Dime (26 page)

About two hours.

“I'm going to come check on you as much as I can,” I tell her. “You keep track of the pains. That means you have to remember how long between each one. Okay?”

“Is the baby coming tonight?”

I think of the man arriving at eleven tomorrow. I feel icicles over my body. “I hope so.”

*  *  *

The one they call Dime usually has a steady stream of dates during the late afternoon and into the night. Eagle, working for Daddy, brings the johns in, mostly from the Newark airport, when he isn't driving Brandy to a party or to a private indoor event. This means that Dime has to turn tricks and check on Lollipop without letting her dates, Eagle, or Lollipop know what she's up to.
Truth would put his pen down to shake out his hands.
I haven't meant to write so much,
he might add, after a minute.
It's just that I know I'm complicated and hard to understand. I'm sorry,
he would write
. All I'm trying to do is ask for help.

*  *  *

Lollipop's labor goes just like the books and the videos said they would, except faster for a first birth. It's good that it's going faster, because if it lasts until daytime tomorrow, it will be much harder for me to do what I need to do. I pray and pray and pray.

After every trick, I make myself walk and not run across the hall into Lollipop's room. I manage to scrub the bathtub with Clorox and spread clean towels on every surface. Once or twice when I walk back, the men are waiting by my door already, and I act like them waiting for me to show up is normal.

Twice I see Eagle walking toward our rooms. Each time, I am calm in the hallway. “Nothing yet,” I say to Eagle. “I just checked.”

He believes me and turns back around.

By midnight I have Lollipop right outside her bathroom, propped up on pillows, praying Eagle won't come in. If he does, I'm planning to shout, “Hurry! It's happening so fast! Get Daddy and Brandy!” As if I never had time to tell him it had started. If that happens, I guess I'll have to try to take Lollipop with me as soon as he leaves, but I don't know how on earth I can drag her, in labor, out of the hotel.

The good surprise is that Lollipop really can go away: She goes wall when the pains get bad, and she's been staying wall for longer and longer in the past hour and a half. The bad surprise is that makes it harder to time how far apart the contractions are and harder to help her move around. The books said to try kneeling or to rest on all fours, squatting or leaning forward on your knees with arms on a table or something. But it's hard for me to get Lollipop up and moving. She just wants to be left alone to lie in one spot.

“Sorry,” I keep saying. “I'm not trying to hurt you.” Her wall scares me. It's as if she's dead.

I have to remember to rearrange my face when I rush back into my room for the next john. I have to remember to act the way they expect me to act so I can get them out of there fast and go check again.

“Take a shower,” one date tells me. I don't want to. I don't want to take the extra time. I end up taking the shower but ignoring what he asks me to do next. Instead I wrap my mouth around him, pretending that I love to do that so much I just can't help myself. I figure that will finish him off fast, and it does.

At about one thirty in the morning, the contractions get closer together. They are about ten minutes apart. The books say when they get to two minutes apart I have to be ready to catch the baby.
Thank you,
I tell Jesus, my new best friend, who I doubt I even believe in.
Thank you for having this happen on a Friday night.
On weekend nights Daddy makes me work straight through until six or seven. If this was a school night, Eagle would be looking to take me home in half an hour.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I think it's time to get Lollipop into the bathtub, but it's hard to coax her to come out from behind her wall.

“Come on,” I keep saying. “Lolly, come on. We have to get you into the bathtub now. Lollipop? Lollipop!”

Finally she comes back with a rush of breath. She wails. “It hurts!”

“I know,” I tell her as kindly as I can. “It's going to hurt a lot more, too. Bite on this.” I hand her a wet, rolled-up towel, wait until the contraction seems to end, and then haul her to her feet. “You have to try not to make any noise, okay?”

“Where's Brandy?” She's moaning and crying.

“It's not time for her to come yet,” I say. “I'm going to get her soon. It's going to be okay. You're doing a great job. It's going to be okay.” I half carry her the few steps into the bathroom and then help her step up and over into the tub.

“Don't be nice to me,” Lollipop sobs while I try to get her on all fours. “If you're nice to me, it's harder to go away.”

“Well, Lolly, I can't be mean.”

