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When I finally get serious about starting my homework, after a glass of water, and then an apple, and then another glass of water, I turn to the math section of my notebook. It’s best to get that out of the way first. I write my name at the top of a sheet of notebook paper, stare at examples of equations, look at the first problem, and go on to the creative writing assignment. Maybe Amber and I will do our math together after school tomorrow. It’s not due until Wednesday. Why rush things?
I read what I wrote in class today. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to write about my early life. That’s all stuff I want to put behind me. But that’s what I start writing about anyway, like I have no control.
“You don’t know me unless you know how messed up the first five years of my life were,” is how I start, and then the words rush out as if someone opened a secret door—all that stuff I try not to think about, because what good can it do? I write so fast my hand cramps up. I rub my hand, change pens, change writing positions, and start again, fast, just trying to keep up with the words that are flooding from my mind.
When I was born, I was all strung out on drugs and so was my mother, Marcia Bailey. I nearly died. Can you believe it? That a woman would do that to her own kid? Every Mother’s Day I hear so much of that mother-love stuff I want to puke! The love of my mother would be enough to kill a person. (From here on I’m going to call my mother by her name, because every time I call her “mother” it makes me mad all over again.)
By the time Marcia was seventeen, the age I am now, she was on the streets, being a slut for drugs. Most of the time no one had the slightest clue about where she was living. I was already three months old before my gramma even knew I’d been born. When she found out about me, though, she got me out of foster care and took me home to live with her.
All the time Marcia was in prison she was writing to Grams, saying how she’d put drugs behind her and she couldn’t wait to get out and take care of her little girl. She’d say how much she loved me and Grams, and how sorry she was for all she’d put us through. Grams says she meant it, but she was too weakened by drugs to carry through. I don’t believe it. I think if Marcia’d loved me she’d have kept her promises. I used to read those letters over and over again, and when I’d get to the part where she promised to take such good care of me, I’d say out loud, to the ghost of Marcia, “You were a selfish, rotten mother.” I’ve had a lot of conversations with Marcia’s ghost, but none of them has been very satisfying.
When Marcia got out of prison she came to get me. She told Grams she was going to take me to Texas, to be with my dad. We’d be a family there. Grams tried to talk her out of it, but one day Marcia just up and left, taking me with her. No forwarding address. Grams says she prayed for me every day, and did all she knew to do to find me. She kept thinking she’d hear from Marcia, at Christmas, or on her birthday, but that never happened.
Looking through old pictures, like when Marcia was in high school, before she turned into a full-time druggie, she doesn’t look familiar to me. Sometimes I think if by some miracle she were to walk into my room right now, I wouldn’t even recognize her. I have no pictures of her, or of me, from the time she took me away from Grams to the time she was gone from my life forever. I have no memories of her either, or from that time. Maybe I remember a loud, shattering bang, and searing heat, and someone grabbing me and running with me. But maybe I only dream it. Anyway, I got out before the house blew up.
The newspaper clipping from Amarillo, Texas, says Marcia and a bunch of others were manufacturing methamphetamine in a makeshift kitchen lab when the whole thing blew up on them. Four people, including Marcia, were killed. Some eyewitness thought he saw a black man running out of the house with a child in his arms, but he wasn’t sure. I’d like to think it was my dad, carrying me to safety. He’s black, so it could have been him. I’d like to think at least one of my parents cared enough to save my life.
In a way I guess the explosion was lucky for me. I know that sounds cold—like what killed Marcia was my good luck. But Marcia nearly killed me before I was even born, what with her drug use and all. And she nearly killed me again, when I was five. There were probably plenty of times in between, times I don’t remember, when my life was in danger with her.
Here’s what happened after the explosion, though. Somebody had pinned a tag to my shirt and printed: Please contact Frances Bailey, this girl’s grandmother, in Hamilton, CA.
Then they’d left me in an unlocked car in a church parking lot. When the family who owned the car came out of church, there I was. They took me to the church office and called the police. The police called my gramma. She flew to Texas the next day and took me home with her.
That’s what she says. I wish I could remember. Sometimes, it’s like it’s just hovering at the outside of my brain, a full memory of that time. Someday I might try to get hypnotized and see if that would help me remember. But if my memories are really awful, why put myself through that?
