By the Time You Read This (10 page)

“Ohmigosh!” screamed Mom, standing abruptly as her biscuit toppled to the ground. The Sprog teetered forward and then backward like a malfunctioning Duracell bunny, finally landing bum first onto the feet of the Bingo Caller (who’d suddenly appeared from nowhere).

“My baby just walked! Ohmigosh, I can’t believe it!” she screamed again, flapping around like a chicken on E.

“Get the camera!” she shrieked.

“She’d done the odd step a minute ago, love. So I brought her in to show Mommy!” sang the Bingo Caller. I smiled obligingly as the Sprog flatly refused to perform any more, judging by the sudden downward turn of her lips and scrunched forehead.

“Come on, Flower!” said her father, blowing a huge raspberry into her stomach and whisking her into the air, much to Mom’s horror AND delight.

The Sprog struggled in her father’s arms.

“I can’t believe it!” reiterated Mom, trembling hand to her mouth.

“That’s my girl!” added the Bingo Caller.

“Say hello to your big sister Lois,” said Mom, calming down slightly.

“Hi there…” I offered uncomfortably. She gazed toward me blankly, before burying a head of curls into her father’s chest.

“She’s just shy around you, that’s all. Needs to get to know her big sister, don’t you Pooky Poo?” The sight of my mother ruffling the Sprog’s hair was enough to make me heave and leave.

“I’d better be off, Mom. Leave you…guys to it.”

“Why not stay for dinner? She might do a few more steps!” said Mom hopefully.

“I’ve loads to do. Maybe next week?”

Once outside, I was able to breathe evenly as I spotted Carla’s mom walking through her front door. Three-inch red heels and a skirt to match.

“Hiya!” I sang.

“Great to see you, darlin.” My own girl seems to have forgotten where I live. Come on in!” she beckoned.

Inside, she attempted to fix her already neat hair. “I’ll get us both a stiff drink and you can meet Calvin!” she enthused. How sweet, I thought, a dog for company.

“Nothing too strong for me,” I said.

She placed the drinks onto the coffee table. Three drinks.

“Calvin!” she called, just as one of the best-looking, tallest men I had ever had the good fortune to rest my eyes on strutted into the living room dressed in tracksuit bottoms, a white T-shirt clinging to an abundance of hard body. Ad
mittedly, it took a while for my jaw to ascend into its rightful place.

“Lois, this is Calvin.”

“Hello.”

“Hi.” He extended a large hand with neat nails.

“My boyfriend.”

Did I mention he had to be about my age?

“Nice to meet you…erm…Calvin…” I stuttered. His hand felt cold to the touch, but as we shook, his eyes remained transfixed on Carla’s mom.

She smiled shyly. “We met at the gym.”

Thankfully, my look of surprise was taken the wrong way. “Hey, at my age it isn’t easy staying this trim!”

Calvin turned to her. “You don’t need much help, babe. You’re perfect.”

“Thank you, darlin,” she responded with a wink, as something told me that new drug Viagra wouldn’t be needed any time soon.

Over a few glasses of fizzy wine, Corey was mentioned—due back for a holiday next week and flourishing in France—along with a brief innuendo about how much he’d
love
to see me. But after about thirty minutes of gate-crashing this two-person orgy, a hasty maneuver toward the door was imminent, and I was sure I could hear the pinging of a bra strap as soon as the door shut behind me.

Actually, my twenty-first birthday was spent at Mom’s, watching her coo over the Sprog as she attempted to dish up a collapsed birthday cake in the shape of the number twenty-one. Carla’s mom, Calvin and Carla popped round, but mainly, it seemed, to also coo at the Sprog. I was surprised but pleased with the arrival of a card from Carla’s dad, via Spain, but shocked (and pleased) when Carla arrived with a huge bunch of flowers and a tiny pink message that simply read: “Happy Birthday Lo Bag x.”

