“You think?”
“I think! I know! And gotta go! Love you!”
“Wait a minute, Miss Homeopath! Since Nevil got that fellowship, does this mean you’ll be having the baby in England?”
“I hadn’t thought of that yet. I just found out today! I suppose it does! But as they say in London, ‘No worries, mate.’ I’ve gotta go, Ma, or I’ll be late, later than I am already and Nevil freaks when we have to rush! MaMo loves you, Sage! Bye Grandma Art! Hi to big-headed Daddy! And please don’t forget to share our news with him and the twins! Speaking of which, how are they and have you heard from them lately? They’ve certainly forgotten my number. Anyway, don’t answer right now. Tell me later. I’m outta here!” And she disappears.
Arthurine is now standing by the kitchen door like this is really not news. She has changed her clothes and is wearing yet another one of her favorite getups—those multicolored nylon jogging outfits with the jackets that zip and yet Arthurine, like most of the women who wear these suits, does not jog nor has she ever thought about jogging, especially in this number, which she thinks of as haute couture. I can’t understand the color combinations these things come in, but when I find myself admiring them on the rack at Nordstrom’s one day, I’ll know that I’ve aged even further than I ever imagined. “Well, since you don’t seem to be needing my help, I’m going in my room and read a little bit.”
“What are you reading?”
“A book. You want me to take the baby so you can have a few minutes to move around without bumping into her?”
“No, she’s fine. What kind of book?”
“A good one. Come on, go with Great Gram, baby,” she says, holding her hand out to Sage, who seems to take to anybody who shows her some attention.
“What’s the name of it?”
“I can’t remember right off the top of my head.”
“You left it on the couch over there. Go get it and tell me what the title is.”
“Oh, shucks,” she says, wobbling over and picking it up. Sage follows her. “Well, if you just have to know, it’s called
The Widower’s Folly
.”
“Hold it right there, Arthurine.”
Both she and Sage seem to freeze.
“And what’s it about? Where’d you get it and why are you reading a book about a brash widower?”
“You are one nosey daughter-in-law. Do I try to get all in your business? No, I do not. But if you’re just dying to know, my friend Prezelle bought it for me at the mall today. It’s a story about romance.”
“Who is this Prezelle?”
“He rides on the van that takes us to the mall in the morning. We walk together. He lives in a very nice apartment complex for seniors right down the way on Skyline.”
“Is he some kind of freak or something?”
“Watch your mouth in front of this baby. He ain’t nobody’s freak. He’s a lonely old man and I’m a lonely old woman. He might be coming to visit me one afternoon in the very near future so don’t act surprised when you see us sitting in the living room entertaining each other. Now go on and cook something so we can eat. I’m starving and this baby looks hungry, too. Did Leon say he’d be home in time for dinner?”
“Probably not,” I say.
“These professional men just work work work. How much fun could they be?”
I’m not answering that. While cooking, I don’t wipe the smirk off my face until after reaching for and sprinkling what should be paprika but turns out to be nutmeg all over the pasta! Today must have been Spice Day for Arthurine. One day I’m going to hurt this woman. However, after adding a little half-and-half and a tad more garlic, I discover that nutmeg provided a very nice flavor to an otherwise run-of-the-mill dish, which I will probably add even more of when I make it from scratch.
Little Sage’s body is so warm we both fall asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. I’m holding her hands. Her fingers feel like feathers when they brush against mine. I could’ve put her in the guest room, but she likes cuddling with me and I like cuddling with her. I’m glad I saved most of my kids’ books. Sage loves
Goodnight Moon
. I read it twice and she propped her feet on my thighs and listened with her eyes. I remembered when Sabrina used to do the same thing when I read her this story. In fact, I was having a hard time getting through it, so I decided to try
Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp
, which, thank God, Sage liked enough to laugh each time I scrunched up my nose and made a continuous sniffing noise.
The real smell of something rancid wakes me up. When I feel myself rocking, I realize it’s Leon’s hand on my shoulder, shaking me. “Honey,” he whispers, “wake up for a second and come look out the window. I want to show you something.”
“What?”
“I want to show you something.”
“What’s that horrible smell?”
“I hope it’s not my new cologne,” he says, as he folds back the corner of the duvet, slides his hand behind my shoulder and slowly leads me over to the window as if I’m handicapped.
