A Place Called Wiregrass (13 page)

T
he phone rang just as Patricia pulled out the brochure of the fancy resort she and Doctor Tom would stay at during the Dental Association Convention. When I told her I had never heard of Marco Island, she fluttered her hand like a little bird flying beside her head. “Down in Florida, somewhere. It’s just nice is all I know. Now Mama, look at this place we’ll be staying,” she said, unfolding the brochure on Miss Claudia’s kitchen table.

I was put out to have to answer the phone. I wanted to see this fancy resort that Patricia had been going on about for the past twenty minutes.

“Mrs. Jacobs?” The voice on the other end of the line was unfamiliar and nasal.

I quickly inhaled, knowing that if the call was for me at Miss Claudia’s house, it could only be bad news. I closed my eyes, hoping Bozo had not reared his liquored head again. “This’s her.”

“I’m Rachel Baxter, guidance counselor at Houston County Junior High. It appears Cher had a little altercation this afternoon. Unfortunately, she’s suspended for two days.”

Patricia’s words of hot tubs, tennis lessons, and massages drifted through the phone receiver while I stood frozen.
This is a lie,
I thought.
Not my honor-roll Cher. This part of my life was over. This was the life of raising a bobcat son and a delinquent daughter. Not Cher.

“Mrs. Jacobs?”

I wanted to scream
liar
and slam the phone down, but the background noise of described luxury kept me calm. I had two bosses in the room and had to keep my wits, however loosely strung together they may be. “I’m on my way.”

“Now, Mama, I want you to look at this. Doctor Tom got us one of these bungalows right on the beach.” Patricia towered over Miss Claudia such that when I told them I had to go pick up a sick Cher, I only saw Miss Claudia peep over Patricia’s arm.

Walking down the concrete sidewalk towards the red brick principal’s office of Houston County Junior High, I could only think that there was some explanation. Some mistake. Or was it another tidal wave to remind me that, no matter how enjoyable my Saturday afternoon with Gerald was, my life was not a lake of stillness?

I listened as Ms. Baxter, the guidance counselor, sat behind her gray metal desk and read from a manila folder. Normally I would have been struck by how young this Ms. Rachel Baxter was, but I had to concentrate on every detail to find the slipup. The missing piece this young lady could not figure out. The responsibility must fall elsewhere.

“It happened in the lunchroom line when Cher evidently began clawing Lacretia Hightower. Of course Lacretia said she did nothing wrong.”

“Umm-humm,” I mumbled in a sassy tone.

Ms. Baxter glanced up from her file. I’m sure she was calculating just how much trouble this redneck grandmother would cause. Raising a grandchild was a special type of discrimination. I learned long ago whenever teachers found out I was the grandmother, not the real mother, they immediately expected problems from Cher. They had tested Cher from the first grade on to make sure there were no emotional problems. Until now, all they got back were the highest marks.

“Cher proceeded to then hit Lacretia in the head with her shoe until a teacher’s assistant pulled her off.”

“Give me a break,” I said, slapping my pocketbook. “And just what started all this?”

“Kids in their class said Lacretia had been making fun of Cher’s name for a few weeks now.” The young counselor put down the file and took a sip out of her apple-shaped coffee mug.

“There’s more to it than that,” I said a touch too loudly.

“With a name like hers, I taught Cher from first grade to laugh off any teasing about her name.” I settled back against my wooden seat and racked my brain to think of other incidents when having the name of an entertainer proved embarrassing. All I could come up with was Mama’s protest at the hospital when Suzette announced the name, which had been permanently placed on her birth certificate. I considered changing it when me and Bozo got legal guardianship, but decided changing the first and last name both would be too much of a jolt, even for a two-year-old.

“You know, at this age kids can be so cruel.” She smiled and batted her long eyelashes.

“Huh. She’s seen cruel,” I yelled and then quickly changed emotional gears, fearing Cher would be forced to take more mental testing. “Look, Miss Baxter, all I’m saying is that the girl has never give me one ounce of trouble.”

“New names are an adjustment. Especially at this age.”

“Well, like I told you, I always…What?” I was getting irritated at this young educator’s poor listening skills. “I told you Cher was her name the first day she started school.”

