by Lisa Wingate
“Jewel’s poopy.”
I cast around the dim room, looking for the diaper bag. No telling where it had ended up. “Bring her in here. We’ve probably got some diapers in the bag.”
“Who’s that?” Shasta sounded as if she were ready for a fistfight.
“Just Mark. He got the baby up.”
There was a quick exhale into the phone. “Oh, all right. I thought it was her. I thought she was, like, having the nerve to bring you the baby so you could change her. I’m coming over, all right?”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I want to. The boys and I are already out and about, anyway. We walked up to the bookstore after Cody left this morning. Besides, I found out something about the voodoo lady, and . . . Did you know your aunt’s in the front yard right now, like, doing karate or something?”
I walked to the window as Shasta hung up the phone. There in the yard was Aunt Lute, wearing flowered pajamas, performing what looked like a cross between karate, yoga, and some strange form of Asian dance.
By the time I’d changed Jewel’s diaper, Shasta was on the porch with her boys. I opened the door, and we stood watching Aunt Lute. It was hard to believe that only a few weeks ago, we’d looked at this house and been afraid to get out of our car. Now Aunt Lute was calmly doing calisthenics on the front lawn, and, other than the pajamas, that seemed all right.
“What her doin’?” Tyler asked.
Shrugging, Mark lifted his hands, as in, No telling.
Shasta’s eldest snickered behind his hand. “She’s got her PJs on.”
“Benjamin!” Shasta scolded. “Hush up. That’s rude.”
Aunt Lute continued with her routine, oblivious to the conversation.
I pushed the door open wider, and Shasta slipped through with her boys, who moved to the clutter of boxes and toys in the dining room. Shasta took Jewel. I pushed the sheet-curtain aside to let in some sunlight, and we sat on the sofa. Babbling, Jewel stretched out her arms, giving a two-toothed smile. I couldn’t help comparing the joyous expression on her face to her confusion and fear last night when her mother took her.
I pushed the thought away because it was too hard to consider. I wasn’t ready for it. “So, tell me about the bookstore. Let’s talk about anything else, all right? Did you run into the voodoo lady at the bookstore?”
Shasta shook her head. “Not exactly. I saw Terence. He was in his studio working, so we stopped by. So he was, like, painting a portrait of her, if you can believe that. I asked him if he knew anything about her and whether she was dangerous, and should I be worried.”
“What did he say?”
She leaned closer, as if we were sharing the dish. “Well, first of all, he said she told him to be careful about my house—something about a lot of people moving in and out of these yellow houses, and the color yellow being bad luck, but whatever. That wasn’t really the interesting part. He said she asked him to write some words for her on paper. She’s, like, trying to learn to read from watching the reading class. How cool is that? I mean, she still gives me the creeps, but I didn’t really think about her actually learning to read, you know? Now I feel kinda bad—like I should’ve asked her to sit down with Elsie and me.”
“Maybe so.” I tried to focus on the conversation, but my mind kept drifting toward Barbie’s door. How much longer would she sleep?
Shasta’s eyes widened with interest. “Terence said they got to talking last night as he was leaving. He said she comes from someplace where soldiers took her father away when she was, like, a little girl, and she’s had a really hard life. He thinks she’s been some kind of migrant worker part of the time, but she wouldn’t even tell him where she’s been exactly. He’s pretty sure she’s afraid to sign the papers for the reading class. Like she’s afraid she’ll get caught.”
“Caught by whom?” My attention shifted away from the problem of what to do about Barbie to focus fully on Shasta’s story. A tingle of intrigue tugged at me.
Shasta checked on the three boys in the dining room. “I don’t know. Maybe she was, like, involved with some bad people, working for drug runners or something, and they’re after her. So now I’m seriously curious about her. You know me—hopelessly nosy. When we go to the Summer Kitchen on Monday, I’m gonna talk to her, and see what I can find out.”
“Are you sure you should get . . .” Before I could finish the sentence with involved, a door creaked in the hallway, and I jerked upright. Landon ran out and dashed toward the living room, followed by Daniel. The squeak of the mattress testified to the fact that Barbie wasn’t far behind.
