Barbie Girl (Baby Doll Series) (3 page)

“You’re a real bitch,” Tyler says straitening his pants. I leave Tyler hurting and all and head home. I am numb.

* * *

My mother is lying on the couch in her open bathrobe, a half-empty bottle of whisky sitting on top of the coffee table, an ashtray full of cigarette butts sits next to her.

Everett runs back to the bed room. I flip off the TV, and grab the bottle on the table. I like to believe that my mother has not always been this way. That there was a time she loved us, but I know the truth. And the truth is she cannot get out of the deal she made with the bottle. She has a few pictures of when she was younger; she was beautiful she didn’t wear the tired expression that is now always present on her face.

She did not have and easy life; her momma running off leaving her with an alcoholic father who up and died when she turned thirteen leaving her with an abusive step momma. If everybody just up and left me I might be the same as her. I have Everett, and I need to think of him first. How to keep him safe is my number one priority, it is what keeps me from sinking so low into a dark abyss.

Momma left when she was eighteen, as soon as she found out she was pregnant with me. I should be happy about that, but I would have liked to have known where I came from, my history, but momma says history is only good for one thing and that is running.

I got my name because the only thing her momma left her with before she ran away was a Barbie doll. Momma thought that if she could just be perfect like that damn doll perhaps her momma wouldn’t have up and left her. Maybe she would have stayed if she looked like Barbie. If she had those same blue eyes, long blond hair, and a perfect smile. Well no matter how much wishing you do you can’t ever change the color of your eyes. Her eyes remained the same muddy brown. The more she wishing she did the more everything stayed the same. Her step momma still beat her with a switch; her momma never came home, her eyes were still brown. About the time she stopped wishing and started looking for someone that would love her despite not being able to be Barbie, she met my good-looking, good-for-nothing daddy, but he didn’t love her either.

When she found out she was pregnant she said if she had a girl she would name her Barbie. That things would be different for me; well I was born with the blue eyes and straight nose, and a perfect smile, but that did not change things for me. My life is one cruel joke. I hate my
name;
maybe if she named me something normal like, Ashley or Britney, things would have been different for me.

I start washing the dishes that have been sitting in the sink for a few days. “Where did you go and put my whiskey?” My mother’s raspy voice comes from behind me. I push my hands deep into the soapy water. I don’t want her seeing my hands shake. I hate it when she gets like this, when the liquor makes her mean.

“In the cabinet,
” I jump at the slamming of the cabinet door and the glass hitting the counter.

“Who asked you to touch it?” She snaps. Maybe I am not that different from my momma; alcohol is her way to numb the pain.

“No one I just didn’t want Everett to get into it,” I say through gritted teeth. I try to shield as much of our reality from him as I can. Why can’t she just sober up. All I want is for her to sober up. I want it so bad. Why can’t we be enough for her? I used to think I could help her, I thought if I could make her get better, that we could have a normal life.

I would dump out whatever she brought home, searching the house for her stashed pills or the bottles of liquor. I would drag her limp body to the bedroom, undressing her out of her clothes that were covered in vomit. No matter how many bottles I poured down the drain, or pills I flushed, my mother would still find more. I tried crying and pleading with her to stop but she never seemed to think that she had a problem, making me question my sanity, sometimes I would believe momma’s words that it was all in my head. That she didn’t have a problem.

Giving up was one of the hardest things I did, but I had to focus on Everett and I. Momma’s problem sometimes makes me do things that make me feel wrong and sick. But I need to put food in our mouths, and keep a roof over both our heads. So now when I find her passed out, I search her pockets taking whatever cash she has, stashing it in my bra. Because when she wakes shaking and sick needing to get high she will search high and low to scrounge up enough to get a few pills or a bottle. She will do anything for that high. She cannot help it. The drink has a tight hold on her no matter how hard she fights it, it just holds on tighter. It is in her blood.

We don’t have anything of value. Those things are long gone, sold for a few dollars. You have to do what you have to do. Seeing my mother destroy herself kills me, I wish she could numb her pain that caused her to sink this low.

My mother’s ribs stick out as she stands next to me her robe exposing her white bra and underwear hanging loose on her hip bones that jut out. “Let me make you something to eat,” I offer.

She sometimes will not eat for days filled up on liquor. I pull out a pot and the last box of macaroni and cheese. Momma sits and starts rubbing her temples. “I don’t want any food. I just got this damn headache,” she says her hand shaking bringing the glass of brown liquid to her mouth. “I ran out of my pills and you know how my headaches get. I don’t mean to snap at you. I know you mean well.”

I take a deep breath, and pour the box of noodles in the pot placing it on the stove. “I know Momma.”

There is no milk so I add some extra butter to the powder cheese trying to smooth out the lumps. I fill three bowls and we eat silently, absentmindedly pushing around the buttery noodles. Each lost in our own tormented world. “So how is my baby doing?” Her hands are steadier now; she reaches over taking Everett’s hand in hers. An ever present ache grows in my chest because Everett starts to make happy noises. Not words but sounds; a sound that brings a smile to her face. Even though he cannot put it into words, he wants my mother as much as I do, and I hurt for him.

After dinner my mother gets ready and leaves for work, leaving me and Everett home alone. I wash our dishes and wipe down the counter. Then I help Everett bathe and get ready for bed before I read to him his favorite book,
Green Eggs and Ham
, twice, before tucking him in.

After changing into a pair of old sweat pants and a tank top. I pull out my own homework and attempt to get some studying in, but my eyes burn and I cannot keep them open.

* * *

A light pours in from the broken slats of the blinds wakening me. I check on Everett. He is still asleep, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, even in sleep he is silent. I next check my mother’s room, empty. Bed still made with the thin floral comforter, her perfume and make up lined up from smallest to largest sit on her chipped bureau. A picture of her when she was young hangs from the mirror. She must have stayed out after her shift. She does this often, not coming, so I am not worried about her, but this means that she will come home with no money again.

