All We Had

by Annie Weatherwax

  Meanwhile, I was sweating. My pantyhose were making my legs itch, and my crotch was on fire. The shoulders on the dress were so tight that I could barely reach my fork.

  “Sit up,” my mother whispered when I started to slouch. She caught my eye and corrected me by stiffening up herself. She raised the corners of her mouth with her forefinger and thumb, instructing me to smile. Twice, through her teeth like a ventriloquist, she inched closer to me and said, “Use your napkin.” Then she covered her tracks with a grin.

  The waitstaff wore red bow ties and white shirts. The men wore black pants, the women black skirts. The napkins were starched. There were too many forks and knives and spoons. “Pick one and stick with it,” my mother said. “That’s what I’m doing.”

  I tried but couldn’t choke down my grass-fed burger. She was eating salmon soufflé, cozying up to Vick, repeatedly telling him how delicious it was. There was a feverishness to my mother’s eagerness to please him. But I knew it would end. She and I liked McDonald’s. We preferred to bring it home and eat it sitting up watching TV in bed.

  Vick reached out and held my mother’s hand. He looked across the table and smiled at me. “I feel so lucky,” he whimpered. He’d had three martinis.

  “Awww.” My mother crinkled her nose at him.

  God help me. I looked away.

  “I mean it,” he went on. “You have no idea how happy I am right now.” There was a catch in his voice. I glanced across the table at him.

  Vick had bad skin. To hide it, he went to a tanning booth. He had goggle-shaped pale ovals around his eyes. Now his skin was blotchy and red and his bottom lip quivered.

  “It’s been so long.” He was wearing his napkin as a bib. He took the corner of it, lowered his head, and wiped his eyes.

  Lynette had died ten years ago but, according to my mother, he missed her every day. He kept pictures of her everywhere. He still had her clothes in a spare closet in the hallway. My mother told me she’d seen him once standing in front of it, crying into the hem of a dress.

  “You see,” my mother whispered and tapped me on the leg, “how nice he is?” She raised her wineglass as if to say I told you so and took a sip.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Childhood

  My Dearest Cousin Ruth,

  I took a jaunt by your house and it’s still empty. The front window is broken, but nothing else seemed out of place. Good news! I found your baseball cap. Shall I send it? Or keep it here for you?

  P.S. I re-measured the space behind the gas station and I do think you’re quite right. There is sufficient room to fit a couch up against the wall.

  Yours Truly,

  Lady Pam-o-lot

  I missed Fat River. I missed the way our ceiling leaked and the smell of our kitchen garbage. And I missed all the sounds—the garbled words from McDonald’s drive-thru, the moan of our refrigerator when it opened, the high-pitched squeak when it shut, and the squawk of our front door. Besides the thrum and sputter of the sprinkler systems, Piney Hills had just one other sound: the beep. Everything here beeped. The freezer beeped if it was open too long, the oven beeped when it was hot enough, the dishwasher beeped when it was done, and in case he couldn’t tell, Vick’s car beeped when he was going backward. His alarm system beeped and the numbers he pressed to get the beeping to stop beeped. An elongated beep indicated he was done. There were unidentified distant beeps—those set my teeth on edge. And at night when things weren’t beeping, it was dead. No rustling critters in the woods, no whoosh of a distant highway, no frog or insect sounds because not even the crickets wanted to hang out here.

  The nights terrified me. My room was dark and big. Where was I? And how did I get here? In the dead silence, the numbers of the digital clock on my nightstand flipped over with a loud bang! like gunshots. I unplugged it but the backup batteries made it buzz, and you needed a Phillips-head to get them out. I felt lost, even in the bed. It was too large and made up with duvets and duvet covers and shams and throw pillows and it was wearing a skirt—a frilly piece of purple fabric gathered at its edge. Who could sleep on such a thing?

