Milk (12 page)

We arrived at the tea just as all the other mothers and daughters were filing in, the mother's heels clacking along the sidewalk, their daughters' flat-soled party shoes trying to keep up. Nobody except Evan, I noticed, wore hot pink shoes. No, their shoes were buff or cream-colored, tan or pale yellow. “Hello, hello Mrs. Knight! Mrs. Matley!” Evan cried out, the Mrs. coming out like
messes
. That she called them Mrs. this and Mrs. that and not by their first names was another giveaway that we didn't belong here.

Once inside, Evan pushed her way—and mine—to the refreshment table. “This is Theo,” she said to everyone she didn't know, “and I'm Evan. We hurried so much getting here, now I'm HOT.” She fanned her face with a napkin and proceeded to tell everyone that when summer rolls around, all she wears is a shift and panties. “I don't wear no bra! And no deodorant either, I'm allergic—”

I squirmed away to find Betsy and Mrs. Cramer. They were socializing with several other mother-daughter pairs, the mothers laughing in bell-like tones, daughters at their sides looking dutiful and solemn. I stood there not sure what to do, then weaved my way back through the perfumed crowd. “I think of her as my own,” Evan was saying, while ladies nodded sympathetically—oh God, not again. I turned to leave, but felt Evan's work-worn hand on my shoulder. “Have you met Mrs. Cartwright?”

“How do you do?” I said. Evan beamed, her hot pink lips swelling into a smile. I loved her. I really did in my own squeamish way, and I needed someone to be proud of me, even if it was Evan.

Finally, the daughters were separating from their mothers and going outside. I joined them.

Evan considered it part of her job to educate me in matters of housework. I stripped beds, emptied wastebaskets, dusted, polished furniture and silverware and copper-bottomed saucepans; I cleaned grout with a toothbrush, scraped wax off the floors, washed windows, reorganized closets, sewed on name tags and buttons, planned menus, cooked dinner, ran the vacuum cleaner, ironed my father's shirts.

Corb ironed too, but for different reasons. Evan wanted him to be able to take care of himself when he was a bachelor someday, that is, before he got married and his wife took care of these things for him, so Corb learned how to make an omelet, hamburgers, and stew, how to sew on a button and how to iron a shirt.

Often when I was cleaning house, Corb was outside playing. At first I didn't mind because it gave me time alone with Evan. She'd talk to me, tell me stories about cases she'd worked on, couples she knew who'd gotten divorced, exactly who did what to whom and other salacious tidbits children weren't supposed to hear. It made me feel grownup and somehow it went along with the housework. Sometimes she talked about my mother, although she tended to repeat herself. “She was a lovely person,” Evan said, “before she got sick. She used to tell me everything, all her problems. She'd talk and talk, she'd say ‘Evan, what should I do?'” Evan said a lot about my mother without revealing anything, and most of her talk centered on herself, Evan; how my mother adored Evan. “She'd tell me all the time, ‘Evan, what would I do without you?'” There seemed to be a not-so-subtle message in Evan's reminiscences: if my mother adored Evan, so should I. Evan was wise, Evan was good, Evan knew people, understood them. Yet I often had the feeling she didn't know my mother at all; this person we talked about couldn't be my mother. I tried to picture her as Evan portrayed her, sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands, confused, vulnerable. What about her brushing my teeth with Nivea cream? Her spanking me with a hairbrush? I grew to suspect my own memories: “Your mother was a lovely person before she got sick.” But Evan had come to work for us
because
my mother had been sick; she hadn't known my mother when she was well. What did ‘sick' mean anyway? Evan never said and I seldom asked, and if I did I received hazy answers. “Oh, your mother,” Evan said, “you know she wasn't happy.” In later years she would be more explicit, but for now it didn't matter to me that Evan was vague, repetitive, or even possibly lying about my mother—she talked about her. No one else did, except to mention how much I resembled my mother,
but
, they added ominously,
don't be like her
. The talks with Evan took on an illicit, mesmerizing quality, her talking, me listening, while we cleaned, polished, cooked. I loved the rhythm and sensuality of housework, the snap of the sheets as we shook them out before laying them on the bed, the milkiness of furniture polish, the whisk of the broom and clatter of the dustpan, the drone of the vacuum, the wringing out of a mop. I loved the praise, the feeling of importance, the pleasure on my father's face when I set dinner in front of him and told him I cooked it myself.

