Still Life with Plums (17 page)

Baby slams the photo album closed and plops it on the coffee table. “Linda!” she wails, jumping straight out of her seat to rush to her guest. Baby’s arms circle the woman whose hands are loaded with yellow roses and a bundle of multicolored envelopes and a shoebox-sized package wrapped in brown paper.

“Happy birthday!” Linda says, kissing Baby on both cheeks. “I ran into your mailman.”

Joe takes the flowers and the cards and starts flipping through them. He holds out an aqua envelope. “Hurricane, West Virginia! That’s a first.”

Baby grabs the box, frantically scanning for the sender’s name. “It’s from Cowboy Bob,” she says solemnly.

Joe leans over to verify. “Really? What is it?”

“How should I know?” Baby says, giving the box a gentle shake, wondering what he could have possibly sent. Something grand, she is sure: a cut crystal vase, a hand carved statue, an emerald necklace and earrings to make up for all the ties and cotton handkerchiefs she’s been faithfully sending though she’s never gotten one thing. He’s very busy, after all.

“Open it and see!” Joe says.

Baby looks at the box in her hands containing who-knows-what, but it’s better than any birthday or Christmas present she’s ever anticipated and she wants to prolong it. “After supper,” Baby says. She sets the box firmly on top of the photo album and gives it a pat.

Baby aims Linda at her sisters. “You remember Isabel.”

Linda reaches forward and shakes Isabel’s hand, silver bangles around Linda’s wrist clinking. “Of course. Good to see you again.”

“And this is Carmen,” Baby says.

Linda leans forward, arm outstretched, fingers ready to grip, but Carmen hasn’t taken her eyes from her family album practically hidden beneath Bob’s gift. “Mucho gusto,” she mumbles without looking up.

Linda withdraws her ignored hand. “Pleasure to meet you, too.”

The phone rings and Joe bounds to the kitchen to answer.

“It’s like Grand Central today!” Baby says, pleased.

“Looks like you got a good husband,” Carmen says. “He dotes on you.”

“This is nothing,” Isabel says. “Wait till you see how he tucks her in bed.”

“He does not.”

“He does!” Linda says. “I’ve been through three husbands and not one treated me the way Joe treats Baby. She’s a regular princess.”

Baby blushes, but she can’t deny that Joe pampers her. He cooks her favorite dishes and scrubs the kitchen floors and keeps track of the finances. No wonder Carmen is sad, Baby thinks, and Isabel, too, to some extent. Neither ever married, though Baby imagines Isabel must have had suitors. Such a pretty girl, once. Of course they didn’t have Baby’s advantages. No Baptist couple ever took them in, accepted them as daughters. Willed them their houses and late-model Fords and modest inheritances. No, they had none of that.

Joe bolts from the kitchen. “That was Channel 7!” he says, twisting his apron. “They want to tape a segment about you for the 10:00 o’clock news!”

“When!” Baby asks.

“Hour or so,” Joe says.

Baby’s hands go to her face, her hair, her shirt. “What should I wear?”

Joe looks her up and down, considering. “The red blouse and black skirt.”

Baby nods. “Yes,” she says. “What earrings?”

“The pearls!” Joe says, as if she should have known that.

“We better get you dolled up,” Linda says.

She and Baby are ready to bolt but Joe blurts: “We should eat first. You can change after.”

“Good idea,” Baby says. “Wouldn’t want to be on TV with barbeque sauce on my shirt.”

“Or your teeth,” Linda says, following Baby and Joe to the dining room. “Have you been using that whitener I gave you?”

Isabel and Carmen look at each other and decide they’re supposed to get up and go eat, too.

Baby and Linda cackle and chatter and haul dish after dish to the
table. Joe brings in the brisket and slices it up, doling out hefty slabs. Carmen and Isabel sit side by side, poking their forks at the pounds of meat Joe piled onto their plates, red juices pooling around globs of mashed potatoes and deviled eggs. They aren’t used to Texas portions and Carmen says, “Ungh.”

“What?” Joe says, expecting at least a
yum
.

Carmen’s face contorts into a look of disgust. “I’ll never be able to eat all this.”

Baby pulls in her chair at the head of the table. “We don’t skimp around here.”

Carmen looks at Baby’s gut and opens her mouth, but Isabel cuts in: “It’s delicious.”

“Thank you,” Joe says, mouth full of potatoes.

Linda jabbers away about what eye shadow Baby should use, what foundation, lipstick.

