by Nikki Harmon
~~~
Back at the karaoke bar, Pepper is on-stage singing some song I do not know. But she’s looking at me, so I smile, bounce my head, and take a gulp of my drink. I try to get back into the mood but I feel bored. I look around. Her friends are having a good time – two are even up dancing. They are a good bunch of friends, I’m just not one of them and I feel a bit lonely. Scanning the bar I don’t see anybody I know. The girls coming in are getting younger and younger and head straight back to the stairs so they can get to the dance floor upstairs. They’ve come to get their grind on.
I order another Jack and Coke and check my phone again – nobody in labor tonight. I sigh, take my drink, and smile as Pepper steps off the stage and straight up into my face. I love it when she’s brazen. It gives me the shivers and dissolves that loneliness in one fell swoop.
For the rest of the night, we chill at the bar, chatting, laughing, and flirting. One of her friends gets picked up by the bouncer. We crack up watching their awkward conversation. At midnight, we head on home. Usually I would stay at her place, but she’s got to get up early for work and I have a long day tomorrow. We kiss goodbye in the car then I head for home and sleep.
CHAPTER THREE
The next day at work I run into my favorite midwife and mentor, Soledad Garcia. She is the midwife most expectant mothers dream about . . . mid-sixties, a little thick around the waist in a motherly sort of way, strong and confident, but nurturing and knowledgeable. We met when I first started classes at Georgetown. She came in as a guest lecturer to talk about racial and cultural differences in pregnancy and childbirth. Of course I was immediately impressed and in awe of her. She had delivered over 1,000 babies!
When I learned she practiced in Philadelphia, I began to follow her like a groupie, sent e-mails, read her articles in newsletters, and when I was ready, applied for a fellowship at her birth center, Mt. Airy Midwives. That was four years ago. I’ve been working here ever since. But today she is having a particularly bad day.
“I cannot believe this new hospital policy! Since when do risk managers get to decide how women should have babies! She is a perfectly healthy thirty-year-old, the babies are perfectly healthy, and everything is progressing as it should. And frankly, I know what the hell I’m doing!” Soledad slammed the phone down in her office and stalked down the hall into the OB’s offices.
“I’m not blaming you, I just wish there was more support from OBs about this. Women have had twins naturally for years and she’s my niece! I don’t want her to end up with a C-section.”
Dr. Miller quietly closed the door of her office and tended to her irate friend. Drs. Anita and Jeffrey Miller are the OBs in our practice. They actually started the birth center and take on the licensing and administrative duties so the midwives are viewed as the primary caretakers in the practice, and they are the back-up physicians. It helps that they are married and busy with three young children that were all delivered by Soledad.
A few minutes later, Soledad comes out calmer, but with a determined look about her.
“Hey sweetie!” she says and gives me a hug. “Walk with me.”
We walk into the kitchenette where she makes a pot of herbal tea and heats up a big bowl of arroz con pollo.
“I’m sorry about that, but it just really gets me pissed. How have you been? What about your patient load? Are you able to handle all your clients? Have you checked out the new holistic center we are partnering with? We get free sample massages! I had mine yesterday, but it looks like I’ll need another one.” She laughs. “How’s your love life? You look a little stressed out. Are you getting enough sex or is it too much?” She laughs again.
Soledad does not have time to waste on subtlety. I open my mouth to try and answer at least one of her questions, but she sticks a forkful of her lunch in it and I close my mouth and chew. It’s one of my favorite dishes and no one makes it like her.
I start to tune her out when she asks, “Have you seen our newest patient, Candace Wheeler? Isn’t she just a hot mess? I’ve never seen pregnancy sit so awkwardly on a woman before!”
I almost spit out my revered arroz con pollo. “Did you say Candace Wheeler? W-W-W-What does she . . . um how many months . . . who sees her . . . wait . . . does she live . . . Candace . . . huh?”
Soledad stops eating and looks at me.
