Monday I Love You (7 page)

I got out of bed slowly, and padded over to the mirror, a glutton for punishment. Avoiding a full-face confrontation, I turned sideways and looked at myself over my shoulder.

Sometimes I'm so gross I even gross myself out.

When I arrived at the breakfast table the radio was still on. Had it been on all night, I wondered? My mother listened intently to the rehash the announcer was dishing out, as if she were hearing it for the first time.

“This man is probably armed and considered dangerous,” the announcer said excitedly. “He is thought to be the same man who escaped from the state prison over in Torry last week and is now wanted for questioning in connection with the assault and attempted rape of two high school girls in Crawford county last year. Police have issued a warning to all citizens against opening their doors to strangers, as well as against picking up hitchhikers. The man is a white male, six feet tall, in his late teens or early twenties, wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots. He has black hair and a mustache. He is, I repeat, thought to be armed and dangerous.”

“Those guys give me a pain,” I said. “They think they're Laurence Olivier or something. How about the poor guy at the gas station? How's he doing?”

As if he'd heard me and was answering, the announcer said solemnly, “The gas-station attendant was taken to Overland Hospital, where he is reported to be in critical condition.”

“Well.” My mother's eyes sparkled. “Who would think? Right in our own backyard. You never know. Things that go on.” She shook her head. Then, “Why don't you wear that pretty blue blouse I bought you?” she asked me, and I knew from the way her eyes narrowed at me that she hated my Hawaiian print shirt with the long tails that hung out and concealed a good part of me. Tough. I was the one who was wearing it, not her.

When the telephone rang, I jumped. My mother stayed where she was.

“Answer it, will you, Grace? My hands are all wet,” she said, running her hands under the cold water. I shook my head. She let it ring some more, then grabbed up the receiver and said “Yes?” into it in a feisty way.

“May I ask who's calling?” she said. Who did she think she was anyway, an executive secretary?

“It's that Doris Brown.” She held out the receiver. “I wish she wouldn't call so early in the morning. Mornings are so frantic around here.”

I looked around our kitchen. It seemed pretty calm to me.

“Hello, Doris,” I said, holding the receiver a little away from myself, in case it wasn't really Doris but someone masquerading as Doris.

“Grace. Can you sit tonight? Sorry for short notice. Got to get away for some R and R. Hope you're not busy.”

Over the telephone Doris talked in shorthand. The thing I liked about her was she always called at the last minute, always apologized for doing so and always said, “Hope you're not busy.” As if I ever was. I loved Doris for saying that.

I said five-thirty would be fine. “Plan to spend the night.” She always said that too. “I'll probably be late. May spend the night with my girl friend. You know how it is.”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing how it was but willing to buy anything Doris said.

“Peachy,” said Doris, signing off.

“She wants me to sit tonight,” I told my mother. “I'll spend the night, because she's going to be very late.” Well, I sure was in demand as a baby-sitter, anyway, I thought. First Govoni, now Doris.

My mother screwed up her face so she looked as if she might be hurting.

“I don't like you sitting off there, no neighbors or anything, alone and all,” she said. “And now this,” she waved at the radio. “This wild man on the loose. God knows what he's capable of. Anything. Everything. Most likely he's a pervert, too.” She chewed her lip excitedly. “He's probably spaced out of his mind, snorting cocaine or something. You really shouldn't be alone out there. It's dangerous.” My mother willed me to look at her.

I refused. As a matter of fact, I had been scared badly once or twice while baby-sitting at the Browns', by strange noises outside or loud bangs from a passing car, sounds that sounded like gunshots. But I'd have to be put on a rack to admit that to her now. One word of apprehension from me, and my mother would say, “Call her up and tell her I said NO.” And I liked baby-sitting for Buster Brown. I liked the money I earned too. So I kept quiet and smiled patronizingly at my mother's anxieties.

“I won't be alone. The baby will be with me. We might play some cards.” I should've known better than to joke with my mother. She has no sense of humor. None at all. Her lips never even twitched.

“You never know. I don't like it. You're too young to be out there all night by yourself.”

