Getting to Happy (20 page)

“Goodnight, ladies,” Gloria says and hangs up.

“Take an extra Zoloft tonight,” Savannah says to Bernadine. “And keep your eye on the road, Robin.” She clicks off.

“No more Xanax. Promise,” Robin says.

“I promise,” Bernadine says, hoping to sound convincing but knowing she is lying through her teeth.

Soap Opera Digest

“You mean to tell me Marlena is still on
Days of Our Lives
?” Bernadine asks the TV as she stirs the roux for the gumbo. She really can’t believe this soap is still on. Then again, real life is pretty much one long soap opera when she thinks about it. She hasn’t watched one of these things since she was breastfeeding Onika. If she remembers correctly Marlena was the local shrink in Salem. She was pretty, soft-spoken and sensitive. But Marlena had her ups and downs. Over the years the poor thing was possessed by the devil twice. Fortunately an exorcism saved her. She’d had her identity stolen by her twin sister, who was sent back to the sanitarium. She’d been stalked and raped and held captive. She married the guy who saved her but then he died and she married a few more guys, including one who drugged her and one who put her in a coma for five years. Everybody thought Marlena was dead. Bernadine could relate. The last thing she remembers, Marlena somehow resurfaced. But then after having a miscarriage by one of her new husbands, she kind of freaked out and started suffering bouts of hysterical amnesia. When her first husband strolled back into town, the one she loved better than all the others, the one she thought had been shot down over enemy territory on some kind of mission, he was disappointed to learn that not only was Marlena happily married, she had no memory of him at all. Bernadine wishes she could be so lucky. Since making gumbo is an all-day affair, the absurdity of what Marlena and company will go through during the next hour will keep her entertained.

Onika and Shy should arrive early this evening, and at the crack of dawn Sunday morning head on down to Tucson for their first day as camp counselors.

She continues to stir. The roux is creamy white.

“Marlena, you sure look good, girl. You haven’t aged a lick considering all you’ve been through.” Bernadine laughs for talking to the screen.

She has already cracked and cleaned eight Dungeness crabs. They weighed close to three pounds each when she carried them home in the red Igloo. Right now, they’re boiling in a huge pot with cut up lemons. In about five minutes she will store them—except for the tiny claws, which are the cook’s treat—in giant Ziploc bags. She takes three different kinds of shrimp from the cooler: the tiny ones used mostly for salads and medium raw and jumbo frozen shrimp, which she will start shelling and save for the stock. Bernadine doesn’t like using fish heads and carcasses like her mother always did, nor does she use filé, because you can’t reheat it and it gets too stringy. She prefers to offer it at the table.

Spread out on the island is just about everything she’s going to need: an array of herbs and spices, bottled clam juice, chicken stock (with no MSG), canned clams (which will take her a few minutes to clean, just to make sure there’s no sand in them), Cajun sausage and Louisiana hot links (which she will slice into small chunks and cook in the microwave, making sure to remove all the fat before putting them into the pot), frozen okra (which she will sneak into the pot because most folks don’t even realize it’s in there), canned Italian tomatoes and, last but not least, the “trinity”: onions, bell pepper and celery.

It will take her three to four hours to finish making this gumbo—not that she minds—and over the next half hour she will finish her infamous roux: equal parts oil and flour, which she will put in the cast-iron skillet her grandmother gave to her mother, who gave it to Bernadine before she moved back to Boston. She will sit on a stool and watch Marlena smile or look upset, using a wire whisk to blend this mixture on medium heat and in continuous figure eights until it’s the color of root beer.

All of this stirring and chopping and dicing and peeling is rather hypnotic, not to mention therapeutic, for Bernadine. She forgets about time when she cooks, especially when she knows it’s for other people. The kitchen is the one place she feels safest. She’s in control of what happens in here. Bernadine knows she’s a phenomenal cook. It’s her very own form of artistry, the one thing she never takes a pill to do. “What good is it doing me, Marlena?”

She swirls the whisk. The roux is beige.

