Bright Angel Time

by Martha McPhee

  “Finny’s a bastard,” Timothy spat into my ear. “I told you so. He’s a bastard, bastard, bastard.” A smile spread wide through his lips. Timothy loved to hear himself speak, the sounds of his words, and he pecked them at me. Mom’s baby came to mind and made me sad and then the idea vanished. Timothy’s boxy hair shimmered and his big teeth glistened, long like a lady’s polished fingernails. He coughed out bastard. Shooting it out: bastard. Chills rushed through me. “He’s a bastard. Bastard. Bastard.”

  ♦

  Finny started wetting the bed all the time and the camper smelled up with pee. Timothy wouldn’t let him alone about it and Finny got his own bed, which made everyone else mad. Anton wrapped his mattress in special plastic that made a crinkling sound every time Finny turned in his sleep.

  For the most part I was on his side, until he stole my rock. We were in the parking lot of a diner, stopped for lunch in one of those makeshift towns.

  “There are hundreds of rocks out there,” Sofia said, gesturing out toward the land, “that are much prettier than that ugly one of yours. And what about all those rocks you’ve collected that are all over the camper?”

  “You stay out of this,” I screamed. Finny held the rock up in his fingers for me to see and smiled.

  “Give it back,” I said. “I gave you a rock. That one’s mine.”

  “Not anymore. It’s mine now,” he claimed. His blue eyes glistened, such a weird blue. “I don’t like the one you gave me.”

  It was dusty on the pavement and very hot. A light wind blew scraps of paper around in circles. Mom and Anton approached us.

  “Mom,” I pleaded. “Tell Finny to give me back my rock.”

  “Work it out yourself, babe,” Anton said. And then Mom smiled as if we were cute animals playing.

  “Settle it between the two of you,” Mom said, as they went into the restaurant. We fought for several more minutes, rolling on the asphalt. He was stronger than I and I hated him. In fact, I’d never loved him. My dress ripped. I scraped my knees. I could feel them bleeding.

  “You can have it, it’s only a dumb rock,” I said, finally. My knees stung. “At least I can get another one. At least I know where both my parents are. I know where my father is,” I screamed, standing up and wiping my dress smooth. “I know where my mother is.”

  The restaurant was all chrome, blond, shining in the relentless sun. Inside was air-conditioned. The sweat dried on my skin, making it brittle. I shivered in the cold. Foot-high cakes swarming with jimmies rotated in a glass carousel. Wedges had been cut away and the insides were a beautiful fluffy white, laced with berry jam. The cashier smiled at me through a heavily madeup face.

  An extra-long table had been put together for us in the center of the diner and everyone sat around it. Finny pushed in next to Anton. Red plastic water glasses stood by all our plates and in the center of the table were baskets heaped with rolls. I was hungry. I took a deep breath. I looked at Mom. She was asking the waitress lots of questions about where she was from and if she knew any wonderful out-of-the-way spots that we should visit. Black grime wedged under Mom’s fingernails. She wore a T-shirt with a caption reading STAMP OUT SEXISM in bold letters above a picture of a little girl in jeans stomping on Dick and Jane books. Mom’s breasts bulged through her too-small bra. The waitress spoke back enthusiastically. Finny had my rock in his hand. I could see the little flakes of gold sparkling through his fist.

  “Two-dollar limit,” Anton said sternly.

  On the menu there were only hamburgers for two dollars. I didn’t eat hamburgers. I didn’t like chopped-up things. I didn’t eat tuna fish, it was like eating cat food. Mom had always felt that way too. Never before did we eat chopped-up things. There was a basket of fried chicken and french fries for $3.35.

  “I want the fried chicken,” I said.

  “You heard me, babe. Two-dollar limit.” His voice had a keen edge to it. He was the biggest man in the world. I had never known anyone so big. I didn’t love him anymore. I didn’t love anyone anymore.

  “I don’t eat hamburgers,” I snapped.

  “Looky here, babe, there’re other things on the menu. How about a grilled cheese?” Anton offered. “Or a bowl of soup?”

  “I want the chicken,” I said. My nose stung. My eyes were wide.

  “Kate, you’re gonna listen to me.” His face pulsed. The veins running up his temples swelled, becoming thick like worms.

