Girls Like Us

by Gail Giles

  Lizabeth calls to tell us that she is in bed for the night. Biddy frets that Lizabeth might fall or sumpin’. So she don’t get easy till after that phone ring.

  When she hanged up, I said, “You worry ’bout that ole lady too much.”

  “Don’t you worry ’bout who I worry ’bout,” Biddy say.

  Woo, that girl nothing like the one used to cry all the time in school.

  “I don’t see you worryin’ ’bout your ole granny,” I say.

  Biddy thump down on the couch and get puzzled in her face.

  “You don’t never call her or go see her,” I say.

  “She don’t got no phone,” Biddy say.

  “Is it ’cause she was mean to you?”

  Biddy sigh. “I thought that’s just how it was. Didn’t know much different. I know teachers was nice. But Granny said they was paid to be nice.”

  “So why don’t you never go see her?”

  Biddy studied me. It was like she couldn’t figure out why I didn’t understand something so easy.

  “Because I live here now,” she said.

  After Quincy go to her room, I thought of something. Her light showed under her door, so I knocked.

  “Quincy, you still awake?”

  “Cain’t sleep with somebody peckin’ on my door. What you need?”

  I opened the door and Quincy was sitting in bed looking at her cookbook.

  “What about all your foster folks?”

  “What about ’em?”

  “Do you call them? Why don’t you ever go see ’em?”

  I close my book. “Biddy, some of them fosters was ’bout like your granny. They give me a room and some food ’cause they got a check from the state. And treated me worse than a dog. One family sent me back ’cause they said it wasn’t worth the money to have to look at me crosst the supper table.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I stared down at my toes.

  “When I got put with Mr. and Mrs. Hallis, I thought I had done gone to heaven. But I’d only been there a little bit past a year when they had to leave. Good don’t happen much and it don’t stay stuck. My last foster folk was nice. They was good to me. But I knew I didn’t have but a year left with them either.”

  “OK,” I said. “But why do you think I should want to go see Granny?”

  Quincy picked up her book and opened it. “I never lived in one place with one person, like you. I thought it might be different. That’s all. Guess it ain’t.”

  I went to my room. I patted my princess table. Smoothed my bedcovers.

  How come Quincy can’t see that now is different?

  That before we didn’t belong nowhere.

  And now we belong here.

  I got up one Satiddy morning and seen me a sight. Biddy in the middle of that tiny piece of a living room waving her arms around like she some windup toy.

  “Girl, this a new way of cleaning cobwebs?”

  Biddy put on her sassy face and voice and say, “Lot you know. I’m doing tie chee.” She flop her arms around more and look over her shoulder. “This is called Looking Back at the Moon.”

  I look over my shoulder. “You see a moon in here?”

  Biddy make like she holding a big ball ’gainst her stomach. “Now I’m rolling the chee.” She grinned at me real big. “At first I thought Miss Lizzy was talking about cheese, but it’s just one chee.”

  I went to the kitchen.

  “Girl, I think you done got the duck rabies for sure. I cain’t tell if you’re washin’ ’em up or hangin’ ’em out.”

  Biddy stop flopping and whirling and put one hand on her hip.

  “This here is tie chee. It’s Miss Lizzy’s exercise for her dizzy ear. I watch her do it and she tell me about it. It’s fun. I couldn’t remember none of it until she tell me the name is kind of like what you do. Look, see, this is Monkey Holding Up the World.”

  Biddy push her arms up like she holding something heavy.

  I shake my head. “This be Quincy Leaving the Loony Bin.” I head for Lizabeth’s.

  When I walk into the kitchen, I found Lizabeth in a heap by the refrigerator. She was crying and pounding the floor with her fist.

  “Lord, what happen? You hurt?”

  “Just help me get up.”

  Lizabeth was crying, but crying mad, so I easied down some. I got holt of her under her arms, and she slid one arm over my shoulders.

  “I know you don’t like to be touched, Quincy, but . . .”

  I didn’t say nothing, I just got her over to the kitchen chair. Her walker was setting right there.

