All We Had (18 page)

“The summer, Ruthie, that's all I'm asking, so I can catch my
breath. And after that, if it doesn't work out, we'll move back.”

A breeze kicked up. The leaves on the trees fluttered and a netting of light flickered across the road. A flock of birds cut across the sky and drew a curtain on the sun.

“I promise,” she said.

When I thought about hell, I thought about life without my mother. She was all I ever really had. I tried to picture who I'd be without her and the only image that came to mind was of a ghost.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Farewell

R
elax and drop your shoulders,” Peter Pam said to me. We were sitting cross-legged on a pair of oversize pillows on the floor in her apartment.

Peter Pam's apartment was like a womb. Maroon Indian-print fabric was stapled to the walls. Plumes of it bloomed off the ceiling.

Life was crashing down on me and there was nothing I could do but watch it happen. I'd given up on our house. I now balled my trash up and chucked it on the floor. Sometimes I'd pick it up just for the satisfaction of throwing it down again. Once, on my way to the kitchen table I dropped a bowl of cereal and instead of cleaning it up, I took my foot and ground each bit of it into the linoleum. It had taken me months and months to get our house fixed up and—
snap
!
—just like that, it was trash again.

“Now close your eyes,” Peter Pam said, “and think about nothing.”

What was nothing? What did it look like and how did it smell? My mind was prone to wander, asking unanswerable
questions until I wanted to shoot myself, but the sound of Peter Pam's voice calmed me.

“See yourself standing at the top of a mountain. The sky is all around you. A breeze grazes your cheek.”

I began to see the place clearly. I was in the Alps somewhere. I looked around me. A smattering of wildflowers bloomed in between patches of melting snow.

“You take in a full breath of crystal-clear air. Your heart rate drops.”

I saw myself from above standing at the highest place on earth. I widened my stance, opened my arms, arched back, and looked up as if to say to God,
Here I am. I am right here.

Something touched my cheek and eased me back into the room. Peter Pam slowly filled my vision. She was shaking me. “Rooster,” she said. Rooster was the nickname she used for me in urgent situations.

“Rooster!”
Snap snap!
Her two fingers appeared in front of my face as I came to.

“Oh, thank the Lord.” She patted her chest. “What happened to you?”

“I don't know,” I said. “It was weird.”

“You had this look on your face like you were never coming back. It scared me.” She pulled me into her. The stuffing in her bra crackled. Then suddenly she pushed me back. “You weren't messing with me, were you?” She lowered her eyes, cocked her head, and studied me.

“No,” I said. “I don't know what happened but it felt as if I slipped through time.”

“Wow.” Her face softened. She let go of my shoulders, sat back against the wall, and settled me in her arms again.

“What was it like?” she asked after a while.

“It was beautiful.”

She scrunched us closer together.

A long soothing silence swaddled us. Dave jumped up, circled Peter Pam's lap, and made himself a bed. Peter Pam caressed him with long, wistful, head-to-tail strokes.

“You know what I think?” she finally said. “I think the meaning of life is this.”

“What?”

“This.” She raised her hand and drew the universe with her finger. Then she pointed back and forth from me to her to Dave. “This,” she said again.

I sighed and smiled at her. I closed my eyes and rested there. Dave began to purr.

If I never made another friend, I wouldn't care.

“You'll be all right.” She tilted my head back and kissed my forehead. “I know you will.”

We left Fat River on a Sunday morning in June 2008. By then our electricity had been cut off and an eviction notice had been taped to our door.

Early that morning before the restaurant opened, Arlene threw a party. It was a sad little gathering that wasn't much fun. To begin with, Tiny's petty cash was almost gone so Arlene had to get a discounted day-old cake. It said “HAPPY 90th LARRY!” on it. According to Arlene, the cake was half off because the girl behind the counter told her that the very moment the baker finished the exclamation mark, Larry croaked. None of us knew
Larry, but we were in mourning anyway. Even Mel—the most even-­tempered person I'd ever met—sat down and joined in our sadness.

My mother wasn't there. She claimed she had too much packing to do, though her stuff had been packed and ready weeks ago. She and Arlene were barely speaking anyway. She was through with Peter Pam and she told herself that Mel was just like every other boss she'd had: a real prick.

