Pacific Avenue

“You’re putting Kathy in a bad position,” Richard objected.

  “I don’t think it’s me who’s putting her in a bad position,” Dad snapped. “Kathy doesn’t believe marriage is a thing of the past. When she was little, she always used to say, ‘When I grow up and get married,’ ‘When I get married and have children.’ Those expectations don’t change, Richard. If Kathy isn’t saying anything about them, it’s because you’ve made her afraid to. I think you’re being unfair to my daughter.” His face was flushed with anger and embarrassment.

  Richard glanced at me. I couldn’t lie, so I looked away.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Woodbridge,” said Richard, “but this is none of your business.”

  “It’s very much my business. You’re taking advantage of my daughter, and I have an illegitimate granddaughter. I don’t know how it could possibly be more my business.”

  He touched Jamie’s head, and she said “Daaa.” Richard motioned toward them, then pulled his hand back.

  “Jamie isn’t illegitimate. No baby is illegitimate.”

  “That may be the way your people look at it, but I’m afraid I don’t agree.”

  Richard stood up, knocking his chair over with a crash. His nostrils were flaring in and out like a horse’s, but he kept his voice low. “Dr. Woodbridge, Kathy and I have been together for nearly two years now. And you and your wife have been very liberal, very tolerant. Well, how do you think it feels to be tolerated for two years? Do you have any idea how I feel when you smile at me in your fakey, liberal way? It sticks out all over that you think you’re such a great person to be smiling at a black man.

  “But as soon as I’m not giving you what you want, the first thing out of your mouth is racism. I don’t see any reason to see what the second thing is going to be. I might have to do an Uncle Tom act in your house, but this house happens to be mine. Please shut my door behind you as you leave.”

  All Dad’s excitement had evaporated. Looking gray-faced and old, he stood up carefully and set his chair straight. He hesitated as if he were trying to remember something, then turned and walked toward the door without a word. Jamie whined and reached after him.

  He paused a moment, but then he left without looking back. I heard the back door of Francine’s house close with a little bang. A few minutes later, his car backed out of the driveway and was gone.

  A few minutes later, Francine pounded at the door and charged in without waiting for an answer. She was in a full-scale Cajun fury, mad enough to spit nails.

  “You kids got no manners,” she said. “There wasn’t no call to send Dr. Woodbridge off like that.”

  I tried to defend Richard. “He said maybe Richard’s people thought it was okay to have a baby and not be married.”

  Francine glared at me, unconvinced. “Seems that’s what Richard thinks.”

  “Maybe, but Dad didn’t have any reason to make a racist remark like that.” I couldn’t understand why Francine was standing up for him. She was black too, more or less.

  She folded her arms and looked us up and down. “You kids think you got racism? You got nothin’ compared to how it was. Maybe your dad said something he shouldn’t. Maybe he did. You ever put your foot in your mouth?

  “Your generation’s spoiled as hell. You never had it like it was. Me, when I was married, I couldn’t even go to a restaurant with my husband. I could pass, and he couldn’t. My kids weren’t allowed to go to the school down the block.”

  “Francine,” Richard broke in, “you chose to live a Jim Crow life. I’m choosing not to. I don’t see any reason to discuss it.”

  “I didn’t do any such thing, Richard. My husband and I were at some of those lunch counters in the sixties. We sat at the front of some buses. But we did what we could, and then we lived in the real world and got along as best we could, too. You think I sent you to my cousin for your pictures because he needed the business? I knew that place in Algiers was there, and I also knew they’d throw you out. Why’re you such a fool?”

  “I didn’t spend my life being an Uncle Tom,” Richard said. “I grew up in Europe.”

  “That where you learned all the empty talk? You give me the red ass, Richard. You run your mouth about ‘Uncle Tom’ this and ‘Jim Crow’ that, but what did you ever do to fight segregation? Nothin’. And you run your mouth about the war, but what did you do to stop that? Same nothin’. Easier to be a free rider than a freedom rider. Easier to be a baby killer than to buck the system, wasn’t it, Richard?”

  “Goddamn it, Francine!”

