Anywhere But Here (11 page)

I had homework for the next day. We turned off our old road and onto the highway, we drove by barns and silos, we passed a high blinking radio antenna in a deserted field. Then I remembered that my science book, which I needed, was in my locker at school. That made me exhausted. I couldn’t possibly finish.

“I have a Super in and a Kotex and it’s still going right through. I can feel it. Yech.” She made a gagging face. “You’ll never believe what that man did. I still can’t believe it. Open the glove compartment, Honey.”

When I didn’t, she reached over and opened it herself. “There. Look at those bills. Those are all our bills, Annie,
un-PAID
. You need clothes, I need clothes, I don’t have anything, I go to work
in that old junk, in rags, five, ten, fifteen years out of date. I should really go to work looking a little nice, too. But this man, with my money, with our money, goes out and buys himself a new car. Yeah, uh-huh, you can imagine, Annie? He thinks he needs a new used Cadillac. The old one wasn’t good enough.”

“Could you please be quiet?”

“I’ll say what I want in my car,” she said. “Don’t get fresh with me now, Ann, because I can’t take it from you, too. And you should know a little about these things.”

She jerked the steering wheel and the car bumped over a curb, turning.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re driving past the Lorelei.”

The Lorelei was the restaurant near the ice skating rink where the three of us used to go on Sundays for prime rib. They were supposed to have the best prime rib in Bay City, thick and tender. Now Ted ate there without us, after night skating. We drove slowly into the gravel parking lot. Across the road was the pale green dome of the arena,
BAY CITY
painted in large black letters.

“There’s his car,” I pointed. Ted’s maroon and white Cadillac was in its usual spot.

My mother pulled behind it and turned the motor off. She walked out and peered in at his dashboard. “There he is. That man. Oooh, when I think of it. The dirty devil.”

“How do you know he bought a new car?”

“How do I know, they called me, that’s how I know. Van Boxtel Cadillac called and said, Well, you must know about the gold Cadillac, it’s all set, ready to go. I laughed and said, No, I didn’t know a thing about any car. But then I drove out and saw it there on the lot. A gold Cadillac, barely used. A ’65.”

I still didn’t say anything. My mother started up the engine again and tried harder.

“Do you know what this means, Honey? This means no money for us. No clothes, no toys, no nothing. This is it. He’s spent all your money, what should have been for your lessons and your clothes.”

“So, why don’t you go in and talk to him if you’re so upset.”

That seemed to subdue her. “No, that wouldn’t be a good idea.” She shook her head, turning the ignition. “He’s in there drinking with his friends, he wouldn’t say anything in front of them. I know this man. This man is a creature of habit. I’m just going to go home and go to bed. And you, too. Don’t say a word about any of this, do you hear me? Not a word, young lady. See, I’m not going to tell him they called, so he won’t know I know. We’ll just wait and see how he tells me, we’ll just see how he tries. Now do you understand? Not one word. Because that could spoil everything.
Every
thing.

“Let’s set the alarm for five and get up then. Come on, Pooh, we’ll be fresher in the morning. Our minds will think faster.”

We were never done with our work, it seemed, all those years with Ted.

We fell asleep, alone in the house. But I didn’t sleep good sleep anymore, the way I had when I was younger, at my grandmother’s. Now, I had cowering sleep. I snuck under the covers, exhausted, stealing time and comfort I didn’t deserve.

It was the fourth or fifth time that winter I’d lost my key. My mother was furious when she drove her car up the driveway and saw me, sitting on the porch. She slammed her door and marched out.

“Your lights,” I said.

“Damn.” She almost fell, she turned around so fast. “You’re ten years old, Ann, you ought to be able to keep one key.”

She opened the door and let us in. I stood in the front hall, stamping my feet. My mother set the thermostat up. My hands had swelled and turned red.

“Somebody’s going to break in one of these days with your lost keys and then you know where we’ll be. In the poorhouse.”

“There is no poorhouse in Bay City.”

