Who Asked You? (14 page)

I
do not like Disneyland. I didn’t like it when I was little either. I do not like the giant Mickey and Minnie Mouse or Donald Duck and the rest of those suckers that scare little kids half to death when they walk up to ’em and hold out their thick rubber hands. And I can’t stand the way Disneyland smells. Like hot syrup. Almost everything they have here to eat is sweet. And everywhere you turn there’s nothing but little kids and enough strollers to fill a car dealership. And that music. Oh my God. Nothing but bells and organs and those damn accordions. Everything is a jingle. And that high-pitched singing never stops. What they could really use out here are a few good bars.

I just agreed to come so Miss Betty could spend some quality time with her grandsons and so they could escape the ghetto for a few hours and spend some time in a fantasy. I’m more than happy to push Mr. Lee around in his wheelchair, because he needs to inhale fresh air whenever possible. I’m not even going to charge Miss Betty overtime, because I know she’s having a hard time manipulating her finances since these kids got here. She ain’t mentioned nothing about when that trifling daughter of hers may be coming back, and even though I still ain’t found no roommate and my rent is late and I might have to either quit this job or move back in with my granny, which Lord knows I do not want to do since she live way out there in Palmdale and I cannot deal with that traffic on the 14 but especially the 405 and plus she be all up in my business—even though I wouldn’t have no business if I was to be living under her roof—it would be low of me to leave Miss Betty like this, so I think I might go on and put an ad on craigslist and pray I don’t get another psycho.

I’m sitting on a bench under a little shade tree hoping to finish the last ninety pages of this Harry Potter book, which I cannot even believe I bought, ’cause it’s pretty thick. But I love reading anything that could never happen so I figured what the hell, and Mr. Lee is dozing so I’m just turning those pages when Miss Betty walks over, limping, and says, “Kim, my knee is killing me. Would you mind if I sit here and you take the kids on a few more rides and then we can leave?”

“Not at all, Miss Betty.” I fold the corner of the page I was on and drop the book in my purse. I take Luther’s hand, which I dread, and that little Ricky needs a leash. I end up going through Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and those spinning teacups I didn’t think would ever fucking stop. Almost threw up floating through It’s a Small World but I admit I did get a kick out of Pirates of the Caribbean after I downed one of my little bottles of tequila I keep in my purse just for times like this when I wish I was somewhere else but can’t just up and leave.

After we get back to Miss Betty’s house, I push Luther’s dead head off my shoulder, since him and Ricky slept all the way, and then we lift Mr. Lee up the steps. He was out like a light, too. Once everybody gets settled in, Miss Betty comes out to the living room and collapses on the sofa. She pats the empty cushion next to her, so I sit. I know she’s getting ready to tell me something heavy.

“It looks like my son Dexter is going to be living here for a few months,” she says.

I don’t say a word. But I’m thinking: Where the fuck is he gon’ sleep?

“I do not know where he thinks he’s supposed to sleep, but maybe he can fix up that room above the garage. He’s handy, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

We just sit there a few more minutes and I know she wants to say something else.

“I wish he had somewhere else to go.”

“I know. It’s usually one hundred eighty days, unless they changed it.”

“Oh, so you know.”

I just look at her.

“Six months is a long time, and I just hope he doesn’t cause me any problems or bring any mess to this house.”

“Sometimes, when they get out, they either straighten up and fly right or do something stupid that violates their parole and back they go to the house with bars. At least Dexter didn’t kill anybody.”

“I suppose that makes me lucky, huh? Anyway, Kim, thanks for helping me out with the kids and Lee David today. Did you have fun?”

“I had a ball,” I say. “I always loved Disneyland.”

When I get home, I get my mail and toss it on the kitchen counter, since Cruella De Vil took her table. Ain’t much left in here except my bedroom furniture, my burgundy velour sofa bed, which hurts your back if you sit on it too long, a twenty-five-inch TV/VCR that I need my glasses to see unless I sit on the floor right in front of it. Cruella also had the cable disconnected, and since you have to be home for ’em to reconnect it, and I work during the day, and I ain’t in no position to be taking any time off since I don’t get paid if I don’t work, I only watch old videos. Thank God I can read. And I got a fat fake-leather chair my granny gave me that’s perfect.

