Monday I Love You (8 page)

Rena had had a husband once but he got away. She made me wash twice a week and go to church with her every Sunday. I had a little room up under the eaves in her farmhouse. Oh, but it was boiling hot that summer. I didn't mind. From my window I had a view of the valley and the cows that more than made up for the heat. I helped feed the hogs and chickens, and Aunt Rena taught me how to milk a cow. It was something, all right. Shooting that little stream of warm milk fresh from the cow's udder, sometimes shooting it square into my mouth. I liked everything about that farm, that summer, even though Rena was a tough lady. She was always after me about something. Scrub the tub, take out the garbage, cut your toenails. No wonder Rena's husband got away.

I couldn't take my eyes off Aunt Rena's elbows. From the back, with the sleeves of her checked shirt rolled up well so she could drive the tractor better, her elbows looked like the faces of little gnarled people. There was so much skin rippling around Aunt Rena's elbows, it tucked and folded itself into funny little mouths and ears and noses. I couldn't get over it. I made it a habit to ride directly behind her in the tractor so I could keep an eye on her elbows and watch the faces change expression when Rena shifted into first or slammed on the brakes. It was better than a puppet show.

My father came several times that summer, on the way from one place to another. He liked his job selling encyclopedias, but he said people weren't up to buying a whole lot. Money was tight.

“Never known it to be loose,” Aunt Rena said, sniffing. “Heard from Grace, Frank? How's her sister doing? Seems like she's been gone a long time. The child misses her mother. Don't you, Grace?” and Aunt Rena's eye fixed on me, an event I always dreaded. I thought Rena's eyes could see through me, into my head, knew what I was thinking. It was eerie.

“Seems like there's more here than meets the eye.” And Rena's eye went to my father. I went outside to see if a storm was coming. I'd got really good at reading clouds that summer. Besides, I didn't want to be there when my father was quizzed. Sooner or later Rena'd get the straight goods out of him. I wondered where my mother was, if she was thinking about us. But it was amazing how little I missed her. Living on the farm was fun. There was so much to do, so many animals to tend to, so much nature. Nature can be very absorbing, I found, once you get used to it. Once you know something about it.

There was a boy named Eric, a hired hand, Aunt Rena called him, who helped out with the heavy work. He had broad shoulders and blond hair, and he was sort of cute. He lived up the road from our farm. He was fourteen, and though he didn't talk much, he liked me. I could tell. Aunt Rena must've been able to tell too. “You stay away from that Eric,” she warned. “He's too old for you. Don't think I don't see him giving you the eye. While you're under my roof, you do as I say, Grace. There'll be no shenanigans around here, mark my word.” Aunt Rena talked like a character out of a book. Or an old movie. What kind of a word was “shenanigans,” anyway? If Aunt Rena had had a dictionary I would've looked it up. As it was, I had to use my imagination. The way her lip curled when she said it meant it was another word for “no good.” Eric was a no-good person, then. Was that what she'd meant? No he wasn't. Any fool could see he was a hard worker, industrious, eager to earn a buck. Eric ate his lunch out of a brown bag while sitting propped up by the warm wall of the barn. I went out to keep him company, talk to him. Well, the truth of it was, I talked, he listened. I told him all sorts of stories—where I'd been, what sights I'd seen. Eric only nodded, dipping his yellow head down into his lunch bag, seeing what he'd overlooked, eyes shining with excitement. He believed every word I said. I soon saw that, and it gave me a feeling of power. He was shy and seemed younger than me, although as I said, he was four years older. He'd never been anyplace, it seemed. When I told him about my father being a croupier—I made it sound like that's what he was doing now, leaving out the part about being an encyclopedia salesman, thinking that was a job that lacked glamor—Eric's eyes got very round.

“I sure would like to go to one of them casinos,” he said. “Them gambling places. I saw it on TV. They stay open twenty-four hours a day. All night long. They never close doors. Any time of the day or night suits you, you just go inside there and lay your money down. Go on,” he urged. “Tell me more.”