When Grams got me, I only weighed about thirty pounds, which is closer to the average weight of a three-year-old than a five-year-old. And, this is really gross, when they took me to the hospital in Texas to give me a check-up, my head was so full of lice that they shaved off all my hair. I do have a picture from that time—skinny, bald-headed, kind of slumped. I looked like one of those pictures you see in magazines that have a caption, “Only seventy cents a day can make all the difference in the world to little Carmen.” Except I looked worse because I had no hair.
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Suddenly I’m tired of that topic, even though I know there’s more I could explain. Like how sometimes I feel jealous and sad when I see a normal family, where the mom and dad love their kids, and take good care of them. You know the kind—little Janie’s preschool graduation picture is up on the wall, along with her baby pictures, and a picture taken on Santa’s lap when she was three.
My gramma has pictures of me from when I was three months old until I was two. There’s even one of me and my father, Jack, who came to see me a few times when Marcia was in prison. I don’t remember that at all, but Grams says he told her he was going to come twice a month, but after five visits he stopped coming.
Grams doesn’t know why he stopped. Maybe he got sent to jail too. She’d liked him though, from when she’d known him when he and Marcia first got together. She thought he’d be good for Marcia, but it turned out the other way around. Marcia pulled Jack down into the drug pit with her.
In my mind, just like I always think of my mother as Marcia, I think of my father as Jack. Neither of them deserves to be recognized as a parent. Marcia and Jack, that’s all they are to me. Not Mother and Father, or Mom and Dad, none of that stuff that means protection, or love, or any of the good things about families.
There’s another picture of me with Marcia, just after she got out of prison. And there are lots of pictures with me and Grams. Then there are all of those blank years when nobody cared enough to take my picture, or feed me right, or keep me clean, and then the pictures start again when I was five.
It’s strange to me that my aunt Claudia turned out so good and my mom turned into a junkie. Why? Whenever I ask my gramma about it, she gets all sad and says she doesn’t understand it either. Everything seemed to be going along just fine.
Then Marcia started hanging out with a different crowd. Her whole personality changed. Grams thinks that once Marcia tried drugs, she was lost. Like it changed her body chemistry, or something.
Grams is the only one who ever truly loved me, until Tyler. And I’m not even sure Tyler could love me the way Grams did, if I were bald-headed and lice infested.
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As I read over what I’ve written, a white hot anger rises within me, escaping from the secret compartment—the one I try always to keep locked up, unless I’m on the volleyball court. From my collection of colored marking pens, I take a heavy black marker.
I scrawl all over my rough draft assignment, in big, bold letters, “I hate you, Marcia Bailey! If you’d loved me, you’d have quit all the drugs and taken care of me! You didn’t love me! I’m glad you’re dead! You weren’t a real mother! A real mother loves her children! I never had a mother! I hate you! I hope you’re in Hell! Burning and burning and burning and burning!”
I rip the pages out of my notebook and crumple them, tight. I throw them into the wastebasket in a fury, then grab them out again, take them into the living room, throw them into the fireplace and set them on fire.
Watching them burn I think of my mother, burning in the kitchen. Burning in Hell. Serves her right, I think. Then the tears come. I can’t stop them.
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Harper said we should have the courage to go beneath the surface of things, but the muck below my surface isn’t clear and sparkling clean, like a swimming pool. It’s more like a dark, dirty, murky swamp, with snakes and alligators and menacing barracuda. I don’t want to write about that. I’m afraid I’ll be pulled under and then I’ll never reach the surface again.
Back in my room I open my math book, but I can’t concentrate. By nine-thirty I’ve only completed one math problem. Maybe my writing assignment should start, “You don’t know me unless you know the math part of my brain is broken and can’t be fixed.”
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I go into the bathroom, splash water on my face, brush my teeth, run a pick through my hair and put on Tyler’s favorite flavor of lip blush, “Sweet Strawberry.” I grab a sweatshirt and Angela’s Ashes, and drive to Greener Nursery and Fountains.
Once there, I park around back and go inside Mr. Schaefer’s old office. He has a new office up front now, since they remodeled, so Tyler uses the old office. It’s where he keeps his records of some experimental stuff he’s doing.