“Look,” he says, pointing to the driveway where I see what looks like a big fat yellow and black motorcycle. It looks exactly like those Harley-Davidsons I see in motorcades on the freeway, but I must be hallucinating because this is
our
driveway and I’m 90 percent sure that my forty-five-year-old husband, who is afraid of a mouse, would not be caught dead on one of these things nor does he or would he ever wear leather anything and he certainly has not come into our bedroom in the middle of the fucking night to wake me up and show me a motorcycle that he himself has purchased.
“Whose is it?” I ask, for the hell of it, while I wipe the sleep from my eyes.
“Ours,” he says with what at first appears to be a wicked grin, but then I see it’s sheer pride. There’s something different about Leon. I can’t put my finger on it. Like all of a sudden he wants to go to the gym? What’s that about? And since when did he start wearing cologne? I walk back over to the bed in a somnambulant manner and slide under the covers. I hope he doesn’t have anything more to say to me.
“Marilyn?”
“Yes,” I groan. “Keep it down, please, Leon.”
“Sorry,” he whispers. “But what’s your surprise?”
“I’ll tell you about it in the morning.”
“Come on, Marilyn. I showed you mine. Can’t you show me yours?”
“No, I can’t, Leon. It’s not that kind of surprise.”
Chapter 5
W
hy didn’t you call me back, Marilyn?”
“What time is it?”
“Early. Why didn’t you call me back like you said you would? I waited and waited and waited until I just got tired of waiting.”
“I forgot,” I say, realizing that the sun should be out by now but it looks like it might rain. Leon’s side of the bed is empty, I notice. I take the portable and walk out to the landing and look down. I don’t see anybody but I do hear cartoons coming from the family room, which is right next to the kitchen. And then I hear the revving engine of the motorcycle that does not exist. What is he still doing here? He’s usually at work by now.
“What if I was dying or something bad had happened to Lovey?” Joy is saying.
“You said Lovey was doing fine.”
“I said she was losing her mind from one week to the next and sometimes minute by minute, but other than that, she’s healthy as a ox but that ain’t why I…”
“What do you mean, ‘losing her mind’?”
“Just what I said. She ain’t putting two and two together like she used to.”
“Hell, who can? Don’t answer that.”
“She keeps going back in time. Remembering stuff that makes her reminisce. It’s about the only time you can get a smile outta her.”
“Where is Lovey right now?”
“Probably asleep. She sleeps a lot.”
“Well, you didn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary was wrong. All you said was that you were in bad shape, which is pretty much the norm.”
“Norm was my last boyfriend, Miss Smart-Ass, and I would appreciate it if you would not mention his name to me on this particular day, thank you very much.”
“Get an education, would you Joy. And then try getting a job while you’re at it!”
“You know what, Marilyn? Maybe if I’d married into money like you I probably wouldn’t even be making this call.”
“You kill me, Joy. You know good and well Leon was fresh out of college and broke as hell when we got married, so come up with a better one than this.”
“How much money do you make?”
“How much money I make is none of your business. What’s this got to do with anything?”
“Do you have a job, Marilyn?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Doing what?”
“You know where I work and what I do.”
“Refresh my memory. I’m drawing a blank screen.”
“I work part-time at a craft store.”
“Could you survive on your own if you had to, making the kind of chump change I know you make doing this kind of frilly shit?”
“I enjoy doing ‘frilly’ shit and if I downsized and increased my hours, yes, I could make ends meet, but what’s this got to do with you?”
“You just a bored housewife, Marilyn, admit it.”
“I’m not bored and I’m not a housewife anymore.” I’m trying not to sound defensive because I’m lying through my teeth. Everything she’s saying is true but I’ll be damned if I let her know it. The surprising thing is that she’s got more insight than I’ve given her credit for.
“If you ain’t bored, then something is wrong with you. You got a college degree in some off-the-wall mess that you couldn’t or didn’t do shit with and for the next twenty years you act like a black Martha Stewart and then your kids grow up and make a mad dash for college and you act like they still at home. But ain’t no more carpooling so what do you do with nobody to take care of except your mother-in-law? Run out and get some ridiculous little job to kill time that ain’t got nothing to do with why you went to college.”
“I didn’t know you majored in psychology in the two and a half years you spent in high school, Joy, but you’re missing the point here.”
