by Lisa Tucker
“Just let me get dressed first.”
“Okay,” she says, exhaling loudly, giving me a look like I just spilled milk all over the floor.
Even if it irritates her, I have to have a minute before I can discuss this. I know I’ll have to reassure her but I have no idea how.
When I pull into the parking lot of the Evans strip mall, the car in front of me has a bumper sticker that reads: live in the moment. Thanks for the advice, I think, and scowl at the back of the driver’s head. I’ve had all the moments I can stand today and it’s only three o’clock.
I figured Mama would be upset, but I didn’t expect her to lose it. On the one hand, she’s in awe of law enforcement people and thinks if a parole officer feels Rick should visit, I may not have a choice. On the other, she believes we have to do whatever it takes, including taking Willie out of state, even out of the country, to keep Rick from coming near him.
She still has no idea that Rick has already been near him. She thinks the parole officer was playing detective, tracking down me and Willie as part of his job.
We spent Willie’s nap discussing it, getting nowhere. The fact that Rick is his father means absolutely nothing to her. I’m not surprised; I know she never understood what Daddy meant to me. He was her husband, first, last, and everything in-between. Being my father was just another aspect of their marriage, a part of his relationship to her.
Before we left for the mall, I told her not to worry, I’d come up with something. She nodded, but then she looked in my eyes and said, “You better get over him, Patty Ann. If you don’t, I guarantee you’ll live to regret it.”
I was so angry I could feel it in my teeth, but I couldn’t yell, Willie was there. I scooped him up and hurried to the Ford; after a few blocks, I managed to calm down and think up a bribe. The Baskin-Robbins is right next door to Custom Cuts. I promised if he’s good I’d get him a double dip of chocolate with sprinkles.
We’re in the beauty salon now. I’m sitting in the plastic chair, watching Willie snap and unsnap the pink and orange curlers in the big blue bucket by the dryer.
“It’s beautiful,” the hairdresser says. She’s standing behind me; she has my hair bunched in her hands. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” I say, but I look away from the mirror. I can’t watch it happen.
When it’s finished, I still can’t handle more than a quick glimpse. I told her to cut it very short, close to my head, and she did. I was hoping it would make me look older, but it doesn’t. My face seems so exposed. From the side especially, I look like a big-faced, overeager kid.
But it’s certainly a change. I only hope Fred doesn’t have the same reaction as Willie.
“Don’t wike it,” he sputters. He’s standing by the chair, shaking my elbow. “Put it back.”
“I can’t do that, buddy.”
He leans down and grabs a piece of hair from the filthy floor. He sticks it on my shoulders and when it falls off, he stomps his foot. “Glue it, Mama.”
The hairdresser laughs. “Your mom looks glamorous.”
I smile at her. “You really think so?”
She shrugs. “Seems like everybody’s doing it nowadays. Some of those actresses get their hair so short they look like cancer patients.”
Great. I pick Willie up and carry him to the register. He’s almost in tears. I have a coupon for a ten-dollar cut but the cashier points out that the fine print says good until September 15. Today is September 21, and it’s twenty dollars, not counting tip.
After I pay for the haircut, I have nineteen dollars left in my purse. I figure what the hell, might as well spend that too. I buy Willie his ice cream and then go into the music store, find a tape of Nina Simone.
Almost every night, Jonathan mentions the name of some great singer I’ve never heard of. “The key to jazz is listening,” he always says. It’s his mantra. He means listening to the other musicians on stage and listening to the giants of the past.
I want to be serious about music, but it’s turning out to be more expensive than I thought. In the last few weeks, I must have bought a dozen tapes.
The Gimme Shelter T-shirt is smeared with chocolate, so are Willie’s arms, legs, face, even his ears. When we get home, Mama is making dinner, banging pots like she’s trying to scare away intruders. I put Willie in the tub and put the new tape in my Walkman. I’m surprised. With most of the others, I’ve had to work to see what’s good about it, but I love this from the very first piece. This Nina Simone has incredible tone. Her voice is powerful, deep, but controlled too; it’s not like a storm, it’s softer, like snow.
