Mesopotamia (17 page)

The hidden message, as I inferred it, was,
She’s not your real mother. You were just another liberal, well-intentioned project she took up years ago
.

“Well clear a place at the table,” I fired back. “Cause not only am I coming, but I’m bringing
my
kids.”

Your
kids?” I had hardly spoken with my sisters in the past ten years so it was at least somewhat plausible.

“Don’t worry, we’ll just stay for the day.”

“You’re coming all the way from New York City just for one day?”

“I like driving.”

“At least stay for dinner!”

“Fine, see you in six hours.”

“You’re coming tonight?”

I turned off my cell phone. Mom’s house was only about twenty minutes away. I figured I could load all the kids in the truck when the older ones returned from school, rush them to Mesopotamia for a visit and a dinner, then get them back home for Vinetta’s return that night.

I hardly knew my sisters anymore. How many questions would they ask the kids? If my sisters did discover I wasn’t the mother, no harm done. If I pulled it off, though, I knew they’d feel crappy for treating me like this. Besides, not having to cook dinner and clean up afterward, for even one night—that alone would make the trip worth it.

I spent the next hour trying to pull together decent clothes for the kids. When the two oldest ones returned from school, I had just finished dressing the younger ones, so I began coaxing them out to the pickup.

“Okay, kids, Mama Bloomgarten’s got a little game for you all.”

“I’m hungry, where’s food?” seven kids said in seven different voices, volumes, and tones.

“That’s the game!”

“What’s the game?” one of them growled—I think it was Rufus.

“Escape to Witch Mountain.”

“Why would we want to escape
to
something?” asked one mouth of the seven-headed monster.

“Play it right and you’ll win food.”

“Sounds scary!”

“See, we’re going to go visit some witches pretending to be ladies. If we do that, we get to eat the magic food, then we’ll get back into the truck and go home.”

“What happens if they catch us?”

“Then you all have to stay and talk and get kissed and hugged and stuff.”

“Eww!” a chorus returned.

“Why don’t you just make us food?” one snotty little head suggested.

“Because we’re all out, so let’s not screw this up.”

“Why don’t you go shopping?” the eight-year-old piped up.

“All out of money. Now let’s—”

“You ain’t out of money, you’re just being lazy!” the seven-year-old shouted.

“I beg your pardon!”

“We’re tired,” said the eight-year-old rebel leader.

“Yeah, we don’t want to go nowheres!” said his second-in-command.

“That’s it, I want some Evil Elvises!”

“Fine, but we ain’t leaving,” said the eight-year-old.

“Yeah, no one’s leaving,” one of the younger kids echoed him, and I realized that my authority was evaporating.

“Make us some food, why don’t you. That’s what you’re supposed to do!” another little screamer joined in, chirping orders at me.

Right then I had a flashback; I recalled a fight, almost exactly like this one, over thirty years earlier, with Rodmilla. With horror I realized
I
had been the insurgent in our family. I suddenly had the urge to apologize to that older woman who I had spent my entire life fighting with. That’s when it really hit me that she was dead. There was no one left to fight. I sat down on the ground, and as the kids kept yelling at me, I envisioned her face thirty years ago. Tears came to my eyes.

“Hey,” the eight-year-old suddenly said to his crew, “that’s enough. Let’s get dressed.”

“No, it’s okay. I guess we have some food around.”

“No, Mama Bloomgarten,” he said softly. And I realized they had seen the tears. “It’s no trouble.”

“We’d only be going about twenty minutes away,” I told him.

“Then let’s shake a leg,” he said to the others. “Maybe they’ll have some pizza!”

In a few minutes they were pulling clothes from their wardrobe. I helped them, checking their progress.

About twenty minutes later we were all outside in the truck. It was there I explained, “If you can all do me one small favor, I want you to pretend while we’re at this place that I’m your real mama. Can you all do that?”

You’re
our real mama?” asked Urleen.

“Yeah, and that we’re all here visiting from New York,” I added.

“New York, the city?” the eight-year-old replied in awe.

“Yeah, and if one of the little kids accidentally slips, I’m hoping one of you will cover for him,” I said to Floyd Jr. and Urleen.

“What do we get if we do this?” asked Kayla or Eugenia.

“I told you, magic food.”

“Mars bars!” Cotton or Kayla swiftly demanded. Clearly they had already given this matter some thought.