I was flattered, never having had such an avid audience in my grasp before. I went wild, made up lots of stuff, just the way William used to do—things that never happened but might've if given a chance. Eric loved it all. If Aunt Rena hadn't crept up on us and yelled, “Time's a-wasting!” the way she did, we'd be there still, lolly-gagging around. That was another of Aunt Rena's words, “lollygagging.” She was a pistol when it came to words, all right.

One day in mid-August, my father came trudging up the hill. I'd been picking peaches all morning for Aunt Rena to make into jam and preserves, and my arms and hands were all sticky. If you're not quick, and don't lick it off fast, the juice runs all over.

“How's my girl?” my father said, hugging me. “Happy? Say”—he held me at arm's length, studying me—“you're all grown-up. While my back was turned, you grew up. How's Rena? Treating you all right?” The grooves at either side of his mouth looked so deep I could've laid my finger inside them, but otherwise he seemed all right. I didn't mention my mother. I figured if he'd heard from her, he'd say so.

Aunt Rena made my father go to church with us on Sunday. “How do you expect a child to have religion if her father sets a bad example, Frank?” she stormed. Aunt Rena was known for her temper, but I'd never seen it in action until then. Her face turned pale purple and the veins in her neck stood out so's you could practically reach out and grab one. My father always knew when he was licked. He came quietly, hat in hand. I wore my first pair of earrings, which I'd bought with money Aunt Rena had given me for helping her out. They were white plastic circles almost as big as a small plate and they dragged my earlobes down some, but I thought they were wonderful and made me look very grown-up. During the sermon, one of my earrings dropped off and made a pinging sound on the church floor. I scrabbled around under the pew looking for it until Aunt Rena hauled me up by my belt, glaring at me so I knew I'd better wait until church was over before I continued my search. After the last hymn, I found it and screwed it on tight so it wouldn't pop off again.

When we filed down the aisle and out into the sunlight, the first person I saw was Eric. He came right up to me and said, “I like your ear bobs.”

“What?” I said. “What'd you say?”

He pointed. “I like them ear bobs,” he repeated.

Well, that caused us to break up then and there. I have never heard such English in my life. I couldn't respect somebody who said “ear bobs” for “earrings.” I was a snob, I know, but I couldn't help it. Shortly after, school started and Eric took the bus to the regional high school over in Clayton and I never laid eyes on him again.

Right after Eric and I broke up, so to speak, my father and I went back to Hoboken, where we came from. He said I had to start school too, though I would've been quite happy without it. Aunt Rena was sad I was leaving and threatened to enfold me in her massive arms and embrace and kiss me, but I skinned out of reach and she had to be content with a handshake. Aunt Rena was all right. I just couldn't face her spitty kisses.

We got home on a Tuesday and were just sitting down to supper when my mother trailed up the front walk, dragging her suitcase in one hand like it was filled with rocks, and dangling her high-heel shoes in the other.

“Whew,” she said in greeting, “doesn't get much hotter 'n this, does it! September's always the hottest month.” We were having corned beef hash. She said she'd have some. She chatted about this and that, and when my father said at last, “Where you been, Grace?” she only let her long red fingernails trail across the back of his neck and said, “Here and there, Frank, here and there. But home's best.”

Oh no you don't, I thought. You're not getting away with that, not that easily. Not after what you did. You tell us where you were, what made you go off like that, leaving me and him and not telling us where you went, what you did. You have to explain.

I looked at my father. I wanted him to demand an explanation in a cold, hard voice, wanted him to tell her we'd done fine without her, she could just take her shoes and suitcase and go back to where she'd been. But I knew he wouldn't say any of it. One look at his face and I knew he was dying from love, from happiness that she'd come back. That was all that mattered. To him. Inside, I was so angry, so clogged with rage, I could hardly speak. They wouldn't have heard me anyway. They had eyes and ears only for each other.

I hung around, cleared the table, expecting at any moment she'd say she was sorry. I opened my mouth once or twice to demand an apology, but each time, I closed it without making a sound. The words wouldn't come. I wanted to hit her. I ached to hit her, smack the smile off her face.

How dare she just come back and act as if nothing had happened! How dare she!