She never listened to me. Nobody did. I shrugged and got out the vinyl overnight bag my father had won in a crap game. He won the strangest things. Once he brought home a roasting chicken he said he'd won in a poker game.

I had no intention of going to school. I planned to go to the library, wait for the doors to open, then sit down at one of the big, shiny tables, take out my yellow lined pad and a handful of sharpened pencils and go to work. If anyone asked, I'd say I was working on a school project. Lots of research was needed. Mrs. Quick, the librarian, was kind to me. To others, she was curt and brisk, but once she'd asked me if I'd got a good mark on my last paper, and did I want a cup of tea.

I put my nightgown into the bag, as well as my toothbrush and my Ace bandage. Sometimes, when I had a free moment, I practiced binding myself with the bandage. The way they did in the nineteen twenties. When bosoms were out and the fashion was to be flat chested. So women bound their breasts the way Chinese women bound their feet, so they'd be small and useless.

I'd discovered it was difficult to bind yourself. But there was no one I could ask to help. If I asked Estelle, she'd let it slip. “Grace Schmitt binds her boobs with an Ace bandage,” Estelle would say to anyone who'd listen. Loose lips sink ships, Estelle. Keep your big blabbermouth shut, why don't you. But Estelle couldn't. She was incapable of keeping her mouth shut. And, as she was my only friend, I'd have to learn to bind myself.

I put my sunglasses in my pocket. I'd bought the biggest, roundest sunglasses I could find. They covered half my face. I liked to think they made me invisible. If you can't see a person's eyes, you can't really see the person. The lenses were pale blue. I hoped they lent me an air of mystery, as if I were a big superstar or a photojournalist.

“I'm off,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

Fuzzy slippers slapping as she crossed to the sink, my mother didn't answer. I let myself out and stood quietly behind some bushes as the school bus stopped for pickup and thundered past. Then I set out, walking purposefully. I tried to walk as if I was thin; feet stepping high, stomach in, shoulders back. Light as a feather. There are always ways to deceive yourself.

A red Subaru pulled up beside me. I knew it was Govoni. I didn't feel like talking to anybody, but I had to stop. It would've been rude not to.

“Hop in,” Ms. Govoni said. “I'm going your way.”

“I'm headed for the library,” I said, feeling blood rush to my face. “I have this paper I have to write. And research. I'm not going to school today.” If she didn't like it, she could lump it, I decided.

“Okay. I'll drop you off there, then.” She patted the seat. “Just push the mess out of your way.” The seat was littered with candy wrappers, broken crayons and some plastic ears and noses from Mr. Potato Head. It probably was like that the other time I'd been in the car, but I hadn't noticed.

“It wouldn't take a detective to decide there were kids in this family,” Ms. Govoni said. “They leave their trademarks everywhere.”

“I didn't know you had a kid,” I said. “Until you called, that is.”

“Two,” she said. “A boy and a girl.”

“That's nice.” What about the stories that said Ms. Govoni liked girls better than boys?

“Which do you like better?” I asked. “Girls or boys?”

“It's a toss-up,” she said. “They're both young and pesky. When they get older and much peskier, maybe I'll make up my mind. It's nice having both.”

It wasn't like driving with Estelle. Ms. Govoni kept her eyes on the road at all times, except when we were stopped at a red light.

“I'm glad I ran into you, Grace,” Ms. Govoni said, frowning at her windshield. “I expect you're going through a bad patch right now.” Little did she know.

“I've been through some myself. It's no fun. But I'll put my money on you. You'll survive, maybe even be stronger because of it. If you want to talk, remember, I'm a good listener. Best thing about me is, I never tell. My mother used to call me old zipper mouth.”

We pulled up in front of the library. She turned to look at me, and I noticed how dark and kind her eyes were. How filled with compassion they were. Then, because I was embarrassed, because of what she knew about me, what I'd told her about Ashley in the girls' room, I said, to fill the empty space with words, “What does your husband do?”

Asinine question.

“I don't have one,” she said.

