“How dare he say these things about me?” she seethed.
I tried to remember exactly what Darrel had said about Mama. I knew he didn’t approve of her. I remembered him writing something to the effect that he was glad I wasn’t like her. I’m sure he questioned some of her decisions and behaviors, but he hadn’t written anything untrue.
My hands started to shake.
“I don’t want you reading my letters,” I demanded. “They’re private!”
“They’re mush,” Mama answered.
“Give them to me.” I attempted to gather them up.
Mama grabbed some of the envelopes away from me.
“You know what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m going to move back here permanently and make sure you don’t do anything but go to school and come home. And don’t think you’ll be reading any more of these, either.” She waved a fistful of letters in front of me.
For the first time in my life, I said, “I don’t care what you say. I won’t do it.”
Shock registered in Mama’s eyes.
“Then I’ll send you to reform school,” she countered.
“Fine. I’ll gladly go,” I said. I didn’t know anything about reform school, but I meant it. I knew I could never live with Mama again.
“Listen to me, young lady. I’ll walk you to school and I’ll be waiting for you when it lets out. I’ll—”
“I won’t do it.”
“Then I’ll send you to reform school.”
“I’ll do that.”
Mama sat there looking at me, speechless for a long while. We both knew the ground had shifted under our feet. Within a few days, Mama repacked her suitcase and was gone—back to Texas. I had finally cut the cord that had been wrapped around my neck.
THAT FALL Nancy and I started our senior year, and Vicki her junior year. By then we had become regulars at the skating rink in the seaside village of Morro Bay, driving the fifteen miles to the rink most every Friday and Saturday night. We arrived when the doors opened, retrieved our scuffed quad skates from the trunk of the Ford, and laced up our boots while sitting on the smooth wooden benches inside the rink. For hours, I practiced skating backward, perfecting my transitions and moving my feet quickly in a scissors step. I wasn’t afraid to fall if it meant I would become a better skater.
One night, a particularly talented skater asked me to dance during the couples skate. He showed me how to lean into my turns, reverse directions together, and bend my knees low on the curves.
“You’ve got great rhythm,” he said.
I beamed when he asked me to dance again later. He must think I’m pretty good, I thought. Our connection lasted only as long as the couples skates; we didn’t talk or pair up off the floor. He was in his late twenties, too old for me, plus Darrel and I were still writing. But I loved the physicality of skating and dancing, how his movement and the music drew me in, as if we were water flowing across a streambed.
At the end of the night, Nancy, Vicki, and I were physically exhausted. It was hard to determine how many miles we skated in a single night, but it felt like a marathon. Mrs. Dickerson, who owned the skating rink with her husband, scooted out from behind the concession stand to hug us good-bye.
“Isn’t skating just good, clean fun?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” we agreed and waved good-bye.
“See you next week.”
“We’ll be here,” I said, opening the outside door.
A cool fog had rolled in off the bay, creating a halo around the lights in the parking lot. We tossed our skates into the trunk and headed home, past the undulating hills toward San Luis.
* * *
IT TOOK me more than a week of peeking into our empty mailbox to realize that Darrel was about to break up with me. Just to give him the benefit of the doubt, I made a rare and expensive long-distance call to Texas to check on him. He was neither on his deathbed nor at home.
“No, he’s feeling fine,” his mom said awkwardly. I could tell she knew something I didn’t. “Yes, I’ll tell him you called,” she said and quickly hung up.
Eventually a letter arrived saying he had found someone else. I moped for weeks before sending back his football jacket. I decided to keep the powder-blue knit jacket-and-skirt set he had given me the summer before, the one with two silver-gray butterflies pinned on the jacket near the neckline.
