I'm Down: A Memoir (18 page)

Within the first few minutes of meeting Yvonne, I found out that she was a dental assistant studying to be a dental hygienist and that’s why she was so sophisticated. She was crazy beautiful, and spoke very softly and laughed at almost everything Dad said. But something seemed off with her, and no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t feel like we could connect, not like I could connect to Jackie anyway. It was like there was no
her
there, just this young feminine thing that had too much mystery to mother me.

But her kids seemed normal. And the four of us were thrown out into the yard of hazardous materials to get to know each other. As we sat down next to the pile of glass Dad bought two years before to build a hothouse, Andreus immediately put his arms around me and lay against my side. I was amazingly flattered and put my arm around his four-year-old shoulder as Yvette and my sister picked at building materials in the yard.

Yvette picked up an old screw and made a face at how dirty it was before throwing it toward the house. “S’up, moose!” Yvette said. And Andreus broke free of my side and laughed.

“What was that?” I asked.

“W’sup, moose!” Yvette repeated, giggling to herself. She was clearly aware of how cute she was.

“Oh!” Andreus said. “Uncle Frank calls Mom that ’cause she was fat.”

“When?” I asked.

“I dunno,” he said. “Mom hates it.”

“S’up, moose,” Yvette repeated.

“What’s up, homey!” my sister said to Yvette slowly. “What’s up, homey!”

Yvette looked at Anora for a second before trying it, “S’up ooohhh-meee.” And Andreus, Anora, and I laughed and laughed. This game was a little bit too much fun and a little too tempting. And I decided we’d save the curse words for later.

When Dad and Yvonne came back out, Dad said, “Mishna you watch the kids for a couple of hours while I take Yvonne for a drive.”

“Okay,” I said. And Yvonne leaned down and gave her kids a little kiss before saying, “You guys listen to Mishna,” and got into Dad’s van.

As Andreus grabbed my waist and Yvette said, “I’m hungry,” I quickly got a sinking feeling.

The next day when Dad and Yvonne took off for the evening and left me with Anora and the babies, my worst fears were confirmed: just when I thought my life was about to get easier, it was getting harder.

Later that evening, I woke up in what felt like the middle of the night but in actuality was only like eleven thirty. I heard voices coming from upstairs and got up hoping that they had restaurant leftovers with them. I padded up the cement stairs
toward the kitchen, and from the landing I could see the scene in the dining room.

Jackie was back and she was arguing with Yvonne. And as I listened I realized they were fighting, OVER MY DAD!

Dad explained, “Jackie, you gotta understand . . . I’m with Yvonne now.” Then he looked at Yvonne to see how he was doing.

Jackie did not look like Donna Reed that night. In fact, she was wearing a lot of makeup and a tight red dress. And Yvonne stood there looking unimpressed, but mad as hell at Dad.

“John,” Jackie said. Then she wrapped her leg up around my father’s waist from the front. “This . . .
girl
can’t make you happy. You need a woman. I can make you happy.” It was like something out of a soap opera.

“I think it’s time for you to go home,” Yvonne said sweetly, “before you embarrass yourself any more.”

“John,” Jackie asked, “are you really throwing all this away?” And Dad was quiet. That’s when the piece of mail under my foot made a noise, and Yvonne craned her neck.

I quickly raced back down the stairs, mortified. I had no idea what I had just walked in on, but I knew it was not for me to see. I also couldn’t believe that Jackie wanted him. I just assumed she had kicked him to the curb. I was actually a little confused.

Is Dad really picking Yvonne over Jackie? Does he not care what I want at all?

The next morning, as Dad made Yvonne and her kids pancakes, she insisted on playing a Janet Jackson cassette. But I was so bummed about Jackie that even the idea of pancakes wasn’t cheering me up.
Why is Dad trading my one chance for a normal life for this young woman who doesn’t do much?