  Lizabeth pull a handkerchief out her pocket. Wouldn’t you know she wouldn’t use no tissue? She dry her eyes and wipe her nose and then sigh real big. “Well, shit!”

  I drop my butt into the other chair. My eyes must have goggled plumb out my head.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she say. “I can cuss a blue streak if I damn well feel like it and I damn well feel like it!”

  I shut my mouth and blinked, but I still couldn’t do much else.

  “Quincy, three years ago, I played tennis twice a week.” Lizabeth wadded her handkerchief into her fist. “Sure, I was in a seniors’ league, but I was on my own two feet.” She smack the table with her fist. “Now I can’t get from the table to the refrigerator without falling on my ass.”

  I wish I could pet her hand the way she does Biddy’s when Biddy is all in a knot, but my hand won’t reach out.

  Lizabeth keep talking ’bout the doctors give her pills and sometime they help for a while, then they stop working. And her friends were good people, but they had their own busy lives and she couldn’t do the things they did and they didn’t come around so much anymore. How she was left all alone and on her ass.

  I thought she was talking to me, and I felt my hand starting to unfreeze when she stare up at nothing, the way Biddy did when she said she was looking back at the moon, and said, “It’s not like this misery is my fault.”

  Didn’t she know who she was talking to? I thought she was talking to me like she understood how I felt to be left out. Like her and me was some alike. Alone and busted up. But then she say about fault and that tell she was only thinking about her ownself. She crazy if she think fault gots anything to do with it. Does she think misery only matter if you rich and smart and don’t have no messed-up face?

  I got up and started breakfast.

  Quincy’s a hard one to figure. Miss Lizzy, she gets fretty, but she still the same Miss Lizzy. Just Miss Lizzy gone fretty. But Quincy ain’t that way. Sometimes she’s got that chicken-snake face. There’s nothing Miss Lizzy or me can say or do that don’t get us a mean look or a mean word. Other times, Quincy is easy-pleasy. Seem like when she mad at Miss Lizzy, Quincy get most nice to me. I can’t figure that. And Miss Lizzy, she watch Quincy like it make her sad to see Quincy puff up and sulkish. Lately, I catch sight of Miss Lizzy watching me. I can’t figure out why.

  I wish people was as easy to understand as Mama Duck. Mostly, I try to clean what needs it. Talk to whoever ain’t in no bad mood. I know one thing. Even if Miss Lizzy and Quincy are hard to understand, I still feel smarter here. Ain’t no other kids making fun. Ain’t nobody giving me stuff I don’t know how to do. I feel good here. If all I got to put up with is Quincy being sulkish, that’s easy.

  Yesterday Lizabeth’s friend came to get her. They went in her friend’s big car for what she call “spa day.” She was going to get her hair cut and have her nails done and then go play bridge with other ladies. She set it up on my day off from the Brown Cow and give Biddy and me tickets to the movie. She said it was a little treat for all the nice things we do for her. Biddy ’bout jump out her skin.

  I figured out Biddy ain’t never been to no movie show. Her granny need a good whoopin’ for that. We gonna have to ride the bus and be with lots of people, so I tole her she could wear her coat.

  Biddy wrapped up in her coat and didn’t say nothing to nobody on the bus. When we get to the movie,
we got us some popcorn and then we got us a surprise.

  “Quincy, is that you? And Biddy?”

  A girl wore a striped vest and stood next to a silver pole with a velvet rope hooked to it. She took people’s tickets, tore off a piece, and then said, “Number one, that way,” and pointed down the hall, or “That’s in number seven, down that way,” and pointed off the other direction.

  That girl was Tasha Wells. She was a Speddie that graduated a year before Biddy and me.

  Tasha took our tickets and pulled off a piece and handed them back. “You two gonna like this movie. It’s real funny.”

  “You work here?” I axt.

  “Sure do,” she said. “Been working here since I graduated.” She waved us to the side and took some people’s tickets. “Number two,” she said, and pointed.

  “Good to see you, Quincy,” Tasha said. “You too, Biddy.”

  I jerk Biddy along by her coat sleeve.

