She ate down Lonnie’s lack of love for her. Demolished the disgust that she felt in being the naïve, trusting wife for the umpteenth time. Sucked on the sick feeling of being despicable, disgusting, just a used body taking up space. She didn’t deserve to live. Why was she alive anyway? Her husband didn’t even respect her. She wondered what was worse: him not loving her or him not respecting her. Bea had a hard time settling on the feeling that hurt the most before she had finished every lick of food. Her stomach stretched beyond full.
All she could think of was how to get rid of that meal without anyone knowing. She looked around. No one was watching her. Why would they be? The cashier was so busy toying with the boy manning the fry station that she didn’t even notice that Bea was still there. She dumped her tray and then called out, “Can you let me into the bathroom?”
She buzzed the door without breaking a stride from her flirtation. Bea went into the bathroom; the door clicked and locked behind her. The smell of the stall was wretched enough. All fast-food bathrooms smelled like disinfectant swished around with piss. Bea leaned over the bowl, pushed her pointer finger to the back of her throat, reaching until she hit that magic spot. She gagged three times before the food started traveling up. She had learned over the years that the closer she was to the toilet the better for splash control so she pressed her face all the way into the foul bowl. The smell was revolting enough to help all of the food out. Droplets dripped down her face and she stayed with her head hanging over the commode until there was nothing left to give.
PART 2
The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you.
You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.
—BOB MARLEY
TWELVE
Food Porn
The baby kicked and stretched in her abdomen. Bea rubbed circles on her stomach, shivering under a blanket of shame. How could she go on a binge? Mena trusted her with her daughter’s life and Bea had risked it all. The moment she found out about Lonnie, she should have dialed Dr. Spellman. Or used one of her coping techniques. But instead she had let her husband’s infidelity screw with her sense of reason.
Bea thanked the doorman as she entered the lobby of the Park Hyatt hotel. She wanted to check on her children but she couldn’t make herself get on the elevator. Regret was lodged in her throat, like a piece of rock candy that refused to liquefy. She dropped her hand over her belly and then lowered down into a lounge armchair adjacent to the floor-to-ceiling windows. The patrons’ conversations went on around her, crowding together into a harmonious song, but Bea couldn’t make out the lyrics. Some drank fancy pots from the Tea Cellar, others cocktails from the bar. Her mouth stank of her sins.
When she binged regularly, she’d kept toothpaste, brush, and a travel-sized bottle of Febreze on her, but she hadn’t needed it in such a long time that she had stopped carrying it. It was a part of her recovery, but now something was required to rid her of the odor, and she fumbled around in her purse until she found Listerine tabs. Bea rubbed her nose with one hand and slid two tabs on her tongue, sucking on them until they had completely dissolved. The minty taste helped and after six potent strips she made herself stop.
Her emotions kept dragging her back into the McDonald’s bathroom. She could feel the weight in her chest as she recalled bringing up the food with the baby pressing on her bladder. She needed to distract herself so she picked up the Men’s Health magazine that was on the table next to her. She scanned the headlines. THE BEST WORKOUT YOU CAN CRAM INTO 10 MINUTES. IS IT SAFE TO EAT TUNA FISH EVERY DAY? Bea wanted to know about the tuna but didn’t want to read about food. She flipped on.
A few more pages in, she spied a distinguished, nut-brown man with a nice smile and thick, shiny hair. It was an ad for Hennessy. The model in the picture reminded her of her father. Bea hadn’t thought of him in a long time, and just like that she could smell the woodsy cologne that he wore. Bea gazed out the window, not really watching the cars or people on the street pass by. Instead, she was remembering.
As a girl, Bea could set her watch by her mother’s Saturday morning routine in preparation of her father’s arrival.
9 A.M.—Wet hair wrung with a white towel, then parted and sectioned into four rows with hair carefully soaked in setting lotion and rolled as flat as possible over pink plastic rollers. When all the hair was set she would sit under the dryer for an hour and a half while she watched telenovelas. Eyes darting back and forth between the drama on the screen and the bottle of passion pink that she would paint on her nails and toes in two thick coats.
