Almost Crimson (3 page)

FIVE

SQUISH

 

 

DORIS STOOD OUT LIKE A neon light amid the crowd of travelers jockeying for curb space. She was easy to spot, with her inflated ash-streaked hair, Christmas-red lips, and a face-eating brooch that Doris had pinned high on her shoulder instead of her lapel. She had always reveled in becoming a caricature of herself.

They embraced, young woman and old, before CeCe lowered Doris' overnight bag into the trunk.

“That's all?” CeCe said, standing by Doris' passenger door.

“I only needed my thong and a toothbrush,” Doris said.

“No,” CeCe laughed. “No. I do not approve.”

“Stop being a hater,” Doris said.

They cruised along the expressway, chatting about Doris' twins, now married, and CeCe's mother, now compelled by crafts projects at the independent living center. Dr. Harper told CeCe her mother responded well to the mixed company of the center, not just depressives. CeCe was about to ask for any updates on mall gossip when Doris interrupted.

“Get off on Parker,” she said.

“What? No dim sum from the Emperor's Throne?” CeCe said.

Doris smiled. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Doris' turn-by-turn directions carried them beyond the shopping center to a residential neighborhood of bungalows. CeCe parked in front of a gray house with lavender trim.

“Cute house,” CeCe said. “You used to live out here, right?”

“Yep, right here,” Doris said, looking past CeCe at the house.

CeCe parked on the curb and followed Doris up the walkway of flat granite circles. A black sedan was parked in the driveway and Doris stooped to brazenly peer inside. They continued past the empty car and reached the porch. CeCe was surprised when Doris pushed open the front door without even ringing the bell first.

CeCe hadn't expected to find the house empty. She knew Doris had always hated the idea of renting this little house to strangers, and remembered listening to her friend complain about the “trolls and cavemen” she'd been interviewing as tenants. She had asked CeCe to move in, but CeCe couldn't afford the rent and hadn't had transportation to get herself and her mother around from this end of the city. Now, her friend's tenant had skipped out on her. CeCe had witnessed plenty of couches, lamps, and laundry baskets filled with clothes sneaking away in the middle of the night in the final years at her and her mother's old apartment.

CeCe closed the door behind them as Doris' soft-sole shoes squished across the hardwood floor to the oversized window overlooking the back yard. CeCe knew how much Doris loved this little house. It had been a victory for her in every possible way: engineering a divorce from her philandering husband of nearly twenty years, and stumbling into an intimate clique of socialites who paid her handsomely to clean their condos and, ultimately, provide a bit of homespun therapy while they hunted for the next prenuptial agreement. Doris had bought this house, her first, with part of what she earned from the Ladies, as she called them. She never gave CeCe hard numbers, but CeCe had long estimated that Doris' job at Sears was simply for insurance and rainy-day money. She'd purchased other properties, her condo in Florida and homes for her sons, but this one was special, and CeCe was saddened for her friend.

CeCe fiddled awkwardly with her keys, not sure if Doris would want space or a hug. She watched Doris take in a slow, deep breath before turning around. Her face was full of light and whimsy.

“Take a look around, kiddo,” Doris said with a smile. “I gotta go see a man about a horse.”

“I'm a ranch hand now?” a man's voice called from the kitchen.

Doris laughed and squish-squished toward the kitchen door, saying, “You can be a cowboy, if that makes you feel better . . . ”

CeCe shook her head as Doris disappeared into the doorway that held the man's voice. Whatever happened with her tenant, CeCe thought, Doris had it under control. CeCe couldn't be surprised. Since the day Doris had adopted her in the smokers' garden more than seven years ago, CeCe had always known Doris to have a plan. Whether convincing mall management to support a cross-store secret Santa tradition, helping her youngest son secure a grant for a conservation study in Belize, coaching CeCe through her first attempts at dating, or researching retirement communities in Florida, Doris was always thinking about the next move. Doris had once told Cece that after spending half of her life doing as she was told, she was now intent on creating her own pathways out of this world. CeCe often wondered what such an assembly of thoughts might feel like.

