Duncan Hines Devil’s Food Cake Mix. Sandy will use her special recipe, with four eggs instead of two. The secret ingredient is a package of Jell-O chocolate instant pudding mix and a cup of vegetable oil. The oil makes it very moist.
Frosting mix. Candles. Mark Junior is only five months old, of course, but Sandy has decided she will put candles on the cake. The babies will enjoy that. Also, in spite of what she feels about hats, she’s going to buy some. She’s sure none of the other mothers will laugh. She just wants this to be like a party in a Kodak ad. Even though her life is nothing like in the magazines.
She sees Jill’s mother up ahead by the canned foods. Mrs. Johnson doesn’t like her, Sandy knows that. When she finds out about Jill she will probably think it’s all Sandy’s fault. This isn’t fair. Jill’s really much wilder than Sandy ever was. Sandy never ran around. All she ever wanted was to get married and have babies.
“How are you, Mrs. Johnson?”
“Same as always,” says Doris. “About to have a heart attack from these prices.”
Sandy asks Doris if she would like a Land O Lakes butter coupon she cut out. She has two.
“We use margarine,” says Doris.
“How’s Jill?” says Sandy. She can’t think of anything else, and she doesn’t know how to end things.
“Well, I don’t mind telling you I’m worried about her,” says Doris. “The way you kids eat. I’m just now getting her some nutritional supplement powder. She needs more protein.”
“I took some of that when I was expecting,” says Sandy. What a dope. Why did she have to say that? She can’t believe Jill would’ve told her mother, even though it sounds that way.
“Yes, well,” says Doris. “I’d better get a move on before the ice cream melts.”
“Mail for you.” It’s Charles, standing in the doorway, wearing a shirt that says “Would you adopt this child?” He has greasy hair and bad skin. The reason Wayne likes him—speaks to him anyway—is that Charles sells pills. Sometimes grass too, but that’s tricky to handle because of the smell. Mostly pills. Half the ward is flying.
Wayne does not get up off the bed. He has been having a bad day, thinking about Loretta. It was a day like this—just May, but hot, steamy—when he found her. Picked her toll booth only because he needed change for a twenty-dollar bill. Watched her counting out those little stacks of quarters very slowly, as if she was in some tower in a fairy tale instead of the middle of the Mass Pike with twenty cars backed up, waiting. She did not tell him to have a nice day.
He knew right away he had to have her. He took the next exit, Needham, and circled around. It was a twelve-mile drive back to her booth. He gave her another twenty. She looked at him and didn’t say anything. Counted out the money very slowly, just like before. He circled back again, making no plans, just feeling sure she would end up in his car.
He had five twenties. Always carried plenty of cash—he doesn’t like banks. He didn’t even look to see where the money fell when she handed him the change. Just kept shoveling it in. Some bills blew out the window. Who cared?
On the sixth trip he handed her the note. Come with me. He put the car in park, left the motor running, got out and opened the door on the passenger side. He did not look back to see if she was coming. She was there beside him when he drove away. The next twenty cars probably got through free. He drove straight back to his apartment in Manchester, behind one of the old shoe factories. Brought her upstairs, closed the door behind her. Didn’t have to lock it. She would never leave.
Charles puts a small stack of envelopes on the mattress beside Wayne’s hand. For several minutes Wayne doesn’t even look. He’s thinking about Loretta’s incredibly pale skin. When a person never goes outside and isn’t soaking up all that radiation and carbon monoxide, the skin gets almost transparent. Not like those mill workers that just look like they live under a rock somewhere. Wayne kept everything around Loretta very clean. And she was smooth as a baby, from all the lotions he bought her.
He’s not sure if he can even sit up, he is so depressed. All his muscles don’t help one bit when he feels like this. He rolls over on his side and glances at the pile of papers Charles has laid beside him. Might as well be ashes.
