A Little Lie
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Mavis said, making no attempt to hide her disgust, “but I sure don’t want nothin’ suckin’ on me.”
We were seated in a circle on the floor of the Project living room leaning back against big, colorful pillows after watching a film about breastfeeding.
When the lights were turned back on, I’d tried to read their faces. Mavis looked bored and contemptuous. Mandy seemed noncommittal. Nell was silent and open-mouthed. I couldn’t imagine her nursing, but it was also impossible to think of her having sex.
“It is hard to picture her with a fella, idn’t it?” her mother had said when I’d asked about the father. “She never went anywhere except the superette, and she sure didn’t do it there.” She threw up her hands. “She don’t even want to go there anymore. If it weren’t for the Project, I reckon she’d never leave the house.”
I looked out at the captive faces of the new girls. There were several I knew only as names on an enrollment list. They sat, as resigned as children in church, waiting silently, yawning and fidgeting, until finally freed by the last “amen.” I did not delude myself that all our clients valued the classes we gave them. I realized they wanted a doctor’s care and to have their babies delivered in a hospital and accepted that a certain amount of boredom and irritation came along with these services. Even the ones who were not as vocal about their displeasure as Mavis.
“I know all I want to know about this nursing bit,” Mavis said testily, handing Susan back her pamphlet. “You may as well give this to somebody else. I already bought me a bottle set at Sears. It’s got two sizes of bottles, nipples, brushes, and everything.”
“Let’s save that for when we talk about bottle feeding, Mavis,” I interrupted, despite her smoldering eyes. I could not allow her to sabotage the class. I handed the pamphlet back to her. “Please follow along with us.”
She was silent, though she’d gladly have annihilated me with a stare.
“My mama nursed all of us,” Mandy said simply, as if suggesting a brand of scouring powder her mother had used. “We all turned out real healthy. We never had any bad sickness except the chicken pops and measles and stuff like that.”
“I bet it messed up her figure,” Mavis claimed. “I’m not gonna go through the rest of my life with droopy ole boobs when that little sucker can get all he needs right out of a bottle.”
“There’s not a thing wrong with my mama’s … well, you know.” Mandy blushed. “She even got her figure back a whole lot faster than some of her friends that didn’t nurse.”
I couldn’t help beaming like a first-grade teacher handing out gold stars. “Mandy’s right. Breastfeeding is good for the mom, too. Let’s read about how it helps the baby.” I stopped short. Even Susan’s usually encouraging eyes looked glazed.
“How about a volunteer?” I asked. “I know you’re sick of listening to me, so let’s take turns reading this aloud.” I sat back and waited. “Who wants to start?” Everyone looked down at the floor. They each seemed to grow smaller.
I smiled, hoping someone would smile back. But they all looked away.
“All right, then I’ll pick somebody.” I quickly looked around the circle. “Mavis, please get us started with the first paragraph.”
“I don’t want to read this,” she said sullenly.
“I didn’t ask what you wanted to do,” I answered, mustering my sternest voice. “Please begin.”
“You better let somebody else start,” she said standing up. “I have to go to the bathroom.” She stared at me as she passed by with a look that silently bored into me, daring me to stop her.
“OK. How ’bout somebody else?”
Finally, Mandy raised her hand. “I’ll give it a try.” She sat up straight and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Breast or Bottle Feeding: How will you choose?” She read as haltingly as a young child. “This bro-brochure is de-designed to provide you with facts to help you decide what will be best for you and your baby. Re-mem-ber. No matter what ap-proach you use,” her flat voice struggled on, “con-con—”
“Consistency,” Susan prompted. “You know, doing the same thing all the time.”
“Consistency is the most important part of feeding your baby. Your baby’s matu-matu—”
“Maturation.” I wanted to tell her to stop but there was no way to do it without humiliating her. I could see the perspiration on her forehead as she concentrated. “It’s just a big word for growth,” I said, stopping her.
She nodded and went on. “Your baby’s maturation is linked to the nour-nourishment he receives.” She paused as if deliberating over this information.
“Do you have a question?” I was surprised she’d find so much to debate in that simple statement.
“No, but could somebody else read now? It kinda wears me out.”
“Of course. Thank you, Mandy. Nell, how about you?”
