“When did Angela drive our car?” I finally asked, the silence unbearably awkward. I began straightening pillows and magazines to avoid looking at her.
“Off sides.” She pointed to the screen and then sighed and turned it off; under normal circumstances, I would have marveled at her knowledge of football. “When she was a teenager. We were still living in South Carolina.”
“Was I born?” I asked, and she shook her head. “Is that when she was living with you?”
“Yes.” She went and lifted her needlepoint, sat back down in her corner of the sofa, the imprint of my father’s head still on the pillow at the other end. “It was right before you were born. We didn’t need that kind of worry.” We didn’t, the two of them, the three of them? I imagined my mother standing on an unfamiliar sidewalk as she examined the dented car, Angela in tears, her long hair swept up in a high ponytail.
“There’s a lot that you don’t know, Katie,” she began. “We took Angela in even before your grandmother died and I treated her like she was my daughter, which wasn’t easy given that she was a teenager and I had never had a child.” She paused, lips pressed together as she shook her head. “I wasn’t exactly old, you know. Thirty-five may sound old to you, but it’s not at all.” She sat there, wisps of hair slipping from her bun. “It hurt me when she left so abruptly. All that time I had spent helping her, sewing her clothes and cooking her meals and paying her way to the movies or wherever she needed to go; I had just finished writing to junior colleges in hopes that she could get in somewhere and then she was just gone, a three-line note pinned to her pillow.” She paused, as if trying to picture the words. “‘Thank you for what you have done for me. But I have got to leave right now. I’ll tell you more later.’” She spoke the words mechanically. “I mean that’s all she said.”
“Was I born then?”
“Yes,” she nodded, her poised needle threaded in violet. “You were born two weeks before she left. So finally when I really needed her, she was gone.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, breathed out. “Fred had already taken his job here, and we were all set to move. She said that she didn’t want to leave South Carolina, so she went to Dillon and got married.”
“She’s been married all this time?” I sat in my father’s corner of the sofa and propped my feet on the coffee table, where there was a mixed stack of his National Geographies and her Better Homes and Gardens. I thought of Mo Rhodes in Hardee’s the night Buddy was born. I always assumed she was married, she had said.
“Oh, no.” My mother shook her head, stared at the empty TV screen. “That lasted a very brief while.” She pulled out a strand of black wool and held it up to the light to thread the needle. “This is the second husband she’s leaving today.”
I was too stunned to ask anything else for awhile, and so just sat and also stared into the blank green screen. The blue sky was already darkening, and I realized that I had not gone over to Misty’s house as I had promised that I’d do. I remember that day, Angela had said about my birthday. What if it was all true, everything that I had imagined, Madame X or Stella Dallas. I needed to tell Misty, to add these new facts to all that I had outlined for her on Christmas Day as we sat on a high branch of the tree and waited for parkers. “Wow,” Misty had said. “Just think. You may be a real live love child. And somewhere you may have this young, really cool Dad.” She grinned and tossed an acorn out into the cemetery, snapped her fingers and in her best Diana Ross mode, began singing “Love Child.” It was what we called graveyard talk both literally and figuratively, words never to be spoken to another living soul.
“Can I go to Misty’s?” I asked. She jumped with the suddenness of my question, dropping her needle. “I promised her that I would.”
“Sure.” She sat up straight, smoothed back the wisps of her hair as if my going out the front door and stepping across Wilkins Road was like opening our home to the world. “Please don’t say anything about where your father has gone.” She bit her lip in hesitation. “It’s the kind of thing Theresa Poole would enjoy hearing and spreading. Now . . .” She raised her finger as if to erase any thought that I might be preparing to have. “I am not saying that to be unkind because Mrs. Poole is a good woman and she is a friend of mine. Still . . .” Another wave of her finger. “I can’t always trust her on things like this. I mean it’s just too tempting. / would be tempted by such gossip.” She stood, once again placing her needlepoint in her seat. “St. Peter would be tempted by such gossip.” She laughed and then waited for me to assure her that I wouldn’t tell where my father had gone. I was almost out the front door when she called me back, and I feared she was going to make me cross my heart and hope to die that I wouldn’t say anything at all and then I’d be torn between confiding my feelings to Misty and living without the invited threat of death.
