Baby Girl Read online

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Mama’s not going to let me go to college,” I said.

  He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Wait a few days,” he finally suggested. “I bet she’ll come around.”

  During the next two weeks, I went out of my way trying to be nice to Mama. I made certain my room was spotless clean, and after dinner I’d jump up and clear the table before she had a chance to mention it. Several times I asked if she’d given any further thought to my going to college, and she turned away as if she hadn’t heard me.

  When I handed Mama the ticket to my graduation, she laid it on the sideboard and went back to what she was doing.

  I reminded her of it the morning of my graduation.

  “The ceremony starts at four o’clock.”

  “The time’s on the ticket,” she replied with a frosty air. Seconds later she asked, “Have you decided what you’re doing after graduation?”

  Caught up in the excitement of the day, I answered, “Yes, we’re going to a party at Barbara Miller’s house.”

  She gave me a look of pure hatred and snapped, “You know that’s not what I was asking about!” With the words still hanging in the air, she turned on her heel and stomped out of the room.

  Mama made it obvious she was mad at me, but I didn’t think she’d be spiteful enough to skip my graduation.

  At four o’clock sharp the ceremony started. I looked out into the audience and saw the chair next to Ryan was empty. That empty chair felt like the weight of the world pushing against my chest. When Principal Browning called my name, I had tears streaming down my face. By then I’d made my decision.

  The Apartment

  Two days after graduation I packed my bag and left. Mama was sitting at the kitchen table when I passed.

  “Goodbye, Mama,” I said, but she didn’t even look up.

  When I stepped outside Ryan was already waiting for me. We drove to Burnsville that afternoon and stayed in a twenty-nine dollar a night motel on the interstate.

  You might think with that being our first time actually spending the night together we would have made wild passionate love, but we didn’t. I couldn’t get the image of Mama’s angry face out of my mind and kept crying. Ryan sat beside me and rubbed my back.

  “I know you’re scared,” he said, “but we’re gonna do just fine. We’re not giving up our dreams, we’re just taking a different path to get there.”

  “But we have nothing,” I said, sobbing.

  “Sure we do,” he said. “We have each other.”

  I wanted him to understand how brokenhearted I felt because I didn’t have Mama anymore, but after I thought about it I realized I never did. Neither Daddy nor I ever had Mama. We had each other and she had us. We were the story of Gilda written in a different handwriting.

  It was well past midnight before I finally drifted off. The next morning we got up, got dressed and started looking for an apartment.

  We had the money I’d set aside for college, but it had to last until we got on our feet so we took the cheapest place we could find. It was a three-room flat above a delicatessen. We paid the first month’s rent in cash then moved in with nothing but two suitcases.

  That afternoon we drove over to Downing, found the Salvation Army Thrift Shop and bought furniture for the apartment. Everything, including a worn plaid sofa, an oak table with two chairs and the bed, came to a grand total of three hundred and twelve dollars.

  “Newlyweds?” the silver-haired woman at the register asked.

  I nodded. We weren’t married but we planned to be, so it seemed a harmless enough lie.

  “You’re going to need more than just furniture,” she said. “Have you got sheets? Towels? Kitchenware?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  “Well, here, let me help you.” She took my hand and led me to the side room where the rows of tables were piled high with merchandise. Grabbing two large boxes from beneath the table, she walked down one row and up the next.

  “You’ll need accessories for the bathroom,” she said and plopped a stack towels in the first box. “And dishes and flatware.”

  “I don’t know that we can afford—”

  “We don’t just sell things here,” she said, turning to me. “We give things away too. These things are donations. Someone gave them to us, and now I’m giving them to you.” She smiled and continued down the row. “And sheets; you’ll need sheets and pillows and blankets…”

  As I followed behind her I couldn’t help but wish she were my mother.

  “Do you have any kids?” I asked.

  “No.” She shook her head ruefully. “I always wanted to have one but…”

  I was tempted to say, “You can have me because my mama doesn’t want me,” but I didn’t. It was a silly thought. Just wishful thinking.

  We loaded the two cartons into Ryan’s car and headed back to the apartment. The truck would deliver our furniture the next day.

  It’s funny how certain moments stay in your head forever. I remember how happy we were that night. We bought a loaf of sour dough bread and a container of soup from the delicatessen downstairs and ate dinner standing at the kitchen counter. Afterward we fixed a bed on the floor and made love.

  We’d made love hundreds of times before, but it was never quite like that night. With our Salvation Army furnishings and the future stretched out in front of us like a ripe promise, I thought this was everything I could ask for. That night I slept with my head on Ryan’s shoulder and the thump of his heartbeat beneath my hand.

  ~ ~ ~

  Two days later Ryan landed a job working the counter of an automotive parts supplier. It was five days a week plus double time on Saturdays if he was willing to work. At the end of that first week when he got his paycheck, he bought a six-pack of Budweiser and a pound of roast beef from the delicatessen. That night as we settled at our second-hand table eating thick roast beef sandwiches and drinking beer from the can, it felt like a celebration.

