by Joni Rodgers
“You know. Those puppies.”
“No, sweetie, I don’t know.” Kit brought a stroke of sunlight across the face of the flower.
“Those puppies that go ab! abb-ab-abb!” Mitzi pierced, making barking mouths with her hands. “Daddy’s puppies.”
“I’m sorry, Mitzi-pop, I don’t know. Maybe you could ask Cooper.”
“No,” she sighed. “I’ll ask Carmen.”
A petal wilted under Kit’s startled brush. “Who’s Carmen?”
Mitzi’s eyes got wide.
“It’s okay.” Kit sat down and brought Mitzi onto her lap. “Did Daddy say not to tell?”
“He said what you don’t know won’t hurt you,” Mitzi nodded. “Are you hurt now?”
“No, of course not. The truth never hurt any—” Kit realized midsentence what a crock that is and decided to rephrase. “You can always tell me anything that’s on your mind, Mitzi-pop.”
“Nothing’s on my mind.” Mitzi gave her a quick squeeze and started to skip away.
“Wait!” Kit snatched her back, layering on her best technique. “How ‘bout a Popsicle, Popsicle?”
“Okay!” Mitzi cheerfully agreed.
“So,” Kit said, once she had her cornered at the kitchen table, “is Carmen nice?”
“Mm-hmm!” Mitzi nodded enthusiastically.
“Is Carmen... pretty?”
“Yeah, but not like you. Nobody is pretty as you, Mama.”
“Well, thank you, sweetie.” Kit pecked her on the cheek.
“She’s not as big as you, either.”
“Great.” Kit moved to the sink, swishing at the faucet with a dishcloth. “Does Carmen visit very often?”
“Oh no. She lives there.”
“Where?” Her hands felt colder than the tap water.
“At Daddy’s house.”
“What?” Kit turned on her. “Since when?”
Mitzi’s eyes got wide again, but Kit abandoned any pretense of trying to shield her from this particular emotional scar and started pumping for hard information.
“Mitzi, since when did Carmen live at Daddy’s? Did she just move there?”
“No, she was there before.”
“Before what?”
“Before Daddy. Mrs. Garza is her grandma. Only she calls her ‘Ah-bay’ ‘cause it’s in Spanish when you say—what do you say for grandma?”
“Abuela,” Kit told her bleakly.
“‘Ah-booo-ay-la,’” Mitzi repeated, loving the lay of the word on her foreign tongue.
“Mitzi, does Carmen live in Mrs. Garza’s house or at Daddy’s apartment?”
“Her and Troy and Sarah live upstairs in the house,” Mitzi told her.
“Oh,” Kit laughed out loud with relief.
“But last week, we all had a big slumber party!”
“Oh.”
“Where are you going, Mama?”
“I just remembered—” Kit hoped she could keep from crying until she got upstairs. “I gotta call Grandma and make sure she’s okay.”
She dug through a stack of stencils and sketches on the counter and retrieved the cordless phone she’d bought for her work space. She stumbled up the stairs and closed herself in her bedroom closet, pressing in Vivica’s number with trembling fingers.
“Hello!”
“Mama?”
“You’ve reached 555-6262. Leave a message at the tone or call the Vivica Agency at 1-800-555-VTVA!”
“Dang!” Kit clicked the phone off and threw it in the corner. “Don’t even say it!” she told Neeva, though she knew Neeva wasn’t there.
She didn’t have to be. Kit was well able to point out to herself that what’s good for the gander is blah blah blah and taste of your own medicine and all that crap.
Dang. Carmen...
Euta Mae, Kit could have handled. Or Beulah or Baleen or Mavis Louise or any other toothless white chick of East Texas, but Carmen? They’d only been separated for two months, and Mel had already upgraded to a Carmen?
Carmen Miranda.
Carmen Sandiego.
Carmen get it.
Kit’s head hurt. She realized she was shivering in the over-conditioned inside air. Dragging one of Mel’s flannel shirts from its hanger, she wrapped it around herself and rested her head on the foot of the closet organizer.
What goes around comes around.
Carmen law.
Carmen Punishment.
