Out in the car, Mary Beth tells her, but asks at the same time, "Mac said he'd pay for it."
"He did," Stephanie says, "He paid me. I'm taking you up there, to the car."
"But-" Mary Beth protests, "the nice tow truck guy told me to wait in the nice little waiting-"
"Mary Beth!" She lunges the car back and nearly peels out heading onto the interstate, lecturing the entire time how Mary Beth can simply not be trusted and the tow truck guy does not need a headache like Mary Beth to worry about. It takes Stephanie the entire time, until she sees the tow truck guy smile coyly at Mary Beth, to mention the size of 'her belly'.
"Looks like you're about ready to 'pop', there," she tells Mary Beth just as the tow truck guy is about to ask if she is single.
"No! Well, just about, I suppose," Mary Beth says. Trying to 'sugar eye' and smile back at the tow truck guy doesn't quite work out during Stephanie's bitter line of questioning in front of him. A moment that may have changed Mary Beth's life, forever, for the good, ends up, instead, with Mary Beth being the 'Stephanie's mess' that Stephanie wants her to be. Mary Beth leaves, alone; direction: due east 'nowhere to go' but Stephanie's house, arriving as a burden and an unwanted drain. To hear Stephanie tell it, 'thank god' she was there - to stop them from getting to know each other.
"God only knows," she tells her neighbor, "what she would have gotten herself into next."
By the end of two months, alone with Stephanie, Mary Beth has 'realized' her gratitude. A beautiful baby boy has been born, sort of to the both of them, and Stephanie has convinced Mary Beth - now that the baby is born -what she really needs to do is to 'go out' and 'live her life'. Reminded often of the sad night that Stephanie lost 'the baby' she had waited for so long, Mary Beth thinks often of Tiyo and wonders where, in the world, he might be now. 'Living her life', she starts to think, might not be so bad an idea. She dearly loves the baby and thank fuck Stephanie works or she might not get to hold him at all.
Stephanie's husband fields the occasional feud between them, but for the most part he stays out of the way, and stays out of the house, a lot. Stephanie doesn't seem to be noticing his absence, not near as much as Mary Bethers' faults and the 'way' she 'holds the baby'; but, she does mention, once or twice, that she might need to be finding herself a 'better man' as well. Each time Stephanie says this, Mary Beth wonders just what she means, and to whom she is referring, by adding the words as well.
During an absolute 'break-down of a fight' - first the anger, then the tears - because Stephanie's husband the night before had failed to return home from the poker game he went to, he walks out. Stephanie cries so hard and long she could fill this year's new tupperware bowl with tears.
"Everyone always leaves me! Everyone! Don't leave me, Mary Beth," she cries, the words dropping off her tongue by accident. Instead of being incensed by the way Stephanie has held her like a one-eyed, worn-out, couldn't-be-good-enough-for-anyone-else-to-see, stuffed-play-toy who is taken out and always 'there' when necessary, Mary Beth is tricked into believing she is really needed and loved, completely, as a friend, a sister, maybe even as a child. She puts the baby, whom his whole life has been moved between one pair of arms or the other, into the bassinette and holds Stephanie with both arms as she sobs, feeling both needed and loved.
By the end of the night, as per Mary Beth's offering of love, the baby boy 'belongs to both' of them.
"Really?" Stephanie asks through her tears, her face lighting up in a way Mary Beth hasn't seen before.
"Really," she says, feeling really special. "He's both of ours. And look! He's smiling."
"He likes that, doesn't he?" Stephanie coos toward the baby. "O, he'll be so much happier," she says.
"He will," Mary Beth accepts, "he will love his Auntie Stephanie."
"Auntie? That's not what you said. That's not what he wants, Mary Beth. He'll see me once every five years or something?! I don't have anybody!" she wails and starts, again, to cry.
"O honey, don't cry," Mary Beth rubs her hand across Stephanie's hair. "You want to be his mommy too, don't you?"
Stephanie nods her head.
"Well, he can have two mommies, then, I guess; he can," she hugs Stephanie again, wanting the whole room to feel better.
