Blue Plate Special (19 page)

i’m worried she’ll think

he’s a perv and hang up.

instead she yells—so loud

ariel’s eyelids blink open—

jeremy, honey, is that you?

shaking, he hangs up fast.

i stand, take his hand,

lead him back to our room.

after putting ariel in her crib

i lie next to him on our bed.

he’s my baby now too,

so i rock him back and forth,

rubbing his head, saying,
there, there,

until his crying slows, then stops.

* * *

the next afternoon,

just before a storm blows through,

dr. stemple arrives for lunch again,

except she orders a dr. pepper

instead of hot tea with lemon

and a sandwich instead of salad.

her clothes are different too—

slacks and a dark silk blouse.

classes start again next week,

she tells me.
i’m flying back

to poughkeepsie tonight.

i was hoping we could talk.

can you spare a few minutes?

aside from a trucker,

finishing his liver and onions,

the place is dead.

when i drop down across from her,

dr. stemple sets a gift bag in front of me.

a blush creeps across my face.
for me?

she nods so i plow through the tissue,

lift out three books by

three lady authors.

adrienne rich,

anne sexton,

nikki giovanni.

i flip through the pages.

they’re books of poetry.

dr. stemple smiles.

you seemed to enjoy sylvia plath,

so i thought you might

like to sample more.

i’m stunned speechless.

i feel my eyes well up.

desiree, you’re a courageous

and ambitious young woman.

when i was your age,

a woman either worked

or she became a mother.

rarely did she attempt both.

she sighs.

i wrestled with that myself.

i quit high school,
i blurt out.

my mother, she
—i freeze.

why am i telling her this?

let me guess.

she didn’t deal well

with your pregnancy?

i nod.

that’s her loss, desiree.

there are plenty of women who would

consider themselves blessed

to have a daughter like you.

and a granddaughter.

she smiles a sad smile.

i glance at the poetry books,

wondering how my life

would be different if i’d had

a mother to learn things from,

a mother who believed in me

and told me i mattered.

a mother like dr. stemple.

she glances at the clock and stands.

unfortunately, i need to go.

i still have packing to do.

but call me if you’re in new york.

i mean that, desiree.

i want to know how you’re doing.

in the meantime, let’s stay in touch.

you have my e-mail address.

i’ve heard of e-mail

but ned and charlotte

use an antique cash register,

so i doubt they even own a computer.

still, i say,
i want to stay in touch, too.

* * *

that night after ariel wakes us

and jeremy’s waiting for

her formula to warm,

he mumbles,
recessive genes.

i freeze.
huh?

we learned about ’em in biology.

that’s how two brown-eyed people

can have a blue-eyed baby.

i nod.
oh yeah. i heard that too.

later, as we lie in bed,

jeremy takes my hand

and brings it to his lips,

kissing my fingers one by one,

and i remember the day joan kissed

pete’s finger while they smoked pot

on carol ann’s porch.

i have what they have now,

but i’m so scared to trust it,

scared the truth will ruin it all.

T
he elevator door opens on the seventh floor
, and Mom and I step out. She pauses beside a window, looking out at the lot we’re parked in. I wait, watching a black SUV pull into a handicapped spot. A door opens and a woman sprints toward the entrance. I hate it when able-bodied people park in designated areas. I want to tell them off.

I turn to face Mom. “Are you okay?”

She looks numb. “I have no idea. I’m on overload trying to process what you told me. I mean, I can’t believe my mother went to high school with Lee. And that Lee feels all this…this…sympathy for her.” Mom’s eyes fill. “Damn it, Lee’s supposed to be there for
me.
She’s
my
ally.”

“She still will be,” I say, patting her arm to reassure her.

Mom breathes a heavy sigh. “Let’s go,” she says, starting down the hall.

A nurse is just leaving Green Mountain’s room. “We gave Mrs. Murdock something to help with her pain, so she’ll probably be a bit groggy.”

“Déjà vu,” Mom mumbles.

“Huh?”

“When I was a teenager, she was high on pain pills most of the time. She could sleep through anything. And
did.
”

Mom pauses beside the privacy curtain that divides the room. It’s parted now, and Wild Hair’s bed is empty.