At some point, however, I became resentful. Summers and school vacations, Evan would arrive late and ask me, “What have you done?” Meaning, what housework had I accomplished so far? If I listed several tasks—cleaned the bathroom, emptied trash, stripped the beds—it was never enough. She didn't chastise me; it was the look on her face:
Is that all?
If, on the other hand, I muttered, “Nothing, it's Spring Break,” the look was more severe, as if my whole character were now in question.

I began hinting to my father. I couldn't come out and say the truth because, being a child, I didn't know the truth, which was that on some level I was being exploited. And, the truth was never spoken in our house—about my mother or sister or anything—although the idea of truth was highly vaunted. I told my father I didn't like Evan. What did I mean, he wanted to know. Well, I said, I don't like the way she does things. I still don't know what you mean, he said. I opened the hall closet. Look, I said, look at this mess. Blankets and hangers and books and thermoses all mixed in with packages of shoelaces and thumbtacks and cardboard boxes. I pulled out the sewing basket, a tangle of thread and buttons and clothes waiting to be mended. See? I demanded. This is what I mean.

My father's solution was to hire a maid. He asked Evan to find us one. We hired one of her relatives, a young woman named Yvonne who wore heavy eyeliner and a large fake diamond ring on her hand, and a white uniform like Evan's. The two of them sat at our kitchen table gossiping while the TV played reruns. I'd come home from school, go to my room, reappear to fix myself a snack.… “What have you done?” “Nothing.” That look.

But mostly I did what Evan asked, if a little sullenly—got loads of wash going before school, dusted after school or in the evenings, polished silver, wiped down shelves, put down new liners in the drawers; took showers and cleaned grout at the same time. “That way,” Evan said, “you don't track dirt in and out of the tub.” I did what she said. I needed her approval; I needed her love.

Sometimes we napped together, if it were summer or if I was home from school for some reason. If Yvonne wasn't around. We'd set the TV up on a chair and squeeze into my tiny bed and watch soap operas, drowsing, Evan waking now and then to give advice to the characters on the screen.

“I love you,” she'd say, “as if you were my own girl.”

I'd sleep with my arms around her neck.

Sometimes we all cleaned together, Yvonne taking the bathrooms, Evan mopping, and me dragging the vacuum room to room. I felt numb, powerless. I wanted to be outside playing, doing anything but this stupid housework.

My mother makes me clean my room. If I do, cottage cheese with sugar. If I don't? The curtains are closed, I can't see
.

“What have you done?” The pressure grew greater the older I got. Too old to play with Betsy, who wasn't even wearing a bra yet, I came straight home after school now except for Wednesdays when I had choral practice. While we cleaned Evan told me about menstruation, hosiery, boys—Yvonne listened in and giggled. “They're going to want you to do things,” Evan said. “You're a woman now, something can happen, so watch it.” Betsy's mother didn't talk to her like this. They didn't even talk about this stuff, and in any case, Betsy didn't have breasts; she still wore an undershirt. I had to wear a bra. “Sex is a wonderful thing,” Evan warned. “But there's a time and place for everything.” During my periods, whenever I went to the bathroom, I had to roll my used sanitary pad into a ball, wrap toilet paper around it like some kind of mystery present you'd find at a toy store, put it into a paper bag and carry it outside to the trash, past my father, past Corb, past Yvonne in her heavy eyeliner. Past anyone who happened to be around. “That's the way I always do it,” Evan said. “Otherwise they smell up the whole house.” Yvonne giggling. Who were these people? Not even my relatives. My father's paid help.

T
WELVE

After my father's cataract surgery, his eye is bandaged thickly.

From his kitchen where I am wiping down counters, I watch him in his bedroom trying to get situated. He lies down with his shoes on. Sits up. Re-ties the lace on one shoe. Readjusts the shade of the lamp on the bedside table. “Can I get you anything, Dad?”