THAT CHRISTMAS, Daddy drove home and we gathered around the dining table to eat a baked ham. Mama, Patricia, Brenda, and Joni were noticeably missing. Mama sent Nancy, Vicki, and me each a miniature Christmas stocking and had tucked inside a rosy-cheeked plastic elf—our family gremlin, she had said in a poem she wrote just for the occasion. After Daddy went to bed, I read the poem out loud to Nancy and Vicki. I had to pause several times to wait for the knot in my throat to loosen so I could continue. I wondered how Mama and the girls had celebrated their Christmas with Mr. Rodeo. I wondered if they missed me as much as I missed them.
* * *
“THE OFFICE wants to see you,” my chemistry teacher informed me when I walked into class after Christmas vacation. I had an uneasy feeling in my chest as I headed down the hallway toward the office.
The secretary pointed toward the counselor’s office.
“Have a seat,” the counselor said.
Before sitting, I double-checked my skirt to make sure it complied with school rules; it couldn’t be shorter than my fingertips with my hands at my sides. My fingertips touched well above the hem. I wore white go-go boots and for once my hair was straight. I recently learned that a number of girls at school ironed their hair on the ironing board; I feared I might need a steamroller, but the iron seemed to work fine—except where I burned my forehead when I tried to iron my bangs. I looked at the counselor. If my skirt wasn’t too short, I couldn’t imagine why I had been pulled out of class.
“I’ve just been talking to Nancy,” the counselor said, tapping his pencil on some papers in front of him.
“Oh?”
“She tells me that the two of you and your sister Vicki live alone.”
I wanted to shake Nancy. “Well, we’re not exactly alone,” I stammered.
He leaned back in his chair, eyeing me. “She said you’re in charge.”
“That’s true. When my dad’s not home, I’m in charge.”
“She said your dad lives in Nevada.”
Good grief! Didn’t Nancy realize that telling the school we lived by ourselves would invite scrutiny—maybe even the authorities?
“Our dad does work in Nevada,” I backpedaled, “but he still considers this his home.” I didn’t mention that Daddy was home only a few days a month.
“Nancy has chicken pox and we can’t send her home because no one is there to take care of her,” he said.
“I’ll take care of her.”
“You don’t understand. The three of you are minors. Legally, you cannot live together without an adult.”
“I told you my dad comes home whenever he can.” I shifted my weight and leaned forward. “Look, it’s been like this for months. Check our grades, check our attendance. We’re good students, at the top of our classes. I do work-study for the business office. Wouldn’t you say we’re doing fine?”
He clasped his fingers and brought them under his chin, considering what I had just said.
I mustered every bit of my self-assurance and held his gaze.
“I should report this,” he said hesitantly.
“Please don’t. I’ll be eighteen in a few months. We’ll be graduating soon. We know how to take care of ourselves. I promise you, we’re good kids.”
He looked deeply into my eyes. Finally, he relented. “Okay,” he said. “I hope I don’t regret this. If there’s any hint of any trouble—”
“There won’t be,” I interrupted. I jumped up before he could change his mind. I also wanted to retrieve Nancy from the nurse’s office before the whole state of California became involved. If thirteen-year-old Patricia had still been l
iving with us, I had no doubt the authorities would have been called. Vicki’s being only sixteen was concern enough.
“What were you thinking?” I asked Nancy.
“What did I do wrong? The nurse said she needed to call my mom and I said, ‘You can’t—she lives in Texas.’ Then she said, ‘Okay, I’ll call your dad,’ and I said, ‘You can’t do that, either, because he lives in Nevada.’”
I shook my head. Nancy had told the truth all right, but the consequences seemed to elude her. Her chicken pox didn’t stop me from chiding, “We’ll be lucky if we don’t end up in a foster home!”
WHEN DADDY brought Alice home to meet us, it had been almost a year since Mama took the girls back to Texas. I couldn’t believe how much Alice reminded me of Mama. She had short black hair and Mama’s twinkling eyes. She was vivacious and funny, but I didn’t quite know what to make of her.
If you told her you liked one of her dresses, she said, “Really? You can have it.” And she meant it. She gave Nancy, Vicki, and me several of her dresses. I was almost reluctant to pay her a compliment. When she looked in my closet and saw the blue knit suit Darrel had given me, she asked if she could wear it when she and Daddy got married.