The heat in the room is stifling. A window is open slightly, so Green Mountain must be warm too. Except she still has her sweater on.

The chair I sat in earlier has been moved next to Green Mountain’s bed. I feel funny sitting that close, but Mom motions me toward it, taking the more distant one for herself. I sit, telling Green Mountain, “Someone said to say hi.”

“Oh, really?” Her tongue sounds thick, like it’s too big for her mouth. “An’ who would that be?”

“The woman we talked about before. Aunt Lee. She says she knew you in high school.”

Her eyes narrow into slits. “I never met anyone named Lee.”

Mom looks so fragile I wish I didn’t have to keep going. But Aunt Lee will ask what happened. “Lee is short for Muralee,” I tell her. “Muralee Blawjen.”

Green Mountain’s eyes widen. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

“No, I’m not. We just talked.”

“Holy shit.” She doesn’t sound drugged anymore. “How do you know Muralee?”

“I told you, Mom works for her.”

Green Mountain shakes her head, confused.

“I met Lee in Florida,” Mom explains. “She used to have lunch at the diner I waitressed at when I was pregnant with Ariel. Lee was interviewing girls at the local high school, doing research for her book. When we came back to New York and I got my GED, she hired me.”

Green Mountain stares at Mom, unblinking. “Muralee wrote a book?”

“Seven of them,” Mom answers proudly. “She’s working on her eighth now.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Green Mountain says. “Muralee was a smart cookie.”

For a long time, we’re all silent. Then I ask, “What was she like as a teenager?”

“Pretty. Popular. Thin.” Green Mountain exhales a slow breath. “Everything I wasn’t.” She turns to my mother. “Remember when you were your daughter’s age and I told you about the cheerleader I used to wish I could be?”

Mom squints. “Vaguely. Why?”

“That cheerleader was Muralee Blawjen.”

“Aunt Lee could
not
have been a cheerleader,” I blurt out. “She’s a feminist!”

Green Mountain laughs. “Everybody’s capable of surprises.” Turning back to Mom again, she asks, “She end up marrying her boyfriend, Glenn?”

Mom nods. “Married and divorced him, unfortunately.”

“Damn shame. Must be hard on the kids.”

Mom and I exchange glances.

“What’s wrong?” Green Mountain asks.

“Aunt Lee doesn’t have kids,” I tell her.

“Why not? She said she wanted ’em after college.”

“She and Glenn tried for years,” Mom tells her. “Lee couldn’t get pregnant.”

“
Sure
she could. Why, she was—” Green Mountain stops herself. “Shit!”

I sit forward. “What were you going to say?”

Green Mountain looks away. “Nothing. A promise is a promise.”

Mom’s eyes narrow. “You promised Lee something in high school?”

“Sorry”—Green Mountain holds a hand up—“end of discussion.”

To use an SAT prep word, the tension in the air is palpable. “Aunt Lee would’ve made a great mother,” I say, trying to smooth over the moment. Then, I’m not sure why, but I add, “She says Mom and I are like family.”

“That so?” Green Mountain’s face pales.

Immediately, I regret tossing in that last part. As if agreeing with me, the sky starts to darken.

A beep sounds in the next room. Someone sneezes in the hallway. A person wearing slippers scuffs past.

Then, silence. Except for the ticking of a clock, the room is quiet. Too quiet.

“You know,” Mom says, covering a yawn, “I’m feeling pretty tired from the trip. Maybe we should let…” She turns to her mother, and I’m guessing she’s wondering what to call her. “…Maybe we should all get some rest.” She stands, like we’ve voted and decided that’s the plan.

I watch Mom cross the room. Probably because there’s nothing else to watch. Or because Mom, in her own feeble way, is the one steering the ship. Not that a ship is a good metaphor for our visit. A bike with flat tires is more like it.

In the threshold, Mom turns. “We’ll see you tomorrow then. Rest up.”

Rest up
is so lame. Resting up won’t make Green Mountain’s breasts grow back or cure her cancer. Or fix the rift between Mom and her.