She shook her head and cleared her throat. “I have a sore throat.”
“Rita?” I looked hopefully to the new girl Susan had just enrolled. She was thin, almost to the point of illness. Her blonde hair was stick straight and not much thicker than corn silk. She didn’t look as if she possessed sufficient energy to eat an apple, much less read out loud.
“I can’t read in front of anybody,” she said softly, hanging her head. “Ever since I was little, it makes me throw up.” She fiddled nervously with a high school ring on a chain around her neck. I wondered where the boy was who had given it to her. Susan had asked, but Rita wouldn’t talk about him.
“I’ll take a turn, Laura,” Susan said enthusiastically, like she’d won a weekend in the Bahamas. “I enjoy reading aloud.” Then she effortlessly read a section in her strong, ex-teacher’s voice. “What do y’all think about all this?” she asked when she came to the end. “Raise your hand if you’re going to nurse your baby. Keep your hand down if you’re going to bottle feed.”
“Wait a minute,” Mavis said. “Are you gonna pay for it?”
“Pay for what?” I asked.
“The formula.”
“No. We’re not budgeted for baby formula.”
“It costs a whole lot,” Nell said. “They got it at the superette. Cans and powder you have to mix up with water. It takes a whole lot of money to feed a baby.”
It was startling to hear so many words come out of Nell’s mouth at one time. The other girls looked surprised, too, yet they listened attentively.
“It don’t seem fair you won’t pay for it,” Mavis said irritably. She patted her abdomen. “I guess I’ll have to let that thing suck on me, just ’cause I can’t afford not to.”
“You can get it with Food Stamps,” said Gladys, a small, muscular black girl from Carrollton, whom none of the others had met before. “Formula’s food just like anything else. But it’s real expensive. All that baby stuff is.”
“How about Pampers?” Mavis asked. “Can you get them with stamps?”
“Nope. You can’t get diapers or soap or anything like that,” Gladys told them, appearing to speak from experience. “It has to be stuff to eat.”
“What about cigarettes?” Mavis’s tone was bold and challenging, claiming with every word that nobody could make rules for her.
“Nope. No beer or wine either,” Gladys answered.
“Can you at least get Cheetos and a Coke? I got to have something for all this trouble.” Mavis patted her stomach again and all the girls laughed.
“Sure you can,” Gladys reassured her. “You can get anything you want so long as you can eat it. My mama cooks real healthy, but she always gets cookies and popsicles for us when she gets her stamps.”
“I used t’know this lady,” Rita said, “who had this card they gave her down at the welfare office. And when she showed it at the store they gave her all kinds of things. Milk and cheese and eggs. She didn’t pay anything for them neither.”
“Then this baby better get used to drinking milk and eating cheese real fast,” Mavis said. “I’m not wasting my money on a lot of canned formula that stinks so bad I don’t see how anybody can drink it.”
“Some of it’s made from soy beans,” I explained. “You’re just not used to the smell. But let’s not get into that now. It’s not what we’re here for.”
“What are we here for?” Mavis looked me in the eye, cold and hard. She was ready to pick a fight.
“To learn more about pregnancy and childbir—”
“Girl, the only reason we’re here is ’cause you say we got to be or you won’t pay for nothin’,” Mavis said. “We got no choice about it.”
“Well, isn’t that just too bad,” Susan said sharply, standing up. She was taller than Mavis and accustomed to putting down insurrections back when she taught high school. “These classes are required. If you want the free services, you have to put up with the rest of it. And I promise you it won’t be the last time in your life you have to do something you don’t want to. Is that clear?”
“Maybe I have to do what you say now.” Mavis’s eyes flashed angrily. “But after this baby’s born, ain’t you or nobody else gonna tell me how to raise him or what to feed him or anything else. ’Cause you won’t have nothin’ to hold over me. I’ll raise him up however I want. I’ll give him a bottle full of Coke if I want to.”
“Now, calm down. Hold on a minute.” Susan’s voice was suddenly conciliatory and soothing. She put her arm around Mavis, apparently unaware when the girl recoiled from her touch. She looked totally sure of what she was doing. “Nobody’s going to push you into anything.” She smiled and turned from Mavis to face the group. “Who’d even want to try?”