The new issue of Prevention. The ABC’s of a Pain-Free Back. Feeding the Kids Right (Trying Anyway). How Nutrition Helps Menopause. Nothing much for him this month. He should order some more acidophilus capsules and kelp, and he’s almost out of vitamin E. But why bother?
There is a computer-addressed card from CBS Television. The producers of Sixty Minutes regret that we cannot answer personally every inquiry we receive. However, we are always pleased to hear from our viewers and hope you will let us know again how you feel about segments on the show. … He has got this card a million times before. Mike Wallace will never come here and do an exposé.
A religious pamphlet. Jesus people are always after him. They must figure when a guy’s this bad off, we can rope him. People in mental institutions, people in prisons. Those are the sitting ducks for religion. Wayne is not interested.
It’s not until he sees the three-by-five card addressed with the post office box number that he remembers his ad. There’s just the one response.
This is one person who doesn’t think you’re crazy.
Of all the things a person might have written and sent to him, that is the one right sentence. It’s just like what he put on that piece of paper he handed Loretta on the turnpike, coming just on that day, into that particular steamy booth, read by a woman who was just thinking: In four more hours I can go home and swallow two bottles of sleeping pills. Wayne gets off the bed, onto the floor, and begins doing his push-ups.
Because the bathroom is the only room in her house that has a door, that’s where Ann slept last night. All night she could hear the bats scratching on the walls upstairs. They have invaded.
Reg Johnson says this happens in spring sometimes, when they start looking for a place to have their babies. Last May this house was empty. The bats must have some happy memories.
He went up in the crawl space under the roof—something Ann has never done. “Just as well,” he said. “Quite a few bats hanging from the rafters, and a good six inches of bat droppings. Not a pretty sight,” he said.
So today he will begin stopping up all the holes under the eaves. He’ll probably have to patch the roof in quite a few places too. “These critters are so small,” he says, “they don’t need much more than a pinhole to get in.”
She is very lucky to know Reg. None of the exterminators she called this morning, in Manchester and Concord, would consider the job. “I’ll get back to you,” said the one in Keene. “Nothing worse than bats,” they said. “Bat turds carry TB too. Wouldn’t touch the stuff with a ten-foot pole.”
And right now Reg is up there with a shovel and a box of plastic trash bags and a piece of cotton tied over his nose and mouth like a surgeon, working for three dollars an hour. Ann knows she should be there too, helping him, but she keeps thinking she hears that cheeping sound. This morning when she went out to the kitchen to make the coffee she felt something brush against her leg and she began to scream again. It was only Joey, wanting a Milk-Bone. She had forgotten all about him.
Carla wakes up feeling a little better. Greg has made French toast for breakfast, with real maple syrup, and there’s a glass filled with violets on the table. Also, today is Sandy’s party for her son. Carla feels proud to have made a friend here in town. She will go shopping this morning for a nice toy. What does a five-month-old baby like to do? These are things she will have to find out.
It’s such a beautiful day she thinks she will just walk into town. There was a gift shop next to the drugstore. They probably have music boxes, or maybe a stuffed animal. It will be fun to choose.
“I hired a girl to model for me,” says Greg. His back is to her. He’s squeezing oranges for juice.
“I thought you were going to be working on abstractions,” says Carla. The
girl at the Laundromat, she is thinking. He was not just asking directions. Greg hasn’t asked Carla to pose for him in years. He has said he isn’t interested in figures anymore.
He says he guesses it’s being up here in the country. He is feeling less cerebral. More interested in nature.
“You could’ve asked me to pose,” says Carla.
He has another type in mind, he tells her. Also, the girl has a baby. The baby’s going to be part of the picture. There’s just something about this girl. Hair like corn silk.
Carla’s hair is naturally straight too. Just before they left New York she spent fifty dollars on a permanent.
There are quite a few bat bones up here. Reg actually started to put a couple into his shirt pockets before he remembered his kids are past the age now where they bring stuff like this in to school, for science. Timmy is down in Fort Benning. Jill would say, “Oh, gross.”