“All I got was a crummy key thing for my twenty-first. He obviously lurrrves you!” she mocked as I feigned indifference while the inside of my tummy did back flips. I
guess I really didn’t have time to process Corey’s gift, because just as I was making to leave Mom’s, Auntie Philomena showed up, again totally unexpectedly, just as she had at Mom’s wedding nine years ago.

The years had been kind to her, but perhaps the Caribbean sun had more to do with that than anything else, as she had moved to Carriacou with her family almost two years ago.

“Happy birthday, Lois!” she said as we embraced. She handed Mom a package as we congregated in the kitchen. “Nutmeg bread,” she said.

Mom smiled a stiff thanks. “I’ll make some tea, shall I?”

“Thanks, Auntie Philomena. But you could have sent the bread and card through the post!” Wouldn’t be the first time, I thought.

“Haven’t been much of an auntie, have I? It was important I did this.”

Mom cleared her throat (in sarcasm, I think) as she busied herself with the cups.

“I owed it to Kevin to come and see you on your twenty-first.”

To hear my dad actually mentioned by anyone was a shock. It was as if, for a few short seconds, he was alive. Perhaps sitting in a café in Catford or something.

“Have you seen Gran?” I asked, remembering the last time I’d spoken to Granny Bates. A strained phone conversation.

“Yes, I stayed with Mom for a couple of days. You are my last stop before going back home.”

Mom placed two cups of tea on the table. “I’ll leave you two alone…go and see to Abbi.”

I suspected Auntie Philomena would be okay with this.

“So, Lois, it’s your birthday. Twenty-one. So, first off…happy birthday!”

“Thank you,” I replied. No hugs or stuff—because it wasn’t like that between us. However, Dad had loved her, even trusted her to give me
The Manual,
and this knowledge was enough for me.

Her smile straightened. “I have something for you, Lois.”

I held my breath, remembering the last time she’d said that to me.

“A twenty-first birthday present.”

She reached into her bag and retrieved a tiny package wrapped in colorful paper.

“Open it up then,” she said, surprisingly more excited than I was. I unwrapped the package carefully as bits of color soiled my fingers. The paper seemed old. “What is it?” she asked impatiently. Inside, was an oblong-shaped camera.

“Kodak Tele Ektra,” I read from the side. I opened it up.

“A camera. That’s nice,” said Auntie Philomena, shaking her head slowly and smiling. It was then, I knew.

“Is it from…?”

“Kevin, yes. Made me promise to give it to you on your twenty-first.”

My heart rate accelerated. “He never mentioned it in
The Manual.”
I thought back to the way I’d carelessly unwrapped the paper. My dad had wrapped this with his bare hands, and if I’d known I’d have unfurled it in private. Savoring every moment. Searching the two strips of film for any signs of my dad: stray hair, the smell of his favorite aftershave, any trace of DNA I could find to link us together.

Having Auntie Philomena round on my birthday was great. Receiving the camera, wonderful. But finding a ream
of 110 film still inside was a breathtaking, scary and absolutely, without a doubt, exciting surprise.

O
f course, I rushed to the drug store and paid extra to get the film developed that day. I stood outside the drug store a few hours later and opened up the rectangular package. Twelve snaps. Five of me as a young child, in dresses I could barely remember. Hair in tiny, fluffy pigtails. Sitting on the floor, twirling like a ballerina, standing by the bathroom sink. Some of the furniture I recognized as still in Mom’s house today but unfortunately now occupied mostly by people my dad wouldn’t even recognize.

But it was the remaining seven pictures that would render me catatonic for hours. Eyes almost stapled to a set of prints taken just months before my daddy died.

Me sitting on my dad’s knee, cupping his face with my little hands. Me, Mom and Dad sitting on the settee. Mom pretending to look annoyed as Dad and I giggled at something I have no way of remembering. Other pictures in similar guises, but, basically, Dad and me together. However, it was the last picture on the film that finally made me cry: it was of Dad, only half his face visible, the remainder obscured by a thumb. My thumb. I could tell by the amused yet forgiving look on his face. His little daughter attempting to take a picture, not knowing it would be the last one she’d ever take of him.