After I microwave some Stouffer’s lasagna and then take my shower I’m shocked shitless when the doorbell rings. Don’t nobody visit me unless they call first. I make sure my robe is tied and peep through the peephole but you can’t never recognize who the person is looking through these damn things, so I ask, “Who is it?”

“It’s Ellory.”

“I don’t know nobody by that name. You must have the wrong apartment.”

“Kim. I was Tierra’s friend. Remember now?”

“What are you doing here? You should know she moved out.”

“I’m very much aware of that. I just took a chance that you might still be living here.”

“What is it you want?”

“I just wanted to see if we might have a cup of coffee or a drink one day and, since I didn’t have your number, I just took a chance stopping by.”

“What happened between you and Tierra?”

“She had issues I didn’t exactly find attractive.”

“Well, that makes two of us. Look, Ellis, I don’t know you well enough to open this door, and I find this a little suspicious if you want to know the truth.”

“It’s Ellory, not Ellis, and I can understand your feeling this way. Let me say this: I enjoyed talking to you that day I was waiting for Tierra and I thought you were intelligent and beautiful and I was wondering if anything ever came out of that traveling nurse thing you were looking into?”

I crack the door open but do not remove the chain. I peek through the space and realize he’s handsome and all but I am not about to let him in here just because he’s wearing a suit. “You’ve got a good memory. Anyway, I applied and am just waiting to hear. Give me your number.”

He hands me a business card. I glance down at it and I recognize that BMW logo but I’m still not about to let that influence my good judgment so I say, “I’ll call you one day, but please don’t ever come by my house again unless you’re invited, okay?”

“I promise. It is not my style. Hope to hear from you soon. You have a good evening.”

I push the door shut, walk over to the counter, put the mail inside my robe pocket, grab a nectarine out of the fruit bowl and a bottle of water from the fridge, and then drop his card in the trash under the sink because anybody stupid enough to sleep with Tierra can’t come this way like I’m some sloppy seconds.

I pull my Harry Potter book out of my purse and put it in my lap after I sit in my granny’s chair. Before I even open it, I decide I might as well get the depressing shit over with, so I get up and start flipping through all the envelopes I know are bills and just toss them on a pile. But then I come to one I know is no bill and I see that traveling nurse’s organization logo on the top left corner, and I open it so fast I get a paper cut. When I read the first sentence, my eyes get big as plates.

M
y brothers were still not happy with the settlement offer, which is why Jackson took it upon himself to get on a plane and come to Los Angeles, I suppose to confront me. He had the nerve to call me from the airport an hour ago to come pick him up. Which is where I’m headed now. I have no idea what I’m going to say to him or what he’s going to say to me but what I’m really wondering is where in the hell he got the money to get on an airplane that’s not at an amusement park.

I didn’t bother telling Montana her uncle was going to be a temporary houseguest and I’m thinking that maybe I should’ve. It might help her and Trevor speed up the move-out process since they’ve pretty much worn out their welcome. Trevor is not going to be anybody’s movie star. Some people just refuse to admit that they don’t have what it takes. That their dreams may not come true. But it’s not the dream’s fault. I can bear witness, but then again, it takes some of us longer for the truth to click. Court reporting has turned out to be more enlightening than I believe dancing ever would have, and I should win Academy Awards almost on a daily basis just for keeping a square face when what I really feel like doing is grimacing or closing my eyes or screaming at some of the gruesome shit I hear. And when they show pictures I pretend not to see them and just press those plastic keys a little harder.

When I pull up to baggage claim I see what looks like the shell of my brother. He’s smoking a cigarette. He’s also shrunk. Those jeans look like they once belonged to somebody else. He’s like a blast from the past, as my son, Max, would say because he’s wearing Reebok Pumps but the white leather is cracked and wrinkled at the toe. And even though it’s dusk and the concrete overhead is casting even more of a shadow, his skin looks like a russet potato. What’s left of his hair is thin and straggly, like some old hippie. I don’t see any luggage but he’s wearing a backpack that looks too heavy because it’s hanging low on his back when he raises his hand up and waves. I was hoping to hate him, for all that he and Clay have tried to do to me to make me feel like Sister Dearest, but when I roll the window down and say, “Hi, bro,” and he smiles at me as if I just rescued him from harm, my heart becomes a warm cushion.

