“Are you going to wear the right clothes?” That was my daughter on the phone with her father, discussing a back-to-school shopping excursion to a suburban mall. The question was actually an admonishment, identical to the questions exasperated women have asked him all his life. “Are you going to wear the right clothes?” Meaning, “Are you going to look presentable?” Implying, “Are you going to do what I want?”
Eavesdropping from the kitchen, I could picture them perfectly. Sarah would have a pencil line (the color of dried blood) drawn around her lips, her hair matted, her nose ring dangling defiantly, and the tattooed bracelet of stars around her wrist exposed. Her skirt would either be too short or her cargo pants too low, down to her hips so that both navel, navel ring, and boxer underwear showed. (I could have reasonably asked if she planned to look presentable.)
As for Peter, any effort he made would go a long way. He’s a handsome man and from working outdoors, always tan. A stranger once asked if he recognized Peter from Princeton. The man was surprised to learn Peter never went to college. “It doesn’t matter,” the stranger said. “You look like you went to Princeton.”
Peter was only twenty when I met him. At forty, he’s still beautiful. But more than the charm of his appearance, I fell for his humor and earnestness. He’s still funny and earnest, but he suffers from an acute time-management problem. His second ex-wife is in town (from Denmark) with their son and her depressed teenage brother. They’re staying in Peter’s small apartment, along with his live-in girlfriend. The girlfriend and ex-wife have already been at it. Both of them confiding their complaints to me.
As a result of the commotion, Sarah has been squeezed into a tiny corner of her father’s attention span. Counting the little boy, teenage ex-brother-in-law, girlfriend, and ex-wife, there are too many to fit in Peter’s truck.
I was home from work when they took off. Despite Sarah’s dictum, Peter had not washed his truck. However, his face and hands were scrubbed. He wore a freshly laundered (un-ironed) Oxford-cloth shirt, a pair of beaten Sperry Topsiders, and Madras shorts.
“Please don’t make your father buy you another pair of $100 sneakers.” I said, exercising my grudge against shoe companies.
In the early evening, Sarah returned victorious. There were shopping bags of oversized jeans, tidbit skirts, cropped tops, identical to the clothes already hanging in her closet. Sarah modeled every item, gurgling with enthusiasm while I smiled with approval, wondering if the clothes mattered nearly as much as the man in her life doing exactly what she wanted.
Allison was flopped on the floor next to Sarah in typical attire: skimpy tops and giant jeans, their bare feet propped on the window sill to dry their toenails. Nearby was Sarah’s DJ equipment: amplifiers, turntables, headphones, and dozens of old LPs. The girls were learning to scratch.
Leah lay on Sarah’s bed, the collar of her blouse framing her sweet, docile face and dreads. Last month, she tried to commit suicide by gobbling all the prescription medicines in her house. Someone happened to telephone, interrupting Leah’s last act. After answering, she told the caller what she had done. As a result, her stomach was pumped, her life saved.
A modeling agency was courting Allison. Although not a raving beauty, it was easy to see her potential. Allison looked good in anything.
“What about your modeling?” I asked her.
“The portfolio costs too much. Mom doesn’t have the money.” (After twenty-five years of data entry, her mother was laid off with a carpal tunnel disability.) “She wants to start a plant business.” Allison added spitefully, “She’s out of her mind.”
“With your big backyard, a greenhouse makes sense,” I remarked.
Allison had no interest in greenhouses. She didn’t want the burden of paying her mother’s bills. She wanted to be a fashion model and drive around in a new car.
“Mom lets Maggie live in our house for free. Maggie takes in laundry. Maggie uses our washing machine. She runs up our water bill and doesn’t pay a cent. Mom should kick her out or make her pay.”
“Maybe, she can take out a second mortgage to start the plant business.”
“Mom’s on drugs,” Allison said bluntly. “When she raves about flowers, she’s totally incoherent.” The girl’s smooth expression collapsed. “She already borrowed $40,000 on the house to bail Jimmy out of jail.”
I had met Jimmy, the mother’s boyfriend. “Doesn’t he have a job?” I whispered, trying to disguise my nosiness.
“He hasn’t worked since he got out. She was in jail, too.” Allison turned to Sarah, “You didn’t tell your mom?”