“What in the world is wrong with you, chica? You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Do you know her? I hope I didn’t offend you, she’s a nice girl, just . . .”
I excuse myself with a wave, and am already out the room and heading to Tracy Ann at the receptionist desk.
“Hi,” says Tracy Ann, “your 11 a.m. has just come in; she’s in the restroom.”
“Uh, OK, thanks,” I say. I quickly get myself together and try to sound casual. “Hey, I heard we have a new patient, um, it’s the same name of someone I knew, Candace Wheeler?” I squeak. Tracy Ann flips through her appointment book.
“Yes, that’s right she’s a new client and she’s five months along.”
At that moment, my patient Anita comes waddling out the bathroom, smiling at me and holding her belly up.
“Only gained another three pounds, Dee. I hope this baby comes right at 38 weeks, I’m tired with this one.”
“Hi, Anita. Oh, I expect she’ll come at just the right time. Come on in, you look great!”
I hate to say it, but I gave my patient less than my full attention that appointment. Like a drum beat “Candace” pounded in my head. While I examined Anita (Candace), while we talked (Candace), while she asked (Candace), while I answered (Candace), while we chit chatted (Candace) and looked at recent pictures of her other children (Candace) – the last one I delivered (Candace). I hugged Anita good-bye – I’d see her again in two weeks (Candace).
After she left, I sat quietly while the thumping continued and I tried to collect my thoughts. It couldn’t be her, haven’t seen her, haven’t heard from her, nah, it couldn’t be. I picked up my phone. My hands were sweaty and a little shaky. I was being ridiculous.
“Tracy Ann?”
“Yes, Dee.” This could be a terrible idea. “When is Meadow’s next appointment with Candace Wheeler? If it’s that same woman, she was a good friend of mine from high school and I’d love to see her again.”
“Well,” Tracy replies, “her next appointment is in three weeks. But you should talk to Meadow first. She might at least be able to tell you something about her.”
Right. Of course, she is off today. I go home but I’m so preoccupied, I don’t remember the drive.
Mercifully, Pepper is hanging out with her kid sister that night, so I am alone with a bottle of Sangre de Toro and some jazz. I decide to make some pasta and a simple salad to go with my wine. I put my water on to boil and start chopping carrots. I really haven’t thought about Candace in a while, a long while, but I can see her face as clear as day.
~~~
We met in Ms. Brown’s sophomore English class at Girls’ High. I loved English class. I was a big reader and Ms. Brown was on a mission to have us read 25 books in her class. She was a typical looking English teacher. She wore horn-rimmed glasses with a chain, comfortable cable knit sweaters, slacks and loafers. Of all my teachers, I felt that she was the most moved by her own classes. She talked about those books like old lovers. She was affectionate and loving towards them, knew them intimately, and accepted their faults with honesty and tenderness.
I often thought she must be lonely. She wore no wedding ring and had no pictures on her desk, but she always seemed pretty happy. Ms. Brown liked to shake things up. The books she picked covered every kind of genre and while most were classics, she threw in some chick lit, non-fiction, biography, and poetry. No two assignments were alike and occasionally she made us all get up and change our seats.
After the first week in her class, we had to rearrange ourselves into alphabetical order according to first name and introduce ourselves to our new neighbors. The girl in front of me turned around
and smiled. I’d seen her before but I’d never talked to her.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey. What’s your name again?” she asked.
“Deirdre,” I replied, “but everybody calls me Dee”.
“OK, I’m Candace and nobody calls me Candy.”
I smirked and laughed. She smirked back and turned back around to chat with the girl in front of her. Candace had dark mocha brown skin with surprising freckles and a slightly asymmetrical hairstyle that just reached the top of her shoulders. She wore gold hoops and a gold chain with a charm on it. Her Swatch was big and red and she wore Timberland boots with her tight jeans. When the bell rang, she jumped up, gathered her books, and headed out to the door. She glanced back at me and gave a quick wave. I waved back.
