Chapter 5
During the day I left messages on Sally's answering machine. All that cold, gray day at Melanie’s house the phone remained silent. The upstairs windows looked out on a garden dead from the winter. There wasn't any sense in more packing until I knew when, indeed if, I would be leaving. Perhaps I would need to be packing to rent a place in town. There was nothing to do all day but wring my fingers and count on my worry beads about what was happening with Justin and to wait for the phone to ring.
Waiting
is. . .
Melanie had
radically decorated the upstairs guestroom with walls painted shocking pink,
using bright pumpkin orange as accent on the silk pillows and curtains. The bedside lamps had purple pleated shades
that matched the purple frames on several ultra-dimensional Escher prints; the
prints made me think of a Mobius strip--only a person versed in the unified
field theory could understand Escher’s art: people seeming to go from level to
level never succeeding. The room was
eccentrically decorated, but it worked.
Sliding glass doors led to a south-facing balcony. The other walls had
large windows that gave a splendid view of the hills beyond that were speckled
with dark green pine over a leftover dusting of snow. The sky was a crystalline
blue though there was another storm approaching. It was cold enough to freeze the balls off a
brass monkey.
I spent the
day lethargically lounging around Melanie's spacious upstairs guestroom. Comfy and cozy, swaddled with a soft down
comforter around my shoulders like I was in a cocoon. On one shelf of the bookcase was a small
framed photograph taken at a luncheon barbecue that Sally had given in her
lovely garden one sunny afternoon years ago; way before all this current
trouble with Justin, way before the Saudi Arabians destroyed the World Trade
Center and gave George Bush and Cheney an excuse to invade Afghanistan.
Melanie, then
late-forties, looked radiant with her shapely arms and ample bosom somewhat
exposed. The sunshine was bouncing off
her glorious red hair. She was cuddling
Justin on her lap--at that time he was an angelic cherub of six months or so. Preschooler Brandon, seen in profile in the background,
was just stepping into one of those cheap round Doughboy wading pools that they
sold at K-Mart.
My three
sumptuous daughters--Sally, Stacey and Marta--were standing behind my chair
with their arms around one another. We were all smiling in the beauty of our
youth—even I looked good. I never have
felt I was good-looking except when I see myself in a photo taken at some
previous year. Then I was pretty--not beautiful--but I am glad I didn’t have to
deal with buck teeth, cross eyes, a harelip, jug ears, or an oversized
schnoz.
Melanie is my long time best friend from forever and shares a lot of love
with my family, especially fulfilling for her since she never had children of
her own. She has a genuine kindness that
transcends the social distinctions of her Southern upper-class background;
she’s a natural born democrat.
She was proud of her family, especially a great-grandfather who was said
by some to have been a successful shipping entrepreneur and by others to have
been a rapacious pirate or a slave trader.
She never knew which version was true, but money in her family had
trickled down from him through the next generations, spendthrifts one and all,
until now nothing was left in the coffers for Melanie. She did all right for herself anyway, owning
a trendy clothing store that catered to the stylistic consumerism of the
designer-jeans crowd. She had the Midas
touch. Her opulent boutique, aptly named Daddy’s Money, mainly catered to
trust-fund college students. It had been
Daddy’s money, her inheritance, that had set her up in the business and paid
for her magnificent home.
The day passed slowly. I was feeling as out of synch as the Escher
prints that showed dozens of people
going up and down lots of stairs to no avail. Up stairs and down stairs, up and down, although there was no up or down
to the various floors where the steps led.
I could identify with those people.
Like them, I was going nowhere, waiting for God knew what, with nothing
to do that would matter. Right then it seemed
as if my life was on fast-forward and re-wind at the same time.
By changing the present we couldn't bend the
past, we couldn't change the history that had carried us inexorably to today
with this plot unfolding in a way most definitely not to my liking. Never mind how large a part of the mess I
must have created-- undoubtedly so. The
past was the prologue.
