Dear Carolina (18 page)

DON'T FEED THE BEARS

I know good as my own face in the mirror that my grandma never left the United States. So how she started loving Italian caponata, I ain't got no idea. But when I'd wake up at her house, them weekends we'd have “Camp Grandma,” she'd be just a-whistlin', stir-frying eggplant. I'd climb up on the stool, right beside her, and help her chop herbs and onions and celery and garlic.

After all that choppin' and that weird, Italian breakfast, Daddy'd pick me up and we'd head on to the zoo. He'd always say, real serious like, “See how it says ‘Don't feed the bears,' Jodi?” I would nod my little brunette head, hair matted with sleep, a momma who didn't love me enough to brush it and a daddy who didn't notice things like hair.

“If we feed the bears we take away their instinct to hunt on their own. The zoo give 'em prey to hunt, just like they would in the wild. If they quit having to find their own food, they get fat and lazy and don't do nothin'.”

You don't gotta be real smart to figure out he was tellin' my
little youngen self all about his politics. But, now, don't go getting the wrong idea. My daddy, he believed just like me that we all get down our luck sometimes, and, when that happens, you gotta help out your neighbor. Says so right there in the Bible.

And I'd be the first one to tell you that, right about then, I needed a little help from my friends. I was so ashamed 'bout what I done, so embarrassed that everybody was gonna know I had a baby and I give her up.

That night before, Marlene had been over to cheer me up. “Don't nobody our age want to raise a baby their own self. Ain't nobody blaming you, girl.”

More than making me feel better, Marlene was whining her pants off. “I mean, how in the hell did Karla think this was ‘blond'?”

Marlene put her fingers up at her ears, making air quotes. I thought Marlene's hair looked great. It was toned down and blended. She looked something right near classy. Well, I mean, classier.

“She got done and I just told her right then, ‘Girl, this hair ain't trailer park enough for me. If you're gonna be practicing for cosmetology school, you gotta give the customer what they want.'”

I rolled my eyes. “Marlene, you look better than I ever seen you, so shut up.”

She smacked her gum and smiled just a little.

I said, “I gotta find a job or I'm gonna get to starving to death by next week.”

Marlene put her finger up to her lips like she was thinking real hard. “Well, you should go back to school. You was always the smart one in the group.”

I wouldn't a' said it out loud or nothing, but I'd always wanted to go to college right bad. I wanted to see them professors in the bow ties and sit under one of them old oak trees them college brochures always got. Maybe even play some a' that Frisbee.

Marlene got me outta my dreamin' saying, “You know, you should go to Lenoir Community. They got this program in nursing that'd be perfect for ya.” Marlene was smacking her gum so loud now I wanted to smack her.

I flared my nostrils. “I ain't sure I want to be a nurse, cleaning up all them bodily fluids and whatnot.”

She shook that bouffant so hard stray pieces was falling out on the floor like leaves in the fall. “Well, my friend Amber's friend Tiffany went, and she started sleeping with one of the doctors there, and he put her up in her own place, and he's leaving his wife for her.”

“I ain't got no interest in stealing some poor woman's husband.”

Marlene waved her hand at me, still smacking away. “You cain't think about it that way when you figure you're findin'
your
husband.”

“Marlene,” I said, like she were a youngen. “You tell your friend Amber's friend Tiffany that that doctor ain't never gonna leave the pearl-wearing, benefit-attending mother of his three beautiful children for some bleached-blond tramp trying to screw him for a free apartment.”

Marlene plopped down on the sofa, looking offended, and crossed her arms. “Why you gotta be so damn negative all the time?”

I sorta stacked the magazines Khaki had brought by on the coffee table, their spines in perfect, straight rows like them elementary school classes lining up to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I ain't negative, Marlene. I'm practical. Kinston ain't Hollywood, and this ain't
Pretty Woman
.” I sat down too. “Plus, I can guarantee that your friend Amber's friend Tiffany don't look like Julia Roberts.”

Buddy got to pokin' his head in the door right about then. “Hey, Jodi. Got a question for ya.”

I hadn't seen Buddy since I give you up, since he got me through like he did. I sobbed so long on that beach I think them crops back home was rotated. I ain't never met a man like Buddy, one that would let you cry, not tell you to stop, one who would listen but not tell you how to fix it. I didn't know there was a man like that.

Marlene got up, straightened her skirt, and said, “What a good-lookin' visitor.”

She were giving Buddy what she calls her “bedroom eyes.” If you ask me, looks more like she's having a stroke or something.

“Hey, Buddy. I got an answer,” I said, and waved to Marlene as she brushed past Buddy. She put both her hands on his chest on her way out the door.

“How 'bout canning some of them vegetables and making some jam and pickles and coming to the farmer's market with me when it opens up?”

I looked around my teeny kitchen, and, like Buddy were right there in my head, he said, “I already asked Graham, and he said for you to come set up shop at their house.” He paused. “I mean, if you're ready to be over there, that is.”

