“Boy, you really screwed up as a baby.”
“I know you’re being sarcastic. You know I didn’t even like it. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal and the rules stink.”
“What rules?” Jackie asks.
“You know. You can’t have sex without love. They won’t love you if you don’t have sex with them. Once you have sex with them, they can’t love you anymore.”
“Were you raped?”
“Not physically.” My hands start to shake.
“How then?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I said yes.”
“If you said yes, then you had some control. If you said no, then you had no control. Do you think that would be fair to say?” She leans forward again.
“Whatever.”
“What did you mean by ‘not physically’?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t know why I told you all that stuff. So now you can put it in my chart, and they will all know I’m a slut. That I gave those guys what they wanted. Traded with them. My legs around them to have their arms around me. Let me think they would protect me, make everything alright, love me anyways.
Love me. Not use me and only love the ones who say no. “Guys just want to kiss the no girl on the porch with the lights on for the world to see. Fuck the yes girl in the dark and tell the world what they missed.”
“You sound angry.”
“I am.”
“Would you be a virgin again if you could?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you can’t.”
“So what do I do?”
“Get over it.”
“Thanks a lot, Jackie.”
“I’ll help you…I’m not going anywhere.”
That’s what they all say.
DAY 181
DECEMBER 11
I ignore the camera eyes. And walk to Jackie’s office without a human escort. I feel like a little kid who gets to go to the store alone.
I make it safely and wave to the cameras. I almost expect them to acknowledge me with a nod. They don’t. They just blink their red lights.
Jackie’s door is open. She says it’s always open, but that’s not true. When Dad and I had our family session with her, she had locked it from the inside. I leave my feet in the hall and stick my head into the office.
“Come all the way in, hon. I just need to finish this up and I’ll be right with you,” Jackie says, without looking up. She waves me to a chair with one hand and continues writing with the other.
I’m impressed, so I take a seat and start patting the top of my head and rubbing my stomach in circles. I’m not very good at it.
“What are you doing?” Jackie puts down her pen and looks at me.
“Nothing, just trying to see if I can do two things at once.”
“I bet you can do a million things at once–I bet that’s what landed you in this place.”
“You’d lose.”
“Would I?”
“Yes. And I’m not up for this kind of crap today.”
“What kind of crap are you up for then?”
I try the I’m-tired-so-give-me-a-break look.
“What about Christmas crap? You up for that?” Jackie asks cheerfully.
I don’t know why I can’t remember that this woman has no sympathy and shows no mercy. “What about Christmas?” I ask.
“It’s two weeks away.”
“So.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Celebrate Chanukah.”
“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, I am.”
“Then it must drive you nuts working with us pickers and pukers.”
“Why would you think that?” Jackie says. Leans back into her chair and closes the door with her foot. Kicks her shoes under her desk.
Oh, God, she’s going make me do time. I don’t want to be here all day.
“Okay, Jack. I had a Jewish friend. I went over to her house.”
“And…”
“And everything I’ve heard about Jews and food is true. Her mother wouldn’t leave me alone. She kept pushing food at me. Saying, ‘Eat! Eat!’ ”
“Did the mother do that every time you went there?”
“I only went once.”
“Did you like this girl?”
“Yes.”
“Then how come only once?”
And once again Jackie hits the right button. It’s like her office is this memory machine. I hate this. But once Jackie puts you on the ride, it’s impossible to get off.
—
I’m in the kitchen with Rachel and her mom. Then the grandmother walks in, looks at me, and screams. She covers her mouth to stop herself. Grabs a fistful of her blouse and rubs it back and forth across the washboard of her chest. She takes a shaking hand away from her mouth and asks Rachel’s mother something in a language I’ve never heard. Rachel’s mother answers in English, “She’s not sick, Momma. She won’t eat.”
“I’m just dieting.”
“Die–eating. That’s a good idea. What’s right is that you should DIE EATING. Not starving like this. You have no right to do such things. Such terrible things to the gift that God gave you.”
I want to be mad at this woman. But she’s mad enough for both of us. Mad and sad. She grabs my shoulders and digs in her fingers, like claws into a catch. But it’s her eyes that hurt me. So much pain in the yellow whites and the red-rimmed eyelids, and a thousand tears that she won’t let come. Because I don’t deserve them.
“Stop it,” she says.
—
“Marty? Can you tell me?” Jackie asks, and places the box of Kleenex in my lap.
I let it sit there. I refuse to use even one. I’m Kleenorexic. I don’t deserve the luxury that’s in my lap.
“Marty, I think it’s enough for today…but maybe next week you’ll tell me what happened?”
“Maybe.”
“It could be your Christmas present to me.”
“But you said you’re Jewish.”
“Yeah….And I know a good deal when I see one.”
Mom’s been here. Bed is remade. Edges are a little sharper than when I left it. If you licked them, you’d cut your tongue. At the end of the dangerous bed sits a stack of clean laundry. And buried in the middle is a pair of black preshrunk memories. The sweatpants my grandmother bought me last Christmas.
