Before, After, and Somebody In Between (7 page)

…

Tuesday and Wednesday pass without a word. Wayne’s job calls twice, and I put on a fake-Momma voice and jabber about some family emergency. A suspicious Grandma Daisy starts inviting me to dinner—good thing, too, since we were low on groceries even before Momma took off—and Aunt Gloria glares at me, biding her time, setting traps. Every night when I go to bed, I lie there in the dark, trying to sleep, but imagining the worst.

Finally, Wednesday night, I can’t stand it any longer. Leaving the TV on to ward off burglars, I sneak up the fire escape to spend the night upstairs. Bubby cuddles with me on Jerome’s bed, while Jerome takes the floor with minimal bitching.

“You sure your aunt won’t come in?” Already I’m shaking at the thought.

“She never comes in here at night.”

“Who takes care of Bubby if he wakes up?”

“Who do you think?”

I tickle Bubby’s belly. “Are you my wittle baby? Are you my wittle cuddly-wuddly baby boo?” Bubby giggles and wrenches my nose hard. “Ow!”

“Can’t you go stay with some relatives?” Jerome’s voice floats up from the floor.

I snort. “I don’t know any of my relatives, and they wouldn’t want me, anyhow.”

“How come?”

“ ’Cause my dad had to drop out of college when my mom got pregnant with me. He was gonna be a music teacher, and he ended up working in some factory. I guess they disowned him or something.” That’s what I’ve always been told—that, and that my
dad always thought he was so much better than Momma. The same thing, I might add, she always accuses me of. “Anyway, I never met my dad’s family. My mom hates their guts.”

“Do you miss your dad?” Jerome asks unexpectedly.

The only sound is the ticking of the clock, and a tiny snore from a suddenly limp, heavy Bubby.

“I can’t hardly remember him,” I say at last, curling my arms around Bubby and snuggling him close. “But yeah, I think I do. You miss your folks?”

“Well, my mom, yeah. It’s stupid, but I do.”

“Why is it stupid?”

Another long silence. “My mom’s a junkie. She had Bubby in jail, and then, when she got out, she just never came back. And I don’t even know who my dad is. I never met him in my life.”

Man! I prop myself up on one elbow. “You never told me that.”

“Maybe I don’t feel like broadcasting it, okay? Bad enough I gotta put up with Aunt Gloria and Anthony and all that drinking they do, and all that pot and other stuff they think I don’t know about, and—”

We hear a sound in the hall as someone, maybe Aunt Gloria herself, struts past the door. She stops, like she’s listening, and we both hold our breath so long, it’s a miracle we don’t suffocate.

By the time the footsteps fade away, neither of us feels like talking anymore. Besides, Bubby just peed on me, so what do I do now?

12

Thursday evening I ferret through Momma’s room, looking for money. I find some change in a coat pocket, a couple of singles on the dresser, and a Ziploc bag full of pot under a pile of Wayne’s undershirts. Wow, what a shocker.

Friday after school, I load up on books at the neighborhood library, avoiding anything with a picture of a screaming woman on the cover, or anything by Koontz or King, my two gruesome favorites. A fantasy trilogy and a couple of old-lady mysteries ought to take my mind off of Momma for a while.

Back home, I find the Lindseys’ rent check taped to the kitchen door. I peel it off, then instantly freeze, sensing a demonic presence.

“Where they at?” Aunt Gloria demands in my ear.

I spit my heart out of my mouth. “W-Who?”

“You know who!” Jostling me aside, she barges in, searching for body parts and traces of blood. All she sees, though, is a very clean kitchen, bright and sparkling and smelling like lemony Pine-Sol. “I ain’t paying no rent money to some smart-mouthed child, that’s for sure.”

I force myself not to look at the check. Rent money! Wonder if I can cash it …

Squinching her forehead, she marches into the living room to survey Wayne’s gun cabinet, hands on her hips. “Mm, mm, mm.”

I decide not to bring up the fact that she’s trespassing, and that if Wayne does show up, he’ll pump her full of buckshot. “They’re out of town,” I say lamely.

“Till when?”

“Till, um… till Monday.”

“Fine. They ain’t back by Monday, I’m reporting this bullshit. I don’t need no child burnin’ the whole damn house down around my head.” She snatches the check out of my fingers. “And I’ll give this to your
daddy
when he gets back.”

“He’s not my daddy,” I snarl, forgetting to be scared.