“Oh.” Again I felt the blood rush to my face. “Well. Thanks for the ride. I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. I'm not. Remember.” She grinned and looked younger, and I thought she probably didn't grin often. “Tell it to old zipper mouth and you can't go wrong. See you tomorrow, then. Thanks, Grace.”

I got out and stood on the sidewalk, watching her battered little wagon pull out into traffic.

A bad patch. I wondered what a good patch was like. Wondered if I'd ever know.

Thanks for what?

11

When I was ten, just before I started getting breasts, my mother left home. It wasn't the first time and it probably won't be the last. It's the time I remember the best, though.

“She'll be back, hon. You wait and see. I know her. She'll be back before you can say Jack Robinson. Don't you worry.” As he spoke, my father's foot moved agitatedly, keeping time with his words. “Ladies sometimes have to spread their wings, see if they can still fly. Take off.” He winked at me and I turned my eyes away from his long, sad face.

“She left me,” I said. “I bet it was because I didn't wash the dishes. Three times in a row I didn't wash them. That's what did it. She left me and she's never coming back.”

“No,” my father corrected me. “She left
me
. She didn't want to leave you behind, but I wouldn't let her take you. I said, ‘Let Grace stay with me.' So she did.”

I was pretty sure he was lying. That didn't sound like her, letting him talk her out of something. Usually, when my mother wanted to do something, she went ahead and did it. My father hardly ever opposed her. And even though I suspected my father of lying, I was impressed by his boldness and relieved to hear him say he wouldn't let her take me away with her.

Fortunately, at that time my father was between jobs. He did the cooking and cleaning and even took our clothes to the Laundromat and ironed my skirts and blouses for me so I always had clean, pressed clothes to wear to school. Which wasn't always the case when my mother was in charge.

He was a pretty good ironer and an even better cook. We had fried chicken and corn pudding and gingerbread from scratch. With whipped cream. We were pretty happy. My father let me stay home from school quite a lot. To keep him company, he said. I think he was lonely. We laid out a jigsaw puzzle on the card table. Whenever one of us passed by, we'd put in a bit of blue sky or maybe part of a red cape, until we'd finished with it. My father taught me to do the soft shoe, which is a dance like a tap dance only without tap shoes. While I danced, he kept time with his harmonica. Before my mother left, I never knew he knew how to play the harmonica. It made him seem younger, somehow, jauntier. He'd been a mechanic and a seaman and a Ford auto worker. He'd been to Hong Kong and Tokyo, and he knew how to blow out the inside of an egg to make a Christmas tree ornament out of it.

Once he'd worked on a farm, he said. “And if I had my druthers, Grace,” he told me, “I'd stick to the earth. Nothing like the land. Hard work, yes, but very satisfying. Nothing like it. Trouble is, you have to get up mighty early. That's the only bad part. You know me, Gracie. I like my shut-eye.”

He answered a newspaper ad and, to our surprise, landed a job selling encyclopedias.

“Wouldn't you know. With your mother away, I had to land a plum job like this one.” He always said my mother was “away” rather than “gone.” I guess that comforted him, making believe she was sunning herself in Florida or off in New York City, seeing the sights. “Can't take it, Grace,” he said. And when I asked why not, his mouth turned down, giving him a mournful look, and he said, “I can't leave you to fend for yourself, hon. No ifs or buts about it.”

“Take me with you,” I begged. “I won't be any trouble.” I pictured us traveling the roads, sleeping under hedges at night, in stacks of hay, eating bread and cheese by the side of a rippling brook. Oh, it would be wonderful, I told myself. While my father was out selling encyclopedias, I'd keep house in a cave. Or a tent. And when we felt like moving on, we'd move on. My father canceled my plans, however. Instead, he arranged for me to spend the summer with my aunt Rena, the same Rena who gave juicy kisses at the Gathering of the Schmitt Clan. He told his sister Rena that my mother had to go out west to take care of her ailing sister. Aunt Rena said she didn't know my mother had a sister. My mother's family had never been friendly with my father's family, so my father said, sure, you remember her sister, the one with pigeon toes. My aunt Rena was none too proud of her failing memory, so she quit arguing and said I could stay if I was willing to work for my room and board.