“What’s a farmist?” asks Piper.
“A pharmacist. It starts with a ph. They fill your prescriptions when your doctor gives you medicine.”
“Oh. Do you want to play crazy eights?”
I think about it. “Actually, Piper, I’m tired. If you don’t mind.”
Later, when I go to tuck her in, she’s wearing the green bandanna. “Oh my gosh, it’s so cute!” I screech. “It makes your eyes as green as a lizard.”
“A lizard? No!”
“A leaf?”
“No!”
“Okay, how about as green as apple-flavored Jolly Ranchers?”
“Yeah!” she says. “That’s it!”
She wears the bandanna for the next four days, until we have a little talk about matching and what colors go together. I can’t help but think of Leo. He would say Piper’s bandanna is the wrong green.
* * *
—
A FEW DAYS later, while Piper and I are doing dishes, I mention Leo. I might not have if Piper hadn’t been talking about her twin cousins—baby Abel and baby Asher.
“I have a brother,” I announce.
She stops in the middle of drying a plate to turn and look at my face. “Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
“Where is he? Where does he live?”
“To be honest, he’s been missing for a long time.”
“What do you mean, missing?”
I should never have brought Leo up. What was I thinking? “We’re not sure if someone took him from a house he was staying at or if he ran away.”
“What’s his name?”
“Leo,” I say. For some reason it feels good to say his name to Piper. “Leo is thirteen now.”
Piper looks thoughtful. She wipes a fork. “Are you sad?”
Am I sad? “I miss him a lot,” I tell her.
“But why did he run away?”
“He got lost, Piper. He wasn’t as smart as normal kids, and one day he got lost and then we couldn’t find him.” Oh my God. Saying this so matter-of-factly to Piper makes it sound so awful. “But I like to think he’s in a good place,” I hurry to add. “I’m almost positive that a good mother found him and she took him home and she is taking good care of him.”
I can see Piper processing all this while she stares at my reflection in the window.
“Leo,” she says softly, like she has a new possession.
One thing about working at the Big Dipper is that I’ve gotten totally addicted to coffee. I try to limit myself to two cups in the morning and one after lunch—but sometimes I sneak in a bit more. I always eat my lunch sitting in a booth by the window. I people-watch or sometimes read the paper or a celebrity magazine.
I’m doing just that—wrapped up in an article about Rod Stewart—when Inez sits down across from me.
Gloria certainly wasted no time, did she? But it feels like an enormous stroke of luck that I’m on break—and Julie is busy with customers.
I gaze at Inez flatly, trying to muster a glare, but a glare seems premature—and immature. “Gloria, I suppose,” I state matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” she says, brushing rain off the shoulders of her tan trench coat. “Gloria told me where you work.”
“Are you here to cause problems?”
“Of course not, Venus.” The creases around her eyes are deeper. Her damp hair is still black, long, and straight, but gray roots show along her part.
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to see you, Venus.” She speaks softly, like she’s approaching a dangerous animal.
“Okay. See me?” I say. “Now you’ve seen me, now you can go.” I realize I sound more like Piper than a grown woman.
“Can I have coffee with you? Actually, I’d like to talk to you about something important.”
She sounds so sad that I instantly go to Leo. “Is it Leo?” I ask hopefully.
“No, it’s not Leo,” she says wistfully. “It’s about you….”
“What about me?”
She looks out the window, and the dark metal flecks in her gray eyes match the rain outside. “It’s nice here,” she says, glancing around. “I’m so glad you found a job—Annette?” She chuckles softly, nodding at my name tag.
“I like it here, too,” I say. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone that I’m trying to start a new life with a new name.” The front door jingles, signaling a new customer.
“Good for you, Venus,” she says with meaning. “I don’t care what you call yourself, as long as it makes you happy. But there’s something else,” she says. She opens her purse and pulls out her ChapStick. Same old nervous habit.
“I want you to know something,” she says, rubbing the wax on her lips over the top of her orange-ish lipstick.
“Yeah? What should I know?”
“I’m going to have money for you to go to college.”
Immediately my blood pounds. “From where? Did you get it from selling my story to that Anna person?”
“Oh no! I never followed through with that, since you clearly…Actually, the money will be coming from the sale of the house on Rockefeller. I’m going to move into something smaller, and there’s some equity—”
“I don’t want any blood money from that horrible house,” I tell her.
“I understand, Venus. But you’re so smart. And I want to see you go to college if you want to.”
Her seeming generosity surprises me but only a little less than the fact that she’s continued to live in that house all these years. I take a gulp of coffee and look outside.
“I’m not going to college, anyway, at least not anytime soon.”
Inez’s hopeful expression collapses. “But, Venus—”
“Not just because I can’t afford to,” I continue. “I can’t possibly go to college without using my transcripts and risking the whole school learning who I am. And can you imagine the looks I would get? The way people would treat me once they knew the truth?”
She hesitates for a moment. “I understand. It’s painful to be you. But hiding isn’t going to help, sweetie.”