  For days I didn’t. On the fourth night, I finally drifted off at five a.m. but less than an hour later, an unexpected sound bolted me upright in bed. I looked around disoriented and panicked. Then I heard it again. A low-class rattle, the kind they didn’t have here, clattered in the driveway. I jumped up and looked out the window. The sun was just rising, my mother’s car was being towed and my bike was still on the back of it.

  I hit the ground running. I flew down the overwrought staircase and out the oversize front door. In my T-shirt and tattered pajama bottoms I sprinted down the middle of the empty street as the truck pulled away. It went over the speed bump. The bell on the handlebars came loose, ringing when it hit the ground. And the last of what I knew of home disappeared around the bend.

  I braced myself on the edge of the welcome! sign and caught my breath. Down the street, Vick’s BMW pulled out of the driveway. He went to work every day so I didn’t have to see him much, but that was the only good thing about that summer. When he glided past me, he gave the horn a cheery toot-toot. When he smiled, he smiled too broadly.

  I looked up to the sky and shook my open palms. Why? Why this? Why me?

  A bird landed on the top edge of the sign. He looked around and wiggled his rump. He pointed himself in an eastward direction and as if to answer all my questions, he lifted his tail and took a dump.

  My Dearest Lady Pam-o-lot, I wrote later.

  Today he took away my sturdy old bike under the guise of being nice, claiming he’d replace it with a charmless flimsy new one. I miss you terribly but Mother will soon tire of this dreadful place, I am sure of it.

  Cheerio!

  Your Dearest Cousin Ruth

  P.S. I’m enclosing the bell. Can you see if Mel can fix it for me?

  “He’s getting you a new one!” My mother chased after me as I ran back into the house. “He just ordered it yesterday.” But I pushed right past her. “And he’s buying me a new car!”

  I sprinted up the stairs, she followed me, and I slammed my door in her face.

  “Ruthie, please. I’m begging you. Come on. You’re acting like a baby. We’re getting brand-new ones. I mean, brand spanking new, as in: never been used. We’ve hardly ever had anything like that.” It was true, but I didn’t care. I sat up on the bed with my knees bent, scowling at her through the door.

  I heard her sigh and shuffle off. A few minutes later she was back.

  “Here it is,” she said. A color ad for a ten-speed bike appeared under the door. “Take it.” She held it by its corner and wiggled it back and forth. But I didn’t bite.

  “Fine,” she said. Then she nudged it and sent it sliding toward me on the floor.

  Before I knew it, she’d left and was back again. This time she pushed a glossy brochure for a Toyota Camry underneath the door. I heard her heels fade down the hallway. I waited and when she returned she sat down against my door. I could hear her flipping through the pages of a catalog. One by one, she circled her favorite things, tore the pages out, and before I knew it half a Crate and Barrel catalog was strewn across the hardwood floor.

  I heard her get up. For a long while after, there was silence. I tiptoed over, pressed my ear against the door, but still heard nothing. So I cracked the door open. The hallway looked empty. I inched forward and stepped out.

  “Gotcha!” she yelled and grabbed me. She started pinching me up and down my sides.

  What was wrong with her? We’d never played this idiotic game, not even when I was little. I pushed her away, ran down the stairs, but she followed. She chased me into the kitchen and we danced around the island until I faked her out and sprinted for the living room, where she trapped me.

  “I’m going to get you!” she said, holding her hands up like claws.

  Oh pl
ease! I was not a three-year-old in need of cheering up and it was a little late for her to start acting like a mother.

  “When you were little,” she used to say, “the sound of your laughter was like magic to me.” But the truth was, when I was little she and I were almost always hungry. There wasn’t much to laugh about. She never had the energy—not even for a game of peek-a-boo.

  I ran past her but she caught me by my T-shirt.

  “You see,” she said when I finally gave in laughing, “it’s not so bad here.”

  My stomach dropped. I shot her a look. I was not so easily swayed.

  “Ruthie, come on,” she called as I walked away. “I thought we were having fun.”