  “I won’t eat then,” I answered.

  “If you’re gonna behave like that, fine.”

  Mom chewed on ice. Her expression said, “It would have been so much easier if you had just given Finny the rock.” This was how we blended. We had to give each other everything and not look back and not get upset. Give, give, give until our identities melted together. No privacy. No locked doors, not even while peeing. There should be nothing to hide if we loved each other. If one of us wanted to be alone it meant something was wrong, that that person wasn’t having fun. “You aren’t having fun?” Mom would ask, her world momentarily ruined until you reassured her and she was happy again. That smile full of hope plastered on her lips.

  I sat on my hands while they ate, rocking my body, and started thinking about my twenty dollars. If I had my twenty dollars I could buy my own lunch, but then I thought that, if I had it, I wouldn’t spend it on lunch. I’d use it to get home. I’d go on a bus. I’d ask Mom for the money again as soon as we were alone, and then in the next big town I’d run away and if she didn’t give it to me I’d steal it. Jane snuck me a french fry. It was cold and limp, but it tasted good. I thought, I could get Jane to go away with me.

  Sounds of the restaurant slowly filled in the silence. Plates clattering, small families in window seats talking, songs on the radio, the sizzling of food on the grill. A fly. Anton told James about his book, and they talked about love and poetry and Anton told him poetry was a noble profession to pursue. He said he wished he had the means to be James’s patron. Anton was making the newcomer welcome. He didn’t feel a need to do that with us anymore. I hated him. Then Anton told James proudly that he was Irish and asked a lot of questions about Scotland, if it were true that mushrooms grew there freely on the moors. James said they did grow and that you could pick them yourself right out of the goat shit and this excited Anton and even Mom chimed in, trying to smooth over the fight, iron it right out of that afternoon. Then James, fascinated, asked a lot of questions about us and how we came together. Mom told him everything about Anton, from his being a Jesuit, to a poker player, to a Gestalt therapist, and as she spoke James fell in love with her, with her enthusiasm. I could see it. “Is this a typical American family?” he asked Mom with a smile, and she laughed. “It’s becoming more and more so,” she answered brightly. I didn’t care about Anton or this family anymore. My plan was warming me up inside, making me feel big again.

  Everyone talked – pass the salt, the pepper, the water, oops something spilled – fixing their food just so. A chaos of voices. Mayonnaise oozed from James’s sandwich, dripping off a piece of lettuce. Anton told Sofia not to smoke, but she smoked anyway. I wondered if James were paying for himself or if he too, now one of us, were part of the two-dollar limit. I snatched a roll.

  “I thought you weren’t going to eat,” Finny said.

  “Shut up.”

  “Looky, babes, I won’t have anymore fighting.” Anton spoke to both of us now. “I’m going to send you to the camper if you don’t behave.” His mouth made an unsucking sound when he spoke, the way it did when he smoked too much. Finny rolled my rock in his fingertips quickly, flashing it for me to see.

  “Bastard. BASTARD,” I shouted. I was shivering, breathing quickly, frozen for a second while the word vibrated through me, but then I saw Anton rise with a red and swollen face. In a second I had locked myself in the bathroom. I sat in there on the sink and stared at my face, my big green eyes flecked with spots of brown. My long hair tangled. My dress filthy. At first I was afraid that Anton would come in, a
fraid he’d rip open the door. But he didn’t come. Nobody came. And then that made me mad. I thought about the rock and then about Finny. When I fought with friends at home, Mom would pull me aside and gently whisper, “La noblesse oblige” and send me back with a pat. I hated Finny and didn’t want to oblige. I wanted my rock back. It was my rock, from my father. I had to have that rock. I scrubbed my arms and legs vigorously. I combed my hair with my fingers and twirled it into a knot. I rinsed my face. I wanted to be clean. I wanted to get away.

  On the phone outside the bathroom I called my father collect. He answered and accepted the charges before I had a chance to change my mind.

  “Kate, baby, where are you?” I didn’t speak right away. I wanted only to hear his voice. “Are you there, honey. Kate? Katy?” His voice was just the same. Somehow I expected it to be different since everything else was different. The receiver chilled my hand. I pictured him at his desk in his apartment in New York. It was a tiny apartment filled with rocks and maps, but even so he had beds for all of us. Beds that folded away into each other, “Like a matrioshka doll,” he’d say. I wanted to crawl between the cold sheets of one of those beds and fall asleep.

