I'm Down: A Memoir (10 page)

It was Friday, and Mrs. Lewis gave me a note for my parents to sign. I had the weekend with Mom, but I didn’t want to give it to her, afraid she would freak out or be hurt or both. So I put it in my schoolbag to give to Dad to sign on Sunday
night. On Sunday morning when I came down to eat, which I did a lot of at Mom’s house, Mom was at the breakfast table holding the note.

“What’s going on at school?” she asked.

“Dang,” I said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is,” she said. “Why are you misbehaving in class? Are they not challenging you?”

“No,” I said. “Trust me, I’m plenty challenged.”

“Well, you’re not exactly making teacher’s pet.”

“Well, then, they’ll just have to kick me out and send me back to normal school.”

“It’s not like that,” Mom said. “They won’t kick you out. They’ll just ask how they can make it more productive for you.”

“I’m just not that academic.”

“
Academic
is a very academic word,” she said.

“Well then, could I just live with you?” I asked for the first time.

“It’s not the arrangement,” she said. “You know your uncle is a lawyer, and has offered your dad limitless legal help.” She was scared of him. “And your father really loves being a dad.” I buried myself in my cereal.

“How are you feeling?” She searched my face, imploring me to open up to her. But I wasn’t gonna open up to her on my three days a week. No matter what I was feeling, she was still gonna go to work on Monday, and I was still gonna go back to Dad’s.

“Fine,” I said.

“‘Fine’ is not a feeling.”

“Listen,” I said. “I promise, I will try much, much harder.”

“Really?” Mom said.

“Yes.”

______

A few days later, after my sister and I got home from school, Dad called us into the bathroom where he was shaving, wearing a pair of jeans, work boots, and no shirt. I liked watching him shave because it was exciting. You never really knew what was gonna happen next. Every stroke could go exactly according to plan . . . or not. Those were the type of risks men took. He took a stroke up his chin that was a little too long, and the result was a tiny, bursting red blossom. I winced, but Dad didn’t. He was a man. He just patted some Drakkar Noir on his face and took a last look in the mirror. His hair was cut short now but it still had enough length that he could feather it on the sides, and the top was so fluffy, it made him look even taller. He grabbed his chin and smiled like he was in an aftershave commercial. Then he slowly turned to face my sister and me—still in the commercial.

“You girls.” This was important, so he kneeled down in order to be at eye level with us. Full eye contact—maximum impact. “I have met a real nice lady named Dominique.”

“Like a girlfriend?” I asked.

“I don’t wanna put labels on things,” Dad said. “But she’s gonna make dinner for us on Wednesday night ’cause you all gotta meet. I told her how important family is to me . . .” He turned to face me. “So, if you embarrass me . . .” He banged the bathroom counter, making a loud noise.

I didn’t know why he was looking at me, but I nodded furiously. My sister threw her arms around Dad’s neck and started laughing. “I’m so happy, Daddy!”

“Wait, how would I embarrass you?” I asked.

“Well, for one,” Dad said. “You don’t need to know everything about every little thing.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean you don’t know everything, and you don’t need to know about what you don’t know.”

“I think I understand,” I said.

“Good,” Dad said, returning to the mirror and making his most handsome face. “Good . . . Oh by the way,” he added, “your mom and I talked and you gonna see her on weekdays, too, sometimes. When she’s not working doubles.”

“Cool,” I said, even though it felt like there was too much stuff coming at me at once.

After chores and homework I walked over to Lyman’s. Zwena had gotten a scholarship to private school that year. So now she was the only girl in the neighborhood who wore a uniform. I liked seeing her after school because she looked so rich in her white shirt with the navy plaid skirt. And when I told Zwena that Dad had a girlfriend the first thing she asked was, “White or black?”

“White,” I said, unsure. “I think.”

“That’s good,” she said. “I go to school with all these white kids and their moms are like servants.”

“My school, too!” I said. “Don’t you get jealous?”

“I used to,” Zwena said. “But I’m the only kid at my school that knows how to cook.”

“I’d rather have a servant.”

On Wednesday night Anora and I got ready for dinner at Dominique’s house and Dad put us in our gold chains that we were allowed to wear only to church. We had started going to an all-black Baptist church after the divorce and Dad usually let our gold out of his desk only on Sunday because he said, “If you wear gold every day, it loses its class.”

Then we drove to Dominiques’s four-unit apartment building on a busy street, not far from GSCC. We rang the bell, and a voice said, “Hello.”

“It’s us,” Dad said into a metal box. “Buzz us up.” And Dominique
“buzzed us up”—which was the closest I’d ever had to a
Star Trek
moment.

It was the first time I had been in the apartment of a woman with no kids and upon entering I almost gasped at how neat her place was. It was full of bamboo and cream-colored furniture. In the corner sat a glass coffee table and the most real-looking fake palm tree you ever saw. And the whole place was covered in light cream carpet—which I tiptoed onto like it was hot lava. I knew that cream was for careful people, and no matter how Dad was acting, that wasn’t us. We were the kind of people who needed dirt-colored things. In fact, our living room was home to a brown rug and a brown pleather sofa that was always just a little sticky.

Dominique heard us enter and ran into the living room with an ecstatic, high-pitched, “Hi!!!” And Dominique was black. I don’t know why it surprised me, but I somehow assumed that if Dad had been into Mom, then he was only into white women. I assumed this because I was starting to have crushes at school, and I knew for sure I was only into Asian guys—and I was sure I would be till the day I died. But I guessed that wasn’t true for Dad, which explained why all the women at church Dad made us stand around and talk to just happened to be pretty. And why we were always the last to leave church.