When my mother pulled up to get me, she turned the car around so it faced the street. She sat there idling, low in the seat, in an extra-big pair of sunglasses as if she were afraid to be seen.

“Think of it like a summer vacation,” Arlene said, patting my hand.

“And you can always come back,” Mel added.

I slid out of the booth. I knew this episode with Vick would never last. I gave it only weeks before my mother started hating him. But when Arlene and Mel pressed me in a hug between them, the lump in my throat grew so big I couldn't swallow.

Peter Pam and I told ourselves this wasn't good-bye. We would meet again. “I promise you,” she said. My chin began to quiver.

“Now don't you start.” She shook her finger. “You'll get me going.” She dabbed at the corner of her eye with her pinky. “And my mascara will run.”

I opened my mouth to say good-bye.

“Hup, hup.” She pressed her finger to my lips. “Shh, I don't want to hear it. Now give me a hug.” And she gathered me in her arms.

The three of them followed me out. Mel wheeled my bike up to the car. He had given me a bicycle rack, and he helped me
put the bike on it. I got in the car and looked out the window. Under the flashing hot dog sign, like gracefully descending musical notes, they stood in order by height—Arlene, the tallest, Peter Pam, and then Mel. My mother stepped on the gas. They waved good-bye and in the dust that turned up behind us, they vanished.

My mother had spent months convincing herself she was done with Fat River. She'd claimed that when we left, she wouldn't miss a single thing. But I could see by the way she sat in her seat and stared at the road, that this was not entirely true.

I found out that year how her mother died. When I was cleaning out our closet, I discovered a newspaper clipping in an envelope among my mother's stuff.

There was a picture of her at age four, holding a teddy bear. She was wearing sandals and the sweetest little yellow dress I'd ever seen.

This little girl, the article said, was eating toast. Her mother was in her bathrobe, sipping coffee and, I imagined, smiling at her daughter across the kitchen table. Then her ­mother's boyfriend walked in, took out a gun, and shot her in the head. The shot was to the temple and knocked her off her seat. “The victim's daughter,” the clipping read, “was in shock, but unharmed.” The police found my mother quaking, still sitting at the table, staring at the blood splatter on her toast.

I looked over at my mother and saw that little girl. I wondered what happened to her shoes and that dress.

We left Fat River slowly, creeping along the familiar roads back to the highway.

Behind her sunglasses, my mother was crying. I reached across the seat and held her hand.

“Okay,” my mother said, “enough of this.” She wiped her face and sniffled. She tapped me on the thigh. “Now how about some music.” She leaned forward and pushed in our favorite CD. But not even the best of seventies disco had the power to soothe us.

Part Three

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Godforsaken

W
elcome!
an oval sign exclaimed. The aggressively bold capital lettering made me feel the opposite.

Vick lived an hour away from Fat River in a subdivision called Piney Hills, but there was nothing piney or hilly about it. There were no trees and the earth had been flattened out into a smooth blanket of lawn. As we drove in, periscopes of gyrating water rose up from the ground to keep it green. Short fast arcs jetted back and forth, up and down the streets, timed, it seemed, to follow the sun.

My mother slowed to a crawl. “Isn't it nice?” she crooned. Our car was falling apart. It coughed and clanged and a line of smoke trailed behind us, but she sat upright grinning as if she were a diplomat in a Cadillac.

All of a sudden,
boom!
We hit a speed bump and she went flying. She smashed her head on the ceiling and the impact snapped her out of her reverie. “
Fuuuuuck!!”
she yelled. She slammed on the brakes and our pile of junk in the back landed on the floor. “God! Am I bleeding?”

She lowered her head and I parted her hair to examine her scalp.

“Nope.”

She took a minute, twisted the rearview mirror, and brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. She turned her face and wiped something invisible from her cheek. Resuming her position in the seat, she cleared her throat and pulled forward.

The speed bump tore a hole in our muffler, but my mother didn't seem to notice.

“Look,” she said, “there's a person!” A woman stood in front of her house. Her bright yellow dress clashed against the green of her lawn, flattening her shape and leaving a flaring at her edges as if someone had plugged her in.

“Wave,” my mother said, and honked the horn. “Look!” She gawked out the window. “She's waving back.”

But the woman wasn't waving. She was shielding her eyes, squinting into the sun.

