Birthdays of a Princess

by Helga Zeiner

  “You’ve never been in a hurricane, have you? It’s a nightmare come alive. People get separated all the time, because they suddenly can’t get from A to B. Roads become impassable, phones don’t work, roofs of houses get blown off, people can’t make it home. There are many possibilities to lose one another. I was a good mother, I would never have left her alone if I could have helped it. She was in the care of a…um, a friend, a trusted friend, when things turned for the worse. I had to get out of the house to get to safety and could only hope my friend and Tiara would be able to do the same. It was pandemonium. They were saying the storm wall shielding Galveston from the ocean would crush any moment and then all the low-lying land would flood. There was no time to waste, for any of us.”

  He made a note.

  “I understand. You fled the area all by yourself. Did you drive?”

  Stick as close as possible to the truth. “I went with a friend. I couldn’t drive.”

  He scribbled again. “It must have been very upsetting for you, not knowing what happened to your daughter.”

  “Oh yes, you’ve got no idea. I was frantic.”

  “For how long?”

  She frowned. What did he mean?

  “I mean, how long did it take until you were reunited with Tiara and the friend who took care of her?”

  “Oh, that. Much longer than I’d expected. You see, the coastal area did get flooded and the power was down in the whole greater Houston area for about a week after Ike had blown through. Imagine, no air-con, no refrigeration, no lights, no phones—for one whole week. I and my friend were lucky to have found a safe place to sit it out, far enough from the devastation. We had power there and watched TV nonstop to get the latest reports. We tried to call every hour, but it took a whole week before we found out that Tiara was also safe.”

  “Did she manage to leave the Galveston area, like you did?”

  Melissa thought about it carefully. What had Tiara told him?

  “No, as a matter of fact, she didn’t. But they managed to find shelter in a motel.”

  Dr. Eaton looked up sharply.

  “Tiara spent one whole week in a motel?”

  “Yes, they got there just before the storm hit and couldn’t leave any more. Nobody could get out, they were stuck there. At least, they were safe. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have fretted so much.”

  Did he understand that? He didn’t seem to grasp the agony a mother would feel in such a situation. His face reflected disdain.

  “I was beside myself with worry.”

  “How was Tiara when you were reunited?”

  Now they moved back to solid grounds. She could stick to the truth on that one.

  “Dear me, she was a wreck. Imagine, she’d never been away from her mom for so long, and since Katrina she was always scared of storms. She was frantic. When we found her, she didn’t speak for a month. She spent all that time in bed, like in a stupor, and it took all my love and care to make her better.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “What?”

  “You just said: ‘when we found her’? Where?”

  “Did I say that? I mean, when I found out where she had been staying and picked her up. That’s what I meant.”

  “From the motel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was ‘we’?”

  “I mean ‘I’.”

  “You mean, when you found them, Tiara and your friend?”

  “Yes, right.”

  “What’s that friend’s name?”

  “Uh, um, you mean … do you mean the one who took care of her?”

  He had his pen ready. “Yes. Her name?”

  She pretended to think. Should she make up a name?

  He was faster. “Was her name Gracie?”

  As hard as she tried, there was no way to hide her surprise and her rising panic.

  “Ah, yes, right, that was her name.”

  “And you were with?”

  “You mean Tony?”

  “Yes, the choreographer. Tony, what was his last name again?”

  “Tony Alvares. But you know what, Dr. Eaton, I don’t see where this is leading to. I insist on seeing my daughter before I answer any more of your questions. It just doesn’t make sense to me why you’re asking me all this.” She crossed her arms and pouted. Might as well demonstrate her displeasure.

  He closed his notebook and stood up. “As you wish. I think I got enough for today. Thank you for your willingness to provide me with answers to some troubling questions. I’ll be in touch.”