“I don’t think so. You still just as wishy-washy as you always been.”
“And what in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you always do what looks good on paper. And when you do shit and your heart ain’t in it—like Stevie Wonder always said: ‘you suffer’—but you did it anyway. Still doing it.”
“Oh, really. Like what, for example?”
“Hell, how much time you got?”
“Very funny.”
“Okay. If my memory serves me right you got accepted to that Fit School in New York, but Lovey wanted you to stay in California and go to a
good
college, and that’s what you did. But where’d you end up?”
“It was F.I.T., and Cal turned out to be a good choice.”
“Yeah, right. I thought you was supposed to find out what you liked in college.”
“You do.”
“What did you find out you like? Men? Kids?”
“You go to hell, Joy.”
“No, you go first, Marilyn. You already knew before you got there what you liked to do. Anytime you can take an empty pork-’n’-bean can or a cheap-ass trash can or a rusty step ladder and turn it into something pretty, I don’t think you was doing it for no grade. And who took our old dingy sheets and pillowcases, and some of our towels and clothes and dyed ’em a whole different color so they looked like new?”
“It was easy and it made sense, considering Lovey didn’t have any money.”
“You loved doing that kinda shit. You in denial like a motherfucker, Marilyn, and you know it.”
“What do you know about denial?”
“I watch Dr. Phil. Damn near everybody’s in it. Even Tiecey knows what it means.”
I want to laugh. “I’m happy you’re in tune with the lingo of our time.”
“The what?”
“Never mind, Joy. To be honest, I’m working on making some changes in my life. But guess what? You still need a job.”
“I’ve got a job.”
“Since when?”
“Since I’ve been running this household and taking care of kids and our mother. I ain’t jiving about Lovey either. She’s acting loopy and I don’t know if it’s safe to leave my kids in here with her all by theyself.”
“First of all, Joy, Lovey is sixty-seven years old and does not need to be babysitting for your bad-ass kids anyway.”
“My kids ain’t bad. They just high-strung.”
“Don’t even get me started.”
LaTiece, who they call Tiecey, is seven. She is darker than bark and so pretty her face should be on a box of
something.
But she sucks her fingers. And she rocks. When she’s sitting. Back and forth and back and forth. She doesn’t even seem to realize she’s doing it. And Little Lloyd, a.k.a. “LL,” is five and has already experienced firsthand what violence feels like. Last year he beat up two little boys at preschool because he said he wanted to see if he could hit them hard enough to make at least one of them bleed. He didn’t succeed. He cussed out his kindergarten teacher on the first day of school for making him sit outside of the circle after he pinched a little girl. These kids don’t know who their fathers are. I don’t know if Joy does either. But I’m not asking.
“Marilyn, you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here. What’s she doing that’s so peculiar?”
“You want some examples?”
“What did I just ask you?”
“Okay,” she says, and I can hear her sucking on one of those nasty no-name-brand cigarettes. “You know all these plants in here she got?”
“What about them?”
“She’s been watering ’em.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“They ain’t real, Marilyn! Every last one of ’em is plastic, except for one in the kitchen window and that’s ’cause Tiecey grew it from a seed at school. For the past few weeks I been wondering where all this damn water been coming from that’s running down the steps and why the carpet is all squishy in certain spots, and then the other day I caught her doing it.”
“Maybe she was just confused.”
“But these are
her
plants. Not mine.”
“Did you ask her about it?”
“Ask her what? ‘Lovey, are you losing your mind?’ How do you ask your mama some shit like that?”
“I’ll drive out there to see her by the end of the week.”
“Don’t tell her I told you this, please. Her temper is something else and she might just hit me.”
“Get the hell outta here, Joy. Lovey wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
“Then that must make me a tick ’cause she’s already done it!”
I suddenly feel like throwing up for three reasons: 1) The thought of Lovey doing any of these things and with Joy and her kids in the house is quite unsettling; 2) Leon is still gunning that damn motorcycle; and 3) Last night’s meal is stuck in my esophagus. “I’ve gotta go, Joy. I’m feeling sick.”
“Wait a minute! Can you lend me a couple of hundred bucks till I get on my feet, or not?”
“Are your kids hungry?”
“They will be.”
“Go to Western Union in a few hours. If I get down there and it looks like those kids are being neglected on any level, Joy, I swear to God, first, I’m going to kick your ass myself, and then I’m calling Social Services on you. How’s that sound?”
