagne and dancing and cake and flowers galore, we were tucked in tight, underneath the covers. “Isn’t it strange,” I said, “how I can feel so perfectly myself in a field in Kinston wearing an old pair of Levi’s and a T-shirt and then turn around and feel just right in the Waldorf in a Robert Rodriguez gown?”
Graham kissed me. I struggled so much with those opposing sides of my personality, wondering which one of those people I should be, how I was going to pick whether I wanted to be the farm girl or the city woman. Graham must have known what I was thinking because he said, “It’s okay for you to be both, you know. It’s actually one of my favorite things about you.
Sometimes in the rush of life and hectic schedules of children, I
forget to really look at my husband, to see the kind lines of his face and the tight, broad shoulders. It felt far away sometimes, that moment when he told me he loved me again, that instant that I knew he had called off his wedding and the lead vest that I had been wearing sank to the bottom of the river. I would be lying if I said there weren’t times when I wished that I could feel that splash-of-soda, first-days-of-love feeling all the time. The good thing, though, was that in the quiet moments like this, when I really saw the man I had married, I got that stomach-flip feeling all over again. And it was magic.
People always talk about having a creative outlet, and for years I was jealous that I didn’t have one. Bunny would always say, “Don’t have a creative outlet? You’re a designer. What’s more creative than that?” But I didn’t feel like I was creating anything. A writer creates a story, a painter creates a painting, a musician creates a song. But I guess designing was so second nature to me that I always felt like I was taking other people’s creations and buying them for people too busy to do it themselves.
It took me years to realize that not everyone is blessed with the ability to layer nine patterns in a room and have it come off looking relaxing and cohesive. But now, thanks to Charlie, I know. She always insisted that I was a visionary, and I always told her how ridiculous that was. If she had time to get fabric swatches and pick out furniture, she could decorate as well as I could.
So she put my theory to the test. I did every room in her house in California except one, a particularly easy one, I thought. She was in charge of furnishing one guest bedroom. That was all.
Roughly the third week of our challenge, she called me and said, “You know, Khak, you might be right. I think I’m pretty good at this decorating stuff after all.”
I was a little disappointed that my theory was going to be proven true: Anyone could do my job.
Charlie had kept her guest room sealed off from prying eyes, so Greg and I had the pleasure of seeing it for the first time together. Greg isn’t one to get overly involved in the material, so I didn’t think he would care one way or the other what the room looked like. But when the door swung open and he exclaimed, “What happened?” my horror melted into a fit of giggles.
Dear Carolina Page 25
