All That's True (5 page)

Madeline and Bridget are spending the night. We are camped out on my bedroom floor and I’m the entertainment. I’m doing my best imitation of Mr. Sterling and they are laughing so hard one of them may wet her pants.

“What’d you say, girlie?” I shriek and cup my ear like Mr. Sterling does. “I said the man was never seen again!” I’m telling about the time I read him and Mavis a mystery story.

“Well, check with Gabby,” Mr. Sterling says. He’s referring to Mrs. Sharp, the nurse in charge who never shuts up. “She knows where everybody is.” I wag my finger in the air high over my head, like Mr. Sterling.

I shouldn’t be making fun of that poor old man. He can’t help it that he can no longer hear, even with both hearing aids in place and at high volume. When I remember this fiasco will get me ten Hail Marys, I change the subject.

“Let’s make some popcorn,” I say.

“Let’s sneak out of the house instead,” Madeline suggests. “Don’t you have a hang-out where there are lots of boys?”

Bridget shrugs her shoulders. I give Madeline a blank stare. Bridget and I are not much into sneaking out, unless it’s to watch my father and Donna in the pool house. But it’s Saturday night. They won’t be there. Besides Bridget and I haven’t shared this secret with anyone, so even if they were, we probably wouldn’t invite Madeline to join us.

“Come on. It’ll be fun,” Madeline says and starts to put her shoes on.

“We have some guard dogs in our neighborhood,” I point out. “They’re bound to give us away.” Part of this is true. There are some dogs, but I have no idea whether they’d make a fuss.

Madeline tosses her shoes aside and opens her overnight bag. She dumps the contents on the floor.

“Check it out,” she says, the suggested foray into the night forgotten.

“Where did all this stuff come from?” Bridget asks, sifting through an assortment of enamel bracelets. She pops one on her arm, then wraps a silk scarf around her neck. There’s stretchy tops loaded with rhinestones, some leather belts, a red leather Coach wallet, scads of makeup, and a dozen bottles of perfume. I pick up a bottle of Arpège, my mother’s favorite. Sample is stamped on the bottle.

“I can get as much of this stuff as I want,” Madeline explains. “It’s fun!”

There are bottles of Dior Eau Noire, Narciso Rodriquez, Tabu, Obsession, Poison, Chloé and Oscar de la Renta. I’m not sure where this is going, but I have a pretty good idea. The Coach wallet alone costs at least a hundred dollars. I realize Madeline’s parents are wealthy, but still, there are limits to a parent’s generosity.

“These are just samples, but they smell the same,” Madeline explains. “But I can get you the real thing if you want.”

My eyes are bulging out of my head.

“Trust me,” she adds, “It’s no big thing. I’m very good at it.”

Madeline turns to Bridget who is eyeballing the loot.

“Cool, huh?” Madeline says, perfectly convinced.

Stealing is definitely not cool. Suddenly I am fearful for Bridget, who has grown very close to Madeline. She idolizes her. Bridget could get into a lot of trouble. I don’t know what to say or what to do. I do know I would like all this stuff to disappear. What if the cops have some type of sting operation going on and we are surrounded? It’s giving me the creeps. I peek out my bedroom window. No one is out there that I can see. Even so, I have a feeling in my chest like something very heavy is resting on it. I take a deep breath.

“What’s wrong?” Madeline says.

I don’t answer. Bridget picks up a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and dabs her wrist. “Is it me?” she says, and holds out her arm. “What do you think?”

I think I’m going to be sick. And I think it was a big mistake for Bridget to end up at Westwood Academy. And for sure I think it was a major mistake the day she met Madeline.

It’s seven o’clock on Sunday night and I have a book report to turn in tomorrow. Once again I’ve waited ’til time is no longer on my side. We are to pose questions regarding the purpose of the narrative and then give answers. I’ve chosen
The Great Gatsby
. It was on the list and I liked the character Daisy, even though I don’t think we’re supposed to. So far my list of questions includes:

1. Why did Jay Gatsby have this obsession with Daisy to begin with?

2. Why didn’t Daisy love him back?

3. Why did Nick just watch and never do anything?

My answers are a blank sheet of paper. Consider question number one. Why do any of us feel attracted to someone? It’s very complicated to explain. If we could figure that out then when we find we really like some jerk, we could stop liking him, and that’s not how it works. And as for Daisy not loving Jay Gatsby in return, that sort of follows question number one. And Nick was the narrator, so maybe his sole purpose in the book was just to relay the facts, but if that’s the case, why didn’t F. Scott Fitzgerald remain the narrator himself like many other books that have been written? So there has to be some reason Nick was there observing and not really doing anything. Maybe my questions are not very good ones. I’m thinking of starting over when Beth taps on the door and comes into my room. I never can figure why people knock if they are going to just barge in without waiting for a reply. Beth is home from school and she couldn’t have chosen a worse weekend to do so.