I have to turn the tape off when I get to “Porgy.” I still can’t stand to remember how stupid I was that night with Jonathan.
Thank God he’s never mentioned it. And whatever his motive, our work together is going just fine. I know I’m getting better, he knows it too. He’s even started to praise me like he does the guys.
It’s only one word, but until recently he’d never said it to me. I used to watch Carl and Dennis beam when they heard it; Harry would just nod, but he was obviously pleased. Occasionally I’d hear him say it to the radio, to a CD, even to himself—but never to me.
“Yes,” he says, and sometimes he smiles; sometimes he slaps his hand on his knee. “Yes,” he says, and it means this is good, I like this. Or even you are good, I like what you did.
The guys are also beginning to compliment me. Just last night, Harry smiled and said I’m really getting the “swing” down. I said thanks, but I was thinking about all the time Jonathan had spent teaching me to emphasize 2/4 instead of 1 ⁄ 3, to go across the bar, to slide into a note and then stretch it out or cut it off abruptly, to back away from the obvious accent.
I’m learning so much from him; sometimes I feel so grateful I could kiss him. Ha-ha.
Even though we’re spending more time together than ever before, he always manages to keep his distance—literally. If I move over to his piano, he leans the other way. If I follow him to the bar, he walks back to his table, even if he doesn’t have the drink he came for.
Since Labor Day, the one and only time we got closer than three feet apart was in Fred’s office. He had to sit next to me because there was no other chair. I sat as rigidly as I could; I didn’t even cross my legs because I was afraid I’d accidentally brush against him and confirm what he seems to suspect: that I’m just waiting for the opportunity to jump him.
The only place I want to jump is into my bed. I’m so tired from all this rehearsing I can barely lift Willie out of the tub. But it’s after six. I have to get ready for the gig tonight.
At least I won’t have to spend much time on my hair.
I can’t believe Mama hasn’t even mentioned I cut it off. When I’m all dressed and ready to go, I screw up my courage to ask what she thinks.
“You’ve always been pretty,” she says, and shrugs. “Even when you were a kid, everybody told me how pretty you were.”
She’s never said this to me before. I’m too surprised to do more than mumble, “Thanks.”
“You could be bald and be pretty.” Then she frowns. “You’ll always have men running after you. You’re lucky.”
I kiss Willie goodbye and leave. It isn’t until later that it hits me how odd it is for her to call me lucky about this, given how panicked she is about Rick.
It’s been exactly eight days since Gerald Boyd’s first phone call. Just a little more than a week—but Mama’s nerves have gotten so bad, I don’t know how to deal with her anymore.
The strange part is she was there when Boyd called back yesterday; she heard me tell him I’m definitely not ready for Rick to visit Willie, but it didn’t help. She’s just positive Rick is about to storm the house. She checks and rechecks the doors, stands dinner plates up in all the windowsills, gets mad at me when I take the plates down in my room even though I’ve told her I’m afraid they’ll fall off and hit Willie in the head.
She’s mad at me
a lot now. I’m still exhausted from all this rehearsing, but she doesn’t offer to let me sleep in, doesn’t cut me any breaks. Before I’d even had my coffee this morning, she was bugging me about taking Willie to some cousin’s farm.
“Without me?” I asked. As much as Willie likes her, he still cries if I’m gone too much, and she knows it. It would break his heart to leave me, not to mention what it would do to mine.
“You come too. Just for a while. Lay low until we see what that killer is gonna do.”
“Lay low?” I forced a laugh. “This isn’t a movie. I can’t call Fred tomorrow and say, oh, sorry, I won’t be at the gig, I’ll be busy lying around. I mean, lying low.”
“I don’t see how you can joke at a time like this.” She frowned and scratched a mosquito bite on her upper arm. “You talk like your dumb job is more important than that little boy’s safety.”
Dumb job was just silly, but the rest was irritating as hell. I don’t think Willie’s safety is important? This from the person who was so drunk she passed out holding a cigarette when I was in fourth grade. If I hadn’t woken up and smelled the burning carpet, we both would have died.