He takes a long, final drag from his cigarette and then flicks it to the curb and doesn’t notice how disgusting this is to the folks standing next to him. He’s got too many bad habits. “Thanks for picking me up on such short notice,” he says, and tosses his backpack on the backseat after he gets in. He acts like he wants to kiss me but isn’t real sure if he should or not. So I bend over and give him a peck on the cheek, then squeeze his meatless shoulder. “So, this is my very first visit to the City of Angels.”

“Welcome” is pretty much all I can think of to say. All I’m wondering is if I really just picked my brother up from LAX after not seeing him or Clay since Ma died a year after Daddy, which is going on five years. That’s a long time not to see a sibling, but they didn’t want to see me and threatened to disappear if I were to show up unannounced. I have never been one to go where I’m not welcome.

“I hope you’re not upset because of my coming here this spontaneous and all, Tammy, but I needed to get away from Billings.”

“Why’s that?”

“I got myself in a little trouble.”

“Can you be a little more specific, Jackson?”

He seems to suddenly start hyperventilating or something and then he calms himself down and while looking out the window says, “Would you mind if I smoked?”

“Yes, I would mind. You can’t smoke anywhere near me the short time you’re going to be here.” This of course is better than a hint.

He does that “church is the steeple and this is all the people” thing with his fingers, which is giving me the heebie-jeebies, but I just wait to hear the latest episode of the ongoing saga that happens to be his life. You would think he would have changed the channel by now. “I owe some people and I don’t have it and they’re looking for me and I had nowhere else to go.”

“So, you decided to come see your little sister for emotional support?”

He nods his head in slow motion. “Sort of.”

“Are you some kind of drug dealer, Jackson?”

“No.”

“I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Then don’t.”

“You are already trying my patience, Jackson. I mean, after years of trying to sue me and make my life miserable even though I gave you and Clay more than Ma and Daddy even left you now you call me out of fucking nowhere and ask me to pick you up at the airport when you have never so much as picked up the goddamn phone to say, ‘Hi, Tammy, we miss you’ or ‘How you doing?’ or ‘Would you send us some pictures of your kids and are you still married to that nigger?’ No, you call me from the fucking airport and ask me to stop doing whatever I was doing to come pick you up and here I am and you sound and look like a drug dealer who’s fallen on hard times.”

“I can’t help how I look.”

“Well, how is Clay doing these days?”

“Not so good.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Jackson?”

“There was a fire in our house, Tammy.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean? Did Clay get hurt or something?”

“He set it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s been depressed a long while and he didn’t try to get out.”

“Didn’t try? Or didn’t get out?”

“The fire department got him.”

“Are you sitting here telling me that our brother is dead?”

He nods again.

I say nothing. I am trying not to picture the house we grew up in up in flames and my—our—brother inside it. I roll the window down so I can breathe. And then start pounding my palms on the steering wheel so hard it hurts. When I stop, I hear myself say, “When did all this happen?”

“Four days ago.”

“And you’re just now telling me?”

“It was too hard to say over the phone, Tammy. I had to leave before those folks got hold of me. Which is why I’m here.”

He starts crying. Hard.

This feels like somebody else’s nightmare I’ve been dragged into. A couple of hours ago I was planning on having a nice family sit-down with my daughter, who’s six months pregnant, and the love of her life to tell them they have become a financial burden and are going to need to start thinking about making other living arrangements if at all humanly possible before that little girl arrives, because they have violated the terms of our agreement and I feel like they are taking advantage of me, and I don’t appreciate it. But now, all I’m thinking is life is like a baseball game, and sometimes you can’t see a curveball let alone trying to hit it.

“Where is he?”

“In my backpack.”

“In your . . .” I turn to glance at that grungy backpack leaning sideways against the door and I turn away, unable to imagine my brother, Clay, six feet tall since he was sixteen, inside it. I don’t realize I’m wailing at the top of my lungs until I feel Jackson’s hand rubbing my right shoulder.

“I feel bad telling you this way. I feel bad that our brother did this to himself.”

“Who made the decision to have him cremated?”

“Me, I guess. I didn’t have much choice, Tammy.”