“Please don’t call me ‘sweetie.’ And I’m not hiding. It’s called ‘starting over.’ ”
She looks at me, shakes her head like it’s a sad thing I’m doing. “You can’t run from the past, Venus,” she whispers.
“Just watch me,” I say.
We fall silent and I can smell her perfume. Charlie. It was always Charlie, and now the scent makes me sick. I bet she even has a hanky somewhere in that purse.
I notice that her hand is shaking and realize she’s really nervous. She puts her ChapStick back in her purse and looks at me in this pleading way. “I meant what I said about being sorry, Venus. I don’t know what else to do. I’m so sorry I—”
“Don’t!” I interrupt her. “Don’t even try.” I don’t want to hear her apologies. For a moment, we’re both quiet and looking out the window. Rain on puddles. Rain on rain. The rain is getting rained on.
After she quietly gets up and leaves, I feel deflated and angry. Her attempt to apologize annoys the hell out of me because it doesn’t match up with the story in my head.
That afternoon, I’m not in the mood for Piper, but she is waiting for me as always on the front steps. I wish she would just play outside like other kids and give me some space.
“Why don’t you ride your bike anymore?” I ask.
“It’s winter, doofus,” she says.
“It’s Seattle, not Alaska,” I reply. “And you’re not allowed to call me ‘doofus,’ remember? It’s stopped raining, and it’s really not that cold, as long as you wear a jacket.”
“It’s a dumb bike.”
“What about it is dumb?”
“Other kids have ten speeds, not bana
na seats. It’s a baby bike.”
I doubt this, but I wouldn’t know. I turn on the TV, hoping that MTV will distract Piper and she’ll leave me alone. That’s another thing that happened while I was away. When I went into Echo, music was just music, not these weird videos.
When Piper seems glued to Madonna, I sneak up to my bedroom, shut the door, and lie down on my back, perfectly flat, as if being still will take away the pain. Kind of like when you’re sick and it helps to lie on the cold kitchen floor.
I shut my eyes and try to make my mind go blank, but all I can think about is Inez. How painful our meeting was. How much I wish I had a mother to help me navigate this new life of mine—and I know Inez would be happy to. But at times I think the only thing that’s held me together all these years is my anger at Inez. If I forgave her, it would mean facing the past, feeling those feelings. I’m afraid I’d fall apart. Plus, what if she betrays me again?
Back at Echo, Sharon once said that maybe I needed to blame my mom to survive, like a coping mechanism—but that someday the opposite might be true. What if she was right?
“What’s wrong?”
I open my eyes to see Piper’s apple green ones staring down at me. Up close they always look brighter, even greener.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Are you sick?”
“No. Just tired.”
“You’re lying,” she says.
“You’re being a pest.”
She sits on the edge of my bed. “Scoot over,” she demands, like it’s her bed, too. I grudgingly roll over, and she lies down next to me.
Her presence there reminds me of Leo and me lying on my bed, naming planets and counting stars. The memory hurts, so I turn my attention to Piper. “What did you do at school today?”
“Nothing. I played solitaire at recess.” I taught her how a week ago.
“Did you win?”
“Only when I cheated.”
We are quiet for a while, staring at the ceiling. Elton John’s “Levon” is playing on KJR on my clock radio, and it makes me want to cry. I can’t do that with Piper here, so I try to hold back tears.
“What’s really wrong with you? I can tell you’re sad,” Piper says.
“I saw my mother today.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Your mother?” She says it like it’s such a surprise that I have a mother. I think she’s seen me as belonging only to her and to the here and now. “Is she pretty?”
I think about this. “I guess so. But she’s kind of old now, like forty-two or something.”
“Where did you see her?”
“At the Big Dipper.”
“Why are you sad?”
I sigh. “It’s hard to explain.” Then I gently ask, “Do you want to talk about your mom?”
“I don’t know,” Piper says. I smell bubble gum on her breath and I suspect she’s been spending her milk money on gum and candy. I always spent my milk money that way, too, so I let it go.
“Piper, do you miss your mom?” I’ve never before directly asked Piper about her mom.
“Of course!” she says, as if I’ve insulted her.
“Sor-rry,” I reply. “Not everyone loves their mom, you know.”
“Don’t you?” she asked.
“I don’t know about that anymore. I used to. But I’ve been mad at her a long time.” Why did I go down this road?
Piper turns onto her side and props up her head to look at my face. “Really? How come?”
“She made some big mistakes,” I tell her. “You’re not old enough to understand.”
Piper huffs. “I am old enough to understand. If I had my mom, I would be soooooo nice to her. I would love her even if she made big mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, right?”
I sigh again. “You’re right, Piper. But some are just harder to forgive.”
“So if I make a big mistake, you might not forgive me and then you won’t love me anymore?”
“Oh, Piper! For God’s sake, no. That’s not what I’m saying.” Since when did Piper decide that I love her?
I sit up and climb over Piper’s body on the bed. “Let’s go make cookies,” I say, which is actually one of the few motherly things Inez did with me. We always made the peanut butter kind, and I loved making the crosshatch in the dough with the fork.