Still, I don’t have much choice. I follow her.

“Hold your horses,” Green Mountain barks. “There’s something I need to say!”

Mom stops. “Can’t it wait until morning?”

“No, it can’t. I’m tired of putting things off. Someday we’re gonna run out of mornings.”

Mom returns, lowering herself into the chair.

“I’ll wait in the cafeteria,” I mumble.

“Not so fast!” her mother snaps. “I want you here too, Ariel.”

This is the first time she’s called me by my name. The impact is kind of major—startling, and, well, comforting. I lean against the wall by Mom’s chair, positioning myself so I can see both of their faces.

Green Mountain reaches for her Coke, taking several long swallows. She burps, excuses herself, and says, “You’re a lucky woman, Desiree.”

Mom snorts.
“Lucky?”

“Damn straight. Lucky you found your knack for mothering. Lucky you had one to find. Lucky you get to go to sleep at night without being haunted by all the mistakes you made. Lucky that, when you’re my age, God willing, you won’t be lying in a hospital bed beating on yourself for all the times you fucked up.”

I stifle a gasp. Not that I’m an expert on grandmothers, but I’ve never heard anyone else’s use the F-word before.

“Bottom line,” she continues. “As mothers go, I sucked.”

Mom opens her mouth. Then, just as quickly, she closes it.

Green Mountain nods. “Good. At least we agree on something.”

Mom laughs nervously.

“I’m not making excuses for my behavior, but I was somebody’s daughter once, too. You aren’t the only one who got handed crap in the mothering department, Desiree.”

“What are you saying?” Mom asks her.

“Your father didn’t die in any ordinary car accident. He was killed. By a drunk driver who took away the only person who’d ever cared about me.”

Mom sits forward. “But what does that have to do with your mother?”

Green Mountain pushes a button and her bed groans, lifting her mattress so she’s sitting upright. She looks straight at Mom and says, “The driver was Leona Fitch.”

Mom’s jaw drops. “Your mother?”

Green Mountain nods.

“Oh my God,” Mom and I mumble in unison.

“After Tad died”—Green Mountain swallows, a hard, dry swallow—“they hauled my ma off to jail, and I got a job so I could pay the rent. Fortunately, I turned eighteen before social services caught up with me. Every day, I dragged myself off to school, then work, then home around midnight, tired, pregnant, and hungry. Food was my only comfort. Before long, I’d gained back all the weight I’d lost, and then some. Apparently Muralee Blawjen took pity on me. She gave me a present after we finished our senior year.”

I think back to what Aunt Lee said about giving Madeline Fitch a gift. “What kind of present?”

“An envelope with five hundred dollars in it. I didn’t want to take it from her, but Muralee said a rich aunt had given her a thousand dollars when she graduated. She insisted I split it with her. That was a tidy sum back in the 1970s. Muralee said, ‘Make a new start for yourself, Madeline.’ So I did. I bought a Binghamton newspaper, found myself an apartment in Johnson City, and got the hell out of Elmira.” She glances at Mom. “You were born there three weeks later. Except I didn’t know the first thing about being a mother.” She pauses, reaches to sip her water. “And I ran out of money, of course, so I was on welfare till you started kindergarten. That’s when I finally went to a doctor for my headaches. He put me on pain pills and, let me tell you, it was like a miracle. I even got a job, working at Kmart, but boy, did I get hooked on those little babies. By the time you were a teenager, we were quite a pair.”
Green Mountain forces a smile. “I was stoned all the time, and you had the rudest, most foul mouth I’d ever—”

“I was a
teenager,”
Mom interrupts.

“I was a teenager once too,” Green Mountain counters, “but I never talked to my mother the way you—”

“And your mother didn’t have a boyfriend who
raped
you!”

A gray-haired nurse appears in the doorway. “Everything all right in here?” she asks. Her arms are loaded with linens, and the bleach smell permeates the room.

Mom and Green Mountain glare at each other.

“We’re fine,” I tell the nurse. “We just got a little loud. Sorry.”

Hesitantly, she walks away. Outside the window, a delivery truck drives in reverse across the parking lot, sounding his backing-up beep. If only people gave off signals like that; we’d know what they were planning next.

