All We Had (20 page)

That morning she'd gotten up and dressed, seen him off to work, then fully clothed, went back to bed. She'd claimed she wasn't feeling well. But I could tell what was really going on. Her overblown acting job was taxing her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Humankind

I
t was one o'clock in the afternoon at the end of our second week there. My mother had just gotten out of bed. She'd taken a shower and put on fresh clothes.

“Ruthie, come here.” She was peering out the kitchen window. A beat-up old car, the kind they didn't have around here, was chugging down the street. When it came to a stop in front of Vick's, the tailpipe coughed. The driver killed the engine and a blast of charcoal-colored smoke ricocheted off the pavement.

The door creaked open and through the haze, a girl emerged. Her skin was olive, her long black hair pulled back in a loose bun. She closed the door, walked around, unlocked the trunk, and took out a mop.

“Quick,” my mother said, “in here,” and she pulled me into the bathroom off the kitchen.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Shh, shh.” She grabbed my shoulder and raised a finger to her mouth. “Listen,” she whispered. A ring of keys clanged against the front door, then it slowly opened.

“He's got a cleaning lady,” my mother whispered, widening her eyes.

“Oh my God, that's so weird.”

“I know,” she said.

Overnight she and I had gone from living in a one-bedroom house with major plumbing problems and a leaky roof to one that had four bedrooms and a pool. Neither one of us knew how to act here, and the presence of a cleaning lady only made it worse.

“Should we say hi to her?” I asked.

“No,” my mother said. “We're supposed to act like we don't see her. We should sit on the couch, watch TV, and have her clean around us.”

I smirked and shook my head as if to say,
That would never work
.

We did not belong here and the cleaning lady would know it too. We knew—because my mother used to be one—that cleaning ladies can tell all there is to know about a person by the shit they leave around.

“Okay, okay,” she agreed, “so we can't do that.”

“Should we help her?” I asked.

“No,” my mother said. “It's not our job. We're in a totally different class now.”

“Aren't we all just humans?” I asked. But she didn't answer.

“Shh! She's going upstairs,” my mother reported.

We heard the vacuum cleaner thump against the risers until she reached the top. The situation had paralyzed us. We stood there frozen, listening to her every move, until my mother started getting claustrophobic.

The bathroom was tiny. The house had three of them, but
this one seemed like a toy just for show. The quaint pedestal corner sink had a set of hand towels fanned out on its edge. The soap in the dish was pristine and molded like a scallop shell. The toilet had its own cubby, the box of Kleenex on the back was snuggled in a cozy.

The bathroom had no windows and my mother was dying for a smoke but her cigarettes were upstairs so she shoved a fistful of Tic Tacs into her mouth instead. She now used them to cover up her breath because she'd lied and told Vick she didn't smoke. “What the fuck is taking her so long?” she mouthed through them.

A few minutes passed. Upstairs a cell phone rang and the cleaning lady started chatting in Spanish. “Oh, great!” My mother threw her hands up. “Who the hell is that?”

Her nicotine withdrawal was giving her the jitters. She buzzed back and forth like a fly caught between panes of glass.

The cleaning lady now started in the bathroom above us. We heard her bang around. The sink ran and the toilet flushed. She let out a low grunt and her mop fell. The wooden handle bounced twice when it hit the tile floor. She flushed the toilet again and then we heard her moaning.

“Oh my God, she's not alone,” my mother said. “She's having sex up there! That's it, I've had it! Clearly we've got to learn how to treat these people.” And she flung the door open.

I followed behind her as she stomped up the stairs.

The girl looked up when my mother walked in. She was kneeling on the floor with her left shoulder up against the toilet. Her hair fell across her face in oily strings. Her eyes were dark and swollen. She wore a tattered smock of faded green.
Her slip-on Keds had holes in the toes. Her name, we found out later, was Carmella.

“I sorry,” she said in broken English.

When I think about my mother I see things coming loose—strands of hair and little pieces of her life falling out of her purse. But now she towered over Carmella, teeth marks from a comb in her neatly pulled-back hair. Any spunk or personality my mother had was completely obliterated by her outfit. Vick now had her wearing Lynette's clothes. The dress my mother had on was red-checked like a tablecloth and gathered in the back with a white bow. My mother and I had seen one just like it once at Target. She'd pulled it off the rack and held it up for me. “Just shoot me if you ever find me wearing this.”

“I sorry,” Carmella repeated. “Pregnant,” and she cradled her stomach.

“Pfft,” my mother sputtered with her hand on her hip. “That's no excuse,” she said, and pushed past me out the door.