I got to feeling kinda nervous and sick and excited all at the same time, like I was waiting for a boy to call or somethin'. Khaki and Graham and me, we'd agreed I would wait a month before seeing you. I couldn't near think about it 'fore then anyhow. But then, our social worker that was helping us through all this mess, she said it weren't uncommon for babies to see their birth mommas right often. Lots of 'em were even living under the same roof. I weren't real sure how it'd be, being your aunt Jodi, not your momma. But all I said to Buddy was, “So, you want me to sell my stuff?”

Buddy nodded. “Everybody's got vegetables, but I thought if we could offer something more it would make us stand out from the competition.”

“You know I'll help you out any way I can. I owe everything to you and especially to Graham and Khaki.”

Buddy put his finger on his mouth. “Funny because, not two minutes ago, I was up there and they was talking about how they owe everything to you.”

I smiled. And, you know, I didn't get in bed with a single married man and found me a job anyhow.

Khaki and Graham, they hired me to go with Buddy to the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday farmer's markets right there on the spot like they'd been talking about it all along. As soon as spring hit, I'd start. And I could sell my stuff too, and I didn't even have to pay for my own stand. Things was starting to go my way. The best part of all was that Graham and Khaki, they said when you worked for them you got your own health insurance. Now I know good and well what health insurance costs, and I cain't believe they was telling me the truth. But I ain't never been so proud as when I went back to the doctor for my checkup and I had my very own health insurance that I had earned my own self.

I showed up at Khaki and Graham's that day to get a feel for their kitchen, see if I could get all my mess in there and start cannin' as soon as stuff started coming off the vine. Like she were scared to see me full on, Khaki peeked her head around the corner.

“How you feeling, sweetie?” she asked.

You didn't have to be real smart to reckon that Khaki, she was scareder I was gonna take you back than I was that Ricky was gonna get me again. But my word, it was better than any piece a' legal paper—and I signed a damn lotta them things too. I nodded. “I think I'm doing as good as I can. I think I might be all right.”

She were still looking all nervous like, but there weren't nothin' else I could say.

“Can we sit down for a second?” Khaki asked, pointin' at them stools under the island.

I nodded, getting that antsy feelin' like a potty-training toddler who has to go. If you'd been standing in that room, you woulda felt it too. It were like the air got to blowing a different direction or something. And I felt that sick coming up in the back a' my throat like I been drinkin' again. You could tell it right off: She and Graham changed their minds 'bout me being in your life.

“I don't want you to think that this changes anything,” Khaki said. “But I'm pregnant.”

My brain got all freezed up like I been eating too much ice cream or something. And instead of panicking about not getting to see you, I panicked that they was gonna give you back.

She laughed, but I weren't sure if I was happy or not. “We're so excited!” she said.

I reckon I would be right excited if I were her too. She and Graham, they been wanting a baby all their own so bad. But my heart got to hurtin' for you, like you was so little you didn't even know it yet but you was already getting tossed around like the garbage. “So then I guess you're giving Carolina back to me?”

Her eyes got all wide like a rabbit in the woods who just seen a fox. “Of course we aren't,” she whispered real strange like her voice wouldn't come out regular. “She's our little girl.”

Then she got to fiddlin' with her ring and you could tell that she knew that weren't the right thing to say. But it was true. It burned me through like rubbing alcohol on an open cut, but that didn't mean it weren't right.

“If you're worried about us taking care of all of them—”

I put my hand up to stop her and shook my head. You didn't even need to know Khaki that good to get to realizin' that she'd love the whole world if they'd let her.

“So I guess all them sticks and leaves you been drinkin' worked after all.”

“Who woulda thought?” She smiled and dashed outta the room so fast I weren't sure she'd ever been there. A minute later, she was pushing a huge box into the kitchen with her foot, all kinda cockeyed like. She put her hand up and said, “Now before you get all sassy and protesting, I'm not giving you these. I am investing in your business. But you had to start off on the right foot.”

“Investin' in my business?”

“Well, yeah. If you're gonna be canning and making jam, you gotta have jars.”

I leaned over right far and pulled out a smooth, clear jar, with a round pink, green, and black label. It said:
Jodi's Cans and Jams.
It had a profile of a girl in an apron all sketched out. I guessed that were supposed to be me. I smiled and bit my fingernail. I liked the looks a' that girl, all ponytailed and happy.

Khaki asked, like she been underwater holding her breath, “So, do you like them? Because if you don't like them you don't have to use them. I can just take them out back or to the church bazaar or something.”

I was getting right choked up, so I didn't say nothing.

“I mean,” she continued, “you've got to put the labels on after you've already finished the canning, obviously. I just put this one on to show you.”

I hugged her real tight and said, “I love them so good I don't know what to say.”

She smiled like the judge just put a tiara on her head and said, “Oh, I'm so happy.”

“How'd you get all them things done?” I asked.

She waved her hand like it weren't nothing. But I could just hear her on the phone with some designer talking him into gettin' all them things done overnight and putting them on some sketchy
Greyhound somewhere so they'd get to Kinston right about in time for her to surprise me. I got to thinking that Buddy sure was gonna be impressed with me now with all my jars.

“So, um,” I said, real nervous like. “Is it okay . . . I mean, can I see her?”