The problem with Ramonica Deets was not that she had enormous breasts and a flat stomach or that her fingernails were lacquered long and wine-red by the Vietnamese lady down the street or even that she wore a deliriously taut version of Xylo’s coffee-colored skin. The problem was that she could deliver Billie’s Blues better than Billie, and this is what Vivica was trying to explain to Kiki, whose head was halfway in the toilet because, going into her ninth month, she still had the morning sickness, and all in all, it was making for a not-very-good day.
“Sweetie, you shouldn’t be working anymore, anyway,” Vivica soothed, stroking the back of her neck with a cool cloth. “All that cigarette smoke isn’t good for the baby, and frankly Moon Pie, you don’t look that good.”
“Thank you, Mama. I feel better now.”
Kiki wasn’t being sarcastic. She was genuinely grateful to have that bowl of Fruity Pebbles out of her system. She sighed and sat on the bathroom floor. Vivica had the pale blue tile covered with an extra-thick area rug the color of Pepto-Bismol, and it comforted Kiki’s stomach just looking at it. She laid her palms on the clean, pink pile.
“I figured he’d have replaced me by now. I just thought I’d ask.”
“That’s the nature of the biz, honey. People come and go. You know that.” Vivica freshened the cloth in the sink and pressed it to Kiki’s forehead. “And what did I always say to you girls about getting romantically involved with musicians?”
“You said’don’t.’”
“But do you listen? Think of some of those losers Kit ran around with before Mel came along.” Vivica sat down close to her and leaned back against the tub. “Anyway, after the baby comes and you get back in shape, we’ll find you another band. Who knows? The way Ramonica and Xylo have their ups and downs, she might be gone again in a few months.”
“Oh, I hope not,” Kiki said. “Xylo needs someone to love. And I just can’t do it, Mama. I’m scared to be in love anymore. It makes you forget too much.”
She lay down on the floor, her head in her mother’s lap, and they stayed that way for a while.
“Aren’t you glad I came down here to take care of you, Mama?”
“I sure am, Moon Pie.”
Kiki sat up and took the lukewarm cloth from her face.
“Are you okay, Mama? Or are you just pretending?”
“Oh, both, I guess. My energy’s down, I’d have to admit that. Mostly, I’m mad at myself for letting it go so long. I felt the lump almost a year ago, but I didn’t want to think about it. I knew I should be getting the regular mammograms, but I felt fine, and I was busy. I was—”
“Scared?”
“Stupid.”
“No. It wasn’t stupid, Mama. That’s what everybody does. As long as things are basically tolerable, you just keep going. You keep walking around doing what you usually do and...”
“Dying.”
“Oh, Mama, don’t say that! Don’t even think about that!”
“Most days, I don’t. Most days, I think about staying alive. Other days ... but that’s normal. According to Jim Bagjani, Guerilla Oncologist, it’s also normal for the side effects to accumulate. He warned me after three or four cycles, things might get ugly. And I certainly did.”
“You did not, Mama. You’re still beautiful.”
“Well, I finally dropped those ten extra pounds, anyway.”
“Does it bother you about your hair?”
“As soon as I found out about this whole thing, I went to Giovanni and said, ‘Buzz it, sweetie.’ Sort of like, ‘You can’t fire me. I quit!’ Then when it did fall out
, it wasn’t so bad.” Vivica sighed and scratched at the back of her head. “I am getting sick of the wigs, though. This latest one cost me almost eighty bucks, and it makes me look like Edith Bunker. I think I’m going to switch to the Gloria Swanson look for a while. You know, head wraps are trés charmeuse for aging prom queens. Liz Taylor—prime example. Takes a bad hair day, plops a turban on it, and voilá! White diamonds.”
“Maybe you could get a few tips from one of those female impersonators you represent,” Kiki giggled.
“You know, that’s not a bad idea.” Then Kiki really laughed, but Vivica protested. “No, I mean it. You gotta learn from the pros. That’s what I’ve always tried to tell you girls.” She put her arm around Kiki’s shoulders and pulled her close again. “But did you girls ever listen?”
“We tried, Mama. We really did.”
“Look at the two of you. Both of you. Pregnant, on your own, broke. You never could put a dime away for rainy days, either one of you. Thank God your Mee-ma Kelsey isn’t around to see this. She thought the two slickest sleigh rides to Hell were divorce and show business. You two must have her spinning in her grave.”