  And with that he left her, seriously perturbed over the meaning of his remarks. Which of her answers did he find so useful? She hadn’t given anything of importance away, except possibly the slip of her tongue when she had mentioned Tony’s name. But he knew about him already, just like he had known Gracie’s name. This slippery Eaton snake must have read something into her words, but what?

  He couldn’t possibly know that when she and Tony finally did came back to Galveston, Gracie had lost contact with Tiara.

  Tony had dropped her off at her home, synchronizing their story one final time on the drive up to the house, and sped off as soon as she got out of the car. The front yard looked a mess, like every yard in the street. Tin sheets had come loose from the roof and hung over the entrance. The main door was closed now, but not for long. Gracie sped out like one of the Furies.

  “Where’s Tiara? Where’ve you been? What the hell were you thinking? Why haven’t you stayed in the house? Where is she?”

  It took Melissa a moment to realize that Gracie’s outburst wasn’t about her or Tony, it was all about Tiara.

  “What do you mean, she’s missing? She was with you! You should know. She should be with you!”

  “I’m not your daughter’s keeper. You’re her mother!”

  “Damn this, she was in your care, not mine!”

  Their screaming match went on until they had exhausted themselves accusing each other. Then Gracie explained what had happened. The storm had taken a turn for the worse while she and Tiara had been driving to the studio. She had seen a motel close by, the Island View something-or-other and decided to drop Tiara off there to keep her safe. The phones had been out of service already and she didn’t have her cell phone with her so, like a fool, she had decided to drive back to get Melissa to safety too. But that had been impossible. Halfway there, the roads started to flood and she had to ask total strangers to take her in. They had lived on the first floor of that house for five days, without any food, just some water.

  So the three of them had gotten separated. It happened. It was nobody’s fault. But where was Tiara?

  Gracie said she had driven back to the motel earlier when the water had finally receded. A lot of hydro lines were still dangling from broken poles and one could never be sure if the wires touching the ground were live, so it was extremely dangerous. But she had gone there anyway, only to find out that Tiara wasn’t there any more—nobody knew anything, everybody was just looking out for themselves—and then she had come back to the house, hoping to find her here.

  They were both crying then, from the shock, the terror, the uncertainty. All around them looked like a war zone. It was still very dangerous to venture out, but they did. They couldn’t stand waiting in the house. When they got in the car, Gracie mentioned that the house had been vandalized, lots of stuff missing. She didn’t seem concerned. It was a minor annoyance in the wake of a life-threatening experience.

  They drove for a few hours, circling the streets as much as the fallen debris allowed, until they suddenly saw Tiara on the sidewalk, stumbling barefoot through ankle deep water like a ghost. She was soaking wet. Her hair and clothes stuck to her like a second skin. Gracie yelled ‘there she is’ and stopped the car close by her.

  They both ran up and took her in their arms, but Tiara started screaming and forced herself out of their embraces. Only when they both let go of her, did she stop. They pushed her in the car and took her home. She
didn’t seem to be injured, there were a few scratches, already scabbing, but no other visible wounds. Melissa made the bed as best as she could—there really had been looters in the house, most of the bedding was gone—and let her sleep, just thankful that nothing bad had happened to the three of them.

  Chapter 41

  Still no birthdays

  I seem to do nothing but lie on my bunk bed and stare at the ceiling. For two long days I refused to see Stanley. I know it’s not his fault. He can’t help it, he’s just doing his job. He nudges me into a dark alley, pointing a torch into the darkness, but the light is too dim. I can’t see and I’m scared to venture further all by myself.

  But it’s also impossible to ignore that there may be answers hidden in the shadows. My thoughts keep drifting and wandering, until inevitably I finish up at the obscure place, the entrance to the backstreet of my blocked memories. I bet it leads to nowhere. I bet it’s a dead end.

  I’m afraid it’s not.

  Today, I finally gave up my arduous efforts to not-think about the night in the motel, when all the lights went out, to not-worry about the fact that my memory was switched off with those lights. I asked one of the staff to call Stanley.

