Randy stops by the front porch and turns off the Jeep’s ignition.
This is always the awkward part of having a guy bring me home. It’s not that I’m worried about whether or not the guy will kiss me. It’s that I can never think of any graceful way to say that I don’t go in the front door of this house. I have keys for a side entrance. It’s not that I mind telling people about the doors; it’s just that I don’t want to then have to answer any questions about how the arrangement came to be.
This isn’t the first time Randy has been to my uncle’s house. He and the whole Sisterhood were out here looking in all of the trees when my cat ran away. Even when Marie was missing, though, Randy didn’t look at my uncle’s house and frown like he’s doing now.
Randy looks over at me and swallows. “I grew up in Fontana. In a trailer park.” He pauses and looks up at the house again. “I just thought you should know.”
I smile. Sometimes I’m brave. “It’s my uncle’s house.”
Just like that, I said it. My mother would be appalled that I told anyone.
I decide to add to it, “If it wasn’t for my uncle, I would be homeless. My parents, too. There’s nothing wrong with a trailer park.”
“Really?”
I nod. “Really. At least you had your own place and didn’t have to worry about being told to leave.”
I can see Randy is relieved, and that makes me feel good. If he doesn’t care whether I’m blond or rich, he’s definitely not like the other guys I’ve dated.
This is the first time a guy walks me to the door and it is the right door. We talk for a while, just standing on the steps, and I explain more about how it is with my uncle. Then we talk about me playing the Mary role and how people might expect me to be perfect if I had that part. Since I’ve spent so much time trying to be perfect, I wonder if it’s a good role for me. Talking to Randy feels good. The fact that he kisses me doesn’t hurt either.
Randy is long gone and I’m getting ready for bed before I remember that I have the journal and meant to write in it tonight. It’ll have to wait for tomorrow.
Hi, this is Carly again. I came down to The Pews this morning after my Saturday class. Becca and Marilee are going to meet me here for lunch, but I am early so I’m writing in the journal.
I’m starting an English literature major at Pasadena City College, incidentally. I’m five years behind my original schedule because of what we in the Sisterhood call IDC, or interruption due to cancer, but I’m getting it done.
I’m not as career-focused as Becca is. She went after the internship of hers with everything she had. She really wants to be a lawyer or a judge. It might sound corny, but Becca is determined to make the world right, and I applaud her. She’ll learn a lot working as an intern with that judge.
I don’t know what I will do with my degree, but I thought that I couldn’t go wrong learning more about books. I love books. After the past few days, I’ve wondered if I was drawn to English literature because of all of the drama that surrounds me.
I thought about secrets last night. When I think about it rationally, I realize it is silly for my mother to want us all to keep it a secret that we are living in my uncle’s house and have no actual home of our own. I don’t even know why I have gone along with it for the past twelve years. When we moved into my uncle’s house, I was in junior high school. Back then, I thought my mother kept our housing arrangement a secret because she worried I might feel bad if my school friends knew we didn’t have our own house.
Since I went to school in San Marino, all of my classmates had families with huge houses. I’ll admit I might have felt a little strange back then if people knew I had nothing, especially because my father was having a hard time finding jobs then and his drinking problem was starting to become much worse.
I don’t need to impress anyone now, though. I have known that the Sisterhood wouldn’t care if my parents own a house or if my father makes a dime. I really can’t think of one good reason that I’ve kept it a secret all of these years.
Except for my mother. Sometimes I wonder if my mother is well.
I have such ambivalent feelings toward my mother that I don’t even like to talk about it with anyone. Once in a while, I make a comment in the Sisterhood meetings and the others ask a question or two inviting me to speak more about it, but I can’t quite wrap any words around it. It’s hard when your mother lives for you. It feels very ungrateful to complain. It’s not like she’s ignoring you. It’s the opposite, in fact.
I wonder how Mary in the Bible got along with her mother. Did she tell her mother about the visit from the angel?
