Look How You Turned Out

by Diane Munier

  Artie is rocking some serious bed hair. It's rising in wisps like it seeks the source of electrical power hidden in the acoustics.

  His back is to me, and he's working that walker, as a therapist walks on one side of him.

  Juney walks on the other, his small hand in back, holding onto the safety belt Artie wears.

  I have to close my good eye, the one not black and swollen from Juney's McEnroe. I rest my head. But the love swell keeps building and breaks itself in…me. Love stains me. It dyes my insides. I'm an Easter egg, immersed in it and I'm turning all the colors of a friggin' pastel rainbow.

  I might be a mother.

  They must have turned around because Dad and Juney call out together. "Bedilia." It's my Kunta Kinte moment. I just received my name and my greatest role—Mother.

  Technically I'm still just Bedilia, but the groundwork is laid. I don't know why I didn't just say that in the first place.

  Concussion here!

  I open my eyes then and wave. It's taken everything I have to get down here. But I don't want to be anyplace else. Juney says something to Dad then he hurries toward me. "You pushed yourself," he says. He'd wanted to push me.

  "I know." He didn't come back for me. Now I see why.

  I have to keep my head down and my eyes closed, but Juney is pushing me toward Dad, and when we're close enough I say, "You're doing great."

  "Better than you," he says. "I talked to Doc. You're supposed to be in bed."

  "I'll take her back," Juney says, and he's pulling me back for a u-ey.

  "Dad," I say, and Juney stops. I lift my heavy head. "I think Juney needs to be deputized. He's like…my Legolas."

  Dad nods. "Looks like him too, short and fat."

  "That's Gimli," Juney says too loud, but it's not like they're going to throw us out.

  "Oh, oh my bad," Artie says, and we start to move, and Juney wants to be Aragorn, and the click of the walker grows softer behind us.

  Chapter 37

  Black Friday drags on at Lowland General. "Go get Grampa's phone and call Elaine," I tell Juney from my hospital bed.

  We're really sick of each other.

  "No. I'm not leaving."

  "Yes, you are. This is a holiday weekend, and you're going to spend it like a kid should."

  "No," he says closer to my face, familiar Cheetoh breath cause Artie keeps giving him money for the vending machine.

  I ring for the nurse.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm telling her to…," I almost say it, the cop-out pansy-ass thing I used to be able to say, 'I'm calling your dad,' but it doesn't fit now. I'd told Marcus I'd call Elaine hours ago. But Juney and I needed to stay together for a while, and he needed to be here, going between my room and Dad's making sure all was right with the world.

  What I know from our unique start is it only works when we talk to one another like people. So I tell him, "I'm going to ask her to go to Artie's room and get his phone so I can call Elaine."

  "No, Bedilia no," he whines.

  The nurse's voice comes over the speaker wanting to know what I need. "Can I get a decaf…and a milk?" I say.

  His shoulders relax a notch. "I don't want to leave," he says.

  "You can't spend the day in your Spiderman pajamas."

  "They think I'm a patient," he defends. He's really not anywhere close to noticing girls.

  "We're both okay, Artie and me. We're right here. We can't get anywhere even if we try. We'd have to roll. Like giant Cheetoh's," I reason.

  He stares at me, the pensive sober nature of his father evident. It's a nature bent toward worry. I can help them there.

  "Did you eat anything green yesterday?" me

  "That Jello stuff."

  I roll that one eye.

  "I want to stay here until Dad gets off. Everybody always wants to send me away to Granmas. If I go there, I won't know anything."

  Oh. I get that.

  "Alright. You can stay until your dad gets off then he can decide. In the meantime, pick up that phone and order a salad."

  "With Ranch and bacon?"

  "Sure."

  "What about chicken fingers?"

  "Read me the menu."

  He does this with long pauses, and I know he's leaving things out.

  "There has to be more than chicken fingers, fries and pizza."

  "There's gross baked whiting," he says.

