A Pinch of Ooh La La

by Renee Swindle

  My bookish, academic mom was in no way, shape, or form as wacky or loose as Dahlia, but she had a way of ignoring me that was similar to the way Carmen’s mother treated her. Mom did her best, but she had a passion for her work and her students that sometimes left me feeling envious. We managed—or I grew up and expected less, I wasn’t sure which—and maybe I was projecting my stuff onto Carmen, because truly, her situation was much worse. But I did feel the need to look after her, let her know, as the wives had let me know, that she was loved and that I was there for her whenever she needed anyone to talk to.

  My way of saying, I did not understand what was up with all the attitude, or what the hell was going on.

  I touched my shoulder to hers. She had Dahlia’s large round eyes, dark brown instead of green. A trail of faint freckles trekked across the bridge of her nose, and she had Dad’s full mouth and lips. She was nineteen and hadn’t a clue she was beautiful. She was always ten to fifteen pounds overweight, and even when Carmen was a child, Dahlia had harped on her size . . . and everything else about her daughter she thought needed improvement.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Carmen flung herself forward and buried her head in her arms. “You’ll hate me.”

  “If you say so.”

  She sat up and started bouncing her leg rapidly; her body began to shake as though she had a chill.

  “What is it?”

  She looked toward Dad’s house, then drew her hands over her face. She kept hidden when she spoke: “I think I’m pregnant.”

  My first reaction was to scream. Pregnant?! You cannot be pregnant! I was prepared for anything except pregnancy. Give me an STD over pregnancy! I’d take syphilis or gonorrhea, but not pregnancy! No!

  I had to bite my tongue to stop from yelling. I was her go-to adult and I needed to stay calm or risk losing her confidence. One breath. Two. Okay, take it slow, Abbey.

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as an over-the-counter pregnancy test.”

  “But those aren’t always accurate. Maybe you’re late.”

  “I took four tests, Abbey. I’m pregnant.”

  Shit!

  She picked up the cigarettes and matches. “I am positively with child,” she said. “I’m preggers. I’m carrying a bun in the oven. A pea in the pod. I’m knocked up.”

  “Okay, Carmen, I get it.”

  “I’m a walking incubator.” I watched her light up and take one of her pseudo puffs.

  “You shouldn’t be smoking.”

  “Why not? It’s not like I’m gonna keep it.”

  I snatched the cigarette before she could take another drag and placed it between my lips. There was a time when Bendrix and I would sneak a cigarette after finishing one of our pieces, and for the time it took for me to show my little sister what a real drag looked like, the time it took the smoke to trickle down my throat and fill my lungs, I left my pregnant sister and relived those moments as a graffiti artist.

  Carmen stared wide-eyed while I took one more drag. Fate was a bitch: I didn’t want Carmen to be pregnant; I wanted to be pregnant.

  I took one last drag from the (delicious) poison stick before burying it underfoot. “How did this happen? I mean, I know how it happened, but who? Do you have a boyfriend I don’t know about?”

  She took out her phone and scrolled until she found what she was looking for—a picture of herself and a few friends. In the center of the photo stood a clean-cut guy wearing a jacket and loose-fitting tie.

  “He looks decent enough. Does he know?”

  “Not him,” she said, “the guy on the right.” I shifted my gaze and stared at the guy wearing his glasses upside down with a paper hat on his head. He had raised a gallon of generic whiskey in the air and was pretending to slug it back. “Oh boy.”

  “I know. My baby daddy is a goofball.”

  “I thought we discussed using protection.”

  “Yeah, we did.”

  “So why didn’t you use it?”

  “No lectures, please. It’s too late. I’m already being punished as it is.”

  “We should make an appointment and find out for sure if you are or not. Have you told your mother?”

  She looked at me like I was crazy.

  She had a point, although I knew what I was supposed to say: “Car, she should know so she can be there for you.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re the only one I’ve told. Will you go to the clinic with me?”

  I leaned over and forced a hug on her. I wouldn’t say it aloud, of course, it was too early, but I already thought that I could help her by looking after the baby while she finished school. Maybe RelaxinbytheBay would be as great as his profile made him out to be and we would raise my sister’s baby. “It’s going to be okay, Carmen. I can—”

  “Abbey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m not going to have it. I’m just not. I want to go to law school. I’ve got things I want to do, and having a baby isn’t one of them. But I’m afraid if I get rid of it, I’ll regret it. Like, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

  “Well, it’s for you to decide. You have to make the decision that’s best for you. It’s a very private, personal decision, and whatever happens, we’re here for you. You have to believe that.”

  My thoughts shifted from taking care of Carmen’s baby to protecting her from pro-life zealots. I saw myself holding her close as I pushed her through a mob of hatemongers protesting in front of a nondescript women’s clinic. If she wanted to terminate the pregnancy, it was no one’s business. Not even mine.

  “Let’s find out if you’re pregnant first. Maybe you’re late.”

