The Summer Kitchen (10 page)

He misses Jake.
The observation flashed through my thoughts like a bolt of lightning, the harbinger of a storm that would change the outlook for the day, if I let it. Bobo had always been Jake’s dog. Both of them loved a challenge. They’d spent hours in the yard, perfecting Frisbee-catching acrobatics, stalking sticks and squeaky toys as if they were prey, and performing a routine in which, during a mock showdown, Jake pointed a finger pistol at Bobo, and Bobo fell over and played dead.

Staring into Bobo’s sad, soulful eyes, I recognized something of myself. He couldn’t understand what was happening, couldn’t figure out how life had come from there to here without so much as a warning note. One day things were fine, and the next they weren’t.

He whined as I headed toward the garage. I turned back, and he perked up his ears, then barked and picked up his Frisbee. “You know what?” I said, and he stood wagging his tail, his head cocked to one side. “Come on. We’re going for a ride.”
Ride
was a word Bobo understood. Before Jake had left for college, he hardly ever went anywhere without his furry black-and-white sidekick.

Dropping his Frisbee, Bobo scampered to the door, then stood wiggling in a way that said,
Finally, something different is happening today.
As soon as I opened the garage, he squirmed past me, jumped into the car, and took up a position in the passenger seat. Panting happily, he checked out the view as we backed out of the garage, wound quietly through the neighborhood, and left Plano behind us.

Chapter 6

Cass

The last time Mama got sick, and we got behind on the bills, and she had to marry creepy Roger, she sat on the edge of my bed and said,
Cass Sally Blue, you can spend all your life thinking you ought to be in a better place than you’re at, but the problem with that is, you’ll always be miserable where you are.

She went on talking about how Roger was a good man, and he was lonely, and maybe we could add something good to his life, too—maybe it was all part of a plan God had to take care of us. But if God was looking out for us, why didn’t he keep Mama from getting sick in the first place? Being as she only had one lung left, it seemed like she deserved for that one to stay healthy.

Mama was hard to figure, anyway. Part of the time, she was telling me to get used to the way things were, and the other part she was saying things like,
Cass Sally Blue, when the mountain’s big, you’ve got to dream bigger. The biggest part of doing is believing you can.

I worked hard on the believing part. Sometimes I felt real sure that sooner or later Rusty and me were gonna land someplace better. We’d live in a nice house, and Rusty would finish up high school instead of working all the time, and I’d be in the sixth grade with someone telling me I was too young to wear makeup to school.

But sometimes I looked around and couldn’t help seeing that the longer me and Rusty were on the road, the worse things were. Even though we’d made it to Texas, we weren’t any closer to tracking down Rusty’s daddy, Ray John. We couldn’t even drive over to the library and use the computers to look for him, because here in Dallas, Rusty was tied up working all the time. Usually, the foreman found some reason to hold back some of Rusty’s check, because Rusty’d showed up a few minutes late, or broke some tool, or something. He knew Rusty couldn’t say anything about it, any more than all the illegals who worked down there could. Some folks just have to keep their heads down and take it, even if it’s not fair, because they don’t have anywhere else to go.

This apartment was the worst place we’d ever lived, and now we had to share it with some girl from the strip joint, whose kid I was supposed to babysit from two in the afternoon until, like, after midnight, when Kiki got off work. At least Kiki and Rusty did bring some clothes from Kiki’s old man’s house, but when she came back the first night after work, she still didn’t have any money. I heard her and Rusty talking in the kitchen, even though they thought I was asleep. She told him she’d borrowed ahead at work, and she had to pay it back before she could take any money home. With that shiner on her eye, all she could do was wash dishes in the back, which didn’t bring in any tips, either.

“In a few days I’ll be makin’
real money
again,” she said, and Rusty believed her. Rusty’d believe anything if someone who looked like Kiki said it. I bet Kiki never had any trouble getting guys to do whatever she wanted. “I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry, baby,” she told him. “You been ssss-so . . . good to me.” Her voice was kind of slow and sloppy, like she was out of it. I squinted my eyes open long enough to see her lean up against Rusty and kiss him on the cheek. Then she just kind of hung there, limp, like she didn’t have the energy to move.

“We can get by a couple days.” Rusty cleared his throat, and I wanted to choke him, because that wasn’t true at all. As soon as he’d cashed his paycheck, almost all the money had gone in rent. The guy in the office charged us a fine for being late, and we didn’t have any choice but to pay it.