  "Okay. Get the chicken fingers." I suck at being a mother.

  Two big bouquets arrive then, and Juney is all excited. "They're from Dad and me." He checks the card. "This is mine," he says, and it's a nice fall mix. Not from the market. The other he reads in this nasly voice, all 'um,' and silly, 'love Marcus.'

  Red roses.

  "Cut a bitch, get some roses," I say, and Juney rolls all over the couch laughing.

  "Okay," I say, the confusion on me again to be more responsible, to look at myself and evaluate my lack of exemplary behavior. "No more cursing."

  "I didn't," he says too loudly.

  Around five that evening, Marcus enters my hospital room, a tall man-bouquet in the brown paper wrappings of his uniform.

  "Oh baby," he says pulling up a chair, an air of authority on him. We took a beating, but we won the war. I can feel how busy he's been meting out justice.

  "How are you?" he says. "I looked at your chart…she had it pulled up…."

  "You're not a relative. I don't even think I would have had to spend the night if it wasn't for you pressuring Doc. The local florist is open on Black Friday? How far-reaching is the will of Marcus Stover?"

  "Is your blood pressure always that low?"

  I don't get a chance to answer before he's touching my face under my chin, his fingers light there. "My face," he says in this strangled voice.

  I try to smile, but this is nice his pity. I like it. Mi Casa es Su Casa only make that 'face.'

  He takes a manila folder from under his arm.

  "What you got there? My grades from college or last year's tax forms maybe?"

  "I finished the report on the…altercation. Thought you might like to read it."

  "Um," I say, pointing to my messed up busted up head.

  "Yeah," he says. "The gist of it is she charged you when your back was turned which was my fault as my attention was on my racket-wielding son. She'd appeared to be heading for her car then she pulled a move and…well, who knows better than you. She grabbed two fistfuls of hair and pulled you to the ground concussing your head in the process. I grabbed her from behind at which time she turned on me with those frog-gigging boots she had on."

  "Is that in the report?"

  "It's all in there."

  He's staring so intently at me. He puts the folder on the table with the uneaten half of Juney's salad.

  "I know," he says.

  "I didn't say anything."

  "Bedilia…there's not one reason I can give, not one thing I can say on her behalf. She's laid herself out there. It is what it is. You've suffered for it. I can't expect you to forgive it, but I do hope you know how sorry I am."

  He picks up my hand and kisses it.

  "I'm not holding it against you. Or even her. If she comes for me again, I'll let the law deal with her…," I almost say 'her big ass,' but I don't want his mind on her ass, so I just end it there.

  "Yeah. She'll keep her distance."

  I have my eyes closed.

  "Juney okay? He really clocked you," he says with that pity voice again.

  "He's okay. He was trying so hard to help me. Thanks for the flowers by the way."

  "Least I could do. Between the two of us, you got a concussion and a black-eye."

  "She gave me the concussion."

  "If I hadn't pulled so hard on her, she might not have not pulled so hard on your hair."

  "It's all conjecture Officer Stover." I'm letting him off the hook.

  He is on the chair beside the bed, and he scoots this closer, so close I can see the healthy velvet skin and each
bristle

  pushing through. Some of those bristles go this way, some go that way. They even grow on his neck if you look really close with your one good eye. His lips are so finely drawn, it's a joy to stare right there, and his teeth, not perfect, but perfect for him, for me, for sure.

  "Bedilia…do you want me to kiss you?"

  "Huh?"

  "If I kiss you…will it hurt?"

  I lick my lips. Except for the corner of my mouth under my black-eye my mouth is fine. He is smiling…he doesn't much, but now he does, and it's something when it happens, like a good day breaking through a gray day. "One kiss," I say softly, for I must have one kiss or I will die.

  He leans closer, and my mouth is ready, my soul is ready, and his lips touch mine, and I squeeze my butt cheeks and levitate, and our eyes stay open, and he's pulling away.

  "One more," I say, and he comes right back, and our eyes stay open, and he's here and gone.