But really, they are kind of beautiful. He has found a tiny skull, the size of a plum pit, with a complete set of teeth. He would like to show Ann. Wonders if it would just upset her.
He shakes another shovelful of bat droppings into the trash bag and there’s a flutter of wings. A baby bat not much bigger than a lima bean is flopping around in the dust. Only for a second; then he’s dead. So they’re beginning to reproduce now. He’ll have to work fast.
“See, it was the fan belt,” says Mark. He’s sitting on an imitation-leather chair opposite Mr. Terrill, personnel manager of the plant, who has called him in because yesterday was the fourth time in three weeks that Mark was late to work.
“I was way the heck out in the sticks, fishing,” he says. He’s hoping Mr. Terrill is a trout fisherman. “Just heading back to go to work when the damn car quit on me. No phone booths around. I had to hitchhike into town.” He starts to reach for a cigarette and decides that is a bad idea. He runs his hand down his pants leg instead. Sandy has mended the hole on the knee with a piece of denim shaped like a heart.
The personnel manager says he is sorry. This facility just can’t absorb repeat absenteeism on the part of its employees. He’s sure Mark understands. It wouldn’t be fair to everyone who punches in on time. He thinks Mark will be happier elsewhere.
Mark says it won’t happen again. Mr. Terrill says he’s sure it won’t. Mark has been terminated. He puts out his hand. Mark’s supposed to shake it.
Mark just sits there, staring at the photograph on Mr. Terrill’s desk. Three very fat children sitting around a Christmas tree. Girls in look-alike red velvet skirts and matching vests with green felt holly leaves stuck on just about where their breasts would come. A set of very fancy-looking golf clubs leaned up against all the other presents. This guy’s not into fishing.
“So if you’ll just stop over in payroll.”
There is one of those gadgets on Mr. Terrill’s desk, a wooden stand with six metal balls suspended from it, and when you pull up the metal ball on one end and let it drop, the metal ball on the other end swings up. Mark imagines that he sees them swinging. His son would enjoy a toy like that.
“I have nothing left to say.” Mr. Terrill gets up. Mark knows he should get up now too. He’s thinking: Today is Mark Junior’s five-month birthday. It still takes him by surprise sometimes that he’s a father.
He told Sandy he’d bring home a bottle of pink champagne.
Chapter 12
MRS. RAMSAY HAD REALLY hoped to avoid litigation. She knows, from the Dustin Hoffman movie, what heartbreak that can bring. But the mother did not sign the paper. Mrs. Ramsay will just have to take her to court.
She will need photographs, of course. Pictures of the mother and her boyfriends. Evidently she hits Baby too. Involved with some kind of abortion ring. Nothing would surprise Mrs. Ramsay now.
She just has to bind off this last row and the pink duck sweater will be finished. So feminine. She will go look for that other young mother today and explain her problem. She is sure a lovely girl like that, who feeds her baby only good pure mother’s milk, will understand. Mrs. Ramsay smiles and turns on the set with her remote control.
Oh, Dinah, what a fool Burt was to leave you. At least he finally had the good sense to break off his engagement to that Sally Field. That will teach her to make fun of nuns.
Greg arrives at the Laundromat ten minutes early, but Tara and Sunshine are already there, sitting on the steps. He recognizes the dress she’s wearing as one that was hanging outside the Just-like-nu Shop the day he bought the present for Carla. It’s bright orange, one of those synthetic fabrics Carla hates, a style that’s meant to be tight. On Tara it falls loose. She’s wearing her hair in a bun on top of her head. The baby has a kind of topknot hairdo too. When Tara gets into the car he can smell perfume. Also that milky aroma babies have. Sunshine has just spit up very slightly on the orange outfit.
He’s so happy. He would like to give Tara a hug. He would like to buy her another outfit, a nice one, and take the bobby pins out of her hair. He would like to hold the baby.
