Barbie World (Baby Doll Series) (22 page)

“I am not looking for any boys. I came here to find you.” She turns to me, holding a rhinestone tank top to her chest.

“Well, then, what can I do you for?” She turns back to the rack. “If you think I can help you out with any of the silly, girlish, rock star fantasies you might have, you can forget about it. I done lost any contact I might have had a long time ago.”

I take a deep breath and watch Josephine hum and sway to the faint vibration of music coming through the walls. “I am Barbie Starr,” I say to her back.

She stiffens, going still at the sound of my name for a moment before her shoulders relax again. She strolls away from the rack of clothes to the vanity, grabbing a pack of cigarettes off it. She looks me up and down again closely then lights up a cigarette, blowing the smoke into the stale air.

“Well, shit. I always knew my past would catch up to me one day. What do you want? Money?” She laughs shortly. “Well then darlin’, you can keep on walking, I barely make enough singing for my own supper.”

“No.” I shake my head, reaching my hand towards her. The desire to fling myself in her arms is so strong. I want to lean my head against her chest and hear the comfort of the steady beat of her heart. I want to feel her love wash over, cleansing me of my past. I want her to whisper soothing words to me that were never heard as a child.

I want her to say she never meant to leave my mother behind. That she dreams that she had a granddaughter. That she had always wanted a granddaughter.

She looks at my outstretched hand and takes a deep drag off her cigarette. “So, I take it you’re Ashley’s daughter. You look nothing like her.” She drags in the smoke and I drop my hand, feeling defeated. “Look kid, I have to go on in a few moments. It was nice to meet you, best of luck with… yeah… whatever it is you are doing in your life.” With that, she turns her back on me, dismissing me, and walks back over to the vanity. I don’t leave, though. I have come too far to be turned away. I came here for answers and I am going to get them.

“You have two grandsons, too… and another granddaughter, Roe. She belongs to your son, Adam.”

She sighs, drenching her neck in sickly sweet perfume that drifts towards the ceiling, mixing with the cloud of smoke that leers there. She looks up and her hand stills while her eyes lock onto mine. “Is that so? Look, if you came here looking for a grandmother. It is not me.” She goes back to the mirror, replacing the perfume with red lipstick.”

“She is in jail… My mother… Ashley, your daughter,” I blurt out. I feel my time with her spiraling quickly away.

Putting down the tube of lip stick, she turns to me, sighing. “Well, ain’t that a bitch.” There is a long, pregnant pause before she asks me again. “Why did you come here? Because if it is for an apology for running out on your momma or wanting me to play grandma to a bunch of raggedy, snot nose kids, you are looking for the wrong person.” She turns back to the mirror and begins to line her eyes in a heavy charcoal.

I can see my face in hers. The hint of freckles on the bridge of her nose; it is like I am looking into the future at myself. Her long, dark brown hair has two blond strips framing her oval face.

“Why?” I whisper, backing up to the wall for support.

I didn’t really know what to expect, but her words are sharp with her truth and it stings like I have been slapped in the face. Maybe deep down, I always knew she would reject me like she rejected my mother, but that irrational side of me that has come from living with the Knights had begun to stomp out that urge to fight or flee. Maybe it is their stupid family dinners or the way they all seem to sickly love each other that made that fantasy of having a grandmother claw its way up to the forefront of my mind.

Her hand stills as she looks at me through the mirror. “Why what?” Her voice is raspy like smoked one too many cigarettes in her lifetime.

“Why did you leave her?” If she refuses to be the grandmother I need, then she can at least bring closure to my mother. She owes her that.

She sets down the makeup and pivots on her stool to face me. “I was young. I thought I was in love, but he turned out to be one sorry, low life, drunk, son of a bitch. Knocked me up before we got down the aisle of the justice of the peace. Maybe I was running away from my own daddy. He was a fast boy with a slick tongue.”