  “Please. We both know I am.” She leaned back again. “Just what this family needs—another kid.”

  I started to respond—to defend our big, bustling family—but the front door of the guesthouse slammed, and then someone’s foot appeared: a man’s foot, clad in shiny black. No, wait, a deep, dark blue shoe, landing right between Carmen and me as if we weren’t sitting together at all. He took his time striding down each step like a Broadway performer making his entrance. I half expected him to snap his fingers to a show tune running through his head. He wore a blue suit and carried a garment bag over his shoulder. I guessed he was in his thirties, and when he hoisted his bag up, I saw he had the body of a man who spent hours in the gym, and I imagined jumping up and down on his taut stomach while he smiled up at me, not feeling a thing.

  He paused and snapped his fingers as though he remembered something. When he grinned at us, the gold on his left incisor caught the light of the moon and gleamed. Okay, there was no gold tooth, but I could tell that’s the kind of man he was: Every time he looked in the mirror, he pointed and said, You look good.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  Carmen remained indifferent. “Lamar? Shamar?” She leaned further back on her elbows. “Barbar?”

  Still grinning, the man took a step toward Carmen. “You tell your mother I want my money back. Every cent. Six hundred dollars.”

  “I’m not her go-between.”

  He gave a huckster chuckle as he looked at Carmen. He reached down next to her and picked up the packet of cigarettes. “May I?” Before she could say anything, he gave the carton a couple of taps against his palm, then tilted the box. A cigarette slid out. “Haven’t had one of these in years.” He lit up and took a long pull. On his exhale he looked over at the main house. “You know,” he said, blowing a stream of smoke, “I heard your father play live once back in ’ninety-two. Newport Jazz Festival. Good show.”

  “Of course it was,” Carmen quipped.

  “Yeah.” He kept his eye on the house and took a long, hard pull. “I don’t know how he deals with all those women, though. Man must have some serious skills.” He laughed to himself and hoisted his garment bag farther up
his shoulder. “Thanks for the cig, ladies. You all have a good night.”

  We watched Lamar or Shamar walk to his maroon sedan.

  “My mother sure knows how to pick ’em,” Carmen muttered.

  We heard the door open behind us. “Is he gone?”

  “Yes,” Carmen sighed.

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  “Nobody.” Dahlia stepped out. “Absolutely nobody.” She began fussing with her bushel of chestnut hair.

  “Yeah,” Carmen said, “a nobody who says you owe him six hundred dollars.”

  Dahlia snorted at the idea. She thumbed the gold chain resting high atop her milky boobies and held it out for us to see. “He bought me this necklace and now he wants me to pay him for it. But he’s nuts if he thinks I’m paying him back for a gift. Whoever heard of that?”

  After I’d first met Dahlia, I immediately concluded that she and Dad, without talking much, had gone straight from making out in the corner of the club where they met to Dad’s hotel room. I had to assume that if they’d had an actual conversation, an actual dialogue about anything in life, before he slept with her, her lack of brains would have made him change his mind. Dahlia hadn’t even known anything about jazz! A friend had dragged her to Dad’s concert. But his potent sperm went to work on her free-falling egg and—bam!—two months later, guess who’s knocking on the door? A paternity test confirmed another baby momma had entered our lives, and soon I had another sister.

  The box of cigarettes caught her attention and she picked it up. “Smoking, Carmen? Really? These things will give you wrinkles before you’re thirty. And do you want yellow teeth? There are other ways to lose weight. Diet pills are better than smoking, although if you get to the gym now and then, that would be even better. And why aren’t you at the party?”

  Carmen grabbed the carton. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “You’re not in the mood for anything lately except moping around.” She kicked the edge of Carmen’s foot. “Sit up, Car. Why aren’t you at the party? You look like a slug, you know that? What were we discussing last night? You have to think of yourself as a brand. You want attention in life, you have to draw upon positivity. You behave positively and positive things will come to you. It’s physics!”

  “Physics,” Carmen scoffed.

  “Yes, physics. Don’t give me that attitude. I don’t appreciate it. Just because you’re in college doesn’t mean I am not your mother. Whatever you believe comes back to you. It’s been proven.”

  “So some thirteen-year-old girl sold into prostitution in some poor remote country, chained to a bed, and forced to have sex all day—all she has to do is believe someone will save her?”

  Dahlia frowned. “Yes, Miss Smarty-pants. If she believed hard enough, it would happen.”

  Carmen and I exchanged looks.

  “Regardless, Carmen, your dad is celebrating his birthday and you need to get over there and smile and have a good time. Help me out, Abbey.”

  I saw she had a point for once. “Maybe she’s right. You should eat. Plus the cake’s here.”

  “She could do without the cake.”

  Carmen shot daggers her way. Heck, I threw in a few myself. God, she was annoying.

  “I think I’m going to go back to the dorms.”

  “No, you’re not; you’re going to stay and celebrate your father’s birthday. I refuse to let you leave. What’s wrong with you? Are you okay?”