Aunt Gloria sails out with a snort. The instant she’s gone, I slap the chain on the door, then ball up on the couch and munch my nails. First the cops, then the social workers, and then I’ll be adopted out—to who, some pervert with a photo studio in his basement?

Where is she?
Where is she?
Oh, I can picture Momma perfectly, laid out in a satin dress, in an ivory-colored coffin, pale hands folded sweetly over a wooden cross—no, wait, not a cross, maybe a single white lily…omigod, omigod! Please let her be okay!

The evening drags like a crippled rabbit. I listen to Elgar again, then put on some cartoons, conk out around midnight, and by four a.m. I’m hopelessly wide awake. I take out my cello and work on my notes, but the screeching of the strings makes the roots of my teeth throb. Still, I keep at it, ignoring the occasional warning thump on the ceiling, till my body aches, my fingers flare into torches…and just as I’m getting the hang of it, I hear the front door clatter open, and Momma’s “Yoo-hoo!”

She’s alive! I race to the living room where she sweeps me into a hug. She kind of stinks, but not like booze. More like someone who hasn’t seen the inside of a bathtub in a week.

I hold my nose as she smothers me, then chisel her off when it gets to be too much. “Where
were
you all week? Why didn’t you call me? I was freaking out! That bitch upstairs wanted to call the cops, and there’s no food in the house, and
I can’t believe you did this to me!”
Seconds ago I was so happy to see her. Now I’d like to punch her lights out.

“Oh, sugar pie, I’m so sorry. But Wayne, he took it in his head to drive down to West Virginia to see his daddy, and I thought we’d only be gone a couple days, but …well, Wayne, he and his daddy got into a fight and then he kinda went off on a bender, and then I couldn’t get back, and his daddy don’t have a phone, and …” She stops to blow her nose. “I’m real, real sorry.”

“Momma, you can’t just take off whenever you feel like it!” Why do I always feel like I’m the mom around here? “And where’s Wayne anyway?”

Momma’s face crumbles again. “Last I heard, he got picked up for drunk driving and was lookin’ for somebody to bail him out. Not me,” she adds, lifting her chins. “I hooked up with some real nice AA folks down there, and they passed the hat to get me the bus fare home. And you’d be proud of me, sugar pie, ‘cause when I saw Wayne like that, and how damn nasty he got? Well, I told him it was me or the booze. And he picked the booze.”

I start to ask why the AA folks didn’t let her use
their
phone—but then her bottom lip quivers and she heaves out a shuddering breath. Poor Momma. It’s not her fault Wayne turned out to be such a pathetic jerk!

“Well, never you mind,” she insists, squeezing my hand. “We can do without him just fine. First thing today, I’m gonna go look
for a job. There’s a nursing home right close. Maybe I could be a nurse’s aide again.” I wait for her to notice how nice the house looks, but she flips back her dirty hair and trudges to the kitchen. “So what’s to eat around here?”

Duh, if there wasn’t any food here a week ago, why would we have any now? So she roots around in her purse and hands me a food card. “I’m not using that! Don’t you have any real money?”

“No, I don’t. A lady from AA gave me this, and it’s just as good as money.”

“But—”

“No buts. And if I don’t find me a job real soon, we’re gonna end up on welfare anyhow, so you might as well get off your high horse and get used to the idea.” Ah, there she is, the Momma I know and love.

“What if Wayne doesn’t come back?” Worse, what if he comes back and kicks us both out?

“I ain’t worryin’ about that now. All I know is, money’s gonna be tight for a while. No more luxuries, sugar pie.”

Luxuries? What luxuries? Food? Hot water? Toilet paper?

I spin the card across the table. “Forget it, Momma. I’m not using this thing in public.”

With a hefty sigh and a pitiful shake of her head, Momma says for the thousandth time, “Martha, Martha. I swear, you are just—”

“Like my dad,” I finish glumly. “Yeah, I know.”

13

Crusty-eyed and exhausted from lack of sleep, I show up for cello practice at six forty-five. Mr. Hopewell stares in horror at my swollen fingertips. “What’ve you been doing?”

I yank away my hand. “Practicing, like you said.”

“I didn’t tell you to turn your fingers into ground meat. And stop biting your nails. People’ll see your hands, and nobody wants to look at that.”

I’m starting not to like this man very much.

We work for a while on tuning our instruments. I seem to be the only one in the room who doesn’t need the piano to do it—“perfect pitch,” Mr. Hopewell calls it, which doesn’t win me any friends. Then, one by one, we have to show him our “progress.” He listens to me for an extra minute, and changes his tune. “Well, well. Very good. Keep it up, Martha.”