For several minutes, no one speaks. Then Green Mountain turns to Mom, talking to her like I’m not there. “So Ariel knows about Larry?”

“Of course,” Mom answers. “I’ve been very up-front about everything. The last thing I want is for Ariel to have to Google the truth.”

“And Jeremy?” Green Mountain asks.

“Wow,” Mom says, “you got his name right. Yes, Ariel knows that Jeremy’s not her biological—”

“He’s the only father I’ve ever known,” I interrupt. “And could the two of you please stop talking about me like I’m not here?”

Sorry
, Mom mouths.

Green Mountain grins at me. “You’ve got a backbone. I like that.”

“Jeremy has another parole hearing next year,” Mom adds.

“So”—Green Mountain peers at Mom’s hand—“I see you’re wearing a wedding ring. When did you two tie the knot?”

“As soon as we were both eighteen,” Mom answers. “Prison weddings aren’t the most romantic, but we didn’t have any other options.”

“Guess not,” Green Mountain says. Then after a long silence she adds, “I never should’ve married Larry Murdock. After he died, I didn’t miss
him
so much as I missed having another person around. You know, for company. To make me feel like I was sharing something with somebody. Most of the time I wasn’t that fond of him.”

Mom stares at her incredulously. “Then why did you have a
relationship
with him?”

She shrugs. “He paid attention to me.”

“That’s
it?
” Mom asks.

“Oh, Desiree, you have no idea.” Green Mountain struggles to sit forward. “You’ve always been thin and pretty and had friends. But it wasn’t that way with me. You wouldn’t think somebody as big as I am could feel invisible, but that’s exactly how I felt. Like no one saw me.” She turns to glance out the window. “The day Larry Murdock came through my express lane with a tub of Turtle Wax, a box of toothpicks, and a Bic lighter, and asked me out to a movie—why, he was the first man since your father to look my way. Desiree, I would’ve said yes to anything. To anyone. That’s the problem with being desperate for attention. You never ask who the other person is—he could be a serial killer, for all you know—you’re too busy feeling grateful he picked
you
to notice.”

Her words hit a raw nerve. My stomach clenches and I think of Shane. I know so little about his past—he never wants to talk about it; he claims it doesn’t matter. A relationship is about two people, he says, and everything else is irrelevant. And I’ve never pressed the issue, because Shane paid attention to me. He said he wanted to take care of me. He told me I was pretty and sexy even though I know I’m very ordinary. He made me believe he could never get
enough of me. And, I have to admit, it’s a
high
having that effect on someone.

When I shiver, Green Mountain notices. She tips her head toward the window and I stand to close it, shutting out the hum of life outside. I notice the delivery truck is gone. I envy the driver—unloading his cargo, moving on.

Sitting again, I feel exhausted. And confused, because I realize I’ve missed a chunk of conversation. When I tune back in, Green Mountain’s glaring at Mom. “I saw how Larry looked at you,” she tells her. “Like the boys in high school used to gawk at the cheerleaders in those skimpy uniforms they paraded around in. It killed me, seeing Larry give you the attention I wanted all to myself. And
you
—you never had the modesty to cover up in front of him.” She sits forward. Coughs. Grimaces. “But none of that matters now. The day you told me what Larry’d done to you, I messed up in a big way. I got mad at the wrong person and let you go—my own flesh and blood—instead of showing that bastard the door like any decent mother would’ve done. And I got just what I deserved. I wound up losing you both.”

Green Mountain’s cheeks are streaked with tears. “I’ve been living in the dark, Desiree—with food and pills and grief and plain old stupidity—but I can’t go on like that. I’ve gotta flip a few lights on before it’s too late. Some of what I see’ll scare the hell out of me, no doubt, but I’d like to think I’ll find a reason to go on, too. That’s why I wanted you here.” The corners of her lips start to quiver. “I can’t change the past, Desiree. But if I beat this cancer, if I’m lucky enough to wake up on the right side of the grass for a few more years, I’d like to have a chance to get to know you”—she turns to face me—“and my granddaughter.”