  “Quincy?” Biddy say.

  “What?”

  “I never did think about other Speddies. Living in they own little places and having jobs just like us.”

  I didn’t say nothing. Sure, other Speddies had jobs. But I never thought about ’em being Speddies we knew.

  We found our movie and sat down. Biddy kept her head tuck down like she was still scared, until the movie got to going. It was a cartoon movie with cats and dogs that talk. Pretty soon, Biddy was giggling a little, down inside her ole coat, and then she was sitting up and laughing right out loud with the other folks.

  That make me feel better than the popcorn.

  I wonder why I never thought about that. Other Speddies having jobs. She talked to me like I was a real person. She didn’t call me a name. It was too much for me to get hold of when I was so scaredy already. Too much was happening to me in one day.

  The movie was real funny, about cats that said funny things to dogs. The cats was smart and sassy like Quincy is. The dogs was sweet but kind of dumb. I had a real good time.

  Days still easing on by. But ever once in a while, Robert watch from his friend’s car. Oncet they follow me home. I didn’t look at them or say nothing.

  Biddy kept watch on Mama Duck. Mama Duck kept watch on Biddy. She let Biddy give her corn and water, but hiss and peck when Biddy go to pet her. If that girl don’t get the duck rabies, she’s for sure gonna get duck lice.

  Lizabeth stay worried and sad looking when she look at Biddy. Like when Biddy didn’t know Lizabeth was watching her. This went for a good while. Then one morning when I went in early to cook breakfast, Lizabeth was sitting at the kitchen table holding a envelope.

  “Quincy, I would like you to do me a favor.”

  I kept husht.

  Lizabeth helt out her envelope. “Please mail this on your way to work.” She sat for a minute, and I swear, that ole lady look like she was shamed.

  “And, I’m sorry that I must ask you this, but don’t tell Biddy anything about it. I know that this is a kind of lie, but it’s nothing that will hurt her.”

  Lizabeth sigh. “I don’t know how much Biddy can read or how much she knows.”

  I look down at the envelope. The Honorable and Mrs. Richard J. Barnes. I didn’t know ’bout who Honorable was, but I knew the name. That was the judge in town. And I knew me a secret about that judge. Now my mind got in a knot. Did Lizabeth know that secret too? Did she know that I knowed? And why write the judge? And why can’t Biddy know? Lord, I wisht I could get this tangle smoothed out.

  I nod my head at Lizabeth and tuck the envelope in the big pocket of my uniform and tend to breakfast.

  Something not right at breakfast this morning. Quincy talking real fast. And trying to hurry me up. Like if I didn’t get my eggs eat real fast, they was going to fly off the plate. I can’t read too many words, but I can read a clock just fine. Quincy not late for work. I swear I can’t ever get her figured out.

  Felt like that letter would burn a hole in my pocket, but I finally got breakfast over with and set off to the post office. I got to work a few minutes early and I saw me a sight in the break room. Jen was holding a pack of ice to Ellen’s mouth. Jen kind of crunched her eyebrows together and shook her head, so I didn’t say nothing. I closed the door and went on out to my work counter.

  Today, I done a stack of ironing. I ironed a bunch of tablecloths and napkins and even Miss Lizzy’s pillowcases. She don’t tell me to iron her pillowcases. I do it for a treat. So they all smooth under her face. I spray them with good-smelling water she keeps in her laundry room before I set the iron to them.

  Miss Lizzy sat with me for a little while and talk. She talk about her little boy. About when he died. He had a disease that was a science name. She said it was a blood disease, about a luke. She talk about he was just a little boy. How sad it was. How much she miss him. That she just wish she could see him one time. Just to touch him.

  I know how she felt. My baby ain’t dead. But I can’t touch her. I sure wish I could.

  After Miss Lizzy told me her story, I come up here and tell mine into this tape. I’m making this a tape by its self. I maybe think my child wouldn’t like to know this part. It’s part of her remembery, but maybe it’s cruel. Folks been cruel to me, and I don’t want ever to be cruel to my child.

