All We Had (4 page)

A few miles down the road we found a gas station with a diner next to it, and they both looked open.

“I told you things would get better, didn't I?” my mother said, as if she'd put this scene in place herself.

Tiny's Grub ‘n' Go! had a spinning neon sign out front. The letters flashed one at a time, spelling out the name. The
o
quivered and made the exclamation point look twice as bright.

My mother turned the wheel and the gravel in the parking lot crunched. “I'm starving,” she groaned.

She threw her car keys in her bag, shoved her purse on her shoulder, and got out. She was almost running through the parking lot.

“Let's just hope this place is really open,” she said as I fol
lowed her. “Cross your fingers.” She raised her hand to show me hers already were.

A neon chicken wing flapped up and down in the front window and a hot dog flashed in and out of its bun. Blinking colored lights outlined the plate-glass windows. The warm hum of electricity stroked the air.

My mother took the few steps up.

“Yes!” she breathed when the breezeway door flew open. At the door to the restaurant she took a deep breath and gave it a yank.

“
Fuuuck!”
My mother hawked the word out from the back of her throat. It was locked.

She cupped her hands around her eyes and peeked in. I did the same next to her. A plastic jack-o'-lantern sat by the register, a string of tiny American flags hung above the counter, and a fake Christmas tree stood just inside the door as if here all the holidays happened at once.

Karen Carpenter crooned from the stereo. “
Why do birds suddenly appear . . .
”
In the dim light we saw a waitress wiping down the counter. In big, rhythmic strokes she performed the song with her rag.

My mother slapped her palm on the door and rattled the handle, but the waitress didn't hear us, so my mother pounded harder. The waitress finally looked up and turned the music down.

“Please,” my mother said through the door, exaggerating her mouth and holding her hands in prayer. “I have a kid,” she added pointing to me.

My mother and I were more like best friends. The word
kid
just didn't fit for me. But I knew this routine. I smoothed out
my T-shirt, and with my best innocent look I stood on my tiptoes and made sure the waitress could see me.

A man peered out the service window as the waitress pointed us out to him. He nodded his head, and, fishing her keys out of her apron, the waitress headed for the door.

“Oh, thank Christ,” my mother said when the door opened. “We've been driving for
hours
.”

“Don't sweat it, honey,” the waitress said, holding the door open for us. “Just follow me.”

Up close the waitress was taller than she'd first seemed. Her large hands swung back and forth by her side like a monkey's. Her shoulders were broad and her voice was deep. Her hair was uniformly blonde, stiff, and shoulder length with a perfect flip curl. She swayed her hips exaggeratedly, the way you would when you were only pretending to have them. And her feet were huge. You should have seen her red mules—they were like boats.

We slid into a booth by the window and I looked up at her. Her eyes were framed by enormous fake lashes that curled up at the corners like a cat's. And she also had a mustache—not the kind you'd bleach to hide. Hers was a deliberate and grand handlebar with the tips waxed up into an elaborate set of curls.

“We normally close at eleven.” She slid a couple of menus across the table. “But lucky for you the boss is a real mensch.”

“Oh my God, are you Jewish?” I asked excitedly, recognizing the Yiddish. I
loved
the Jewish people. They were the only sympathetic characters in the Bible and Yiddish was my favorite language.
Fark
akt
and
farklemt
, I mean, who couldn't love those words? Just saying them was fun. “
Farkakt
!
” “
Farklemt
!
” “
Farkakt
!
” “
Farklemt
!
” If I could, I'd make Marco Polo a ­Yiddish game.

The waitress gasped. She drew her big hand delicately to her chest and stooped in toward us. “Is it that obvious?” she whispered, and without waiting for an answer, she swished off.

When the waitress was out of earshot, my mother leaned across the table and widened her eyes. “Oh my God, that's a man,” she whispered.

“I know,” I whispered back. It was obvious.

“I don't think she's had the surgery, though, do you?”

My mother loved watching surgeries on TV. She'd settle for gastric bypasses, but sex-change operations were her favorite.

She started riffling through her purse. I knew before she found it that she was looking for her lipstick. My mother was excited, and there was just something about the act of moving the stick of color across her lips that soothed her.

“I have way too much crap in this bag,” she complained.

“Don't you just hate that?” the waitress said.

Neither one of us had noticed, but she'd returned and was filling up our water glasses. When she was done, she put the pitcher down.

“By the way,” she said, turning toward my mother, “I love the cool way you do your makeup.” She cocked her head and held her hands up like a picture frame. “It really works.”

For the first time since the fitful application of her makeup, I realized my mother's face was a total mess. Misshapen ovals of rouge floated unevenly on her cheeks and her mascara was all over the place. She'd missed the outline of her lips with her lipstick, so it seemed as if she had two sets instead of one. She looked like a bad Picasso painting, and in my opinion, even his good ones sucked.

