Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl (13 page)

And I’m thinking, You took enough of the money we got from the old lady; that’s the least you could do. But I don’t say it.

“Nah … I’ve gotta go do something for Mama,” I lie. I might have shaken Caroline’s hand, but I’m still plenty sore at her.

“All right. Well, come over to our place when you get a chance.”

I watch as they head down the walkway and turn left once they reach the sidewalk. I can’t figure how Caroline can think we’re even. Vomit, yeah, it’s gross, but you can wash it away. Hair shaved off, not as easy to overcome.

Just as the elevator door slides open, they disappear from my view. I step in slowly and press the button for the fourth floor. Now I’m faced with the next fun phase of my day—my indentured servitude.

*  *  *

I guess miracles do happen, because just as I’m being asked to change another foul diaper, Mama calls down to Ms. Viola to have me come home, and it’s only six o’clock.
Never thought I’d be happy to hear from Mama, although this early call is making me a little nervous. Mama is never home before seven. That rich family she works for lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She never leaves there earlier than five-thirty, and it’s impossible for her to get back to our apartment in only a half hour. I guess I’ll find out what’s going on soon enough.

It’s weird having to ring the bell to an apartment I’ve been letting myself into since we moved here last year. Actually, I’ve been letting myself into our apartments since I was nine years old. But I just ring the bell and stand there. I’m waiting for what seems like forever and there’s no response, so I ring it again. That’s when I hear Mama’s footsteps coming down the hall. They’re moving fast, almost like they’re running. She’s probably going to be all ticked off since I rang twice. The locks click open and I hold my breath. But there’s Mama standing in her long green satin gown. The one with the halter neck and the big Christmas-present bow on the left side. The same one she wore to her friend Darlene Wilson’s wedding. Her hair is all done up and pulled into a big bun with little curls hanging down the sides. She’s wearing so much perfume, I have to fight for some breathable air. And her lips are Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey clown red.

“Why are you standing out in the hall like some little lost animal, Faye? Come in. Come in.”

The minute I’m inside, she locks the door behind me and actually puts her arm around my shoulder, though I’m not so sure whether she’s hugging me or pushing me along. I’m
thinking, Either I’m in a whole heap of trouble, or she’s finally gone off her rocker—not that she had very far to go.

The apartment smells sweet and spicy, the way it always does when Mama makes oxtail. Only thing is, she never makes it unless it’s a pretty special occasion. Actually, she never cooks, period, unless it’s a special occasion, which, blame it on temporary insanity, I decide to bring up to her.

“We haven’t had oxtail since Aunt Nola’s birthday,” I say. “What gives?”

“Shut up,” she says. Only, she says it in a nice way, if it’s even possible to tell someone to shut up nicely.

“I laid out a dress for you. The blue one with the cowl neck you like so much. And your hair, well, I guess it’ll have to do. That’s about the best it’s going to look, I suppose.” And she’s pushing and pulling and rushing me all at the same time.

“You go on and bathe. I expect you to be seated at the kitchen table in thirty minutes.”

“Why do I have to wear a dress?” I ask. “I think I’d be more comfortable in my jeans. And why are you wearing your ‘going somewhere special’ outfit?”

Her eyebrows arch up like they’re about to shoot from her forehead. I’m convinced she’s about to yell something. But she doesn’t. Instead, she smiles. At least, she does something with her lips that resembles a smile.

“Just go get yourself together,” she says.

After finishing up in the bathroom and dressing, I stand before my bedroom-door mirror, studying my reflection. But just as I’m trying to get the zipper on the back of my
dress all the way up, the door comes flying open, crashing into the wall.

“It’s six-forty-five,” Mama says as she begins fidgeting with her hair. “Why is everybody late? And why aren’t you at the table?”

I walk into the kitchen with my dress still halfway open in the back. I guess Mama notices me fiddling with it, because the next thing I know, it’s quickly being zipped up. Maybe a little too quickly, because it catches a bit of the skin on the back of my neck. But I don’t scream. I don’t say a thing. Once she moves away, I have to unzip it a little, and even though I can’t see it, I’m pretty sure some of my skin has been ripped off and is caught up in the zipper’s teeth.