She pauses and I see a weight that was not there before settle on her shoulders. She shakes her head and laughs to herself. “I tell you what; your momma didn’t make life any easier on me. She was a spitfire with a sassy mouth that you couldn’t smack straight. When I was pregnant with her and her brother, I would see the other ladies around town holding their bright-eyed, round cheeked babies and I thought to myself, Joe, your baby is going to be the most beautiful baby in town. How could she not with her handsome daddy and me being her makers. Well, she came out an ugly, skinny, wailing little thing. I took one look at her and I told the doctor that he brought me the wrong baby.” She laughs and my stomach rolls at the thought. It didn’t matter what my momma did, she was doomed right from the start. She had never been good enough for Josephine.

“The other ladies told me to give her some time that she would come into her looks. Well, that ain’t never happened and before you go judging me, I tried. I stayed as long as I could, but Max, he kept on drinking every night. He would come home a little drunker than the night before. I got real good, covering up those bruises, and one day, while I was covering up a black eye, I looked at myself in the mirror and I was twenty-three with two kids and one was a smart mouth little girl that I never asked for. I was letting my dreams and life pass me by. I was too young. So I made my face up and went down to the local drugstore and got your momma a real pretty doll; one with blue eyes and blond hair. I sat her down and gave her that doll and said, ‘Now, darling, maybe if you wish just hard enough, you will look like this here dolly and then you will find a real nice boy who will love you and take care of you.’ She held onto that doll and didn’t say one word to me as I packed. That was the last time I saw your momma or your uncle. I walked to the bus stop and I left that small life. I was leaving for bigger and better things. I was meant for bigger things. I was never meant to be a mother. I was no good at it,” she finishes and smiles like that explains everything.

In her selfishness, she managed to start a domino effect that has hurt more people than she can even begin to imagine. Maybe the dominos started to fall long before her, from her own mother. I will never know, but I do know that she is a selfish woman who left her daughter with a drunk. She was not strong enough to stop the fall, but maybe I am. I don’t know what to say to her. My mouth opens and shuts, trying to come up with the words I need to tell her.

I need to say that because of her, my mother is an addict. That because of her, my mother searched for love with all the wrong men. That because of her, my mother was too selfish to love me. However, I don’t; I can’t. I feel sick my stomach; it rolls with the thoughts that the same blood is coursing through me. That I am no better than the woman before me. That I have her in me.

I turn, pulling the door open, needing to get away from her as fast as I can. I am going to be sick. The blood pumping through me curdles as I stumble through the stifling hot hall. The smell of alcohol and sweat mix together, trapped in the narrow hallway, making me gag. The sound of music from the room on the other side of these walls ricochets off the brick, rattling me to my core. I pull open the back door just in time to retch onto the street. I stumble down the stairs and fall to the dirty pavement, retching up every vile thing that is a part of me. The things I cannot change.

###

I walk back to the car in a daze. The boys are standing in the street, leaning against the car, basked in the yellow light of a street lamp. Both boys stand straight when they see me coming. I don’t cry, although every part of me feels broken and a new sense of numbness fills me. They both say my name, seeing who I will go to. I walk straight into Third’s arms, his face momentarily shocked. Roxie gets out of the back seat, coming over; she wraps her arms over both mine and Thirds. She leans her head in so our foreheads touch.

“What happened?” Roxie is the one to ask.

I take a deep breath because it sucked hearing that Josephine didn’t want anything to do with me. It’s going to suck even more, telling Roe that she doesn’t want anything to do with her, either. I am reminded how small she looked. I am reminded of Everett in her thin, heart shaped face. I plan on stopping back at Jewels, I believe her now. I think I always did, I just didn’t want her words to be true.

“Did you see her? What did she say?” Dylan asks. He reaches for me, putting his hand on my arm.

“She is not what I thought. She doesn’t want anything to do with me or Everett. She made that perfectly clear.”

Roxie shakes her head back and forth. “I can’t believe that.” She hugs me. “Maybe she will change her mind; she just needs a little time to think about it.”