She starts crying and moaning louder. I'm so afraid Eagle will hear. “I just want to go away,” Lollipop cries. She drops her head into her hands, belly hanging down and butt in the air. “It really hurts, Dime. It really hurts a lot.”

*  *  *

Somehow nobody hears. Between tricks I walk across the hall to help Lollipop in all those different positions. I try to help her breathe. Most of the time she is wall and not present. Some of the time she comes back to me and either screams,
Where is Brandy, where is Daddy? Where is Uncle Ray?
or just screams without words.

The contractions are five minutes apart now, and I'm pretty sure she's done about four of them without me in the bathroom with her. “Am I really not ever going to see him again?” she asks, holding her breath.

“I don't know,” I say to her. “Breathe.”

I am hot and sweaty and dirty. My next date is in fifteen minutes at three thirty. Lollipop is shaking and wailing. I look between her legs. Everything looks the same, but different. I don't know if the baby is ready, and I don't know what to do. So I just make a choice and wash my hands again, then walk down the hallway to the elevator. It's hard not to run, but that would be stupid, so I walk as normally as I can manage out to the street and wait for the town car to appear. In a few minutes, Eagle cruises to the curb, puts on his flashers, and rolls down his window.

“It's time,” I tell him. “She's just starting. You should probably go get Brandy.” I try to act like there's no hurry, like I'm not in a hurry, so I lean in.

“The baby?” he asks, as if to make sure.

“Yes,” I say. “Her water just broke, so there's plenty of time.” I pause, wondering if he even knows what water breaking means. “But you should probably tell Daddy and see if he wants Brandy to come now. Or what he wants to do with her eleven tomorrow.”

Eagle nods, I straighten, and he rolls up the window. He will send my date away and then go get Whippet. I'm counting on that. I walk as slowly as I can back toward the hotel door. Eagle and Whippet and L.A., wherever she is, will believe they have hours to find their people, to arrange their meeting, to take the baby.

I have time now,
I tell myself, forcing myself to walk to the elevator, to walk until I'm back in Lollipop's room.

The baby's head is crowning, and Lollipop is screaming as I reach her. I know I need to wash my hands all over again or at least put on sterile gloves, but there's no time.

“Breathe,” I tell her. All of a sudden she smiles a grimacy smile, and the baby's head pops out. And stays there, stuck. Lollipop is flat limp on her back in the tub, with that baby's head almost resting on the messy, slippery bottom. I haul her up to the tub's edge and perch her bottom on a pillow there so that the baby is pointing downward. “Hold yourself steady,” I order her, because I can't do what I have to do and keep her from slipping back down at the same time. She braces her palms on either side of her and does her best, crying and moaning. I wipe guck off the baby's face with a clean washcloth from my stack. The baby's face is blue. I'm trying to ignore the way it's just poking out of Lollipop. I'm trying not to panic, and then the baby's head turns to the side, and a shoulder slides out. Then the whole baby is sliding out, and I grab a clean towel just in time to catch it. But it's still blue. I wipe its face again and rub it all over while Lollipop slides down back inside the tub. I keep rubbing, but the baby doesn't cry. Then I remember the straws, and I'm not sure if I should wipe alcohol over one first. I'm too scared, too much in a hurry, so I don't. I just poke the straw at the baby's tiny nostril and I suck on it, pulling out the guck. I suck more out and then switch to the other tiny nostril. I keep going back and forth until there's no more guck. Then I stick my pinky inside the baby's mouth to wipe out anything left. The baby begins to pink up and cry. The crying sounds like a little toy, squeaking, like it's not even human. It is so cute, I can hardly stand it. I settle the baby on top of Lollipop. She pulls it up to where she can properly look. “Rayelle.”

“Hold her carefully,” I say. “And be still. We have to get the placenta out.”

“The wha?” Lollipop says, and then she gasps and the placenta oozes out. She look down at it and yells, “Eeeewwwwww, gross!” And then she looks back at the baby and laughs and laughs, lying in the bathtub full of guck and blood. The baby keeps squawking those toyish squawks. I grab the dental floss from a plastic Baggie off the sink and the new CVS scissors and wipe them with an alcohol wipe. Then I pause. Some of the books said to wait twenty minutes. Others said to watch until the cord seems to stop pulsing. I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to hurt the baby or Lollipop. But if I take too long . . .