The next day, some girls went back to their old seats. Candace and I did not. We chatted every day until class started. Sometimes we wrote snide comments on our notebooks and showed them to each other. Sometimes we just rolled our eyes at each other when Ms. Brown was being extra theatrical. It was an easy friendship. She was not too put off by my sarcasm and I liked her blunt honesty, even when it was about my clothing choices. I looked forward to English every day.
Occasionally we would hang out in the hallways or at lunch. I liked her a lot, but class schedules, afterschool activities and the school’s walls defined our friendship and I was content with that. Sometimes I wondered why she even bothered with me when she already had lots of friends. She was the kind of girl that everybody wanted for a best friend. She was pretty but not too beautiful and smart but not a nerd. She had a twang at times but she was not a troublemaker, and she could be funny without being cruel or obnoxious. I didn’t know why she decided to befriend me. I thought maybe it was because I was kind of different.
My high school was one of the best schools in the city. It had a long history of great academics and most of the girls who graduated went on to college. Girls from all over Philadelphia applied to get in so I got to meet girls from outside of my neighborhood, all with different ethnicities, cultures, and economic backgrounds. What we had in common was that we were smart, worked (fairly) hard in school and wanted to go to college, or at least our parents wanted us to. We had a “brother” school down the street. But at least in school, there were less “boy drama” distractions. Of course, just before the bell rang at the end of the day, the bathrooms would be packed to the gills with girls in the mirror putting on make-up and fluffing their hair or patting it down as the case may be.
I wasn’t really a loner, but I was alone a lot. I never felt comfortable with a clique and never fell in with one. My closest friends at school were my fellow members of the Health Careers Club, Student Government, and the Spanish Society. Toda mi vida, yo he adorado el sonido de la música española del idioma y salsa. I did normal teenage things like sneaking a sip of my Dad’s beer, going to roller skating parties, obsessing over music, and worrying about my acne.
I had just broken up with a boy from the neighborhood named John. Our romance only lasted for two months or so. He was cute, but in the end I just didn’t care about him too much. We kissed and that was cool. His conversations just got to be boring and he only seemed interested in watching TV. I broke up with him over the phone, gave him back his chain, and never looked back. I had other friends from my neighborhood, but mostly I kept them at a distance. They were into smoking and playing hooky, but I had other plans so I said “hey” and kept on stepping. My mom kept me close to home and I spent a lot of time reading Stephen King books, studying, and listening to music in my room. I felt different, like I had a secret, or a mission or a special destiny. I just didn’t know what it was yet.
Winter rolled around and settled in making every day a struggle to get to school and to care once you were there. I’ve always hated winter. But on a freezing cold Monday morning in January, Ms. Brown looked inexplicably excited. I grumpily wondered what her problem was.
“OK, girls. In honor of our next book, I want you to rearrange yourselves according to the color shirt you are wearing.”
There was a lot of grumbling and noise and debate about precise shirt colors but after seven minutes, we were all re-seated and color-coded. I happened to be wearing a red cable knit sweater that day, and Candace was wearing a reddish button down shirt with a faint paisley design. She looked back at me and smiled. She moved over to the seat next to me. At least it would be easier to pass notes now.
I said, “Like your shirt.”
“Thanks. Guess we’re stuck with each other.” She smiled.
“Guess so,” I replied, shrugging but feeling pretty happy about that.
Ms. Brown started to pass out our next book. It was The Color Purple by Alice Walker. The girls wearing purple looked a little smug.
Ms. Brown announced, “This book has some very mature and difficult subject matter, but I’m really hoping we can tackle it together. It is an amazing, transformative book and I am really looking forward to taking this journey with you.”
She was always so dramatic but in this case, she was prophetic. She turned to write our upcoming reading assignments on the board and I flipped open my notebook to copy them down.
When the bell rang, Candace jumped up and met her friends at the door. She smiled back at me. I saluted her, picked up my book, and looked at the cover.
“I think you’ll really like this one, Dee,” Ms. Brown said.