11 A.M.—Green guck slathered all over her face and then she would let it sit for twenty minutes before peeling it off.
12 P.M.—Pot of water on for the rice. Her mother singing along to the radio as she prepared locrio de salami, her father’s favorite dish.
1 P.M.—Shower, then hurrying around the house to get ready. Rollers out, curling iron in, face dusted, skin oiled and perfumed.
If Chip Campbell had not arrived by 2 P.M. on the dot, her mother would be at the window waiting. He was never more than fifteen minutes off schedule. When she saw his car turn the corner of their block, she would whisper.
“Mija, he’s here.” They would watch together as his car slid into the parking space in front of the building. The space that seemed to wait patiently for him every weekend, like it had his name on it.
Chip drove a shiny black sports car and wore driving gloves with knuckle holes. When he stepped onto the street, it was unhurried and deliberate. He wore a leather motorcycle jacket, dark shades, and pecan alligator boots. His hair was a thick, fully picked-out Afro that glistened with Ultra Sheen hair pomade and his skin was the color of tanning hide. Chip moved through the world like a man who could afford to take care of more than one woman.
At that point, Irma would dash down the hall to her bedroom, calling over her shoulder, “Let him in. And don’t you interrupt us for nothing.”
“What if the building catches fire?”
“Stop that foolishness and be a good girl, would you, please?” She closed her bedroom door.
Bea would stand in the kitchen and pretend to wipe the counter off but it was clean. Her mother spent her Friday nights after work cleaning the house to a spit shine in preparation. He always tapped the door three times with the soft part of his fist. Bea never understood why he didn’t ring the bell.
“Hi,” she said, tugging on her T-shirt that all of a sudden seemed too small over the soft ripple of her stomach. She ran her fingers through her hair; it never laid smooth in her ponytail when she combed it herself.
“There she is,” he’d say with one hand behind his back. Bea had already spied him pulling the McDonald’s bag out of his car trunk but she would play along with the surprise.
“How’s school?”
“Fine.”
“Keeping up those grades?”
“Yes.”
“That a girl.” He kissed Bea’s cheek.
“Bought something for you.” From behind his back came the Holy Grail of food. No matter how great Irma’s locrio de salami tasted, nothing in the world beat a bag from Mickey D’s.
“Save some for your mama.”
Bea would nod.
“Is she here?” he’d ask every week as if her mother would be anywhere but waiting on him.
“Yeah,” Bea said and turned with the bag to the kitchen table, listening to his thick heels echo down the hall to her mother’s room. Bea would pretend not to watch them but would peek.
“Papi.” Her mother would coo. Her nightie was tight and the silky robe that she had slipped into barely hid her goodies. They’d kiss right away and he would run his hands over her curves and tell her how much he’d missed her. Bea watched, thinking it was all very sickening.
“Ran three red lights to get here,” he’d say, closing the door behind them. The last thing Bea would hear was her mother’s high-pitched giggle that she saved only for him. The music would come next, usually som
ething circa the 1970s, often starting with “Me and Mrs. Jones.”
Bea would look into the bag and the aroma would go right to her head, making her giddy. There was a cheeseburger Happy Meal, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, large fry, and an apple pie. He never bought a drink. Bea wished he’d brought her an orange soda. It was her favorite.
She pulled out her Happy Meal, closed up the bag, and carried them with a napkin into the living room even though her mother forbade her from eating anywhere but the kitchen table. Bea had her own schedule to keep up with. At ten years old, she was too hungry for the Happy Meal but she would snack on it while watching the end of Tom and Jerry. The Flintstones came on at two-thirty and during commercial breaks she would sneak into the kitchen and steal a few of her mother’s fries. By the end of the show they were gone too. When she realized she’d eaten them all, she reasoned that her mother would not want to reheat soggy fries anyway and then she licked the salt from inside the fry box.