My mother hit a deer once. She plowed right into it on the freeway, then skidded to a stop. The deer's front leg had snapped. The broken bone punctured his skin. Just before my mother cursed and pulled away, he raised his head and looked at me, exactly as Carmella did.
Please don't leave me here like this,
his expression said.

I reached my hand out and helped Carmella up.

“Ruthie!” my mother called.

This was how my mother thought you treated people like Carmella because this was how my mother had been treated herself.

Carmella blinked. Her large brown eyes looked at me in despair. She was not that much older.

“Ruthie!” my mother called again.

I meant to introduce myself, or say, “I'm sorry,” but in that moment I had no idea where I belonged or who I was.

“Ruthie!” my mother yelled again, so I went running.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Perversion

T
here were more presents from Vick. He gave my mother a turquoise pendant and a watch. And then my new bike arrived.

He pulled up to the house after work with it strapped to the back of his car. When he backed up the driveway, he honked. The garage door automatically lifted and he pulled in.

My mother opened the door off the kitchen and there he was, lifting the bike off the car.

“What did I tell you?” he said, glancing over at us. “It's hot off the showroom floor.”

When he got it down, he wheeled it across the garage and up the two steps right into the house.

“Isn't she amazing?” He put the kickstand down, stepped back, and admired it. “Well, what do you think?”

I stared at it, speechless.

“Ruthie.” My mother tugged my arm.

I turned and looked at her. She was standing next to Vick.
His arm was around her shoulder. They beamed at me like happily married parents.

“Do you like it?” my mother asked, pointing out the bike as if I didn't see it.

I missed Fat River. I missed the pile of junk at the bottom of Peter Pam's stairs. I missed Mel and Arlene. I missed the sound of Pancake barking and I'd never forget what Dotty and Hank meant to me. I mourned everything, even the dead squirrel that fell from our ceiling, and I really missed my old bike.

But it was hard to deny how beautiful this new one was. It was sleek and shiny. The iridescent red paint glowed. The spokes gleamed in a flawless spiral pattern. Even the chain was polished. It had ten speeds and the tires were so new, they squeaked when Vick wheeled it across the kitchen floor.

“You like it?” My mother pulled on my arm again.

I looked at her, then back at Vick. His chest was puffed out and he was smiling.

“Aha!” he burst. “You like it.” He pointed at me. “I can tell!” He knocked me on the shoulder as if we were pals. “You see, I'm not so bad. And I'm not done yet! Wait right here. I have something else to give you.” And he hurried off.

He went out to his car and came back in with two shopping bags from Macy's.

“Here,” he said, handing each one of us a bag. “You can wear them tonight at dinner.”

My mother opened hers. “Oh,” she swooned, “it's so sweet!” She stood and held a hideous red dress against herself.

“Oh my God,” she squealed when I pulled out mine. “How cute! They match!”

“You've got to be fucking kidding me,” I said to her. Who was she anyway? She went in and out of character so exhaustingly, it was hard for me to tell.

“Ruthie!” she scolded with an authoritative tone she seemed to have just acquired. “Watch your language.” There was no swearing around Vick. My mother simply would not have it. She'd expunged the word
fuck
from her vocabulary. Without it, an essential part of her—an arm or a leg—seemed missing.

She glared at me, then smiled at him as if to say she was sorry for my behavior.

I let out a groan and bolted upstairs for my room.

“Come on, Ruthie.” My mother ran after me. “So he doesn't have the best taste in clothes.” She reached out and caught me by the wrist. I spun around, pulled away, crossed my arms, and looked up at the ceiling.

“You know, the guy just bought you a brand-new bike. Focus on that! For Chrissake, why can't you just accept that life is full of compromises? And wearing shit you don't want to might just be one of them.”

She was changing already, ripping her old clothes off and getting into her new ones. “Look,” she continued, zipping herself up the side. “Is Gucci my favorite? No. And a year ago, do you think I'd have been caught dead wearing this? No. But I'm trying to make the best of it here. And you're not helping.”

The dress made it hard for me to listen to her. It was a disturbing combination of something a five-year-old and a whore might wear. Except for the severely plunging neckline, it was totally girlish. It had tiny white bows sewn all over it, a billowy pleated skirt, and prissy puff sleeves. It looked ridiculous on her.

“Ruthie,” my mother said, “look at me.” She grabbed my chin. “Don't you see? Things are different now. People are dying out there.”

I looked at her, her eyes ablaze. And I knew in that moment she was right. We had watched CNN. Whole segments of the population were going under. And, we knew all too well, no one would save them when they drowned.

I had heard more news from Peter Pam.