I turn on a light that’s way too dim, then sit down on the ratty couch and start reading Angela’s Ashes. The book is written by this guy, Frank McCourt, who grew up in Ireland in a family so poor that awful things happened to them. Twin boys died, and a little girl died, all because they couldn’t afford medical care, or decent food, or even enough blankets.
On top of it all, the father was a drunk and even when he was working he usually drank up the money they needed for food. Frank McCourt doesn’t seem to hate his father the way I hate Marcia, but I hate him, just hearing of him. They’re two of a kind, both so selfish they won’t even do what’s right to take care of their children.
I hear the door creak and there’s Tyler, standing in front of me, grinning. My gramma has a bunch of old LPs from the sixties. One song says something like whenever I see you, you make my heart smile. That’s how I feel right now, seeing Tyler. My heart is smiling big time.
“Been here long?” he says, sitting down beside me.
“Just one chapter’s worth,” I tell him, holding up my book.
“Done your math homework yet?”
I shake my head.
“I don’t get why you’re working ahead for creative writing, a class you’ve already got an A in, and not doing homework in the class where you’re barely getting a D.”
“Don’t start sounding like Grams.”
Tyler laughs. “You’re a crazy girl.”
“And craazzyy for loooovinnnn’ yooooou,” I sing out in a Patsy Cline imitation. (That’s from another of my grams’ LPs.)
Tyler puts his arm around me, pulls me toward him and kisses me. The tip of his tongue teases along my lips and I get the taste of a dissolved mint overcoming all but a hint of the onion he must have had on his hamburger at his dinner break.
He pulls back and grins at me. “Ummm. Sweet Strawberry. More.” He shuts off the light and I lean forward for another kiss, this one longer, more ardent. Hatred of Marcia falls away from me, until all I know is love for Tyler.
After a moment, Tyler raises his hand to my chin and gently lifts it so we’re eye to eye.
“Good news,” he says. “I’ve got good news.”
“What?”
“Another trip to Vegas coming up.”
Tyler’s parents have this thing about going to Las Vegas every chance they get. His mom likes to gamble, even more than Blake, it seems, and his dad likes the shows. And . . . Tyler and I like having his house all to ourselves.
“They’re leaving Thursday—not coming home until Monday. Four whole days,” he says. “Mom stopped in earlier this evening to pick up some of our special plant food mix. She told me they’d just made reservations at the Luxor.”
“What about Parker?”
Parker is Tyler’s nine-year-old brother, who’s cute, but can be a terrible pest.
“Parker’s going to Nana’s this time.”
Tyler moves his hand to the back of my neck, leans toward me, and kisses me on the mouth, long and serious.
“We’re gonna have a great weekend,” he whispers.
“We can make pizza,” I say.
“We can make more than pizza,” he says, kissing me again, moving his hand under my sweatshirt, under my not very tight sports bra. His touch is warm and gentle.
“Get closer,” he whispers, stretching out on the couch and pulling me close against him. He takes my hand and guides it downward. I feel his hardness under his farmer’s overalls.
Tires screech near us and we jump apart. Some near accident in the parking lot. The mood is broken.
We walk to Grams’ car and I drive Tyler home. He lives in a section he refers to as Baja Heights. Up the hill from him is where the rich people live.
Where he lives is still called Hamilton Heights, but it’s at the not-so-rich low end. Nice, though. In Tyler’s neighborhood the houses are newer than my grams’. We just live in Hamilton—no Heights, not even lower Heights.
I park at the curb a few doors down from the Bronsons’ house, so Tyler’s mom won’t know he’s home and come running out to talk to us. I mean, I like his mom a lot. I wish I had one like her. But still . . .
Tyler takes a deep breath and sighs. I’m pretty sure what he’s going to start talking about. It’s a topic he’s been bringing up more and more.
“Lauren,” he says, then pauses. “Listen, Lauren.”
The car is filled with Tyler’s intensity. I wait to hear what’s next.
“This would be a perfect time—the whole house to ourselves, no one to interrupt us, no gear shifts or steering wheels to maneuver around.”
I look out the window, watch lights go off in the house across the street, wonder what to say.
“I’ll take care of everything. Condoms, foam. You know I won’t hurt you. I’d never do anything to hurt you. Please,” he says, then, again in a whisper, “Please. I love you so much. I need you so much.”