My heart bangs against my ribs. My lungs cower and refuse to move.
Stupid.
Just pants.
Yeah, right.
No such thing as just.
It must be theme day here at Camp Eat-a-Lot. Mom’s in on it too. I don’t know if she’s brought the pants here to taunt me or haunt me. Either way it’s working.
—
Last Christmas was supposed to be perfect. Just like the Christmas before that and that and that and that. Except they weren’t. Because every Christmas Mom got bombed and bombed and bombed and bombed. If there are some good bits about those Christmases, I don’t remember them…because the ruins are so spectacular.
The black sweatpants are just one of the relics collected while out shopping with my grandmother. The airlines had lost her luggage. She wanted something for me. Something to put under our tree. The pathetic tree Mom had bought because she felt sorry for it. Some sort of tropical evergreen, whose branches were meant to sway in the breeze. They were too limp to hang ornaments on. Our tree couldn’t hold up under the weight of Christmas, so we tied up its arms with fishing line. I was jealous of that stupid tree. It hogged all the sympathy and support. I had wished that someone would feel sorry for how limp I was. Had wanted my limbs to be held up by invisible threads of support. So when they hung things on me, I wouldn’t feel like I was letting them down.
But it didn’t happen that way.
As usual, the tree was a success. And I was a failure. I failed to want what Mom wanted.
“Get whatever you like,” Grandma had said.
/>
We were in front of a sports store. I went to the men’s section and chose a pair of black sweatpants. Men’s because they had a drawstring instead of an elastic waist. Black, to hide my fat ass. Big, so Mom wouldn’t wear them. Wouldn’t put them on and ask me if she looked fat.
“Why do you want those awful things?” Mom asked, with that tone.
“No reason, I just like them.”
“They’re huge. You’ll look sloppy.”
“They’ll shrink,” I said.
“At least get another color,” Mom had ordered, without looking at me.
“Grandma said to get what I want.” As soon as I said it, I knew it was a mistake. Mom had turned to me and leaned into my face and held me with her eyes. From her mouth, words dripped like venom.
“Why are you being so difficult? Do you know how much money has been spent on you already this Christmas? And you want black. Well, that’s just perfect. Only bad girls wear black. Bad, dirty girls.”
Just then Grandma came up to us, took the pants from me, and said, “Are these what you want, pumpkin? They look a little big.”
“They fit her perfectly,” Mom hissed, and then wove her way into the crowd until she disappeared.
Strike and leave.
My heart pounded and pumped the poison until I was paralyzed. Bile bubbled up through the small breathing hole left in my throat. I had to push everything down so I could breathe. Shove it down. Mash Mom’s words like a garbage compacter and make them small. The size of a pill I could close my eyes and swallow.
Those words were more than I could chew. They still are.
—
Just as I’m throwing away the extralarge memories of one more Christmas I want to forget, Katherine walks in.
“What are you doing?” she asks me, but stares at the trash can.
“Just sorting dirty laundry.”
“Didn’t your mom just wash them?”
“Yeah, but they’ll never come clean.”
Katherine shakes her head. Knows I’m not going to explain, so she changes the subject. “You going home for Christmas?”
“I think I’ll stay here and see what kind of tree they get.”
“Marty, phone’s for you. It’s some man,” Elizabeth yells down the hall from the lounge.
I am really tired now. First Jackie, then Mom and the sprints down memory lane. “Take a message.”
“I can’t, my nails are drying.”
“You picked up the phone, didn’t you?”
“I thought it was for me!”
“JEEEESSSuuuuussssssss!”
“Stop swearing, Marty, and go pick up your call,” Nurse Brown yells from her station.
“I wasn’t swearing, I was singing. You didn’t let me finish the song.”
“Well, finish it on your way to the lounge.”
I walk past Nurse Brown and sing, “JEEEESSS uuuuussssssss was booornnn….” In the lounge I grab the phone and have one last yell at Her Highness Queen Elizabeth, “Pack up your princess pink polish and piss off.”
She sticks her Tudor tongue out at me and leaves.
“Hello…HELLO…” Nobody is there.
Brrrinng.
“Yes.”
“Marty?”
“Dad?”
“Yes! It’s not some man–it’s your father, and what the hell is going on there?”
“Nothing.”
“As usual. Look, Marty, I’m calling to let you know I’m not sure I’ll be able to bring you to Canada to see your grandmother for Christmas.”
First call in the sequence. Second call will be the I-probably-won’t-be-able-to. Third and final call being the I-definitely-can’t. I’ll save you some quarters, Dad. “It’s okay. I’m Christmased out already.”
“I thought I heard someone singing carols when I called the first time.”
“We were practicing for the Christmas Pageant. We’ve got lots of Jesuses but only one Mary, right next door in the psych unit.”
“Have they decorated your unit?”
“Yeah. They went all out,” I say, and look beside me at the plastic poinsettia stem that’s been collecting dust since someone stuck it in the cactus plant years ago. “We, ah, have Christmas plants and flashing red lights.” I wave to the camera in the corner.