“I'm sorry. I'll never do it again.” Those were the words I wanted to hear. I ached to have her put her arms around me and say, “You're my own little girl, Grace. I missed you. I'm sorry I went off and hurt you so.”

But she was silent and so was I.

12

Doris lived in a trailer out on Old Town Road. Kenny gave her the trailer as a wedding present, she said. She would've preferred a set of china, maybe with some place settings of silver thrown in, but he had his heart set on living in a trailer. When he got out of the Navy, that is. Kenny was stationed in Tokyo, Japan, at the present. Had been for a while. He had to leave for Tokyo when the baby was only about two months old. Doris said she'd almost gone crazy for a few weeks after he left. Then she landed a job at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and that set her up, got her out of the house. She just put the baby in the day-care center and took off for work.

Her job at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles makes Doris bad tempered, she said. Everyone at the bureau is bad tempered. They don't get jobs there if they're not. Doris smiled when she told me these things so I'd know she was only joking. Doris pays me fifteen dollars when I stay with the baby overnight. I count on that fifteen dollars. I bank every penny. Every time I sit with that little baby, I figure I'm that much closer to getting my chest operation.

Doris's trailer is very colorful inside. It's all orange; there's an orange shag rug, an orange pullout couch and orange-and-brown curtains. Doris even has orange towels in the bathroom and orange linoleum in the kitchen. She took a decorating course once, she said, and fell in love with orange. Besides, she learned in the decorating course that if you live in a small place, the best thing to do is have everything the same color. That way, the place looks bigger.

“Fix yourself a Coke, Grace, anything you want,” Doris told me before she went to take her shower. I put Buster in his high chair and got his dinner ready.

It's no big deal. He gets dried cereal mixed with milk. Then, for dessert, I give him apple sauce or apricots or pears. He gobbles it all up. What does he care if it looks like throw up? Buster's not a picky eater. He usually tries to grab hold of the spoon and feed himself. I think he's very advanced. Once I let him have the spoon, and he stuffed his nose and ears with gunk. He was a mess.

While Buster gummed his food, I thought about Ashley and the others in the girls' room. I tried not to dwell on it too much, but it was hard not to. It ate at me. I had a tremendous desire to get even, but more than that, I had a lot of hate in my heart. I'm amazed at how much. I know it's bad and destructive, that it drags me down and leaves Ashley untouched. In one fell swoop, she'd done me more harm than I could do to her in a million years.

Why had she singled
me
out? Was it simply my appearance, or was it because I was a nobody, an unpopular girl with no personality and no looks and no friends to speak of? An object of fun.

Or was it because she had no conscience or remorse. There are such people in the world. When they lead a convicted mass killer of babies and small children to the electric chair, news reports often say, “He showed no remorse.”

Was that Ashley? Was she incapable of human feeling? Would she go through life mowing people down, one way or the other, and remain untouched, like the guys in charge of the ovens at Dachau and Auschwitz?

“Whaddya think?” Doris startled me, brought me back to here and now. “This”—she held up a red dress—“or this”—she indicated a plaid pant suit. I told her either would be great. Doris is a compulsive shopper. She can't go into a store without buying something, even if it's only a pair of panty hose.

“It's just a bunch of us girls,” Doris told me, frowning, trying to decide. “Who cares what I wear, right? It's not like I'm going to a fancy-dress ball where all the guys wear tuxes and all. All it is is me and Linda and Maura and maybe Tara. Well, Tara now.” Doris jabbed her finger at me, making her eyes wide. “She's something else. When she's around, the men are too. Tara's getting a divorce. She's the kind has to have the whole joint hanging on her, cozying up to her. Tara's bad news. But the boys love her. She's thirty miles of bad road. That's what Kenny says, thirty miles of bad road.”

“There's a girl in my school like that,” I said. “Her name's Ashley.”

“Ashley!” Doris cried. “First we got Tara, now it's Ashley. It's
Gone With the Wind
night around here, right?”

“I guess.” Tara, and Ashley Wilkes. Except that Ashley was a man's name. Too much. “How come there's no Grace Schmitt in
Gone With the Wind?
” I asked Doris. She broke up at that.