All You Get Is Me (20 page)

“I just can’t imagine your dad farming.”

That’s funny, I can’t imagine you as the wife of a fisherman named Buddy.

“Well, he’s actually pretty good at it,” I say, perhaps a hair more defensively than necessary. She seems not to have heard me, though.

“Hang on a second. I want you to say hi to someone.”

“Um, okay.”

“Sweetie?” calls my mom, and I start to answer her until I realize that she isn’t talking to me.

“Come here, sweetie,” she coaxes. “Say hi to your big sister.”

“No!” says a little voice.

“Come on, sweetie. Say HI!”

“HI!” says the little voice.

God, why do people do that?

“Hi.” I feel like an idiot.

“Say bye-bye!” says my mom.

“BYE-BYE!” yells the little voice.

“Bye.” But she’s already gone. I can hear her yelling in the background.

My mom comes back on the phone. “You two really should meet. Wouldn’t that be great?”

“Yeah, great.”

“You know, I should really get going. This monster’s got to go down for a nap or there’ll be hell to pay later.”

“Yeah, okay, me too. I have to go.”

“Wow. It’s sure been nice talking to you. I’m
so
glad you called. You just call me anytime you like, okay?”

“Okay, sure,” I say, knowing that I’ll never call again.

“Oh, and Roar?”

“Yeah?”

“Have a wonderful birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“Bye, now.”

“Bye.” I click the phone off and sit in my chair, feeling numb and wondering what just happened. I think back to before I dialed the phone and try to recall what I was expecting to happen. Was I thinking that my mom would beg me to come live with her and her new family in Florida? I guess not, but maybe I wanted to believe that she’d been waiting a long time for that call and my dad was the only thing preventing it and now that we were back in touch, she could resume her role as my mother somehow. Not only is she not interested in that job, I think she would have been happier if the call had never happened at all and she’d never had to deal with the dregs of her old life.

I feel another wave of tears coming on, but even though my bottom lip starts to quiver and I feel pinpricks behind my eyes, the tears never arrive. I guess I must be all cried out.

I dial Forest’s cell and, because he’s on twenty-four-hour alert, he picks up immediately.

“Hi,” I say quietly.

“So, how did it go?” he asks.

“Um, well, I think I got what they call ‘closure.’”

“Oh, Roar. I’m sorry.”

“Well. It appears that she’s moved on and so should I. I suppose it’s just as well. It would have been nice just to hear her say ‘I’ve missed you,’ though.”

“I’m sure she’s missed you, but if she says it she has to acknowledge all the guilt she’s felt for the past two years and she probably doesn’t want to go there. It’s messy.”

“You’re probably right.” I sigh.

“Hey, let’s do something. I’ll come get you, okay?”

“No, I’m all icky. I think I want to be alone.”

“Okay.”

In a movie of the week, this would be the part of the story where the lead character:

A) Runs away to the nearest dangerous city, where trouble lurks around every corner.

B) Goes off and gets drunk and then smashes up a car.

C) Has unprotected sex with her boyfriend and gets pregnant.

D) Steals something and gets caught.

E) Any combination of the above.

As if on cue, my phone rings. I half expect it to be my mom, feeling bad about the phone call, wanting to apologize. She was distracted, but now the baby is napping and she has time to really talk.

It’s not my mom; it’s Storm, psychically responding to a need for rebellion.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

“Contemplating something drastic,” I respond.

“Oh, pish posh, I’m picking you up in ten minutes. I stole my mom’s car, or rather, borrowed it.”

“Where are we going?”

“Oakdale county fair. If we hurry we can catch the hog-calling competition.”

Storm, as promised, arrives in ten minutes, driving a late-model Buick with a large crucifix dangling from the rearview mirror and a “Jesus Saves” bumper sticker on the back.

I get in the car wearing dark wraparound sunglasses to hide my puffy eyes.

“Hey, homey,” says Storm, taking in my sunglasses. She’s dressed in an outfit that the fairgoers won’t soon forget. A red-and-white-checkered halter top and denim cutoff short shorts with a belt that features a huge rodeo buckle—a gift from Doo-wayne, I gather, although he probably doesn’t know he “gave” it to her. She has a long cigarette between her fingers and she’s wearing oversized Jackie O sunglasses.

“Hey, I have a gift for you.” I hand her the white leather go-go boots. She pushes her sunglasses onto the top of her head and tosses the cigarette out the window. Storm is the archenemy of Smoky the Bear.

