I can feel Piper studying my face. “This is great,” I lie. “Once it gets cleaned out.”
“I can clean it!” Piper declares, clearly motivated. “I can help Mike or Jackson do it.”
“That’s great, Piper,” I agree, not meeting her eyes. “If I take the room, I’m sure we can spiff it up in no time.”
“I can tell you don’t like it,” she says accusingly.
“I like it just fine,” I lie again.
I head back downstairs, Piper at my heels. “But, wait!” she says with excitement. “I didn’t show you the kitchen.” As if it will make all the difference. I follow her through an old-fashioned alcove, past a small dining-room table covered in clutter, and into the small kitchen. The linoleum floor is cracked but clean; the cupboards are metal and half of them are open.
Piper must suddenly see the kitchen with fresh eyes. “Well, I guess it’s a little messy and stuff,” she blurts out.
“But I love the chairs!” I exclaim. The chairs at the kitchen table have chrome legs and red vinyl seats that sparkle. They’re fun in a fifties retro kind of way.
Piper looks at the chairs uncertainly.
“And look at that. You have so much light in here.” It’s true. Big windows above the sink and a sliding glass door that leads outside let in a lot of sunshine.
“I’m sorry I called you a hooker,” Piper says. In this light, her eyes are a muddy green. I think of alligators.
“You didn’t think you’d ever see me again, did you?”
She shakes her head and puts her finger in the gap where her front tooth is missing. It hits me then that it had to be an adult tooth that got knocked out, because she’s too old for it to have been a baby tooth.
“Let’s just pretend today is the first time we ever met,” I suggest.
“Okay,” she agrees.
By now I worry I’ve gotten her hopes up too much. I don’t really want this room and I don’t want to be her babysitter. I wonder if she even realizes that’s part of the deal. At least a few hours of every day, I would be “the boss of her.”
From the kitchen I head back to the living room. “Tell your uncle Mike that Ve—Annette came by. I’ll call him about the room.”
“Okay,” she says. “Are you walking?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you have a car?”
“No.” I can tell she’s disappointed.
“How do you go places?”
“Sometimes I might take the bus. But mostly I walk.”
“Oh,” she says, chewing the thumbnail on her right hand.
“So, maybe I’ll see you sometime soon,” I say, moving toward the door. “Thank you for showing me the house.”
I’m already stepping onto the porch when Piper says to my back, “You’re not even going to come live here, are you? You are just acting like you are.”
Mother of God, I wish she were right.
* * *
—
BACK AT THE St. James, I lie on my bed for a while with a wet washcloth over my face. I had no idea it would be so hard to find a reasonably priced room near the Big Dipper. And I’m not about to quit that job and have to look for another.
Times like this, I almost miss Echo Glen. Not the place itself, but the way everything was already figured out for you. You might not like the plan for the day, but at least you didn’t have to make one up and then make everything happen all by yourself. Your meals, housing, and even a few pseudo friends came as part of the deal.
After a while, I throw the washcloth on the floor and grab the journal from Diane off the nightstand. When I open it, I realize I forgot to read the card tucked in the pages. It says:
Dear Venus,
I came across this little story, which has been adapted from Loren Eiseley’s Star Thrower. I thought of how you are being “tossed” back into the outside world for a second chance at life. I believe you will experience the “welcoming sea.” I hope all of us here at Echo have been star throwers for you.
Rooting for you,
Diane Tamworth
Once, on ancient Earth, there was a human boy walking along a beach. There had just been a storm, and starfish had been scattered along the sands. The boy knew the fish would die, so he began to fling the fish to the sea. But every time he threw a starfish, another would wash ashore.
An old Earth man happened along and saw what the child was doing. He called out, “Boy, what are you doing?”
“Saving the starfish!” replied the boy.
“But your attempts are useless, child! Every time you save one, another one returns, often the same one! You can’t save them all, so why bother trying? Why does it matter, anyway?” called the old man.
The boy thought about this for a while, a starfish in his hand; he answered, “Well, it matters to this one.” And then he flung the starfish into the welcoming sea.
The story affects me in the weirdest way. I think I relate so much to the poor starfish, flung onto a hostile landscape it can’t possibly survive. I wonder about its underside, that tender, pink, and fleshy part that had always found safety in darkness—now suddenly exposed to air and light. I feel the terror and shock of that.
I continue to think about the starfish while I use the bathroom down the hall. I don’t have a mirror in my room, so I use the chipped one on the medicine cabinet. By now the red puffiness of my newly plucked eyebrows has healed and smoothed—just in time for tiny caterpillar follicles to start to grow back. Shit.
I wash my hands, and then for some reason I catch my own eye in the mirror. Not the usual way, to check my appearance—but I look into my face to wonder who this woman really is and why she’s on the planet. I think again of the starfish, only this time I wonder why the boy assumed it wanted to be saved. What if it had been crawling across the dark ocean floor forever and it was weary and tired? Maybe it only wanted to rest for a while on the warm sand before it died.
It takes me a while to settle into the Porter household and figure out how things work. From what I can gather, Mike and his boyfriend, Jackson, have recently broken up, freeing up the third bedroom—the one filled with Jackson’s extra junk—for a tenant.