“What do you suppose is wrong with us?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Vivica sighed again. “Maybe it was all that applause you started out with. All those people loving you, telling you how pretty you were, how special. It’s gotta be sort of tough for one man to top that kind of affection.”
“I suppose.”
“But all those people, Kiki, they only had to love you for one hour at a time.”
Kiki nodded.
“Falling in love is so easy.” Vivica pressed the cloth to her own temple. “It has to be accidental, or it doesn’t happen. But then you try to sustain that feeling. That’s not so easy.
“Frankly, I wasn’t all that surprised to see things turn out badly with Wayne. But Mel? He’s so much like your daddy. I really thought Mel Prizer was the last genuinely good man on the face of the earth. Now, poor Kitten.” She shook her head, but Kiki couldn’t say anything about that right now. “She was a mess by the time she got me on the phone the other day. Apparently he’s already seeing somebody else.”
Kiki couldn’t say anything about that either, so she just squeezed Vivica’s hand and said, “Don’t worry about us, Mama. We’ll be okay.”
“You will, you know.” Vivica nodded, resolute.
“Mama?” Chloe came to the door, and Kiki and Vivica both answered, “Yes, sweetie?” and then looked at each other and smiled.
“Did you throw up again?” Chloe asked.
“Yes, but it’s all right, Cinnamon,” Kiki reassured her.
“Call me next time, so I can watch,” Chloe said.
“Why?” Kiki wrinkled her nose.
“I wanna see when the baby comes out!”
Kiki and Vivica exchanged another look, burst out laughing, and pulled Chloe down, sharing her across their laps. She giggled with them. She didn’t need to know why, only that it felt good.
“Play ‘take my arms.’” Chloe lay across their laps and pulled their hands over her like a quilt. “Sing it! Sing it!”
“All of me,” Kiki sang, “why not take all of me,” tickling and pretending to steal each part of Chloe as she sang about it, eating it up or putting it in her pocket. “... You took the part that once was my heart...” Chloe scrunched in Kiki’s lap and both of them supplied the big finish. “So why naaaaaaaht—take all of meeeeee!”
“Again! Again!” Chloe cried.
“No. You go get your swimsuit on. Go tell Oscar, okay?”
She skipped away, calling for her brother, and Kiki and Vivica sat quietly for a while.
“Say!” Vivica suddenly sat up and snapped her fingers. “You know what we should do?”
Kiki didn’t have the vaguest idea.
Carmen Garza stepped out of Mel’s pickup with a large watermelon in her arms and such a flowing water-for-chocolate exotica, Kit could actually feel her own stomach and hips inflating beneath her frumpy K-Mart maternity moo-moo.
“Hi. You must be Kit.”
“Hi.”
“I’m Carmen Garza. Mel is working as a caretaker for my grandmother?”
She was wearing an infinitely smaller version of Mel’s Industrial Air coveralls, only she had the top unbuttoned with a tank shirt underneath and a cinchy red belt that made them look like Barbie clothes.
“You’re a mechanic,” Kit said, demonstrating that what she lacked in looks was dwarfed by her dearth of personality.
“Yeah,” Carmen smiled with her perfect small teeth, exuding the Wild Juniper and Herb scent of someone privy to Victoria’s most intimate secrets.
“Umm... are you with the C-check crew or ... ?”
“I was on the line side, same shift as Mel for about six years until—well, my husband and I—we split up last spring, and then after my grandmother’s stroke, the night shift thing got to be sort of a child-care dilemma.”
“Oh yeah. I suppose.”
“Yeah. So I bid over to days then.”
They stood uncomfortably for a moment.
“So ... you have kids?” Duh. Kit could plainly see them scrambling over the tailgate, following Mel to the backyard, calling for Mitzi and Cooper.
“Yeah. Boy and a girl.” Carmen smiled again. “Troy and Sarah. They’re the same age as Mel’s. Yours. You guys’s.”
Kit just stood there, breathing in all that juniper.
“Well,” Carmen said.
“Hmm.” Kit nodded and smiled.
“So, this is pretty awkward.”
“Oh yeah,” Kit empathized, but couldn’t offer any help.