I shake my head at her. “No, I don’t think so.” I feel the pain of guilt for coming to see Josephine. I should have listened to Jewel. I was so desperate to get my answers and full of hope to get my fantasy of having a family, a mother figure in my life that I didn’t care about the casualties along the way.

I look at my friends. They were willing to get in trouble and follow me blindly on a chase that had no end. I have always had what I needed; Everett and the Knights who are willing to love me despite not being theirs. Roxie, who came into my life at a time when I needed a friend the most, though I didn’t even know it then. Third, who is loyal to me, who was my first true friend, who stood up to his best friend for me. Kai, who I am just beginning to know, but is willing to be there for me even if it breaks his heart. Then there is Dylan. Dylan, who I need more than anyone, who has been battling an invisible army for me.

With those thoughts, I want to get out of Savannah. I sigh and turn to them. They are watching me with concerned looks on their faces that I can barely stand.

“Let’s go home,” I say to them. My

“ Alright let’s get you out of here.” Kai comes up behind me, resting his hand on the swell of my back.

“It is okay, really. I am going to be okay.” I let them lead me out of there.

###

The weather mirrors how I feel on the inside when it begins to rain as we pull up to the motel. Everyone exits the car, darting across the puddle soaked pavement to the safety of the overhang. I just stand there, letting the rain soak me. I cannot feel it. My skin feels numb and I want to feel it so badly, but I can’t. Someone shouts something at me; however I can’t make out what they say. I just stare at my hands, cupped in front of me, that fill up with water.

Dylan runs out to me, splashing through the puddles. He shuts the car door that I must have left open. “Come on, Angel.” He grabs my hand and pulls me to the safety under the porch, leading me passed everyone, without a word, to his room. Nobody questions Dylan and I don’t protest.

I stand there like a little kid, my tears dripping onto the green carpeted floor, falling in a steady flow. They continue to flow like a faucet that was turned on and I have no way of shutting it off. Dylan leaves me, broken, standing in the middle of the room, he comes back a moment later with a towel. Tilting my head, he wipes at the corner of my eyes with his thumbs, but there are too many spilling over his fingers. Giving up, he clutches the towel and, picking up pieces of my hair, squeezes out the water before moving to my shoulders.

“I am going to help you get out of these wet clothes, okay?” I nod. My head feels way too heavy for my body to hold up.

He lifts my dress over my head, dropping it to the floor next to us. I close my eyes as he wraps the towel around me, leaving me once again. I hear a zipper and him rummaging through something. He returns, pulling something warm and soft that smells distinctly like him over me. Then, lifting me off my feet, he carries me to the bed, setting me down and pulling the covers up around me. He walks around to the other side and shimmies out of his jeans. The moon spills in through broken blinds, washing him in a glowing light. what am I doing?

I lay down next to him, his arms wrapped over me, and the tears fall. I cannot stop them and don’t try. I let them fall for all those years I tried to help my mother and for every pill she swallowed in hopes to numb the pain. For the mother I never had. For a grandmother that never wanted to be. For a family I did not know existed. I cry for Everett, who has never spoken a day in his life and might not ever. I cry for the pain I am causing Kai by being in Dylan’s bed tonight. I cry for Dylan; for all the pain he ever felt that I afflicted, for not being what he deserves. I cry for myself, the little girl that never got to be. For the hurt that I never let out.

I don’t know when I fell asleep. Sometime during the night I must have cried myself dry. I wake up pressed to Dylan’s chest that is slick from last night’s tears. I sigh, pulling away and wipe away the moisture from the right side of my face before rolling over, looking at the sunlight that spills in from the cracked blinds. “Hi,” Dylan says, his voice heavy with sleep. I avoid his eyes because I know I will crumble and stay in the warmth of his arms.

“Hey.” I sit up and swing my legs over the bed, running my hands over my face.

Dylan places his hand on my back and I can feel the electricity through the thin fabric. “It is going to be okay. We will figure everything out,” he says and I wish it was true.