He kisses me, then lays his head against my chest. I sit with my arms around him.
“But I promised myself . . .”
“I know. I know all about your promise. But you were a kid then. You’re not a kid anymore.”
“But I. . .”
“Just think about it,” he says. “Tell me you will at least think about it. It’s making me crazy.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” he says, giving me a gentle kiss on the cheek and getting out of the car.
Tyler turns back for our usual “love you” sign, the one I taught him after a sign language demonstration in peer communications. I sign “Love you” back to him, to his soft mouth and gentle eyes, and then I pull away from the curb.
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Back home, I sit in my desk chair, in the dark, and swivel to face the half-open window that looks out on the backyard. It is very dark out tonight, with no moon or stars.
Even though I can see only vague shadows, I know what’s there—the pepper tree groaning against the roof, the deck with wicker chairs and bright cushions, the bird feeders outside the window.
I sip hot tea, listening to the chirp of crickets and the rustling of leaves. It is a peaceful place. I heard somewhere that certain places are healing places and I think my gramma’s backyard is like that.
When Grams first brought me home from Texas there wasn’t even a bed in this room. There was a big table where she had laid out a giant jigsaw puzzle, and there was a stack of dusty Christmas decorations in the corner.
“It’s just a junk room, but we’ll fix it up,” Grams had said. Then she found some blankets and a pillow and made a bed for me on the floor. She laid down next to me, her head resting beside mine on the pillow. There was a sound outside the window that made me tense, scared.
“Just listen,” Grams had said. “It’s a good sign that the owl is there tonight.”
I listened to the soft hooting sound while Grams rubbed my back. “The owl knows everything is fine, or she wouldn’t have come to our tree.”
It was the first time I could remember feeling safe. No matter how old I get, I think the fresh cool air coming through my bedroom window will remind me of that time back when I was five, when I first felt safe.
It’s strange how I remember all about that night when I first came from Texas to my gramma’s house, but almost nothing from the time immediately before, with Marcia. Grams says sometimes our minds block painful stuff, and maybe the time before she brought me home from Texas hurts too much to remember.
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For a long time I sit in the dark, listening, thinking about the past, thinking about Tyler and what I know he wants to have happen. I want that, too, in a way. But I’m determined to stay a virgin until I get married. True love waits. I hear that all the time and it makes sense to me.
Finally, I turn on the light and reach into my bottom drawer, my diary/journal drawer, and pull out the hand-tooled leather journal that has the number fourteen on the spine, embossed in gold.
I fan the pages, watching dust motes rise, then fall. I run my hand over the soft leather cover, then turn to page one, September 8, and reread what I wrote on my fourteenth birthday:
Dear Journal – A promise from me to me,
I promise not to do anything to mess my life up. No DRUGS (like wrecked my parents)! No SEX (like wrecked Sarah Mabry)
NO DRUGS EVER.
STAY A VIRGIN UNTIL MARRIAGE.
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I sit staring at my three-year-old vows, running my fingers through my hair, straightening it, letting it go, feeling it curl up tight against my head.
“You think with your hair,” Tyler’d laughed at me just the other day, when we were working on our creative writing magazine, Connections, trying to figure out which illustration would go best with one of Blake’s poems.
No matter how many times I run my fingers through my hair tonight, my brain stays muddled. Not about the drug part. I’ve seen enough of how drugs mess people up to last me a lifetime. I’ll never break that promise. The sex part, though? Is that old promise something I should forget about, like Tyler says?
I want to stay a virgin. No way could I handle having a baby yet. And no way could I handle an abortion. Or HIV, or herpes, or genital warts, or any of that stuff we hear about in health ed. No way! I do not want to go there. I’m sure Tyler doesn’t have any diseases ’cause he’s never been with anyone else. But that’s what Amber thought about her boyfriend, too, and then—herpes. And even if I don’t worry about STD with Tyler, there is the pregnancy thing. Nothing is absolutely safe except abstinence. That’s what I know.
I stare again at my old journal entry. My handwriting is round and slanted backwards. That was back when I was still trying to write like Amber.
I reread the entry, reread my promise to myself, and I know for certain the decision I made back then is still right for me. But the other thing I know for certain is I really, truly, with all my heart, want Tyler to be happy with me.