My mother would be all over it if I’d had a visit like that. She’d want to impress the neighbors. Of course, my mother wouldn’t like the being-pregnant part. So she’d be torn since she couldn’t really tell everyone about the angel visit without mentioning what the angel said. People would definitely want to know that.
Oh, I see Becca now. She’s just opened the door and is in the outer part of the diner. She’s heading back this way.
“Law!” Becca exclaims as she opens the French doors to the place where the Sisterhood meets. She uses a tone of voice usually reserved for members of the opposite sex by both sexes when they’re annoyed. She’s got her dark hair tucked back to show off her long silver earrings.
I’m used to Becca talking about the law, but usually she seems in favor of it, especially now that she has this internship. “Something wrong?”
Becca shakes her head as she sits down in one of the chairs around the table. “I can’t believe the judge did that.”
Having said that, Becca stands up again, looking like a warrior, and begins to pace. “It’s not right to let that man go free.”
I’m assuming something happened in the internship Becca has.
The room is not wide enough for Becca to pace for long so I stand up and move a chair that’s in her way. “What happened?”
“Some policeman forgot to read the man his rights when he arrested him.”
“I’m sure that happens.”
Becca stops pacing and looks at me. If I’m not mistaken there’s a tear in one of her eyes. “The law is supposed to give everyone justice. That poor girl he beat up isn’t getting justice. Not with him walking away on some technicality.”
“Oh, that’s bad.”
Becca nods. I see the tear start to fall. I wish Marilee were here. She’s so much better at comforting than I am. I see another tear fall on the other cheek. What can I do? I open my arms.
It’s hard to see the polish come off of a dream. Even something like the law isn’t always perfect.
Becca and I sit together for a while. We both have our knitting with us and eventually we take it out and start to knit. We’ve knitted out our problems so many times it’s almost second nature to us.
“They’ll catch him on something else,” Becca finally says. She’s doing a purl-stitch pattern so she needs to concentrate. “I just hope that no one gets hurt next time. He can’t just go around beating up on people who are standing in a doorway he thinks belongs to him.”
“At least he got a good scare,” I add. “If he has any sense, he’ll think twice before he attacks anyone again.”
“And the judge does have to uphold the law.” Becca finishes a row.
“It’s for the greater good,” I say.
Becca nods and then looks up at me. “But that poor girl.”
I nod.
Becca continues, “She reminded me of Lizabett when she was so sick. Remember when we first knew her, how pale she looked? And, on top of that, I think this girl is homeless.”
“Surely, if the girl is sick someone’s taking care of her.”
“She was in county hospital for a bit, but I don’t think she has anyone. She told them she was eighteen, but she doesn’t look more than sixteen. She wasn’t even supposed to be there in the courthouse, but she came in when the judge was dismissing the charges and said it wasn’t fair. They m
ade her leave, but I got to talk to her in the hallway.”
“The poor thing.”
“I told her that if she came by The Pews to eat, she could mention my name and I’d pay for her bill. I told Randy about it so he’s going to look for her.”
“That’s good.”
“She said the hospital shaved her head to put on a bandage.”
“Oh, dear.”
“But she didn’t have a bandage that I could see. I suppose she could have had a bad case of head lice, but I don’t think so.”
“Oh.”
Becca looks at me and I look at her. We are thinking the same thing. We know about baldness.
“I don’t think she’s on chemo,” Becca finally says. “The hospital wouldn’t let a person with cancer live on the streets, would they?”
“I don’t know.”
It’s not often I see Becca look defeated.
“Maybe she’ll come in here and we can find out more about her,” I say. I look out the glass in the French doors hoping for a glimpse of Marilee. Marilee and Lizabett should both be here by now.
I reach over and pat Becca on the shoulder. “Maybe she’s just got a flu bug or something. That can make a person’s face look drained and pale. And the bald head could be a fashion statement.”