“I should be back by three,” she says. “A friend of mine is having a party.”
Greg says that’s fine. It’s hard holding a pose more than a couple of hours anyway. They can take it slow.
He asks what kind of art she likes. Does she have a favorite painter?
Well, there are quite a few. There’s a man named Paul Klee who has a very wild imagination. She has a wild imagination too, so she likes that. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things I dream,” she says.
He would like to ask, but he decides to wait.
Other artworks she likes: there was this tapestry of a princess and a unicorn. She saw it printed on a greeting card. She also likes Paul Gauguin and Henri Rousseau and Pablo Picasso. And there is a female painter who used to do pictures of mothers and children a lot. Tara thinks she’s dead now. She likes that woman.
“Mary Cassatt,” says Greg. He wishes he could take her to the Museum of Modern Art. He thinks about all the hours he’s spent there, giving lectures on the water lilies and Guernica to his students at Walker. Explaining why their six-year-old cousin could not have done Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. They always like the Roy Lichtenstein cartoon painting best. They always want to go to the gift shop first.
They’re silent for a mile or so, except for once when Sunshine sneezes. Greg thinks this is incredible. It’s just like an adult sneeze in miniature.
“I sometimes paint pictures too,” says Tara. “That used to be my favorite subject.”
What sort of pictures?
“Oh, crazy things, from my imagination. When I was pregnant I did this picture of what the world might look like from inside me. To my baby.”
Greg says that sounds like an interesting idea.
“I used to draw dolphins a lot. I always liked dolphins.”
Greg says he feels that way about bears.
“Now mostly I draw pictures of Sunshine. Only sometimes I pretend that she’s older, and I make her with teeth and long hair. I try to imagine what she might look like.”
“You probably looked a lot like her when you were a baby.”
“I wasn’t nearly this cute,” says Tara. “I was premature. I had to live in an incubator for seven weeks. My parents had to take out a loan for sixteen hundred dollars. I only weighed two pounds two ounces. That’s why I’m thin like this.”
“It looks nice,” says Greg. “It looks just right.”
They are at the house now. Greg jumps out to open the door on Tara’s side. He hasn’t done that since high school. She reaches in the back for a diaper bag. He’d like to say, “Let me carry the baby.”
“Are these all your records?”
Greg says, “Yes, what would you like to hear?”
“Do you have that song James Taylor and Carly Simon sing that goes ‘devoted to you’?”
He puts it on, tells her the Everly Brothers recorded that one, back when he was a kid.
“How about some coffee? Lemonade?”
She says no thank
you. She’s standing in the middle of the room with the baby on her shoulder, looking at everything.
“It’s beautiful here,” she says. “I’d like to live in a room just like this.”
Greg is setting up a chair for her, putting a pillow on the seat. He’s careful to place the chair so the sun won’t be in her eyes.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
“I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable,” he says. He is sweating himself. “If you would be uncomfortable you could just put on one of—one of my friend’s T-shirts.
“But my idea was to do a nude. You nursing your baby. Only if you don’t feel uncomfortable.
“You should know, to a painter, a nude figure is no different from a bowl of fruit in a still life. I guess it’s just like how a doctor would feel.”
He’s not really telling the truth. He is longing for her to take off that orange dress. He imagines his hand pulling the zipper down, her feet stepping out of her underpants. He’s thirty years old and he’s in a sweat to think of this sixteen-year-old girl sitting naked before him, nursing her baby.
“Listen.” He is going to tell her it’s all right. She can just put on a T-shirt. He wants to take good care of her. Probably no one else does.
But she has already pulled the dress over her head. Now she’s folding it, setting it beside her chair. She takes off her underpants and sets them on top of the dress. They’re the kind that come right up to the waist, not the bikini style.
“Sunshine too?” She’s completely naked now, holding Sunshine in the little frilly dress. Her breasts are so small he wonders how she can have anything there for the baby.
Baby Love Page 15