The Lit Report

by Sarah N. Harvey

  “That’s right, Dad. There was more than one guy. And I don’t care. Even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. JJ’s mine. Not his, not yours. Mine.”

  Pete shook his head as if a wasp was strafing him. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “You’re just trying to protect him. Tell me his name. If you marry him, the baby’s soul will be saved. You can come home with us, and the baby will be raised to walk the path of righteousness. We’ll see to that. I promise you.”

  Ruth shook her head vehemently. “The baby’s name is Jane, Dad. Jane Julia Walters. And we’re not coming home. Even if I knew who the father was, I wouldn’t marry him. And as far as the path of righteousness goes—I’ve been down that path, and this is where it led me.”

  When Ruth said Jane’s full name, I couldn’t stop grinning, which made Pete even angrier. He looked as if he was going to have a stroke. His face was the color of borscht, and sweat was beaded on his upper lip. “I wash my hands of you, harlot,” he said. “I have done all I can.” He stood up, towering over his wife. “We have no daughter; we have no granddaughter. You and your child will burn in the eternal fires of hell. On your head be it.”

  “Pete,” Peggy whimpered as he yanked her to her feet.

  Ruth remained in the recliner, eyes shiny with tears. Her freckles stood out on her pale cheeks like cinnamon sprinkles on cappuccino foam. “Mom?” she said in a small voice. “Don’t you even want to hold her?”

  Peggy pulled away from Pete and moved toward Ruth, but Pete was too fast for her. He grabbed her elbow and hauled her toward the door. “Wife, submit yourself unto your husband,” he yelled as he dragged her out of the house. The sound of her sobs lingered in the air and performed a sad duet with Ruth’s own.

  Ruth switched Jane to her other breast, and we sat together as Jane suckled and Ruth cried. I missed the old Ruth—the one who would have yelled at her father and thrown a lamp at his head. I massaged Ruth’s neck and wondered what it would feel like to have a father who was so full of hatred and a mother who was ignorant and weak. Ruth had always treated her parents like quaint relics of a bygone age or strange members of a tribe whose customs were, at worst, mystifying and, at best, amusing, but this was way past mystifying, and it sure wasn’t amusing. If it was me, I’d probably become bitter and twisted, so it totally took me by surprise when Ruth stopped crying, blew her nose on the edge of the receiving blanket and said, “I feel so sorry for her.”

  “Jesus, Ruth. Why?”

  “She’s a prisoner. You saw the way she was looking at JJ?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She wants to help—I can see it in her eyes—but she’s been brainwashed.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But she’s still an asshole.”

  “Don’t call her that,” Ruth said, sounding more like her old dangerous self. “I can call her that, but you can’t. She’ll find a way to see me. Maybe not right now, but when Dad calms down...”

  “You could be right,” I said. “I hope you are.” When hippos fly, I thought.

  Ruth stood up and handed Jane to me to burp. For some reason I had become the go-to burper in the house. Dad called me the Belch Whisperer. All my clothes were stained and sour-smelling, but I didn’t care. It was my badge of courage.

  “Don’t be such a Jem,” Ruth said as she buttoned up her shirt.

  “A what?”

  “A Jem—you know—Scout’s brother in To Kill a Mockingbird. He got all bent out of shape about all the evil in the world. Don’t be like that. It doesn’t help.”

  I was stunned. “You actually read To Kill a Mockingbird?” I asked. To the best of my knowledge, the last book Ruth had read voluntarily was The Poky Little Puppy, which she liked because there were pictures of rice pudding and strawberry shortcake.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “I knew it was, like, your favorite book and I wanted to see what the deal was.”

  “And?”

  “And I get it. I’m not an idiot. So can we stop talking about it and get something to eat? I’m always starving after Jane feeds.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And Ruth?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For the second J.”

  “You deserve it,” she said. “So now will you call her JJ?”

  “Not a chance,” I said.

  Ruth rolled her eyes and threw a cushion at my head.

  RUTH’S FIRST VISITORS, after her parents, were Maria and Mark. He and I sat on the deck outside the dining room, sipping Pepsi and dipping chips into a big bowl of Maria’s homemade salsa, while she checked out both sets of mothers and babies.

  “So, Mom says you did a great job delivering Jane. It’s pretty cool, huh?”