Shasta caught my gaze and mouthed, Uh-oh, then stood up and whispered, “Want me to take her on?”
I shook my head. “Let me see how things are this morning, first.” No telling what shape Barbie was in now that she’d sobered up, or if she’d even remember yesterday’s ridiculous rumble, but having a third party here, plus Shasta’s kids, probably wouldn’t help.
Shasta cocked her head to one side, watching as Barbie crossed the hall to the bathroom. After the door closed, Shasta whistled softly. “Someone looks seriously rough this morning.”
I nodded, rubbing my eyes. As lousy as I felt, I could only imagine that Barbie was in significantly worse shape. “It’s probably best if I talk to her by myself. I’ll call you later.”
Standing up, Shasta handed the baby to me, then caught a breath and lifted a finger as if a sudden idea had come to her. “You know what? I’ll cook dinner for us. Cody’s gonna be gone all night, and the kids’ll be bored, and the house’ll be too quiet. Plan on coming over, all right? We’ll do hot dogs out back.” As usual, Shasta rolled the day’s schedule along without waiting for an answer. “I think I’ll see if I can get Elsie to come, too. Cody’s still obsessing about the house loan, and I told him I’d ask Elsie what she knows about Householders. She’s been in this neighborhood a long time. I think she knows something about the yellow houses.” Heading for the door, she tapped a finger against her temple, as if she were punching in tonight’s menu. “Oh, hey, ask your aunt to come. Never mind. I’ll ask her myself on the way out.” Shasta called her boys, then let herself out the front door. Before closing it, she poked her head through the opening, her lips forming a sympathetic twist. “Call me if you need me. I’m two seconds away.”
I lifted a hand in acknowledgment, and she gave me the high sign before leaving.
Down the hall, the bathroom door opened, and Barbie staggered to the living room, her nightgown hanging off one shoulder and her hair sticking out like straws on a broom that had been smashed against the floor. She crossed the room without speaking, headed toward the kitchen.
Shasta knocked softly on the window, then waved a fist in front of the glass. Jewel flailed her arms and babbled, “Ba ba-ee, ba ba-ee.”
The sound halted Barbie in the dining room doorway. She stood frozen, swaying in place like a tower moving in the wind, leaning farther and farther off center until finally her shoulder came to rest against the wall. Her head lolled sideways, making a dull thud as she collapsed, her knees buckling, ankles softening, her body sagging to the floor in slow motion.
Mark looked up from playing with the pile of Duplo blocks under the dining table. “Mommy?”
“Barbara?” I stood and moved toward her. Was she passing out? Having some sort of seizure? Had she overmedicated already this morning?
“Momm-eee . . .” Landon crawled across the field of blocks, his eyes rimmed with white, the Duplos scattering.
Barbie’s body slumped forward, her face falling into her hands, her arms trembling.
Mark and Daniel scrambled toward her, following Landon’s lead. I crossed the room, setting Jewel in her bouncer seat on the way. By the time I reached Barbie, the boys were gathered in a semicircle around her, afraid to come closer. Fear took away the soft curves of their faces and created tight masks.
Nudging the boys out of the way, I knelt in front of Barbie, leaned close, tried to see h
er face, but it was covered with her hands, shielded by her hair. Long red fingernails dug in deep. She trembled wildly. “Barbara, what’s wrong? Are you sick? What’s the matter?”
Landon extended a hand and tentatively touched her knee, last night’s chaos apparently forgotten or forgiven this morning. “Momeee?” he pleaded. “Mom-eee?”
“Move back, Landon.” I elbowed him aside cautiously. “All three of you move back.” If something was really wrong with Barbie, I didn’t want any of them to get hurt. “Barbie, what’s happening? Do I need to call an ambulance? Are you sick?” Gripping her wrists, I tried to pull her hands from her face. My fingers slid in the clammy moisture on her skin. “Barbie, do you need a doctor? Did you take something? Did you get something from Fawn?” My mind raced through the possibilities—everything from Barbie trying to commit suicide with an intentional overdose, to street drugs having been slipped into her drink last night.