The waitress stood waiting for my mother to respond. The
two of them looked as if they'd just come off the same vaudeville act. My mother sat speechless. She still wasn't sure what to make of her.

“Goodness,” the waitress finally said, clutching her chest. “Where are my manners?” She wiped her big hand on her apron and extended it toward us. “Allow me to introduce myself.” Daintily and limply, she shook my hand first. “I'm Peter, but my stage name is Pam,” she said in one breath as if the entire string of words was her name. “Most people just call me Peter Pam, though. It's less confusing. But on my day off,” she continued, “I don't care what you call me, just don't call me early!” She guffawed, tossed her head back with a flourish, and when she brushed the hair off her shoulder, her wig rotated. She moved it casually back into place as if it were an integral part of the gesture.

“Anyway, what can I get you ladies?” She tapped her pencil on her pad, all ready for the order.

My mother was lost in the menu. Her eyes widened and my stomach ached as we scanned the pictures of food—pink and runny burgers, crispy golden french fries, mouth-watering, moist-looking turkey with gravy. I smacked my lips. When I saw the chicken “Fried to a Crisp in Top Secret Batter!” I moaned.

Then, abruptly, my mother snapped the menu closed, looked up at the waitress, and proclaimed, “We're going to split a blueberry muffin.” I glanced at her pleadingly. It wasn't nearly enough. But I could tell by the way she looked back at me that right now it was all we were getting.

“That's it?” Peter Pam said. “That's easy. I don't even have to write that down.” She stuffed the pad and pencil into her apron, turned in her yacht-size mules, and walked off.

When she came back, Peter Pam put the plate down with the bill next to it. Then from her apron pocket she pulled out a bag of chips, tore it open, and ate them standing up in front of us, chatting through each bite.

“My biggest dream is to play Agnes in
Agnes of God
on Broadway,” she said, sticking a chip in her mouth.

“Oh my God,” I said, “did you see Meg Tilly in the movie?”

“Oh my God,” she shrieked. “She was brilliant. She should have won the Oscar. Don't you think?”

She shifted her weight to one hip, then absentmindedly handed me a chip.

My mother was watching me. She had no idea what we were talking about, I could tell, and she hated when this happened. Her lips twisted disapprovingly.

“Come on, Ruthie.” She glared at me and slapped two bills down on the table and got up. “We're going.” With her purse trailing behind her, she pushed the door open and walked out.

Peter Pam looked dumbfounded.

“It's not you,” I said, sliding out of the booth. “She has her period.”

“Ohhhh, that explains it.” She nodded as if this were a tediously familiar problem.

“I suppose you think that waitress cares about you?” my mother hissed as I slid into the car. She really didn't like me striking up conversations with strangers, and being broke gave her mood swings. Anything could set her off.

She was finally fixing her makeup in the visor mirror. “Well, let me tell you something,” she said, snapping the visor up. She
turned halfway around and started rummaging through the backseat. “She couldn't give two shits about you. Take this.” She handed me a sweatshirt. “Put it on. The gas station is open. You know what to do.”

“Not here,” I pleaded.

“Oh, don't be such a baby.”

I hated it when she called me that, and to prove I wasn't, I grabbed the sweatshirt, got out, and slammed the door.

CHAPTER FIVE

Hunger

M
y mother pulled the car up to the gas pump marked full service. I walked into the station. The same guy who had told the waitress to let us in was sitting behind the register. He was wearing a baseball cap and glasses attached to a cord around his neck. He took them off when he saw me.

He gave me the key to the bathroom when I asked for it and told me to leave it on the counter when I was done. I went around the building and waited.

When he went out to pump our gas, I walked back in and looked around. There was a magazine rack against the windows, two short aisles of food, and a refrigerator section on the back wall.

My mother got out of the car, stood in front of him, and began chatting. She had washed her hair that morning in a sink at Cumberland Farms. It was down now and she was running her fingers through it, all animated and laughing.

He had his back to me, but I could tell he was really enjoying her. Not in a gross sort of way, because even though whatever
my mother was saying was probably made-up and stupid, he considered her seriously—the way a father who had a daughter would. Which got me thinking about my own father and how I didn't have one, and then I thought about my grandfather and how I didn't have one of those either because my mother didn't have a father herself. There just weren't any fathers, grand or otherwise, anywhere.

My mother said she didn't know who my father was. Every time I asked about him she shut me up and told me he didn't matter. If I asked again, she'd shout, “I don't know! It could have been one of three or maybe four different men.” But when I was little I had a clear picture of him. He had long hair with a crown of thorns circling his head. He wore blue tights with a red cape. He was Superman and Jesus combined. Sometimes when I looked up, I'd see him in the sky. Then,
shazam
, he'd land right in front of me. He'd smile a broad smile with teeth so white, one of them—
ting!
—sparkled and a ray of light would shoot up.