  Francine turned to me. “What you think, your dad’s such a racist he wants you to marry a black man? That’s some racist, Kathy. Why don’t you have more sense?”

  “It wasn’t me. It was Richard that got mad.”

  “And you sat there, didn’t say nothin’, you sat and watched, huh, Kathy? The way you do. Just let it happen. Your dad thought Richard was about to hit him. Why didn’t you stop him, girl?”

  “How could I?”

  Francine folded her arms and slumped against the door. She looked tired and disgusted. “Honey, you better figure out how to speak your piece, ’cause no one else can speak it for you.”

  Richard took a jagged breath. “Francine, none of this is your business. Leave us alone, would you?”

  “When my friends make fools of themselves, it is my business. You don’t like what I say, baissez mon cul.”

  Richard stepped back and looked Francine up and down with a snide grin. “Mark off a spot, Francine. There’s quite a bit of territory there.”

  Francine gave him a hateful look and slammed out.

  “What did that mean, Richard?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Richard bolted into the bathroom. Through the thin old door, I could hear him vomiting again and again.

  When we went to rehearsal the next morning, Martin was awkward and fidgety, picking up puppets and putting them down again. Thu sat on the couch picking at the upholstery. She wouldn’t look at us.

  Finally, Martin blurted, “I wish you hadn’t been so nasty to Francine yesterday.”

  “She was nasty to us,” I said.

  “Just the same, I wish you hadn’t.”

  Richard turned on him. “Martin, everyone’s telling us what to do, and we’re getting tired of it. All we want is to be left alone.”

  After that, they did leave us alone. They said nothing to us but what was necessary for work. Eddie stopped knocking at the door with vegetables for us, and Francine was never pruning the roses or weeding when we walked across the yard.

  I took Jamie to New Orleans one afternoon and found Eddie at his stand in the French Market. He pulled the old wooden stool over for me to sit on and took Jamie on his shoulder. It was almost like old times until I ruined it.

  “You never come see us anymore,” I said.

  “It’s tough, doll,” he answered. “Richard’s on some kind of tear, and nobody knows what’s eating him. We still love you, but no one wants to deal with Richard till he simmers down. What the hell’s going on, anyway? You two not getting along or something?”

  “He had a fight with my dad. And with Francine.”

  “Well, I heard about that, believe me. But Francine’s not the kind to stay mad. She’s all Cajun—blows up in a split second and it’s all over in a day or so, tops. Up like a rocket, down like a stick. Looks to me, Richard’s the one staying mad.”

  A truck pulled up to the curb, diesel exhaust and roar. We sat without talking till the engine cut off.

  “Francine called him a baby killer,” I said.

  Eddie nodded. “On account of the war? I heard vets called that before. But he called her an Uncle Tom, didn’t he? I’d say they’re about even.”

  “Maybe so, but he doesn’t see it that way. Dad gave him a lecture about Jamie and illegitimate babies, told him maybe it was fine with his people but it wasn’t with us. It was kind of the last straw after the way he and Mom acted when Jamie was born.”

  “That was
wrong, doll, what they did then, no question. But he’s still her grandfather. Richard needs to cool it. I’m not saying it’s easy, but if he can’t forgive people for not being perfect, he’s gonna be disappointed every time.”

  I can’t forgive Dad, either. He told my secret, told that I wanted a husband, wanted to be a stupid old housewife. Said it right out loud in front of Richard. After that, I didn’t care much when Richard kicked him out.

  “He’s been getting madder and madder about my parents and the race thing ever since Jamie was born,” I said. “And he keeps on being messed up about the war. He says seeing Thu reminds him all the time. I don’t know what to do.”

  “We don’t know either, tell you the truth. We thought we’d stay away for a while, give Richard a chance to think it over. Don’t take it personal, doll, but that’s all we can see to do for now. But if you need anything, let me know.”

  And that was all I could get out of him. He gave me a bag of fruit, which Richard wouldn’t touch. I would never have dreamed, back when Richard was reading to me about forgiveness, that he had so much anger in him. He couldn’t let go, and I was being pulled between him and everyone else. Eddie had said they still loved me, but I felt deserted.