I looked up at her. “Oh yeah? It looks interesting but I hope it’s not about colors.”
“No, it’s not about colors, it’s about one woman’s life. It’s a hard life but she’s a remarkable woman. I hope you’ll keep an open mind while reading it.”
“OK,” I replied wondering what she meant.
The book inspired heated discussion all week long. For educated and “enlightened” girls, Celie’s life was just too much for us to take.
The following Sunday morning, I got to page 156 of The Color Purple and my life was forever changed. When Shug moves into Celie and Mister’s house and Celie begins to fall for Shug, I know something is happening with me. I can feel a buzzing above my ears and a quickening of my heart. I start to re-read it. I read it slowly. I put the book down and walk away. I keep going back and re-reading how their relationship began. I imagine it; I take my time with it. It’s like a shawl of knowledge is slowly, gently being wrapped around my shoulders. I understand. I didn’t even know it could be.
Tears squeeze out of my tightly closed eyes as it becomes clearer and clearer that this speaks truth to me. I took this terrible journey with Celie and I got to this point and suddenly she, who seemed such a victim and so lost, is smarter than me. I had no idea that loving another girl was even an option. And it just hits me like a ton of bricks. I spend the rest of that Sunday afternoon staring out the living room window and thinking. My mother nags me all morning but I don’t hear her. By the afternoon, she gives up and brings me some tea. She glances at the book, says something, and then asks me if she can read it.
Horrified, I yell, “No! Uh it’s, uh, it’s stupid, it’s for school, I haven’t finished it, I gotta go.” I grab the book and run for my room.
I think and think and think. I think about girls who I really liked but wasn’t really friends with, and I think about girls who I was too shy to talk to. I look at the posters on my wall, the ripped out pages of magazines – mostly women, of course Tyson Beckford, but come on! Janet Jackson, MC Lyte, Lisa Bonet, uh oh . . . what if . . . my mind is racing . . . what about that girl at camp this past summer? She tried so hard to be friends with me and I just wouldn’t, even though we had so much in common (she wanted to be an obstetrician and loved Stephen King, too!). She made me uncomfortable. She was too pretty. She kept asking me to go to the movies with her.
Was that? Was she? Was I? I couldn’t even think the word. It was so clinical, like a disease or something. Did I like girls? Even though I had exhausted myself, I still felt all nervous and jittery inside. I ate a quick dinner and
went to bed after I re-read the pages again and again.
The next day I woke up feeling weird and self-conscious. I couldn’t stop thinking about me and what if? But I was nervous even thinking about it because I thought maybe people would know what I was thinking. I tried to act normal but acted weird all morning. Awkward, like my clothes were too tight, my shoes were too big and my hair was not done. My voice sounded strained and high to my own ears, so I tried not to talk. I was a mess.
On the bus ride to school, I tried to simultaneously look and not look at the girls and women around me. I walked through the halls of school in a bubble of sound. I spoke to people but was enormously aware of the sound of my own voice. I was sure they could tell what I was thinking about although I was desperately trying not to think about it. And then fifth period came, English class. I reluctantly turned my feet towards class and moved along with the crowd toward Room 305. I could hear my classmates all around me.
“Did you read …?”
“I can’t believe …”
“That’s not right …”
“This book is a trip!”
“I was like, yuck!”
I tried to just move with the flow, keeping my head down and not meeting anybody’s eyes. The class was incredibly noisy and boisterous as I made my way to my seat, sat down and took out my notebook. I looked down and got busy doodling. Ms. Brown was just taking her place at the front of the class when Candace rushed in, ducked her head and took her seat beside me.
Ms. Brown waited for her and then said, “Well, I’m so happy to see that most of you have completed your reading assignment for the weekend. I’m looking forward to a very exuberant discussion this afternoon. Before we get started, I want you to look on the board and take note of the final project that is due for this reading. It’s a small group project, two or three to a group, and it’s due in two weeks. Now, let’s get to the book. Reactions?” Hands shot up all around the room.