Baby Help

by Marilyn Reynolds

  REASONS I DESERVE TO BE HIT, ACCORDING TO RUDY:

  I talked to a friend.

  Dinner was too early.

  Dinner was too late.

  My lipstick was too red.

  I thought he should get his muffler fixed.

  I don’t like rap music.

  I feel someone behind me and turn to see Mr. Raley looking over my shoulder. I quick erase the file and bring the spreadsheet lesson back onto the screen. Did he read what I’d written? He’s looking at me, eyebrows raised, as if he’s got a question on his mind.

  “I met your boyfriend yesterday,” he says. “Rudy? Is it?”

  “Yeah, he told me you’d been in,” I say. “Look, is this part right?”

  I point to the screen, to something I know is right, but I want to change the subject.

  “Perfect,” Mr. Raley says, smiling.

  “Listen, there’s something I want to talk to you about,” he says.

  My stomach jumps with butterflies. He’s seen the list.

  “There’s a company, Graphic Design Services, out in City of Industry, a bit of a jaunt, I know, but a good company with good benefits . . .”

  What’s he talking about?

  “I work there sometimes, in the summer and occasionally in the evenings if they’re desperate for help. Nice people . . .” he says.

  What’s that got to do with why Rudy hits me?

  “I don’t even know if you’re looking for a job or not, but you’d do well there. They asked for recommendations, and I gave them Jerry’s name, and yours.”

  At first I can’t make the transition from thinking he was go­ing to be all upset about the list he’d seen, and he’d know I wasn’t really so smart if I let anyone beat up on me, and he’d probably get a social worker to come out and get messed up in my life and . . .

  “Of course, if you’re not interested . . .”

  “No. No, I’m interested,” I say. “I just didn’t understand at first.”

  “It’d be in their accounting department—not much money to begin with but plenty of chance for promotion because they’re growing so fast . . .”

  “When would I start?”

  “They want you to come in for an interview next Thursday. I’ve recommended Jerry, too.”

  “Oh,” I say, disappointed. “Jerry’ll for sure get it.”

  Mr. Raley laughs. “No, it’s not like that. There are two open­ings and I’ve recommended the two of you.”

  “Jerry knows a lot more than I do,” I tell him.

  “Jerry’s been in my class a lot longer. But you catch on as fast as anyone I’ve ever had in class. You seem to have a gift for learning the ways of computers.”

  “I like predictable,” I tell him.

  “Me, too,” he says. “I was raised by a mom and dad who were both alcoholics. Boy, do I like predictable.”

  We exchange a glance, like maybe we understand something below the surface. I still don’t know if he saw the list or not.

  As soon as Mr. Raley walks away, Jerry pulls a chair up next to mine.

  “Did he tell you?” Jerry asks, his braces showing through a wide smile.

  “About the job?”

  “Yeah. Cool huh? We’ll be seeing each other at the water cooler, just like in ‘Dilbert’.”

  I laugh. “What if we mess up on the interview?”

  “We won’t. We’ll practice with Mr. Raley before we go out there. Do you have your résumé done yet?”

  “Résumé? I’ve never had a job in my whole life. What do I have that would go on a résumé?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Jerry says.

  He goes back to the desk where he usually works and prints something out, then brings it back to me. He’s listed things like being a counselor at a YMCA Camp, and being an aide for Mr. Raley, and warehouse duties for his mom’s Amway business.

  “It’s only three shelves in our garage, but still, I keep track of stuff, and load and unload materials . . .”

  “You drive to school, don’t you?” I ask.

  He nods his head.

  “Maybe you could call yourself a transportation director, too.”

  “You laugh, but it’s all true, and it looks good, too,” he says with a smile. “Just wait.”

  He gets his résumé disk and brings it back to my computer. We copy it, then use it as a guideline for mine. Really, there is more than I thought there would be—as an aide for Bergie I keep her files straight, answer the phone, keep the kids inter­ested in play activities, clean up the sleeping area and keep the toys in order.

  “So, you’re a file clerk, receptionist, educational play con­sultant, assistant maintenance engineer, and materials supervi­sor,” Jerry says, entering that information on my résumé form.

  Mr. Raley comes back to my computer to see what we’re laughing about.

  “Very impressive,” he says, laughing with us. “You might want to tone it down just a bit, though.”

  He stands over us, giving us ideas for how to re-word things. Then he pulls a chair up and enters a line right after the one I’ve written listing my experience with computers in his class, “Cer­tificate of Completion, Computer Math, With Special Honors for Excellence.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Really. You deserve it,” he says, then walks away to help someone else.

  “Cool,” Jerry says. “I’m getting one of those, too. We’re the only ones. I know, because I enter everything in Raley’s grade book.”

  I rush into Bergie’s class, full of my news.

  “Guess what? I’m getting a special certificate in Mr. Raley’s class, and he’s got me set up for an interview for a really good computer accounting job.”

  “Good for you,” Bergie says, but she looks more worried than happy.

  “Mommy!” Cheyenne says, running to me, arms open.