SIX

MONSTER

 

 

CECE'S STOMACH JUMPED AND FLIPPED beneath her new dress. It was green with a rainbow on the left edge of its hem. CeCe didn't even care that it had someone else's name written on the tag.

“Nobody will know but you, CrimsonBaby,” her mother said.

CeCe was most excited that the Sad had released her mother for a day, long enough to go with CeCe to her new school. The two of them waited on the corner next to their building, on the side of the street with the record shop and not the side with the hardware store, as Ms. Boylin had instructed. The yellow bus drove past them on Kennedy without slowing down at all. CeCe and her mother watched the bus whisk by in gaped-mouth panic.

“It's coming around!” a man's voice called. Across the street, in front of the hardware store, a small gray-haired man at the newspaper stand perched on his stool with a daily relaxed in his hands. “The school buses aren't allowed to stop on the boulevard so the driver has to make his turn on Sixty-Fifth.”

CeCe looked up to her mother and Carla nodded at the newspaperman. CeCe was relieved her mother was still here. The Sad could wrap itself around her so quickly. They turned toward the whine of bus brakes and watched it lumber around the corner.

“Thank you!” CeCe called out to the newspaperman as the bus pulled in front of them. The newspaperman nodded and waved. The only passengers, CeCe and her mother settled themselves in a center seat, holding hands as they watched the familiar landmarks of their neighborhood unfold into new stretches of storefronts and rows of houses.

CeCe counted twelve stops between their corner and the school. There were thirty-two kids on their bus and six mothers. CeCe counted mostly big kids. The smallest ones, like CeCe, had their mothers by their sides, too. The kids exchanged terrified glances with CeCe, while the mothers looked in her direction with a flash of some different kind of fear, like finding a spider on the kitchen floor and then realizing it was just a sprig of yarn.

CeCe smiled wide at each mom. Most smiled back.

CeCe marveled at the bigger kids as if they were mythical wonders. The big kids in their building were older, high schoolers mostly. These were little kids, but still bigger than her. Their laughter boarded the bus before their bodies, and CeCe was mesmerized by the music of their banter about videos and bug bites and older sisters and lunch money. They all looked in CeCe's direction before choosing their seats, but none of them spoke. She didn't know the stranger rule applied to other kids.

CeCe looked up at her mother after the twelfth stop, to make sure her eyes were still looking at these close-up things. CeCe knew her mother was being held down by the Sad when her eyes seemed to be searching for only faraway things. Her mother's eyes were still seeing the close-up things. In fact, her mother's eyes were sharp, moving slowly from one passenger to the next. CeCe could tell from the hard lines of her jaw that her mother did not plan to love school like CeCe.

The bus rounded the corner of a lush, expansive park. The older children began to bristle with even more excited chatter. This must be it. Neil Armstrong Elementary School, where Ms. Boylin said CeCe would learn more numbers, the names for more colors, new places, and, most importantly, how to read. CeCe began to fidget in her seat, too, as they pulled into the yellow school bus queue.

The front of the school had a large, arched portico with letters that CeCe would later learn spelled “Neil Armstrong Elementary.” The buses spilled children and mothers onto the pavement. Big kids raced under the archway and into the school. CeCe's feet wanted to run, too, but they were arrested with an unfamiliar panic. She didn't know what to do. Ms. Boylin said she would know what to do once she got to school, but she didn't. There weren't any instructions pressed into her brain. She started to get scared about her new school.

CeCe felt her mother give her hand a little squeeze and CeCe looked up to see her mother's eyes still sharp, looking down at her. CeCe felt better, less like a wind might sweep her away. She followed the gentle pull of her mother's hand away from the portico and toward a loose cluster of other mothers and kids. They were small, like CeCe, gathered around a tall man with a billow of sandy curls.