“Hold Rayelle toward me,” I tell Lollipop. “Don't you dare drop her.” She does as she's told, and I use dental floss to tie the cord a few inches from Rayelle's belly. Then I cut the cord. It's difficult. It's like cutting old meat, and it takes a long time. The scissors are not sharp enough.

But I do it, and when I'm finished, I put the baby back on Lollipop's belly. I turn on the bathwater again and try to clean a little. The placenta is huge, though, and goo and blood fill the tub.

“Where's Brandy?” Lollipop says, cradling Rayelle in the towel. “Where's Daddy and Eagle and L.A.?”

“I'm going to get them now,” I lie. “They're just outside waiting.” I take Rayelle from her. “I'm going to bundle her better,” I explain. “And bring her out to them, and then we're all going to get you cleaned up and out of this tub.”

I move as fast as I can, wrapping Rayelle now first in one of the two fleece blankets and then in a towel. I twist off the cap of the formula bottle and slip it in the baby's mouth. She sucks right away.

I look at Lollipop, a bloody, happy mess in the filthy bathtub. “Press on your belly, here,” I show her, placing her hands beneath her belly button. The books say she could bleed to death if I don't make sure. There's more I wish I could express to her, but there's no time, and I don't have the right words. “I'll be right back,” I lie again, my dead soul half breaking and half singing. “I promise.”

*  *  *

My paperback sits at the bottom of the knapsack beneath two fresh towels and the second fleece blanket, all folded into rounded rectangles. I lay the wrapped baby on top of the stack and zip up around her until only her face shows. Then I prop the bottle in her mouth, knowing it will fall out and worrying she will fall out too, or suffocate. I grab the piece of paper and the flashlight pen I told Daddy to buy at CVS so that I could see all the parts of Lollipop I thought I'd need to see, shrug into my black puffy coat, slip the heavy knapsack on, and try not to run.

I can't leave her at the hospital, because it's too close and Daddy or L.A. could have time to find both of us there and also somebody might see me and call the police. I can't leave her with the police, because they will arrest me and give the baby to L.A. or to foster care, and also Daddy or the others might find me before I even get to the station. But even though it's far away—really far away—there is one place I can go. I know how to get there, because I've spent a lot of time looking out car windows, noticing.

It's dark and cold enough that there are hardly any people out. I just duck my head and try to be invisible. I check on the baby with my palm reached up high and back. The bottle has fallen out and she's not making any sounds, but I can feel her exposed face, so if she's dead, it's not from suffocation. I walk and walk, trying to think of what to write down on my note.

It's a beautiful thing when it's two young people in love,
I could write.
So give this fresh baby a chance to know what that's like someday. . . .

She squawks, still alive. I'm nervous about the temperature. They say newborns get cold so fast, and somehow Daddy and L.A. didn't get a hat for her, even though I told them they had to. Babies lose most of their heat from their head, and it must be about five degrees out. I can't feel my own face. I'm worried.

You take this newborn bitch,
the note could say,
and you consider it a gift. You sell it to the highest bidder, and you will have more of me than you ever dreamed was possible.

I reach up behind my neck again to her face and feel a tiny warm mouth find my pinky. I keep my hand there to let her suck, and I twist it a little as I walk, trying to make my palm be a cap for her.

What lies here before you,
I could try,
is both amazing and
upsetting. Please tend to her as I wish all people would tend to me.

*  *  *

I arrive. It must be about five o'clock. Quiet. I'm shivering and sweating at the same time.

I climb the four steps, carefully ease the knapsack onto the ground, unzip it, and pick up Rayelle. I hold the bundle of her under one arm like a football while I pull out the towels and fleece, unrolling and draping them over my shoulder. I reach to the bottom of the knapsack with my free hand and find the book.
The Color Purple
. I place it on the ground just in front of the door, title facing up and edges squared. I tug the linens off my shoulder, using the towels to line the knapsack and the fleece for a final warm layer. I pull the fleece longwise so that it covers the top of the baby's head and the tips of her toes. She squawks while I arrange her like a princess on top of the padding and near the knapsack's opening so that she can breathe. I sit on the frigid cement and cradle the knapsack in my lap to keep it as warm as I can.