A few weeks later, in front of the justice of the peace, wearing my blue knit suit, Alice said “I do” to Daddy. We girls signed as their witnesses.
Alice stayed on with us for a couple of weeks that spring. It was the dreary rainy season. She wore knee-high socks and kicked up the heat to a stifling eighty degrees. But for the first time in our lives, we came home from school to someone busily cooking in the kitchen. Delicious aromas met us at the door like warm hugs. Alice was a great cook, but she had rather expensive culinary taste. “I don’t look at grocery-store prices,” she said during one dinner. “I just buy what I want.”
“That’s a true story,” Daddy said, nodding.
Alice taught us to play contract rummy and went shopping with us.
Once when she didn’t call home to tell Daddy we would be very late, I warned her, “Alice, Daddy might get mad.”
“Well, he’s got the same boots to get glad in.” She laughed.
I laughed, too.
Daddy seemed happy enough, though I surmised he must be feeling the pinch of maintaining two households. He recently bought a trailer for him and Alice to live in, in New Mexico. I imagined Daddy had to buy new dresses to replace the ones Alice so freely gave away, plus he continued to pay child support for Patricia, Brenda, and Joni. Daddy assured us girls, however, that his marriage would not change our living situation.
He said he would continue to pay rent not only until Nancy and I graduated in June, but until Vicki graduated the following year. Whoever agreed to live with Vicki could live rent-free because Daddy didn’t want her to live alone. Based on our recent experience at school, we knew Vicki should live with someone at least eighteen years old.
I wanted to live on campus come fall, and my high school friend Linda and I had talked about renting student housing over the summer. Both Linda and I had applied to and been accepted at Cal Poly in San Luis. I chose it because I had been on campus numerous times, pretending to be one of the college students. I could see myself happily living in the dorm with Linda, driving to the ballroom in Pismo Beach to go dancing, and studying in the library.
Since I had other plans, Nancy offered to live with Vicki. But Nancy wondered, for several reasons, if Vicki would be willing to move to Morro Bay. First, Nancy loved walking the foggy beach near famed Morro Rock; second, she fancied a guy named Rick who happened to live in Morro Bay; and third, she had been promised a job at Rose’s Landing, a restaurant overlooking the water where Rick’s mom worked as a cook. Vicki readily agreed to the move—unaware that she would eventually marry Rick’s younger brother Gary.
The living arrangements were settled, then: me on campus, Vicki and Nancy in Morro Bay.
Daddy and Alice drove back to San Luis Obispo for Nancy’s and my graduation. Daddy told me that the blue Ford Fairlane would be my graduation present. I was thrilled.
The afternoon of the commencement ceremony, I squinted, searching the stadium seats for where Daddy, Alice, and Vicki were seated. I saw Daddy and waved. Daddy maneuvered through the crowd and walked down the steps to see me and Nancy before we lined up for the procession.
He hugged both of us and his eyes filled with tears.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said.
I touched his face and kissed his cheek. How I loved his tender heart.
“Go on now,” he said. “You’ll miss the best part.”
I wished Mama and the girls could be with us, too, to witness this milestone. Nancy’s mother wasn’t there, either. Aunt Eunice was still alive, but she was so jaundiced and sick that it never crossed our minds that she might travel all the way to California from Colorado. I told myself the day was about beginnings, not regrets.
I held my head high and marched across the stage with a smile as wide as the blue sky overhead. I felt buoyed by the current of life. I had attended twelve schools. I had made it through my eighteenth birthday. I had climbed a few hills, and now I felt practically on top of the world.
Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, Mama was about to make the darkest descent of her life.
Brenda and Joni in their Easter dresses
Odessa, Texas Revisited
AFTER GRADUATION, I roomed with my girlfriends Linda and Sam for the summer in a cute two-bedroom unit not far from Cal Poly. Linda’s mom helped me find summer work at an electronics-parts supplier for computers and satellites. I saved money that summer, but not nearly enough to cover tuition.