  "One," I say, but it's barely out before his lips are on mine again oh so soft, and I blink.

  "Kiss," I whisper, and his soft, warm lips close over mine and my eyes close, and there's a bit of suction when he lifts.

  "Kiss," I say again keeping my eyes closed, and he breathes in and kisses me soft and tells me shhh as he lifts a little, then another I didn't ask for out loud, but I wanted anyway, and oh so good, and I straighten my toes.

  Then the kisses are like three quick pecks, and I'm a baby bird screaming for the mother's regurgitated food, then they are so close there is no space between them, and I lock my knees and forget to breathe.

  When he lifts, this time, my hand goes to his face, and we share stares and breath and heart and need. "Soon," I say.

  "Very soon."

  He is staring at me, so pensive. "It's not easy with Artie and Juney. Artie's the worst. I can send Juney to Mom's."

  "Can I do it with a concussion? You only need me in one place, right? I mean I don't have to move around," I say.

  He puts his head down and laughs. I was serious, but I'm not going to admit it now. I'm kind of anxious to see if I can…you know…relax.

  "I have this thing…."

  "What thing?" he says, all business again.

  "My vagina it's like…independent. I can tell it to chill…but it won't."

  "What are you saying?"

  "It's a condition. I should outgrow it, but then I'd have to be normal on this unique spectrum of people with this…problem."

  "Speak plain."

  "I resist…penetration. So far."

  "So you never have had…? Artie was right?"

  "What does Artie have to do with it? You guys talk about me like that?"

  "Bedilia…I had the talk with him. Thee talk. He still maintains you're…to quote Artie, innocent and pure."

  I groan. "I just had a flash of myself as Bo-Peep."

  He puts his head down to laugh. Again I'm not trying to be funny.

  We have so much to talk about.

  Chapter 38

  "Is it medical…psychological…physiological," Marcus is asking. He's really getting into it. My vagina. Topically I mean.

  "It's all that." Then I hear myself and snort and repeat, "It's ALL that…my vagina."

  No, he's not having that. "It's not from trauma?"

  "No, geez, you cops. No trauma. The chickens are all in the henhouse." I say. But my hand, I've lifted it from the bed (still in the hospital), and I'm like squeezing it like I am opening and closing my fist, and he's staring there.

  "It shuts up, it gets so tight," I'm squeezing my fist, open and close, then just closed. "It gets so tight, so tight you can't get in."

  "No kidding," he whispers. "Can't say I wouldn't like a shot at it."

  Chapter 39

  Juney has missed my vagina monolog as he is down the hall and around the corner and down that hall with Artie.

  Marcus is very surprised I have made the executive decision allowing his son to stay here all day and run around in his pajamas. He's not happy with my decision, not happy his son has been running pretty free, but since I can currently do no wrong in my battered state, he receives the news quietly. Marcus had wanted to call Elaine himself that morning, but I had insisted I'd do it after Juney and I had adequate time to process a little of what we'd been through. And then I just didn't do anything. We ate, and he got involved in football and Artie, and where did the time go?

  "It's not your job to watch my son," Marcus says. "You're in the hospital with a concussion for god sake."

  "We don't have to get upset. I mean, it's been a weird day, right? We'll do better tomorrow or something right?" I say.

  Before going down to Dad's room to get Juney so he can take him home for a night of routine and his own bed, Marcus tells me I've given him a lot to think about. He says he's had to start using some of that extra unused brain space they always talk about just to keep up with me.

  Then I say, "New axons and dendrites?" because that gives me a lot to think about, under his gorgeous hair, his scalp, his skull, in the gray matter, is a flurry of activity, human technology expanding to handle the extraneous data I'd been bombarding him with since arriving home—and what is all of it?

  "My Vaginismus?" I say.

  He's quickly tapping that into his phone. I've finally given it a name. I'm sure 'the system' won't have that term in its stew.

