Sitting here will solve nothing and make her late for work. The overheated diner kitchen, that’s what’s waiting for her. One more day, Murray said, before a temp arrives and then back to her regular shifts, not that she loves them either. With glass in hand, she searches for a piece of paper, finds an index card on Darla’s desk. Writes: Monday, my day off, we’re going out to dinner. The pub you like. Don’t make other plans. Off to work.
• • •
Darla walks the long route to Michelle’s house. She needs to think. Her mother reacted as expected. The woman’s scared of change. Why else would someone with her looks still be unmarried? She never gets a good answer to that question. It doesn’t matter. She has no plan to follow in her mother’s footsteps. College, law school, a job on Wall Street . . . she’ll make a fortune and buy an apartment in Manhattan. Her mother will see she made the right decisions. The guys who’ve been in Iraq tell her the girls there do housework. Clean machinery, set up office stuff. They’re not running around banging open doors with M16s or whatever they’re called.
• • •
She rings the doorbell. Waits. “Damn,” she mutters, just when you need someone. Not that she’s crazy about being here, Michelle’s dirty-mouthed brothers always in her face.
The upstairs window finally opens.
“Hi, let me in.”
They traipse up the few steps to Michelle’s room. “Where are your brothers?”
“Out with my dad.”
An intact family she’d rather die than join. Michelle’s father, a cop, never stops smiling. She can’t trust someone who pretends everything’s okay when his wife’s messing around with whoever will have her.
Michelle, tall and broad-shouldered, stands in front of the window, her dark, wavy hair backlit by the evening sun. “What did your mother say?” Michelle has no patience for the finer feelings. She wants details. When Darla returns from a date, Michelle phones with clinical questions: What did his tongue taste like?
“Over her dead body. It’s a first response.”
“Did you tell her I’m signing up, too?”
“She’d accuse me of not making up my own mind.”
“We need to go together.”
She eyes the posters on the wall, no one she likes. “You’re eighteen in June. I won’t be able to sign up till late July.”
“Work on your mother.” Michelle rolls the squeaky desk chair back and forth.
“Like how?”
“The breakdown: you’re depressed, no motivation, want to die. Refuse to get up for school.”
“My mom thinks I’ll get killed.”
“Do you agree with her?” Michelle asks suspiciously.
“Of course not. I know she’s negative. Have you spoken to any more of the guys who came back?”
“Ian said I was crazy, but he’s been high since he came back.” She laughs. “Let’s smoke at the beach. My mother’s car is outside. She won’t be home till middle of the night.”
• • •
They park in the empty lot. The beach won’t be officially open until Memorial Day. Her bare feet tramp the damp sand. The sun has disappeared. They walk to the shore and sit, knees up, listening to the crash of waves. In the gray distance a ship cruises the horizon. Gritty wind blows in her face, her skin clammy. It’s fine. She’s open to the elements, but worries about how tough army training will be. She’s not an athlete. Michelle can carry weight on her back. The thing to do is begin building muscle now. If she puts her mind to it she can do it.
“There’s no guarantee we’ll be sent to the same place for training,” she says.
“Then we’ll tell them the deal’s off. They need us. They’ll agree.”
“You don’t know that,” her tone sullen.
“Did your mother say something you haven’t told me?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Darla, we’ve been over points.”
“What did your father say?” she asks.
“Women soldiers fuck up and complicate situations, then he laughed.”
“And your mother?”
“Either she’d just had sex or was flying on chemicals. She looked at me like who was I, then said don’t get raped. I told her I’d do my best.”
“My mom’s stubborn. It’ll be hard to change her thinking. If worse comes to worst I’ll wait till after my birthday. She can’t stop me then.” She doesn’t say it’d be easier if there were two parents. Even if they both didn’t want her to go, they’d have each other to bitch and moan to.
“The sooner we get out of this Long Island swamp the better,” Michelle declares.
“I wonder what the desert will be like?”
“Check out National Geographic.”
“I bet it has its own silence.“
“There’s a war going on.”
“We’ll get time off, sneak behind some dune, look at stars, smoke dope. I thought you brought some?”
“Coming right to you.” Michelle digs a small plastic bag out of her purse, removes a joint, lights it, takes a drag, then passes it.
Inhaling deeply, she stares into the hazy nothingness. After the second hit, she sees a distant cloud drop behind the horizon.
• • •
Breakfast customers have cleared out, thank god. The lunch crowd will soon descend. Nick stacks salads in the big aluminum fridge; he’s filled the bread bins. He’s been here all night and must be exhausted. After an hour in the kitchen teaching a temp guy this and that, it became clear he’s not a keeper. Damn. She slides onto a counter stool beside Ava, who’s nursing a cup of coffee and thumbing through Newsweek. Murray hates his employees sitting even on break. His car keys dangle on the hook near the register. Why’s he even here on a Sunday? The adjacent mirror reflects a swath of diner along with her sorrowful face.
She sighs loudly and Ava looks up.