I began to realize that I might not be able to attend college. I didn’t know about financial aid and student loans. I don’t think Daddy knew, either. Surely my high school counselors knew, but I never confided in them for fear of inviting scrutiny into our living arrangements.
By the end of summer, I had adopted Plan B. I continued working while taking several adult-education courses at Cuesta College just outside of San Luis Obispo. The night classes were cheap and allowed me to work full-time. It wasn’t my ideal scenario, because I wasn’t matriculated, but neither was it the total collapse of my dream of attending college.
By late fall, yet another plan emerged. My roommate Sam and I embarked on a trip to Texas. The determining factor had been Mama’s repeated phone calls, especially the most recent.
“I wish you’d move back,” she slurred. “It wouldn’t have to be Denver City, just someplace close by. So I could call on you. Things aren’t going too well with Mr. Rodeo. And I’m not too good. I could really use your help with the girls. Please think about it.”
I wondered what life was like for the younger girls now. Patricia was older, but Brenda and Joni were only in fifth and second grade. I could pretend Mama was doing better because I wasn’t there to see her day in and day out, but her voice on the phone told me she was either drunk or drugged. It was hard to assess the situation from a thousand miles away. The simple fact was I still cared—deeply. How could I refuse?
“I’ll go with you,” Sam said, “to help you figure this whole thing out. I’ve never been to Texas.”
Our lease was up on our rental and my classes had ended. We gave notice at work and here we were, on a desolate road with lights flashing behind us.
“He’s pulling me over,” I said to Sam.
She turned to see the red lights. We were literally in the middle of the Arizona desert. I pulled off the road, opened the glove compartment to retrieve my registration, and stepped out of the car.
A young highway patrolman approached, looked me over, and bent down to look inside at Sam. “You know what I think?” he asked, adjusting his hat.
“What?”
“I think you were speeding, saw me sitting back there, then slammed on your brakes.”
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re right.”
My ho
nesty seemed to catch him off guard. He smiled and asked to see my driver’s license. I plopped my purse onto the warm hood. I wasn’t about to confess that my speedometer had been pushing ninety, which sounded more reckless than it seemed on the arrow-straight road slicing through the cactus and yucca plants of the Sonoran Desert. We hadn’t passed a car for miles—until the patrolman’s car, that is, idling on a side road. Before I had time to brake, I whizzed past him like Road Runner leaving Wile E. Coyote in the dust.
The officer now stood, patiently waiting for me to produce my license, which seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. “It isn’t in my wallet,” I apologized. “Maybe it fell out into my purse.”
I searched and fumbled more frantically. Finally, in desperation, I dumped the entire contents of my purse onto the hood—hairbrush, chewing gum, mirror, wallet, change, and tampons. A tube of pink lipstick rolled off the hood and clanked against the gravel.
The officer rolled his eyes. “I thought this happened only in movies.”
I picked through the contents of my purse but still couldn’t locate my license. “I can’t believe it,” I said. “I must have lost it somewhere. I have one. Honest!”
“Where are you two headed?” he asked.
“Texas,” I said. “My friend Sam has never been. I used to live there.”
He looked through the windshield at Sam. She smiled and did a little wave with her fingers. He didn’t quite know what to make of us. We were either painfully innocent babes or frighteningly smooth con artists.
“You’ve got California plates,” he noted.
“I’ve been living in California the past two years.”
He looked at my registration and back at us, trying to decide what to do.
I returned the mound of items on the hood to my purse.
“I’m going to give you a warning this time,” he said finally. “But if I get back to the station and find out that this car is stolen, I’m coming after you personally.”
“I promise you it’s not stolen,” I said and patted the Ford. “This was my graduation present from high school.”
“Well, slow down and live long enough to enjoy it.” He handed me my registration and casually closed my door as I slipped in behind the steering wheel. “You two staying the night in Phoenix?” he asked.
Moonlight on Linoleum Page 20