The young lady tucked strands of hair behind her ear and leaned forward. “I’m sorry?”

“Her name’s not new—she was born with it.” I sat tall with the wooden chair, spine pressed into my back, pleased I had out-smarted someone with two diplomas hanging on her office wall.

Miss Baxter opened the manila file and quickly ran her fin
gernail down the white page. I just imagined mistakes were far and few between for the likes of her. The most pressing issue in her life was most likely whether she had the time to get those fingernails manicured weekly.

“Okay, here we are. Four weeks ago, Cher told her teachers that her last name had changed. She said that she was taking her father’s name of LaRouche. Lacretia began calling her ‘La Roach’ and pretending to spray insecticide at her.” Miss Baxter crinkled her perky noise.

I jumped up from the wooden chair and threw my bag over my shoulder. “Where is she?”

Miss Baxter looked up, her mouth opened. “Mrs. Jacobs, Lacretia was suspended as well. Now there is no…”

“Get Cher out here right this minute.”

During the ride home I said nothing, and Cher sat in the passenger seat with her arms folded. Fingernails had left crimson marks down her right cheek. A sign of valor over the name of the man who stopped contributing to her well-being the second his seed helped form her. The very idea made me hit the steering wheel with the palm of my hand. It was still vibrating when we pulled up to the trailer.

Cher bolted from the car and stomped through sand and crabgrass. I studied this stubborn human who weeks earlier snuggled with me in my bed. I could only wonder what air castle LaRue LaRouche had seduced her with over the phone.

She tried to open the door, and when she realized I had the key, she put her hands on her hips. Her toe tapped the concrete steps like she was too important to wait.

This had gone on long enough. The phone calls, the daydreams, it would all burn up today. Slowly walking towards the door, I plotted my next move.

When I unlocked the door, she bolted to her room. The pine bedroom door had almost slammed when I blocked it with the base of my arm.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said, still feeling the tingle of the door on my arm.

She jumped on her bed and reached to turn the radio on. I leaned over and grabbed the radio. Brushing up against her, I could almost see rays of anger bouncing off us. I slammed the off button so hard, the radio tumbled to the floor.

“What’s gotten into you?” I stood with my hand propped on the closed door. I had her trapped, and she would listen to me if I had to hold her down and pour the words into her ear.

She rolled over on to the bed, her face buried in the pillow. The same pillow that entombed the photo of the family that was never meant to be. “Leave me alone!”

“How can I? I’m the only person on the face of this earth who cares a thing about you. And what do I get for it? Your hateful words, your bad attitude, and now this.”

“You hate me,” she said, swinging her face up to glance at me and then retreating into the pillowcase.

“No, uh-uh. You’re not pulling this crap on me. I love you, and I’m the only one.”

“My daddy loves me.” I could make out the muffled words as they fought to be heard from under the pillow.

“That does it. Look at me!” I fell to the bed on my knees and pulled her shoulders upright. She tried to let out a scream, and the terror in her eyes reminded me of how I must’ve looked the times Bozo came after me. My grip loosened. “Please don’t do this,” was all I could say.

So much for my big plans of truth and honesty.
I wanted to cry, to beg her to stop calling LaRue. To make her push him out of her life. This was all my fault. I had let it go too far, and now didn’t know if I could tell her the truth that would stop it.

“I am, you know. I am a LaRouche. Why can’t I be called by his last name? It’s mine. It’s mi-i-i-ne,” she screamed. Her tortured screams brought to mind a toddler falling to the floor and tightening her legs in a fit of rage.

I looked inside her blank brown eyes, clouded with tears. “Trust me, he doesn’t want you,” I calmly said.

“He does so,” she screamed and threw her head back in torment. The tears and moans tore the fibers of my being, and when I tried to hold her, she pushed me away with her fists.

The thuds on my chest reminded me of when I tried to tell Suzette she should never marry LaRue, pregnant or not. She fought me, tried to slap me, and refused to let me break her dreams. I gave up and she won. She said she refused to allow me to rule her life. Instead, she let him break her and throw her into prison when he was done with her.