  He arrived within the hour, telling me he was really glad to hear I’d be ready to continue our talk. Talk about what? Where we left off last time? The land of Tiara In The Dark?

  “Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not ready. I don’t want to talk about it, but I also don’t want to not talk about it. Does that make any sense?”

  “Perfectly,” he says and takes his notebook out. “We can talk about something else.” When I don’t answer, he provides me with a clue. “Why don’t we work it from the other end?”

  Now, that’s an idea. The other end starts today and moves back toward the dark alley. “But I don’t want to talk about the Starbucks thing.”

  “Okay, why don’t you tell me about your life here in Vancouver?”

  “Nothing much to tell.”

  “It was a full three years. There must be something. What did you do? Did you have friends, other than Connie?”

  No, I didn’t. It didn’t take me long to admit that I was pretty lonely all the time. Stanley would know anyway. The deeper I delve into my Canadian years, the more relaxed I get. Solid ground there—no black holes, no trip-wires, no murky ponds. Plain and simple. I distanced myself more and more from Mom, to a point where she gave up homeschooling altogether. The first few months she stuck to a schedule and made me sit through the lessons and do homework. When she realized that I didn’t listen to her, didn’t finish the assignments or purposely gave wrong answers, she lost her ardor to transform me into a model student. I must have been such a disappointment for her. Not good at studying, not winning any crowns. Sometimes, when I sat reading a book, she looked at me so sadly. All her dreams, squashed by a daughter incapable of becoming Grand Supreme.

  “Were the days of the pageantry important to you?” Stanley weaves into my Vancouver recollections.

  “That’s unfair,” I complain. “You said we work backwards.”

  He smiles. “Sorry.”

  Assuaged, I throw him a morsel. “I try not to think of them. It’s unpleasant. Even the contests I won seem to be tainted. Gracie always said I had a lot of fun on stage. I guess I did like those moments when I was little. The winning I mean, and the performance part was okay too. I always wanted to do good to make Gracie proud.”

  Stanley’s tactics are working. He can barely keep up scribbling down my barrage of emotions long past.

  “The contests were so important to Gracie. With every contest I was losing she got more desperate to see me with a crown on my head. She got so tense, as if the world depended on it. I don’t know what she was trying to prove. Once she took me aside so Mom couldn’t hear and said: “Mija, make sure you win this time, I don’t want to see you get hurt. It’s like cutting in my own flesh.” She got so frantic, but there was nothing I could do about it. I simply had to lose. All this hard work—for what? For being a failure in the end!

  “My self-esteem must have been rock-bottom when we came here. I couldn’t stand girls my age. My grandmother insisted that Mom enroll me in a school, and I lasted exactly one day. Those kids were aggressive. That may seem strange to you, coming from the mouth of a criminal, but it’s true. They looked at me and asked me a few questions and caught on very quickly that I was from a different planet. I didn’t fit.”

  I tell Stanley a bit more about this one and only school day ever, and how I threw a book at one of those bullies, just to make sure they would send me home quickly.

  “Mom had no choice but to try and steer me toward my GE herself, but that never happened. Once she got the job at the 7-Eleven she was out most of the day and I took to the streets. I couldn’t stand being in the flat for long. It was always a bit too cold. Everything was cold in Vancouver, even the summers.

  “After we arrived here, we stayed at grandmother’s first, which was even worse. Her house is a total dump. She lives like a slum dog, at least then she did. I’ve never been back since we moved out. It’s not that she has no money, from what Mom said she’s always traveling somewhere and she drives a good car, but she just doesn’t take care of her home. One of those outside people, I guess. There are people who’re all flashy outside and rotten inside, like they cover their stinky smell with perfume. My grandmother is one of them.”

  Stanley shifts in his seat and makes a note again. “Don’t you like her?”

  “Of course I don’t. I don’t like any of them. Mom. Grandmother. Tony. The Purple Shadow.”

  “What about Gracie?”

