They pointed me in the direction of the playground. I followed another path, this one more overgrown, until I reached another clearing.
There, standing next to a battered metal swing set that looked as though it had been thrown out of a truck, was the blonde teenager I’d seen across the street from Cam’s. She was holding the baby that might be my niece. From this distance, the baby looked like any other baby: bald as a cue ball, a halo of blonde fuzz standing out from her ears and forehead.
I approached them slowly. I could tell by the way the girl stared hard at me that the recognition was mutual. “Are you Nadine?” I asked, stopping several feet away from her.
“Who wants to know?”
Nadine was as narrow-hipped as a boy and wore low-slung jeans. Her stained t-shirt hung on her bony shoulders and her blonde hair stood out in sporadic clumps around her head. Nadine screwed up her face at me, defiant and and frightened all at once. Cam was right. No way was this girl more than sixteen. Fifteen, even. How could I have such a clueless moron for a brother?
“My name is Jordan. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Let me guess. You came to piss me off too, right?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“You tell me.” Nadine gestured with her little ferret chin at the baby, who she clutched close to her bony chest. The infant was dressed in a faded t-shirt and diaper. Her little toes were as black and round as dried beans. As Nadine lowered the baby into the infant swing, I saw that the child’s diaper was so full that it hung like Gandhi’s dhoti between her legs. Nadine wrapped a flannel shirt around the baby’s scrawny torso to wedge her into place and gave the swing an unenthusiastic push.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I prodded. I wanted to see what she’d tell me on her own.
Nadine shrugged her narrow shoulders. “You’re tight with that bastard Cam now. I seen you at his house. Ask him.”
“That bastard Cam’s my brother.”
She glanced at me sharply. “Okay. I can see that,” she admitted.
Nadine bent down to retrieve a can of generic cola out of a tattered canvas backpack. Next she fished out a baby bottle encrusted with the dried remains of formula and filled it with cola. She stood up and handed the bottle to the baby, then plopped down on an enormous boulder while the baby dangled in the swing beside her like a puppet.
“So you know the score,” Nadine said, noisily chugging down what was left in the can.
“I’d rather hear your side of the story.” I deliberately avoided looking at the baby with her crusty cola bottle, for fear I’d snatch the bottle away.
She laughed. “That’s a new one. What do you want to know?”
“Well, for starters, are you really sure this is my brother’s child?”
“Shit, yeah.”
I finally took a good look at the child. Up close, the baby’s resemblance to Cam, and to me, was uncanny. Our gene pool might be funky, as Cam said, but it was powerful. The child’s blue eyes were tipped at the corners, and one of them was flecked with a brown spot like mine. She had the same long, narrow nose we did. Even her hands, broad but long-fingered, were tiny copies of mine and Cam’s.
Looking at this baby, I felt dizzy with recognition, slightly sick, as if someone had socked me in the stomach. This child was family. The next generation. And yet, here she was, guzzling soda out of a baby bottle, smelling like a sheep barn, and carrying a month’s worth of grime between her toes.
I blinked back tears. “So what are you going to do, Nadine? Sue my brother for support? You can do that if he’s the baby’s father. Have you talked to a lawyer?”
Nadine squawked at this idea. “Do I look like the type a fucking lawyer would take on?” She tossed her oily hair. Along Nadine’s cheeks and narrow jaw ran rows of festering sores. It didn’t look like an adolescent’s ordinary acne. Was it something to do with drugs? Nadine certainly had an addict’s rolling eyes and edginess.
“Anybody can see a lawyer,” I told her. “There are probably free legal centers right here in Berkeley. Or you could get a lawyer who would get paid later, out of your back child support.”
“Oh, right. Like Cam has fucking shit for money.” Nadine scratched at the bumps on her face. She was missing one of her bottom front teeth and her gums were tinged green. I thought of the moldy shower curtain in Cam’s house. “Nah. If Cam won’t play, screw him. We’ll get by. Right, Girlie?” She tweaked her daughter’s toe.
“What’s the baby’s name?”