  “Dad,” I said finally. The hem of my dress tickled my ankles.

  “Where are you, baby? What’s wrong, sweetheart? Is something wrong? I’m so glad to hear your voice.” My nose twitched and my palms sweated. There was so much to explain.

  “It’s fine.” I pressed the receiver into my lips and wrapped the silver cord around me. “I’m in a diner in California.” My heart jerked but I breathed more slowly. “I just wondered if you’d come get me? I want to come home.” I spoke very matter-of-factly, actually believing that it would be so simple. I’d just wait for him there in the diner. He’d show up in his little white VW. I’d get in, close the door and together we’d go home, where things would be just as they used to be, before all this. I was impatient, I wanted to get there right away.

  “Of course I will. Baby, I miss you. I miss my little girl so much. I need to speak to your mother.” His voice was urgent now. “Put Eve on, Kate.”

  “It’s his fault, Kate. He didn’t give me anything, Kate. He left us, Kate.” Mom’s voice scratched through my mind. A woman squeezed past me to get to the toilet. Her body knocked into mine.

  “What town are you in? Tell me the name of the town?” he said.

  Then Mom appeared and I killed the line. Dad’s voice receded, sucked back across America through all that wire, just like a measuring tape snapping into its metal casing. Mom looked at me, wondering. I flushed, prepared to lie, but she let it go. It wasn’t easy. Her hands clutched her hips, her lips quivered, but she did let it go. I was just tiny standing there. She knew that I wasn’t going anywhere. Anton appeared behind her and his arm slid around her waist and he smiled and inside me filled and then emptied and I felt dirty even though I was clean.

  “Don’t be mad at me, babe,” he pleaded gently. His eyes asked forgiveness and we stared at each other for a minute and I was hoping he’d give me my rock, but he didn’t. Then I hoped he’d give me fried chicken or, better, my twenty dollars, but he didn’t.

  “How about a little football game?” he asked.

  ∨ Bright Angel Time ∧

  Hundred-Dollar Days

  Jane lined us up in a row. First Jane then Julia then Kate. Jane’s hands were cold and she was giddy. She listened. Her brown eyes widened. Julia giggled and I mimicked Julia and giggled too. Nervous, anxious laughter. “Shsh. He’s coming,” Jane said. We were in the foyer of our house, looking out the window behind the door. There was a nook near the window for coats and boots, and the three of us could fit into it if we squooshed. Sun streamed through the window, blinding the outside.

  The car door slammed. Julia hugged Jane’s waist and I hugged Julia’s waist, leaning forward into each other squinting; as Dad came closer through the white light, we could see him. A briefcase in his hand and a few newspapers. It was as if he were in a cloud or a dream, and I giggled again. We waited behind the door, ready to surprise him. We waited for this moment every day and every day we surprised him.

  The door opened and we leaped on him. Inside me felt dizzy, opening and closing. Julia always managed to be the first to kiss him, her arms clinging around his neck. Inside his briefcase he always had a surprise for us. Once he had a sweet-gum sapling he’d found by the train tracks. He’d planted it in our backyard for Mom.

  Then Dad started to work at home.

  The school bus let us off. Every day we wore matching outfits that Mom had made on the sewing machine in the basement. Julia would decide which outfit we’d wear and would lay it on our beds in the mornings. Jane and I always agreed. We didn’t care so much about those things. Jane took the mail from the red mailbox and we walked up the driveway. Each day Dad was in a new spot. Sometimes he was behind the door in the nook. Sometimes he hid among the trees lining the driveway and he’d creep around in there, making noises, trying to scare us. We always knew it was him, but we pretended to be scared anyway. Sometimes he was so impatient he’d just be standing there at the end of the driveway, waiting for the doors to open and for us to burst off the yellow school bus.

  Then that too was over.