I snorted and rolled over, and I guess they both remembered I was there. “We’re botherin’ your . . . ummm . . . sis-ter,” she said, like for a minute she couldn’t think what to call me.

I covered my head and stuck my face in the sofa, because I was so mad, if I opened my mouth, there wasn’t any telling what was gonna come out. I waited till Rusty got up for work in the morning before I said anything about Kiki.

“You really believe she’s gonna give you money?” I asked. Kiki was locked up in my bedroom, sleeping again, of course.

“She said in a day or two.” Rusty was always so flippin’ sure of things. He was born that way, pretty much, I think. It got him in trouble over and over again.

“Uh-huh, so what do we do until she hits the lotto down there at Glitters? There’s only thirty-eight dollars left after the rent and McDonald’s last night.” I wished Rusty woulda skipped going by McDonald’s. If he had money in his pocket, it just burned a hole until it found its way to a drive-thru somewhere.

“I’ll take you to Wal-Mart after work today, and we’ll get some stuff,” Rusty said. He pulled half a leftover hamburger out of the fridge and ate it for breakfast, then took a couple dollars out of the coffee can and put it in his pocket. Thirty-six dollars left for groceries now, and I needed to do more laundry today. All the clothes Kiki’d brought for her kid were dirty, and they stunk like a moldy old house and cigarettes.

“We can’t buy enough stuff to last four people,” I said. “Not with thirty-six dollars.”

Rusty shrugged, eating the last of his Big Mac and washing it down with whatever was left in a soda cup on the counter. “We’ll get what we can. Anyway, I told you, Kiki’ll have some money in a day or two.”

“Yeah, I bet.” I stared at the bedroom door, wishing I could burn a hole in it like Superman, and laser Kiki’s rear right outa my bed and through the front door. She was using Rusty like a big stupid toy, and he was letting her because she was hot, even with the shiner on her eye.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned up against the counter. “You know what, Cass, you could cut her a break. Her old man beat her up pretty good. She’s got some cracked ribs and stuff. She should probably be in the hospital.”

“Then why isn’t she?” Turning my back on him, I crossed the room and plopped down on the sofa.

“She can’t afford it. Same as you and me. She hasn’t got anyplace else to go.”

Same as you and me.
The idea stuck in my head a minute. Rusty and me were the same as some stripper who’d been knocked around by her long-haul trucker boyfriend and tossed out on the street? Mama would of had a fit. She raised Rusty and me to be decent folks, to live like normal people and have a house, and go to school, and church on Sunday, and have a kitchen with food in it. She’d be sick to see us here. . . .

I didn’t mean to, but I started to cry. Everything in me went soft and watery, and I wanted Mama in a way that hurt so bad I felt like I was splitting down the middle. I wanted our little house on the outside of Helena, Montana, with the flower beds, and the fenced yard, and Rusty’s dog out front, and the mountains off in the distance. I wanted someone to take care of us again.

“Don’t do that, Sal.” Rusty’s voice bounced off the hurt like a bird hitting window glass. I felt him sit down beside me and put an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. His chest smelled of soap and was tight with muscle, a man’s chest now that he spent his days pounding nails instead of goofing off in high school athletics class. Even that seemed sad. Rusty wasn’t supposed to be a man yet. He didn’t need me to take care of, and he sure didn’t need some stripper and her kid. He needed to be laughing and joking, running the bleachers with a bunch of boys whose biggest issue was where to party on Saturday night.

“Ssshhhh.” The sound rumbled under his skin. “Come on now, Sal. It’ll be all right. I’ve gotta head off to work. Don’t worry, okay?”

He kissed me on the head and squeezed my shoulders one last time, and then stood up. I heard him moving around the kitchen, getting his wallet in his pocket and picking up his tool belt. Something brushed my leg, and when I opened my eyes the kid was standing there with her arm wrapped around my knee and her thumb in her mouth, her huge eyes blinking sleepily at me.

“Come ’ere,” I said, and she crawled into my lap and snuggled against my chest, her bony knees poking me in the stomach, her skin cold against mine. I pulled the sleeping bag over her legs as Rusty punched in the doorknob so it’d lock behind him.