“Paris.” Nadine tossed the cola can into the bushes and pulled a cube of chewing gum out of her jeans pocket. The gum was purple; she chewed with her mouth open, exhaling grape. “I always wanted to go there.”
“She’s a pretty baby.”
Nadine shrugged. “She’s butt ugly. A little monkey face. But look who she has to take after.” She glanced my way. “No offense.”
“Look,” I said, exasperated, “you can’t just live out here in the park with a child. It’s dangerous! Don’t give up on Cam. Keep after him until he helps you.”
“Fuck that!” she flared. “I’m done with Cam and his house of freaks. Me and The Admiral, we’re going to Oregon to pick apples. Make some real money, fast.”
She was a fine one to call my brother a freak. I said, “You can’t take a baby with you to pick apples.”
“Oh, I’ll figure out something.” Nadine cut a sidelong look at me. “Course, it’s hard to think straight when I’ve been up three nights straight with the baby. Something’s wrong with her. Barks like a seal at night.” Nadine tapped the baby’s foot again.
Paris had been dozing with her bottle in the swing; now she started and her face wrinkled up. She did look a little like a monkey. I wondered if something serious really was wrong with her, if her mother had been doing drugs all through her pregnancy.
“You should take her to a doctor. Has she had all of her immunizations?”
Nadine snorted. “Like I’ve got the money for doctors, either.”
The baby started to fuss. Nadine continued to sit there, oblivious to the piteous cries. I finally took the child out of the swing, wrinkling my nose at her rank smell, and eased myself down to sit on the big rock next to Nadine.
I had expected the baby to reach for her mother, but Paris wrapped her skinny arms around my neck and pressed against me, curving herself around my breasts and shoulder and hanging there like a purse, heavy and damp. If she’d had such a chaotic existence, I supposed it was possible that Paris hadn’t ever bonded with her mother; maybe at this point, the baby figured that one pair of adult arms was as good as another. Or was she just not old enough yet to care? I didn’t know much about babies, only mouthy fourth graders.
I patted Paris’s bony back awkwardly and let her dig her toes into my thighs. The combination of the shock of seeing Cam’s child, the rancid stink, and the baby’s tight grip on my neck was making it hard for me to breathe.
“Look,” I said in my sternest, no-nonsense teacher’s voice. “Don’t you dare leave California without giving me time to talk sense into my brother. He’ll come around.”
Nadine’s eyes were gray, and she had the steely, flat expression of someone used to bargaining with whatever scraps she had. In this case, her highest card was my apparent interest in the baby. “I guess I could wait around some,” she acquiesced slowly, “if only I had a little cash to, like, tide me over, maybe buy us a little food and pay for a doctor.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “You know, you could always take Paris to an emergency room. They’re bound by law to treat anyone who walks through the door, no matter how poor.”
“Yeah, right!” She rolled her eyes at this. “Those fucking Nazi social workers would take my baby away before I could sneeze. Shit!” Nadine reached over and stroked one of the baby’s legs in a hypnotic way, her fingers tracing the curve of Paris’s skinny calf. “She’s a little monkey face, isn’t she?” The baby grew heavy on my shoulder as s
he sank into sleep, her cheek sticky against my neck.
I felt stunned, almost immobilized by the weight of my brother’s child. “All right,” I said at last, looking Nadine in the eye. “I’ll give you some money if you promise to buy food and stick around here for at least a couple more days.”
“What else would I buy?” she said, pouting in a way that almost made her look like a normal teenager.
After counting out the bills in my wallet—over seventy dollars–I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my purse and scribbled my name, cell phone number, and San Francisco address on it. “This is where I am. Please. Don’t just take off with the baby. We have a deal, right? I’ll work something out with Cam. Can you meet me here tomorrow at the same time?”
“Yeah, okay. That’s cool.” Nadine wadded the paper into her jeans pocket along with the money and plucked the baby out of my arms. Paris’s head snapped back and she let out a startled yowl. My skin burned a little where the baby’s head had rested against it. It was all I could do not to snatch the child back.