  I scoop her up. “Mommy’s going to get a good job, and buy you lots of toys, and new clothes, and new clothes for Mommy,

  too . . . ”

  “And Daddy?” Cheyenne asks.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  And then I realize there’s a lot I’ve not thought about in the excitement of good news. I’ve only thought about how nice it would be to be working, and not on welfare, and I haven’t thought at all about who would take care of Cheyenne while I was at work. And I haven’t thought about Rudy, or the mess I’m in.

  “Cheyenne?” Bergie says, “Would you please take this baby doll to Ethan in the playhouse? I think he was looking for it.”

  As soon as Cheyenne runs off, Bergie says, “Cheyenne’s grandmother was here today.”

  “Irma?”

  “Rudy’s mother. Mrs. Whitman.”

  “Why?”

  “She wanted to take Cheyenne—said she had a doctor’s appointment.”

  “No,” I say, trying to make sense of it.

  “I told her the only person Cheyenne could be released to was you. That’s the only name on file.”

  My heart is racing. Was she trying to take Cheyenne away from me, like she’d threatened?

  “I can’t take that responsibility, Melissa. If Cheyenne had a doctor’s appointment that her grandmother was going to take her to, you should have worked that out with me . . .”

  “She didn’t have a doctor’s appointment,” I say, sinking down into one of the toddler-sized chairs, palms sweating, again in a state of fear.

  “No doctor’s appointment?” Bergie says. “You’re sure?”

  “No doctor’s appointment,” I say.

  “But she was so insistent. I had to call security before she’d leave. She said she’d be back with a police escort. I told her to come ahead, I know where I stand within the law.”

  “This morning she told me if I ran away again she’d get the

  cops after me and I’d lose Cheyenne forever.”

  I’m shivering, even though it’s about eighty degrees in here.

  “Could she do that, Bergie? Could she take Cheyenne?
” I ask, through chattering teeth.

  “Catch me up with what’s been going on since you got back from the shelter,” Bergie says, pulling another toddler chair up next to mine.

  For the second time today, I spill out my story, only this time I’m more frightened and scared than ever. Cheyenne. I can’t lose Cheyenne. What if Bergie had let her go with Irma? What was Irma planning to do?

  CHAPTER

  14

  “You know more about what’s right for you and Chey­enne than anyone else in the world. Don’t let Irma or Rudy push you around,” Bergie says.

  She takes Polaroid pictures of my messed up shin. Some pic­tures she gives to me and some she keeps for her own confiden­tial file.

  She also writes a short report of how I’ve been injured, and a report about how Irma tried to take Cheyenne without authori­zation.

  “We need to document everything,” she says. “Has anyone but Irma ever seen Rudy hit you?”

  “No.”

  “So, if there were ever a court custody case, it would be just your word against theirs.”

  “Yes, . . .”

  “Keep track of things—dates, what he said, what he did, anything that would indicate he’s violent and unstable.”

  I tell her as much as I can remember about earlier times when Rudy was violent. Mostly I don’t remember dates, but a few I do.

  “How does Cheyenne respond to her father?” Bergie asks.

  “That one time, before we went to the shelter, she got all passive because Rudy’d yelled at her and shoved her down in her crib when she wanted to do her ‘Baby help’ thing. And now, since she saw him hurt my arm and yell at me, she walks way around him, always staying out of his reach.”

  Bergie notes that in her file, then turns to me.

  “It’s not my place to tell you or any other student what to do,” she says. “But if you were my daughter instead of my stu­dent, I would urge you to take Cheyenne and get far away from Rudy and his mother.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say. “They won’t take me back at the shelter, because I left before I was supposed to.”

  “There are other shelters,” she says.

  “But graduation . . . and the job interview . . .”

  “I know. Things are complicated. But you need a plan. You’re at a crucial time in your life, and if you don’t take control, some­one else will.”

  What’s best?” is the question I keep asking myself in the van on the way home. I remember how lonely I got at the shel­ter, and how Cheyenne was always thinking she saw her daddy, or gramma, and how happy Rudy and I were for a while when I came back. I’m important to Rudy, but in a good way, or a bad way?

  At home, I get juice and a piece of toast for Cheyenne and put it on her little plastic table, where she can eat and watch a Barney tape. Then I go sit on the edge of the bathtub and clean my raw and bruised shin. Needles of pain shoot through me every time I dab at it with the washcloth.

  Are there enough good times to balance the bad times? It’s true, what the booklet on abuse says—even if the violence doesn’t happen often, the possibility is always there, a cloud over everything.

  “Wow!” Cheyenne says, peering in the doorway and noticing my shin.

  “Owie, owie,” she says, making a sad face.

  “Happen?” she says.

  “Mommy fell,” I tell her.

  “Wow,” she says, coming closer.

  “Oh, listen, I hear your favorite Barney song!”

  She runs back to the living room. I feel sick, not so much from my hurting shin, as from the lie I’ve just told. Why should I feel like I have to lie to my own daughter?

  When I finish in the bathroom I spread my books and note­book on the kitchen table and check my assignment sheet. I’m caught up with everything except a short paper on I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Then it’s only a matter of studying for finals.