“Are you kidding me? Those are for me?”

“Yup.”

She pulls off her four-inch platform sandals, throws them into the backseat, and yanks the boots on. The look in her eyes is pure lust. I’ve never seen anyone fall in love with footwear like that.

“These are freaking fabulous!” she says, admiring her feet. “How have I lived so long without these babies?”

“You mean you’re going to wear them? It’s eighty degrees out.”

She puts the car in gear and hits the gas. “And your point would be . . . ?”

There are a thousand things you can do at a county fair and Storm intends to do most of them. The first order of business is food. We load up on cotton candy, caramel apples, and Tom Thumb donuts. Then we go on the Ferris wheel, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Matterhorn, the swings that go around until you vomit (in a unique role reversal, Storm holds
my
hair out of my face), and the haunted house. Then we start over with corn on the cob, greasy onion rings, and saltwater taffy. After that we climb the metal stands at the competition ring (not easy in white go-go boots) and find a good seat to watch the hog-calling competition. The air is scented with sawdust and animal poop and the stands are filled with cowboys and 4-H parents. After the hog-calling competition (which is truly surreal), the program continues with cowboys riding ostriches and endless 4-H club competitions where children dressed like miniature cowboys and cowgirls parade their pig/cow/sheep/goat/horse around the ring while a judge dressed in a peacock blue western-style polyester leisure suit stands in the middle and decides which animal wins a ribbon, which apparently has nothing to do with how cute the kid is. As the winner is announced, crying ensues among the losing cowboys and cowgirls. That part was hard to watch. I take a ton of photos of the world of heartbreak that is 4-H competition. Storm flirts shamelessly with any man within flirting distance and adds vodka to her lemonade from a discreet silver flask she carries in her purse.

We wander back to the midway as it’s getting dark and the colored lights come on everywhere, lighting up the rides and the booths like tie-dye Christmas. The effect is a slice of small-town America that you don’t see much anymore. The air is filled with laughter and screaming and carnival music. We play the ring toss and the dart game, which I’m especially good at. I can also squirt water into a clown’s mouth like nobody’s business and I win a stuffed monkey with Velcro on its paws that Storm wears around her neck like a mink stole for the rest of the night. As Storm’s chatting up the guy who runs the funhouse, I spy a pay phone and dig out some change and call Forest.

“Hey, are you okay? Why do I hear calliope music?”

“Um, I’m at the county fair in Oakdale.”

“Why?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Who are you with?”

“Storm.” I glance over at her; she’s leaning over as the funhouse guy lights her cigarette. Even from here, I can see her batting her eyelashes.

“Is she drinking?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

“Don’t let her drive.”

“Right, you’re right. I won’t.”

“Call me when you get home, okay?”

“I will.”

He’s about to hang up when I suddenly feel brave. “Hey, Forest.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not saying that because you think you might die tonight, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. Call me later.”

“Bye.”

I head back over to Storm, who’s now writing her phone number on a matchbook cover for funhouse guy. I coax her away from his wolflike grin and we find the saltwater taffy place again so I can bring a bag home for Forest. He surely deserves it for absorbing all my salty tears on his shirt.

We make our way back to the parking lot and lie across the windshield of Storm’s mom’s car and watch the fireworks that they shoot off every night when the fairground closes. Even though I’ve never driven at night, I trust myself more than I do Storm so I wrestle the keys away from her and carefully guide the car through the grassy parking lot, driving like an old woman until I see the sign for the freeway. Storm sings along to a hip-hop song on the radio and then falls asleep, making her the worst copilot ever. I figure I’ll just drive super slow and we should be okay. At least there aren’t gears to wrestle with. This car practically drives itself. I look out the windshield into the darkness and the heaviness starts creeping back into my heart. I push it away, promising myself that I’ll deal with it later. Fortunately, driving takes all of my focus. I drive to Storm’s house and put the car keys on the seat so no one thinks that Storm drove in her condition. I leave her snoring in the passenger seat and steal her brand-new, hardly ever used bike out of the dark garage and pedal the five miles home. I’m really grateful that there’s air in the tires. It’s exhilarating riding alone down the empty road in the dark.