Dominique was also very pretty. Not Christie-Brinkley-in-a-Billy-Joel-video pretty, but definitely up there. She was wearing a huge smile—and perfect makeup that matched a perfect blue dress that showed off her perfect figure. She was also about the farthest from my mom’s style that you could get. She ran up to Anora.

“You must be Anora!” she said, touching her shoulder.

“Is this your house?” Anora asked. “It’s so pretty.”

Dominique looked at Dad and put her hand to her mouth
like a lady getting proposed to. And turning back to Anora, gushed, “Well, aren’t you cute!” Dominique then turned her attention to me. In fact, she looked me over for a while, like she was redecorating. “And you must be Mishna. Your dad tells me you’re very smart.”

“Really?” I asked excitedly. I looked at Dad, who had a stern look on his face. I turned back to Dominique, “I mean . . . it’s a pleasure to meet you . . .” I didn’t know what to call her so I said, “ma’am.” And Dad gave me the old Vulcan neck pinch—just as a reminder.

After Dominique made us remove our shoes we sat down for dinner. The first thing we learned about Dominique was that she couldn’t cook; some awful pasta creation with meat that tasted the way yak smells. But this didn’t seem to bother Dad, who over dinner announced, “Dominique is a good woman, and I want you girls to listen to her. You should be so lucky as to grow up into a woman like Dominique!” He said it like it was important. But I didn’t know what that meant—a “good” woman. I’d think he’d want to find a
great
woman if he could. I figured, based on church and forty-five minutes with Dominique, that being a good woman must have something to do with God and cleaning—because it sure didn’t have anything to do with cooking.

And from what I could tell Dominique was all woman. After dinner while Dad and Dominique snuggled on the couch, I went to the bathroom—a beige room with magenta accents that smelled like a department store. It was full of perfume and makeup, and there was a mirrored tray with nail polish in every color you could ever think of—even purple. I picked up a bottle of perfume and smelled it. It smelled different from my grandmother’s, and then I tried to set it down on the counter exactly like I found it. I thought about looking in the drawers,
but decided that I had been gone too long already, and would save that for the next time. But on the way back to the living room I noticed Dominique’s bedroom door was cracked and I couldn’t resist peering in. I cautiously looked for Dad or Dominique before sticking my head in the door. The room was as neat as a pin, and all the furniture matched. And from her open closet door I saw a hint of what I thought looked like brightly colored feathers. I was so captivated that I hardly noticed Dominique behind me watching me look into her bedroom.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and I spun around like a top. I was snooping. And I was scared beyond belief that I had embarrassed Dad—and now he would put a hurt on me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I was coming back from the bathroom and the door was open. . . .”

I was relieved when Dominique smiled and said, “You wanna see my room?”

I didn’t know what the right answer was and at this point I was much more concerned with not getting in trouble than with seeing anything, so I just stood there sheepishly while Dominique opened the door wide and stood by her bed. And when she waved me over, I happily followed.

“Let me show you my closet.” She beamed. She was very proud of it. And I was dying to see what another woman’s closet looked like. I knew what my mom’s closet looked like. It was filled with work uniforms, blue jeans, and sweaters that weren’t particularly ruffly.

Dominique on the other hand owned two feather boas and had over a hundred pairs of shoes lined in perfect rows, including a fuchsia pair and a turquoise pair, because as she said, “You never know.”

Dominique put me in her fuchsia shoes and threw the matching boa around my neck. By the time Dad walked over to
see what we were up to, I was sashaying around her room like an extra from
The Cotton Club
.

Dad looked alarmed. “What are you doing?” he asked, hovering in the doorway while Anora gleefully ran in and jumped up on the bed with us. “Mishna, did you ask Dominique if you could see her room?”

But Dominique just said, “Oh John, you’re just jealous.” Then she slapped my shoulder like I would get it. “We’re just having a little girl time.”

Dad became sheepish and softly kicked the door frame before asking, “Well . . . how long does that last?”

But Dominique just giggled and went back to trying hats on me. I could tell Dominique and I were going to be great friends.

As weeks turned into months, and Dad and Dominique got cozier, she let Anora and I in on a little secret, something she no longer had the energy to conceal: she hated kids. A fact she managed to work into sentences like, “You Wolves”—that’s what she called us—“You Wolves, go upstairs and stop making noise! I’ve got a headache, and you know I don’t like kids!”

Or, “Who ate my cake? See, that’s why I don’t like kids!”

Or, “Who spilled Capri Sun all over the interior of my Prelude? See, that’s why I don’t like kids . . . always spilling shit.”

Dominique would yell at Dad, too. She’d roll her neck like a cobra and say, “John, if you think you can come in here with your wolf kids, sleep with me, and not do a damn thing around here? Well, you can take your nappy-headed kids, and your big, lazy, no-TV-fixing ass, and get the fuck out of my house!” I found it oddly festive. And I absolutely understood why she hated kids. After two months with her, I hated kids, too. Little need machines that got greasy fingers all over everything and cost lots of money. And, like her, I had no clue why people had
them. And even though I didn’t get along that well with Dominique, I really understood that she hated all kids and not just us. And I imagined she’d probably like me when I grew up. Nothing personal.

Dominique is on the right, in a very casual look for her.

What Dominique loved was horror films. And though I had never seen a horror film before, I really couldn’t understand the concept—why make yourself scared, on purpose, when there are electrical sockets to stick forks in? When we spent the night at her house sometimes I could hear bits of horror coming from the TV in the other room. And one night, when she came over to our house, she was holding a VHS.

She no longer did her hair and makeup for Dad unless they were going out, so she had her messy hair in a scarf and a pair of jeans on as she went into the fridge and grabbed a beer. It was the first time she had brought a movie over to our house and as she walked over to the VCR, she waved the movie around as
though it was important and kept repeating the word “classic.” Dominique stuck the movie in the VCR, and plopped herself down on the couch.