I told her to back off and she did, but not for long. I was washing Willie’s juice mug when I heard her grumble that she was really surprised at me.
I spun around and looked at her. “Why?”
“All this time, I thought you regretted being with that man. Now I wonder if I was wrong.”
“Well, no need to wonder anymore, because I’ll tell you right now, you are!” I paused and glanced in the living room, where Willie was doing his Busy Town puzzle on the coffee table. “How could I regret it?” I hissed. “If I hadn’t been with him, Willie wouldn’t have been born.”
If she had something else to say, I didn’t hear it. I threw the dishrag in the sink, then sat down next to Willie to help with the puzzle. A half hour later, she stomped out without saying a word. Of course she took the Ford—it’s her car, not mine— even though she knows I need to take Willie to Kangaroo Park. I’ve been promising for a week.
It’s called Kangaroo Park because there’s a twenty-six-foot-tall concrete kangaroo with a slide coming out of its mouth. It’s six long blocks, but Willie makes it without asking me to carry him. He loves this park.
It’s unusually crowded for a Sunday morning, but I don’t mind; I can use the distraction to stay awake. I’m pushing Willie on the toddler swings; on his left side, there’s a pale, thin girl with bright orange hair, and the woman pushing her is making conversation. She asks Willie his name and introduces him to the little girl, Miranda. She turns to me, remarks about the great weather.
It is gorgeous today. It’s finally cooled down; whenever there’s a breeze, I wish I’d brought my sweater. Both Willie and I are wearing what he calls our “spy glasses.” I got them on sale in Little Rock; they’re sunglasses but they reflect like mirrors. Willie likes to pretend they make us invisible.
Miranda just turned three. She’s telling Willie about her birthday party, how her daddy made a treasure hunt in the backyard. At first, I’m not sure he’s paying attention. He’s facing straight ahead, in the direction of the kangaroo slide. But then he announces that he’s going to have a birthday party too, with a super big treasure hunt. “My daddy will do it,” he says, “if I want.”
He’s said things like this before, not often. Of course I understand. I would have lied too, when I was a kid, if everyone hadn’t already known my father was dead. Usually I tell myself it’s not much different from his bragging about how strong he is or how gigantic our nonexistent car is. Today, though, it feels like the world is conspiring against me.
And it just gets worse. Maybe Willie has overheard Mama and me arguing, I don’t know, because he’s squirming in the swing seat, obviously uncomfortable that Miranda is talking so much about her dad. Her daddy is tall, she says. He buys her anything she wants. He always gives her a glass of water at night. He has a real important job.
The woman explains that Miranda is going through a father phase. “When he leaves for work in the morning, she screams, ‘I don’t want you, I want Daddy.’” She laughs a little. “Is this the thanks I get for quitting my job to stay home with her?”
I make myself smile at her before turning to Willie. “You want to go on the slide now?”
He says yes, and I unbuckle the swing and put him down on the ground. But he doesn’t walk over there; he stands next to the metal post of the swing set. He looks so silly with those sunglasses on, his bottom lip pushed out in an obvious pout. I say, “Let’s go,” but he doesn’t move. Then he yells to Miranda, “My daddy has the bestest job.”
Miranda’s mother smiles. “What does your daddy do, Willie?”
Now his little chin is quivering. He hates it when he’s confused. “Come on, buddy,” I say, but his hands are clinging to the posts, he won’t budge. I’m sure he’s about to cry, but finally he shouts, “I not telling,” and runs away.
The woman is apologizing, but I can’t listen, I have to run after Willie. He’s at the back of the line for the kangaroo slide. When I get there, he yells, “I’m big. I do it!”
I lean down. “You can’t go on that slide alone. You know it’s a rule.”
“I big,” he says, and now he is crying. But he won’t let me pick him up. And he still wants to go on the slide alone; he says he’ll hit me if I try to climb with him.
“No, you won’t.” Willie never hits; he hasn’t since he was a year old.
He says he will hit me, I say he won’t, all the while he’s crying so loud that the other kids in line are staring at him. Finally an older boy turns to me, asks if my “baby” is okay. Willie is so insulted he throws himself against my legs.