Just as my butt is about to hit the chair, the downstairs bell sounds. I pop back up to go and answer it.

“No. You sit down,” Mama says as she walks out of the kitchen and disappears into the hallway. Twenty seconds later, she’s back, but there’s no one with her. And I never heard her ask who it was into the intercom.

“Faye, go get the door.”

“Isn’t that what you went to do?” I ask. Mama shoots me a look. And then she slows down her words, as if she’s trying to get through to someone with a learning disability.

“Go … stand … by the door … and wait … for the bell … to ring. Then open it … and let … the person … in.”

I look back at her as I walk from the kitchen. She’s patting her hair and looking at her reflection in the toaster oven. Thick black lines are drawn across the tops of her eyelids, which makes her look a little like Cleopatra. And
her cheeks are red and shiny. She sits down at the table and crosses her thin legs, then her lips stretch into this weird smile. Some of the circus red lipstick is now on her teeth. I point at it.

“Mama, there’s some lipstick—”

“Why are you standing here staring like you’re slow or something? To the door,” she says with a clenched jaw. I change my mind and don’t say a thing.

I don’t like the feel of this. Who could she possibly be expecting? If you discount Uncle Paul and Aunt Nola, no one ever visits us. Maybe Mama’s gotten wind of my exploits with Caroline and Gillian and has convinced them to come spill the beans. Or maybe she somehow found out what happened in that Parkside Avenue apartment and has set it up for the old lady to come and tell the whole sordid story. Maybe it’s that robber from before. Maybe Mama has just decided to get me off her hands once and for all, and the minute I open the door, there’ll be a samurai sword to the gut.

My left eyeball is positioned in the peephole even before the bell rings. As the figure approaches the door, it’s blown out by the too-stark hallway light. All I can tell is that it’s a man. But once he steps closer, I realize just who it is and quickly undo the locks.

“Hey, baby girl. You better come give me a hug,” my father says as he bends and wraps his skinny arms around me, bear hug–style.

“What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in months,” I say.

“Been getting a lot of gigs. Trying to make that money. Then had to spend a little time down in Florida. But I’ll tell you all about that when I take you out on our dinner date.”

“Dinner?” I ask. “Just you and me?”

“Faye, dear …,” I hear Mama call. I grab Daddy by the hand and lead him down the hall.

“You’re looking fancy,” he says. “And what did you do? Get one of those new short hairstyles?”

“Something like that,” I say as I shake my head. “FYI, I think Mama had something else in mind for dinner. Maybe you should talk to her first.”

When we get to the doorway of the kitchen, Mama pops out of her seat like a big green jack-in-the-box. She lifts the hem of her special-occasion dress and flies past me and over to Daddy.

“Faye, give your father a chance to breathe,” she says all friendly and charming. “There’ll be more than enough time for you all to catch up over dinner, won’t there, Charles?”

Daddy looks around the kitchen, and his eyes lock on to the stove.

“Something smells good,” he says.

“Yeah, I bought some oxtail the other day and left it out in the fridge, so I figured I should cook it before it spoils. And you know oxtail is not cheap.”

“Oh,” Daddy says. “See, the thing is, Jeanne, I was thinking Faye and I could just go out. To Faye’s favorite. Red Lobster.”

“Wait a minute. Wait,” Mama says, twisting her curls and acting even weirder than she’s been acting all night. “I
mean, I have all this food. Everyone’s hungry. Why let it go to waste? Come on, sit down.”

Daddy doesn’t look so sure.

“Then you can tell me about this life change you mentioned over the phone. This big news. And I don’t want to have to wait till you two get back from Kings Plaza to hear it. We’ll all talk. After we eat.”

Before Daddy can say another word, Mama is taking him by the arm and leading him over to the table.