  I was pretty once. That’s not bragging on myself. It’s a fact. People said I was pretty. And I was skinny. Until sixth grade. Then I started getting boobs and hips.

  My clothes got tight in some places, and boys whistled and said, “You be fine!” And they try to rub up against me and laugh that . . . laugh. Not a happy laugh. One that scared me.

  But I was dumb. I didn’t know.

  In seventh grade, things was going good and I was used to the whistles. The boys only talked and pushed against me. And the laugh didn’t scare me so much.

  Here’s the part I don’t like to say. I don’t like to think it. But I got to tell the truth on this tape.

  I . . . I sorta . . . liked boys talking to me. And wanting me to talk to them. Granny didn’t talk to me ’cept to holler. I never had no friends. People called me White Trash and dumb and like that.

  I thought those boys liked me.

  I made us a good dinner of pork chops that was grilled with special sauce and potatoes cut thin and sautéed in butter and fresh green beans.

  I was full of confusion and upset and jangling pans and silverware, sounded like a whole circus show.

  “Has something happened to get you in a tizzy, Quincy? You seem off-footed,” Lizabeth said.

  I decided to tell them. “I work with a woman name Ellen. She got a husband. Today she come in with her face all busted up. Jen tole me that Ellen’s husband done it. He drinks. And when he gets all liquored up, he wants her paycheck so he can go drink some more. Ellen didn’t want to give him her paycheck ’cause he drinks up all the rent money. So he bust her in the face and beat her up.”

  I stopped and looked at Biddy and Lizabeth. “Here’s the thing. This ain’t the first time he done it. He does this a lot.”

  Biddy and Lizabeth just sat there.

  I stopped cutting my chop. “Cain’t you two say boo to a ghost?”

  Lizabeth made a little face I couldn’t figure out. “What are we supposed to say?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Lizabeth! This ain’t no Special Ed girl. This is a full-growed-up woman. She don’t have to let no man knock her around like that.”

  Lizabeth looked like she was gonna cry. “Quincy, do you think that you have to let someone treat you badly because you’re Special Ed?”

  I got all the over fidgets then. “No, that’s not it. I . . .” Biddy was staring into her plate. She sure wasn’t going to be no help.

  “It’s just Ellen and Jen is my friends and it don’t seem right that they . . . I mean . . . Ellen, she’s growed up — she should know better. . . .” I husht. That ole lady don’t know what she’s talkin’ about.

  “Just never mind about the whole thing,” I said.

&nbs
p; I get up early to check Mama Duck. Around sunup, she flies off and leaves her eggs. I got scaredy the first morning. I ready to put a towel on her eggs to keep them warm, when Mama Duck come flying home. She lit in the yard. Waddled to her eggs. Set right down. She wiggled and waggled and squirmed. She used her beak to push her eggs around just right. Then she drank water.

  I feel OK. She had to leave her babies to do her business. But she come right home to them.

  Miss Lizzy’s been poorly. I don’t know why. ’Cause she don’t want to talk. She whispered on the phone one morning. Then she acted a little better. Maybe a old lady sickness that passed.

  I been scrubbing and putting a shine on that old house. It makes me smile to see how nice it looks when I get through with it.

  I feel funny today. Like something missing and I don’t ’zactly know what. It isn’t like something that makes me sad to miss it. Then I know. It’s been a while now. One whole calendar page since we moved here. That means it’s been one calendar page since somebody called me bad names. It’s been that long since some boy said nasty things to me.

  And now I got my own little house. A room with a princess table. Miss Lizzy and Mama Duck. And I got me a friend. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with this much happy.

  This morning I thought the sky done fall. It was barely dawn o’clock when Biddy come squealing into my room.

  “You got to see, Quincy!” That fool girl jerk the cover off me. I jump up ready to slap her sideways.

  “It’s a baby duck. We got a baby duck!”

  I decide not to kill the silly girl right this minute. I’d go look at the duck first. “Biddy, don’t come in here snatching covers off me. You gonna get hurt thataway. And you ain’t got no baby duck. I didn’t see you lay no egg.”