Mike himself is a contradiction in terms, a hefty, muscle-bound guy who makes me think of Rocky—but he works as a photographer at Olan Mills. He’s the most cheerful person I’ve ever met, perhaps because he has to make people smile all day long—which would have the opposite effect on me.
When Mike isn’t at work, he spends a lot of time pumping weights out in the small garage, in front of a full-length mirror. At first this seemed vain to me, but now I go out there a lot myself to check my clothes.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with being gay, but Mike likes to cook. Nothing super fancy—but nothing like the food at Echo Glen or Inez’s cooking, either. He even grocery shops twice a week. It’s almost enough to make up for the lumpy single bed, the bratty niece, the housework, and the way Mike snores through the wall next to me.
One afternoon in late October, I’m tidying the living room when I find a worn copy of People magazine in a large pocket on Mike’s recliner. It’s from August, and the cover story is about Rock Hudson, who recently died from AIDS. The article talks about how people in Hollywood are so scared of the disease, they’re afraid to use public bathrooms and swimming pools. They’ve quit inviting gay men to parties and have started to blow air kisses instead of actually kissing their friends on the cheek or mouth.
This last part gives me pause. First, I can’t imagine having a friend of my own close enough to air kiss, much less kiss kiss. Second, it reminds me of how Raymond used to make mean jokes about gay people, calling them “homos” and “fruiters.” At the time, I thought “fruiters” was funny. Now it doesn’t seem funny at all.
Especially given what Mike told me about Piper. How she h
as so few friends because all the parents in the neighborhood know that Mike is gay. So far, Mike has never said whether he has AIDS. But since he doesn’t seem sick, I’m not about to ask.
This is another thing I like about Mike. He doesn’t ask me personal questions. He rarely refers to my past or expresses curiosity about my life. Even though he makes no bones about being gay, I wonder if he can sense it when others want to keep part of their lives secret.
At some point, I feel comfortable enough to ask about Piper’s parents. He tells me they died in a fiery accident on a mountain pass in Oregon on their way to ski.
“Holy crap,” I say, horrified. My heart goes out to Piper. “So was her mom your sister or was her dad your brother?”
“It was my brother, Peter, and his wife, Nan,” he explains. “Nan has a sister named Sue, though, and technically she has custody of Piper. But she lives in Spokane and she asked me to keep her here.”
“So how long has it been that Piper is living with you?”
“Just a year or so,” he says. “Sue got pregnant with twins and wanted me to keep Piper for a while, but she’s so overwhelmed—she also works as a nurse—I don’t see her taking Piper back anytime soon, if ever. She and Piper never gelled to begin with,” he adds.
I can only imagine.
* * *
—
IN EARLY NOVEMBER, we start drowning in the famous Seattle rain, which of course is a lot like Issaquah rain. But now, instead of a daily sloppy trudge to the school building from my cottage, I make a mile-long walk to the Dipper. One time, I forgot an umbrella and showed up at work drenched to the bone. “You need an umbrella!” shrieked Julie.
“No, I just need to remember my umbrella,” I told her. “It’s weird, because it was nice when I first left the house. But wow. It’s really coming down, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Julie replied. And then she explained her theories on rain and customers. “There’s this certain kind of foggy rain that’s misty and romantic—and it brings customers in droves. Plain rain tends to keep customers away. But surprisingly, this kind of rain, where it is dumping buckets, can also really draw the crowds, because it’s exciting and it feels sort of celebratory. People gather and stay for hours, almost like men watching a game in a bar.”
This morning’s rain is the bucket kind, and we are very busy. I notice that cheerful atmosphere Julie mentioned. I also notice people seem more likely to order breakfast or a Danish or a doughnut to go along with their coffee—probably so they can linger longer.
In the middle of the rush, at about 9:00 A.M., I look up to see a familiar customer with a big grin on his face. He’s already introduced himself to me as Danny. He’s wearing a Rainier beer baseball cap like the one Raymond wore. It’s a huge strike against him, but of course how could he know that?
I’ve noticed he often shows up on Tuesdays and Thursdays at around 10:00 A.M., and he tries to talk me up while he orders. I’ve already let him know in every way possible, short of being mean, that I am not interested in flirting—not that I would even know how to. But he doesn’t seem to get it—he’s as relentless as Piper.
“Hi there,” I say, smiling.
“She smiles at the sight of me!” he declares, as if surprised.
“You’re a customer is all,” I answer. “I smile at everyone. So, how can I help you?”
“Well, you might be able to help with this problem I have.”
“Yes?”
“There’s a pretty girl who works at the Big Dipper, and I can’t get her to give me the time of day.”
Oh man. Seriously? “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to joke around today,” I tell him in a stern voice. “We’re pretty busy. Do you want a Danish or something?”
“I’m really sorry,” he says, clearly taken aback. “I’d like some black coffee please. And some of that coffee cake.”
When I hand over his order, he tips his baseball cap at me and I feel a little swoop inside. He really is kind of cute and I’m flattered that he’s attracted to me, especially given my big ugly braid. After he’s gone, my eyes spark and try to water. I have to wonder, what if he knew the truth?
