All Over Creation (22 page)

Ever since their conversation about the NuLifes, Cass and Will were making love on schedule again. In the past this had been somewhat of a chore, as the regimen took some of the spontaneity out of it, but this time felt different. Maybe it was just having Yummy next door, but everything felt a little sexier and more alive.

Cass and Will spent the winter months catching up on the paperwork and bookkeeping. This year Will was trying to master the GPS software, and it was driving him crazy. He'd sit at the computer swearing at it, trying to input data and generate readouts and maps. He hated being indoors, and it seemed like the desk work had doubled since they'd installed the satellite system. It had seemed like a good idea. The geographical information about field conditions provided by the GPS promised to allow them pinpoint accuracy in applying fertilizers and other chemical inputs, and the resulting cost reduction in pesticides and herbicides would pay for the system, but precision farming was new, and they had yet to see any savings. Still, there was the health and safety factor. Will was never one to begrudge expense when it came to safety. He wanted the reassurance of knowing he was doing everything possible.

With Will fuming in the office, Cass took to spending part of each day helping out over at the Fullers'. Yummy was also at her wits' end. She was trying to get the house ready for Lloyd, consulting with a social worker to have railings and fixtures installed in the bathroom, along with hand grips and carpets and nonskid surfaces. The old plumbing was failing, so Cass said to go ahead and have that repaired as well. Since she and Will technically owned the house, she felt she ought to participate in the structural decisions. Yummy seemed pleased that she wanted to get involved.

Workmen traipsed in and out. Momoko wandered from room to room, confused, getting in the way. Yummy had enrolled the older kids in school, but there was still Poo to look after, and when Phoenix and Ocean got home, they demanded her attention. Phoenix was already having problems. He was smaller and scrawnier than the Liberty Falls kids, who picked on him for being Asian and for having a weird name. A week after the semester began, Yummy got a call from the principal's office. Her son had broken a classmate's nose with a karate kick.

“It wasn't
karate,
” he told them when they picked him up. “It was Thai boxing.”

Yummy narrowed her eyes. “In Hawaii it makes a big difference,” she said to Cass. “We differentiate between ethnocultural
styles
of breaking noses.”

Yummy was worried about losing her jobs. She had found substitute teachers to take over her classes, but she was trying to run her real estate business by telephone, making long-distance calls to Pahoa at all hours of the day.

“For Christ's sake, Barney,” she yelled into the phone, “I only got into this because you said you would help out, remember? You're supposed to be showing lots, not surfing!” She slammed the phone down and saw Cass watching. “Sorry,” she said, combing her hair back from her temples. “It's Poo's dad. He makes me crazy, totally
lolo.
We sort of broke up, but we still work together on this real estate thing. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He's a ukulele player when he feels like it, and I really needed to cut back on the teaching.”

His name was Barney Kekuku Parker. When the phone rang again, Yummy glared at it. “If it's him, tell him to go fuck himself.”

Cass picked up the phone. His voice was tropical, sweet and thick. He started talking before she could even say hello. “Baby, lissen up,” he crooned. “I'm takin' care of t'ings, so you settle your daddy nice, den you bring your sweet leilani pure-passion ass back home to me, wahine.”

It sounded like music, but she could barely understand what he was saying. “Uh, this is Cass Quinn speaking. I'm Yummy's next-door neighbor—”

“Hey, Cass!” His voice sounded more normal now, less like a song. “Thought you was Yummy. Howzit going?”

“Fine. Everything's just fine.”

“How's my Poopoo? Yummy says you've been taking good care of him.”

“Poo? He's a wonderful baby.”

“You said it. He's laid back—takes after me. Now, you make sure he doesn't get all uptight and haolefied out there in potato country!” He laughed a huge laugh that filled the phone lines from Pocatello straight across the Pacific. “Just kidding. Tell Phoenix the waves are bad. And tell Yummy to chill.”

Cass hung up the phone. “That was your daddy,” she told Poo. He waved his spoon at her. She tried to imagine what Barney Kekuku Parker looked like. “He said you should chill,” she told Yummy, who groaned. “What does howlified mean?”

“Is that what he said?
Haole
means ‘white person.' He's afraid your honky influence will rub off on his son.”

“Honky?”

“Jeez, Cass! You're kidding, right? Where have you been?”

“Here. In Liberty Falls.”

A few days later Cass offered to take Poo out for a couple of hours, to give Yummy some time to herself before the older kids got home. Cass suggested it casually, like it didn't matter to her one way or the other. And it
didn't
matter. Not at first. She was just trying to be helpful. But Yummy seemed so grateful. She packed up extra diapers and a bottle and a change of clothes, handed Cass the bag, and dumped Poo into her arms. He chewed on the edge of his mitten and contemplated the two women.

“You really want to do this?” Yummy asked.

“Sure,” Cass said. “If it would help.”

“Oh, Cassie! Would it ever. . . .”

Soon it became a regular thing. Back at home Cass would spread out a big blue blanket on the living room floor and place Poo in the center of it, and then she would sit down and play with him for hours. He was a fat, placid baby, who still hadn't quite mastered the trick of walking unassisted, although he was learning to push himself to his feet. He'd start on his belly and lift his bottom up into the air, then sneak one pudgy foot, then the other, around to where they would support his weight. Then he'd push off with his strong little arms and come to an upright position. He'd stand there and wobble for a while, and Cass always held her breath, hoping that he'd walk for her first. But just as he'd start to take that step, he'd lose his balance and topple, coming down hard on his diapered behind. He looked so disgruntled she had to laugh, and that would make him laugh, too. Assisted, he could dangle from her fingers and cruise around as though he were really walking, and he liked that, but he seemed equally content to sit in the middle of his blanket and play patty-cake, or roll a ball to Cass, or bang a spoon on the bottom of a pot.