“Her name’s Joy,” Becca says. “She told me that like it’s a joke.”
I look up at the French doors again. “Ah, here comes Marilee.”
I knew Marilee would know how to comfort Becca. Even though she had this yank-the-sliver-out philosophy, Becca had been just as scared as the rest of us when we had our cancers. Becca and I were the ones who didn’t like to show our emotions, though, especially not when we thought we might die. Marilee was the one who taught us both how to cry when we needed the tears.
No one can see it, but I’m crying now. All for a girl named Joy. I haven’t met her, but I feel like I know her. Both Becca and I know how cancer changes a person’s face. It is in the skin color and the eyes and, if there’s any left, in the hair.
I hope Joy does come into The Pews. As awful as it is to have cancer, it must be one hundred times worse to have cancer when you’re homeless.
Marilee has her arm around Becca now and I can see Becca relax.
I pick up my knitting, but I don’t have any heart for pushing a needle into yarn. I look through the glass in the French doors and see that people are starting to come in for lunch. I know they are short a waitress out front, so I decide to go out and help.
All of us in the Sisterhood know our way around The Pews and have filled in when Uncle Lou has needed extra help. The one waitress out front will probably be able to handle the customers, but I’d like to be busy for a while. Whenever I think about dying of cancer, I like to get up and move my body just to remind myself that I can.
I tell Marilee and Becca what I’m doing and stand up to walk through the doors.
I hope Joy comes in. That will make Becca feel better.
When I’m on the other side of the French doors, I turn around and see Marilee and Becca with their heads bowed. They must be praying for Joy. It’s the first time I’ve been on this side of the French doors, looking back, and I feel left out. We never used to pray in the Sisterhood, at least not together. It had never occurred to me when Marilee said she was a Christian that it might be something that could come between us in the Sisterhood. Are we going to have those who pray and those who can only look on in bewilderment? It might not just be my secrets that could pull us apart.
I’m still thinking about that when I wrap a dish towel around my waist and get ready to take orders. Uncle Lou has these giant white dish towels that everyone uses for aprons. They’re cotton so they wash up nice.
I wonder if Marilee will want to pray about my problems some day. If she asks me, I don’t know if I’ll say go ahead or not. I don’t think I’ve ever been prayed over before. I’m not sure how it would feel.
Chapter Four
“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”
—Jane Austen
We were starting to recover from our chemo treatments when Lizabett brought this quote to the Sisterhood meeting. It reminded us of an exercise Rose had us do where we closed our eyes and pictured our perfect scene. We were all supposed to know our perfect scene well enough that we could put it into our minds when we felt sick.
Lizabett said her scene was a Jane Austen moment that she’d seen at Huntington Botanical Gardens one day. She had to explain to us that verdure meant lush green landscape and that she’d seen some ladies sitting on the lawn by the duck pond in old-fashioned hats. Someone was painting them and it all looked very English garden. That was Lizabett’s scene.
Becca pictured the ocean down at Crystal Cove; she used to go there and walk along the beach for hours. I’ve been there, too. Old cottages line that beach and remind you of the families who lived there years ago.
For her scene, Marilee saw her mother sitting beside the fireplace in their house in Pasadena. She said her mother was always reading a book and everything felt safe.
I, Carly, saw the night sky, looking straight up in the cloudless dark with the stars sprinkled around.
Tonight, I see my night sky. It’s not always easy to see the stars in Pasadena, but sometimes in San Marino you can because there are fewer streetlights here. There’s a small balcony at the end of the hallway on the second floor of my uncle’s house and sometimes, if I can’t sleep, I will go sit on a chair on that balcony and look up at the sky. Tonight I brought the journal with me. It’s too dark to read anything, but I left the hall light on and I wrote anyway.