  There was nothing fun about being here. Vick did have a pool but it was empty. The pollen that collected on the water aggravated his allergies, so he kept it covered with a tarp. A patio of manufactured paving stones was lined with lounge chairs and umbrellas as if he was expecting a crowd, but nobody ever showed up.

  Cars slid in and out through automatic garage doors and children were shuffled off. The only sign of life I’d seen so far was the woman’s arm across the street. She reached it out her Lexus window at the bottom of her drive and retrieved her mail promptly every day at three.

  We’d toured the house repeatedly and I’d snooped around everywhere but not a single thing was out of place. There wasn’t a cup ring or scratch mark on any surface. The entire atmosphere seemed devoid of life and meaning.

  My mother was fooling herself if she thought we could ever belong here. She could never keep up this act. It was too much of a stretch for her. It was stiff and boring—not anything like who she really was. But that didn’t stop her from trying.

  It was late afternoon the next day and we’d been watching TV for hours. Equipped with a couch that had cup holders built into the arms, Vick had a whole room designated for this activity.

  “Do you see that?” my mother stood up and pointed to a commercial on TV. In it a woman bounded out of her house with piping-hot cookies on a platter. A band of bright cheering children blossomed on the scene. In an instant their pudgy hands pawed the cookies off the plate. Yum, yum, and they were gone.

  “That’s what we should be doing,” my mother said as if she’d cracked some code. “I’m going to bake something and I want you to go outside and when I’m done, I’ll bring it out to you.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I mumbled.

  “You know, you can be a real jerk. You’re not even trying to like it here,” she fumed. “I’ll have you know.” She swept her hand across the scenery. “This is the American dream. And as long as we’re here, we are going to try it out! Now go outside and play while I bake some goddamn cookies.”

  My Lady Pam-o-lot,

  I cannot wait until this episode is over. It is a loathsome Disneyland here. The light has no contrast or subtlety of hue. The birds sing in engineered, vapid tones, and the sky is always flat and even. It is so pruned and fashioned it is often difficult to discern what is real and what is not. And Mother now has us playing house. She is acting the part of the parent and I the part of the child. Even if I knew how to frolic, there’s no place to do it here.

  Cheers,

  Cousin Ruth

  P.S. Can you check and see: I think I left a box of Twizzlers behind the canned tomatoes on the shelf. Make sure Mel does not steal them!

  I could not believe what I did sometimes to humor my mother. I was now standing outside on Vick’s lawn like an idiot. Crew-cut razor sharp in fine strands of green, signs that said keep off were posted at the edge by the street. If a single blade of crabgrass nerved its way up, he’d zip a hazmat suit on, pump a tank, and blast the monstrous patch with poison. I’d seen him do it three times already this week.

  I looked around and waited for something to happen—a dog to show up or a worm to surface. But not a single thing moved.

  Inside, my mother was making a clatter. I heard dishes and spoons, pots and pans banging together. I could see her through the kitchen window wiping down the granite countertops. A glint of stainless steel twinkled every time she opened the refrigerator door.

  As always when my mother tried to cook, eventually something burned. Before I knew it she was darting back and forth, swatting at the smoke with her new Gucci purse. When the smoke alarm began to beep, she opened and closed the back door in quick bursts.

  “What the hell are you doing out there?” she abruptly yelled when she saw me standing there.

  “I’m playing! What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Well, you’re not trying hard enough! Move your arms and legs a bit.”

  My Dearest Cousin Ruth, I heard back from Peter Pam.

  I was terribly saddened to hear about your bike! What a frightful turn of events. I do hope they reused it, or, heaven forbid, recycled the parts. News from Fat River: Mel may have to close the gas station and Tiny’s has now temporarily stopped serving lunch. Arlene is barely hanging on. Frank O’Malley shortchanged her on a tip which gave her a hot flash so colossal she ran him down and stabbed him in the shoulder with a fork.

  P.S. Remember to breathe.