“Can I pick you up now?”
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t resist. After I lift him in my arms, he snuggles against my shoulder, buries his face in my neck. His cheeks are hot and his little chest is shaking with sobs.
“Poor buddy.” I rub his back, walk around with him until he feels heavy. I point across the park at a weeping willow tree. “Let’s go over there. See how pretty it is?” He shakes his head, but I whisper, “I bet we can hide under all those branches. Be spies.”
It’s cold under the tree, and wet, I discover, as soon as I sit down on the dirt. But the tangle of thin branches is fascinating to Willie. He’s clumping them in his hands and then letting them go, watching them slowly spread out again. When he tires of that, he begins to pick off the tiny leaves and rub them against a rock he found by the tree trunk. I ask him what he’s doing and he says, “Spy stuff.”
After a while, he’s banging a twig against the rock, and I’m watching Miranda and her mother walk out of the park. Now they’re leaving. Now, when the damage is done.
I don’t need anyone to tell me this is a sign. I can’t keep putting it off; Willie has a right to know who his father is, even if he never sees him again. Of course he’s too young to really understand, but at least he’ll have something to say when faced with a kid like Miranda. He can brag about his daddy’s truck.
I take it slow. I start with the trailer, then that day at the pool, and finally the new guy who let him drive. “Remember him? His name was Rick?”
He doesn’t answer. It seems I may have taken it too slowly. He has his back to me, I’m not sure he’s even listening. But I go ahead and say it. I figure if he isn’t listening, it’s another sign. A good one.
I force my voice to sound calm. “That guy is your daddy, buddy.”
To me, it’s like a crash of thunder, the sky tearing in two, the opening of the earth beneath my feet. But Willie is banging the stick like nothing happened. Either he didn’t hear or he doesn’t really care. Thank God.
He’s spotted a ladybug crawling by the rock, and he has his hand down flat as he tries to coax it onto his finger. His voice sounds so sweet. “Come here, wady bug. Wady bug.” But the bug won’t come to him. He asks why and I tell him the bug doesn’t un
derstand he won’t hurt it.
“I wanna go home,” he says.
That makes two of us, I think. After I hand him his sunglasses, put mine on, I pull back the branches of the willow tree. But he only makes it out of the park before he holds out his arms and whines that he’s tired. He needs Mama to carry him.
I was stupid; I should have brought his stroller. I’m out of breath from hefting him after only one block. He’s squirming, too, and tugging on my ear lobes. Ever since I cut my hair, he’s fascinated with my ears.
At least he likes something about my short hair. When Fred saw it his only comment was, “It will grow.”
I make it another block, and another. It’s getting easier; I must be getting a second wind. When he asks why I don’t have the “rings” on, we’re only a block from home. I’ve already decided to make him a microwave pizza and get him down for his nap as quick as possible. I can’t wait for my own nap.
“Because you pull them.” I laugh. “I can’t wear earrings around you, you little goofball.”
He pushes my lobes up tight against my ears. I pretend I can’t hear him. “What’d you say? Huh? What?” while he giggles.
“He gots a ring,” Willie says, as he pokes his finger on the hole in my ear.
“Who does?” I’m not paying much attention. I can see the house now. No Ford, Mama’s not home yet. Only a few more minutes and I can shove the pizza in and collapse on the couch.
“Daddy.”
His voice is so confident, that’s what stuns me. He doesn’t sound like he just learned this; he sounds like he’s known all along. He’s leaning back, grinning, so I force a smile. “Rick does have an earring, you’re right. Good memory, buddy.”
“Rick.”
“That’s his name, remember?”
“I know!” he says, and puckers up his face in a silly frown. Then he chants, “Rick, Daddy, Rick, Daddy,” until I feel like I’m losing my mind.
But now I’m unlocking the door. Willie runs into our room, turns on his synthesizer. The pizza will be ready in two and a half minutes. Maybe I’ll feed it to him, to get it over with quicker. A half hour, tops, and I’ll be back in the only place I want to be: my bed.
