Love Me Tender (2 page)

Chapter 2

THE SAME day Mel found out she was pregnant, Daddy lost three of his best landscaping customers. All of them with special gardens Daddy had created. One had been photographed for a national magazine. It put New Hope, North Carolina, on the map.

The other two got featured every year as “Garden of the Month.” The local garden club stuck big signs on their lawns. They owed Daddy, all three, for getting them talked about around town in the nicest way.

Their reason for firing Daddy? So they could hire a company that was going to charge them less to manage their outstanding yards. Mel knew about it right away, since she took the calls.

All Kerrie and I knew was, when we got home from school, the mood was not good. We spread peanut butter on saltines. We stood in the kitchen to eat them while Daddy painted an arbor he'd built over the back door.

I heard him say to Mel, “Sometimes I wonder if I'm anybody special anymore. I think I'd be invisible if I got up on a real stage.”

I thought, Poor Daddy.

“Why, of course you wouldn't be invisible,” Mel said in an annoyed tone. She'd had a hard day too, and Daddy didn't know the half of it. None of us did. She said, “You'd have that guitar, those tight jeans, the hair. No one could miss that hair.”

“Jeez, Mel,” Daddy said.

But when she spoke again, she was gentler. “Then, when you sing, there's his voice.”

Daddy said, “Thanks, Mel. You always know how to make me feel better.” But only a few minutes later, he didn't take the news of her hard day nearly as well.

“I went to the doctor for my regular checkup and got a little surprise,” Mel said. “I'm a month on the way.”

There was a silence during which I didn't know what this meant. I thought maybe even Daddy didn't know what she meant. But then he did.

“I don't understand,” Daddy said, as if she had shown him a dog turd in his slipper. “You told me you were done when Kerrie was born.”

“I didn't say I
tried
to get pregnant,” Mel said. Shouted. More quietly, she said, “I didn't choose this.”

“Well, I didn't choose this either.” A moment later, Daddy added, “I didn't mean that the way it sounded.”

But from that point to this, things were not good.

Mel's mood slid up and down like notes on a musical scale. She stopped liking real food and didn't want to cook it. She ate so many blue Popsicles, it looked like she was using food coloring for lipstick.

Otherwise, Mel being pregnant didn't make much of an impression on anyone but Mel, and sad to say, sometimes I thought she was making it up. Once, I told her I thought she was just getting fat.

She ran into the bathroom and cried. I knocked and told her I didn't mean it. She wouldn't open up, not even for Daddy, when he stood outside the door and sang, “You ain't nothin’ but a hound dog, a-cryin’ all the time.”

It might not have been a wise choice. We had to go across the street to Miss Nelda to use the bathroom that night.

Inside of three months, Daddy got all his customers back without even trying. It took some time and a lot of weeding, but we all worked together to shape up those gar-dens again. Still, something had changed. Daddy stopped looking for records and spent more time in the basement playing his guitar.

Not a month later, there came the flea fiasco. That's what Mel called it, trying to make it sound cute for one of the garden club ladies. Later on, Daddy called it “the week-end you hacked up the dog.”

It did tend to lose cuteness when put just that way.

It was a weekend gone wrong. Mel was mad before Daddy went off Friday evening with some of his buddies. We didn't have other plans or anything. Mel wouldn't usually care if Daddy went or that she didn't or even that he wasn't coming home till Sunday night. Only, Mel took the call, and the fellow who invited Daddy said to her, “No wimmin allowed.”

“What is the point he's trying to make? ‘No wimmin al-lowed,’” she kept saying to Daddy, imitating the way his friend had said it. “I can't believe he said that to me. I'm the mother of your children.”

It was clear to me Mel expected Daddy to say he wasn't interested in going. It was not that clear to Daddy. He said to her, “Don't take it personally” and “It's just us men and our guitars at a cabin in the woods, that's all he meant.”

“Just us min and our geetars?” Mel said, in exactly the same way she'd been saying, “No wimmin allowed.”

Daddy went anyway. He didn't take our basset hound, but not because he was mad. What he said was, “Hound's just going to pick up more fleas out there in the woods, and he's crazy with them already.”