  “I’m figuring I’ll work two Saturdays, then we can buy a TV,” Ryan said. “And once you get a job we’ll go back to saving for a house.”

  “Yeah, once I get a job…” The rest of my thought was left hanging in the air because I’d discovered finding a job wasn’t as easy as I’d thought it would be. Without the two years of junior college, the only thing I had to offer was typing.

  It took me almost two weeks to find a job, and when I finally did it was working in the classified ads department of the Burnsville Tribune. I made six dollars an hour answering the telephone and helping people write ads for things like used cribs or exercise equipment.

  “Tribune Classifieds,” I’d say cheerfully, then copy down whatever they wanted to sell, rent, give away or buy. I was only one of six girls working the classifieds. Nicole Polanski sat next to me, and she was the one who taught me how to make the most of my day.

  “Go for the up-sell,” she said. “If your ratio is more than 75 percent, there’s a bonus.”

  An up-sell was talking a customer into running the ad for a week rather than just two or three days.

  “Tell them it’s $2.80 a day if you run the ad for a week,” Nicole advised, “and $4.20 a day if you do just two days.”

  “But won’t that cost more money?”

  “Not really,” she said and gave a devilish grin. “You can save the customer money by using abbreviations.”

  She showed me how to turn a listing for an elegantly landscaped three-bedroom house with a new kitchen, playroom and two-car garage into “Scenic 3BR + den, new appls, dbl gar.” Before long I had an 85 percent ratio and was collecting a bonus every week.

  By then Nicole and I had become fast friends. We ate lunch together every day and shared the down and dirty secrets of our life. She’s the one who helped me move past feeling guilty about Mama.

  “When a person gives you nothing but misery,” she said, “then it’s time to move on and find ha
ppiness. It’s always there, but sometimes you’ve got to do a lot of looking to find it.”

  The thing I liked about Nicole was that she’d offer a piece of advice then move on. She didn’t keep harping on the same thing over and over again the way Mama did.

  Three months after I started working the classifieds, Willard Moss, the advertising manager, called for me. Willard was a white-haired no-nonsense man who did a bullet-shot walk from the elevator to his office, never glancing right or left.

  I was working on an ad for a garage sale on Clancy Street when Sheila, the floor supervisor, tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Willard wants to see you in his office,” she said.

  Out on the floor we laughingly referred to him as Willard, but if we had occasion to come face to face it was always Mister Moss.

  “What for?” I asked nervously.

  She shrugged. “How would I know?”

  I turned my computer monitor off and started down the long hall. I was thinking Please, God, don’t let this be that he’s letting me go. I began reviewing the past three months and realized perhaps making the up-sell bonus every week wasn’t such a good idea after all. Hopefully it wasn’t something that warranted firing.

  Maybe the paper is cutting back, trimming the fat, so to speak. I was the last person hired, and if they were laying people off I’d be the first to go.

  The door of his office was open, but I tapped on it anyway.

  “You wanted to see me, Mister Moss?” I asked, my voice as timid as that of a squeaky mouse.

  He looked up from the papers he’d been reading and nodded. “Come in, and pull that door closed behind you.”

  Oh, crap, I’m getting laid off.

  I sat, straightened my back and folded my hands in my lap. When your stomach is doing flip-flops, there is no way to look casual or comfortable.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on the way you work with customers,” he said, “and I think you’re wasting your time here.”

  “Actually I really like this job,” I cut in. “I like helping people and—”

  Before I could finish telling him how happy I was in the job, he said, “I need somebody with your ability working outside. I’d like to move you into space sales. I won’t lie, it’s a commission job so you’d get less money to start with, but with your personality I think you could double your income in a month or so.”

  I gasped. “Double my income?”

  “Maybe even triple it!”

  That evening I told Ryan about my new job and said I’d need to borrow his car because I had to go from place to place to call on the businesses. He was none too crazy about the thought of my using his car and liked it even less when my first paycheck was half of what I’d been making.

  “This is just a draw against the commissions I’ll be making,” I said. “By next month it should be more.”

  He eyed me with a scowl then turned away. “Hopefully.”

  That night I made up my mind. Come hell or high water, I was going to make a success of myself in this business.

  The third month I received my first big commission check, more than double what I’d been making. Before year-end I was earning as much as Ryan most every month, and some months I was making more. By then he’d gotten me a 1987 Chevrolet Caprice.

  Life was good. We now had a fully furnished apartment, two cars and a brand new television.

  New Life

  It’s funny how having a few good things in your life can cause you to turn a blind eye to problems loitering in the shadows. While there was no doubt Ryan and I would eventually get married, we weren’t rushing it. For now we were both happy, and that was enough.

  On the few occasions when I mentioned marriage, Ryan turned it off by saying we first needed to get ourselves “established.” Instead of talking about marriage, we spoke of other things. The things he wanted. A house, a new car and now he’d added a boat to the list.

  “Wouldn’t it be fun to have a nice little cabin cruiser?” he said. “We could dock it on the James River and join the yacht club. There are parties every weekend; imagine the fun we’d have…”

  With his words he painted a picture of happiness. At night we’d lie in bed, my head resting against the curve of his chest and him telling of the places we’d go and the things we’d do. Without ever once objecting, I let his dreams settle in my head and become mine.