Baby listens to her and the clank of bangle bracelets and silverware, ice cubes settling, Joe’s jaw happily popping, but she can’t help peeking over her sisters’ shoulders for a glimpse of Bob’s gift waiting so prominently, so expectantly, on her coffee table. It could hold anything. But what’s most important is who it’s from. Finally, a gift from Cowboy Bob.

“Baby and I met in high school,” Linda says to Carmen.

“That’s nice,” Carmen says, returning half of her meat to the serving platter.

“That’s right,” Joe says, ignoring the slight. “You should see the yearbook pictures. Same hairdo, same sweater set.”

“Everyone called us the Bobbsey twins,” Linda says.

Carmen and Isabel look from Baby to Linda.

“We were in the pep squad together,” Linda says. “And the drama club.”

Carmen’s face draws up like a wrinkled fig as Linda goes on and
on about their sleepovers, about rolling each other’s hair, about stuffing their bras with their fathers’ socks. The hours they spent in front of the bathroom mirror primping and tweezing and popping pimples.

Carmen listens intently, but with each new story her foot taps faster until she’s thrumming a frantic drum roll under the table.

“And don’t forget the school talent shows!” Linda says, waving a forked shrimp at Carmen and Isabel. “Every year for the grand finale Baby came on stage in a little girl dress—course it was cut bigger, just made to look all frilly and poufy—and she’d climb on top of the piano and belt out ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ or ‘God Bless America’ and I swear there wasn’t a dry eye in the gym.”

“I bet you had the boyfriends lined up, too,” Joe says. “I know I would have been waiting at that stage door with a handful of posies.”

Baby looks at the chandelier over the table, the pretty way the light reflects in the glass droplets.

“Those dumb boys at our school were too intimidated by such a big star,” Linda says. “They couldn’t even work up the courage to ask her to the prom.”

Carmen looks at Isabel, then Baby, whose lips are pursed into a tight magenta rose.

“I bet they’re kicking theirselves to this very day,” Joe says. “Could have had a date with a great big star.”

“That’s right,” Linda says. “Bunch of dopes. But Baby showed all of them, didn’t you. You married the best boy of all.”

Baby looks at her husband, sitting there adoring her. He is so proud of her fame, and patient about her celebrity, always happy to let fans come up and say hello. Baby looks over at Linda, another woman at the table without a husband, and feels a knot of guilt behind her left eye. “High school was fun,” Baby admits. “Some of the best times of my life.”

Carmen snorts and crosses her arms over her chest.

Linda ignores her and says, “It was a wonderful time. Pity we can’t all stay back there.”

Carmen sucks a sliver of meat between her teeth. “Isabel and I went to high school in the camp. We wore uniforms and the five of us lived in a room even smaller than this.”

“Carmen,” Isabel says.

“We had a yearbook, too,” Carmen says. “And a band. And a swimming pool. Crystal City was a model camp. Weren’t we lucky?”

“Stop it,” Isabel says.

“What!” She juts her chin at Linda and Baby. “They have no idea.”

“This isn’t the time,” Isabel says.

“When
is
the time, Isabel. We are old women, now, and Baby—Rosa,” she looks at Baby. “Your name is
Rosa
—acts like she does not remember. How can you not remember, Rosa, the nights you shivered under those scratchy blankets, or stood in line at the latrine. Have you forgotten our games? Find the pebble. How long can it take you to eat?”

Baby sets down her knife and fork and looks at the butter dish. “It was so long ago, another life.”

Carmen looks around Baby’s dining room: the hutch filled with china; tidy pictures of birds and fruit hung symmetrically on the walls; photos of her foster parents, and Cowboy Bob, and Baby in a white wedding dress beside Joe in a sky blue tux.

“Yes,” Carmen says. “You’ve had a different life than us. That’s for sure.”

“I remember a squirrel,” Baby says.

“What’s that?” Carmen says.

Baby pleats the hem of the tablecloth and tries to untangle this fuzzy knot. “I remember peeking through the floorboards at piles of dirt. And there was a squirrel—”

“It was a rat,” Carmen says. “We called him el ladrón because he snuck in at night and stole hunks of bread and dug holes in the rice.”

“We thought he was a prisoner, too,” Isabel says. “So we didn’t have the heart to set a trap.”

“There was a lady,” Baby says. “With white hair in a bun. She slapped my hands with a stick when I cried.”

“Señora Ito,” Isabel says. “She was a widow they put in with us after they traded her son away. What a grouch. Wouldn’t let us talk after 7:00 p.m. even when we were doing homework.”