“Andi, what is this doing here?”

She has an Arpège perfume bottle in her hand. I have a feeling it’s the one stamped sample and I can’t understand what she’s doing with it. Madeline shoved all that stuff back in her bag before she left. I watched. She said, “It’s no big deal, Andi. They have insurance for stuff like this when it’s lost.”

Lost was not exactly the word I had in mind and it is a big deal. To begin with somehow she left one behind and now I’m the one having to explain it. If I tell the truth, I’ll be grounded. If I lie, I’ll feel bad about myself. This is not a win-win situation. All because of Madeline’s thievery—and we’re not even talking the big picture here, yet. Bridget. She’ll be next.

“Andi? I’m talking to you,” Beth says. Her lips are twisted to the side like she is really enjoying this. Like she knows her question is rhetorical—another word Alex taught me—and her face has the answer. I stole it. That’s what it’s saying and saying it with pleasure.

“Ah,” I say. “I—I—”

“Thought so,” she says and leaves as quickly as she entered, the bottle still firmly clutched in her hand.

It is hard for me to understand why a flesh-and-blood relation can take so much pleasure in another’s discomfort. It makes me think we’re not related. That there’s something my mother’s not telling me and I was really fathered by someone else, say a long-lost love that came back into her life for one brief night. I know that’s far-fetched, but still at times like this I can’t help but think it. Right now I don’t need to be thinking on it. I need to get to my mother before Beth does. She’ll have her convinced I should be in reform school. And she’ll enjoy convincing her.

***

There’s another reason why parents should never have a drinking problem while their children are growing up. Say you want to talk to them about something very important, something that is near eating your insides up, and they are just lying on their bed at seven o’clock on a Sunday night and they look like they’re sleeping, but they’re not. They’re so far under the influence they don’t answer no matter how many times you call their name or shake their shoulder.

Just when you think you have all your priorities straight and know what’s important—and what’s not—life steps in and says: Nothing doing. You are way off-track, buster. Take this morning for example. Beth has left to go back to school and the day is nearly perfect. I’m trying to find a way to approach my mother about Madeline, and the perfume bottle, and the entire mess I’m sitting in, through no fault of my own, and the phone rings and everything is turned upside down.

“Oh, good Lord!” my mother says. “When?” A slight pause follows. “How bad?” My mother’s face is the color of cement. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, oh no!” On and on she goes, shaking her head side to side as if to deny whatever it is she’s hearing. I hate it when people on the phone don’t repeat what’s transpiring on the other end of the line and you’re left picturing the worst. My mother lays the phone down and yells for Rosa.

“What? What?” I chase after my mother who is still trying to find Rosa. Finally, my mother stops and explains. We have to go to the hospital immediately. Amy has gone into labor. It’s way too soon. My mother’s hands are shaking so hard she can barely hang on to the car keys. Rosa runs to get Mr. Porter. He’s poking around in the garden as usual, but gets behind the wheel and pulls the car around while we wait at the front door.

“Andi, you best go to school,” my mother says. “There’s nothing you can do—”

“No!” I say.

This baby is all we have left of Alex. How am I supposed to go to school like it’s an ordinary Monday? Sometimes my mother doesn’t think clearly.

“Well, alright then,” she says. “Get in.” She turns to Mr. Porter and says, “Mercy Hospital. And hurry!”—like he’s a taxi driver.

Mr. Porter nods his head. He’s a small man who might have had a nice physique had he been born a woman. His shoulders are narrow and pointed and his hands are almost delicate. His fingers remind me of tulips, but I’m not sure why. Maybe because he spends so much time in the garden and everything grows green and lush within days after his hands sift about in the soil. He caresses the folds around the plants, like the small piles of dirt gathered in his hands are little blankets and he’s tucking in his babies.

