by Pamela Morsi
“What if she doesn’t? What if she neglects Jet or…or puts her in foster care?”
Wilma waved that away without concern. “I don’t think that’s about to happen. I don’t understand you, Ellen. You’ve always been the undampenable optimist. The one who could always feel the sunshine, even through the clouds. Why can’t you do that now? Amber loves Jet, she wants to be her mother. That’s why she’s always fighting for her. She won’t let anything happen to that child. You know that as well as I do.”
Ellen’s brow was furrowed. “But what if I’m wrong,” she said. “I can be wrong.”
Wilma hesitated. The statement was out there. She knew what it meant. She didn’t want to turn the knife, but sometimes, it had to be turned.
“Because you were wrong about Paul?” Wilma said.
Ellen didn’t answer.
“You wanted your husband to live. That’s no great failing,” Wilma said. “You wanted him to live, you prayed that he would live, you believed that he would live. You believed it long, long after everyone else, including Paul, knew that he would not.”
Ellen’s eyes welled with tears. “I knew he would get well,” she said, quietly, sorrowfully. “I wouldn’t even consider anything else.”
“You wanted it to be true,” Wilma said. “That’s not a terrible thing.”
“I think it was terrible for Paul,” she admitted. “He wanted to talk about dying, he wanted to unburden himself. He wanted to be sure that we were going to be okay. I didn’t let any of that happen.”
Wilma’s heart was breaking for her daughter, but she didn’t interrupt her.
“Poor Paul,” she said, through choking tears. “I think his last thoughts must have been that he was letting me down. It was bad enough that he was having to die, to be sick and miserable and in pain. All that was bad enough without the added guilt of failing to live up to my optimistic expectations.”
“Is that why you haven’t been able to just let him go?”
Ellen began to cry in earnest. Wilma let her. It had been a long time since she had done it. Early in her grief, she had cried every day. But Wilma knew that it had been years now that Ellen had been stoically writhing in emotional pain.
“Paul tried to talk straight with me,” she admitted. “He said to me, ‘Ellen, I’m dying’ and I scolded him. I told him, ‘Don’t ever say that. Don’t ever say that to me.’ How terrible it must have been to be dying and the one person you were closest to, the one person who was supposed to be there for you, the one who was sharing your life, didn’t want to hear about it.”
“Ellen, honey, we all have regrets,” Wilma said. “That’s what death is like for those who are left behind. It’s chances missed and moments lost. ‘I could have done this’ or ‘I should have said that.’ Everybody feels that way. The closer you are, the stronger you feel it. You know how much Paul loved you. He knew how much you loved him. You were both trying to protect each other. It was just something that was beyond the reach of either of you.”
“I don’t want you to die, too,” Ellen said.
Wilma should have expected the words. She understood the sentiment. And she dreaded her response.
“Oh, honey, I am so sorry, truly I am,” she answered.
Amber knew she should probably go straight home. Wilma was still in the hospital and her mother had been taking care of Jet since that afternoon before three. She’d have to be up early in the morning. Her mother left for work at dawn and it just wasn’t possible for Jet to sleep in. She always had so much energy in the morning.
Amber had every intention of going straight home, but just as she was totaling up, Gwen called on her cell phone.
“We’re at Zinc’s,” she yelled over the din around her. “You gotta come over here, we’re having a great time.”
“You sound very drunk,” Amber told her.
“Yeah, I’m about half shit-faced,” she admitted. “I got two really hot babe-magnets here buying me drinks. With you not here, I have to drink twice as fast.”
Gwen thought that was very funny and began to giggle.
“I need you to come on over and help me handle these guys,” she said.
“I was going to just go home,” Amber told her. “I’m really tired.”
“Don’t go home,” Gwen said. “Come over here and meet us. We’re having a great time. You’re really going to like these dudes I’ve dug up.”
Gwen thought that line was funny, too.
“I’ve got some great news,” Amber said. “I’ve confronted my mother and it’s a hundred percent go for the apartment.”
“All right!” Gwen shouted for joy. A response not typically acceptable at Zinc’s but if two guys were buying the booze, it was certainly understandable.
“Come on over here and let’s celebrate, girlfriend,” Gwen said.
“I don’t know,” Amber hedged. “I’m really tired.”
“You can’t be that tired.”
“My grandmother is sick.”
“You’re old grandma is sound asleep by now, get over here.”
Gwen was right. Her mother was undoubtedly home from the hospital and she and Jet were snoozing away by now. There was no need for Amber to hurry home to watch them.
Besides, her mother was going to have to get used to not having Amber around. In just a few weeks, she’d be out on her own, living as large as she pleased, partying every night if she wanted to. Ellen would just have to learn to cope.
Amber locked up, waved good-night to the security guard and made her way out of the building. There were lots of lights on the street, lots of action still going on downtown. She didn’t mind walking the half-dozen blocks to the bar.
It was hot. The west wind coming in off the desert was no cool breeze, it blew as hot as a hair dryer. The heat zapped a lot of her energy. When she finally arrived at Zinc’s, she was hoping for a comfortable place to sit down and a cool splashy drink.
Gwen was having none of that.