“Darla wants to join . . . the army, the Marines, I don’t know. Our conversation didn’t get that far. Ever see the parents of dead soldiers on TV? It’s beyond me how they continue to support the disaster. I’d never be that forgiving.” She pulls napkins from the holder, then squeezes them back in.
“That’s bad news.” Ava folds away the paper. “Why?”
“The military can’t get enough fools to volunteer so they’re offering pots of gold. I can’t compete with that.” Would Ava lend her money? Christ, she’s on the road to desperate.
“Are you two getting along?”
“Teenage girls and their moms, what’s new? We’re okay together. Our fights are like summer storms, they’re over quickly.” Long fingers of sun reach across the countertop, reminding her she’d rather be elsewhere.
“You have to stop her.” Ava sounds alarmed, no doubt thinking of Bobby.
“How? Tie her up? Lock her in the bedroom?” She’s read about parents who do such things. There’s that woman who drove her kids into the water.
“Hell, my husband was killed in Iraq,” Ava mutters, as if Mila didn’t know.
For a moment they both stare into the mirror, silent. In the near distance trucks rumble on the highway.
“Should Nick speak to her, you know, a man, a vet,” Ava offers.
“She’d ride my tail for telling you. The things you hope for . . . the girl’s getting older . . . the two of us will talk . . . reason together. Think again.” Not totally true. Darla is reasonable. In fact she’s damned logical, which is why it’s so difficult to win an argument. Her daughter will do well in life. But she has to be alive.
Nick, with gear in hand, ready to go home, comes around and whispers something to Ava, who nods. His hand brushes her cheek.
They watch him leave.
“It’s good between you two,” she says.
“I think so.”
“Don’t hurry it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Enjoy each moment, I guess. Sounds corny, doesn’t it?” But, actually, she means anything can happen and then what.
Murray comes up from the storeroom. So that’s where he’s been. “Ava? Write down toilet paper, cleaner, dozen rolls of towels, and, also, we’re breaking glasses. That has to stop . . . another box water-size . . . they’re damn expensive. Mila, nothing to do?”
If Rosalyn were here she’d remind Murray Ava’s finished her shift.
Murray stacks some stray plates, dumps them in a bin under the counter with a crash, then takes a fistful of bills from the register, counts them, and slams the register shut. “Temp could use hands-on, Mila. He’s alone in there. But maybe you’re otherwise engaged.”
“Sylvie better sleep with the guy . . .” she whispers to Ava, sliding off the stool to wipe wet silverware that would air-dry in a minute. Murray stuffs the wad of bills in the burlap bank bag. The thought of filling her pockets comes and goes.
• • •
The morning sun highlights the faded lime-color walls, water-stained ceiling, sagging beanbag chair. Darla sleeps tight. She perches on the edge of the too-thin mattress, thinks to stroke her daughter’s hair, but touchy-feely is no longer a habit between them. There was a time Darla clung to her like an extra limb, her little arm circling Mila’s leg as if she feared her mother would disappear.
“Time to get up, sweetie.”
“Umm.” Darla hugs the pillow, her painted-pink toenails bright against the graying sheet.
“You’ll be late for school. Come on.” Was she on the phone all night? No point asking, she needs calm between them.
“What time is it?” Darla mumbles.
“Seven-thirty.”
Darla lets go of the pillow, swings her legs off the bed. “Why did you wait?”
“Relax. It’s only seven.”
“Damn! I always fall for your stupid trick.”
“Because you’re a great student. You’ll get some kind of scholarship.”
“Mom, I go to a less than mediocre high school. They don’t even have a music department. They don’t have any AP courses either. I’m not getting any scholarships without that kind of stuff. You just don’t understand. I’ll get financial aid, but it won’t be from Yale or Harvard.”
“Is that where you want to go?” It never crossed her mind.
“Eventually. To law school.”
“So that’s why you want to lose a limb in war.”
“Jesus! You’re so negative. It’s a wonder I have any aspirations listening to you all my life.”
“Darla, reconsider it. It’s not a smart move. We’ll find money somehow, somewhere.”
“No we won’t. I have no rich relatives or living grandparents. We manage, that’s what we’ve always done. Big deal! Not only will the army bonus help, I’ll have veteran’s benefits. It’ll make all the difference.”
“I can’t stop you after July, but waiting gives you a chance to change your mind. You sign up today, it’s over.” She wants to kick the wall.
“Let me get ready.”
Reluctantly, she gets off the bed, shoves her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “Did you see my note about dinner tonight?” But Darla has shut the bathroom door.
She listens for her daughter’s tuneless voice to belt out a song in the shower. The staccato beat of water on plastic sends another message. Darla’s pissed at her mother’s refusal. Someday she’ll understand. Maybe. She smells gas. The pilot light is out again. It could be the wind, so she shuts the window above the sink. Instantly, it’s too hot. She’s beginning to hate this kitchen. All kitchens. Opening the oven door, she strikes a match; it catches. She’ll insist Darla apply to a good college. Then she’ll find money somehow, at least for the first year. She remembers the costume jewelry, the silver watch, the wedding band her mother left her, the whole package worth a few hundred at most. That should pay for a day or two of college. Christ! Borrow from Rosalyn? She can’t ask her now. There’s Murray. She’d rather rob a gas station. Then Darla would have two parents in prison. Great!