  I nodded, my mouth full of chips, and he continued, “I used to help my mom out all the time, but when I hit puberty, some of her ‘ladies’ got a little weirded out with having me around. Guess they didn’t want me looking at their, uh...”

  “Snatches?” Ruth said as she joined us, cradling Boone in her right arm and clutching a baby monitor in her other hand.

  Mark blushed and stood up. “I should get going,” he mumbled.

  “Not so fast,” Ruth said, handing Boone to Mark. “Make yourself useful. Jane’s asleep, but it’s burp time for Boone. Miki actually fed him today, but she hates burping him for some reason. I didn’t want to push it.”

  I stood back to watch Mark’s technique, which involved a lot of hip swiveling (it looked like the samba), accompanied by clockwise patting. Boone usually held out for at least ten minutes before he projectile-vomited all over me, but Mark was obviously an old pro—Boone delivered the goods in record time, with no accompanying gush of formula. Maybe it was a guy thing. Mark held Boone up in front of him, grinned and said, “Way to go, buddy. Lookin’ good.” Boone smiled, and I felt a trickle of jealousy run down my spine. I’d rather be spit up on any day.

  “I’ll take him now,” I said, holding out my arms.

  Mark blew a juicy raspberry on Boone’s tummy, wrinkled his nose and said, “Good, ‘cause I don’t do diapers. See you ladies later.”

  The next visitor was Brandy, who came armed with candy and gossip. Ruth devoured both. I’m not sure which she enjoyed more. Maybe the candy, but it was a close call. Apparently everyone from school knew that Ruth had had a baby, which didn’t surprise me. All Mark had to do was tell one person. Before too long, kids were passing around some really insane stuff: Ruth had had triplets, the delivery had taken place inside a pentangle under a full moon, the baby was black. The best one, which Rachel Greaves circulated, was that I had performed an emergency C-section with a steak knife and had stitched Ruth up with fishing line. Ruth thought the rumors were hilarious. I thought none of them were as unbelievable or even as interesting as the truth.

  “Tell them I weigh three hundred pounds and my hair has fallen out,” she told Brandy. “Tell them the baby’s father is an albino circus dwarf. Tell them I fucked an alien and gave birth in a UFO.”

  “Tell them the truth,” I suggested to Brandy. “She got pregnant the first time she had sex, her baby was delivered by her best friend, her parents kicked her out, the baby’s beautiful and Ruth’s an awesome mother.”

  Ruth rolled her eyes. “What’s wrong with you, Jules?” she said. “Tell them I’ve converted to Kabbalah and Madonna is my real mom,” she told Brandy. “Tell them anything you like.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Brandy said, “but it’ll be hard to top the albino circus dwarf thing. Who is the father, anyway?”

  “Nobody,” Ruth said. “Just a guy.”

  STEWART AND MARSHALL turned up one night and made dinner for everybody. It was Miki’s first meal with us since Ruth had moved in, and she only came downstairs because Stewart lured her with the promise of a vodka martini (straight up with a twist) and a floor show. I don’t know if it was the vodka or the fact that a teenage Korean Dean Martin look-alike delivered the invitation that got her out of
bed. I guess it doesn’t really matter, although I think it hurt my dad’s feelings. He’d been trying to tempt her downstairs for weeks. Maybe if he’d dressed up like Sammy Davis Jr. and promised to sing “Candy Man” she would have come down sooner. Who knows? The important thing was that she joined us.

  The dinner was fifties-themed and tasty in a kind of gross, over-processed way: Tang, Chex mix, onion dip, tuna and potato chip casserole, iceberg lettuce with Thousand Island dressing, and Bananas Foster for dessert. After dinner Stewart and Marshall did a Martin and Lewis routine that had everybody pissing their pants. Even Miki, who ordinarily acted like she’d had her funny bone surgically removed. Ruth laughed at all the jokes, but she kept telling everyone to keep it down so that we wouldn’t wake the babies. Miki lay on the couch, martini in hand, and guffawed loudly at everything Stewart and Marshall said. It was like being in an old Twilight Zone episode where two women switch personalities after their babies are born. It freaked me out. I wanted the old Ruth back—the one who gnawed her fingernails until they bled and once took a dump on center ice at the hockey rink. She really hates hockey, and she wanted to see how long it took for shit to freeze. I even wanted the old Miki back—the one who bit the heads off interns and would never in a million years laugh at an anti-Semitic joke. Boone and Jane slept through it all in a playpen in the dining room. I was saying goodbye to Stewart and Marshall at the front door when Boone started to cry. Dad was in the kitchen cleaning up and Ruth was in the bathroom. Miki was already halfway up the stairs. She hesitated, turned and came back down. Slowly. She stood over Boone for a minute before she plucked him out of the playpen and headed for the kitchen.