“She farted all night and blamed it on el ladrón,” Carmen says. “As if a tiny rodent could make so much noise. Or smell!” Carmen emits a throaty cackle that makes her head shake, her earrings jangle, and Baby realizes she has never heard her sister really laugh.

Baby says: “You took good care of me, didn’t you?”

“We tried out best,” Carmen says. “But we were just children ourselves.”

Linda sniffs loudly and everyone turns to see mascara trickling down her cheeks. “What they did to you all was atrocious,” she says. “I mean, Japanese Americans had it bad enough, but they yanked you all from your country and then called you illegal aliens so you weren’t entitled to the $20,000, which, by the way, wasn’t much in the first place. I told Baby, I was glad the JLAs brought their own lawsuit, but this settlement is pathetic. I wouldn’t take that piddly $5000. I’d hire my own attorney and go in with both barrels cocked.”

Carmen looks at Isabel, then Baby, then Joe. “It takes money to hire a lawyer.”

Isabel grips Carmen’s wrist. “Later.”

Carmen nods toward Linda. “She brought it up. And I just need a thousand dollars for the retainer,” Carmen says, hands out, palms up.

Baby looks at her husband and now she knows why Carmen has come all this way to see her.

Joe clears his throat. “Thousand dollars is a lot of money.”

“Not to you,” Carmen says. “Baby must have something left from that $20—”

“That was twelve years ago,” Joe says, shaking his head. “We really don’t.”

“Of course,” Carmen says, head slumping forward as if every vertebra in her spine suddenly melted.

Baby looks at her sister, face so tired and worn. Carmen hasn’t had an easy life and what does she have to look forward to? No husband. No mailbox filled with birthday cards from adoring fans. No wall full of glorious memories that no one can take away. No ten o’clock news coming for an interview. No present from Cowboy Bob just waiting to be opened. A feeling swells in Baby’s chest and she says: “We’ll give you our check when it comes.”

“Shut up,” Joe says.

Carmen’s head perks up. “What check?”

Joe stands, napkin tucked in his shirt. “I said shut up, Baby.”

“But she needs it more than we do,” Baby says. “She could hire a good lawyer with that $5000.”

“What $5000?” Isabel says.

“You know,” Baby says. “The JLA settlement.”

“Oh no,” Joe says, shrinking back to his seat just as Isabel stands, a fork in her hand. Her mouth opens and closes and opens again and she stares first at Joe, then Baby.

“What?” Baby says, stunned by this lack of gratitude for her generosity. Isabel stares at her with a face full of something Baby has never seen before.

“That money is not for you,” Isabel seethes.

Baby is dumbfounded. “Of course it is,” she says, looking at Joe for help. He offers none. “We got the paperwork just like you did,” she says. “With a postage paid return envelope.”

Isabel pounds her fork against the table, rattling glasses, making Baby flinch. “It was a mistake. There’s barely enough in the fund to pay legitimate claims and you, who already got three times as much and wasted it on a ridiculous hot tub and sauna—”

“I thought you liked the hot tub,” Baby says, hurt. She might expect this from Carmen, but never Isabel.

“You stupid brat!” Isabel says. “You think you deserve everything, but you’re not entitled to this.”

“But I’m giving it to you!” Baby says, absolutely flabbergasted.

“It’s not yours to give! Don’t you understand?”

Baby’s face is a blank china plate.

Carmen pats Isabel’s hand. “I don’t think she does. Do you, Baby?”

Baby shakes her head slowly from side to side. “Joe takes care of all that.”

All heads turn toward Joe, who tugs the napkin from his collar and tosses it on the floor. “This is none of your business,” he says to the sisters.

Isabel faces him. “It’s none of
your
business, you sneaky con—”

“That’s enough!” Carmen says.

Joe slowly rises. “Whatever I do is for Baby,” he says. His ears redden as he looks at his bride and his voice cracks when he says, “It’s all for you.” Joe turns his back on them and starts for the kitchen. Before he gets there he pauses and says: “Don’t forget the pearl earrings, Baby. They make your face shine.” Baby watches Joe leave and something leaves with him, some inexplicable thing that makes the room appear smaller, the drapes appear dated, carpet worn, wallpaper dingy. A sudden rumble that sounds very much like Joe’s ’56 Corvette, a squeal of tires down the back alley.

A fruit fly skitters from one dish to the next as Baby looks toward the kitchen willing Joe to come back,
come back
. She feels her sisters’ eyes on her but she wants out from under their scrutiny, wants to run
from them and this feeling, this dread that’s bubbling up inside her, rattling the steel celebrity framework that has undergirded her whole marriage, her life.