“He could’ve been buried, Jackson. There are always remains.”

“Nobody woulda showed up to Clay’s funeral, Tammy, and I didn’t have that kind of money and it was for the best.”

“The best.”

I put the car in drive, then slam on the brakes.

“How in the hell do you know who would or wouldn’t show up to his funeral?”

“Because he didn’t have any friends. And you know we don’t have any relatives left in Billings.”

“Where in the hell were you when the house was burning, tell me that?”

“At a bar. Word got to me pretty fast.”

I pull out of the parking space and probably accelerate too much, because Jackson grasps the armrest. I feel like slamming on the brakes but I don’t. “Why did you come here, of all places?”

“Because you’re all I’ve got left.”

“I’m really sorry to hear about your brother,” BJ says.

“Me, too.”

We are getting a manicure and pedicure and not because we need them, but because we both needed to get out of the house. BJ took the day off, something she hardly ever does, because the boys just left for overnight camp. They’ll be gone a week. I personally think two would’ve been much better since Venetia offered to pay. But BJ wasn’t sure how they would handle being away from home for that long. You never know until you try was my attitude but I didn’t say it. Since the boys have been there, BJ hardly ever gets ten minutes to herself, except when they’re asleep. I’m starting to know exactly how that feels.

“So how long is he going to be staying?” BJ asks, considering he’s already been here two whole weeks.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“He seems nice enough,” she says, and takes a sip of her iced coffee.

“It feels like I’m grieving more for him than my dead brother, who just evaporated. Jackson is a loser. And he knows it. I can’t even pretend I know how to save him and I don’t know how to tell him, BJ.”

“Does he have any skills?”

“None that I know of. But that’s beside the point.”

We both lean our heads back in the pedicure chairs that are massaging us and doze off.

“All finished!” the Vietnamese girl says after tapping me on my leg. I look over at BJ, who just opened her eyes and looks like she has no idea where she is. She needed this.

We put our feet in the paper slippers they give us and walk over to the manicure stations.

“We need to do this more often,” she says after picking out her color. She chooses tangerine. I choose light pink. I don’t know why, because I don’t like pink.

“So, you want to hear the latest?” I ask her.

“Yep. And then you have to hear mine.”

“Wait. It’s not bad news, I hope?”

“It depends on how you look at it. I’m listening.”

“Tanna has asked if she and Trevor can stay until after baby Clementine is born and—”

“Hold on. I know they’re not really going to name that baby any Clementine.”

“It’s already a done deal, BJ. I personally don’t like it because it reminds me of a cartoon I can’t remember the name of for the life of me, and of course this is due to my disappearing hormones, which you know something about, but anyway back to the point: Trevor has gotten a real job with no future but a guaranteed weekly salary and he is studying to take the real estate exam like every other human being in Los Angeles who has no legitimate plans for their life, but at any rate, they have agreed to pay me a pittance while they save up and so they have bought four more months, I guess, but I don’t know what it’s going to be like having a screaming baby in the house or what I’m going to do with my chain-smoking, ale-drinking brother.”

“This is like
As The World Turns
, isn’t it?”

“One more pop-up and it’s going to be more like
General Hospital
.”

“Does your brother want to go back to Montana?”

“He has nothing to go back to. That’s the problem.”

“How old is he again?”

“I’m forty-six, so he has to be forty-eight or forty-nine.”

“Well, Dexter’s coming home soon and I can’t lie, Tammy, I am not looking forward to seeing him. I know that’s sad to say.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not like he’s been on vacation all these years, BJ, and you’ve already got a house full of people you’re taking care of. The last thing you need is another dependent.”

“You don’t have to tell me. Plus, I don’t know him.”

“I don’t know Jackson either. But what I do know is I’m being forced to embrace him like a family member since he is a family member but I almost feel like his aunt and not his sister.”

“So what are you going to do about him, Tammy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, guess what’s going on across the street from you? I’ll answer that. Nurse Kim is leaving. She got accepted into that traveling nurse program.”

“Shit.”

“It’ll be all right.”

“How soon?”

“Seven or eight weeks.”

“Wow. Where’s she going?”

“She has no idea. And I don’t think she really cares. She’s still young enough to take chances, and if I was in her shoes, I’d be on a plane right now.”