  Richard will probably leave me too before long. Everyone will. Maybe they should get a tour bus. The destination sign on the front would say, Leaving Kathy. Jamie’s the only one who won’t leave me. Maybe I should leave them first, just take Jamie and go.

  Even Sharon only called once, and that was to tell me that Dad was back from his medical consultations at Ochsner Hospital.

  “He has heart problems from his rheumatic fever,” she said. “He’s upset about you and Richard, too. Lousy timing, Sis.” She left it at that, but I could see she was mad. She and Sam would fit on the tour bus with the others. It’s a big bus.

  The worst, though, was that Richard didn’t talk to me or to Jamie either, and he never touched me. He didn’t eat with us anymore, just took things from the refrigerator when he got hungry, which wasn’t often. He had nightmares every night, and I was afraid to wake him up, afraid to say anything. I let him sweat them out. Eventually, he’d go back to sleep. Eventually, I would too.

  Whatever feelings Richard had, he used them all in the puppet plays. He raged and pleaded, loved and wept, all through the carved mouths of hollow wooden dolls on the stage. He was brilliant. No one could keep up with him, even Thu. But he’d stopped acting at home, and I thought it might be for good. I’ve always wondered what he feels about Jamie and me. Now I guess I know.

  Jamie was all I had left. While Richard sat in a corner, pretending to read, I’d take her on my lap and brush her soft hair. Then I’d tell her stories, quiet so he couldn’t hear. About all the land around us and about the river, the animals and birds, and far-off places, too—wild horses in the desert and the windows of Rhyolite standing up narrow and empty. I told her everything I knew, because as long as I kept talking, she didn’t cry. When tears ran down my face, Jamie traced them with her fingers and asked questions in her own language.

  I wouldn’t have thought people could live one week like that, but May went on and June came, and it almost began feeling normal. When things started to ease a little, I wasn’t sure I cared anymore. I don’t think I can stand to be jerked back through one more cycle, one more trip around the daisy—he loves me, he loves me not.

  But one morning I came out of the shower and found Richard changing Jamie’s diaper. After that, he ate with us sometimes, sometimes washed the dishes. One night he fixed dinner, like he had in the rooming house when he was getting over his Valentine’s Day outburst. He still didn’t talk, not one word.

  We slept at the sides of the bed now, with a big space in the middle—the space where we’d tangled and loved and held each other to keep the bad things away. Neither one of us would touch the middle of the bed anymore.

  I didn’t know what to do, and there was no one to ask. I was startled when he finally did say something. It was the first week of June, getting hot fast. We didn’t have rehearsal, and we were lolling around reading, trying to pretend the breeze from a fan was enough to keep the place cool.

  “You want to get an ice cream?” Richard asked. It was like nothing had ever happened—well, not quite, since he still didn’t touch me. But we put Jamie in the stroller and bought Popsicles at the market. Trying to lick them faster than they could melt, we meandered to the shade of a park.

  There wasn’t anyone else, so I drifted back into talking to Richard after that, doing things with him. It felt strange to pretend nothing had happened, but not as strange as living with someone who wouldn’t even say, “Pass the sugar.” We took Jamie for walks, went to the Quarter for ice cream on Sundays, and went to the grocery and the Laundromat together. On June 27, we went to the zoo.

  We showed Jamie the farm animals in the petting zoo, and the ponies, the monkeys on Monkey Island. In a line of small cages, large animals drooped in the heat.

  “Look at the polar bear!” I called to Richard. “Why is he green?” I asked. “I thought they were white.”

  “It’s hot, and that dripping water is the only way he can cool off. The green is algae, from being wet.”

  “He looks miserable,” I said.

  “I think he is.” We were hot too, so we crossed the road to the shady part of the park. We strolled around, and dashed up and down Monkey Hill, Jamie squealing as we swooped.

  “Do you know where Monkey Hill came from?” I asked.

  “Indian mound?”