“I’mmm . . . saaa . . .” she moaned. “I . . . ummmm . . . sooo . . . saaa.”
“Barbie, talk to me. What’s wrong?” I pulled harder on her hands, loosened her fingers, dragged them from her face, dislodging tangles of hair. She seemed oblivious to the pain.
“I’m soh, I’m soh, I’m soh . . .” she breathed, then pulled in a gasp that whistled and shuddered in her throat. “I’m soh-ryyy. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The words were breathless, almost unintelligible.
Holding her wrists, I shook her. “Sorry for what? Barbie? What did you do?”
“I’m just . . . I’m just like her. I’m just like her.”
I shook her again, and her head rattled like a ball on a tether. “Just like who? Barbie, stop this. You’re scaring the boys. Tell me what’s wrong.” Behind me, Landon started to sob. Mark grabbed Landon’s shirt and retreated backward over the pile of Duplos, taking Landon with him. Daniel tried once more to see his mother’s face, then scooted away and crouched under the table with the others. In the living room, Jewel whimpered softly.
“I’m sorry.” Barbie collapsed forward with the words, her head sliding slowly down my arms, as if she were pleading with me, begging for something.
I fumbled for a course of action. Yell for help? Call 911? Try to slap some sense into her?
Jerking upward, I bounced her head off my forearms like a volley-ball. “Stop this! If you took something, tell me. Otherwise, go back to bed. Go somewhere. Do something. You’re scaring the kids, and you’re scaring me.”
Her eyes met mine, and the fog slowly cleared. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for . . . I did . . . I did everything wrong. I didn’t ever want to be like her. I didn’t ever want to do what she did.”
I pushed her hair back, tucked it behind her shoulder. The gesture felt surprisingly intimate. For an instant, the woman on the floor wasn’t Barbara, the queen of high heels and plastic surgery. She was just a human being, broken in front of me. “What . . . Who did, Barbara?”
“My mother.” Barbara sniffled, wiping a hand across her nose, then pressing trembling fingers to her lips, the nails leaving reddened trails on her skin as she drew them downward, letting her eyes fall closed. “She let them take us away. She just . . . she just let them do it. She never even tried to get us back. She just . . . moved on.” Her eyelids squeezed tighter, pressing tears from beneath her lashes. “I never wanted to be like her.”
I felt the unexpected tug of compassion, a strange connection to Barbie that I’d never expected. My mother had moved on, too. She’d left me behind like I was a game she was tired of playing. “Barbie, I know you love your kids. They know you love them.”
Her brows, blond and childlike in the absence of makeup, squeezed again. “They don’t even want to come to me. Jewel likes that . . . that girl better than she likes me.” She rolled her head toward Shasta’s house. “Jewel wants her. Jewel wants you. The boys don’t even care about me. They don’t look for me. Everybody leaves.” She collapsed again, sobbing. “I just wanted someone to love me.”
I grabbed her shoulders again, holding her away from me, trying to force her to focus. “They’re just kids, Barbara. They’re just kids, and every time they turn around, something’s changing. First, it’s a different nanny every few months, and now there’s no nanny, but you’re here, except you’re not really here. You’re never the same twice. You’re either passed out or taking off with Fawn, and every once in a while, you grab them and hold them so tightly they can’t breathe. You’re their mom. They need you to be their mom. They need to know they can count on you to . . . to take care of them and make them feel safe. All the time—not just once in a while. You can’t just . . . check out whenever it gets to be too much.”
Biting her lip, she sagged against the wall, pressed her forehead to it. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault we’re here.”
I held tightly to her hand. “No, it’s not, Barbara. My father left us here. My father did this.” As painful as it was to admit, it was true. Dad was the one who had run out, who’d left us to fend for ourselves. “I don’t think he meant for this to happen, but he had to have known it was coming. He must have known it for quite a while, and he didn’t tell anybody. He didn’t tell us. He kept it hidden because he was too proud to admit it. He lied to us about it, and then he left.”
“He loves us.” The words ended in a stifled sob. “I need him. I can’t do this without him.”