On December 12, we celebrate Piper’s tenth birthday at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour. It’s Mike, Curtis, a new friend of Piper’s named Amy, and myself. Amy’s a funny, quiet little thing with chunky brown hair and a tiny face. But I’m so glad Piper has a new friend.
After we get home from Farrell’s, I sneak out into the garage to retrieve Piper’s present.
The kitten is black with green eyes. If it were up to me, I’d name him Spooky. But I already suspect his name is going to be Felix. It’s one of Piper’s favorite old cartoons. She likes to sing the jingle about the wonderful, wonderful cat and laughing so hard your sides ache.
I have Spooky-soon-to-be-Felix in a cardboard box with an old towel. I tell Piper to sit down at the kitchen table and cover her eyes. When she opens them, she stares dumbly at the box.
“Open it!” I say. She lifts the lid. Peeks in. Squeals, “It’s a kitty! Oh my gosh, it’s a kitty!” She gingerly lifts out the kitten, which appears to have been sleeping. He’s supposedly eight weeks old. “He’s so cute! He’s perfect!”
I am smiling so wide. We had a kitten once when I was four. After I purposely dropped him in a full bathtub, I planned to put him in the dryer. Fortunately, Inez caught me in the act, and Toby lived to die another day, courtesy of a car.
“You like him?” I ask.
“I love him!” she exclaims. She hugs me around the waist and won’t let go. “Thank you, Annette. Thank you!”
“What are you going to name him?” I ask, gently unwinding her arms.
“I don’t know,” she says, her green eyes going serious.
“What about Spooky?” I ask.
She thinks about this. “Spooky,” she says. “Like he’s scary?”
“No, but since he’s black—”
“I know, I know!” she screeches. “Felix! Felix the wonderful cat.” And she goes off into the cartoon jingle.
I have this girl nailed.
* * *
—
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, it’s totally dead at the Dipper when Danny sidles up to the pastry window. “Hey. It’s the only girl in the world who doesn’t like me.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “I’m sure there are plenty of others.”
“Ouch!” he says. Danny has a largish nose—something we share. He also has broad shoulders and long lashes that would suit a girl fine. He reminds me a little of Tad Martin from All My Children. Sometimes I watch that soap on Mondays when I’m off work.
“What can I get you?” I ask him.
He pretends to scan the pastries. “What is that one with yellow?”
“Lemon filling.”
“Is it good?”
“I like it,” I say. “I think you’ve had it before.”
“Oh wow,” he exclaims. “So she remembers what I like.”
Clearly, us going out for ice cream with Danny got his hopes up all over again. And maybe for just a second it had gotten mine up, too—until I found out he was a cop. Who could discover the truth about me faster or more easily?
Now I don’t really have a choice but to get him to move on. And the sooner the better.
Julie has finished with her own customer and now she comes over to join us. “You gotta try our new brownie,” she tells Danny.
“Really?”
“It’s awesome. Perfect mix of moist and chewy. I’m recommending it to all my favorite customers.” She’s smiling at Danny in a way that makes me realiz
e she’s flirting. It’s my customer, so why is she butting in?
Danny doesn’t seem to notice, though. “I’m trying to talk Annette here into having a cup of coffee with me on her next break,” he tells Julie.
I frown. “No, he’s not.”
“Well, don’t be rude, Annette,” says Julie slyly. “Remember, the customer comes first. And you can take that break anytime you want.”
“Thanks a lot,” I tell her.
“So, why don’t you like me?” Danny asks after Julie’s walked away. “Is it the nose?”
I shake my head, smiling. “No, of course not,” I tell him. “I like your nose fine. And it’s not that I don’t like you. But I’m not…How come you don’t just give up?”
“Give up?” He seems to think about this for a moment. “Maybe I’m not convinced there’s no hope,” he says.
An awkward moment passes and he tries again. “What if we were just friends? I promise on a holy stack of flapjacks that I won’t make a move on you.”
“ ‘A holy stack of flapjacks’?” I bust out laughing. “That’s a weird one.”
“So what’s your answer?”
I sigh heavily. “It’s not you; it’s only that I heard the whole let’s-just-be-friends thing doesn’t work, at least not for the guy, anyway.”
“What? You think you’re so damn irresistible? Like I can’t resist your charms? What if I’m only looking for a friend, too?”
“Touché,” I concede. “You have me there.”
“I wish I did,” he says wistfully, and I feel myself blushing hard. Now it feels like we really are flirting. What am I doing? This poor guy has no idea how screwed up I am. And as much as I like him, the way he glances at my body makes me feel something close to panic.
“So it’s decided,” he declares out of nowhere. “Dinner. Movie. Tomorrow night. Just friends. Simple as that.” He pauses to put a napkin to his mouth to catch a bit of brownie.
“Really? You think it’s that simple?” I ask. “You are a pushy guy,” I say.
Of course, when I don’t outright say no, Danny takes this for a yes. Then he turns into a gentleman and insists I don’t have to come if I don’t want to, which instinctively makes me reassure him that I do.
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