So really, the shave was practically Daddy's idea.

After he left, Mel said, “The only sure way to get rid of fleas is to take away their hiding place,” and shaved off Hound's fur with an electric clippers. Or as much of it as she could before he made his escape.

Really, Hound stood still for it while she worked on his sides and belly, where the fleas got at him most often. He didn't appear to mind having a naked pink rat's tail either. He stood the way he always did, with front feet pointed out, as if he couldn't make up his mind which way to go.

Hound appeared to have taken an interest in our opinion of the job Mel did, which is where our dog always stood out from other hounds. He was not just a sad face, he had smarts. He liked to follow the progress of practically any-thing going on—in this case, his shave.

But when Mel ran the clippers between his ears and down the long bridge of his nose, he took off like he'd heard a dinner call down the street, ears a-flapping.

We looked all around the neighborhood for him.

Mel said, “I thought he was liking it.”

“It probably sounded like a dentist's drill in Hound's brain,” I said. “
Brzzz,
all over his face.”

Mel started to cry. It used to be that crying was not at all like her. But her hormones acted pretty much like the fleas on the dog. They made her crazy.

I said, “Really, Daddy has to know you were only trying to help.”

That's when Mel started calling him “your daddy's dog.” At first, this sounded kind of cool, like Hound had been promoted to more than just a family dog. Only later did I see that it warned of the storm to come.

We borrowed Miss Nelda's car—in case we found Hound and wanted to give him a ride home. We couldn't put him in Daddy's car. Even Kerrie and I sat on blankets in the car so shoe buckles or a zipper pull wouldn't scratch the leather. It's mint. Dog toenails could not touch that leather.

We drove further than we could've walked, calling out the windows and watching down driveways for him. Mel told me Hound was a four-month-old puppy when she met Daddy. She pounded the palm of her hand on the steering wheel, telling me. Hormones.

“He's even older than I thought,” I said as we stopped for a red light. Mel let her forehead rest on the steering wheel. I tried to lighten the mood. “Hound will be home when we get there. He'll have called out for pizza.”

“Your daddy has loved that dog longer than he has loved any of us.” This without lifting her head.

“Green light.”

Mel pulled herself together and continued driving. She said, “This is the stuff of lifelong grudges, Elvira. If I don't get that dog back, your daddy and I have turned a corner.”

“Don't let's go off the deep end,” I said. It was some-thing my friend Debs's mother said pretty often, helpfully, since she's a family therapist. I thought it might help Mel.

“Elvira, if you say that to me again, I'll put you right out of the car and you'll have to walk home.”

“Then you'd have to explain to Daddy how you lost me too.”

She pulled over to the side of the road so fast Kerrie shouted from the backseat, “Hey! This is how people get whiplash.”

“You too, smarty-pants,” Mel said to Kerrie. “Out.”

“We'll write when we find jobs,” I said once we were standing on the curb. Mel drove a block and a half, then pulled over again to wait. She had the nerve to honk twice to hurry us along.

Kerrie and I took our time getting to the car, calling Hound.

Some hours later and still no Hound in sight, Mel panicked and called the animal shelter to see if he'd been picked up. He hadn't. “Well, can you keep an eye out for him? It's my husband's dog,” Mel said to the person on the phone, and started to cry again. “I will just have to kill my-self if I've gone and lost him over a few fleas.”

They gave her a hotline number that she called, thinking it was another shelter. It turned out to be a crisis center where they pretty much talk people out of jumping off buildings.

“I'll save this number for your daddy,” Mel said.

One of Daddy's customers called the next day, practically the minute after Daddy got home, to say our dog was hiding behind her garden shed. She believed Hound had been the victim of a joke, that somebody's kids were let to run wild with dog clippers.

Hound died in his sleep that very night. He was old, and maybe running around the neighborhood hadn't done him any good. But it wasn't Mel's fault, even Daddy said so.

Mel said she would always feel guilty, but maybe after a while she'd stop feeling like she had to scrub her skin with Brillo pads to take her mind off it.

It was a rough weekend, but I thought that was likely to be the end of it.