"Okay? Huh? You feel better?"
Stephanie nods her head, again, and wipes the snot from her nose onto her kleenex.
"Better?"
"Yeah," she says.
"Okay then," Mary Beth does leave her, but only for that moment, she explains, and goes to pick up the baby. "Let's have a look at our little boy, now, huh?" she carries him to Stephanie who asks Mary Beth to pour them both a drink. Mary Beth agrees to this simple request and ends up, in the kitchen, alone. Time to think.
Cracking the ice tray, taking the bottle from the cupboard to pour, Mary Beth already wishes she felt as loved as she did right after Stephanie's man walked out. She doesn't tell herself that the uncomfortable feeling she is getting to won't go away unless she marches back in there and tells Stephanie that she has just made a terrible mistake.
She doesn't say, "This is one of those times that I let another person's emotions take control of my life, and I didn't mean any of the words I just told you," like she thinks of saying. Instead, Mary Beth tries to smooth her uncomfortable feelings over with an offering of alcohol that she knows Stephanie will like. If Mary Beth had turned and been for a moment, or several moments, the most miserable bitch she has ever been in her entire life, no matter what Stephanie wanted, no matter the lashing her reputation would receive, she at least would have ended the night with her very own baby in only her very own arms. Instead, Mary Beth decides to be nice. And as Stephanie clutches her baby, Mary Beth clutches her drink, trying for quite awhile to trade the two. Eventually Stephanie holds the drink in one hand and the baby in the other.
She waits until morning to 'show' Mary Beth, that once the man she had controlled was out the door, there is no holding her back from this baby. Maybe Mary Beth didn't say anything at all. As Mary Beth wakes that morning, the baby is already in Stephanie's arms. It is wearing new clothing and Mary Beth, who just now looks at the clock, has slept 'disturbingly late'.
"How could I have slept this late?" she asks.
"You were tired, emotionally drained."
"But he left you," Mary Beth thinks, and does not say out loud. "This is your emotion, not mine. And that is my baby," she wants to say but doesn't.
"Big boy has been to the doctor today," Stephanie tells her.
"What? Why?" Mary Beth asks her.
"He had the sniffles," Stephanie says. "You didn't notice, did you? You should be more careful with him around things that he puts in his mouth. Like in that car of yours. It's so dirty."
"You're right, I'll clean it," Mary Beth says, a firm tactic that she uses at the beginning of the week. "It's Sunday; I'll clean it while the baby sleeps." But by the end of the week, Saturday night, about the same time as the previous fiasco, Mary Beth follows her poker playing predecessor out the door. Kicked out, too, with no where to go, wishing for a moment that she had taken down his number. At that moment, at least, Mary Beth holds her baby boy; the pride and joy of her life. And, she does not worry, this time, that she was a 'bitch'. She has her baby, her pride and she knows she is his only mommy.
"Everything will work out fine," she thinks. She is not a loser. She had good grades in school, she reminds herself, and there are other places to work than Stephanie's bar.
By the end of another week, with three nights spent in the car, Stephanie sneaking around asking about her, and with only Stephanie as a previous job reference, Mary Beth ends up 'unfit' to mother that darling baby boy, named after her favorite Hollywood movie star, with no one but herself (she thinks) to blame.
1960 Mustang.
Tenzing 'checks' as many camps as he can find, looking for Danthra, looking for extra supplies. He travels, unintentionally, too far northeast, out of the regio
n his faction normally surveils. Cold and hungry, Tenzing runs into another Khampa, from the Lhasa uprising who did not flee all the way into Darjeeling, but stayed behind and set up camp in the hills of Mustang. He shows Tenzing to his camp. Unlike the day in Darjeeling, just over a year ago, when he had seen a vision of Matseidha, this time his mind does not play tricks on him; and unlike the next day, when Tenzing awoke determined to find her, he does not go to search for her in vain. For the first time since the Litang horse race of 1956, Tenzing lays his weary eyes actually upon Matseidha as she leans over a campfire scooping ladles of guthuk into steaming bowls, one for the man standing beside her who has just touched her hair, and one for Tenzing, the found, near dead Khampa whom the man in Matseidha's camp seems to have 'brought home for dinner'.