She was in the middle of the kitchen, a big pot in her hands. I stood in the doorway, waiting, one hand hidden in the pocket of my jacket in case I needed to cross my fingers. She was wearing her purple bedroom shoes, and she had untwisted her hair and let it fall down her back, another vacation thing to do, and I felt a pang of emptiness as I watched her there, the holiday having come to a quick ending.
“Mary Katherine,” she said, her voice slow and controlled. “I have something very important to say.”
“Okay.” I stepped closer, wondering if I should sit or stand, if I should laugh or cry.
“I never grew up eating a special meal on New Year’s Day.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t even know that I consider black-eyed peas and cabbage to be special foods.” She turned to me then, tilted the pot to show black-eyed peas cooked down to mush, a big piece of fatback covering the top. “I personally don’t think it has one damn thing to do with luck and I am right now thinking that I’d just as soon have manicotti or ratatouille; I wouldn’t mind having macaroni and cheese.”
“Okay.”
“You’re not superstitious?” she asked, and I shook my head. “Good.” She turned and dumped the pot into the trashcan. “Because I’ve eaten this mess of a meal since I left home years ago and I’ve had my fill, hoppin’ John, hog fat surprise. I say, bring on the chowder, baked beans, lobster.” She scraped the pot with a fork. “And I wouldn’t say that it’s made such a difference in my luck. If it has, then heaven help me.” I stood there waiting, and when she finished her scraping and turned towards me, her face was flushed and her eyes were watering. “Don’t be late,” she said, and I hurried outside and across the street where Misty was in the carport twirling her baton. She had gotten a new one for Christmas, a real one, she had said over and over, not one those little kid dimestore jobs. I recognized the car in their driveway, an old Galaxy 500 that belonged to Betty and Gene Files.
“I was wondering where you were,” she said, lifting her knees in marching simulation as she did the figure eight. “I had to get outside. That Files kid is so horrible, he’s getting on my nerves bad.” She began marching forward and then flipped the baton over one shoulder and caught it behind her back. “Pretty neat, huh? Betty taught me how to do it.” Misty stopped twirling so she could talk. “She used to be a majorette in high school, and I didn’t even know it.”
“Misty?” Dean was leaning out the side door. “Dad said to come in and get your picture made. He’s got the camera all set up.” He glanced at me and then went back inside, the door slamming shut on all the laughter and talk.
“I can’t wait to tell you something,” I whispered when she motioned for me to come with her. She asked what, but there was no way I could tell her under such rushed circumstances. This was one of those stories that, if we couldn’t get to the cemetery, required the perfect setting, everything in order, use the bathroom, get your drink of water, get all distractions out of the way before the story begins. I followed her inside where Mr. Rhodes was fiddling with a camera up on a tripod; it was set up like some kind of tall insect in the center of the room, and then all the people were sque
ezed in on the big Indian-print floor cushions opposite the silver tree.
“Hi, Kitty,” Mo said, and patted the floor to her left. “You and Misty come sit right here.” Buddy was all wrapped up in a blue blanket and asleep on her lap; it was amazing that he could sleep through it all, the chatter louder than any band of monkeys in any jungle.
“I thought it was a family picture,” Dean said. “The two families.”
“Kitty is family,” Mo said. “Aren’t you, honey?”
“I’ll just watch,” I said, and waved my hand, “really.” Mo and Misty were the only two begging my participation; Mr. Rhodes would have, I was certain, but he was too busy fiddling with the camera. Jeffrey Files was three and had a gun that made a loud, whirring sound. “Like father, like son,” Betty Files laughed, and patted her husband’s hip where he had a holster and gun. Misty had once told me that a highway patrolman is always on duty; It’s the law, she said.