I just had to get down what happened. I only spent a few minutes waiting tables in The Pews before Becca and Marilee came out of the Sisterhood room and were ready to go to lunch. I wouldn’t think much could happen in a few minutes, but it did. I’d felt a little shy when I went into the kitchen because Randy was there and we’d kissed last night when he drove me home. Some people think I’ve kissed lots of guys, but I haven’t. Besides, Randy feels special to me and I was wondering if he’d give some sign that I was special to him.
I was thinking maybe he’d wink at me or give me a long, smoldering look. Or even come right out and just say that last night was very nice. But he didn’t do any of those things.
I sure wasn’t expecting what he did instead.
Randy asked me if I wanted to live in an apartment he has on top of his diner in West Hollywood.
“But I have a place,” I said without even thinking about it.
“I thought you might like to have your own place,” Randy said. He had a white chef’s cap on and he was grilling some of Uncle Lou’s famous hamburgers. He flipped a couple of buns and then looked at me. “You wouldn’t need to worry about rent. I wouldn’t charge anything. The place has been empty for a while. Of course, you’d have to like to watch sporting events on television.”
“Really, my uncle’s house isn’t bad.”
Randy flipped a hamburger. “Well, think about it. It’s there if you change your mind.”
I couldn’t wait to get my dish towel unwrapped from my waist so I could go out the door with Becca and Marilee. The day was gray and we started walking up Colorado Boulevard toward the Paseo mall. We like the Thai place that’s a couple of blocks away and that’s where we’d talked about going for Pad Thai noodles and lemongrass soup.
“Feeling better?” I ask Becca. She’s looking better, but I don’t want to just jump into my problems. We’re big on little courtesies like that in the Sisterhood.
Becca nods. “I just hope Joy goes by The Pews.”
We’re walking single file down the sidewalk so I can’t see Becca’s face.
“I bet she will,” I say.
We walk past a candle store and the air smells of a dozen kinds of musky scents.
“Guess what?” I say after a minute.
Both Marilee and Becca turn to look at me.
> I am trying my best to let the Sisterhood see deeper into my life. “Randy offered me an apartment to stay in. Over his diner in West Hollywood.”
“With him?” Becca says and I have her full attention now. She’s stopped walking and is frowning. “I don’t know that—”
“I don’t think it’s with him,” I say. “He said it was empty and that, if I liked to watch sports on television, it could be mine.”
Marilee is standing still, too. “Well, if he cares about what you watch on television, he must live there, too. Why else would he ask about that? Maybe he means he has an empty room you could have.”
Marilee is shaking her head, but she doesn’t look jealous.
“Of course, it would be your decision,” Becca says a little stiffly.
“I told him no, anyway. He was only offering it so I could have a place of my own.”
“Why would you move?” Marilee says. “You’ve got that big house with your parents in San Marino. Who would leave that? You’ve got trees and everything.”
Here is the moment I’ve been waiting for. The moment when I tell the Sisterhood that I’m not the rich person they think I am. Which shouldn’t be so hard because I know they don’t care if I have a dollar to my name. It’s just that I haven’t told them for so long that I wonder what they will think of me for not telling them sooner.
Just then a woman comes up to us with bags swinging from both of her arms and we need to move so she can pass. After we move, we all start walking again and the moment to tell them about the house is gone. We have to sit at a long table in the Thai place so we aren’t even facing each other. It doesn’t feel like the time to announce I have been an imposter for years.
I wonder if I could tell everyone in an e-mail. I could say: “Hello, this is Carly. I know you don’t care where I live, but—” No, that isn’t right. I don’t want to imply that the Sisterhood doesn’t care. Even Randy cares. At least, I hope so, otherwise his offer of an apartment or room or whatever is not such a good one. I know most guys would make that kind of an offer because they expected you to live with them in the apartment. As in live with them. I don’t think that’s what Randy was thinking, though. Of course, it’s what the Sisterhood is thinking now and, unless I tell them what I told Randy about how it feels to live in my uncle’s house, they’ll continue to think that.
A Dropped Stitches Christmas Page 4