The Jetsons came on at three-thirty. Bea never ever intended to eat more than a bite of her mother’s Quarter Pounder, but it was something about the sour pickles and melted cheese that made her keep sampling until that was gone too. It wasn’t until she had to channel surf for something to watch at four that she realized that she hadn’t saved her mother anything except the apple pie.
While playing with her dolls, she vowed not to go near the pie. On Saturdays she was extra hungry. Her mother was so busy getting ready for the visit that Bea never had a suitable breakfast—just a bowl of cold cereal. Plus, Bea was restless. She wasn’t allowed to go outside and didn’t really have friends in the building. Dolls were her only company. In between television programs, she dressed them, combed their hair, and then lined them up on the couch next to her so they could watch her shows with her. By the time Family Feud came on at six, Bea broke her promise. She heated the apple pie in the microwave and ate it with a tall glass of whole milk.
The first time she ate all of her mother’s food, she thought Irma would smack her upside her head the way she did sometimes and call her greedy, but she was so happy after her father’s visit that she never said a word. That’s when finishing the bag became Bea’s Saturday norm.
Once the sun was good and retired, Chip would stroll back into the living room, smelling like sweaty feet and strong cologne. At that point Bea was bored out of her mind and dipping into her mother’s pots, careful to save the biggest pieces of meat for her father.
“Mija,” her mother would scold. “I’ll make the plates. Lavate las manos!”
Bea would walk down the hall to the bathroom and wash her hands. Irma heaped huge helpings of food onto each of their plates and pulled down the acrylic glasses that she reserved for guests.
The three sat at the round table together, her mother as close as humanly possible to her father without being in his lap. Feeding him bites from her plate even though they had the same meal.
“School okay? Getting good grades?” Chip asked, again. Bea would tell him yes, again, and then her mother would launch into Bea making honor roll or being asked to be the ambassador at her school.
Being with her makeshift family was the one thing that could strip Bea of her appetite. “May I be excused?”
“You barely ate, mija.” Her mother would look her over. “You feeling okay?”
“I’ll come back for it.” Bea scuffed her chair against the linoleum and escaped into the living room where the television was on. She would watch it while listening to her parents’ conversation.
Before her father left the apartment, he’d reach into his pocket and peel off a five-dollar bill.
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” he’d say.
“I won’t.”
Chip would pat her on the head, kiss her mother until it took her breath away, and then slip out of their lives, until the next Saturday when they would play house again.
* * *
The next morning, her mother would be up early, happily humming Dominican hymns, fluffing her hair for ten o’clock mass. After church, Bea would slip into the corner bodega and spend the five dollars on junk food that she would ration for herself. The week would drag out and Saturday would repeat itself for the next two years, mundane and uneventful until Awilda showed up.
* * *
Irma was the secretary at Grace Wilday Junior High School. Awilda’s mother, Dr. Rose McKinley, was the principal. From what Bea could see, Rose was a stiff woman and it was obvious that she didn’t trust a lot of people. Bea overheard her mother on the telephone and found out that the reason Awilda started staying with them on the weekends was because Awilda’s father, the pastor of the church, started traveling to other churches and conferences and she didn’t trust him to go alone.
“Can’t ever be too sure with your man,” Irma had gabbed while putting on a pot of water for beans. “Mmm hmm. There are a lot of hussies with the wrong intentions. Sad to hear that you can’t outrun them, even in the house of the Lord.” She made the sign of the cross.
Bea watched her mother. Bea could always tell the difference between her home mom and the woman she was with Dr. McKinley, her work persona. Most times her mother stroked Dr. McKinley’s ego and told her what she wanted to hear to keep her happy.
After that conversation, Awilda started coming over Friday after school and her mother would return for her bright and early most Sunday mornings so that they could travel to church together. Bea could remember the first time Awilda and Rose came to their apartment. It was a warm day and her mother had all of the windows open. Spanish food and music drifted from the neighbors’ homes and you could hear the kids playing outside in front of her building.