Bernadine wishes she could cook entire meals for other people, not just desserts. One of her biggest fantasies is running a restaurant that has a changing tasting menu. She’s made up menus, cooked some of the dishes, taste-tested them and tossed the ones that didn’t make the cut out on the hill for the coyotes. The only reason she mentioned the progressive dinner party to her friends was to see if they would find it intriguing. One day soon she hopes to give some of these ideas her best shot.

When the show is over, Bernadine reaches for the remote with her free hand and turns the TV off. Silence can be nice. The roux is now the color of nutmeg. She notices the cooler is leaking. “Damnit!” If she stops stirring, the roux will burn and she’ll have to start all over. Bernadine watches the water form a slow canal along the baseboard. She regrets putting in these stupid hardwood floors, although back in the eighties, it was the hip thing to do.

If Bernadine stays in this house, one of the first things she intends to do is replace them with tile. The upstairs air conditioner is temperamental. The irrigation system has a leak that has been causing water to trickle down the curb for over a year, which explains why her bill has been so high. To remedy this problem is a mere twenty thousand dollars because they have to dig up and then replace most of the landscaping in the front yard, which isn’t even included in this price. And then there’s the issue of transportation. Her black Tahoe is seven years old, seems to be graying, and is one minute away from needing dialysis.

She is surprised to hear the front door open, because Onika and Shy aren’t due in for at least a couple of hours. The door locks automatically and only a few people have a key. She keeps stirring. “Is that you, O?”

Taylor appears in the doorway. “Nope, it’s me, MomMom.” She walks over and gives Bernadine a kiss on the cheek. “Gumbo! Yes! Talk about good timing!”

“What brings you here, Taylor? And how’d you get up here?”

“I drove.”

“You did what?”

“It’s fine. I didn’t kill myself or anybody and I didn’t wreck anything unless you count that hearse.” She has the nerve to giggle. Maybe when she gets those braces off a year from now she’ll come into her own. She must have about forty teeth, all struggling for attention. Taylor has that mixed-race hair: frizzy-curly, dusty brown or dirty blonde, depending on how you look at it. She’s tall and lanky for fourteen and a half. She’s among the unfortunate mixed-race children who got too many genes from one parent and not enough from the other. She is sweet, though, which makes her cuter than she is.

“Before you totally freak out, MomMom, I need a tampon so badly. Can I run upstairs and get one out of your bathroom?”

“I haven’t used a tampon in two years and counting.”

“Oh, in case you didn’t know it, the doorbell’s not working. . . . Why not?”

“I’ve been finished with all that.”

“You mean as in menopause?”

“Exactly.”

“But you’re not that old.”

“Yes, I am. I’m old as dirt, just cleaner. Anyway, check Onika’s bathroom.”

Before she turns her attention back to the now perfectly brown roux, Taylor flies up the stairs, and seconds later she’s back. “Super,” she says. “Did you know there’s water on the floor?”

“I’ve been watching it travel but I couldn’t stop what I was doing.”

“I’ll clean it up.” She runs to the laundry room and brings back an armful of rags.

“Where’s your father, Taylor?”

“At work, where else? Please don’t call him yet. Please!”

“Are you standing here telling me you drove all the way over here on your own?”

She nods. “I can’t live with my dad, MomMom. I just can’t. Things are so screwed up in our house. He’s never there, and then let’s throw in my slutty mom who bails on her own kid just so she can get screwed by some British guy.”

“Hold up, little girl,” Bernadine says, adding the trinity to the roux and making sure it’s thoroughly mixed in. “I’m not going to stand here in my kitchen and let you call your mother a name like that.”

“Then what should I call her?” Taylor is on her hands and knees, swishing the wet rags into a pile.

“What you’ve been calling her: Mom.” Bernadine pours the roux into the hot stock waiting for it in the pot. Not taking her eyes off the contents, she watches the brown liquid begin to thicken.

“Would you mind putting those rags in the laundry room sink, please?”

“Of course I mind,” she says, winking at Bernadine as she gets up.

As soon as she leaves, Bernadine empties the okra into the pot. Nobody’s allergic to it, otherwise someone would have let her know after all these years.

Taylor leans against the cabinet when she gets back. “You’ve been more of a mom to me than she has.”

“This, too, is not true.”