She sighed. “I’m going to have to string it around your neck. And how would you like that, for all your kids to see?”

“Go ahead.” I started for my bedroom, then turned around. “What happened with the Cadillac?”

She sighed again. “I don’t know. I just don’t know yet.”

When I first saw the ’65 Cadillac, snow was blowing in tiny balls across the gold roof. The Cadillac sat like a huge painted egg on our driveway. There was one streetlamp in front of our yard and as I walked up the road, I could see the glass and chrome glitter. I went up close. It had molded fins and I walked the length of the car, running my hands on the sides, brushing down snow. I pulled off my mitten. Through the windows, the inside looked safe and closed and tended like a home. I lifted up the chrome door handle and it gave with a soft click. Ted never locked things. His office in the arena, his cars; in summer he left our back door wide open. Inside, it smelled rich. I didn’t sit down because my clothes were wet and my boots were muddy with slush. The car had thick tan carpets and no plastic mats. I reached over and opened the glove compartment. It was there, what I was looking for and afraid to see: Ted’s glasses, folded together in the beaded case that said
LAS VEGAS IS FOR LOVERS
. The car was his, definitely. I closed the glove compartment and then I shut the door, lifting the handle so it would fall quietly.

I was afraid to go in the house. I would have stayed in the car, but I didn’t want my wetness to ruin the leather. I did what I did all summer. I went around the garage to the side of the house and listened against the wall. In summer, if I heard fighting, I wouldn’t go inside.

I had my own key, another copy, stuffed with the string down my pocket, and I let myself in. No one called when the door slammed and I stamped my boots in the front hall. The kitchen was dark and the counters were dry and perfectly clean. I opened the refrigerator. There were only jars of things and one head of lettuce in a plastic bag. I guessed we were going out for dinner.

“I’m home,” I said and then I heard something in my bedroom at the back of the house. It was dark in there, it took my eyes a second to adjust.

“I AM your little lotus blossom.” My mother was banked on my bedspread, talking baby talk, with a light mohair blanket thrown over her. “Won’t you get your lit-tle lotus blossom a glass of wa-wa?”
She still hadn’t seen me.

“Get up, Mom, it’s suppertime.” I switched on the overhead light. Ted was sitting on my bed next to her as if something was wrong. All of a sudden, I thought she was sick. Perhaps this was what happened when people were dying. She still didn’t notice me. She smiled up at Ted, her face swaying. “Wa-wa for the little lotus flowa.”

Ted turned to me. “Your mother is drunk,” he said, smiling his zipper smile. “She’s had too much to drink.”

“I am not drunk!” she screamed as Ted stood up to go to the kitchen, to get her a glass of water.

“You’re disgusting,” I said, looking straight down at her. Then I took dry clothes into the bathroom and locked the door.

Later, Ted knocked and asked if I wanted McDonald’s. I said no, I was going to take a bath.

I packed a blanket and pillow in a brown paper grocery bag and put on my boots and coat over pajamas. I stuffed my robe in the bag, too. It was nine o’clock and our whole house was dark and asleep. I slipped out the front door and walked towards the Cadillac. There was a new lawn of snow on the ground. I knew my mother’s car in the garage would be safer, but it was old and the seats were vinyl and one of the windows wouldn’t go all the way up. Besides, the doors would be locked.

I wanted the Cadillac. I sat on the front seat and let my legs dangle outside while I pulled off my boots. I laid my robe and then the blanket and pillow on the backseat and I wrapped the boots in the thick brown paper bag. Then I crawled low so no one could see me and pushed the locks down into the doors.

I felt safe there with the snow falling in one bank on the slanted back windshield. The leather warmed under me. The streetlamp lit the snow. I closed my eyes and thought about driving all night on a dark road, the car moving smoothly, my mother and father sitting in front, my mother’s arm falling down over the seat on my stomach, patting my hands under the blanket, telling me to Don’t worry, go to sleep, it’s still a long ways away. They would wake me up when we came to California, before, so I could see us crossing over, riding in.