I was wrong.

Chapter 3

OVER SUPPER one night, Daddy made an announcement. “There's an important competition coming up, and I'm taking part in it.”

Mel had lately gone from morning sickness to evening backache, but she took this well enough. “What kind of garden do we need to grow?”

“Not gardens,” Daddy said. “I'm making a comeback.”

“A comeback?” This was Kerrie, who didn't know the word.

“Your daddy's going to be the King this year,” Daddy said, which only caused Kerrie to get that crease between her eyebrows. “I have to go pick my music.”

“Mel?” I said after he'd gone down to the cellar.

“Don't ask me,” she said. And then added, “I think I'm having a nightmare.” She followed him downstairs, where they had a long argument.

Partly it was about Mel wanting Daddy to stay home. And then it was about how Daddy didn't want us to go along. The upshot was, having another baby didn't fit in with Daddy's plans to make a big comeback out there in Las Vegas.

Kerrie was lying awake in the dark when I went to bed later on that evening. She didn't sound babyish, she didn't even sound like an eight-year-old, when she asked me, “Do you think they're going to get a divorce?”

Kerrie could deal with anything when she was using this voice. When she was four, she told me I didn't have to pretend about Santa Claus unless Mel and Daddy were in the room. When I asked why didn't she tell Mel and Daddy she knew, she said they gave better presents when they were pretending.

But now we were talking about divorce. Kerrie could probably handle it, but I wasn't ready to admit how worried I was. I said, “Mel isn't going to let Daddy off that easily.”

“It could have a good side to it,” Kerrie said. “We'd be just like all the other kids.”

Kerrie and I were practically the only kids we knew who had a full set of parents that had never been married to anybody else. I said, “Divorce won't make us happy.”

“Marietta's mother said it made her happy.”

“That's because Marietta's mother was unhappy before the divorce. Mel and Daddy were happy. Are happy. They've just forgotten it for a little while.”

“It's been a long time.”

“The important thing to remember is, it's not about them, not really.” I had talked it out with Debs. Her mom, too. “This is all about gardens. And customers. It's about business.”

“I'm not going to have any of those things when I grow up.”

“Probably a good idea.”

“Good night, Elvira.”

I turned out the reading light, thinking it was about Daddy feeling appreciated by his customers. Or by an audience. Or by us. I hoped
Mel
got that.

Then the baby started to kick.

Babies should kick, Mel told us when at first only she could feel it. Then, once we
could
feel the baby kick, Mel kept making us hold a hand to her basketball of a belly and go, “Oh, wow.”

It creeped me out.

Last year, in science class, we watched this film on the daily life of insect larvae. The way those worms looked, that's how it felt to have that baby rub up against me from the other side of my mother's skin.

Late in July, Mel threw herself a “seventh-month party.” She printed invitations and let us find them on the table one morning. After blank looks all around, Daddy gave Kerrie and me five dollars. “Walk down to the drugstore and get her a present,” he said. “Get her bath gel or something.”

We bought a tin wind chime and a scented candle.

Mel opened her presents, saying, “Oh, you shouldn't have” and “This is lovely.” Daddy gave her a vintage T-shirt that read IF YOU CHOKE A SMURF, WHAT COLOR WILL IT TURN? Mel said, “Isn't this fun?”

She looked like a snake that swallowed an egg when she tried it on, and they had to explain to Kerrie that a Smurf was a cartoon character, a little blue man. So if he was al-ready blue, blah-blah-blah. Personally, I thought Daddy should have stuck to the bath gel idea.

We all enjoyed the chocolate ice cream cake. While Kerrie and I did the dishes, Mel ate another slice. She took a third slice into the living room to watch TV. She was finishing it off as Kerrie and I went to bed.

“That was strange,” Kerrie whispered.

I shrugged.

I didn't think it was strange for Mel to give herself a little party. I was only surprised she invited us.

A week after that, the Belly just inflated, like a beach ball. Mel got so awkward, I kept making these stupid gallant gestures, like changing the lightbulb in the kitchen and cleaning the bathtub. Walking down to the Shop and Gas to buy her another box of Popsicles to satisfy her cravings for blue food coloring.