“May I please come live with you?” She folds her hands as if she’s praying and drops her weight on one knee.

Bernadine is sure she’s not hearing her right. “Sit,” she says, pointing at a stool. “Excuse me a minute, baby. I need to find my purse.”

Taylor darts off and lifts it from the stairs because she’d just jumped over it. She hands the big black purse to Bernadine, who immediately starts digging around inside like she’s on a scavenger hunt. “Looking for your pills?”

Bernadine’s hand freezes. “What do you know about anybody’s pills, but especially mine, Taylor?”

“I’ve seen you pop them. My mom popped everything. I’ve even popped a few, too. Vicodin’s my fave.”

“Have you been looking in my purse?”

“Of course not, MomMom. One time when I stayed over we were going to watch
Scary Movie
, and you were making us popcorn and I couldn’t find the remote anywhere, so I looked in your side table and saw your little pharmacy. My mom was always digging in her purse but she would never let me see what she was hunting for. I figured it out. Plus, all of her scripts were on display in the medicine cabinet. This is where most of my friends get their stash to sell at school for spending money.”

“Wait. You take Vicodin?”

“I used to.”

“Used to?”

“It was a phase.”

“You’re fourteen, Taylor.”

She nods.

“Have you sold pills, too?”

“God, no! I used to lift from my mom just for kicks but it wasn’t fun after a while. Plus, if my dad ever found out, he would kill me. He gives me a pretty decent allowance so I’m not strapped for cash. I said a
lot
of the kids at school steal from their parents. Everybody knows this. Don’t you watch
Sixty Minutes
or CNN, MomMom?”

“Of course I do.”

“My dad makes me watch it. I hated it at first but now I feel like I know a lot of important stuff, fascinating stuff, actually. Plus Anderson Cooper is such a fox—gay or not.”

Bernadine is standing in front of the steaming pot. She puts the top on and shakes her head in disbelief.

“So what are you on?” Taylor asks.

“I’m not
on
anything.”

“Well, if you’re strung out you should check yourself into a facility.”

“I’m not strung out on anything either.”

“Everybody’s strung out on something. It’s a sign of the times, I guess.”

“And what do you know about the
times
?”

“A lot of my friends’ parents—but mostly their Moms—are always in the clouds. They’re bored with their boring husbands who are workaholics like my dad. They’re bored with their boring lives, sick of us kids and all this puberty and rebelling, so they pop pills all day long and shop and watch the soaps, and then when it all starts to fall apart they realize they just want to be happy again, so they go to rehab to clean up their act and then start fresh. Can you relate?”

“No, I can’t. I take certain medications because I need them.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Bernadine is trying to think of a good answer. “Sometimes I can’t sleep.”

“Even when you close your eyes for a long time?”

“My mind races.”

“Mine does, too, but I just tell it to shut itself down.”

“Sometimes I suffer from anxiety.”

“You know, I still don’t quite get this whole anxiety thing, even after I Googled it. Do you worry about a lot of stuff?”

“A few things.”

“Like what?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Taylor.”

“Try me.”

“I would prefer not to, because you’re beginning to try me, as much as I appreciate your interest in my well-being.”

“Well, I know it says that when people are always thinking about what’s around the corner, mostly things that haven’t even happened yet, they kinda freak themselves out waiting for it. Is that how you feel a lot, MomMom?”

“No. But you’re young and you don’t have much to worry about yet.”

“Duh. Just finals and driving and sex and drugs and boys and why did my mom desert me and my dad, and what do I want to be when I grow up and is there a college out there waiting for me and what box do I check when they ask my race? I could go on.”

“Point made.”

“Do you take this stuff every day?”

“No.”

“What would happen if you just stopped?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you go crazy or never get to sleep or something?”

“Of course not!”

“Have you ever tried meditating or yoga? Natural stuff?”

“No.”

“They can cure you.”

“I don’t need to be cured. I’m not sick. And what do you know about meditating and yoga?”

“I told you. I watch all kinds of amazing things on TV. You can learn a lot of cool stuff if you pick and choose.”

“Maybe I’ll look into it. But do me a favor. Please don’t tell your father about this, okay?”