“The girls will stay inside?” Rose said, looking around the apartment. Taking everything in with little subtlety.
“You can come in, Rose. Can I call you Rose off campus?”
“Of course.” Rose stepped farther into the apartment. Awilda made her way over to Bea, who was standing near the kitchen table.
“Where’s your room?”
“Awilda, please remember that you are a McKinley.”
Awilda raised her eyebrows so only Bea could see, then walked and kissed her mother’s cheek.
“The girls will be fine,” Irma coaxed, taking an envelope from Rose’s gloved hand. They talked some more but Bea couldn’t see or hear any more because Awilda shut the bedroom door behind them.
“That woman plucks my last nerve.”
Bea stared.
“Got any gum? I’m fiending for some sugar.” Awilda kicked off her brand-new, white-and-gray Air Jordans and threw herself across Bea’s twin-sized canopy bed as if they had been hanging forever. Bea had been begging her mother to buy her those shoes since the start of school but she’d said she wasn’t paying ninety dollars for sneakers. Bea went into her secret candy stash and tossed Awilda a fresh pack of Juicy Fruit.
“Nice room.”
“Thanks,” Bea mumbled, timid.
“You need a Michael Jackson poster up in here. Why is that Saved by the Bell crap hanging on the wall?”
Bea blushed, immediately embarrassed. She hadn’t changed anything in her room since she was in the fifth grade. Saved by the Bell was her show but she wouldn’t tell Awilda that.
“I’ll hook you up. Next time I come.”
“Bet.” Bea sat next to Awilda.
“What do you want to do?”
Awilda sat up and dug into her bag. “Here, put this tape in.”
Bea did as she was told and out cranked MC Lyte’s “Paper Thin.” Bea had never heard it but right away she started moving her shoulders. Awilda got up and danced.
“This is my jam.” She threw her arms up in the air and started rhyming with the words. “‘When you say you love me, it doesn’t matter/it goes into my head as just chitchatter.’”
Then Awilda walked over and examined Bea’s ponytail. “You have such pretty hair. Why do you have it in this sad-looking bun?”
“It’s hard for
me to comb.”
“I’m gonna show you. I need a spray bottle and some conditioner. You got any pink moisturizer?”
“I think so.”
They listened to Awilda’s mix tape while Awilda pulled the tangles out of Bea’s hair.
“Did you see his picture in the new Ebony?” Awilda waved the comb in the air when Big Daddy Kane came on. “Girl, he fine. Look.” She rummaged through her overnight duffle and tossed a few copies of Black Beat magazine on the bed. Bea flipped through the pictures while Awilda did her hair. When Awilda was finished, she appraised her work.
“The hair looks good. Now we gotta work on your clothes. You just look sloppy.”
Bea looked down at her oversized T-shirt and ratty stirrups, embarrassed.
“You need some clothes that fit. Just ’cause you a little chubby don’t mean you got to wear your daddy’s shirt.” Awilda stood in front of Bea’s closet, picking through her clothes. She pulled down a pair of jeans that Bea had to squeeze into and then gave her an off-the-shoulder, neon-green T-shirt from her bag.
“Try this.”
Bea was shy to change in front of Awilda so she grabbed the clothes and headed down the hall to the bathroom. As she did, she saw the back of her father’s head as he closed her mother’s door behind him. It was 2 P.M. She changed. When she got back into her room, Awilda had changed into denim overalls and a white bodysuit. Her hair was out of the ponytail and she had put on eyeliner and purple lip gloss.
“You look phat.” Bea said, trying to sound cool.
“Let’s go.”
“Where’re we going?”
“For a walk.” Awilda slung her white patent leather mini backpack over her shoulder.
“My mother doesn’t let me go outside.”
“We can sit on the stoop.”
Bea hesitated and then agreed. Her mother wasn’t coming out of her room any time soon. They’d be back way before her father left. When they passed the kitchen Awilda spied the McDonald’s bag.
And Then There Was Me Page 11