When the song “Nasty” came on, Yvonne jumped up from
the table and started dancing next to the stereo. She lipsynched the words, “Oh you nasty boy,” and entreated Dad from behind the breakfast bar and into the living room. He slowly began to move his hips in unison to her. And emboldened by her laughter he went for it. In nothing flat, he was throwing his body around looking like a teenage boy as he tried to keep pace with a girl thirteen years younger than him. Anora jumped up, too, and joined in, which made Dad even more fearless. He started grinding and thrusting in a way that made me wish I had a stun gun so I could zap the Patrick Swayze out of him. The babies laughed and clapped and I just watched in silence, feeling like an eighty-year-old. Then the song ended, and Yvonne said, “Girls, your dad sure knows how to move his thing.” And though he looked happy, I was sure I didn’t ever want to hear any more about Dad’s thing.

ON THE NIGHT
of Yvonne and Dad’s wedding, I stood trembling in a rented A-frame hall holding my violin. My dad stood across from me at the altar, looking down in order to stay serious and not start mugging for the audience. My skinny eleven-year-old body floated in a cream-and-black rayon dress with huge shoulder pads that I wouldn’t have bought off the dollar rack at Value Village, but that Yvonne paid top dollar for in the women’s section at Kmart. It was meant to look like a cream top tucked into a black skirt, but what made it so badass was that it was really just one piece. It was also at least two sizes too big.

Yvonne thought it would be really smooth if I played the wedding march on my violin. I was to play the traditional march first, and then she would walk down the aisle to a Luther Vandross song. Which was fine for her, but I had a little stage fright about playing solo for a room full of people I knew, especially on the day Dad was making such a big mistake. Still I agreed when Yvonne said, “Well, then, maybe you don’t need violin lessons anymore . . . right, John?” And Dad proceeded to nod like a bobble head.

Anora was across the room, next to Yvonne, in a dress
similar to mine but with a vest. Her hair had been done by Yvonne’s hair guy that morning and she was sporting three french braids. She was waiting to go down the aisle in a sort of ill-defined bridesmaid/fashion show capacity and salivating over the audience of relatives she would get to mug for on her way to the front of the hall. In the months since Yvonne and my dad decided to get married, Anora had been so into the wedding, you’d think she was getting married. As Yvonne dieted up until the big day, Anora discussed in intimate detail the different wedding picture combinations that would happen and what angles they should avoid posing in. And seeing Anora studying Yvonne, it was clear she dying to be a bride soon, and maybe several times.

Yvonne cued me from offstage and I put my violin under my sweaty chin and began playing one of the easiest songs ever written. But besides being sweaty, my hands also shook almost uncontrollably. I raced through the short piece, but no matter how fast I played, the wedding march seemed to go on forever. I finished and tucked my violin under my arm and ran to my seat to hide from her and everyone else in the room just as Luther Vandross kicked in.

I was sweating and staring in my rayon dress as Yvonne and Dad stood at the head of the hall and gazed into each other’s eyes as “Here and Now” played in its entirety. It was the longest five minutes and twenty-two seconds of my life. Dad shed a single tear, which trickled down his right cheek and glistened in the light. And I discretely sniffed my armpits.

In a show of things to come, Yvonne elected to have no food served—just cocktails and passed hors d’oeuvres. She said it seemed “cleaner” than serving a messy dinner. So I walked around the reception unable to reach the hors d’ouvres and feeling quite clean in the stomach, as my relatives walked up to sell me on how great it all was.

“Your dad’s married!” my aunt Alice said, her eyes about to pop out of her skinny head. “Aren’t you excited?”

“Sure,” I said. But she wasn’t satisfied with my level of my excitement and repeated, “Isn’t it exciting?”

“Yes, Aunt Alice. I’m so excited. Just like the song.”

“Are you happy to have a new lady in the house?”

To which I responded, “I think I see Uncle Dick. . . . I really should go say hi to him.”

I walked through the crowd as people mingled and smiled and my father and Yvonne danced and danced. But I wasn’t mingling, I wasn’t smiling, I wasn’t happy.

I approached my uncle Dick, who was bartending.

“Hi, Uncle Dick,” I said.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said. “What are you drinking?”

I felt sullen, and I must have looked it, because when I said, “Champagne?” his response was, “I guess this is as big an occasion as there is.” But he poured me only a tiny sip for the toast. Still, it made me a little happier. So happy, in fact, that when Dad and Yvonne opened presents, I began drinking whatever was left in the clear plastic party glasses that had been left behind on the tables.

