But What About Me?

by Marilyn Reynolds

  “What did Alex’s mom say?”

  “She’s cool. Getting us out tonight was nothing compared to what Joey put her through. The cops all still remember her from when they were picking Joey up all the time.”

  “Was she mad?”

  “No. She was a little, you know, feeling no pain.”

  “From drinking? And they released you to her?”

  “Yeah. They don’t give a shit. They’d of had to release us pretty soon, anyway.”

  I start to tell Danny how upset my mom is.

  “My wrists are all bruised, where they slapped the cuffs on me.”

  “I was so worried they’d hurt you.”

  “Pigs. They fucked up Alex’s arm when they shoved him in the car. If we’d been some of those little Sycamore Hills rich boys they’d have been gentle, but with us? Shoving guys like us around is how they get their nuts off.”

  I’m pretty sure from the way he’s talking that Danny’s been drinking.

  “My mom is so mad at me . . .”

  “My dad’s a number one asshole.”

  Yep. For sure he’s been drinking.

  I try one more time to tell Danny about the argument with my mom, but he interrupts with “Alex has to call Gina now. Pups. We’ll talk later. Maybe I’ll stop by after everything’s quiet.”

  “Not tonight.” I tell him. “Things are too weird around here.”

  “Maybe tomorrow night,” he says. He hangs up without tapping three times.

  I know Mom being mad at me is not as big a thing as being handcuffed and shoved around by the police, but I wish Danny would have had time to listen. I remember that time in Alex’s car, too, when I was trying to tell Danny about the woman with AIDS, and he didn’t want to hear any sad stories. I wonder why we always have time for his stories, but never for mine. Well, “always/never.” That is an exaggeration. Besides, my troubles really aren’t as big as Danny’s—no mom, and a dad who doesn’t care. No wonder he’s having a hard time.

  I dial April’s number, knowing she’ll listen, but she’s not home.

  About ten-thirty, after Rocky’s asleep, Mom comes in and sits at the end of my bed, across from the desk where I’m still reading. She’s in her purple robe. Her face is clean and shiny from moisturizer, but her beginning frown wrinkles are deeper than usual.

  “I want to talk to you,” she says.

  I don’t want to talk, but I’m sure there’s no way to get out of it.

  “I’m so worried about you, Erica. I don’t think you’re taking school as seriously as you always have, and I think you’re letting Danny run your life.”

  “That’s not true! I care about Danny. I love Danny. But he doesn’t run my life.”

  “Anyone who can get you to assist them in a robbery has too much influence over you. You are not a thief, Erica. I know that business today wasn’t your idea.”

  “That was hardly a robbery, Mom. You’re making things lots worse than they really are.”

  “I’m making things worse? I’m not the one who was arrested!” I sit petting Kitty, not knowing what to say.

  “Your biology teacher called me at work this afternoon,” Mom says. “I go along for years, hearing only good things about you and then on this one day I get two phone calls, first from the school and then from the police department. What’s happening, Erica? Is it drugs?”

  “Drugs? Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think. All of those ‘is your child on drugs?’ check lists talk about sudden shifts in behavior and attitude.”

  “Well, I don’t do drugs, Mom. I’m not stupid.”

  “And I’m not stupid, either. I know all kinds of things go on at Alex’s house, and I know you hang out there sometimes, because Alice at work told me she saw our car there.”

  “I don’t hang out there, Mom. I’ve probably been there about three times in my whole life, and that’s just been to drop Danny off, or pick him up or something like that.”

  “Well, I want you to stay away from there. According to Alice it’s like a magnet for lowlifes.”

  I think back to the lecture I got from the policewoman at the station this afternoon. She’d said I look like too nice a person to be hanging out with the likes of Danny and Alex. “Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas,” she’d told me. I told her I work at the Humane Society and I like dogs. She said she did, too, but not the human kind.

  “I think Danny’s made a very bad choice, to move in with Alex. I just hope you’re not making bad choices right along with him.”