Where was Glenda the Good with her magic
wand? Where’s a Yellow Brick Road? I
wished for a script change, one with a prancing white horse waiting for me to
climb upon its back and charge against the evils occurring in the world—evils
occurring right in my own back yard--actually in what would have been my back
yard if I still had one. And actually, I would have preferred to have it be a
tall handsome hero wearing a Stetson, like Vincente Fernandez, who could ride
up on his stallion to sing me a song and save us all.
There have been so many problems with Sally during the years that I've learned to live in spite of the agony, immunized against the pain. Sorrow no longer flowed; it was coagulated, but each time I thought of Justin--the poor little bugger, probably again locked up in that sterile hospital--my constraint would burst like a dam and flood me with tears. Finally I had hiccups, the hiccups turned into deep breaths, and then I was only aware of a deathly vacancy as minutes ate into the day.
Not knowing
how else to handle my anxiety, I did a dynamite job of cleaning Melanie's
elegant house, moving and polishing heavy antique furniture and even cleaning
behind the refrigerator. Mercifully, the
edge of my misery was rusted a little by the housework routine while I was
listening to Melanie’s collection of Mozart. To stop the futile pondering I
concocted an eggplant Parmesan using leftover spaghetti sauce. No Parmesan cheese, so I substituted ricotta
and a nub of dried up Swiss I found.
***
I was sprawled on the white leather
couch, keeping my feet well off of it, staring blankly out the window at the
gathering of sullen black clouds beyond, watching the storm clouds’ indigo rim
stretching out to suck down and swallow the red sun, when Melanie's Subaru
roared its way up the drive.
Her cheeks and snub nose were rosy
from the cold, her flaming red hair was lightly sprinkled with snow as she came
tromping in juggling loaded market bags and bundles. Melanie is small but
dynamic; a Mighty Mouse, Brandon once said.
"Great God, Polly,” she
drawled as she entered. “I declare! You look a mess! Your eyes are puffed out like a
bullfrog's. What's the matter,
Girl? Are you sick?" Her voice was particularly Southern as it is
when she feels any strong emotion or drinks too much booze. She always says ‘aaahnt’ and ‘aaahfter’ like
the good Southern Belle she was raised to be.
She has a slight lisp whereby she holds on to the constants and slides
over the vowels.
In one motion she dropped her purse and
grocery bags on the floor as she tossed her fur-lined coat and bright yellow
scarf on top of the big seaman’s chest.
“Big problem with my grandson,” I
told her.
“A big problem? It must be something with Justin. It can’t be with Brandon.”
"No. Never a problem with Brandon. But there is a heavy-duty mess with
Justin. Sally says he threw a tantrum
at school. A regular conniption
fit. The cops came and handcuffed him
and took him away.”
“What? Police? Trouble at school?”
“That's all I know. I'm waiting for Sally to call with more
information about what occurred."
“What? Goodness Gracious! Cops? Handcuffs?
“Yes,” I said. “The police handcuffed
him.”
“A little squirt like him? Handcuffed? You gotta be kidding. He's spunky okay, rambunctious for sure, but
handcuffs! That's unbelievable. That's
dreadful, atrocious, too barbaric," Melanie declared, astonished. “Cops, eh?
They took him? Where did they take our boisterous
little lad? Handcuffed like a criminal,
he was? Gee Whilikers! They took him to
the hoosegow, you say?”
“No, I don’t think they took him to
jail, but I think he’s back to the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital in
Denver.”
"Eh? To the Funny Farm? Again?"
"Again. Sally says there’s a lot going on that I
don’t know about. No surprise
that."
She stood there quietly for a few
minutes, and then gave my hand a sympathetic squeeze before she picked up the
bags of groceries, went to the kitchen and returned with two strong gin and
tonics. Mine must have been at least a
double. She placed the glasses on the
coffee table as I scrunched and pulled my knees up to make room for her at my
side. She collapsed like a deflated
balloon, then kicked off her snow boots and sprawled arms akimbo with her legs
splayed straight out. Melanie seldom
relaxes, but when she does, she goes all the way. There are no holds barred with anything she
does.
"Well I’ll be jiggered. I
thought things were going well with Sally and the kids,” she said, “now that
she’s no longer being a hot floozy exotic dancer; no longer Pussy Galore. But I guess you don’t make over a life the
way you sew on a loose button.”