“Now sit,” she says. “There’ll be no restaurant when we’ve got perfectly good food right here.”

“I don’t know, Jeanne. I wanted to do something Faye wanted. Something different.”

“Oh, but she loves oxtails,” Mama says. “And talk about different. I can’t tell the last time we had them. She doesn’t want any Red Lobster, right, Faye?” Her lips are smiling when she says this, but her eyes are not.

Daddy looks at me. “Faye, it’s up to you, baby. You say Red Lobster and we’re out of here.”

My lips are ready to form the words
Red Lobster
, but I see Mama shooting me her death rays. I guess it’s going to be oxtails.

I truly hate
my life. Why didn’t I just defy Mama’s will for once and say what I really mean? Now instead of sitting across from Daddy at the restaurant, enjoying some shrimp scampi and a Shirley Temple, I’m staring at Mama in her ridiculous gown.

“You sure about that?” Daddy asks once I give my half-assed answer. I just nod without any enthusiasm.

“Oxtails you want, oxtails it is,” he says before turning to Mama. “By the way, what’s with the dress, Jeanne?”

“Oh, this?” And she does this weird fashion-model turn. “I was going through my closet. I have a few beautiful pieces. This one I got when we first got together, remember? Anyway, where do I have to wear them to nowadays? So Faye and I decided we would do like the rich people and play dress-up when we had dinner.”

I look up, ’cause unless I’m losing my mind, I don’t remember ever having such a discussion. And Mama’s not really the type to play anything.

“Hmm,” Daddy says. “Hope that giant bow doesn’t get in the way of your food.”

I giggle, because I figure Daddy thinks this is as ridiculous as I do—Mama getting all dolled up in her ball gown to have dinner in our small Brooklyn apartment, where the roaches outnumber us a million to two.

“I suppose it
is
a nice dress,” he says. And Mama smiles her smeared lipstick smile. “You got something on your teeth, Jeanne.”

Mama brings her napkin up to her mouth. When she removes it, she smiles again, only with her lips together this time.

Daddy takes off his leather jacket and his orange-and-blue Mets cap. Every time I see him he looks thinner, and he was never all that big to begin with.

“You’re growing a beard,” I say.

“It’s a goatee. You like?”

“It’s got some grays in it. Makes you look older.”

“Personally, I prefer the word
distinguished
. So, how you doing in school?”

Things start out normal enough, but it doesn’t take long for the conversation to take a turn and for Mama to completely go off the deep end. The “change in plans” Daddy needed to talk about comes up way before the end of dinner. Mama starts babbling about how nice it is for the three of us to be eating together, and how like a real family it feels, and on and on and on. And I start noticing just how uncomfortable this seems to be making Daddy. I mean, his eyes are shifting about. He’s poking at his food and chewing on the
same piece of oxtail for like ten minutes. Finally, he takes his napkin, wipes at the corners of his mouth, and pushes the plate away a little. Then he just sits there, quietly staring at his Seven Natural Wonders of the World placemat.

“Jeanne, maybe we can go into the living room and talk.”

“Whatever you have to say, you can say it right here,” she says. But Daddy looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Maybe we should go into the living room,” he says again. And Mama’s face clouds over. She actually looks a little scared. She clasps her hands together and sits up really straight. Then she just plops out of her seat like she’s lost all control of her muscles, and she’s kneeling on the cold linoleum floor in her fancy gown. She grabs Daddy’s hands and starts laughing.

“I’ve changed so much over the last couple of years, Charlie. I’m more secure with myself, I’m happy. I’ve learned to laugh. You know I don’t want to sign those papers. I mean, you’ve been out there. You see how hard it is. We had something good. Why don’t we just give it another shot?”

“I’m going to be based out of Fort Lauderdale from now on, Jeanne. I’ve met a really great woman. Her name is Melba, and, well … we’re getting married.” And Daddy turns to me. “Baby, I’m getting married again.…” Then he turns back to Mama. “I’m really going to need you to sign those papers this time. No putting it off any longer.”