She grabs a bowl, breaks two eggs and beats them so hard the table trembles.
• • •
“This pub . . . you never have to wait,” she says, dropping the car keys in her bag.
“They have good Bloody Marys,” Darla offers.
“When did you . . . ?”
“Oh, Mom, you’re so predictable. I plan to have one tonight. Is that a problem?” Darla sashays ahead in a calf-length peasant skirt that swirls as she walks. She’s built like her father, the long narrow body. Her deep, dusky voice is his as well.
“I’m refusing to argue with you.”
“Okay then. Is there a particular occasion for this dinner?” Darla tosses back. “Someone new in your life? Changing jobs?”
“All of the above,” she offers, enjoying a momentary lightness.
Beer and fish smells mingle. Netting hangs from the ceiling, a cardboard mermaid caught in one. Blue haze floats under fluorescent lights. Background music adds to the appreciable noise. In a high-backed booth with wooden benches, they open their menus. A woman and four antsy kids sit nearby.
The waiter, not much older than Darla, eyes her daughter appreciatively while scooping away two extra settings. He pours water and whips out his pad, stuff she’s used to doing herself. They order drinks. She chooses fish and chips; Darla wants the clam and corn dinner.
“So, Mom?” Her daughter smirks.
“What?”
“You’re not dropping fifty dollars here for nothing.”
“Then what am I doing?”
“Buying my compliance?”
“Let’s eat and enjoy, okay?”
“That’d be good.”
The waiter returns quickly, the drinks festooned with celery and slices of lime. Again, he eyes Darla. “I hope she’s old enough?”
“I’m her mother, you think I don’t know her age? Christ!”
“Okay.” He leaves. Darla grins.
“Good, Mom, that was believable. Anyway, I’m only weeks from legit.”
“Wrong, sweetie. Legit here is twenty-one.”
“That’s as retrograde as everything in the burbs.” Darla scans the room looking for proof.
“It’s that bad living here?”
“Suffocating. People talk about anyone who’s not like them.”
“You find that everywhere.”
“At least in the city there’s shame.”
She decides not to ask how she knows. “Is Michelle’s family that way?”
“Her father is.”
“Do you ever think about your father?” Her heart speeds up.
Darla stares at her. “What?”
She shrugs. “Just wondering.”
“Mom, you don’t wonder. What about my father?”
“Nope.”
“You never mention him. He left you with a baby.” Darla’s eyes are steady on her. “How come you never remarried or even considered it?”
“You don’t know what I considered.” She tosses out the straw and drinks straight from the glass. The spiciness nearly chokes her. More likely it’s the conversation. There are truths she’s still afraid to tell this girl. That’s the horror of a lie. You have to keep lying.
“Mom? Where are you?”
“Right here. The drink is dynamite.”
“Answer my question.”
“I never married because I was never divorced.” She speaks low, as if the woman in the next booth were interested.
“There’s a statute of limitations. All these years of abandonment . . . you don’t know where he is . . . it’s automatic . . .”
“You’ll be a good lawyer.”
“This isn’t about me.”
Yes it is, she thinks. And ponders ordering something stronger, a double scotch neat, but that’d be a giveaway.
“How come you don’t date?”
“I went out with that Luke guy, remember? You didn’t like him.”
“Mom, that was ages ago. Don’t tell me you stopped seeing him for my sake.” Her daughter glares at her.
“Of course not. He turned out to be mean. Drank too much, too. I don’t know. He didn’t appeal to me. I’m having a hard time discussing boyfriends with my daughter.”
“We’re not discussing your habits in bed.”
“Darla!” She finishes the drink and immediately wants another.
The waiter sets down their plates. Her food looks greasy, heavy, impossible to digest.
“Mom?”
“What now?”
“Are you a lesbian? I don’t care, I’m just curious.”
She stares at Darla, whose sudden childlike expression breaks her. “I don’t know how to stop you from signing up. If there was a father around, he might change your mind.”
“How would that work?” Darla sounds angry, but anything’s better than that scrunched face. “My father would say, don’t go, and I’d be scared to disobey him?”
The sudden clamor in the next booth is a relief. Water’s wiped up, new napkins brought, children reseated.
“You still didn’t answer my lesbian question.” Darla’s eyes on her again.
“I’m not a lesbian.”
“Do you hate men because of how he treated you?”
“He treated me well.”
“Oh what a consolation. A sweet guy who left you hanging.”
“You’re getting drunk.”
“On one Bloody Mary? I doubt it, Mom. But it’s good for us to chat like this. Not that I learn anything. You have a way of telling me zip, you know that?”
The girl’s right. Mila, the queen of doublespeak, but it’s no longer enough, not by a long shot. “Do you worry about what you don’t know?”
“That’s an interesting question. At times.”
“I’m going to order another drink, then I’ll tell you something.” Maybe she’s drunk.
“Uh-oh.” Darla teases, though her eyes widen some.
Stop Here Page 13