I felt myself cracking inside, breaking open. I couldn’t give in to it. I couldn’t crumble, too. “He’s not here. We have to take care of ourselves.”
She swallowed hard, her chin bobbing with the effort. “I can’t.” Her lashes parted, damp and clumped, and she focused beyond me, on the boys. “I can’t . . . I can’t give them back their . . . house . . . the pool . . . their toys . . . their . . . They shouldn’t be here . . . in this place. They shouldn’t have to live like . . . in this . . . this. I know how it feels. I know how it feels to be treated like everybody’s trash.”
I caught her gaze through the veil of tears. “Barbie, they don’t care. You’re the one who cares about that. Have you looked at them lately? Haven’t you noticed they’re not fighting all the time anymore? They’re fine here. They like it, even. They like it because we’re all together, because we’re all in the same space. They just need you to be in that space with the rest of us, that’s all. They want their mom to be their mom.” Barbie’s hands held tightly to mine. Our gazes tangled, and she nodded. Where there had been only contempt and hatred, now I felt a bond.
Jewel let out a mewing cry in her bouncer seat, and I stood up to go after her. When I came back, the boys were curled in Barbie’s lap. Her head was bowed over theirs, her hair falling around them like a shield. I took Jewel to the kitchen and left them there, clinging to one another.
The hours after Barbie’s breakdown felt like the first time we’d spent together in the house as a family. We sat on the back porch with Jewel while Aunt Lute took the boys on what she called an expedition. She’d helped them put on baseball caps with scarves draped down the back to protect them from the desert sun. As they stalked off across the yard with Aunt Lute’s colorful silk scarves fluttering on their shoulders, Barbie wiped her eyes again. She’d been crying off and on all day, as if our situation had suddenly come crashing down upon her in all its dismal reality. She’d cried off the last remnants of last night’s makeup, and hadn’t bothered to replace it today, and her hair now hung in a sloppy ponytail, not at all typical of her.
Pulling her knees to her chest, she hugged herself tightly, shivering under her T-shirt, even though the day was hot. In the muted afternoon light, without the free-flowing hair and makeup, she looked small and frightened. Vulnerable. Real.
She cupped a hand around her neck, as if she were feeling for the pulse there, or trying to steady it, then wrapped her arms over her knees again. “We’ll have to do something. We can’t stay here forever. Boone’s going to need this house. You have to go to school. . . .” Blinking, she checked the yard, studie
d the trees overhead. “What time is it? What day?”
“The first of August.”
“We’ve been here almost a month.” It wasn’t a statement or a question, more a thought left unfinished. Her eyes welled again. “The twins start at Bramler on August nineteenth. . . .” The sentence rose in the middle and fell at the end, as if she knew that Bramler Academy was now way out of reach. Her teeth clenched, drawing her cheeks tight. “It’s not fair.”
“I don’t know what’s fair anymore,” I whispered. Living here, seeing the people at the Summer Kitchen and in the reading class, I found it hard to deny that we were still much better off than many. People who had been living just like us were now eating at the Summer Kitchen and subsisting in low-income apartments because they’d lost their jobs, lost their homes, made investments that went sour. Barbie and I could be so much worse off, and if we didn’t do something soon, we would be. Our situation as it was couldn’t last.
“I’m not going back to school in the fall,” I said. “I’m going to start looking for a job.”
Barbie’s gaze flicked toward me. “You can’t. Paul would be so upset. He wanted you to have that golf scholarship.”
Her advocating for my father caused me to pull away. How could she defend him? If he cared so much, where was he? “I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t ever want to hear his name again.”
I felt Barbie’s touch on my hair. By instinct, I shifted away, and she withdrew her hand. “He loves you, you know. You should hear the way he talks about you, the way he talks about that scholarship. He’s so proud of you.”
“I didn’t even want the scholarship. He never asked me what I wanted. He never listened.”
The cat wandered across the porch, and Barbie scooped it up, held it in her lap, and stroked it. “I was always . . . jealous of the way he looked at you, like you were his little princess. He admired you so much. You were everything I could never be.”