“I didn’t mean to bother you. But my truck ditched a seal over at Willowbrook Mall, and Tank—that’s my ex—he wouldn’t come get my kids, and I’ve gotta be back to work at two, and Mel didn’t want to be late picking up his own kids so...”
“I see.” Kit motioned toward the watermelon. “Were you needing that to be ... umm ... refrigerated or cut or something?”
“Oh! This. No. In fact, it’s for you.” She held it out, but retracted it when they both noticed it was smaller than Kit’s abdomen. “We passed a guy selling them off his truck on the way over, and Mel—”
“It reminded him of me. How sweet.”
“He’s a thoughtful guy,” Carmen laughed, and that surprised Kit for some reason.
Cooper ran around the corner of the house with Carmen’s son.
“Dad said to tell you he’s gonna take a shower,” he told Kit.
“He said to tell you he’ll be down in twenty minutes,” Troy told Carmen.
“Well,” Kit sighed, feeling the mores of modern love pressing heavily on her shoulders. “Why don’t you come in and have some ice tea while you wait?”
“Oh, no. No thanks. I don’t want to bother you, Kit. We’ll just wait in the truck.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’d roast out there. C’mon in. Let the kids play on the swing set a while.”
They were already doing it, anyway, oblivious to the unofficial turfs and territories and self-effacing etiquettes of these matters. Kit pulled the screen door open, and Carmen followed her into the kitchen.
“Oh, wow! You did all this?”
“I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” Kit nodded, as if it made perfect sense for an insomniac to get up and put Muddy Waters in a giant bowl of green chili with Annie Lennox instead of, oh, taking a Tylenol or something.
“‘Naked Soup?’” Carmen marveled at Muddy’s place above the wainscoting. “This is amazing! The way Mel described it—This isn’t what I envisioned at all.”
She bumped into the corner of the cupboard because her head was tipped back to see the ceiling fan.
“Truly amazing!”
“Thank you.”
Kit didn’t let her own envisioning of Mel’s description detract from the satisfaction she was beginning to take in showing people what she could do.
“‘House of Blues,’”
Carmen peered into the dimly lit nightclub on the pantry door and read the neon above the stage. “Lena Home, right?”
“Yeah,” Kit nodded again, pleased that Lena turned out to be recognizable. “And there’s k. d. lang and Peggy Lee.”
They sat in the audience sipping black coffee, moonin’ all the mornin’ and mournin’ all the night.
“You painted a blues bar in your kitchen,” Carmen said, studying Kit closely. “Lena Home is on your pantry door.”
“Well, I was listening to that university jazz station at about three in the morning,” Kit tried to explain, “and she just ... materialized.”
“Cool,” Carmen said. “Very cool.”
“Come and see Mitzi’s room.”
They went up the stairs, where aspen trees had grown up behind the banister and down the hall, which now had a smooth marbleized floor and was in the process of growing a Max Parish environment. They walked past his hallmark deep blues and high columns on the way to Mitzi’s room, where unicorns and castles were just faintly visible through a fine purple mist over the moss-green forests. The knights and dragons destined to live in Cooper’s room were still jousting in Kit’s imagination, but she had outlined the stonework over the top of his windows.
Kit’s only intention in opening the door to her own bedroom was to show Carmen the dune-colored desert she slept in now, but Mel was standing naked in front of the understated saguaros.
“Kit! Geez!” He yanked the spread from the bed, but she shut the door before he could cover himself.
“Oops,” she cringed and then called, “Sorry.”
“Nice ass, Mel!” Carmen rapped her knuckles against the door, then asked Kit, “Who’s the guy in the white suit?”
“Over by the window? That’s Leon Redbone.”
“Oh yeah,” Carmen said, “Like diddy-wa-diddy. Very cool. Kit, this is all very, very cool. Mel doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
It was getting harder and harder to hate her guts.
Kit decided she may as well offer her some watermelon instead.
They sat in the kitchen with their feet up on chairs, spitting seeds into a mixing bowl, discussing the comparative merits of the local school districts, swapping single mommy war stories.
“Bottom line is—I’m doing it,” Carmen remarked. “I’ll survive. And ultimately, I’m gonna be a whole lot happier.”