Matseidha's hands nearly drop the bowl of guthuk as she hands it off, looking up into the face of the new arrival. She wants to welcome the outsider as she once was welcomed here. But when she sees that the face of the visitor is familiar, that it is Tenzing, she does not smile, but nearly gasps. She does manage not to drop the bowl of food as Tenzing grabs onto it; she lets loose her nearly shaking hand and brings it to her face, covering the look of delight and astonishment before the others notice her strange reaction. The man near her, takes his guthuk and goes to sit inside his tent to eat. The Khampa who has brought Tenzing here, goes inside a tent as well, to call the others out to meet this newcomer.
"You are alive!" Matseidha says in nearly a whisper.
"Yes," Tenzing almost laughs. "Again, I seemed to have survived. And you," he grabs onto her wrist, the hand that holds the ladle, an unplanned, urgent grasp, "I knew I'd see you again. I knew it. I saw you, in a vision," he says and then lets go of her. "I must talk to you. I sent you a letter. Did you get it?" Matseidha has so much to say, but very few words pass her lips. She nods her head.
"I got it," she says.
The man who has generously shown Tenzing to safety and warmth brings others from the camp over to meet him.
"You will be welcome here," Matseidha says in front of them.
"You can stay," says the large man who'd once said these very words to Matseidha; she looks down and stirs the guthuk, not knowing what else to do.
Tenzing watches her intently until the man who'd brought him here finally says, "Eat!" thinking he is waiting to be told it is acceptable.
"I will," Tenzing says. He sits down and says a blessing to his food, and then he eats it. He is so hungry he does not notice much around him. He does not notice when the man who'd touched Matseidha's hair comes out to have his bowl refilled. He does not look up when he hears her talk.
"Tenzing is from Litang," Matseidha tells this man with whom she has formed a bond, not love, she knows, but comfort, closeness, safety, warmth; and Tenzing has already sensed they are together. Tenzing only notices the goodness of the food, its warmth; and when he is done, he notices that Matseidha has stood dutifully by to load the bowl, again, once he is done, remembering what it was like, herself, to be so cold and hungry. He smiles at her greatly. She smiles at him too. He lowers his head and begins to eat the food, again, this time glancing up occasionally to see her watching. Her stomach feels a fluttering of butterflies each time he does this, and Matseidha bows her head to him, nearly giggling at the awkwardness of watching and her happiness of seeing him. The third time of filling his guthuk bowl, Matseidha is called by Tenizia into her tent. Another slight bow of her head and Matseidha walks off, smiling a smile she almost feels the need to cover with her hand, and when she does, she giggles to herself; until, just inside the door of the tent, she grasps Tenizia's arms and nearly screams a quiet, girlish yell.
"What?!" Tenizia says. "Why are you acting so crazy? What have you done?"
"I can't tell you," Matseidha says, but then she points, out the door and Tenizia peeks around the opening of the tent.
She sees a lump of dark, unwashed hair, unwashed clothing and the ammo strap and guns that Tenizia is used to seeing around camp, "Just like all the other men at camp," she says out loud then turns to her silly acting 'mom' completely at a loss of understanding, asking again the same question, "What?"
Matseidha swoons. "I never thought I would see him again. I don't know why," she says, "I just gave up. And now, here he is!" She falls back onto the sleeping mat, her hands to her heart.
"Zhingtu is better," Tenizia says.
"He isn't," Matseidha argues, "What do you know any way, you are only a girl."
"I know when I can smell someone all the way over there from here," she says holding her nose.
"Shut-up!" Matseidha says. "He does not smell," she peeks out at him. "Okay," she admits, "he needs a bath. Some new clothes. But he is handsome," Matseidha says.
"O!" the girl groans, throwing herself onto the mat like she is going to be sick at Matseidha's gushiness. "Zhingtu is handsome," Tenizia says, trying not to giggle. They both sit up, again, looking at each other. Matseidha makes a silly face and they both shake their heads.
"No, he isn't!" Tenizia says and laughs.
