New Year’s Eve – Remember me? It’s been a while but I’ve decided to write to you again. Directly. So that I can sort everything out myself. There’s nothing wrong with Jesus and Mary, but it’s pretty hard second-guessing them all the time. I’ve come to the conclusion that we have to work things out ourselves and there’s no point to thinking I have a direct line to God or to the Blessed Mother, any more than anyone else does. I’m just one person in a big family, and it’s no different in the world. It’s an enormous place, with millions of people, everyone clamoring for something or other.
A lot has happened. Clara had her baby. She’s named it Emma. It turns out that Emma was born on December 7, 1963, the 22nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor. In all the excitement, I forgot about Daddy and Father Stefanucci and how that was their special day of friendship.
The other thing that happened is that Mother told us about her lost babies. Everyone was kneeling around the statues up on the mantle on Christmas Eve. Daddy started to say the Our Father. And Mother interrupted him. Everyone looked up. Mother doesn’t usually interrupt. In fact, almost never. Just once, this summer, she interrupted him for me. I won’t forget that.
“Marty,” she began. “I want to tell the children. It’s time,” she said firmly and quietly. Then she told us we have two more siblings who are in Limbo. There was a lot of gasping and ahhing, except for me. I already knew. She’s named the baby girl of the miscarriage. Her name is Ramona, after Saint Ramon, the patron saint of secrets. And she told them about Clifford Mary Anderson Junior. The sunny side of all of this is, maybe if we all pray together, we can bribe God to relent and let them both into heaven, being as it wasn’t anybody’s fault that neither of them were baptized in the first place.
Right now it’s New Year’s Eve and Madcap and I are working on the Rose Parade Floats, even though my mind keeps getting distracted with the thought of Emma (who is really my niece). Everyday we go into the warehouse in our overalls and braids and flannel shirt and long-johns because it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
First job we had, we glued black poppy seeds onto a huge ball. We come in everyday at 7:30 in the morning. Today I balanced on a scaffold fifteen feet above the cement floor, dipping my brush and spreading the glue on the huge ball of the Cal Tech float. I’ve got a box of orange mums, every single one of which must be pasted onto the ball with no spaces in between. We’re in a huge warehouse with high ceilings and six other floats. The doors are open so that people won’t get sick inhaling the fumes. The other volunteers are students at Cal Tech, much older than me, because this is the Cal Tech float. Somehow Madcap and I got added on to the crew. We’ll probably be here ’til midnight. There is this one boy who sits next to me on the scaffold sometimes. He’s kind of shy and lanky, with yellow curls and big lips that look soft under his fuzzy blonde hairs that are trying to grow into whiskers.
•••
The queen of the Rose Parade and her princesses came in today in high heels. They were all dressed in lavender pastel suits, straight skirts to the knees, with short jackets and pillbox hats like Jacqueline Kennedy. The queen had a red rose on her lapel. I was looking down on them from my perch on the scaffold. I practiced the Rose Queen wave, in the unlikely case that I would ever become the queen, or even a princess in future years, when I’m old enough to audition—but I still had my brush in my hand, and I accidentally glopped a gob. It hit the bottom of my float and splattered, landing on the back of the high heel of the last princess. She had no idea.
I was seriously tempted to drop the entire glue bucket on them from above. Really. What kind of girl am I turning into? I imagined the noise it would make, and the bouncing glue bucket and everyone looking up at me, but unable to find me as I’d be hiding behind the ball. Wanda is also helping on the queen’s float. And by the way, she saw the glop, and looked up at me. I stared back. We’re still officially not speaking. She wants to get back with me. She’s dropped Teresa Feeney because now she understands that Teresa is just hiding behind Christopher’s lie about Clara being a slut.
Clara has gone back to school, and she’s getting “A’s” again. We all chip in with Emma if she needs her diapers changed or when she’s hungry. Mother puts the glass bottles with formula in the pot of boiling water on the stove; then she squirts the milk out of the nipple onto the inside of her wrist to see if it’s too hot. But when Clara gets home, she and Emma have this kissing reunion, with Clara doing all of the kissing behind Emma’s ears.
She wants to be a doctor, someone who delivers babies, but Daddy keeps telling her she can much more easily become a secretary. “You’re smart enough already,” he says, “administrative secretaries make a good living.” He tells all of us girls we should be secretaries. Clara ignores him. But I looked it up. Secretary means “keeper of secrets.” I certainly don’t want to be a secretary, and I don’t want to keep any more secrets. Eventually, because of that, and also because it was bothering me, I had to tell Clara my secret, namely that I blabbed to Christopher Feeney about how he’s the father.
She surprised me. She said she didn’t care what anyone thought of her, including Christopher Feeney. She didn’t care whether or not anyone said she was a sinner, or if she was sponging off Daddy and Mother by living at home. Or even that she had a child out of wedlock. She said she’s really happy that Emma is growing up surrounded by uncles and aunts as if she were the youngest in the family because she’ll have lots of people who love her and can teach her things. She’s thankful to Mother for going against Daddy and bringing Emma home.