I need to get ready for school. I decide to take my shower before waking Everett. Peeling off my sweats I turn on the shower as hot as I can, letting the bathroom steam up before slipping in the yellowing bath tub. Today I am going to try to get Katie to notice Dylan. How in the hell am I going to do that? Because as far as I know Katie doesn’t pay attention to anybody unless it is her own
boney butt
. I try to think about everything I know about Katie, she moved here in the ninth grade; her southern accent is a total fake. She is in the student council or some shit like that. I really don’t know, I don’t vote for that crap, I tend to not give a shit about school activities that promote school spirit. She is in most of Dylan’s classes except gym because she has that with me. So she is a super nerd, but she is popular, not with the jocks and cheerleaders, but the preps, she is like their queen. She is a complete control freak, she matches everything in boring bland colors, she thinks navy and light pink are her colors, I would love to see here decked out in black once. Oh yeah, she uses her free period to make out with Tyler under the bleaches, but she never lets him get past second base, because she doesn’t want to ruin her good girl reputation. And she looks at me like I am the gum stuck to the bottom of her patent leather loafers. But if that is what Dylan wants I can get her for him. I don’t really care whatever floats his boat as long as I pass Math because there is no way in hell I am spending another year stuck in this poop stick of a town. No I will just leave before that happens and it would be nice to leave with a high school diploma.

As soon as I graduate I am taking Everett so we can run from our history. I am going to run so far and fast it is not going to have a chance to catch us. I want Everett to have a better life. Not one that is filled with sadness and darkness like it is now. I want Everett to see the ocean, to touch it; we have seen the ocean before. We are going to get ourselves a little cottage by the ocean so we can go to sleep to the roar of it, a reminder of what we came from and never returning to. Who knows, once we get settled maybe I will take some college classes at a local community college.

The sound of glass breaking shuts off my internal babble. “Everett, do not move!” I shout. I step out of the tub and wrap a brown towel around me. I tip toe out of the bathroom careful not to step on any glass that might be broken. Everett is so silent sometimes you don’t hear him make a move. He is like a mouse. Once last year when Momma was supposed to be watching him, I guess she drank too much or took one too many muscle relaxers, because when I got home she was passed out in the bathroom floor and Everett was clear cross town. He was walking to the twisty treat; it scared the hell out of me and I vowed never to leave him alone with her again if I could help it.

“Everett,” I call as I walk toward the kitchen. I should have made him something to eat before taking a shower that was stupid. I enter the kitchen but Everett is not in there instead it is my mother, standing in the midst of a pile of brown broken glass.

Golden liquid spreads across the broken laminate tile, “Oh baby doll,” my mother slurs, her eyes are rimmed in red as if she had been crying. I know better. She starts to cross the maze of broken glass in her bare feet. I cringe not wanting her to hurt herself, “Momma be careful.” I reach out to stop her, but she gets to me unharmed and wraps her thin arms around me. She is a head shorter than me; her dark hair pulled up in a high pony tail. She still wears last night’s uniform, black hot pants and purple push bra with sequins. She smells of smoke and liquor. When I was younger I would breathe that smell in, imagining she was a warrior queen who just came home from battling a dragon. How easy it is to twist your world when you are a child. Reality is like a cold splash of water. There are no fairy tales or happy endings in my story, no prince charming riding in to rescue me. No my reality is a harsh, cold one.

“I am just making some breakfast for Ronnie.” My mother points to the chair her boss sits at. He flicks his ashes into a cup that still holds some of the golden liquid.
Apple juice? Not likely
. “Ronnie you remember my baby girl Barbie.” Ronnie’s blood-shot eyes take me
in;
his long blond hair is slicked back in a ponytail, he grin, his mouth full of yellow
ing
, crooked teeth. He is younger than my mom, by a few years; his face does not wear lines in it, like my mother’s.

He remembers me. The last time I came to get money from my momma; he cornered me in the back room where he told me I could find her. My nose still burns with the thick smell of his cheap cologne. He ran his disgusting fingers down my arm, making my stomach turn with nausea. “You’re a pretty girl, you could make me a lot of money,” his body pressing hard against mine. Thank goodness for the new waitress who stumbled in that back room, who knows what would have happened. “What’s up Barbie?” My stomach turns at the sound of his voice.

* * *

My stomach is in knots making me sick as I watch him touch my mother, the same hand that he used to sear my skin. I dress quickly pulling on a pair of dirty jeans and a white men’s tank top. I feel like I can’t get out of here fast enough. I dress Everett just as fast, before pulling him out the back door. I feel like I am going to lose the contents of my stomach at the sound of my mother laughing. How could she let that man into our house, can she not see him for what he really is.

Everett squeezes my hand tight as we make our way to his elementary school. “Listen buddy; don’t go home with anyone but me. Okay?” I get down on my knees, and try to get him to look at me, but he will not. He has never made eye contact with me, always looking around me. I pull him in to a hug, relishing in the feel of his small body in my arms. He looks nothing like me; he is fragile like my mother, smaller than most boys his age. I kiss his sandy blond head before letting him go. I will kill anyone who would try to hurt him. I let out a heavy sigh that feels like it has been lingering in my chest for years. I doubt my mother will try to pick him up since she will be entertaining her guest but the thought of Everett being around that man makes me feel sick. “I will come and get you. Okay? I will always take care of you,” I promise him.

I will have to cut school early to get him. Just in case my mother has a change of plans. I cannot risk it.
Whatever
. I will miss English another class I am teetering on failing, but it’s better than
the alternative. I snag some chocolate doughnuts for us from the gas station next to his school before dropping him off.