The fun-hair man was named Mr. Neumann. He was the principal, the person in charge of Neil Armstrong Elementary School, CeCe understood, the same way their apartment manager was in charge of all the mail and rent and shoveling and broken door handles. Mr. Neumann explained to the eager mothers how the vice principal usually welcomed the younger classes, but she'd fallen at home that morning and broken her ankle.

“I'll do my best to fill in for her,” he was saying, “but I'll need to make sure the hallways are clear for the first bell. The upper elementary students are excitable on the first day.”

Mr. Neumann was not as fun as his hair, CeCe thought. He wore brown slacks, a white dress shirt, and a steel-blue necktie, and she wondered how someone with such soft, springy hair didn't smile more. CeCe folded in closer to her mother and was relieved to feel her mother's hand rest on her bare shoulder. Looking around, CeCe noticed her classmates' stares. Their eyes were blue, hazel, amber-brown, and green. They didn't have any smiles in their eyes, either. CeCe pressed harder against her mother.

Mr. Neumann spoke stiffly to the mothers about pickups, parents' day, and the hours for the school nurse. Looking at his watch, he turned to walk toward the school, waving a hand for the small group to follow. They trailed him through the wide double doors and into the school. He stopped in front of a room with a number six affixed to the door. He rapped lightly before opening.

Inside, a slender young woman with long, wavy red hair kneeled beside a bin filled with colored blocks. As she stood to her full height, CeCe felt the woman's smile get bigger until it filled the room. CeCe felt her first surge of genuine excitement. This was her teacher. This was their classroom. CeCe was really in school.

CeCe entered the room with the rest of her class, stepping gingerly onto colorful tiles as if the floor might collapse beneath her tiny sneakers. She turned to see her mother halted at the door. Her eyes were moist. CeCe's smile froze.

Her mother raised her hand to CeCe and mouthed, “I'm OK.” She smiled to CeCe, the biggest CeCe could remember in a long time. CeCe bolted toward the door and barreled into her mother with her very best hug. A few other kids did the same, and the mothers were pleased. Their teacher, Ms. Lapham, invited all of the children to join her at the front of the class, where they waved good-bye together to all the mothers.

 

At 12:15, as promised, Ms. Lapham's class wiggled in an almost-straight line on the sidewalk where Mr. Neumann had gathered them that morning. Mothers retrieved their progeny one by one, dispersing into station wagons and sedans and onto yellow buses. CeCe saw her mother waiting, picking absently at her fingernails until she spotted CeCe's caramel face in the row of vanilla crème.

CeCe's mother held out her hand and CeCe held tightly, and they walked to their bus in silence. Her mother had caught the city bus to the school, like she said she would, and CeCe was relieved to have her there. Once they were settled into their seats and the yellow bus had pulled itself around the ball field, CeCe's nestled into the crook of her mother's arm. They watched the green lawns peel away to concrete in silence until they dismounted in front of the record store once again. The newspaperman was already gone for the day.

“So . . . ” her mother began once their feet were on the sidewalk, “how was your first day of school?”

“OK,” CeCe replied, looking down at her sneakers peeking from beneath her green rainbow dress.

“Did you learn any new songs?”

CeCe shook her head no, her new green barrettes dancing above her shoulders.

“Was your teacher nice?”

CeCe nodded emphatically, shaking the green barrettes.

“Did you make a new friend?”

CeCe's barrettes quieted. They crossed through the small lobby of their apartment building and to their front door. CeCe knew her mother didn't move quickly anymore, but this time, she really wanted her mother to hurry. This time, CeCe needed her mother to move like the pee-pee dance. CeCe needed her to swing open their door so she could place her feet back on their floor. Sit on their couch. Hold her crayons. She didn't like being on this side of their door anymore.

As her mother fumbled with the lock, CeCe's small shoulders began to tremble. She felt the quiver work itself from inside her sneakers, up her knees, through her tummy, around the collar of her green dress, and into her thick plaits. She thought, again, of the block letters on her dress tag. Maybe the other kids had excluded her from games and turned their chairs away from her because they knew her dress really belonged to a girl named Lorraine. Her mother had said no one would know, but CeCe could tell they had figured it out.