“See ya after a while.” He didn’t look at me. He just rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, going out the door, and sighed like he was real tired.

“Oook?” the kid said around her fingers.

“We’ll read the book in a little while.” It was scary, but I was starting to understand her.

I rested my chin on her head. Her hair smelled good this morning, like the strawberry shampoo I’d dumped in the bathtub last night to make bubbles. That was one thing the kid and I had in common. We both liked bubble baths. I guess everyone probably does. A bubble bath makes things seem all right, for a little while.

Today I’d have to ask Kiki the kid’s name, even though I didn’t want to talk to Kiki at all. Every time I asked the kid her name yesterday, she kept saying something like Popah or Popal, and I couldn’t make it out, so I just called her
squirt
all day.

Squirt
and I sat for a while together, curled up in the sleeping bag, and even though I didn’t want to be, I was glad she was there. Yesterday, it was a pain having to take care of her all the time, but at least now that they’d brought some stuff from Kiki’s old man’s house, Squirt would have shoes. We could get out of the apartment and walk someplace.

“How about we go down to the Book Basket and get something new to read today?” The Book Basket was just down the road in an old gas station across from the little white church. I liked it there, because MJ, the lady who owned the store, had tons of books, and she didn’t care how long you stayed and looked at them. She also took trades, which was good when you didn’t have any money.

“Maybe we’ll walk on down to the Just-a-Buck store, too,” I told her. “Sometimes they’ve got old cans of stuff on sale for cheap. You want to go look for cans?” Squirt nodded, and her braids scratched up and down on my chest where my nightshirt hung loose. If we could get some dented cans instead of paying full price at Wal-Mart, that’d help the groceries go further. We still weren’t gonna be able to get by all week on thirty-six dollars, even if Rusty stayed out of the drive-thru windows and gave up Mountain Dew, which wasn’t too likely. Rusty couldn’t hardly go six hours without a Mountain Dew.

“Unnn-ungwee,” Squirt whined, and after listening to it all day yesterday, I knew what
that
word meant.

“We’ve got McDonald’s for breakfast,” I told her. At least this morning we had food. I’d cut all the hamburgers in half last night, saved some of my fries, and put my vanilla shake in the freezer.

“Mmmmm,” she said, then sat up in my lap, pulled the thumb out of her mouth, and smiled at me. I hadn’t ever seen her smile before. She really was cute, even with her hair pulled half loose from her braids and sticking up all over her head. Maybe before we went to the Book Basket we’d take out the braids and make a couple pigtails.

“Guess we should get some breakfast,” I said, then looked at my bedroom door, wondering if, while she was in there crashing out in my bed, Kiki wondered at all how her kid was getting fed. Squirt could be wandering out in the street for all Kiki knew. How could somebody’s mom be like that?

I put Squirt on her feet and we went to the kitchen together. She tried to crawl up my leg when I got out the hamburgers, so I lifted her onto the counter. Pulling her knees under the big T-shirt I’d put on her last night, she sat with her chin resting on them as I got out the burgers and scooped some of the shake—ice cream now—into a couple bowls. She watched the food move from the counter to the table, like a little puppy dog waiting for a bite.

“Let’s eat,” I said, and she put out her arms so I could move her to the table. I took the broken chair and gave her the good one. For a little thing, she could eat a lot, and really fast. When she was done, she wanted more. I told her that was it, and she got up, went to the refrigerator, and tried to pull it open.

“There’s nothing in there,” I told her. She looked confused, so I said, “All gone.” She knew what that meant.

A memory of our refrigerator back home went through my mind, and my stomach rumbled. Mama always kept sodas, and there was a gallon of milk on the middle shelf, sometimes two. There was butter, and jelly, and string cheese we could pull out for a snack anytime we wanted it. Usually there were leftovers—a casserole or something Mama had made that Rusty and me complained about. . . .

My insides ached, and I wrapped my arms tight around myself.
There’s not any point in sitting here thinking about the stupid refrigerator, Cass Sally Blue,
I told myself, but I couldn’t help it. It hurt deep down, like the past was eating me up a little at a time. I wanted Mama to put a casserole in front of me, and I’d eat every bit of it and tell her it was good. I wanted her to holler from the kitchen to wait until we all said grace together. I wanted her to put a glass of milk by my plate, and push my chair up on two legs when she squeezed by. . . .