“Well, it sounds like you’re all set. I’ll talk to you next week and I should know more by then.”
“Thanks for calling, Dad.”
“You’re welcome. And good luck with your play.”
DAY 194
DECEMBER 24
Mom and I walk past all the other cars in the parking lot to get to hers. The sun melts my goose bumps. Heat from the baked asphalt rises through my shoes and warms my feet.
I turn to see if anyone is watching. Lily’s nose and palms are pushed up against a window. Mesh wire in the glass makes her look like a puppy being left behind at the pound. She turns her head away just as I mouth the words see you soon. A hand lands on Lily’s shoulder and pulls her from the window.
“Watch out!” Mom yells.
My knee collides with her car.
“Are you okay?” she says, looking at the bumper.
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I…I know. You just have to be more careful.” Mom digs through her purse, comes up with the remote, beeps off the alarm, and unlocks the doors. I get in my side and help to remove the cardboard protector that keeps the dash from prematurely aging. Mom folds it up like an accordion and puts it in the backseat. She gets in and takes the club off the steering wheel and places it behind my seat.
I try to sit like an egg in its carton.
“Maybe we should get your hair cut on the way home?” Mom suggests, as she snips with her fingers at my bangs. “Miguel and Carlos would love to see you.”
“I’m not really up to seeing anyone.” I push the button for the window and stick my head out.
Mom starts the car and backs up with the parking break on. She figures that out at the stop sign to exit the lot. “Damn it!” She turns to me. “What about some new clothes?” She tugs on the thigh of my orange sweats.
I don’t know if it’s an invitation or a threat. I just want to go home and get in the ocean. I want to smell like salt instead of sausages. “No. Thanks.”
Mom pulls a U-turn. The tires squeal for the first time in their lives. She guns it up the on-ramp and hits the freeway doing twenty miles over the speed limit.
“Do up that window! I just had my hair done.”
And the nails.
“Use my cell and call Miguel. Tell him you don’t want the appointment.”
“What appointment?”
“The one for you at 3:00.”
“Better slow down, Mom.”
“Okay, how about I take my foot off the gas and you downshift that attitude of yours and tell me what your problem is?”
Here we go. “Which one do you want to hear about?”
“Don’t get smart with me. I’ve gone to a lot trouble to make this a special Christmas and I’m not going to let you ruin it for anybody.”
Anybody? “Is Gramma here?” I sit on my hands and cross my fingers.
“No, she’s staying in Florida,” Mom says, looking at the speedometer. She taps the brakes.
“Then, who?”
“It’s a surprise. And part of the surprise was new hair and nice clothes. You’ll want to look good.” Mom steers the car across three lanes of traffic and just makes the off-ramp. “You got a problem with that?”
“No.” I figure being a barbie is better than ending up a crash test dummy.
Shopping is over. Home.
Mom parks the car away from the olive trees and where she’ll be able to see it from her bedroom. She puts the club on the steering wheel and pops the trunk. I get out to retrieve the canvas car cover. I grab it and the bag with my not-nice clothes.
“Leave the bag. Get it later.” I look around the trunk lid and Mom’s face is talking to me from
the side-view mirror. The sun reflects off her teeth.
I close the lid a little too hard as Mom gets out. She jumps and drops the keys. She dusts them off, fumbles with the remote, sets off the alarm, the flashers, and finally hits LOCK. She pats the car. “I know it’s been a rough day.”
We unfold the car cover like it’s the national flag and drape it over. I kneel down on the pavement to put the steel cable that used to lock my bike under the belly of the car and through the brass rings in the canvas to lock it so no one can steal the cover.
Mom yanks on a corner to get out the wrinkles. “There you go. All tucked in.”
I brush the dirt off my new brown pants.
Mom brushes them after I’m done. “Those size sixes look great on you. Now that you’ve put on some weight and I’ve lost some, we’re about the same size. Maybe you’ll let me borrow them. They’re much better than those size ten jeans you wanted.”
She starts to mess with my hair.
I take a deep breath…exhale slowly…while counting to ten.
“I just want you to look nice for your surprise.”
Zack is here. She’s probably wrapped him up and put him under the tree. I want to go back to the unit, crawl into bed, and sleep through Christmas.
Mom applies her lipstick from two different tubes because no one ever makes the right shade for her–something between Dusty Rose and Rose Mist. She flicks her mirror shut like Captain Kirk would his communicator. Linking her arm through mine, she leans on me while changing into the creamy higher heels she bought while we were shopping for me. I know she’s spent money we don’t have today.
“This is going to be the best holiday,” Mom says, and heads toward the apartment. “Hurry up, Marty, before I melt in this parking lot.”
At our door she hands me the keys. Her hands are shaking. Before I get the key in, the door opens from the inside.
“Hello.”
“Dad…”
Mom pushes past me and stands beside him. “Merry Christmas, Marty. Do you like your surprise?”
I’m speechless. I thought I had no memories of the three of us together. But I do now. Pictures of them fighting. Yelling and throwing things. And doors slamming and always someone leaving.
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