“Tell you what, I’ll give you a Mars bar for every time you pull me out of a rut,” I proposed.

The youngest ones got in the front next to me. All the others piled into the rear of the truck. Before we backed out, Floyd Jr. hollered, “Stop!”

“What?” I feared a child had tumbled out the back.

“You want us to pretend we’re from New York?”

“Yes!” I resumed backing down the driveway.

“Stop!” he shouted again.

“What?”

“This pickup has Tennessee license plates. How you going to explain that?”

The eight-year-old had a point, so we all somehow packed into my crappy little compact with the New York plates. Little arms and legs were sausaged every which way. As we drove, I called out, “Who wants to play a little game?”

“We’re already playing a game,” one of the smarter heads reminded.

“The game thing is wearing thin,” said the eight-year-old.

“This is a better game. It’s called pretend. Are you ready to play pretend?”

“Yeah, that we’re from New York,” one kid tiredly replied.

“Yeah, but we’re also on this secret mission. Now, who’s your mommy?”

“You’re our mommy!” some shouted back.

“And where d’we
pretend
live?”

“Here,” yelped some without hesitation.

“No, New York City,” the oldest boy corrected, and all repeated.

“And where’s your daddy?”

“With God in heaven,” one of the kids shouted back.

“No, in the game of pretend, Daddy’s alive but he left us. So let’s repeat that, ready? Where’s Daddy?”

“He left us!” the kids yelled out.

“This game sucks,” the eight-year-old muttered.

For the remaining twenty or so minutes, as I drove, we kept up the pretend game quiz. Every few miles we’d pass a billboard that announced the upcoming Elvis contest and some of the kids would scream out or sing. I kept returning to the “game,” drilling the same facts over and over into their seven little attention-deficit heads.

Finally, we pulled into Ludmilla’s house of horrors. I parked between two new white Mercedes-Benz SUVs, cigarettes to the lungs of our dying planet. One had a bumper sticker that read,
My Daughter Is an Honor Student at South Lane High School
. The other car had a Jesus fish—so much for five thousand years of Judaism. By the time I pulled the seven little bodies out of my vehicle, they were hungry, whiny, and the youngest needed to be changed. Linking hands we all headed up the walkway.

“Oh my God!” cried a gold-highlighted, stallion-haired lady who turned out to be my sister Ludmilla. She hugged me, making me feel self-conscious about wrinkling her expensive clothing. Looking at my Elvis cut, she paused and said, “I … um … like what you did with your …”

“Thanks.”

Squatting low, Ludmilla grabbed some of Vinetta’s kids and started indiscriminately kissing them, something that would never have occurred to me. As they wiped off her tacky lipstick, she squealed, “Look at all these beautiful, beautiful children! Do you know me, I’m your Aunt Ludmilla!”

“Aunt Umbrella?” asked one.

“No, Lud-mil-la,” she sounded it out for them.

“Lump-milla?” said the cunning eight-year-old.

“Call me Aunt Luddy.”

“What kinda crazy name is that?” his partner in crime asked.

“Russian,” she responded politely. Then, looking up at me, she revealed that she knew something about recessive genes:“How come two of your babies are blond?”

“Oh, they were Paul’s from a prior marriage.”

“Mom said you were going through a d-i-v-o-r-c-e,” she said.

“Yeah, but please don’t mention it in front of the k-i-d-s.”

As Ludmilla stared into their cute white faces, another inconsistency suddenly occurred to me. “Paul’s eyes are extraordinarily round—”

“I was just wondering about that,” she cut me off.

“Their doctor said their eyes will grow more a-l-m-o-n-d-i-n-e as they get older.”

“Mama said that when folks spell things out,” Floyd Jr. blurted, “they’re usually talking about sex.”

“That’s true,” I chuckled awkwardly. “I did say that.”

“Well, come on in and meet your cousins,” Luddy said. Snatching the two-year-old out of my arms, she led us inside.

“Oh my God, just look at this brood!” said my other sister, nasal-voiced Bella, who also turned into a frenetic kissing machine.

In the living room before the burning fireplace, seated politely on sofa sectionals and recliners, were Ludmilla’s three well-behaved, impeccably groomed boys, Yale, Downer, and Swan—they sounded like some Madison Avenue firm. Bella’s two girls, Curtis and Micah, sat quietly next to their two brothers, Seven and Theobald.

“This is Clinton,” I began.