My mother tossed her head back, laughed at something the man said, turned slightly, and for a split second caught my eye. I don't know how, but she knew I was standing there watching them. The look she gave me was complicated. It was sharp-edged and pleading all at once.

So I did what I knew she wanted me to. I moved fast. I turned and went down the aisle behind me and saw my favorite snack, Hostess powdered-sugar Donettes—I couldn't believe they had them! I grabbed as many packages as I could and stuffed them under my sweatshirt. Because they tasted so much better with Diet Coke, I reached into the cooler behind me and stuck two cans down my pants.

I left the bathroom key on the counter and by the time I
made my way back to the car, the guy had finished pumping our gas and was now checking the oil. My mother was still blocking his view and chatting.

The cellophane crinkled when I slid back into the seat. The Cokes down my pants made it impossible for me to sit properly, so I propped myself up like a mummy.

The hood slammed down. “She's all set and ready to go,” the man said, patting the car like a pet. He walked around and opened the door for my mother. When my mother got in, he closed it.

“Thank you so much,” my mother said sweetly. Then she opened her purse on her lap.

“Well, let's see here . . . I have some money in here somewhere.” I knew she was just stalling because the only time my mother knew exactly where our money was was when we were almost out.

My mother shook the bag and handed him some change.

“There should be at least a dollar there, and . . . let's see,” she repeated, “I know my wallet is in here somewhere . . .” even though she didn't have one.

Meanwhile I was holding my breath trying hard not to move. My neck pinched and my shoulders ached. One of the Cokes was inching out of my pants. My stomach was totally frozen, and it was throwing my whole system off. My heart began to beat fast and the pressure on my bladder made me feel as if I had to pee even though I didn't.

“Here we go,” my mother finally said, pulling out the last of our five-dollar bills and reluctantly handing it over. “That should cover it.”

From the angle I was sitting, I couldn't see much of the guy.
The sleeves on his blue work shirt were rolled up halfway. A sprig of curly graying chest hair spilled over at the top button. His hands—rough and permanently dirty—looked like they'd worked hard all his life. He wore a wedding ring that I could just tell he never took off. There was an oval patch on the right side of his shirt with his name, Mel, sewn on it. The patch on his left asked,
how can i help you today?

Mel counted the bills; a single, a twenty, and a five. I watched them in the window as they passed through his hands. And when he came to the last one he hesitated.

“You know what?” he said. “Here, the oil is on me,” and he handed my mother back the five.

“Oh, don't be silly.” She shooed it away limply, pretending not to want it.

“Nope, nope. I insist, you got a kid to feed.”

Then, “No, really, I couldn't.”

My mother would blow a man or rob a store, but she never just took a handout. That day, though, we were desperate. She refused the money a prerequisite number of times until she finally took it.

I was so relieved when the charade was over, but then Mel took his glasses off and leaned into the car.

“You be good to your mother,” he instructed, looking right at me.

“I will,” I chimed, tilting my head, glancing at him, trying hard to act normal.

My mother started the car. When she pulled away I exhaled. I took the packages out and let the Cokes fall. I turned and looked out the back window.

Peter Pam was now standing under the bright white lights of
the gas station next to Mel. As my mother stepped on the gas and pulled out onto the street, the two of them waved good-bye to us like parents.

The Diet Cokes rolled around on the floor and clanged together when they collided. The little bit of blueberry muffin we had at the diner only made our hunger worse. We drove just far enough for the lights of the restaurant to fade behind us before we veered off the road and abruptly stopped. My stomach growled, my hands shook, and when I handed my mother a package of Donettes, I fumbled it and it fell to the floor. For a moment it felt as if we'd never eat again.

“For Chrissake,” my mother said as she reached down, grabbed two packages, and handed me one. I tore at the cellophane and yanked at the seam. Lack of food had left me weak and I couldn't open it.

I looked at my mother to see how she was managing. “Fuuuuck,” she wailed, thrashing at her package as if she was drowning.

When we were hungry, we acted like savages. We'd take whatever was around—cake, cookies, a half-eaten slice of pizza picked right out of someone's garbage, it didn't matter what or where we found it—and we'd shove it in our mouths at once.

We looked over at each other, our instincts kicked in, and we tore our packages apart with our teeth like wolves. We stuffed the Donettes in our mouths, our eyes locked as if watching each other doubled the pleasure of eating. We sighed a grateful moan and we washed it all down with Diet Coke.

With a dusting of powdered sugar on our mouths, we stared
out the window and digested our food in a stupor. The moon was full and swollen with a warm and yellow glow.

“Now what should we do?” I asked.