  The days dragged on. I watched TV and hardly ever moved. In the evenings Vick brought home take-out—Italian, Chinese, or Mexican food, and we’d eat in his dining room, where he went on about his work. “Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and J.P. Morgan!” The entire financial system, he told us one night, was imploding. “But no worries here!” he said in his cornball voice, shoveling chop suey into his mouth. “Washington will bail them out!” His own company, he bragged, had emerged unscathed.

  Vick took another mouthful and changed the subject. “Hey! Wasn’t it a perfect day today?”

  “It was!” my mother said, even though she’d spent half of it in bed.

  That morning she’d gotten up and dressed, seen him off to work, then fully clothed, went back to bed. She’d claimed she wasn’t feeling well. But I could tell what was really going on. Her overblown acting job was taxing her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Humankind

  It was one o’clock in the afternoon at the end of our second week there. My mother had just gotten out of bed. She’d taken a shower and put on fresh clothes.

  “Ruthie, come here.” She was peering out the kitchen window. A beat-up old car, the kind they didn’t have around here, was chugging down the street. When it came to a stop in front of Vick’s, the tailpipe coughed. The driver killed the engine and a blast of charcoal-colored smoke ricocheted off the pavement.

  The door creaked open and through the haze, a girl emerged. Her skin was olive, her long black hair pulled back in a loose bun. She closed the door, walked around, unlocked the trunk, and took out a mop.

  “Quick,” my mother said, “in here,” and she pulled me into the bathroom off the kitchen.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Shh, shh.” She grabbed my shoulder and raised a finger to her mouth. “Listen,” she whispered. A ring of keys clanged against the front door, then it slowly opened.

  “He’s got a cleaning lady,” my mother whispered, widening her eyes.

  “Oh my God, that’s so weird.”

  “I know,” she said.

  Overnight she and I had gone from living in a one-bedroom house with major plumbing problems and a leaky roof to one that had four bedrooms and a pool. Neither one of us knew how to act here, and the presence of a cleaning lady only made it worse.

  “Should we say hi to her?” I asked.

  “No,” my mother said. “We’re supposed to act like we don’t see her. We should sit on the couch, watch TV, and have her clean around us.”

  I smirked and shook my head as if to say, That would never work.

  We did not belong here and the cleaning lady would know it too. We knew—because my mother used to be one—that
cleaning ladies can tell all there is to know about a person by the shit they leave around.

  “Okay, okay,” she agreed, “so we can’t do that.”

  “Should we help her?” I asked.

  “No,” my mother said. “It’s not our job. We’re in a totally different class now.”

  “Aren’t we all just humans?” I asked. But she didn’t answer.

  “Shh! She’s going upstairs,” my mother reported.

  We heard the vacuum cleaner thump against the risers until she reached the top. The situation had paralyzed us. We stood there frozen, listening to her every move, until my mother started getting claustrophobic.

  The bathroom was tiny. The house had three of them, but this one seemed like a toy just for show. The quaint pedestal corner sink had a set of hand towels fanned out on its edge. The soap in the dish was pristine and molded like a scallop shell. The toilet had its own cubby, the box of Kleenex on the back was snuggled in a cozy.

  The bathroom had no windows and my mother was dying for a smoke but her cigarettes were upstairs so she shoved a fistful of Tic Tacs into her mouth instead. She now used them to cover up her breath because she’d lied and told Vick she didn’t smoke. “What the fuck is taking her so long?” she mouthed through them.

  A few minutes passed. Upstairs a cell phone rang and the cleaning lady started chatting in Spanish. “Oh, great!” My mother threw her hands up. “Who the hell is that?”

  Her nicotine withdrawal was giving her the jitters. She buzzed back and forth like a fly caught between panes of glass.

  The cleaning lady now started in the bathroom above us. We heard her bang around. The sink ran and the toilet flushed. She let out a low grunt and her mop fell. The wooden handle bounced twice when it hit the tile floor. She flushed the toilet again and then we heard her moaning.