  Things were looking up.

  JONAH CAME OVER a lot, but we didn’t have a lot of time alone. Even so, I shaved my legs every day, worked on my tan, did a hundred sit-ups every morning, listened to creepy jazz and made him his favorite banana–chocolate chip muffins. But he still spent all his time with the only female in the house who shit herself on a regular basis and didn’t know the difference between Monk and Miles.

  “I’m going to be gone soon, Julia,” he said one day in late August as we sat outside with Jane in the shade of the plum tree. Ruth was feeding Boone inside, and Miki was sleeping. Dad had gone back to work. It was as alone as we got.

  “I know,” I said, hoping he was going to profess his undying love for me. Jane was lying on her back, gurgling and waving her arms and legs like a doodlebug. A really cute doodlebug in a Baby Gap T-shirt. Jonah stretched out beside her on the blanket and rubbed her tummy. She burped and he laughed. Maybe I was missing something. I took a big gulp of my iced tea and belched loudly. Jonah looked up at me and frowned.

  “Oops,” I said. “My bad.” I thought I looked and sounded adorable. I also wondered if I was losing my mind.

  “S’okay,” Jonah said as he turned back to Jane. No “Wait for me”; no “Run away to Vancouver with me.” I glared at the back of his head for a few minutes before I got up and stomped into the house. For the first time ever, I wanted to punch him instead of kiss him.

  “What’s up with you and Jonah?” Ruth asked from the recliner.

  “Nothing,” I said. “He’s just reminded me that he’s leaving. As if I could forget.” I started to unload the dishwasher, slamming the plates into the cupboard, hurling the knives and forks into a drawer.

  “Why are you being such a selfish jerk?” said Ruth.

  “I’m being a jerk?” I squeaked. “What about him?”

  “He’s leaving, Julia. As in going away and not coming back. It’s a pretty big deal. The last thing he needs is a girlfriend back home messing things up for him.”

  “You think that’s what I’ll do—mess things up for him?”

  “Yeah—in a way.”

  “What way?” I demanded. “It can’t be any worse than what you’ve done. Talk about messing things up.”

  Ruth shrugged and shifted Boone onto her shoulder. “That’s different. We’re family. He’ll get used to being away from us. You’re way more distracting.”

  I laughed. Me—distracting. Studious, sensible Julia Riley, femme fatale.

  “So I guess I can take that as a compliment, huh?” I said. “I’m so hot he can’t concentrate?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, it’s bullshit and it’s so not your business.”

  She shrugged again and stood up. “He’s my brother, Jules. What can I say? I want what’s best for him.”

  “Like I don’t?” I yelled.

  “Don’t yell in front of the baby,” Ruth said. Since when was she such a self-righteous bitch?

  “I’ll yell if I like. Give him to me. You know he likes me to burp him.”

  “Not when you’re upset. Babies pick up on vibes.”

  All of a sudden I couldn’t take it anymore. Nothing was turning out the way I had planned. I had no boyfriend, my best friend had turned into a Stepford mommy, my half-brother puked on me every chance he got, my zombie stepmother had abandoned all pretense of personal hygiene, and my dad was too worried about his wife and new kid to give his first-born child a second thought. I had no future with Jonah. My little fantasy of sharing an apartment with Ruth in New York had crashed and burned. There were no survivors. I had no future. Period.

  “I’m going home,” I said stiffly. “Tell Jonah goodbye for me.”

  I kissed Boone’s cheek. “Bye, little guy,” I whispered. “Be good.”