  I do know how to make a plan. I knew I wanted to graduate from Hamilton, I figured out everything I needed to do to make that happen, I made a schedule for myself, and I followed through.

  I wish it were that simple to make a plan for other parts of my life, like Bergie says I need.

  When the phone rings I expect another of those silences on the other end, but this time I get a voice.

  “Hey, Babes,” Rudy says.

  “Hi, Rudy,” I say, my body tensing at his voice.

  “I been thinking, maybe you’re right about that support group stuff.”

  He’s practically whispering, so he must be using the pay phone in the employees’ lounge.

  When I don’t say anything, he continues. “That’s what you

  want, isn’t it?”

  “I guess,” I tell him.

  “I know I get carried away. I mean, you should never have yelled at me like that, but I’m sorry I kicked you. And maybe that group stuff would help.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Let’s talk about it when you get home.”

  “Stay awake for me? I get off at midnight tonight.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Let me talk to Cheyenne,” he says.

  I call her to the phone.

  “Daddy!” she says, her eyes sparkling.

  She listens, then says, “Yuv you, too,” and slams down the phone.

  Two weeks ago I’d have been totally happy if Rudy’d agreed to attend a support group. But now, with my shin throbbing and bitch, whore, slut still echoing in my head, and with the image of wrought iron smashing into wood, wood that could have been my head, I don’t hold much hope for a support group. Still, I know what a sacrifice that is for Rudy, even to consider it.

  Cheyenne and I are eating scrambled eggs and applesauce when Irma comes in from work. She starts in on me right away.

  “I should be authorized to pick Cheyenne up from the cen­ter,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because I’m her grandmother, that’s why. The only grandmother who cares about her.”

  I give Cheyenne another bite of applesauce.

  “Why did you go there today and lie about a doctor’s appointment?”

  “I just wanted to take her shopping, that’s all. She needs some new clothes.”

  Irma’s lying, I know. She’s never bought clothes for Chey­enne yet, why would she start now?

  “You sign a paper, or whatever it is you have to do, so I can pick her up if I want to.”

  “Hey, Cheyenne, more egg?”

  Cheyenne clamps her mouth closed.

  “More applesauce?”

  She shakes her head.

  Irma moves closer. “Don’t you ignore me, Melissa! I want authorization, you hear me?”

  I look up at her. “I hear you.”

  “I’ll pick her up and take her shopping, tomorrow, before I go to work.”

  “You want to take her shopping, the three of us can go on Saturday,” I say.

  “Are you telling me you won’t fix it so I can get her from the center?”

  I wipe Cheyenne’s face and hands and take her out of the high chair, then stand face to face with Irma.

  “You threaten me that I’ll lose my baby forever, and then you expect me to fix it for you so you can take her whenever you want? I’m not that stupid.”

  “I don’t know what’s got into you lately,” Irma says. “When you first came here you were so nice and easy to get along with, and now you act like you think you’re better than anyone else.”

  I carry our dishes to the sink, wipe the table, and fill the sink with hot, sudsy water. I sink my hands into the water, nearly to my elbow. It feels good—soothing.

  “How’s your leg?” Irma says, quieter.

  “It’s sore, but it’ll heal.”

  “I wish Rudy didn’t get like that. He’s just like his father.”

  “I don’t think that should be an excuse,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, well, you make things worse sometimes, too. You should just humor him when he gets like that.” />
  “It’s not my fault,” I say, wondering how many more times we’ll have the same argument.

  Irma sighs, watching me wash dishes.

  “I’ll tell you this. I’m going to get authorization over Chey­enne. You can make it easy or you can make it hard, but I’ve got rights, too.”

  I may not have my plan all figured out, but one thing I know is, Irma getting authorization over Cheyenne is not part of any plan I’ll come up with.

  Irma picks Cheyenne up and carries her into the living room. She turns on the news, full blast, and then sits with Cheyenne in the recliner.

  “Want ice cream, Chey-Chey?” I call to her. I’ve got to be really loud to make myself heard over the TV. I think Cheyenne would hear “ice cream” whispered in the middle of a rock con­cert, though.

  She comes running. “Ice cream!” she says.

  I don’t give her much sweet stuff, but it’s a good excuse to get her away from the TV without fighting Irma. She knows I don’t like Cheyenne watching the news with her. It’s way too violent.

  I put Cheyenne back in her high chair and scoop vanilla ice cream into her plastic “Lion King” bowl.

  Irma gets up and goes to her room, not bothering to turn off the TV. She slams the door behind her. I guess she’s mad that Cheyenne’s back in the kitchen with me.

  I’m drying the last dish when I hear the announcer say some­thing about “nineteen-year-old Daphne Coulter . . .”

  I rush to the TV in time to see a flash of one of the pictures she carried around, of the back side of her bruised body, and then, and then the Sunday church picture of her and her family.

  I sit down, weak. What is it?

  “ . . . suspected history of abuse, though neighbors say Dean Coulter was always nice, ready to help anyone out.”

  And then it switches to a business report. God! What is it? I switch channels, again and again, West Africa, basketball, the President. What is it? Maybe if I call the TV station . . . Franti­cally, I punch 411 and ask for the number for Channel Four.