  I sigh. “Mom, are you mad at me because of some rumor you’ve heard about the place Alex lives?”

  Mom gives me a long look, then says, more calmly, “You’re right. That’s not fair . . . Mrs. Costanza says she’s concerned about you—your last two tests have not been good, and your homework’s not up to its usual standards.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. April’s barely getting Ds in some of her classes and no one ever calls her parents. I let my grade in biology drop to a B plus and the communications systems are buzzing.

  “Erica . . .” Mom takes a deep breath. “Are you pregnant?”

  I turn around in my chair to look my mother straight in the eyes. I’m so angry I can feel the rhythm of my heart pounding in my head.

  “You accuse me of being a thief! You think I’m on drugs! You think I’m pregnant! I make one simple mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and all of a sudden you think the worst of me!”

  “I don’t think the worst of you. I just don’t know what to think!” We are both crying now. Mom’s face is red and mine must be, too. Kitty is whimpering at my feet, looking back and forth between me and Mom.

  “You never tell me anything anymore,” Mom says, “and when I ask you anything personal you always avoid the question . . .”

  Always, never, I think. I take a deep breath and try to calm down, to remember what I’ve learned in Peer Counseling about communication patterns.

  “We’re both really upset, Mom. Could we sleep on all of this and talk some more in the morning?”

  It turns out my mom didn’t take that class.

  “I’m not finished,” she says, angrily. “I know you care about Danny. But he’s going nowhere with his life, and if you stay with him he’ll drag you down too. You’d be better off without him.”

  “Mom . . . you wouldn’t say that if you knew Danny the way I do.”

  “I know what I see, Erica, and I see you not doing as well in school, and getting arrested, and I see Danny not working . . .”

  “He’s planning to get a job . . .”

  “. . . not finishing school, just floating along. I don’t respect that. I just don’t think he’s right for you.”

  “I’m the only one who can judge who’s right for me,” I say. “I love Danny, and he loves me.”

  “I want you to broaden your scope a bit, start dating other boys.”

  “But that’s not what I want! You’re treating me like I’m Rochelle’s age.”

  Kitty lumbers over to Mom and lays her head on Mom’s leg. Mom scratches Kitty behind the ears, then sighs.

  “You’ve done so well all through high school, and you’ve always been such a delight as a daughter, I just don’t want anything to go wrong for you at this stage of your life, and I’m afraid you’re much too serious with Danny.”

  “But Mom, I have to decide what’s right for me. I’ll be on my own at college in less than a year. I’m not a child anymore. Look at you. You were married when you were my age.”

  “Yes, well, sometimes I wish I’d listened to my mother about that.”

  “Gramma loves Dad.” I say.

  “But she thought I was too young to get married, and in a way she was right. I’d have been better off if I’d gone to college.”

  “And not have been bothered with Dad, or me, or Rochelle?” I ask, ready to be even more angry at her answer.

  “It’s not that simple, Erica. You know I
love Dad. And I can’t imagine not being your mom, or Rochelle’s mom. It’s just that I don’t want you to do anything that will get in the way of going to college and becoming a veterinarian. I want you to be smarter than I was.”

  “I’m going to college, and I’m going to be a vet. You don’t have to worry about that. But you can’t tell me not to see Danny.”

  “Would you at least go out with other boys now and then?”

  “Maybe,” I say, knowing I won’t do that, but tired of the argument.

  Mom sighs. “Well, I guess I can remember what it’s like to be seventeen and in love. But that was different.”

  “Why?”

  “Dad was a responsible person, working, going to school. Your dad was never lazy, and he never blamed anyone else for his problems. Danny’s life seems to be getting worse and worse, and it’s never his fault.”

  “You just don’t know him the way I do,” I say.

  “Sometimes I wonder if you know Danny as well as you think you do.”

  Late in the night, when it’s early in the morning in Germany, I hear Mom talking to the overseas operator, trying to get through to Dad. Because I know she’ll be talking about me, I open my door a crack to listen.