Sitting on the bed listening to Cher’s tormented screams, I decided I would die before seeing family history repeat itself. “He doesn’t care a thing about you,” I continued in the most civil tone I knew. “I love you. I love you.”

“Shut up,” she said, sticking her fingers in her ears. I yanked her arms down and forced her to hear me. “He didn’t care anything about your mama, and he won’t care anything about you.” Her arms twisted in my grip.

She gagged and carried on so that I thought for a second she might be having some sort of spell. Like a mental patient. Like Richard.

“I love you. Me—not him. I’m the one who loves and sacrifices for you. It’s me.
Me
.”

“I hate your guts.” A stream of clear liquid ran from her nose. “I hate you!”

Tough love ended right then. I was not prepared for this. She said it as forcefully as I had told her I loved her. Cher would drop me and the sacrifices I made for her over a make-believe daddy. An air castle that had a big crack down the side
of the wall. A crack invisible from where she sat on her puffy cloud.

“Fine.” I dropped her arms and let her cough and gasp for air. “You want to live in a dream world, go right ahead. But I’m telling you, he ain’t like you think.”

I had my hand on the knob of her bedroom door when she screamed for the last time that afternoon. “You’ll see when I’m living with my daddy in his brick house. And you’re here in this dumpy place!”

Like daggers landing in the flank of a bull, the anger overwhelmed my hurt. I turned and stormed the eight steps to the end of her bed, and she jumped with a scream. I snatched the zipper of her pillow and pulled out the little photo of her dream world, the biological parents she was too young to clearly remember.

“This is what you think life with him is?”

“How…How did you?” She stood at the end of the bed, hair matted on her face by the tears.

“Well, honey, you got another think coming. This is your dream, and this is reality.” I tore the wallet-size photo faster than any store-bought shredder. I kept the pieces tightly in my grip, knowing if she could she would glue the memory back together. As soon as I cleared the way, she slammed the door as hard as she could. Walking past the door to the garbage can, I could hear her muffled cries over the baritone-voiced radio announcer.
“Mostly sunny skies today with a high reaching eighty-six. Just a gorgeous May day here in the Wiregrass area.”

The smell of butter melting in a frying pan filled the trailer the next morning. After a sleepless night, I decided to offer an olive branch. But I knew it would take more than French toast to cover up the lashes we gave each other with our
tongues. At three I got up and eased into her bedroom door to make sure she was still there. Cher was curled in a fetal position, fully clothed; her red blanket was tossed to the end of the floor.
If only she could stay so peaceful,
I thought and laid the red blanket across her bare feet.

I had already called and told Sammy I would not be at work. “Under the weather” is how I explained it, but in reality I was sick with fright. She barely mumbled when I greeted her with “Good morning.”

“I made you some French toast.”

She stumbled in her wrinkled blue jeans to the kitchen table and drowned the brown bread with maple syrup. I sat down with my cup of coffee and tried to offer another branch.

“Listen, last night…”

“Am I going with you to Miss Claudia’s today?” She looked me dead in the eye like we were negotiating a contract. Then when she licked a stream of syrup off the side of the plastic bottle, I was reminded that she was not the adult in this situation.

Cher’s punishment for impersonating someone she was not amounted to cleaning all of Miss Claudia’s windows and painting the wicker swing on the side porch and the flower boxes. She would also wash Miss Claudia’s and Richard’s cars, her usual job. But this time I refused to let them pay her, even for the car washes.

“Erma Lee, don’t be too hard on the girl.” Richard stood at the kitchen door, sipping his coffee.

With Miss Claudia I would take advice. From him I dismissed it the moment he parted his lips. “Need more coffee, Richard, before I throw this pot out?”

Cher even had her lunch outside under the oak tree, the same seat where Sam, the yard man, ate his lunch the two
days a week he worked at Elm Drive. “Bless her heart,” Miss Claudia mumbled while poking a fork at a breast of fried chicken. She took a bite of the crispy meat and turned to look at Cher from her kitchen window. But I was unmoved. Mama was right about some things, I decided. I had spoiled Cher and was now reaping the consequences. I said little to Miss Claudia and Richard that day. I wanted to be the hired help. I wanted to come and go as I pleased without them interfering in my life.