My Dearest Cousin Ruth,

Miss Frankfurt has been forced into early retirement due to budget cuts and Arlene has moved to Pennsylvania. Her rent went up and she couldn't afford it. She now lives with her sister who she hates.

Lovingly,

Lady Pam-o-lot

My chin quivered.

“Don't do it, Ruthie. I mean it. A stiff upper lip is what you need now.” We were like Jews pretending to be German Catholics.

“Here,” my mother said, handing me my dress. “And it wouldn't hurt you to smile. Now pucker up.” She suddenly produced her lipstick. A loud
pop
, the top came off, and the tube headed for me in midair. “A little color will do you good.”

That night my mother served her first pot roast and made a big to-do over it. Vick had ordered a DVD and set up a laptop on the kitchen counter and she'd been taking cooking lessons. Ly
nette apparently made an excellent roast, so he had my mother start with that.

She arranged the meat on the platter just so and instructed me to follow her with a towel draped across my arm as if I were her busboy.

“Are you ready?” my mother called from the kitchen.

“Ready!” Vick called back.

Dear Lady Pam-o-lot,

It is never ending here.

Ta-ta,

Your beloved Cousin Ruth.

P.S. Can you send me more Britishisms? I am running out of them.

“See?” my mother smiled, looking over her shoulder as I trudged behind her. “I could be a chef if I wanted to.” She was trying to make me laugh, but my sense of humor had vanished.

Sorrow flooded me. As I watched the roast slide around on the platter, I thought about the cow and how she must have shuddered just before they slaughtered her.

“Close your eyes!” my mother yelled to Vick.

A dirge played inside my head as I paced around the table and took my seat. “Here it is!” She set the pot roast down in front of him.

“Beautiful!” he thundered and my mother's cheeks bloomed. Then he stabbed the meat and cut it into pieces. He
mmmmed
and chewed and raised his eyebrows at my mother in overdone expressions of enjoyment throughout the meal.

I had to admit, it wasn't every day my mother cooked something that didn't look as if it had been involved in a minor explosion, and I tried, but I just couldn't swallow it.

“You know,” Vick said in between his chewing, “my aunt Agnes used to make an excellent roast.” I rolled my eyes. Here we go again. We had been there less than three weeks and I'd heard way too much about his aunt Agnes already. “Agnes was a saint!” he'd boom in his two-martini voice.

Vick had grown up in Oklahoma. His mother died in childbirth and his father disappeared after that. It made my mother snivel. “He's suffered so much tragedy.”

He was raised by Agnes and he'd go on not only about Agnes but about her ancestors too. They came over on the Mayflower; they worked in the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. They moved west looking for land.

Agnes had been the oldest of ten. When Agnes's mother died, Agnes raised her younger siblings and when she was done with them, she raised him. She never married, she never complained, and she kept canaries, which was why half the shit Vick owned—his bathrobe, his dish towels, his plates and cloth napkins—had little yellow birds on them.

He always delivered his Agnes stories like sermons, but he told this one with extra zeal. He got carried away in her tale of martyrdom and when he told us how she died—“alone in a fire!”—he shuddered. “Can you believe that? Why not peacefully in her sleep?” Horrified, his face twisted up. All of his Agnes stories upset him, but this time he lowered his head and wept.

My mother got up, put her arm around him, and rocked him gently in his seat. Mostly he was just pathetic to me, but that night I felt sorry for him.

“Get him some water,” my mother said, so I did.

When I returned he drank it in one gulp. “Thank you.” He looked up at me. “Both of you.” He snuggled into the crook of my mother's arms. “You mean so much to me.”

Vick was boisterous and overly affable. But he didn't seem to have friends. When he golfed, he didn't have a regular group. He'd sign up at the pro shop and only got called if someone needed a player. When he drove through Piney Hills, he honked and waved at all his neighbors. Sometimes he rolled his window down and shouted corny things like “Beautiful day!” or “Life is looking up!” But nobody invited him to dinner.

One day I looked out and saw him gassing a weed. An orange inflatable ball rolled by him on his lawn. Vick looked across the street. A kid had gotten loose and when Vick saw him standing on his driveway looking longingly at his ball, Vick's eyes lit up. He smiled his widest grin. In his hazmat suit, with his queer walk-run, he cut across the grass and picked the ball up. He was just about to roll it back to the boy when the boy's mother swooped down. She gave Vick a look like she wanted nothing to do with him. She gathered her son, whisked him off, and sealed him back inside again.

That night at the dinner table with my mother by his side, he took my wrist and pulled me closer. With the two of us huddled into him he sniveled. “You are my family now.” He moved his hand up the zipper on my dress and a shiver ran up my spine. The chill went right through me.