A few girls laughed appreciatively and Mavis’s shoulders relaxed.
“It will be your baby. Laura and I won’t be breathing down your neck. If you want to feed him pizza and Nehi Grape, it’ll be up to you.”
We all looked at Susan in amazement.
“I thought that’d get your attention.” She laughed and sat down. “But you know, seriously, I got to tell y’all a little story on Mavis here.”
The room became immediately silent. Mavis looked distrustful, and I wondered what in the world Susan was trying to do.
“Mavis talks real tough, and she is tough,” Susan admitted. “I wouldn’t want to tangle with her over anything. But I’ll let y’all in on a little secret.” Susan leaned forward and whispered dramatically, “When it comes to children, she’s a pussy cat. You should see her with her little brothers and sisters. She’s practically raised them all ’cause her mama and daddy are so busy with their church. And those children look up to her. Every one of them’s healthy as the pictures of children in those parenting magazines. If one of them starts to cry, Mavis snatches them up for a hug in two seconds flat.” She smiled and shook her head. “I’m not worried about that baby. Not one bit.”
Afterwards while we were cleaning up, Susan looked at me accusingly. “I knew you were making a mistake when you asked them to read. Especially Mavis.”
“Then why didn’t you stop me?” I asked angrily.
“You’re the boss.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s not so easy to go against the boss, Laura.”
“I’ve always asked you to speak your mind. I’m not so hard to talk to.”
“You wouldn’t have listened.” Her first words came slowly, but then she got up her nerve and her feelings poured out. “You’ve got all your big-city ideas about education and women’s rights and ‘taking control of your life.’” She couldn’t help laughing. “See, I’ve listened real well. So have all these girls. But you’re not getting through to them. They all tell you exactly what you want to hear. Except Mavis.
“They’re shy, Laura. Some of them are only thirteen and fourteen, and you’re asking them to read about breasts and nipples and nursing babies. How do you know if they can read if you try them out on something like that?” She sighed. “Though most of them probably can’t. And they have to listen to us talk about nutrition when they never get enough to eat.”
I was embarrassed Susan had stepped in to handle a situation I could not. I turned on the vacuum cleaner and began vigorously attacking the crumbs left from our refreshments. My thoughts jumped all over the place as I cleaned and finally settled on my own memories of seventh-grade health class. Some girls had not been clear about what sexual intercourse involved, and we were embarrassed when the teacher pulled out her diagrams of vaginas and penises and stages of pregnancy and childbirth. We giggled in discomfort when she got to the part about breastfeeding, and we weren’t even pregnant. And all of us could read, though even our inept health teacher had possessed the sense not to make us read out loud about it.
I couldn’t shake the feeling of my own cloddishness, free-associating more embarrassing examples as I straightened the meeting room, dating back to when I was five and my great-aunt Leah, a tall, heavy woman came to visit. Several neighbors had recently given birth, and I had watched their pregnancies progress until it seemed they had watermelons under their dresses. Although Aunt Leah, with her bouffant-styled grey hair was much older than the pregnant neighborhood women I had observed, her protruding abdomen so resembled theirs that I had innocently inquired, “When are you going to have the baby?”
My mother, always polite and gracious, was mortified. Yet there was nothing she could do to lessen my mistake other than quickly engage Aunt Leah in relaying all the news of the Dallas cousins. The awkward moment had passed by the time we retrieved Aunt Leah’s suitcase from the baggage carousel, yet later that evening, when I overheard the adults discussing my unfortunate remark, I felt ashamed to have hurt the feelings of this kind aunt.
“I’m sure she’s forgotten all about it now,” my mother said gently, when she came up to kiss me good night. “Besides, you just didn’t understand that it’s not a question you ask someone long past the age to have babies. But it’s all right.” She leaned over and kissed me so that her soft curls touched my cheek, and I could smell the delicate sweetness of her perfume. “You just didn’t understand.”
Only this time I berated myself for not knowing better. I had grown up but was still my awkward child-self when it came to reading people. When I got home and told my mother what had happened, she would encourage me to consider all the good I did for our clients instead of focusing on one mistake. But hard as I tried not to, over the whir of the vacuum cleaner, I heard their halting, humiliated voices in my head.