And by the end of the night, I had a much brighter outlook on everything. I walked right up to my new stepmom to tell her how much I loved her. Dad was very happy with this outcome and said, “We are all gonna be a family. It’s gonna be like a real dream come true, and stuff.” I nodded furiously, agreeing with all my might. I wasn’t sure if he could tell that I was wobbly, but when he tried to get me to take a dance with him, I talked him out of it, unsure about my coordination and knowing I would be better at sitting.

Instead, I watched him and Yvonne dance all night, happily telling anyone who would listen: “My dad just got married!” And explaining, “That’s why I’m dressed like a waitress.”

“L
ADIES
”—
THAT’S WHAT
Yvonne had taken to calling my sister and me—“men are just big dumb animals that need you to control them.”

Yvonne stood rifling through a clothes rack at Kmart, explaining to us how she “caught” my dad.

“First of all, you can never tell a man what to do. . . . You can only steer him.” She grabbed a 50 percent cotton miniskirt and held it up to herself.

“How do you do that?” My sister needed to know, even though she was only eight.

Yvonne paused for effect and then said like it was a magic word: “Mystique.”

“What’s that mean,
mystique
?” I asked skeptically.

“It means something you don’t have any of, Duck-Butt!” Duck-Butt was my new nickname, because Yvonne said my backside looked like a duck’s.

Anora laughed, repeating, “Duck-Butt.” And then said, “Hey . . . do I have mystique?”

“Well,” Yvonne said, picking out a purple rayon dress with gold buttons and dolman sleeves. “It’s too soon to tell, because
mystique is about secrets, and you’re too young to have any secrets.”

“What kind of secrets?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What the secret is, is not important, ladies. It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small or what. The only thing that is important is that they can never totally know you or have you.”

“But don’t you want the person you’re with to know you?” I asked.

“Of course,” Yvonne said, “but you have to fight that urge.”

“But if you get married, they’re gonna find out eventually, right?” I asked.

“No,” Yvonne said, “because, there’s always something that you can withhold from a man.” She waved her hand as if to demonstrate. “For example, I didn’t let your dad kiss me for our first four dates. So, he had to
wonder
what it was like. . . . And I didn’t tell him I had kids until after he said ‘I love you.’ ”

“Oh, I get it,” Anora said, nodding.

“Isn’t that like lying?” I asked.

“Ugh, God!” Yvonne said, exasperated. “You’re not lying! You’re protecting your mystique!”

“But what about stuff people need to know?” I asked.

“A woman knows what a man needs to know,” Yvonne replied. “Plus, you can withhold lots of other things, too: your time—you can be real busy and stuff . . . sex, secrets, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re almost available, but not quite.”

“That makes sense,” my sister said maturely.

“How is that good for my dad?” I asked.

“Your dad doesn’t know what’s best for him.” She held up a pink rayon blouse. “I do.”

She put the blouse back and then grabbed one next to it that
was even more hideous. It was mustard-colored rayon with three-quarter-inch sleeves and matching pants with an elastic waistband. She looked at the outfit and handed it to me. “Duck-Butt,” she said, “why don’t you try this on?”

“That’s for grown-ups. I wear kids or juniors, but that’s for women.”

“So?” Yvonne said. “You’re almost a woman.”

“I’m twelve,” I said.

“Well, you’re very tall,” she said. “Besides you can’t imagine what I was doing at your age. I was almost out of the house.”

“I don’t like shoulder pads,” I said.

Yvonne was aghast at my disobedience. Her nostrils flared and her eyes got vicious. “But your clothes never match! And they look so old . . . and they smell!”

“That’s because they’re secondhand,” I said, grabbing the wool V-neck sweater I had on. “This is really good quality, though. Feel it. It’s Nordstrom brand.”

Yvonne’s anger was replaced by coldness. She took a deep breath and when she exhaled, I didn’t even exist. She looked over at Anora, who was trying on a felt hat, and said, “Drop the hat, we’re going now.” Then she grabbed Anora’s hand and began dragging her out of the store.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I marched behind her out of the store, trying to keep up as she dragged Anora into the parking lot. But Yvonne wasn’t responding; instead she said to my sister, “Do you hear something, Anora?”