I stood in the doorway watching: Betty Files with her arm around Gene, who was leaned back on his elbows, the handle of that large black gun right near his hand, Jeffrey sprawled out on top of him. On his other side was Mo, dark wavy hair hanging to her shoulders, her face still plump from her pregnancy, but beautiful as ever as she sat there in a shiny emerald-green shirt and a pair of black knit pants, barefooted as always, toenails painted. Dean and Misty knelt behind her, Misty’s hands on her mother’s shoulders; there was just enough room beside Mo for Mr. Rhodes to run over and sit before the flash. They took this same pose five times, Mr. Rhodes perspiring and out of breath when he finally decided to stop, the rest of them getting sillier and giddier with each shot.
“Please get in the picture,” Mo called to me, and this time patted the tiny bit of space to her left, which now was primarily occupied by Gene Files’s leg and handcuffs. “Please.” She turned and patted Mr. Rhodes on the leg. “One more picture, Thomas,” she said, and again motioned to me. “Come on now. You know we want you in the picture.” I felt like an Amazon as I crossed the living room, all the blood rushing to my face as I sensed Dean’s stare. Mr. Files flashed me a big grin. His wife managed a weak smile as she tried to release Jeffrey’s hold on her neck.
“Make room,” Mo said, and swatted Mr. Files’s leg. “I will thank you to move those handcuffs.” She laughed. “They’re in Kitty’s seat.”
“And where should I put them?” he asked, momentarily toying with the silver circles before clinking them into his pocket.
“Don’t be so difficult,” Betty Files said. “Isn’t he the most difficult?”
“Okay now, say mozzarella,” Mr. Rhodes said, and dashed to his seat. He was all out of breath, his face pale, and I made the mistake of turning to watch him, the flash catching me in profile.
Before I ever got the chance to talk to Misty, it was decided that she and Dean would stay home with the kids while the four adults went to a movie. “I’ll make it up to you, guys,” Mo had told Dean and Misty. “Your dad and I need a little night out every now and then, don’t you think?” By the time it was over, Dean had wiggled out of the deal and gone out with his friend Ronald, and Misty had accepted the job, provided she got paid for it. I followed Misty and Mo back into Buddy’s room, where nursery rhyme characters decorated the walls. “Here are his p.j.s,” Mo said, and nuzzled Buddy’s little face. “Make the girls behave,” she said. “Try to keep them from calling boys and hanging up when they answer.” She didn’t even look at us when she said this, even though Misty had been caught doing that very thing only days before. “Tell them sleep tight and goodnight and don’t let the bedbugs bite. Tell them happy New Year.” Mo kissed all three of us and then went back out into the living room with Betty and Gene.
“We won’t be late,” Mr. Rhodes said, and kissed the top of Misty’s head. “Hey, I’m driving this time,” he said as they stepped out into the carport. “Somebody’s got to be responsible, and we know from last time that the patrolman isn’t.” They were all laughing as the car doors slammed, and I imagined my mother standing on the front porch observing it all, observing laughter, observing life. Once again I thought of Angela. I was ready to talk to Misty but I knew that it was a hopeless night; I could never get the stage set and all the distractions cleared, as they needed to be for this particular story. “So what did you have to tell me?” Misty asked, matronly in an absurd way as she stood there in her tight bell-bottom jeans and tested baby formula on her wrist, all the while watching Jeffrey Files, who was in a rather precarious position as he stood on a chair and reached for Mr. Rhodes’s Goodyear salesmanship plaque.
“My mother drank a beer today,” I said, gaining momentum as I went along, Misty amazed and laughing, Jeffrey sliding the plaque back and forth, Buddy crying until his face turned blood red. “She did. A Schlitz. In the can. She wrapped it up in a little Christmas napkin.” Misty struck a pose, lips pursed, nose in the air, and then laughed again.
“A Schlitz? So how many did she have?” Misty asked, finally getting Buddy to take the bottle.
“Just one, I think.” The story was dwindling.
“That’s what you were going to tell me?” she asked. She probably would have seen right through me had Dean and Ronald not walked in and stolen her attention. They went straight and turned on the TV, football and football and football. “Men,” Misty said loudly, elbowing me, and then leaned close to whisper, “Don’t you just love them?”