When Rita Washburn came back inside the office, Susan and I had not heard her, occupied as we were in cleaning up. She seemed very nervous as if someone had frightened her. “I waited outside ’til everybody was gone, she explained, looking shyly at Susan and me. “I was just wondering … if you don’t need it all … and if you could spare it … could I please …”
“What is it, honey? What can we do for you?” Susan asked tenderly.
“I’m just so hungry.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Mama and Daddy can’t help not having enough for all of us since Daddy got laid off. There’s never enough with so many little ones. And now that you told us,” she said, holding out her pamphlet, “how it can hurt the baby if the mama doesn’t get the right things to eat, I’m so scared for my baby.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t mind so much for me, but I can’t let him get messed up. I know it’s going to be a boy. I’m sure of it. I can’t never see his daddy again, but I want my baby to be strong just like him.” She started to cry uncontrollably.
Susan quickly enfolded Rita in her arms and held her tight in a silence that was so deep and compassionate it seemed to stop time. Rita gradually stopped crying as Susan stroked her back, much as she might have soothed a baby. Then Susan led Rita over to the couch, still murmuring softly. This gave me a chance to run into the kitchen, where I fixed Rita a thick ham and cheese sandwich and filled a plate with the remains of Nadine’s three bean salad. I set the plate in front of her on the coffee table along with a glass of milk. Rita quickly pulled away from Susan and ate so hungrily she hardly took time to chew.
“Could I have please have some more?” Rita asked, setting down the empty plate and taking a long drink of milk.
“Sure you can.” Susan quickly filled another plate with fruit and cheese and crackers. “I’m going to pack up something for you to take home with you, too.” She began placing boxes and containers into a large shopping bag.
“Could I come back tomorrow instead?” Rita asked shyly. “If I take this home now, I’ll have to share it with the others. I couldn’t eat in front of them. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Take some home and come back tomorrow,” I said, pouring her some orange juice.
“Would you like a ride home?” Susan asked solicitously. “It’s dark out there.”
“It’s not too far. I’ll be fine.”
“It’s at least two miles. And it’s late.” Susan sounded concerned. “I’ll take you if you can wait ’til I finish up here. I’ve got a client coming by as soon as she gets off work.”
“Come on, Rita. I’ll drive you now,” I said, handing her the bag of food.
She followed me silently to my car. Once she was settled inside, she leaned back and closed her eyes. I was happy to see her relax, even if it might only be for a short car ride. But then she sat up and watched me anxiously.
“There was something else I came back for, Laura,” she said finally, talking to the floor. “I have to tell you something. I’m afraid you’re gonna be pretty mad ’cause I told you a lie.”
“I don’t see how anybody could be mad at you, Rita. I bet it’s only a misunderstanding, not a real lie,” I told her, wondering if this had to do with the father of her baby whom she had just mentioned for the first time.
“No, I lied to you.”
I couldn’t imagine what terrible secret she was concealing. I kept driving and waited for her to tell me.
“I told you I’d only missed two periods when I signed up. But I was three months gone when you came by the first time.” She looked at me tearfully, begging for forgiveness. “I did it ’cause I was scared you’d turn me down. But last week when I saw the doctor, he figured it out and said he’d have to tell you. Please don’t throw me out, Laura,” she pleaded. “It was just a little lie. Please don’t kick me out. I don’t know what I’d do without the Project.”
“Nobody’s kicking you out.” I squeezed her arm and handed her a tissue as we approached her house. “One month more isn’t such a big deal,” I said, trying to convince myself and praying it wasn’t actually longer than that.
But I worried what Mrs. Cremins would do if her calculations showed that Mavis was overage and that both she and Rita were past the eligibility date when we enrolled them. Or if she discovered Vernon was an alcoholic who had set his desk on fire. “Come on, Rita,” I said, trying to tease away her sadness and my own fears. “Pull yourself together. Or your folks are going to wonder what we do to you at these classes.”
She laughed weakly and collected her heavily packed plastic bag.
“It’s going to be OK,” I told her. “Stop worrying.”
“Thank you, Laura. God bless you.” She walked around to my window and looked in solemnly. “I promise I won’t lie about anything else ever again. Cross my heart and hope to die.”