  Once or twice a week Nicole and I met for lunch, and I’d rattle on about all the plans Ryan and I had. She was happy for me but not as happy as I was for myself.

  Every so often she would ask when we were getting married and I’d answer, “As soon as we’re established.”

  In time this caused her to tilt her head and give me a grimace of doubt. She’d once told me Ryan had the look of trouble attached to him, but after that the only thing she said was, “Be careful.”

  Nicole and Ryan didn’t hit it off; knowing that, I brushed past her warning without giving it a second thought.

  When the time is right we’ll get married.

  ~ ~ ~

  Fourteen months after we moved to Burnsville, Ryan and I bought our first house. It was a fixer-upper with a back porch that needed replacing, but it was cheap and could be had with a minimal down payment. In a heartbeat we went from being two carefree kids camped out atop a delicatessen to being homeowners.

  Ryan traded in his slick convertible and got a one-year-old truck, a Dodge Ram that had 16,000 miles on it. Instead of going to the movies or having dinner at the Chinese restaurant in the evening, we hurried home and worked on fixing up the house. Almost every week we spent Saturday morning at Home Depot stocking up on another load of hardware and paint. On the way there we’d circle around the drive-through, grab a coffee and egg McMuffin, then be waiting at Home Depot when the store opened.

  It was fun holding paint swatches next to one another, picking out the perfect beige for the living room, then moving on to finding tiles for the kitchen or handles for a cabinet. We’d take a cart and go from aisle to aisle in search of whatever we needed: nails, hooks, a claw hammer, an electric screwdriver.

  Each week it was something different, but once the truck was loaded we’d hurry home and start working. I’d be right alongside of Ryan, hammering, painting, cleaning gutters and digging weeds out of the yard. It was like the early days when he and his mama first moved to Spruce Street, only now we weren’t fixing up her house. We were working on a place of our own. Some afternoons we’d turn the radio to a music station, push up the volume and sing along as if we were at a music festival.

  When we finished working we’d shower together, then fall into bed and make love. When Ryan held me in his arms and whispered how much he loved me, I couldn’t imagine wanting anything more.

  ~ ~ ~

  The thing about trouble is that you seldom see it coming. You’re moving through life with everything looking rosy, so you don’t bother to question what’s ahead.

  Willard Moss, pleased with sales, expanded my territory and gave me the six towns surrounding Burnsville. This doubled my income but made for a long day with few breaks. I was on the road before seven in the morning and more often than not worked straight through until seven in the evening.

  This routine had its ups and downs. The upside was that I felt better about myself than I’d felt in a very long time. I was the Tribune’s top space salesperson, an equal partner in our house and had whittled myself down to a size eight, which was the thinnest I’d ever been. The downside was that my life was moving at 100 miles per hour, and there was no way to slow down. I seldom had time for lunch because there was always another client to call on.

  Success is a cruel master. The more you have, the more you want. Day after day Ryan pushed me to want more. It was a carrot he held out, and I kept running after it. In the evening when we lay side by side in the bed, his words would breathe life into that oh-so-tempting carrot.

  “Just think of it,” he’d say. “If we keep going like we are, in a year or
two we can buy a bigger house with a swimming pool. At night we can swim naked and…”

  He described everything: the marbled foyer of the house, the blue tiles of the pool, even the waterfall that would cascade from the hot tub into the pool. Listening to him I could see the clear blue water surrounded by tall hedges of boxwood. I could hear the echo of our laughter and feel the passion of what came afterward.

  “Before long we’ll be able to afford a boat,” he said. “I’m thinking maybe a twenty-six-foot cruiser with a cabin below deck. We’ll keep the fridge stocked with cold beer, and on hot summer nights we’ll motor out into the bay, drop anchor and make love. Afterward we’ll just lie there letting the waves rock us to sleep.”

  As he spoke I could picture myself in a bikini that showed off the new thinner me. I would be standing on the deck looking across the lake and he’d be beside me, his hand wrapped around my naked waist.

  Looking back I can see the folly of such dreams, but back then it seemed real enough to touch. Ryan had the ability to make fantasy seem real and black appear white. Once you were swept up in his dreams, there was no escaping.

  Before the year was out, the long hours and poor diet got to me. It started with an upset stomach that I blamed on the pizza we’d had the night before.

  “I don’t think it was the pizza,” Ryan said. “I feel fine.”

  I’d skipped lunch, so regardless of what he said I knew it was the pizza. But the nauseous feeling hung on, and for rest of the week I couldn’t look at food. By the time the weekend rolled around, I was convinced I had an ulcer.

  “Uncle Harry had the same thing,” I told Ryan. “It runs in our family.”

  I was pretty certain that by watching my diet I could get the ulcer under control, but the following Tuesday I was too sick to even go to work.

  I stayed in bed until almost ten o’clock; then I forced myself to get up, pull on a pair of jeans and drive to the walk-in clinic.