When I got home, my mother was back in her corner of the sofa with her needlepoint, Mozart on the stereo, a little night music, and I watched her feet point and flex with each beat, her slippers under the coffee table, what I assumed to be a new Schlitz all wrapped up beside her. Though she looked relaxed, the house smelled of Lysol and lemon oil and I knew she had done a quick cleaning. “Have fun?” she asked, without even looking up, and I told her it was okay. “We can eat whenever you’re ready,” she said. “I don’t think we should wait for Fred.” I sat down on the other end of the sofa and thumbed through a magazine until the needle reached the end of the album and she stood to say that we should eat.
“Happy New Year,” she said when I got to the table and beside my plate of manicotti, she placed a little bowl with a spoonful of black-eyed peas and one little flimsy piece of steamed cabbage. “Why take any chances, right?” she asked and sat down, leaned forward with elbows on the table, face cupped in her large square hands. “We could use a little luck, couldn’t we?” she asked and something in her face, her tone, her very presence, made me want to cry.
I stayed awake until long past midnight, WO WO Fort Wayne, Indiana, playing beneath my pillow as I waited to hear a car door. Around eleven-thirty, I heard Mo and Mr. Rhodes get home, calls of good night, and a car driving away. I heard water in the pipes, my mother still up and walking through the house, moving like a shadow from room to room as she looked for something to do now that her vacation was over. It was only ten forty-seven in Indiana as they once again played the year’s top twenty songs. The night before I had listened to the new year roll in twice, once in Fulton and once in Indiana, a whole hour spent tossing back and forth between 1971 and 1972, and if I could have picked up stations all the way to the Pacific, I would have continued the pattern. Now I lay there, trying to stay awake, trying to imagine where my father was, what he was doing. Carole King was singing “It’s Too Late,” and though I tried to force myself awake, I fell asleep before they reached number one, Three Dog Night once again singing “Joy to the World.”
Angela’s stay was as brief as my father had said it would be, and no one discussed any of the circumstances surrounding her separation or the bruise on my father’s face. I was in school the two days she was there, and in the evenings my mother insisted on helping me with my homework while my father and Angela watched television downstairs. I wanted to ask my mother questions, but there was something, the set of her jaw, something in the air, that kept me from doing it. The day Angela left, her old blue Impala backfiring as she backed down our drive, my mother procl
aimed it a vacation day and proceeded to drink another Schlitz; this time she wrapped the can in a little ruffled Coke-bottle skirt, one of a set that Mrs. Poole had brought from her trip to Atlanta. It was four in the afternoon, and she drank it sitting right out on our front porch. When she was finished, my father and I both watching in silence, she stood and said, “Now I can make my resolutions,” and she went inside to strip the sheets from the bed in the guest room. My father immediately handed me a piece of paper and pen. “Hey, you’ll like this one,” he said. “Multiply your age by seven and multiply that by 1443.” He sat looking over my shoulder as I scribbled along, finally getting an answer of 131313. “Works every time,” he said as I stared at the repetition of the bad-luck age. “You can count on this to worl every year of your life.”
It was a month or so after, when Misty and I had had plenty of time to muse over my situation, plenty of time to create numerous plots, all of them possible, that I took Misty’s advice and told my mother that I needed my birth certificate for a report I was doing at school. “It’s a report on my family history,” I told her. “I’m supposed to tell all about my birth.”
“What a wonderful idea that is,” she said, and went straight to the small top drawer of her secretary, flipped through several papers, and surfaced with a white envelope, my full name written on the front. “Here. Now don’t lose it.” She closed the drawer. “You know I can help you with this. I can tell you so much about that day. From the moment I opened my eyes until the moment you were born.” I remember that day well.
“Maybe she had it all planned,” Misty offered later as we walked home from school. “I mean, she knew that sooner or later you’d ask questions, right? So you see she had this fake birth certificate all printed up and waiting in that drawer.”
Ferris Beach Page 10