Of course, she didn’t! Sarah didn’t tell me anything.
“Our house was under surveillance for months, then the FBI showed up. You didn’t tell your mom?” Allison repeated, “They stripped us. They put us on the floor. They stuck guns on our heads. They thought Jimmy was making meth in the basement.”
They didn’t find drugs. They never convicted Jimmy. But apparently, things had not improved.
“I can tell when he’s on drugs,” Allison said conclusively. “He’s mean. He and mom fight all the time.” She wanted her mother to kick out Jimmy and Maggie.
I examined Allison’s porcelain face. When we first met, she was too thin. She wore too much make-up. She never looked me in the eye. I didn’t like her, but eventually we grew close. She let me know whenever she read a book or got a good grade. We discussed school assignments and her various maladies. Allison’s colorless skin and fainting spells suggested anemia, but the family didn’t believe in doctors.
Leah curled into the pillows, consoled by the sensational stories of her friends. She never met her father, her last boyfriend abused her, and her best friend killed himself playing Russian roulette.
At sixteen, the girls appeared unfazed by the destruction around them. They ran back and forth across town, rich kids and poor, and the degree of damage was the same. In our old apartment, Sarah and I used to share a bedroom. She said, “Sleeping with my mother was ‘ghetto.’” For me, it was a way to keep her safe. I couldn’t keep her anymore.
“Sarah Breen’s mother?” the police officer asked.
“You’re kidding,” I said. It was after midnight.
Sarah’s last arrest (six months ago) was for loitering in a park past curfew. The police meted out four weeks of punishment. Saturday and Sunday, they had to scrub graffiti off walls their friends had put there in the first place. Every kid had been drinking except Sarah. They all got the same punishment, but after my reasoning with the police, they cut Sarah’s days in half. (That reduced her hard feelings from two years ago when she and her friends got busted for shoplifting at Great America, and I forced her into community service).
This past summer, things improved. Communication was open again. As I defined the rules, Sarah increasingly complied. The new school year had started well. She had committed herself to good study habits and participation in family activities. The police call was a blow.
“Does your daughter know Michelle Samuels?” the officer asked. “Michelle left her parents a suicide note, promising to kill herself by four o’clock this afternoon.”
Alarm was replaced by faint amusement. Michelle’s family made weekly calls to the police. Her father, an orthopedic surgeon, called me, too, usually to report that our girls were consorting with gangs. Or that Sarah had been dropped at his house by a dark boy in a late model car. “Who can afford a new car except a drug dealer?” he asked me.
“Maybe their parents?” I feebly responded.
While Dr. Samuels and I acknowledged each other as the only concerned parents in our daughters’ coterie of friends, I had grown weary of our alliance. Dr. Samuels tried to scare me. His tattle tales were always the same. Last week, he stormed a video store where a young Mexican worked. The boy had taken Michelle out, and the doctor threatened to have him deported. In retaliation, Michelle told her parents she was pregnant with his child and planned to kill herself.
“I’m certain the suicide note is a prank,” I said to the policeman. “I saw Michelle downtown at six o’clock, two hours past deadline.”
“You’re sure about the time?”
“Let me call my daughter,” I offered. “She’ll know where Michelle is.”
I punched in seven digits, waited for a beep, punched in seven more, and hung up.
“Yeah?” Sarah answered (in her what-do-you-want-now tone). She was with a crowd of friends, including Michelle, at a convenience store (no doubt, illegally purchasing beer and cigarettes).
I asked to speak to Michelle. “Can you please let your parents know you’re alive? Please.”
The next morning, a frantic Mrs. Samuels called me. The family had been up all night.
“Michelle promised me to let you know,” I told her.
Later, I telephoned Allison’s house to check on the girls.
“Sarah?” Allison shouted disingenuously.
Apparently, Sarah wasn’t there.
“We last saw her on Sacramento Street about midnight,” Allison said. “Does anyone know where Sarah is?”
Sarah arrived home in the late afternoon. Her clothes disheveled, her breath stinky, her hair more disorganized than usual.
I stood at the front door, my hands raised uncertainly.
“Look at yourself!” I shoved her to the mirror. “Look what you’ve done to yourself!”
Sarah flung my arms away and ran to her bedroom. “I hate you!” she yelled before the door slammed. “I hate you forever!”