“See how friendly people are around here?” My mother plumped herself up in the seat and picked up her cup of Diet Coke. With a long, loud, slurp she sucked the last sip through her straw, rattled the cup to confirm it was empty, then reached her hand out and dropped it on the street. I turned and looked behind me.

The woman covered her mouth and watched the cup tumble. It slid to a stop in a perfect landing, kick-standing on its straw. And just before we pulled around the corner, a crow swooped down on it as if he'd been waiting all his life for trash like us to litter.

The entrance to Vick's driveway was flanked by pillars with stone squirrels perched on top. They clutched their acorns and eyed us as if we were thieves. His stucco McMansion shimmered on an expanse of lawn. It was totally gaudy, but my mother gazed up at it transfixed. “I told you it was beautiful.”

We parked in the driveway and walked up a set of curved granite steps to his front door. The doorbell sang a tune with an authoritative tone that I really didn't care for, but the lyrics were brilliant:
ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong,
it chimed, perfectly identifying the homeowner.

Vick was almost fifty. His hair was slicked back into panels of glossy black, dipping and peaking like dunes. With his veneer of white teeth he reminded me of someone, but I wasn't able to put my finger on who it was. That day, when his oversize door slowly pulled open and the sticky heat outside collided with his central air, it was as if Vick emerged through dry ice. And I realized,
Oh my God! It's Liberace!

I couldn't help myself. I bent over and chuckled into my hand.

Vick was just the kind of guy my mother used to laugh at. But this time she found nothing funny. She took her purse and swatted me. From her perspective, she'd hooked a big rich one and I had no appreciation for what she'd done.

He stood waiting,
one hand on the doorknob, the other holding up a martini. “Come in, come in.” He gestured flamboyantly with his glass.

My mother plastered on a smile. “Don't be rude,” she said through her teeth. She walked by and as if to prove some point, she immediately started making out with him.

I stood in the foyer feeling awkward, looking up at the cathe
dral ceiling. A cut-glass chandelier twinkled in midair as if God had placed it precisely there.

“Ruthie!” Vick shouted, noticing me. It was grating how loud he could be. “I almost didn't recognize you without your baseball cap!” With his hand outstretched, he stepped closer to mess up my hair, but I pulled away from him.

“Gee whiz.” He retreated. “Guess someone got up on the wrong side of the bed again, didn't she?”

It would never last here. Vick was an imbecile and if there was one thing my mother couldn't stand, it was infancy in men.

My mother flared her nostrils and glared at me. To annoy her, I grinned.

Vick went out and retrieved our things—my mother's old suitcase and three garbage bags full of stuff. As if he had no use for our shitty belongings, he dropped them in the foyer, then bellowed, “Let me give you a tour!” He shut the door. The weather stripping swept across the floor and the door sealed behind us. He headed down a hallway and we followed him.

His house smelled like scented candles. New antiques and fake cultural artifacts, the kind of things they make in China and sell at Crate and Barrel, adorned every room. There was an eerie echo in the house and an artificially pleasant light bounced off his objects, as if they were part of a
Desperate Housewives
stage set.

In front of us, Vick blathered on about the construction of the house—how long it took and what things were made of. The floors were oak, the tile in the kitchen was from Italy.

Every surface was accessorized with a pitcher or ceramic bowl. A giant rug hung down the wall of his staircase. “Blind orphans made this in Africa,” my mother breathed, gently running her
fingers over the surface of it. “Lynette bought it at Blooming­dale's.” My mother raised her eyebrows as if this were actually the most interesting thing about it.

Stuff that people normally used—teacups and plates and pitchers—were imprisoned in china cabinets or sitting on shelves. The candles in the candelabra at the center of the dining-room table had never seen a flame.

“Don't touch that!” my mother warned when she glanced back and saw me pick up an apple from a bowl of wooden fruit. “It's decorative.” This concept confused me. What was the purpose of having so much stuff if you weren't going to use it?

I followed my mother down another hallway. She paused a moment to graze her finger on the marble table along the wall. She contemplated the centerpiece—a boat-shaped bowl filled with black marbles—with an idiotic rapturous look on her face that annoyed me.

“Move it,” I said, shoving her.

Vick finally led us to his living room.