  “Not even Gracie.” When I’m admitting this, it’s like I flick a switch. I suddenly realize I don’t like anybody. Well, except Connie, and him—and maybe Macintosh.

  I was hanging out with Connie quite often. I told her very little about me but she kind of figured out what makes me tick, she wasn’t stupid. Once she said: “Oh my, honey, it sounds like you had a terrible childhood, you poor little bugger,” and I knew it to be true. Imagine, her, a woman on the lowest rank of society, pitying me. I knew it to be true because I felt like shit all the time. A shitty, good-for-nothing failure. Miss Useless. Princess Crap.

  Back to grandmother. We stayed with Louise all of four weeks, then she paid the two months’ rent for the flat and the move and set us up in that crummy place. Mom needed to find work to support us. It was weird. Until then, I had always felt responsible for our livelihood. My ears were still ringing with ‘You need to do this, for us, mija’, or ‘How else will we survive’, while I was listening to Mom on the phone, applying for a job. It felt good and bad at the same time, like I’m two people, and one is arguing with the other. Serves her right, says the mean one, I’m a failure, it should be me getting a job says the other.

  My dislike for Mom steadily increased until I spent most days and a lot of nights away from her. The first time I stayed away overnight without telling her, she threatened me with the police when I finally did come home again. She would report me, and me being underage meant they would lock me up. Connie said that’s BS. If anything, it would spell trouble for my mom and not for me. So I simply told Mom to get lost and spent a whole week away to prove my point. After that, she gave up interfering with my life.

  But I still was not happy, truth be told, I was in a permanent state of depression. Honest to God, I was close to slicing my wrists and already made plans for it. I’d do it at Mom’s flat, right there in her kitchen, messy as hell. I got myself a nice sharp knife—yes, same one I used for my little Starbucks’ antic, I have been carrying it on me ever since. Oh, I was so close.

  It was supposed to be my last day at Connie’s. My last day, period! She didn’t know that of course, when fate or some other force outside our control interfered. Connie got a laptop. Some cash-strapped friend she’d loaned money to gave her the thing to square his debt. She was such a softie, she always lent money to anybody who was in need.
Anyway, she brought the computer home and asked me if I would show her how it works. For laughing out loud, me and a computer! What would I know? She made me promise to figure it out, said there is a course for Eastsiders, for people like us, to advance our chances in life, which didn’t cost anything. She had seen the notice on the Salvation Army message board. I’d qualify, she said, and I did.

  I postponed my suicide plans to do her that favor, feeling I owed her that much. The course was a piece of cake, literally, a sweet, delicious slice of true education. My first taste of the real world outside of the cocoon Gracie and Mom had spun around me. The four other pupils attending didn’t bother me, that’s the advantage of a computer course, everybody is glued to a screen and doesn’t interact with the person sitting on the next chair. After two lessons I knew the basics and tried to explain them to Connie.

  “That’s not for me,” she said, “not one little bit.” And she gave me the laptop. “If you have so much fun with it,” she said, “honey, you play with it. It’s all yours. Enjoy.”

  I wonder now if she hadn’t somehow figured out my plan, which I shelved until I could finish the course. And then again because an advanced course started, and then again, and this time indefinitely, because my laptop demanded more attention than my depression.

  Stanley looks impressed. Here is me, the failure, good at something after all. Thanks to a streetwalker. Connie managed what my own people had been incapable of. On this high note, Stanley wraps up for today. We shall work backwards again tomorrow.

  Indeed, the future started to look a bit brighter. I knew I was broken, I was damaged goods, unable to stand up straight without crutches, but on the computer I felt like a real person. The internet did that for me. It made me feel whole, alive, like I had never felt before. It connected me to a world I had not known existed and let me be in control without having to reveal my identity or being crowded by strangers. Even when my past was elbowing itself back in, I was invigorated by my discoveries, securely hiding behind the anonymity the net gave me.