“Take it easy!” I said, alarmed. “You’ve got to support her head better than that.”
Nadine slung the baby over one shoulder. “Don’t get your panties all in a bunch, now.” She grinned. “I’m a pro after seven months of this motherhood crap.” She nodded at me as she stood up. “Come on, Baby,” she said to Paris, suddenly cheerful. “We’ve got places to go and people to see.”
She disappeared like a deer, noiselessly sliding into the shrubbery behind the boulder and leaving me feeling wounded and bereft.
Chapter six
Furious at my brother, I drove back to Cam’s house, but it was locked up tight and the van was gone. Where had they all gone? Having another lie-in? Cavorting on skateboards?
No answer on Cam’s cell, of course. There seemed to be no choice but to go home and think things through. I was suddenly exhausted, and I could hear my bed calling me from across the Bay.
I made my way back across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, let myself into the apartment, sent Cam a text, had a good cry, and fell asleep with a pillow over my head. I woke to the music on my cell phone—a Bollywood tune–and snatched the receiver off the cradle, willing it to be Cam returning my call.
It was my mother and she was on a roll. I carried the receiver over to the refrigerator, where I listened to her rant while I pulled a hunk of cookie dough off the store-bought log on the top shelf and poured a glass of milk. Mom was still going off on me for not calling as I flung open the French doors to the garden and, munching doughy goo, dragged myself out to the deck.
I sat cross-legged in my private square of afternoon sunlight until my mother finally inhaled. The gist of her tirade was that she was worried sick. First Cam disappeared and now me, how could any daughter of hers be that thoughtless, etc. Highway accidents, city muggings, apartment fires, earthquakes: her only daughter could fall victim to all that and more.
“Sometimes I think you left home to escape reality,” she accused finally.
“Mom, believe me. I’m wallowing in reality,” I assured her. “But you’re right. I should have called. I really am sorry. How is everything?”
“Oh, status quo. Status quo.” She covered the phone receiver on her end and spoke in a muffled voice, presumably because my father was somewhere within earshot. He had probably told her not to call me. “Have you talked to your brother?”
I gave her a brief sketch of Cam’s job, house, and roommates but left out any bits about meth addicts and babies. Still, my mother knew from my voice that something was up. She started fishing for clues.
“Has your brother been in an accident?” she asked. “Is that why we haven’t heard anything? I worry about that boy’s reckless driving.”
“No, Mom! Cam doesn’t even have his van anymore. The engine gave out when he took it down to Mexico.”
“Mexico! You can catch diseases in Mexico!”
“You can catch diseases anywhere, Mom,” I said patiently. “Anyway, Cam’s using public transportation these days, so you don’t need to worry about his driving.” I refrained from mentioning her son’s new passion for night skating.
“Is he involved with someone? Is that why he hasn’t called?”
“Kind of. But you know Cam. It’s nothing that will last.” I gulped down a chunk of cookie dough with the white lie. “He has a job, though. That’s a plus.”
“I’m sure he’s still in debt,” my mother snapped. “That child never could manage money. Honestly, Jordan, I wish he’d been born with half your common sense.” She sighed heavily. “What about his health? Is he eating enough? He isn’t still on drugs, is he?”
“Mom, will you stop? Cam’s health seems fine. In fact, he went swimming at the beach when we were there this morning.”
“You’ve actually seen him! Oh, Jordan.” My mother was crying in that way that people cry on the phone when they don’t want the person on the other end to know. She was breathing fast, huh huh huh, like a stubborn lawn mower engine that won’t catch.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Of course not!” she spit out. “God, Jordan, you’ve no idea what it’s like to be shut out of your child’s life.”
“Please, Mom. Try to relax. Cam will be fine.” Of course I could convey no specific assurances; I didn’t quite believe, myself, that my brother would be fine. But there was no point in worrying my mother. “He’s just, you know. Asserting his independence.”
Bad choice of words. “Why would your brother want to be so independent that even his own mother can’t reach him?” she demanded.