“I just love this room.” Shielding her mouth with her hand, my mother moved closer and whispered to me, “He reserves it for special occasions.” One look around told me he didn't have many.

The furniture, the carpet, the walls, everything in it was white. The off-white crown molding looked bold in comparison. The floor-to-ceiling windows didn't open. Thin sheer drapes framed the windows, limp and motionless.

Two large fake-Japanese twig arrangements flanked a fireplace laid with decorative birch logs. A mirror hung above the mantel and reflected the pretentious artwork on the opposite wall: a light-beige square stenciled on a blank white canvas.
Oh, please!

“Sit, sit. I've put out some cheese and crackers.” Vick handed
my mother a martini. She guided me behind the glass coffee table and sat us both down on the couch.

I'd never understood the ritual of drinks and hors d'oeuvres. What purpose did it serve? But my mother was performing masterfully. Perched on the edge of her seat, she daintily ate her cheese and crackers. She held her martini glass, pinkie extended, like Jackie Onassis would.

In my opinion, she was overdoing it. But Vick seemed completely fooled.

In his plaid shorts and pink oxford shirt, he stood across from us leaning against the mantel on his elbows. His stomach hung over his belt but his legs were like sticks. They made his tasseled loafers without socks seem huge on the ends of his ankles. I took note: I could easily push him over if I had to. He took his toothpick out of his mouth and in his overzealous thunderous tone immediately started bragging about his golf game.

Just this morning, he told us, he'd played his best ever. He then painstakingly recounted every shot, explaining his strategy and describing the trajectory of each one of his balls. With his new 5-iron, he'd hit a perfect approach shot on the ninth hole. He birdied twice. He used words like
back nine
,
bogey
, and
bite
,
short sticks
and
drivers
,
3-woods
and
putters
. It was exhausting to listen to. And even though my mother had no idea what he was talking about, she hung on his every word, shamelessly stroking his ego.

When I was seven, I stabbed a guy in the knee who was choking my mother. When I was eight, we were sleeping in some burnt-out building on a mattress on the floor and when I woke up
face-to-face with a rat, I killed it with my bare hands. I took it by the tail and flung it up against the wall. When it quivered, I smashed it with a book.

But I couldn't stomach this. I looked up at the ceiling and tuned them out.
La-la-la-la
, I sang inside my head and let my mind wander.

Luckily I'd gotten to the point where I could conjure up Hillary Clinton anytime I wanted. It was early June and she'd just lost the nomination. I wondered, was she home in bed recuperating, or was she already at her desk planning her next move? Maybe she was out with Bill. Or maybe she was at the gym working off some steam. I liked the thought of her with Chelsea, the two of them curled up on the couch watching TV together. I saw myself sitting next to them. I leaned in and said something hysterical.

“Ruthie,” my mother said.

Chelsea and Hillary both laughed. “You're so funny!” they howled.

“Ruthie.” My mother knocked me on the shoulder.

She pointed and I realized Vick was standing there handing me a present. He crouched down right in front of me and shook the box slightly. “I think you're really going to like it,” he said. When he winked at me, his smile broadened and filled my view.

I turned away and looked at my mother.

“Take it,” she said, nodding and raising her eyebrows. She had one too. A box wrapped in the same paper sat on her lap. “He got it for you. Isn't that nice?”

Neither of them seemed to get that I wanted nothing to do with him.

“Here,” he said. He set the box gingerly down on my lap and
backed away.

My mother tore her package open first. “Oh my God,” she shrieked, “it's Gucci!” and she jumped to her feet hugging her new bag.

She inhabited this new character of hers so completely, I found myself constantly looking around, searching for the movie lights. I half expected the walls to fall away and a new stage set to glide in. My mother had always hated Gucci, but when I opened my mouth to remind her, she threatened me with a glare.

“I love it.” She stroked and posed it on her hip.

Vick smiled all proud of himself, and when she finished her display, he shifted his toothpick to the side of his mouth, took it out, and looked at me. “Go on,” he said, raising the pick in my direction, “open yours.”

So I did. The box, like my mother's, was from Neiman Marcus. I pried the top off and peeled the tissue paper back. What I really needed was a pair of jeans, but as I lifted it out, what unfurled in front of me was a dress.

My face turned red-hot. I dropped it on my lap.

“What's the matter?” he said. “Don't you like it?”