Then I jerked the way I sometimes do and it feels like my heart should stop but doesn’t. The streetlight was glaring and now it was hot in the car. It was still night. I took off my pajamas and sat, naked, in the driver’s seat, with my hands on the wheel, making it swivel. I slid down to reach, but I was afraid to touch the pedals with my feet. I thought I might make the car go. I could feel the leather sticking to the moisture of my skin. I wondered if my body would leave a stain. I moved my thighs and my arms as if I were making an angel in the snow. That way my print wouldn’t be recognized. I would seem to be someone larger.

Then I heard a noise. There’s a difference with the things you imagine, that make you jerk in your sleep, and the things you know are real. I crowded down in the footspace and put my pajamas on again. I took my boots out of the paper bag and pulled them on my bare legs. They were heavy rubber boots, much wider than my legs. When I sat up, I saw it was the snowplow, dragging chains, coming down our street, mowing the banks like hedges on either side, blocking all the driveways.

I ran back in the house and to my room. The alarm clock was still ticking, too early to ring. My mom and Ted’s door was closed and I could hear them inside, breathing. No one knew I had been gone. I couldn’t fall asleep again, so I dressed for school. I sat on the kitchen floor against the refrigerator and worked on my homework. I noticed the kitchen windows coming light and I was still working. It seemed like I had endless hours. I worked out all my math problems and copied them over on a new sheet of paper, the numbers neat like houses on blue lines. I read my reading, called “The Sound of Summer Running,” about a boy who didn’t have money for new sneakers. Finally, I was finished. I stacked my books up in a neat pyramid and sharpened all the pencils in my case.

For the first time I could remember, I was ready to go to school. All of a sudden, I was starving. I pulled up my knee socks and went to the sink. Ted had remembered to defrost. There was a two-pound package of ground sirloin in the sink, the blood running in jagged lines down the white porcelain.

While I was spreading the meat, my mother walked in, wearing
black tights with a hole in one toe and a tartan plaid skirt, looking at her side, tying the matching sash. Ted walked out behind her, all dressed, saying Good morning, Ann, and nodding as he buttoned up his coat. He didn’t eat breakfast with us anymore. He drove to the Lorelei and ordered eggs.

We stood at the window over the sink, watched him stamp to the garage and come out with the shovel.

“Look at the size of those icicles,” she whispered. “It’s like a wonderland. I’d like to chop off a few and keep them in the freezer.” We both watched Ted shovel the driveway. He waved when he trudged up and leaned the shovel against the garage. We could see him through the windshield, unfolding his sunglasses and putting them on. He backed the Cadillac out slowly and as panels of snow fell off, it looked like something huge, coming up from underwater.

“It really is a beaut.”

I was eating my steak tartare standing up. “So I guess you’re not mad about the car anymore.” It was still early, but I wanted to be at school before the bell rang for once.

“Oh, Ann, I was all wrong about that. We were wrong about him, we really were. You know what he was going to do—he was going to drive it home and say, Here, Adele, Happy Anniversary.”

I sat against the wall, to pull on my boots.

“Really, Ann, we should be ashamed of ourselves. He really only meant the best. We spoiled his surprise.”

I heard my mother in the living room click the radio on. Then she came galloping into the hall, saying, “Snow day, put your books away, school’s out, snow day! Go out for me once and just hit those icicles with the shovel. We can take them out in summer, on a tray, with fruit around, wouldn’t
that
be a centerpiece?”

“You’re so
tan
, Ron,” my mother was saying. Ron Hanson was Ted’s friend from Holiday on Ice. His hair was bleached blond, with tinges of green, he laughed from his waist, placing one arm over his stomach as he bent down, and he had effeminate hands with long, spoon-shaped fingers. My mother talked about him endlessly with Lolly. But Ted was a reserved man with few
friends. The three years we lived in the house on Carriage Court, we saw Ron every winter Holiday on Ice came through Bay City. This time, they were in from California and so Ron was staying in our back ironing room.