  “No, that’s the story, but it’s not true. They built it because New Orleans is so flat, they wanted to show the children of New Orleans what a hill is.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Uh-uh. Fact.”

  It was almost cool there, in the shade of the live oaks, with their branches sweeping down to the ground and up again. I felt better. Richard might not love me, but maybe we could like each other?

  Or maybe we can love each other again? Maybe it will be all right. Everyone has fights, don’t they?

  Richard will change his mind about getting married. It will be a civil ceremony, not a church, nothing fancy. I’ll wear a blue dress to match my eyes, the Motleys will be there, and my family, even Mom. We’ll say, “Till death do us part,” and then we’ll kiss. Happy, a sunny day.

  The June sun made us hot and thirsty. We got grape sno-balls at the refreshment stand. Jamie ate a lot of mine. She gobbled the syrupy ice and laughed, with grape running down her chin. We stayed to watch the zookeepers feed the seals, Jamie laughing even more to hear them bark. “Daw!” she yelled, and I knew she meant “doggie.” I understood her.

  A couple close to us stared. Just loud enough to carry, the woman asked, “Is that girl white?”

  The man glanced our way. “Not anymore.”

  Richard drew his breath in with a hiss. I pulled him away from the seals, away from the white couple. Jamie started to cry, and I thought she could sense my fear and anger. She coughed and whined, and I saw her nose was running.

  “Got a tissue?” I asked.

  Richard rummaged through the pockets of his jeans and found one. “Is she getting a cold?”

  I felt her forehead. “I don’t know.”

  “Want to head home?”

  “Maybe we’d better.”

  We went right back to the car. Jamie was sneezing and wriggling. I settled her as best I could. Richard drove us to Gretna.

  I thought we’d have a loud night, but when I’d cleared Jamie’s nose a couple of times, she settled down to sleep. I was used to Richard thrashing in bed, and he did, but no worse than usual.

  I woke late the next morning in a quiet room. Richard was still asleep, half off the bed, tangled in the sheet. I thought how well Jamie had slept, and hoped that meant she wasn’t getting sick after all. When I went to her crib, she was all twisted and jammed into the corner.

  I turned her over to get her up and saw the bruises on her stomach and a
rms. I couldn’t take it in. Even when I saw the dark stains on the sheet, I thought it was something to do with the grape sno-ball. And then I realized it wasn’t. I screamed and ran to phone for help.

  Francine came barreling out of her house as the fire truck pulled up, and it was hard to tell which one was screaming louder. An ambulance and police car arrived a few seconds later.

  Richard and I ran out to tell the men where we lived, then we followed them to the house. One of the policemen turned and told us to wait in the yard. We hovered near the door, trying to see through the screen, scared to look.

  When the door opened, two paramedics pushed past us with a stretcher. It was lumpy, with a sheet pulled up all the way. It took me a moment to realize Jamie was the lump. When I did, I ran down the drive after them, but they ignored me. They loaded the stretcher into the ambulance like movers loading a sofa, and drove away without using the siren. I stood at the end of the drive. People gathered and stared. Francine put her arm around me and steered me back toward the house. Her mouth was moving but I couldn’t make out any words.

  Richard stood at the door, where I’d left him. The policemen came out, and one of them said something to him, something I didn’t hear. He and Richard went into the house.

  The other policeman walked over to Francine and me. His starched blue uniform must have been pressed about one minute ago, and he looked like maybe he’d been wearing it when it was. He eyed us coldly. He thinks we’re trash. I hung on to Francine’s arm.

  “You the mother?” he asked me.

  “Yes.”

  His pale blue eyes flicked to Francine. “And you?”

  “I’m her landlady,” said Francine.

  “I need to talk to this young lady alone.”

  Francine stood as tall as she could, which wasn’t much taller than me. “You can’t send me away. It’s my own property.”

  “Police investigation, ma’am.”

  “I want your badge number.”

  He gave it to her and watched her in a bored way till she went inside. He pulled back one of the chairs at the patio table.

  “Why don’t we sit down right here, and you can tell me what happened.” It wasn’t a question. He was sitting down as he said it.