“Amber! Amber! Come here, meet my friends.”
She was standing on a chair to catch Amber’s attention through the crowd. Gwen had on a really short tight skirt and makeup that was so heavy it was positively Goth. The combination made her friend appear downright skanky.
Pasting a smile upon her face, Amber moved through the crowd of well-dressed up-and-comers and their hanger-on friends who frequented the new, hip bar. The place was noisy and crowded and hot, even with the air-conditioning on full blast.
When she finally reached Gwen and the guys, her heart sank. The pre-advertised babe-magnets were actually just balding fortysomething suits. Everything about them said married men.
Where does Gwen get these guys? Amber thought to herself. But she knew, they were conventioneers from the hotel, who thought of Gwen as a hooker.
“Amber, this is J.J. He’s kind of with me.” The taller, thinner one of the two twirled his fingers in lieu of a wave. “And this is Craig,” Gwen continued the introductions. “This is my friend, Amber, that I told you about.”
“You’re like a lingerie model or something, right?” Craig said to her.
Amber shook her head. “No, I don’t model it, I just sell it.”
“Babe, if you model it, I’ll buy it.”
Craig thought that was really funny. J.J. thought it was funny. Gwen thought it was funny.
Amber met her glance.
“What you need is a drink,” Gwen said. “Craig, buy this girl a drink.”
Amber didn’t really want a drink. She wanted to go home. She wanted to get in her pajamas. She wanted to crawl in bed with Jet and go to sleep.
But, of course, she couldn’t do that. Gwen quickly made it clear that they had been waiting on her all evening. Now the party was supposed to begin in earnest. Amber couldn’t just slink off home and be boring. Even if that was exactly what she wanted to do.
“Vodka tonic,” she told the waiter when he arrived.
“Make that a double,” Gwen told him. “She’s
trying to catch up.”
There were no extra chairs. It was decided, without much input from Amber, that rather than Craig giving up his chair to her and having to stand, Amber would just sit on his lap.
There were a couple of jokes about lap dancing versus lap drinking, but Amber managed to be a good sport about it. He played a little bit of grab-ass, but nothing that was particularly abhorrent.
Amber distanced herself with politeness, listened to the conversation, swirled the ice in her glass, and sipped her drink for what seemed like hours.
The guys were not terrible. Craig actually seemed kind of sweet.
“What kind of work do you do?” she asked him.
“Oh, I’m an insurance adjuster,” he said. “We’re all here in town for the national conference.”
Amber smiled. “Of course you are,” she said.
Somehow there were never any other guys except those just passing through.
“We’re just here for a couple of nights,” he said. “We want to party a little bit, have a little fun, you know.”
Amber knew exactly.
She’d barely finished her drink when the talk turned to moving on. The place had lost all its shimmer. It was on to some new bar with some new crowd and some more drinks.
Gwen wanted to go dancing. It made Amber’s head hurt to think about it, but nobody really consulted her. She excused herself and made her way to the ladies’ room. She used the john and washed her hands. She was standing in front of the mirror, reapplying lipstick when a familiar face walked up behind her.
“Kayla?”
“Amber!”
They embraced and put their cheeks together, kissing the air.
“It’s so cool to see you, it’s been forever,” Amber said.
“I know,” Kayla admitted with a nod. “It’s my fault. I just haven’t been out at all. I’ve missed you. How have you been? How’s Gwen?”
“She’s great. She’s outside, actually,” Amber said. “She’s locked on to a couple of guys, as per usual. I guess we’re going dancing.”
“Gwen is always crazy for dancing,” Kayla said.
“And I’m crazy for always going with her,” Amber said. “Have you heard our big news?”
“No, what?”
“We’re really moving into an apartment,” Amber said. “The one we looked at in your complex.”
“That’s totally cool.”
“Yeah, I’m really excited. We should be there in just a couple more weeks. I just finally had to get it straight with my mom and all, yek, I hate that.”
“Yeah, well, for sure,” Kayla agreed.
“So now maybe we’ll see you more often.”
“I don’t know how we could miss each other,” she said. “The complex isn’t that big.”
“And we’ll need to ride with you downtown,” Amber said.
“Oh, yeah, right,” Kayla agreed. “I said I’d give you a lift downtown.”
“You know, if you still want to,” Amber said, giving her friend an out.
“Oh sure, yeah, that’s great,” Kayla assured her. “I come downtown every day anyway, and the rest of the car is empty. Of course, I gotta be down here at eight. I know that’s not really good for you.”
“No,” Amber said. “But hey, I might start working with Gwen. I don’t know, something will work out.”
“Sure,” Kayla said. “Something will work out.”
“So…ah…you’re not hanging out here by yourself?” Amber asked.
“Oh, no,” Kayla assured her, laughing. “I’m here with Brian.”
“Brian?”
“Yeah, he came to see me,” she said.
Amber was frantically searching her brain.
“Who’s Brian?” she asked finally.
“You remember, the flyboys, the ones who left for Mississippi?”
Amber did remember the short, geeky guy who just sort of naturally made his way to Kayla—the least attractive of the three of them.
“He came back?”
Kayla nodded. “He’s on leave for four days, and he came to see me.”