“I don't know. Keep going, I guess.” For a while we just sat there staring into space. My mother lit a cigarette. Cigarettes were the one thing she never ran out of. They were more important than food. She sat back in her seat and smoked. The engine was off, but the headlights were still on and a million lazy bugs drifted around in the beams. Then the moon slipped behind a rise in the earth and the night darkened. My mother flipped the visor down to check herself in the mirror.

“Fuck,” she breathed, with little oomph. For the first time since we left Phil's, she snapped the visor shut without fixing anything on her face.

“Okay,” my mother sighed. “Let's do it.” She took one last puff off her cigarette, then flicked the butt out the window. She sat forward and turned the key, turned it again, and yet again. But all the car could muster was a shallow, tiny click. Then with a loud
pop!
a smoky cloud hissed up from the hood and the whole car slumped as if the tires had deflated.

My mother got out and slammed her door. She whacked the car with her pocketbook. “Piece of shit,” she said.

There was no other choice. We walked single file back the way we came. She took quick, fast steps in front of me, wobbling in her heels on the uneven shoulder of the road.

“You know what I'd like to do?” she yelled back at me. “I'd like to go and give the asshole who sold us that car a piece of my mind.” Then after a while, “You know the creep was married? He had a picture of his wife on his desk.”

“Who would marry him?” I said.

“Exactly!” She jerked her head and spit the word out so hard, she stumbled and broke her heel. “Fuuuck.” She steadied herself on the guardrail.

Whenever one of my mother's heels broke she'd just break off the other one and wear the shoes as flats. She'd bang it off on the counter or pry it off with a knife. The only time I saw her swing an axe was at a shoe. This time, she stopped and smacked the second heel loose on the guardrail. Then, like Hercules, she gritted her teeth, tore the heel off, and with a grunt, hurled it into the woods.

Without her heels, she picked up the pace. Not a single car drove by. I looked down and watched my feet. As we walked through the dark patches between streetlights, my sneakers changed from bright red to black, then back again. I didn't notice, but my mother had slowed, and when she stopped, I banged right into her. She was huffing and puffing, holding on to the rail, and for the first time, I heard how bad her lungs were. They rattled when she breathed, as if hundreds of tiny bones had come loose inside her.

“I gotta rest,” she wheezed. She sat on the guardrail and hung her head. When she caught her breath, she opened her bag, riffled through it, then pulled out her lipstick.

She twisted the tube up and slid it over her lips in slow motion. Then she popped the top back on, sighed, turned it upside down, and read the label on the bottom.

“Ruthie,” she said.

“What?”

“I want you to remember this: Ravish Me Red, by Revlon. When I die, and they're fixing me up for the wake, I want you to make sure they use this color.”

“Mom,” I pleaded, “
stop
.”

There should be lots of color, she'd told me many times about her funeral. And she wanted to be buried with a supersize Diet Coke and a bag of jelly donuts. “Make sure they're from Krispy Kreme.” Her hair should be up—French twisted in the back with her tortoiseshell clip. Her outfit was left to me. A dress or a pair of nice jeans would do, “but do not, under any circumstances, bury me without heels.”

She tossed her lipstick back into her bag, took out a cigarette, and started to smoke.

My mother could make smoking look like a vigorous workout, or like a long cold drink on a boiling hot day. It could make her seem angry or gleeful or bored and I could tell when she was really feeling those things or only faking them.

But whenever she reached the end of a cigarette, she always looked the same: as if the fairy godmother of smoking had descended, waved her magic wand, and set my mother dreamily afloat.

I stood in front of her and watched. Sitting underneath a streetlight, she looked like an actress smoking on a stage. She took her first drag and when she blew the smoke up, her shoulders dropped. On her second drag, she stretched her legs out.

“Ahh,” she sighed.

“Can I have one?” I couldn't help but ask.

My mother stopped. She narrowed her eyes and looked at me.

I had never dared to ask before. Smoking was the only thing she felt strongly I should never do.

“If I ever catch you with a cigarette,” she'd say, her features pinched, the tendons in her neck pulled tight, “I'll kill you.” She'd grit her teeth with her eyes afire. “You hear me?” She'd get
right up into my face. Then she'd suck in a lungful of smoke and blow it out. “It's a nasty habit. And they keep raising the fucking price.”

I was anticipating some version of this speech, but this time it didn't come.

“Oh, what the fuck. Here, you're old enough.” And she thrust her bag at me. “Smoke away. What do I care? We're probably going to die on the side of this fucking road anyway.” She flicked her cigarette butt out onto the street.

I stood there for a minute clutching her bag with my mouth open.

“Go ahead. They're in there somewhere. Help yourself.”

I opened the purse, looked in, and frantically tried to think of something that would cheer her up.