Matseidha watches as a tent area is cleared for Tenzing. He is allowed to sleep near Matseidha, since he is also from Litang, and they 'knew' each other earlier. The woman who helps in this area, shoos Matseidha out of the way.
She tells her, "There are other things to be doing." And Matseidha walks away. The Resistance fighters tell him to sleep.
"It will be a long night," warns the large man who seems to hold some authority as to who can stay and who can only pass.
Tenizia and Matseidha gather things to burn for the fires to cook on and keep warm. The girl urges Matseidha not to go with Tenzing, but to stay with her. She reminds her of Zhingtu's kindness and she does her best to keep Matseidha busy, away from Tenzing. She even tells Zhingtu that Matseidha could use some help, when she is off in a different direction than the girl.
Despite the efforts of the Resistance fighters, the little girl, and Zhingtu, eventually Matseidha and Tenzing wind up alone together.
Matseidha starts, "I liked your letter."
At the same, exact time that Tenzing tells her, "I can't believe I found you!." They both laugh a nervous laughter, each one hearing only their own sentiments and not the other's.
"You first," Tenzing tells her and she repeats what she had said.
"I really liked reading your letter," she says. "Now your turn."
"I said I can't believe I've found you. I can't believe it!"
"It's good, isn't it?" she says.
"O yes, very good. I know I wrote this in the letter, but -"
"Yes?" she says, her breath full of anticipation, she had in almost memorized.
"Well, when I met you at the horse races, I was sure that I would - you know - see you again. But then," he looks down at his dirty, worn hands, "all this. I feel I don't have a lot of time. I never forgot you, you know. And I have lived," he rolls his eyes and head around up to the heavens and back down, "oh, Matseidha, I have lived through just about anything; and right now, with you here, the only joy I've truly felt since, well, since Tiyo and I, went parachuting out that door, when I thought I would see you, again. I thought that you and I and Tiyo would be home, again, forever; together. I never knew that day, but I kept living; sometimes with no one else alive - I would make it through, and sometimes I would wonder if, or when, I'd ever-" He looks at her a while without talking.
"Yes?" she asks hoping he will continue, but also feeling rather shy and suddenly a bit afraid.
"Well, what I'm saying is, I guess I knew. I knew I'd see you," he says.
"You told me that," she mentions.
"Did you?"
"What? Know that I would see you again? No. I didn't. I thought you were gone. Because the parachutes," she says, "they were laying in the field. I was told, or I assumed, there was no one left alive. But, I didn't let myself think you were there. I didn't know. I didn't think you died, necessarily. I just didn't think you were
alive."
"O," he says and there is quiet for a moment. "Matseidha," he says "if this feels sudden-"
"It doesn't," she interrupts.
"Just know that I feel, now, for some reason, that I don't have a lot of time. I have waited since the horse race day - for you, like I wrote to you in my letter, so many, many times, I thought of you. And I sort of feel, now, that you are the reason I have lived and made it through so many things. I don't want to leave you Matseidha, is what I'm saying. I want you to come with me. I know it is a lot to ask - that you just up and leave, here, where you are comfortable and safe, where maybe you have a man already?" his eyebrows raise and he looks at her, "but I must ask," he continues, not waiting for an answer. "I just feel my whole life is with you, now that I've finally found you; and, if I don't say this, right now, those years that I waited, thinking only of you, would be pointless. The day that I landed again in Litang, until now, wanting only to find you; it just seems I cannot/should not/would be stupid to leave you... Do you know? Do you know what I am saying, Matseidha?"
"Yes," she says again. "I am frustrating myself," she says and pounds her fists against her thighs. "All I keep saying is yes. Like I can't talk at all, but I, I..." she takes a deep breath, "I thought of you, too, everyday, until I thought that you were dead, and then I wouldn't think of you as dead. That I don't want to go with you, now, isn't true," she blurts out. "I feel the way you do, about our lives, now, and what we've been through - to meet again. I lost my mother," she divulges.
"I am sorry," he says, "for your loss. In the invasion?"
Leadville: 300 Days Away Page 13