  He'll be reduced to 'Google it.'

  He puts the phone away and says, "Yeah." A little smile, "Not likely to forget about it."

  I'm a little shocked, then I have to laugh. I mean, come on. He laughs too.

  Now there's even more of a build up. It's like a blind date where you've used your prettier sister's picture. The guy walks into the restaurant to meet you and there you sit with your homely mug and the flowers…the red roses he carries in his hand…for you…they keel right over.

  My vagina is like that. All talk…no action. Big build up, blowing a trumpet or something…then nothing. Won't even open the freaking door.

  But back to me over-taxing his brain. He's giving his list. My vag, then he says, "That still life in your room…you in your bed."

  Yeah, I forgot about that, him perving in my room. Yeah, that.

  "The jogging, the biking," he gives no eye-contact on this, looking at some spot next to me, "Yesterday at Billy's, that was…," I think he's stuck or finished I can't tell, but nope he takes in a big breath and keeps going, "that picture…well both, the store and…my special picture from last night, he kisses his bunched fingers and fans them out like an Italian, "our little make-out session here," he looks around nervously or excitedly, there's an energy like he's emitting sparks.

  "Wow. I thought you'd say me spying, or that intense argument we had, or Myron showing up, or what you texted…," I'm thinking the m-word but I don't say it, "or your…psychotic girlfriend attacking me," I nearly whisper.

  Our minds work very differently.

  "Yeah, all that stuff, too," he says, so maybe not so differently.

  Maybe we're made for each other.

  After that conversation, he goes to Artie's room to gather his son.

  In a few minutes, I find out that Juney protests, even in front of Grampa and good old Teresa. Then he cries like a baby and says he didn't want to leave he wanted to spend the night in Bedilia’s's room.

  Then he takes off for my room regardless of his father telling him to stay put. So Marcus has to follow after him, and he finds him in my room spread dramatically over me, the person who is patting his back and consoling him.

  Marcus and I look at one another. We're having one of our first telepathic parental discussions where I am actually culpable for something other than a hope and a prayer from Marcus that I will be up for the special appointed and anointed commission of becoming a mature influence for good in Juney's life. And I'm telling him my usual—chillax.

  Juney is past the point. It's been a helluva day, two days, three, four days since I came home and the world is spinning faster.

&nbs
p; I am rhythmically running my fingers through his hair, and he has admitted his little episode in Artie's room, so all is well.

  Earlier in the day, when I'd relented and didn't call Elaine, I told him then he'd have to let his dad decide matters. I very gently remind him he has to listen to Marcus, and he knows this.

  He lifts his head. "I didn't…I meant to stop her."

  Oh. This. Still.

  "You did. I'm not for hitting anyone, but you were a hero. She knew that when you hit me…you wanted to stop her. You meant to. More than anything your dad did or I could have done it's what you did that might help her learn something."

  "Like what?"

  "Like it's wrong to attack people. Like you need to really hear people, see people to know them."

  "You weren't even looking," he adds.

  "I know," I agree.

  "But I attacked you!"

  "No. You were defending me. You're the good guy."

  "You keep saying that," he says angrily.

  "Because it's true," I repeat, mimicking his intensity. He stares at me, but the black-eye gets him. He's tissue paper. "I'm looking at you with this greasy grody eye," I say like a witch.

  He laughs. "Stop it," he says.

  "Want to get on my good side?" I turn my unblemished side his way. "Hi, little boy. I'm Glenda. You are a hero. You get a star in my kingdom."

  "It's not funny," he says laughing.

  I stop.

  Marcus comes further into the room. "Say goodnight, Junior."

  "I'm coming with Dad in the morning," he says, scrambling for power. "I checked. They have security by the door."

  "Juney…go home," I say tiredly. I can't reinforce this. Up to a point, yes. Beyond that, no.

  He raises then. He's trying to be Marcus. I think. Marcus checks everything. Does everything. He walks perimeters, feeds furnaces, checks locks.