“That’s terrific.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half,” she said. “He’s like leaving to go overseas and like his folks wanted him to come home and he told them like, ‘no, I’ve got this girl in San Antonio and I want to spend my last nights in the States with her.’”
“Oh, wow, that is so romantic,” Amber said. “And after only meeting you that one time.”
“I gave him my e-mail address and we’ve been writing back and forth at least every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes six times a day!”
She giggled delightedly and Amber couldn’t help but join in with her. “Oh, Amber,” she whispered. “I think this is it. I think that after all this time, this is really like the real thing.”
“Shut up! Are you sure?” Amber asked.
Kayla nodded enthusiastically.
“Have you…have you used the L word?”
“Not in person,” Kayla admitted. “But we say it in e-mail constantly.”
“Who said it first?”
“He did.”
“Oh, my God!” Amber hugged her. “I’m so excited and so happy for you.”
“I’m happy for me, too.”
They hugged each other. Amber teared up.
“Look at me, I’m going to cry here,” she said.
“I could cry, too,” Kayla said. “Just from, like, the joy of it. Come out and say ‘hi’ to him, okay.”
“Absolutely,” Amber said.
They wound their way through the crowd. Amber recognized him on sight. He was still as geeky looking as before, but he had a more confident bearing now, an amazing change for just a few short weeks.
“You remember my friend Amber,” Kayla said.
He offered his hand. “Of course,” he said. “It’s great to see you.”
“I ran into her in the bathroom,” Kayla said.
“That’s good,” Brian answered before confiding to Amber. “I was beginning to worry that Kayla’d slipped out the back and dumped me.”
“Oh, like I would!” Kayla responded, laughing.
He laughed with her. Amber watched him. When he looked at Kayla there was a smile in his eyes that was lit from the inside. He really was feeling the L word. Amber did want to cry.
“I’d better get back to Gwen and the guys or she’ll be thinking that I slipped out the back as well,” Amber said.
“Tell her I said ‘hi,’” Kayla said. “And congratulations on your new place.”
“Thanks,” Amber said. “Great to see you again, Brian. You’re a smart guy coming back here for Kayla.”
Amber waved goodbye and made her way back to the table. Gwen and her conventioneers had already vacated it and were waiting at the front door.
“Where in the hell have you been?” Gwen asked, annoyed.
“I saw Kayla,” she answered. “She’s here with her flyboy. He came back to see her. They look totally dopey together. I think it must be the real thing.”
Gwen’s eyes widened. “B.F.D.,” she responded nastily. “I hope you didn’t ask them to come with us.”
“I didn’t even think of it,” Amber replied honestly.
“Good,” Gwen said. “That Kayla is such a loser.”
17
Saturday morning was Jet’s birthday and it was cloudless and hot. And the news was very good. Amber’s promise was going to be kept. Wilma would be home in plenty of time for the four-year-old’s party. Ellen got up early and made a cake. She used to make very fancy ones for Amber, decorated in her daughter’s big interest of the year. Ellen had done every favorite from Big Bird to Barbie.
The one she was making for Jet was not exactly complex. One round cake pan and four little cup-cakes. With the right placement and the appropriate color of icing, they’d make a recognizable Blue’s Clues footprint.
Jet was so excited about her birthday that she was practically jumping off the walls. Amb
er had come home very late the night before and was still in bed even with the cake out of the oven, the whole house smelling of it and her daughter stuck in repeated verses of Happy Birthday to me-ee! at the top of her lungs.
Ellen had given a great deal of thought to what Wilma had told her. Maybe she was some kind of bad-mother enabler. But could she just throw Jet at the mercy of Amber’s better impulses?
A few years ago, she would have said unequivocally “yes.” Her daughter had been a tower of strength. A teammate Ellen could depend upon. Amber made good grades, brought home a paycheck and could be called upon day or night to take vital signs, flush out an IV drip or just sit and talk to her father and make him laugh.
Ellen had counted on Amber a lot. She’d expected so much and Amber had never let her down. Was that why she expected so little now? Since the day she found out Amber was pregnant, she had allowed her daughter to feign incompetency and opt out of any responsibility in that which she had no interest.
Amber had been so lucky! She had a bright, beautiful, healthy child. A biracial child with no father in the picture and only two old white women to care for her. Amber didn’t seem to worry about Jet’s care, her education, her future. So Ellen had done that.
Maybe Wilma was right. It was time that she stopped.
“Jet,” she said. “I have to go to the hospital now and pick up Wilma. Wake your mother and tell her she’s got to get up and watch you.”
The little girl’s brow furrowed. “I could go with you,” she said.
“No, you wake your mother,” Ellen told her. “Wilma and I will be back here in an hour or so.”
The time element turned out to be quite a bit more than she’d bargained for. The doctor had been delayed on rounds and the two of them had to simply sit there, bags packed with Wilma in a wheelchair until he got around to seeing her one more time and signing the discharge order.
In great detail, the nurse went over the medication schedule. She talked to Wilma loudly and using small words, as if she thought the woman was both hard of hearing and not very bright. Wilma tolerated it, Ellen thought, because she was just too desperate to get out of the place.