  I catch bits and pieces of what my mom is saying—arrested, Danny, school.

  “I talked to her about seeing other boys . . . I think maybe she will.”

  There’s a long silence from Mom, so I guess Dad is giving her his ideas on the whole subject. Then Mom says, “I’m so tired of trying to be mother and father both to these girls. Rochelle’s always been a handful, but I didn’t expect such problems with Erica.”

  Whatever Dad says back to Mom makes her mad.

  “That’s easy for you to say, isn’t it? You’ll come waltzing in here at Christmastime, the returning hero, while I’ve been doing all of the everyday dirty work for the past five years.”

  I get up and close the door. I can’t wait to go away to college and live my own life. At least that will be one less kid for my mom to complain about.

  Chapter

  6

  It is one of those “I’m glad to be alive” days in the San Gabriel Valley. A brisk wind has blown away the smog, leaving clear blue skies and fluffy white clouds. From where I’m standing, on the second floor of the Humane Society near the volunteers’ office, I can see the Whittier Hills to my left, and south, and a bit of the Los Angeles skyline is off to my right. Directly below are the animal cages, with vine-covered lattice work offering shade for each pen.

  Sinclair comes out of the office and leans on the railing next to me.

  “Taking a break?”

  “I was dying of thirst,” I say, offering him a swallow of my soda. “No thanks . . . What a day, huh?”

  “I wish they could all be like this.”

  “Not me. I love variety,” he says.

  “Even smog?”

  “Well, that helps us appreciate days like this.”

  “Are you always up, Sinclair?”

  “Almost always,” Sinclair says. “We’re surrounded by so much beauty, why dwell on the ugly—that’s my philosophy.”

  We hear several soft gurgling coos from the doves in the atrium behind us. Sinclair laughs. “They like my philosophy,” he says.

  “How’s Daniel? You still together?”

  “A year December 17,” I say.

  “Not bad for kids,” he smiles.

  I turn to look at him. His gentle eyes and soft smile invite conversation.

  “My mom thinks I shouldn’t see Danny anymore,” I say. Then I tell Sinclair all about getting arrested, and how Danny’s stopped going to school, and how he’s moved in with Alex and Alex’s mom.

  “Alex is a strange one,” Sinclair says. “He can be so cold and hard with people, but he was good with the animals the few times he volunteered here.”

  “I know. Sometimes I like Alex a lot, and sometimes I think he’s the biggest jerk in the world.”

  Just then one of the animal control officers, Antoinette, comes in through the back gate, carrying a medium-sized black and white dog. It looks like the dog is sick, and Antoinette looks very angry. I walk downstairs to see what’s happening and Sinclair follows close behind. Antoinette goes directly to the infirmary and places the dog, gently, on a padded mat in a clean cage. She dips her hand in the water dish and lets the dog lick her fingers. The dog can barely hold its head up.

  “I don’t know if we’ll save this one or not, she’s so dehydrated and malnourished,” she says. “People piss me off so bad!”

  The dog is so skinny every rib shows and even the contours of her skull are exaggerated. Her black coat is dull and matted, she’s flea-ridden, and she has big bald patches of scabby skin all over her back.

  “According to the neighbors, the dog’s owners are out of town a lot,” Antoinette says, angrily.

  Sinclair reaches in and gently lifts the dog’s chin, so he can see her eyes. “Poor baby,” he says.

  “Erica, go get a puppy mixture for her, would you? Only about half a serving. We’ve got to start her slow. I’ll dust her with flea powder. And just look at that mange. Jesus!”

  I wouldn’t want to be the owner of this dog and run into Antoinette anywhere. Antoinette is tall and solid and she’s an amateur volleyball player. She’s strong, and I’ve seen so much anger in her eyes when she brings in a mistreated animal that she scares me, and I would never (this time never is the right word), never mistreat an animal.

  When I bring the food back I give the dog a few bites, just to give her a taste, and then set the bowl right next to her. She looks up at me without moving her head and gives her tail a barely perceptible wag.