  I waited, wondering if Carmen would tell her.

  “I’m fine.”

  Dahlia frowned. “Let’s go, then. It would kill your father if you didn’t at least give him a hug and wish him happy birthday. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to do that. All his other kids are there, and if—”

  “Okay, okay! Jesus. Let’s go.”

  Carmen and I followed while Dahlia clicked and clacked her way across the pathway and to the main house. When Carmen looked at me, I put my arm around her and smiled. I did my best to tell her with my eyes that keeping the baby or not was her decision, but if she kept it, I promised to help her take care of it. She could even move in with me. Or I could raise the baby for her and we’d never let the child know that Carmen was the actual mother and then she’d grow up and find out that we’d lied and she’d hate me and hate Carmen and have to go into years and years of therapy, but at least we’d have our memories, right?

  • • •

  I had to wait through most of the night to talk to Dad. I knew I wouldn’t have much time, but I wanted to plant a seed in his ear about Carmen, something along the lines of—Could you spend a little more time with your daughter? She’s having unprotected sex and might be pregnant. Sometime after eleven, Dad rose from the piano and announced they were taking a break but the show wasn’t over. He thanked everyone for coming and said they’d start playing again in fifteen minutes. (We’d tried to convince him not to play on his birthday, by the way, but he said he wanted to do what made him happy. He’d promised not to play the entire night.)

  I knew it was now or never and pushed my way through the crowd. Dad was standing in the corner of the room and talking to a couple of people I didn’t recognize when I rudely butted in and gave him a hug. I smiled and said hello to his admirers, then pulled him—not too forcefully, I hoped—back toward his piano.

  Asking Dad for a minute of his time was like asking him for a day. He was spread bare among family, friends, business associates, other musicians who wanted his time, fans, and, let’s not forget, his music, the one constant in his life that got his attention at least four hours a day plus any gigs.

  Dad was tall, with a high forehead. Except for around the eyes and mouth, his skin was taut and wrinkle free. He’d been practicing tai chi since I could remember, and his soul patch and the shades he wore whenever he left the house were also permanent markers. As Bendrix liked to say, in the Mount Rushmore of cool, Lincoln T. Ross was up there with the best of them.

  He followed my lead when I sat on his piano bench. I decided to jump right in. “I’m worried about Carmen, Daddy. When you get a chance, would you check in on her? Take her out for breakfast or something?”

  “What’s got you so worried?”

  “Nothing in particular.” Except that she might be pregnant. “It’s just that . . . well . . . she’s . . .” I kept tripping on my words because what I really wanted to tell him was the unfiltered truth for once. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, not every child was meant to grow up in a large family with a father who was kind and loving, yes, but who was on tour as much as he was home and who kept marrying and impregnating women—no offense. And Dahlia? Really, Daddy? What the hell did you see in her? Well, I get what you saw in her, but did you have to knock her up? I’m glad we have Carmen, but I wish you’d at least kick Dahlia out of the guesthouse.

  A man walked up and shook Dad’s hand. “Nice set, man. I can’t believe I’m here.”

  “Enjoy yourself. This is my daughter. She made the birthday cakes.”

  The guy shook my hand. “Nice to meet you.” He turned back to Dad. “I’ve always wanted to ask about your duet with Chick—”

  I put on a wide fake smile. “Would you mind giving us one second, please?”

  “Yeah, sure. Good set, man. Happy birthday.”

  “Yeah, thank you.” Dad watched the man leave, a grin inching across his face. “I don’t know half the people here tonight. Damn good party, though.” He held up his wrist and showed me a thick silver cuff. “You see this? It’s from Louis and Charlie. Nice, huh?” My brothers Louis and Charlie were still in high school.

  I complimented the bracelet and tried again to bring up Carmen. “Thing is, I think Carmen could really use some one-on-one time with you. Can you take her to lunch or something?”

  “Yeah, baby. Of course.”

  But Dad’s “Yeah, baby, of course” didn’t amount to m
uch unless he made a note to himself or you made the appointment with his manager or with Aiko.

  “Seriously, Daddy. Don’t forget, okay?”

  “Something I need to know about?”

  I hesitated when I saw the concern in his eyes. Oddly enough, I often felt I should protect him when it came to family problems. We all did. We were so busy clamoring for his time, we didn’t dare ask for more than the little he could give. We knew he loved us, would do anything for us, and who would dare ask for more? His head was filled with music as it was. “I just wish Dahlia had better parenting skills.”

  “Dahlia means well,” he said. “You need to remember, not everyone grew up with people who loved them.”

  That was the other thing. If there was a positive side to a situation or person, Dad was going to mine it out and focus on it, which made it difficult to—

  “Pops!”

  My brother Theo walked in wearing his long coat and carrying his trumpet case. He’d had a gig and told us he’d be late.

  Dad stood up from the bench and they embraced as though they hadn’t just seen each other the day before.