“You know what Cam’s like,” I said helplessly. “He’s always been evasive. Hey, where’s Dad right now? Can I say hi?”
“Oh, he’s out.” Her tone was dismissive.
“Out, where?”
“Watering the roses, weeding. It’s Sunday, you know. Yard work day.”
I knew from her suddenly distracted tone that my mother was probably checking out the window to see if my father—a barrel-chested ex-Army captain who owned a machine shop–was still outside. I pictured Dad as he always looked in the yard: his forehead sunburned, the v-neck t-shirt slightly yellowed from sweat, the determined look on his face as he held his weekend showdown with the overgrown grass and weedy edges of the lawn.
Dad was apparently out of earshot. Mom’s voice relaxed, turned more conversational. “So how’s your apartment?”
“A postage stamp with a bed in it,” I admitted. “But I’ve got a great garden.”
“And you’ve introduced yourself to the neighbors, I hope?” Mom’s theory was that tragedies could happen to anyone, but mostly to people who didn’t mind their manners.
“Oh, sure. I’ve met everybody in the building.” Not that anyone wanted anything to do with me, but I didn’t tell her that. “And Karin had a party so that I could meet some of her friends,” I added, knowing my mother would seize on this as evidence that her daughter wasn’t friendless out here in the Wild West.
“You know, I should come out there,” Mom proposed suddenly. “I’d love to see your apartment and Cam’s house. I can stay in a hotel if you don’t have room for me. Or maybe Cam could find a place for me in his big house? I’ve never been to California,” she added, sounding wistful. “And you see so much of California on the television. The palm trees, the beautiful mansions.”
“What? You can’t do that! Anyway, that’s Los Angeles you always see on TV.”
“Of course I can come if I want,” my mother countered. “I could leave tomorrow, get on a plane and be there in six hours. I’m sure you could use the help getting unpacked and settled.”
I glanced around my apartment and its sparse furnishings. I’d unpacked the boxes, hung towels in the bathroom, and put sheets on the bed in less than an hour’s time. What could my mother find to do here? Put plastic on everything, crochet a lampshade or two?
Her visit could potentially throw a wrench in the works before I’d gotten
Cam to admit he had a new obligation in his borderless life, that’s what she could do.
“This really isn’t the best time,” I said gently. “Why don’t we talk about a visit next month? By then, I’ll know my way around. Besides, Dad wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“I’m sure he’d manage,” she said stiffly.
My mother, whose longest solo voyage to date was a bus trip with her sister to Atlantic City the month after Grammy died, had never flown on a plane. I tried to imagine her on one, offering coupons, tissues, aspirin, gum, and hand cream to the businessman or college student trapped in the seat beside her. Mom would knit fruit-shaped hats out of the yarn she carted about in her knee-high flowered bag. She would make friends with the flight attendants, too, quizzing them gently about their children and face creams. The fruit hats would be handed out to anyone with babies: blueberries to the newborns, strawberries to the older babies, watermelons to the toddlers, each hat with a green stem on top. Picturing Paris in one of those strawberry hats made my head pound with anxiety.
“I’m not saying it’s a bad idea,” I amended to avoid bruising her feelings. “I just think we ought to wait until later in the summer.”
“Well, it was just a thought,” she said. “Forget I said anything.”
Perversely, I hated to hear my mother sound so easily defeated. “I’ll talk to Cam,” I said. “We’ll come up with a plan to see you soon.”
We hung up with promises on my side to call her daily, and then I dialed Karin’s cell. “Can you meet me for dinner at the Church Street Cafe?”
“Sure,” she said. “Give me ten.”
I walked the five blocks to the cafe, where I bought an uninspired chicken sandwich and chose a high table near the window. Karin arrived minutes later. She had put her hair up in a neat French twist and was wearing her nurse’s uniform. The blindingly clean white dress on Karin was like seeing a push-up bra on a nun, given her housekeeping and party habits.
Karin spotted me immediately and plopped down in the free chair, picking up my sandwich and taking a bite. “So what’s up?” she said, chewing. “How’s it going with Ed?”
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