  ♦

  Allison was the first friend from my old school whose mother stopped allowing her to come over to my house to play. She was a blond girl with light blue eyes. They weren’t jewels, kind of dull, but they were blue and she was blond and that nose was angled just right. Her teeth were straight and she had a Chihuahua named Spinky. I wanted one of those dogs. Her barrettes were gold filigree. She loved the word filigree, and I thought the word was beautiful too like the swirling design that it made. Filigree pretty. Allison was filigree pretty, with all her delicate lines and birdlike ankles. Her thin blond hair.

  “I can’t come over,” Allison said. “I’ve got piano lessons.” I stood in the kitchen, the phone cord wrapped around me. It was a long cord that you could wrap and wrap and wrap around you. I was wrapped up like a mummy. My fingertips turned white. She had piano lessons yesterday. My mouth twitched and hung open long, the way it did when I was denied something that I wanted, feeling stupid for asking.

  “You must want to be an expert,” I said. “How about after?”

  She was quiet a moment. Sun came through the window, making me hot. It was one of those hot fall days. I’d worn wool to school when I should have worn cotton. I was always getting the weather wrong. Julia wasn’t deciding our clothes anymore. I’d been uncomfortable and red all day.

  “Lessons,” she finally said. More lessons. Ballet and dance and swimming and skating. You-name-it lessons. Her voice was annoyed. I used to hate spending the night at her house. She had five sisters and three of them slept in one room. Not because they couldn’t afford to have their own rooms but because they preferred it that way. The older two were at boarding school. I slept in Allison’s trundle and we talked until late, the four of us. Allison and I were the youngest. Just after we’d drifted off the fighting would begin. Allison’s father had a mean voice and he was large with deep eyes and a thick mop of black hair and Allison’s mother was beautiful, very tall with black hair too and blue eyes and she’d hold me. In her arms I never felt like leaving. They were long, slender, warm arms that wrapped me up like the telephone cord and made me feel protected. We’d hear things fall and the older sisters would talk loudly and tell a story and Allison would laugh and the mysterious sounds would be vaguely hidden.

  One morning Allison’s mother had a patch over her eye, a gauzy patch, and the edges were surrounded with Vaseline so that her skin shone, but some of it had turned brown and crusty like pus. Even so that other blue eye beamed and her hair curled perfectly, pushed back with a wide bandeau.

  Clara was next. She was blond too. Then Dolly. Dolly had been my best friend. We had best friendships like boyfriends. Breaking up with miserable tears, declaring new best friendships, avoiding the ones we’d outgrown. “Who�
��s your best friend now?” we would ask each other. “Did you know that Allison dumped Clara and now Allison is best friends with Dolly who had been best friends with Kate.”

  A bird flew against the kitchen window and fell onto the bricks outside. The kitchen floor was cold. “Mom thinks you treat me like a priest,” Dolly said. Dolly was Catholic. I was confused. “You tell me too many things,” she said. I wondered when Jane and Julia would be getting home. “She thinks you’re troubled and need too much right now.” I remembered her house. It was always messy and her father was never home, which I liked. The fathers frightened me.

  I spoke with Wendy’s mom directly. I called her house and asked for Mrs. Baird and I asked Mrs. Baird if Wendy could come over. Wendy wasn’t ever a best friend. She’d been Clara’s best friend once, but as far as I knew they’d broken up.

  “Hello, Kate,” Mrs. Baird said. She had an English accent. She made us chocolate sandwiches the one time I’d had a play date at her house. Slices of white bread spread with chocolate icing. “Wendy’s schedule is tight these days with the new school year under way. You must be busy too, with your new school? Now I’m planning a party for Wendy’s birthday in November. I hope you’ll be able to make it.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Conquest.”

  “May I speak with Mrs. Tiller.”

  “Dolly, is your mother home?” Hello, Mrs. Davenport. Mrs. Campbell. Mrs. Fritz and Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Mrs. Love.

  ♦

  I had a friend at my new school who loved me very much and so I tortured her. She loved me because I was the only other child in our class who had lost her father. Monica DeMore lost her father when she was five years old. He disappeared and that was it. One morning early, while she and her mother still slept, he left and they never heard from him again. He sold something door to door, encyclopedias or Bibles. It didn’t matter. We wouldn’t have been friends if things had been different. After her father left, she and her mother dressed entirely in white and bought a white car. They moved into one quarter of a duplex near the train tracks. The back of the house looked out over a graveyard.