The first fat tears rolled down CeCe's cheeks as her mother held open the door. CeCe wanted to race inside, but could not force her feet to move. She was seized by a gale of tears, and her mother had to take her hand to pull her into the apartment. CeCe collapsed onto the couch into her mother's lap. They stayed that way for a long time, until CeCe's peals diminished to whimpers. CeCe didn't know she had so many tears inside her.

Just like Mama.

As CeCe regained her breathing, she felt her mother's hands on her shoulders gently pulling her upright. Her mother's eyes weren't as sharp as they'd been that morning, but they were looking down at CeCe. Close up. With a smile hanging faintly on the tips of her lashes.

“What's the matter, CrimsonBaby?” her mother asked.

“Nobody wanted to be my friend,” CeCe started, feeling her lip begin to pout again, the wails begin to mount again. “They were so mean, Mama. I didn't do anything to anybody!” CeCe's small brown face was slick with tears.

“Nobody, CrimsonBaby?” her mother asked. Her voice did not thicken, unaccustomed to the race of adrenaline, but her body responded to her child's tears. “Not even the other black children?”

Slow swing of barrettes.

“They said I was a . . . a . . . ghetto girl!” CeCe said, wailing. “I don't even know what that is!”

“Oh, CrimsonBaby,” her mother said.

CeCe let her mother rock her side to side on their couch.

“It's going to be hard, but I want you to try not to stay angry with the kids in your class,” she said. “A lot of them were taught the wrong way to treat people.”

“They were?” CeCe asked, her brow crinkling at the thought of her mother or Mrs. Castellanos teaching her anything wrong or upside down.

CeCe's mother nodded, wiping away tears with the whole of her palm.

“Some grown-ups are rotten on the inside,” her mother said. CeCe thought her mother's voice felt far away this time, instead of her eyes. “Still so full of hate and teaching it to their babies now. Monsters. Hateful monsters.”

 

“Ms. Weathers?” a feathery voice lilted behind CeCe and her mother. It was Friday afternoon, the last day of their first week at Armstrong.

They turned to face Ms. Lapham, her long dark waves pulled back in one long French braid. CeCe beamed up at her teacher. Her mother, weary, responded with a faint and placid smile.

“You can call me Carla,” CeCe's mother said, placing both hands on CeCe's shoulders.

“Oh, thanks, Carla,” Ms. Lapham said, smiling sheepishly. “You'd be surprised at how many parents aren't comfortable with first names.”

CeCe's mother raised her eyebrows and gave a slight nod. In spite of her soft tone, CeCe could feel her mother's fingers growing tense as the draped over her shoulders.

“Carla,” Ms. Lapham continued, nervousness now lacing the edges of her voice. “Would you mind if we went inside to chat for a moment? There's something I'd like to discuss with you.”

CeCe felt her mother begin to move and then decide not to commit. Her fingers were firm on CeCe's shoulders. CeCe looked up and saw her mother's head swivel slowly to look around them. Children were chasing one another beneath the portico, two teachers stood in the front doorway talking, parents were calling their children into station wagons, and a few mothers were standing close by, like they were hoping to hear a secret.

CeCe's mother turned to face Ms. Lapham.

“We can talk here.”

“Oh,” Ms. Lapham blinked. “Well, um . . . what I wanted to talk with you about, um, is that a, um . . . situation has unfolded this week.”

CeCe's mother nodded for her to continue.

“It seems CeCe may have, um . . . taken something she, um . . . heard at home out of context and, um . . . it
'
s become something of an, um . . . issue among the children.”

As Ms. Lapham fidgeted with the drawstrings of her peasant blouse, CeCe turned toward the sound of movement. She watched the other mothers inching closer, trying to get nearer to the secret her mother was getting from Ms. Lapham.

CeCe's mother was quiet, but CeCe could feel her mother's body harden.

Ms. Lapham cleared her throat, her eyes also taking in the encroaching mothers.