  “So listen, girl,” Sinclair says as we walk back to the office. “I desperately need help on this mobile pet adoption thing I’m doing at the library tonight, and all but one of my volunteers have flaked out on me.”

  I think of all the homework I have waiting for me. But things are still really awkward between me and my mom, so I’m in no hurry to go home.

  “Will you go? Just until nine?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  I call Mom and tell her she doesn’t have to pick me up from work, that I’ll be doing the mobile adoption thing at the library, then I go brush the dogs that are scheduled for the mobile unit.

  “You look so handsome, someone’s sure to fall in love with you tonight,” I tell the black lab as I brush his back and chest.

  Sinclair and I, and Beth, the fourteen-year-old volunteer who didn’t flake out, check the van to be sure we’ve got poop bags and adoption forms, and posters and other publicity materials. As we walk back toward the kennels to get the dogs, the caracara throws back its head and lets loose with its warbling screech.

  “Hel-lo!” Sinclair says, stopping to look at the bird. “Wanting some attention are you, you beautifully costumed and coiffed birdy?”

  The bird makes a quick turn of the head, as if posing to give Sinclair a better view. Sinclair laughs.

  “Don’t you just love how the boys get to be the ones to dress up in the animal kingdom?”

  “You dress up more than I do,” Beth says.

  “Choices, darlin’. I don’t choose drab.”

  We get the dogs, four of them, and put them in the small cages in the van.

  “It’s only for a little while,” Beth tells the black lab, who sticks his nose as far as it will go through a small section of the heavy wire cage. “And you, big baby, just calm down,” she says, laughing at the brown dog who keeps turning in tight circles inside the cage.

  Beth is really fat, and when I see her at school she’s always looking down at the ground, walking with her books clutched in front of her. But with the animals she’s totally different, laughing and talking, and when she walks along the corridors of the Humane Society, she looks straight ahead, not down.

  “Look, Mom, there’s Eddie, from ‘Frasier’! I want that one.”

  A girl about Rochelle’s age comes
running up to the brown terrier where I’m walking him, near the entrance of the library.

  “Easy,” I say, “Slow down so you don’t scare him.”

  “I want this one,” she says, leaning down to pet him.

  “This is Jackie,” I say. “He likes you.”

  Jackie is licking the girl’s hands, face, legs, any exposed skin he can find.

  “My mom said I could get a dog tonight, and this is the one I want. Here,” she says, trying to take the leash from my hand.

  “It’s not that easy,” I say, laughing.

  The mom is over petting the black lab. “How about this one, Honey? I hear labs are really mellow.”

  Jackie is wrapping himself around the girl’s legs, getting tangled in the leash.

  “This one, Mom,” the girl whines. “He’s mellow, too.”

  The mom comes over to look at Jackie. “Don’t you think the lab would be more of a family dog?” she asks.

  “He’s a wonderful dog,” I say, watching the girl’s expression turn from joy to uneasiness. “But Jackie’s wonderful, too—lots of energy and he’s very affectionate.”

  “Will he chew things?”

  “That’s hard to predict. But we have free obedience training programs for our adopted pets. He’s smart, so he’d probably be pretty easy to train.”

  “Can I take him, Mom?” the girl says, tugging on the leash again.

  I explain that they have to fill out some adoption papers and then come to the Humane Society and talk with an adoption counselor before they can take the dog.

  Just as I hand adoption forms to the mom and daughter, one of the librarians comes walking up to the van, carrying a cordless phone. She asks Sinclair, “Is there an Erica Arredondo with you?”

  “I’m Erica,” I say.

  She hands me the phone and waits. It’s Mom. “Oh, Erica? Shall I come get you about nine?”

  “No thanks,” I say. “Sinclair can drop me off.”

  “Sinclair?”

  “You know. From the Humane Society.”

  “Oh. Good,” she says, in one of those mom-curious tones that makes me think she’s reading something weird into my ride home with Sinclair.