I get dirty looks from the kids around me, but I just smile and forgive him for picking on my nails. When the bell rings, I gather up my stuff in a daze and lock up the cello. Wow, does he mean it? Does he really think I’m good?

Lost in a daydream, I forget to stay alert. A foot hooks my
ankle, my books go flying, and then I’m staring at the floor an inch away from my nose.

“Sorry ‘bout that, ugly girl.” That same foot pokes my ribs. “Next time get outta my way.”

Chardonnay’s halfway down the hall by the time I figure out what happened. Knees throbbing, I gather up my scattered books and stagger to homeroom—and there she is again, lurking outside the door. Grinning, she flicks a pen against her mossy teeth. No dinky little Bic for this honky bitch, baby. This one’s a super-sized, industrial-strength, eight-buck Dr. Grip, chiseled razor-sharp, no doubt, and laced with cyanide.

“This ain’t a good day for you to be here,” she says conversationally. “Maybe you better take your skinny ass on home.”

I take my skinny ass down to the office instead, and Mrs. Bigelow is not thrilled to see me. “Chardonnay tripped me in the hall and now she’s threatening to stab me.”

“Stab you? Did you see a weapon?”

“Yes. I mean no. I mean, she’s got a pen in her hand.”

“A pen.” Good thing teachers can’t smack us. “Martha, go back to class.”

So I go back to homeroom, and peek through the door to see Chardonnay slouched at
my
desk, her big, smelly feet propped up on her own. Well, that does it! Keeping an eye out for the guards, I slink out a door. I am not spending another second in this asylum.

“What’re you doing home?” Momma demands when I limp in.

“Um, it’s a holiday,” I stammer. “I forgot all about it.”

“What holiday?”

National Save-A-Honky’s-Chicken-Ass Day? “… Kennedy’s birthday.”

Momma nods wisely, gulps her coffee, and waddles out with me on her heels. She pulls on a bright pink dress, then peels it off
in disgust. Next she tries to squeeze into a purple pantsuit, splitting the back seam. “What am I gonna wear today?” she wails.

“Where you going?”

“I already told you. I gotta find me a job, remember?”

Squirming with embarrassment, I watch her stuff her rolls into a foofy green frock that might’ve been fashionable when Elvis ruled the airways. She rips this one off, too, and then glowers at me like it’s my fault she’s about as big as Jabba the Hut. “What?”

“Momma, I hate that school!” I burst out. “Do I have to go back there?”

“Martha, everybody hates school. Why do you think
I
dropped out?”

Well, that’s reassuring.

“If those black kids are giving you a hard time, you just let me know. I’ll go down to that school myself and set ‘em straight.”

“It’s not that. It’s just one person, that girl I told you about.”

“So why’s she picking on you?”

“How would I know?” I yell. “Because she’s a fat ugly bitch?”

I never should have used the word “fat.”

“People can’t help what they look like, missy. Maybe if you tried to get along with this girl, she wouldn’t be houndin’ you all the time.”

Oh, gee, now why didn’t
I
think of that?

…

When Jerome gets home that afternoon, I sneak upstairs for a little sympathy. He’s no help, either. “Well, you can’t keep cutting school. You want to flunk out?”

“So what am I supposed to do, let her stab me in the eye?”

“Maybe talk to Mr. Johnson?” Mr. Johnson’s our principal, a bald-headed troll with hideously bad breath.

“Great. Then I’ll really piss her off.”

“Either that, or
you
stab
her.
Hell, I’ll even hold her down,” he offers, and I’m nice enough not to point out that Chardonnay undoubtedly could mash him flat with one thumb.

Bubby, tired of being ignored, crawls into my lap, pinches my neck, gives me a sloppy kiss, and manipulates my face. I squeeze him close, and that’s when the door blasts open.

“You again?” Aunt Gloria bellows. “You get back downstairs where you belong!” She descends on us all, rips Bubby away from me, and throws him roughly into the crib. “And how many times I gotta tell you to stay in there?”

“Stop!” My body lunges forward, propelled by an alien force, but Aunt Gloria hauls off and slugs me in the head. I never saw it coming, and it stops me cold. Jerome leaps between us, but that only makes her madder.

“You in for it now, fool!” She grabs a hanger and starts swinging, and even though I duck, I get a good whack on the shoulder. Jerome, on the other hand, isn’t as fast, or as lucky. With Aunt Gloria’s next wallop, he gets it in the face.