Later, I’m lying in bed. Rufus is curled up next to me on the floor. I watch the curtains ripple in the breeze, which has returned with the cooler air. I remember reading somewhere that humans have tribal tendencies, and as we go through life we’re inclined to gather people who are like us and form bonds with them that can be stronger than familial bonds. This thing with my mom is just a wound that has to heal. If I dwell on it, it will infect and fester and the healing will take a lot longer. If I leave it alone, the pain will lessen every day and one day it will disappear completely like when you finally flick a scab off and there’s new pink skin underneath. In the meantime, I have my own little tribe. I have people in my life who care about me, and it doesn’t really matter where or who I came from. The only thing that matters is where I’m going.

I pick up the phone to dial Forest but when I click it on, my dad’s on it. I eavesdrop for a few seconds. He’s speaking Spanish and then I hear Tomás’s voice responding.

“Tomás?” I ask.

“Sí. ¿Aurora?”

“Yes.”

“¿
Que hubo
?” Which means
what’s up?

“Not much,” I answer.

“Dad, when’s he coming back?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Soon, I hope.”

“Can you tell him that I miss him?”

He tells Tomás in Spanish and Tomás responds.

“He says he misses you too and he hopes to come back soon,” says my dad.

“Adios, Tomás.”

“
Nos vemos
, Aurora,” says Tomás, which means
see you later.

I click the phone off. I wait a few minutes until I can’t hear my dad’s voice downstairs anymore, then I call Forest and whisper good night.

Chapter 19

T
he morning after the county fair I wake up late and rush out the door to take care of the loathsome chickens so that I can get into the darkroom and develop the photos from the fair. I have a good feeling about some of them and I can’t wait to get to work. I take the bowl of table scraps next to the sink out with me. The chickens eat vegetable scraps and what they don’t eat we put on the compost heap. Today they get potato peels, carrot peels, radish tops, and leftover brown rice. The chickens are noisier than usual as I pass the coop on the way to the supply shed to get the rest of their feed. Bruce, the rooster, who usually stays near the chickens, is over by the bunkhouse, pacing back and forth nervously like Mick Jagger. I fill up the metal feed bucket and head back to the coop. On my way, I notice a few chicken feathers clinging to the grass. A little farther along I see a couple of drops of dark red blood and then a few more. By the time I get to the coop, the events of the previous night become pretty obvious. There’s a tiny hole dug under the chicken wire. It’s much too small for an animal to have squeezed under the fence, but foxes are cunning and he probably just stuck his paw under the fence and grabbed the first chicken that walked by. The scene is grisly, feathers and blood everywhere, but no sign of the poor chicken. The remaining chickens, and I count them, are fine but extremely agitated. It’s Gretta, I realize. The coyote got Gretta. I open the little wooden door and crawl into the coop and fill the feeders, but no one makes a move to leave the coop or to eat. I sit cross-legged on the floor of the coop in the dirt and try to make myself look like a chicken. I watch them do that frenetic worrying thing that chickens do. Perhaps I’ve grossly underestimated the sensitivity of the average chicken. They say that elephants mourn their dead. I think chickens might too. Apparently, watching one of their own get devoured alive has put them off their breakfast. Maybe they’re fasting in support of their lost chicken sister. Maybe this is a wake. I went to a wake once when my dad’s friend Ernie died. Everyone brought chicken. What does a chicken bring to a wake?

I know that soon I’ll have to go get Steve or my dad and we’ll have to take care of this hole and reinforce the area somehow, but something inspires me to sit there awhile among the fussing, clucking chickens and experience their loss with them.

As I sit on the dirt floor, I think about how, until yesterday, I unconsciously reserved a place on this farm for my mom even though I had no idea if she’d ever see it. I often pictured her taking part in the victories and the losses of our little operation, and whenever I did a chore or took on a project, I carried on a running dialogue, explaining in detail what I was doing, as I imagined my mother looking on with interest, eager to learn. Even the little things like planting a seedling properly or hanging out the laundry or removing the corn from a cob, I would share all of it with her. And now, twenty-four hours after our conversation, all that is in the past. I’m the “woman” of the farm now. I feel a sense of loss but I also feel oddly powerful. No matter what I do in my life, I’ll always know that I can do almost any job on a farm that a man can do and I can probably do it just as well. I made my dad feel bad about dragging me out here but I was only trying to punish him. There’s something about farmwork that makes you feel whole and strong. Maybe it’s the closeness to the earth, maybe it’s just being out here in all this open space, but now that I’ve lived this way I can’t imagine not living this way.