“Cotton,” the five-year-old corrected in a surly tone.

I pointed to each child as they chirped out their names.

“Urleen.”

“Kay.”

“Eugenia.”

“Ruffy.”

“Sterling.”

“And lastly—Floyd Jr.”

“Wait a second,” Bella asked, “isn’t Paul your husband?”

“Yeah, but Floyd Jr. is the boy’s full name. It’s a long story.”

“Very original!” Luddy said. Even Floyd Jr. smiled at that one.

Ludmilla’s scientifically engineered offspring, sitting side by side with Vinetta’s ragtag litter, really brought out their trailer trashiness. It wasn’t just their irregular hand-me-down clothes and homecut hair, but their lack of conduct and animal mannerisms. Still, I refused to feel any maternal shame. They were the marvelous harvest of my loins, the best things that had
ever
happened to me, and I loved each of them a little more every day. I watched with a frozen smile as the youngins carefully emptied bowls of raw almonds and raisins into their small pockets. Ludmilla’s liberal guilt appeared to make her doubly receptive to the poorly reared waifs and less questioning of my parenting skills.

Upon excusing myself to use the upstairs bathroom, passing by Ludmilla’s bedroom, I noticed her brand-new, miniature, state-of-the-art Apple laptop. It was wafer thin. The screen was on some recipe from the
Food.com
site. Attached to it was a beautiful, tiny laser-jet printer. Unable to pass up the opportunity, I checked my e-mail. I could hear the children screaming, but I went on Google and, since I was about to go into this contest to find Rod East—formerly John Carpenter—I typed in his name and hit
Images
. Up came a single photo of a shady thirty-year-old man with muttonchop sideburns and a wifebeater T-shirt—classic 1970s.

“Stop it, you witch!” I heard a child scream at one of my stepsisters. I pushed the print button and dashed out to grab one of the little girls who was battling Ludmilla’s attempt to wipe off her sticky face.

Another little girl suddenly yanked an American pilgrim action-figure out of Yale’s manicured hands. He looked completely baffled by her bold aggression.

“Shame on you, Kayla,” I shouted out.

“Do an Elvira,” the eight-year-old tyrant said.

Ainnotin buttahunda, cryin allda-tine, aintnotin buttahunda, cryin all-datine
…”

Both my sisters and their well-behaved offspring stared at the little girl in jaw-dropped awe.

“What’s she doing?” Luddy finally asked.

“It’s like a timeout,” I explained. “I make them sing Elvis songs.”

“Oh my God, did you get that from
Psychology Today
?” Bella inquired.

“No, I just thought of it myself.”

“That is so cleverly adorable!” said Bella. “You know, there’s an Elvis Presley contest tomorrow in Daumland just a few miles down.”

It chilled me that she knew this, but considering all the billboards and local coverage, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.

“Cassandra, you are truly the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” said Ludmilla with a wide, warm smile.

“If we’re good for nothing else,” I replied, “God gave us the mitzvahs of children.”

“You sound like you’re making fun of Mom now,” Bella said.

“Hey, why’s the mirror covered up like that?” asked one kid.

“Cause they’re vampires,” whispered the eight-year-old, just loud enough to be heard.

“No, silly,” Bella said. “It’s one of the things we do when we mourn someone’s passing.”

“Where’s the pizza!” demanded another.

“They’ve been driving all day and are just starved,” I explained as the doorbell chimed.

“There are some hors d’oeuvres in the dining room,” Bella said.

“The real food’s in the kitchen,” Luddy amended, “we just haven’t had time to bring it out.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I offered, allowing them both to go to the front door.

I followed the rampaging urchins into the kitchen just in time to hear one of them ask, “What’s this shit?”

The kitchen table was packed with Jewish delicacies: gefilte fish, horseradish, chopped chicken liver, beet and cucumber salad, various olives and pickles, lox and cream cheese, and a mountain of freshly imported bagels.

“Fear Factor
food!” said one of the twins, poking up a rolled-up grape leaf.

“That’s enough of that.”

Cured meats were steaming on the stovetop. I quickly assembled seven little pastrami and brisket sandwiches, all on rye, for the Loyd kids, adding a dollop of potato salad and coleslaw—food they recognized. When the neighbor finished paying his respects at the front door, Ludmilla and Bella gathered the kids at the long table in the screened-in veranda and brought sodas out for everyone.