“Thanks M and M. But my kids ain’t want for nothing. You been watching too many episodes of Special Victims’ Unit of
Law & Order
. Three whole hours?”
I drop the phone on the floor and run into the bathroom and barf into the toilet until my ears are ringing and my head feels like it’s expanding then shrinking. As soon as I stand up and walk over to the sink to get this awful taste out of my mouth, here it comes again. This time I don’t make it to the toilet and as I’m crouched over, holding myself up with both elbows on the sink, I feel Leon hovering above me.
“What’s wrong, Marilyn? Are you okay? What did you eat? This looks like it could be food poisoning.”
“I’m okay, now. I hope.” I stand upright.
“Can I get you something?” His fingers are spread out, grazing back and forth across my back like a slow windshield wiper. “What did you eat last night?”
“The shrimp pasta. Didn’t you have some, too?”
“Just a few bites. I wasn’t very hungry when I came in.”
Lying son of a bitch. It was chicken, but I don’t want to add to my nausea, which feels like it’s subsiding. “That’s not what’s making me barf. I’m pregnant.”
The weight of his hand now feels like he’s pushing me away. He must realize it, because it falls off my back and now he’s shoveling both hands inside the pockets of his dark green Dockers. He takes a few steps back and then looks at me like I’m some alien. “Did you just say you’re pregnant, Marilyn?”
“Yes, I did.”
“How in the world did this happen?”
“Well, let me think for a minute.”
“When did you find out?”
“Yesterday.”
“Is
this
your surprise?”
I just nod.
He looks disappointed. But who can blame him? I’m not exactly ecstatic about the idea of going through this again either. “A baby,” he sighs, and sits down on the edge of the bathtub. The skylight is making his skin look olive green, putrid.
Here it comes again. I thought I was finished. What could possibly be left in there? This time, Leon stays put. By the time I start dry heaving, my thoughts get ugly, and I’m hoping that there’s nothing left inside my belly for the seed that will grow into a baby to survive on.
Leon just sits there like he can’t move. Like he wants to but can’t. I understand. I rinse my mouth out with Listerine and then turn to face him. I feel light-headed but this I can handle. “I guess I’ll have it,” I hear myself say.
“Well, why wouldn’t you?” he asks. It sounds more like a statement than a question.
“Can you handle this?” I ask.
“Can you?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“In all honesty, I’m stunned. Do we have any time to think if this is something we really want to do?”
“Leon, the thought of having an abortion at my age is too scary.”
“I know. And I’m not suggesting it. But good Lord, Marilyn, have you thought about what this is going to mean for both of us?”
“It’s spinning around in my head, but maybe you’d like to think about it on your motorcycle?”
He stands up. “Come on, cut me a little slack here, would you? It’s not just
you
having a baby, Marilyn. I’m going to be forty-six in a few months. I’ve just recently started giving serious thought to making some changes in my professional life and…”
“What are you talking about, Leon?”
“I don’t really know. All I know is that this is adding a variable that I hadn’t considered, not to mention being unprepared for. But the thought of starting all over again…I mean we’ve already raised three beautiful children. I thought we were finished.”
“I did, too, Leon.”
“I mean we’ve spent most of our best years being parents, don’t you think?”
“Our
best
years? I hadn’t quite thought of it that way.”
“It’s just that I thought our household load was finally getting lighter. That we’d be able to try some new things. I always thought that this part of our lives would be filled with new experiences and excitement.”
I do not believe my ears. These words are coming out of Mr. Predictable’s mouth? “Such as?”
“Well, my mind is more on the present right this minute so it’s hard to be specific about the future.”
“Just name one new experience and one thing that might excite us both that a child might prevent.”
He’s wracking his brain trying to come up with something. He isn’t good with quick responses when it’s something he worries could be misinterpreted or makes him look bad. He’s always been overly cautious, which is one of the reasons why spontaneity has been such a major issue. “What difference does it make, Marilyn?”
“I’m missing your point?”
“We have a situation here that we have to face. Yesterday I was excited about the idea of riding my Harley, and today I feel like I should’ve probably just stuck with the SUV.”
“Ga’ma,” Sage says, appearing in the doorway, “will you come pray with me?”
She means play. But praying sounds about right.