I am going to try to be as truthful as possible in 1964. It’s hard to realize how much lying goes on with nearly everyone. Especially those people who tell you that lying is a sin. Also I’m not sure why it’s a sin if everyone does it. Now I just expect it. It’s an ordinary, rampant thing that can’t be controlled by the fear of fire in the afterlife. On the other hand, I hate calling anyone a sinner because there but for the grace of God go I.
•••
My favorite song on the radio is “I’m Leavin’ it Up to You” by Dale and Grace. Whenever it comes on, we all sing along from all the tops of the scaffolds, rocking and swaying to the beat, even though it’s rickety and scary up there.
Aaron Solomon is the float supervisor. Madcap and I are his slaves. Well, we’re volunteers and it’s fun. He has a lot of responsibility; he runs around all day ordering flowers and telling students what to do and talking with the float owners, but still, he takes a break with us and we sit together huddled around a bologna sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise near the space heater in the warm room. Madcap is so lucky he’s her boyfriend, and I always see her hand on his knee.
Speaking of lies. I’m sure the priests and nuns didn’t even know the truth about Emma. Once Christmas came and went, she just became a fact, #14. Otherwise, would the nuns have allowed Emma to be baptized at St. Andrew’s Church on Christmas Eve with Sister Maria Dolora’s fourth grade class singing Christmas carols as they poured the water over Emma’s big forehead? Would they have used a baby born out of wedlock as the Baby Jesus in the crèche? They would not have, but they did. For some people they might require a birth certificate, but when Mother arranged the baptism, would it even occur to them to ask her for proof of parentage? It did not occur to them. Everyone in our parish seems to be making an assumption that Mother is the mother of Emma. I’m not sure how I could tell them all. You can’t tell somebody else’s truth. I’m not keeping the secret of Emma, and I’m not the watchdog of the truth of Emma, either.
But the Christmas crèche was Emma’s first acting job, and she was pretty good. She was the first red-headed Jesus ever. And I’m pretty sure, the first female Jesus. So what? If they have so many versions of the Blessed Mother, surely Jesus can have whatever color hair He wants. Of course, the Baby Jesus was a boy and probably an ordinary baby in all other respects, and I remember being on diaper duty while Emma was in the crèche. Teresa Feeney and her brother Christopher were in the church, and I caught them both just baldly staring at the baby as I picked her up. They didn’t even look away when my eyes met theirs. I stared them down; Christopher looked away first, more confused than I had ever seen him. Teresa’s eyes were wide open, her mouth ajar.
I’m glad that nobody “really” knows. Emma is ours. Otherwise, Christopher Feeney might try to claim her. That family has enough beauty and talent and brains, and worst of all, grace. They had their chance and besides He who hesitates, is lost. I’ve seen Christopher wondering about her in church for unbroken moments, as if no one could see that he, a handsome B.M.O.C. (Big Man On Campus), has an abnormal fascination for a small baby girl.
Mother made it official, took away all our doubts, one night at the dinner table when she said, after the Bless Us Oh Lord… “And take special care of our youngest, Emma.” After that we tacked her name on the end of The List (Paul, Clara, John, Madcap, Bartholomew, Annie, Jeannie, Dominic, Rosie, Luke, Matthew, Mark, Jude — Emma ) and never bothered to mention to anyone that our youngest was our niece, not our sister. Clara goes along. She is a mother. Her baby has to survive.
More news. John-the-Blimp now has a girlfriend. They met at a dance. Her name is Barbara and she’s in Madcap’s class. The chaperone separated them while slow dancing to “Hey, Hey Paula,” with his hand right on her dress, exactly where her breast is. So much for him being a priest. Everybody thought he wanted to be holy. But it was so obvious. He wants to enlist as a sailor. Now I can call him a “deck ape.”
Wanda just knocked on my scaffold from below with the end of her brush, and I looked down to see her face smiling up at me. She pointed to her heel, reminding me that I dropped the glop of glue onto the Rose Princess’s heel. Then she bent backwards with her hands on her waist like Felix the Cat, like the laughing was killing her. A thing we do. “C’mon down, Annie!” She called up to me. “Take a break!” She apologized already for what she said the day we had that fight, but it’s hard to trust her again. Although I probably will. It takes a lot of energy to stay mad at someone who, underneath it all, cares about you.
So maybe I shouldn’t stay mad at Daddy. But I am giving up 6:30 Mass. I’ll miss the early morning air, the stillness of it and the lights on Orange Grove Boulevard fading away as the sun comes up. And being in the car with him. That’s over, now that I’m almost practically a teenager. He’s still my dad. It’s weird how he prays so much, and he still can’t listen to anyone but himself.
One thing is for sure: I’m going to keep writing. I’ve already started with this diary. It’s a place where I can say what I see—not just what they want me to see. And when I notice things that everyone can see but nobody admits? I’m going to write them down, too. I’m going to write everyday, so I don’t forget that what is in my heart is just as important.
Oh and the “tip” for the first automobile sale at Shea Family Motors? Paul finally noticed the money missing. No one suspects me, and I’m not going to say anything. There’s no proof. I’m not even going to confession for it. I’m going to save the money plus my babysitting earnings, in case I need it. Just in case I have to fight for something important and Daddy disowns me for it. The actual $25? I’ll just keep it in my… well I won’t say where, in case anyone reads this. Wait, I’m going to scratch that out.