“I can’t understand this. I just can’t understand this,” my mother murmurs and squeezes my hand. I feel very important when she does this, like we are in on this together and of course we are, but still, it’s nice that she is letting me get close to her anguish. I really do love my mother even when she oftentimes isn’t there for me. She’s here right now and she’s very distressed and she’s sober. If this was going to happen, at least it happened in the morning before her oatmeal. She never drinks before her oatmeal.

Mr. Porter drops us at the emergency room door and leaves to park the car. He’ll be in the coffee shop, he says. In case we need him. My mother rushes to the nurses’ station where we find that Amy has been admitted and taken to a private room on the third floor.

“I forgot to call your father!” My mother rests her hand on my arm. “Stay here,” she says and turns and rushes back to the nurses’ station. I watch as her heels click on the poured-concrete floor. She’s like a thoroughbred. She glides easily across the surface.

I enter Amy’s room, careful not to make a sound. A nurse is by her side. Amy’s resting comfortably, she says, but someone needs to tell Amy that. Her eyes look like an animal’s that have made contact with the headlights of a car. She’s on the phone with her mother who lives in New York. She’s divorced from Amy’s father who is some sort of diplomat. He is currently out of the country.

“I don’t know, Mother,” Amy laments. “They haven’t told me anything. They’re trying to stop the labor, is all I know. And I’m not calling Jeffrey until I know something.”

Jeffrey’s at Vanderbilt and Amy’s living in an apartment by herself off North Druid Hills Road, not too far from us.

My mother makes her way into the room. Her face is no longer soft and serene. Her brow is creased and her lips are pinched. She’s worried. The last time we were at this hospital it was so my father could identify Alex. My mother insisted I wasn’t to go with them, but I cried ’til hiccups wracked my body and my father convinced my mother it was best to stay together. That night is still fresh in my heart. It sits there like an open wound, ready to fester with the slightest encouragement.

The doctor strides into the room and picks up the clipboard at the end of Amy’s bed. He is young and stout, with greasy hair parted on one side. He’s wearing large, black-rimmed glasses and I want to laugh out loud. He looks like a doctor ready for a sketch on
Saturday Night Live.
But this is not a laughing matter. The doctor explains to Amy and my mother about the medication in the IV and what they hope to accomplish by administering it, which I find rather strange. Not the IV, but the fact he’s giving us all this information. He doesn’t even know who we are. He hasn’t even introduced himself. I guess this doctor is too busy to bother with formalities and assumes since we are in the room, we are family and takes it from there.

“The medication is not without side effects,” he cautions. He explains that Amy is being given a steroid drug called a corticosteroid, which will help the baby’s lungs mature, along with antibiotics, to help prevent infection since the baby’s immune system is immature.

“We’re also using ritodrine,” the doctor explains. “Dr. Charles” is stenciled on the pocket of his white coat in red letters. “As I said, there’s a possibility of side effects, naturally.”

I’m reading the inscription on the IV bag and there certainly are! It says possible side effects for the mother include rapid heartbeat, fluid in the lungs, poor blood flow, low blood pressure, fast heartbeat, high levels of sugar in the blood, high levels of insulin in the blood, low amounts of potassium in the blood, reduced amounts of urine, changes in function of the thyroid gland, shaking, nervousness, nausea or vomiting, fever and hallucinations. All this from a drug Dr. Charles insists is the proven drug of choice to stop premature labor.

Possible side effects for the baby are equally disturbing: fast heartbeat, high levels of insulin in the blood, low or high levels of sugar in the blood, enlarged heart, poor blood flow, low levels of calcium in the blood, jaundice, low blood pressure, and bleeding within the brain or heart.

This poor little baby. We found out last week it’s a boy. They did the sonogram and the doctor said, “No mistake here. It’s a boy!”

***

When my father arrives, I know that I’ll feel better. It is a big disappointment to discover that I don’t. He is very somber after speaking with the doctor, who explains that so far the treatment is not working.

“It doesn’t look good,” my father says when the doctor leaves. My mother has her arms wrapped around her waist. Her head is moving side to side in slow motion, like she has seen the outcome and no longer believes in possibilities. My father puts his arm around my shoulder and I bury my head in his sleeve, squeezing my eyes shut to hold back the tears. I don’t want Amy to see. I don’t want her to know that our side of the family has given up hope.