“I'm fine, thanks.” He abandons the bedroom and settles himself in the family room, on the couch.

I've been here two full days since his cataract operation, going back nights to the Alta Vista. The counters clean, I unzip my Powerbook from its bag and walk around hugging it to my chest looking for the best place to work, an outlet next to a table. I settle for the coffee table, dragging it closer to the wall. I sit on the floor.

“You're going to work there?” my father says.

“Why not? It's the perfect height.” I reach for my bag and for the box of graham crackers I brought with me. My latest comfort food, like sweet moist cardboard.

“Theo?”

“Yes, Dad.” I know what he's about to say since we just had this conversation half an hour ago.

“You cannot live at the Alta Vista. It's a firetrap! It's a
residence
hotel.”

“I know. I'm residing there, for now. Now if you'll excuse me.” I study the pictures, the layouts. Blond babies in pumpkin costumes and green stem hats, elastic under their chins. Forty-five dollars a pop. I'm closing in on a deadline, hoping to fed-ex off the disk today. Then in a few days, a business trip to the Bay Area for a photo shoot with a different children's catalog, so I can see the goods in person, rub fabric between my fingers. Get inspired. “Want one?” I say to Dad, inspecting my box of graham crackers.

“You're getting crumbs on the carpet,” he says.

I glance around me. “Oh. Sorry. I'll vacuum it, Dad, as soon I'm finished. I promise.” I type in
Harvest delight, chill fall nights
—
and days
. One hundred percent polar fleece jacket. Double-backed for extra warmth. Snaps, pockets, hood. Comes in pomegranate, cobalt, cherry red, mallard. I lean forward and study the next photo, brushing aside graham cracker crumbs. A toddler in a white cape and a hood like a caul, fangs. How'd they get him to pose like that? Smiling ghoulishly, the boy must be all of two. Polyester blend, machine wash and dry.
Boo!
I write.

My father regards me with his good eye, brown and gleaming.

“I have something for you,” he says.

He often does. An old yearbook, a first-place ribbon from a long-ago, forgotten contest, stuff he's come across in drawers or closets. What I wish for, but seldom get, is an item connected to my mother, a photograph or a piece of odd silver that somehow eluded storage at Pink's. Sometimes it's a box of books from my childhood—
The Little Lame Prince, Black Beauty, The Courage of Sarah Noble
—although one time there were books belonging to my mother when she was a child,
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
, and a biography of Joan of Arc with an illustration of her burning at the stake that I particularly remember staring at as a girl.

“Let me get it,” my father says.

“You stay,” I say, rising to my feet. “Where is it? I'll get it.”

“Top drawer in the kitchen. The legal pad.”

“This? What is it?”

“A record of Jackson's phone calls.”

“What?”

“All the times he's called you here or at the office.” The entire page is filled.

“I'm stunned,” I say. “Doesn't he have anything better to do?”

“You and I had an agreement,” my father says, “and you haven't held up your end.”

“I have, too! I called him. Didn't he tell you?” I glance at the dates on the log. “I talked to him last week. Must've been after you talked to him.”

“And?”

“Dad,” I say gently, “I'm sorry. Nothing's changed, you know. I realize you probably had your hopes up, but …”

My father's face droops, all the sadder with one bandaged eye.

“Dad, there's something I should tell you.”

So that's when I tell him—that I'm pregnant.

“Theo, no. No!” He sounds heartbroken. The white strands of hair from on top of his head have sprung up, despite the generous helpings of hair grease he applies. “A baby? Now you must go back to Jackson, Theo! For the sake of the baby.”

“Dad, I can't.”

“Why not? All this time and I still don't know what went wrong between you two.”

“It's hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“Well.” I think for a moment. “We just don't get along, Dad. I'm not sure we ever really did.”

“You mean you fight a lot?”

“That's kind of it.”

“But lots of couples disagree,” he says. “Why, your mother and I—”

“Yes?”

“Your mother wanted me to do yard work and I just didn't want to.”

“That's
what you argued about?”

“Sure,” he says.

It seems so tepid compared to the arguments Jackson and I have had. Arguments of the soul versus arguments over household duties.