  I grabbed my pack and walked home. The one person in the world I wanted to see was reading on our tiny balcony. She looked up and smiled as I came in. I burst into tears and she stood up and put her arms around me. She smelled like vanilla with a slight hint of bleach, which was a lot better than rancid baby vomit and dirty diapers, but it made me cry even harder. I’m not a pretty crier. Rivers of snot gushed out my nose; my mouth opened in a wail of despair. She stroked my hair and rocked me in her arms just the way she did when I was ten years old and Kelly Sims didn’t invite me to her birthday party. We stood swaying on the balcony until my sobs subsided to pathetic gasping moans. She staggered slightly under my weight, and I hiccuped and stepped back, wiping my nose on the sleeve of my T-shirt. Her blouse was damp, but otherwise she looked the way she always does: neat, composed, hyper-alert. It takes a lot more than snot to phase my mother. I’d never really appreciated that before.

  “Rough day at the baby farm?” she asked.

  I nodded and sniffled a bit more. “Ruth and I need a break from each other. She’s just so full of herself. Like having a baby makes her better than me or something. I mean, Jane’s alive because of me. Ruth would have had an abortion if I hadn’t helped her. And now she’s all, like... super-maternal and shit.” I stopped and took a breath. My mother looked bemused but attentive. “And Miki, well, Miki’s just nuts.” Mom’s right eyebrow rose. I’d fill her in later, but I doubted news of Miki’s incompetence would give Mom any joy. She’s just not like that. She’s all hate the sin, love the sinner, turn the other cheek, judge not lest ye be judged. I was in a judgmental, hate-the-sinner, slap-the-bitch mode. “I need to go back to school,” I continued. “Read some books without diagrams of the birth canal, get my life back. Graduate. Date. Go to parties. Think about a career. Ruth’s on her own. Jonah too. I’m out.”

  “Okay,” Mom said. She didn’t argue with me or ask me questions or even tell me things would get better. She didn’t appear to be awaiting divine guidance. She just patted my cheek and asked me what I wanted for dinner. I was so glad to be home.

  Thirteen

  I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.

  —Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

  I was a little hard on Truman Capote before. After all, he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which was made into an awesome movie. I saw the movie first and then I read the book, which is unusual for me. I still like the movie better. To start with, Audrey Hepburn is totally gorgeous. Sure, her eyebrows
look like they were drawn on with a wide black felt marker and her voice sounds like she’s got a glob of peanut butter stuck in her throat, but she’s still seriously beautiful. My mom wasn’t allowed to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s when she was a teenager. My Nana thought it might give my mom ideas, which is so dumb. It’s not like Holly Golightly’s a hooker in the hot pants, stiletto boots, blow-job-in-an-alley sense of the word. In the book she says she’s only had eleven lovers—eleven rich lovers who adore her and pay for her companionship, which may or may not include sex. They get amazing arm candy; she gets jewelry, designer gowns, a satin sleep mask and George Peppard for a best friend. The smooth, blond, tasty, pre-A-Team George Peppard. Some of the girls at school have had more than eleven lovers by the time they’re sixteen, and yeah, I know, they’re not getting paid for it, but still...everyone gets something out of the deal, even in high school. My mom and I have watched Breakfast together a few times, even though it’s probably not on Christianity Today’s Top Ten list. We pull on long gloves, douse ourselves in 4711 perfume, put our hair up in French twists and sing along to “Moon River.” We always cry. It makes perfect sense to me that Paul and Holly love each other: they’re both outsiders, even though Paul is sort of dull and Holly is, let’s face it, a total wack job. Holly has friends with weird names—Sally Tomato, Rusty Trawler, Jose Ybarra-Jaeger. Paul has Holly. He gives her a St Christopher’s medal; she gives him an empty birdcage. I could write you a ten-page paper on the significance of those gifts. Or on why Holly says, “I’d rather have cancer than a dishonest heart.” I’m going to have that put on T-shirts and give them as Christmas gifts. And don’t get me started on why Mickey Rooney was cast as Holly’s Japanese neighbor, Mr. Yunioshi. That’s just all kinds of wrong. Wars have been started over less.

  The big difference between the movie and the book is that, in the book, the narrator (who never reveals his name) and Holly are friends, not lovers. A lot of that has to do with the narrator (and the author) being gay, but I like the idea that people can love each other deeply without sex messing it up. I thought about that a lot after I went back to my mom’s. I wondered if maybe that’s the way Jonah and I were headed. We’d never really had sex anyway, so would it be so terrible to back off the whole thing and try and be friends?