"I also thought things were
better until a month or so ago when I had the boys sleep over at my place. She was supposed to pick them up early the
next morning. She didn't come for them
as expected, nor did she answer the phone, so I was worried. Late that afternoon when I took the boys home
she was laying on the sofa in her bedroom, the room dark with the curtains
drawn--most gloomy. I could only rouse
her enough that she looked at me with lackluster eyes and mumbled that she had
a migraine.
“I don't know, Melanie. At the time I accepted that it was a migraine
and whatever she'd taken to knock herself out with was necessary for the pain,
but I don't know. Maybe it was a
hangover or maybe she was on downers again.
Drugs.
“I didn't know what to do. I don’t know what to do now. I never know what to do. The boys had headed straight
to their room and were gleefully murdering each other by proxy on one of those
violent video games. One of Mrs. Lujan’s nurses was there in the house, so I
left."
Melanie’s brow was furrowed as she
asked: "But except for that, you thought she was doing well?"
"Yes, I've thought things were
much better, that she finally had both oars in the water. She said that on
weekends she’s been taking the boys to a motel where there's a heated
pool. She said she and the kids swim, go
to Mass, then to the movies before eating at McDonald's or having pizza. It's a big improvement over keeping them
quiet at Mrs. Lujan's."
"Golly! It must cost her a fortune to do that, eh? Why doesn't she get a different job and rent her own place?”
"Of course,” I sniveled.
“Obviously. But it's her business, not
mine. I don’t deserve any gold star for
motherhood; much of Sally’s problems can be laid right at my door. Mea
culpa. Anyway--going away with the
boys on weekends is a solution--of sorts.
Without paying any rent, she easily earns enough taking care of Mrs.
Lujan’s affairs to pay for it since she's stopped spending money for booze and
drugs."
"If she's
stopped," Melanie said, unconvinced.
"I've believed so."
"Well, Girl, do you believe it
now?”
“I don't know. I just don't know."
There was nothing more to say. We’ve been friends since Jesus wore diapers
so we don’t need a lot of conversation.
During the Beatnik era we had cemented a friendship as we spent hours
drinking coffee or wine while we discussed politics, styles, books by Sartre,
Camus, the other existentialist writers.
We wore black turtleneck sweaters as we listened to Billie Holiday and
Miles Davis, told our fortunes with Tarot cards and the I Ching. One of the nicest parts about a good friend
is that when you don't know what you're doing, there’s at least a chance
someone else does. It was cathartic to
talk it over, but nothing was solved.
We sat in silence as the sun
briefly flashed through a break between the approaching ominous low-lying heavy
black snow clouds. The very noise of our
breathing seemed a violation of the silence.
***
Melanie was peeling potatoes and I was chopping leeks when finally Sally
phoned.
“Well, Mama, they took Justin to
Children's Hospital in Denver again," she mumbled. "I can't go to see him for a couple of
days--hospital rules for new admittees.”
“Not even you, his mother?”
“Not even me. But Mama, you and I need to talk. You don't have any idea about how things are. No
idea at all. Would you come over for
breakfast in the morning? There's a lot
I need to tell you. There's a lot you
need to know."
"Of course. I'll be there by eight with the whole day
free and will help in any way I can. Is
there any chance you can get Justin released right away?"
My hopes were up, maybe there could
be a rewind. Maybe this time we could
arrange for Justin to live with his Aunt Stacey. Maybe we could right away get
the paperwork done for whatever releases the hospital might need, undo the
inevitable red tape that’s always strangling everyone in corporate bureaucracy.
"We'll talk about that and a
whole lot more in the morning, Mama.
There’s much you need to know,
but right now I'm too tired and discouraged to go into it. I’m collapsing with fatigue.” Her voice sounded wasted—pooped--ready to
drop. She said she still had to pick up
Mrs. Lujan's medications and do payroll for the nurses before she could go to
bed. “We'll talk tomorrow and I’ll
explain it all,” she promised. “You’ll
understand then. See you at eight.”
“Good night. And Sally, you know things will get
better. All is not lost."
“Well, Mama,
if all is not lost, I’d like to know where the hell is it.”
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