I cried. I cried. I cried.

I placed the picture of me and my dad under my pillow and kissed it before I went to sleep. Like
The Manual
, I found a way for the camera and the pictures to fit neatly into my life, finally framing the distorted picture of Dad and placing it on my television, pride of place where I
could glimpse it every day. Ready to share that moment with the world. Of course Carla did question its artistic credibility, especially as there were a lot more clearer shots of Dad. But in all honesty I didn’t care what anyone thought—
I
knew what that photo represented to me.

I
returned home from another night shift at work to find Carla sprawled on the floor of our apartment, eating a bag of chips on the carpet, face transfixed by the television. Dad’s incomplete photo intact.

“What are you watching?” I asked with zero interest.

“I taped that show
Sex and the City
last night. It’s so dirty and it’s great. Wanna chip?”

“No thanks, it’s eight o’clock in the morning!” I replied, the vinegary aroma colliding happily with my taste buds.

“I was out with Fred all last night at a gig. I just got in an hour ago myself. Don’t feel like sleeping yet.”

I moved into the kitchen as her voice followed.

“I’ve got some news, Lois! I’ll tell you after the show,” sang Carla.

The sink was full of dishes and I wondered what she did all day to warrant such mess and why she never felt the urge to just…clean up? I sighed heavily as I hunched over the sink.

“You don’t have to worry any more,” said Carla, emptying the contents of her plate into the bin. A solitary chip traveled down the side of the bin and onto the floor and I waited to see if she’d pick it up.

She turned to me. “You’ll be rid of me soon.”

I bent down to do what I always did—pick up after her.

“I’m moving out. Fred’s finally seen sense and realized he can’t live without me, so he’s asked me to move in.”

At first, Carla’s words were like the sweetest composition in my ears. Carla was moving out. No more mess. No more slouching. Oh, but then again, no more rent—however small and random her contribution.
Damn it.
And as much as I hated to admit it, I would miss the girly chats, regular TV analysis and that sweet smell of dewberry.

“How am I supposed to pay the rent?”

“Er, I dunno…find another roommate?” She opened the fridge door and retrieved a can of cola. Her shoulders sagged. “I am sorry, babe. Really. It’s just I think…no,
I know
Fred is the one. I know he is and I don’t want to mess this up.”

I almost begged Carla to stay, at least until a replacement was found. But apparently Fred was off on tour in a few weeks and her plan was to spend as much time together as possible in the meantime.

I
f my experiences with Carla had taught me one thing, it was to forget about a replacement roommate and somehow find a way to take care of the bills myself. This realization suddenly brought with it the need to find a long-term, full-time job. My evening work was no longer enough to sustain me.

An advertisement in the local paper promised the world as well as a $30,000 salary. I didn’t even have an interview, just a handful of questions over the phone about my knowledge of the Internet, a shuffling of papers then an excited, “When can you start?”

In the plush waiting room of I.T.T. Enterprises, all I could think about was having the apartment to myself and perhaps being able to save some cash.

“Lois Bates,” said a voice. I stood to attention and patted
down my creasing trouser suit, picked up in Lewisham’s indoor market.

“Hello.”

“Hi there. My name is Kenneth Rig. You can call me Ken. Thank you for getting here on time. Time is of the essence in this business. And thank you for choosing to work in the world’s fastest growing industry—the Internet.”

Ken led me past the receptionist, through a side door, down some steps and into a darkened basement-type area. Gone, the plush furnishings and thick shag-pile carpets.

“It’s a little dark in here, so mind your step, Ms. Bates.”

Ken opened the door to a huge room, which I suspected hid a secret sweatshop history. Endless rows of tables, chairs, phones and people (mostly women) yapping into concert-type earpieces.

“What you see before you is the ‘operations room.’ Look around you, Ms. Bates.” Ken raised his hand like a magician in white gloves. “Here we call our customers, make orders, arrange deliveries and such. We also have a team operating outside. Their role? To get the products noticed. Make the sales. We call them the Ground Force Operations Unit.”