I was disgusting, but I couldn't help myself. I felt sorry for her.

Watching my sister stir her buttered corn into her spinach, I wondered why I used to think all my problems would be over once I grew up.

Kerrie said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I said, “Don't stir your food together. It looks disgusting, like mashed sweet peas.”

“What's disgusting about that?”

“Mel will be buying baby food pretty soon,” I said. “You'll have a chance to find out.”

While Mel watched TV, on and on, she ignored us entirely. We could be in the same room, that was okay; we could watch the movie, okay too. But we couldn't ask her for anything. We couldn't touch her, even. She flicked us off like houseflies.

Kerrie brought out the deck of cards. “Play with us, Mel,” I said. “We need three for Hearts.”

“I just don't have the energy,” she said. I hated to hear her say that, because it made me feel like I sort of didn't have the energy either.

“Then it's War,” I said to Kerrie, who didn't look especially disappointed. She wins at War more often than at Hearts, sad to say.

A little before midnight, Mel said, “Pop up some corn, Elvira, why don't you?”

“Because I'm tired, that's why.”

Like someone lying on her deathbed, Mel said, “I have a craving for popcorn,” and I acted like I didn't hear her. After about twenty minutes, she scraped up enough energy to pop corn and gave us, Kerrie and me, each a cereal bowl full. Mel filled a big wooden salad bowl for herself.

There was something horrible about not being given a fair share. Kerrie and I gobbled as if we were in a race to the finish. Then Kerrie said, “I want more,” and reached to scoop some out of the salad bowl.

“Get Elvira to make you some,” Mel said, pushing my sister's hand away.

I hated Mel so much right then, burning tears came to my eyes. “I won't either. It's too much trouble to go to.” Then I thought of how to get a rise out of her. Mel didn't trust nonstick coatings, pressure cookers, toaster ovens, and most of all, microwave ovens.

I said, “If we had a microwave, Kerrie could do her own. I don't see why we can't even have a microwave.” Normally, this would be the start of the big lecture on how early microwave users cooked their very bones, reaching in and out of those invisible rays.

Normally, Mel would tell us microwave doors are not even solid but are a grid of pinholes the rays can shoot through, starting cancers in the breasts and bellies of women who are standing impatiently in front of them, tap-ping their French-painted toes.

These were not normal times. Mel said, “I'll think about it.”

By midnight, Mel was watching a movie about a lonely housewife who follows some woman she read about in the personal ads until she ends up living the other woman's life. It might've been scary to think Mel felt like following somebody into another life, but the way she had folded herself into the recliner, I figured she was going to be there the rest of her life.

The rest of mine.

We were all up way past my bratty sister's bedtime. When Kerrie roused herself enough to notice Mel had eaten the last of the chocolate chip cookies, she threw her-self onto the floor in a tantrum, kicking one foot so her body hitched around and around like a balky carousel.

This was something she had outgrown once. When she was little, the only way to deal with her was to pick her up off the floor at the supermarket or the toy store and carry her out to the car, kicking and screaming. I didn't have to be the momma to know that we had to nip this silliness in the bud.

But Mel and Daddy had made up their minds to ignore her babyish behavior, which meant I had to live with it too.

Mel said, “Take care of your sister.”

I went to bed with a Save the Earth chocolate bar and a nice thick book. I played an old concert tape from Daddy's stash. The applause after every song just made me feel like, somewhere in the world, people were having a good time.

About an hour later, my sister climbed into my bed and curled up like a cat against my leg. Her nose had stuffed up, her eyes were red-rimmed, her sponge curlers gone.

“How long is this going to go on?” Kerrie asked.

“How long is what going to go on?”

“Pregnancy.”

“Two more months.” I hoped my thick book would last me that long. The chocolate was already gone. “And then there's the baby.”

A whiny moan was Kerrie's only response.

I was tempted to make her get into her own bed, but with Mel acting like we didn't exist, I couldn't do it. So I let Kerrie stay, let her fall asleep next to me. I even trailed my fingers through her rumpled hair a few times to soothe her.

Even though I hated her too.