When he got tired out, she liked to lie down on the floor next to him, resting her head on her arm so that her face was on level with his. He'd look at her with his black eyes and reach out to touch her nose or put his fingers in her mouth so she could nibble them. She started calling him “little bear,” because that was what he looked like.

Sometimes she'd take him shopping in Pocatello, put him in the shopping cart and push him around the aisles at Wal-Mart or ShopKo, watching the mothers cast sideways glances at his curly black hair and chocolate skin. If he fussed, which he rarely did, she'd carry him on her hip, holding him to her cheek or sitting him down by the cash register while she wrote out her check. The cashiers watched as he clenched her blond hair in his dark fingers.

That's what they wanted to ask, but mainly they didn't dare. Most people thought he was from the reservation, and Cass noticed that when she had him along, some people treated her differently, too. It wasn't so much what they did but rather what they didn't do. She grew to recognize the slight hesitation before they spoke to her and the glance, back and forth, between his face and hers. But Poo would stare at them, eyes steady and old seeming, until they glanced away.

When she had him along, the world looked different, and she liked the way she saw things she'd never noticed before. Some were just little things—the way bright candies were displayed down low, close to the ground, on eye level with a baby in a stroller, or the way that certain pebbles, or clods of dirt, or clumps of grass might look delicious to a baby, who was learning to taste the world. But she noticed other things, too—the way she herself felt acutely visible with the baby in her arms, and the way some people's faces lit up when they saw a child. His warm weight was like living ballast, thrumming with energy, giving her substance. Folks were drawn to that.

Cass thought about this afterward, lying on the bed during Poo's nap. She had turned up the space heater, and the baby, dressed only in a fresh diaper, lay warm and heavy against her chest. When she had him along, she could tell a lot about people. She could recognize the mothers immediately from their knowing smiles, and she was surprised at the bond she felt with them. She could tell the women who didn't have children, too, the ones who looked longingly at the softness of Poo's cheeks, imagining what it would be like to finger his supple spine or to feel his little paws grip her sweater, like he was doing now, in his sleep. These women scared her, and she turned from them quickly, as though what they did not have was catching.

It was hot in the bedroom. Gently she tipped Poo over onto Will's place in the bed next to her and took off her sweater. She paused, then took off her shirt, too. She gathered the baby up again and rolled onto her back, holding him securely against her.

“Hey, little bear,” she whispered.

He smacked his lips and wiggled his fingers, but soon his long eyelashes were still against his cheek, and his sleep was sound and deep. She could feel his rapid heart beating against hers. She felt his breath tickle her skin. Secretly she believed that his infant proximity, his naked belly pressing against hers, might increase her chances of conceiving. She would never tell Will this—it was a superstition, and she knew it was silly—but it couldn't hurt to hope either.

 

 

A short while later, when Will came in for a cup of coffee, he saw the baby's blanket spread out like a small sea on the living room floor and the baby's toys scattered around it like boats. In the kitchen a few rubbery cubes of carrot littered the sink.

“Cass!” he called, but she didn't answer, so he followed the trail of infant gear up the stairs and into their bedroom. There he found his wife, sound asleep in the middle of their bed, with Yummy's diapered baby lying, bottom up and belly down, on top of her. It was hot in the room. The baby's little brown body almost hid the scars that ran across his wife's pale chest.

Will watched for a while, then walked to the bathroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. He lowered himself on the edge of the bathtub and stared at the faded pink bath mat, waiting for the tears to come. When he finished, he wiped his face with a towel and smoothed back his hair, redoing the rubber band on his ponytail. Then he went downstairs to make a fresh pot of coffee, thinking how Cass would surely like a cup when she woke up.

One problem with having children is this: You can easily miss the moment when some twist of your fate unfolds. I was doubled over the back of the car seat with my butt in the air, looking for a teething ring, which Poo had thrown to the floor and was now vociferously demanding, when the black-and-white cow approached the Pontiac.

“For God's sake, Poo! Hang on to the damn thing, will you? Now, wait here.”

When I turned around, the cow had her big black nose pressed up against the driver's-side window.

“Hello,” it said in a masculine voice, knocking on the glass with a front hoof. “Hello . . . ?”

“Aaaaagh!”
I screamed, which in itself surprised me. I am not usually a screamer.

“Sorry,” said the cow. “I didn't mean to scare you.”

“Oh, jeez!” My heart was pounding. “What the fuck?”

At the sight of the cow, Poo started to clap his hands and bounce up and down. The cow cleared its throat, and the deep voice climbed a precarious octave toward something approximately female. “My name's Daisy the Dairy Cow, and I'm here to tell you some very interesting facts about the milk your children drink. . . .”

I opened the door hard into Daisy's round stomach.

“Listen, Cow. That's just great, but I'm late picking up my kids, and I have to get my father out of the hospital.” Daisy didn't budge, so I tried glaring. The threadbare beast had three goofy flowers growing like sparse hairs out of its large head. I gave up. It was hopeless. “Why am I telling you this? You're a cow. Could you get out of my way please?”

Daisy's voice returned to its normal male pitch. “Sure. But here . . .” He dug around in a woven basket that hung on his foreleg. The basket was filled with crumpled paper flowers and a sheaf of flyers. “Just take this home and read it and if you have any questions, there's an 800 number at the bottom.” He handed me a flyer with his hoof. I took it and dropped it on the seat of the car.