I’m nineteen and I’ve never been kissed.
* * *
—
AS THE WEEKS pass, I come to appreciate Mike’s dinners and his bright outlook. His greatest fault, though, is that he doesn’t parent Piper. And Piper is hard to deal with. She’s bratty, bossy, and starved for attention. Every afternoon, and for a couple of hours after dinner, she shadows me. If I don’t let her, she gets surly and sour.
Part of me wants to be mean and insist she give me my privacy. But the other part of me feels sorry for her and wants to take care of her. I find myself asking her if she has homework and making her do it. Ordering her to take baths and brush her teeth. I even try to make sure she doesn’t watch too much TV.
On some evenings, I resent having to do all this and I give up and totally ignore her. I shut the door to my room and wish it had a lock. Piper knows better than to come in—I told her absolutely not—so she knocks on my bedroom door all evening with silly questions. She’s determined to engage me—perhaps all the more because she can’t understand why I’d want to spend so much time reading books.
To her, reading is the same as doing schoolwork. “Why don’t you want to do something fun?” she asks through the door.
In a way, Piper’s right. In Echo Glen, reading was everything to me. It was how I escaped reality, how I coped with the sameness and sadness of juvenile prison. Now that I’m out, you’d think I’d be having all kinds of adventures and have better things to do with my time than read. But ironically, now that I’m free, my need to escape reality is as strong as ever.
Back in Echo Glen, Little Women was my favorite novel. I must have read it at least three times, drawing hope from the stories of the March sisters, dreaming of the day when I’d get out of Echo and be the same kind of smart and brave as Jo.
And yet one chapter never fails to make me angry. It’s the one where Jo’s younger sister Amy gets mad at Jo for something dumb and so she burns all of Jo’s precious writing. There is no second copy. My fury on behalf of Jo is always so great that when Amy falls through some ice, I almost want Jo to just let her drown. Instead, Jo helps to save her and then goes ahead and totally forgives her before the chapter is even over.
Maybe if I had a sister I’d understand. Maybe if I’d had a mother like Mrs. March, I’d be a kinder, more forgiving person.
One Saturday, after I get off from the Dipper, I take Piper on the bus with me to the library. I have this harebrained idea that if she gets the right books in her hands, she’ll fall in love with them the same way I did at her age. I get her to check out The Boxcar Children and A Wrinkle in Time.
She pretends to read them, sometimes lying on my bed next to me. But after a while I figure out they’re just too advanced for her. She admits she can’t read that well, and I can tell she thinks she’s dumb, which couldn’t be further from the truth. But her aversion to reading means that now she’s constantly begging me to read to her aloud. Something I should be happy to do but often resist.
Inez read plenty of books to me when I was little; I’ll give her that. But once I could read by myself, she stopped. I think I was six when Raymond decided to pick up where she left off. Inez thought it was the sweetest thing. And Raymond acted like it was required, kind of like brushing my teeth before bed. But even at that young age, I didn’t like Raymond sitting on my bed, especially when his words sounded mushy and his breath reeked of beer. Those nights, I picked out the shortest books I could find in my collection. Even if I liked a story, I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
* * *
—
THANKSGIVING IS A quiet affair at the Porter household. Mike has a new friend named Curtis—and the two of them make a traditional meal with tu
rkey and gravy and all the usual fixings. I enjoy their banter and the old-fashioned music they play on a boom box in the kitchen.
I don’t see it coming until Piper refuses the peas. For some reason, the memory of how Leo would arrange his peas on his plate comes smashing down on me. Grief barely ever caught me off guard this way at Echo Glen, perhaps because the place didn’t resemble a home in any way. Now that I’m part of a pseudo family, it seems I’m getting more flashes of the past.
The same thing happened recently when I was helping Piper clean her room. I came across one of those xylophone toys with the bright-colored keys you hit with a stick to make music. Leo was obsessed with that thing one Christmas. He loved it because all the colors were the “right” colors.
Both the peas and the xylophone are happy memories of Leo. What I can’t figure out is why good memories hurt as much as bad ones. Maybe it’s because you’re not on guard against them, so they hit full force, like a slap from a wave.
* * *
—
IT HAD TO happen sooner or later, or at least that’s what I tell myself. I’m in the middle of a shift at the Dipper when I look up from the register and realize I’m peering into a very familiar face.
Shit. Gloria Crocker. She once owned a beauty school back in Everett, and our family used to go there to get our haircuts. I wish it were anyone but Gloria, because Inez might still be going to her salon, and Gloria is exactly the type of person to look up Inez and tell her where I’m working.
She’s obviously as startled to see me as I am to see her. “Well, Venus!” she says, sputtering with surprise. “I knew you were…but I didn’t expect…”
“Out? Yes, I am. How can I help you today?” I quickly note with relief that Julie is out of earshot.
“Um…just a large coffee,” she says. I can see the wheels spinning madly in her coiffed blond head.
“To go or to stay?” I ask matter-of-factly.
My Name Is Venus Black Page 12
