My Very Best Friend (20 page)

He kept saying the Lord’s Prayer, but he was panting and groaning. He told me that this time he wouldn’t tell my father about my behavior, but he would if I fought with him again.

I pulled up my panties and I ran out of there.

That was the start, Charlotte. The start.

Love,

Bridget

January 4, 1972

Dear Charlotte,

Father Cruickshank shoved me against a wall and stuck his you know what in me. It hurt. Hurt. Hurt.

When I cried and pushed him away, he slapped me and told me to be quiet, to not make a sound or he would smack my dirty mouth again, and he said you like this, lass, you like it, I know you do. Don’t lie. There. Doesn’t that feel nice? It feels nice.

I don’t like it, I told him, and I was crying and said get away it hurts get off and he said you like it bless you daughter of God for you have sinned, you are a sinner, Bridget Ramsay, and I will take your confession. You have made me come to you, you have seduced me. God will punish you. But I didn’t, Charlotte, I didn’t. I don’t want to do that. I bled in my underwear for three days.

I am not a liar.

I am not a liar.

I am not a liar.

I cry all the time. I’m scared. He has a silver cat. Even the cat tries to bite him. He hits the cat.

Bridget

March 21, 1972

Dear Charlotte,

I have nightmares about Father Cruickshank.

Pound, pound, pound. Blood. Rip. Hands on throat. No air. Can’t breathe. Hit. No, please, stop. No.

Love,

Bridget

I closed my eyes against my own dizziness
.

Bridget, where are you? Please come home.

8

“We’re going to begin our discussion tonight with window boxes,” Olive Oliver said. She was wearing a blue scarf with a demented-looking raccoon on it. I don’t think it was intentional.

“Why do we have them? What are the best plants and flowers for each season? Should we strive for color or texture, or both? Should window boxes reflect our personalities or our favorite colors or, when I make mine, how much I love chickens and pigs? These are important questions to ask.”

The Gobbling Gibbling Garden Club ladies were meeting at Gitanjali’s house. She lived above her spice store in the village, the building fairly new at only two hundred years old. From the outside the stone slanted, as if a hand had given it a push, but her flower boxes were filled with peppers and her sign G
ITANJALI
’
S
I
NDIAN
S
PICES
was in the shape of cinnamon sticks.

We traipsed through her store to get to the stairs to her flat, and I felt like I was in spice heaven. I had to stop and gape at the mounds of cinnamon, coriander, garlic, ginger, mustard seed, nutmeg, turmeric, chilis, and cloves and about thirty other spices I wasn’t familiar with. The vibrant colors, the scents, the textures. . . I wanted to run my hands through them, smell them all. The walls of her shop were a deep blue, with pictures of Indian women in saris cooking in each of them. Long paper lanterns hung from the ceiling.

Rowena said to me, fiddling with her rock necklace, “When I come through here I can barely think. It’s like getting hit with little India.”

“I could almost live here.”

“Me too. Except Gitanjali wouldn’t let me talk violence against my ex-husband, who is not paying my child support, which means I’m going to have to move out of our home.”

“That scrunched-face jerk. May he be struck by a meteor and smashed to bits.”

“I appreciate your vengeance on my behalf. Yesterday he had the kids draw pictures of their “new” family. Him, The Slut, and the four of them. My kids refused to do it, except for my oldest, who drew a picture of her father and wrote
shithead
across it.”

“Doesn’t sound like they appreciate their father or Bubbles.”

“No, they know their father had an affair. The youngest is nine, the oldest is sixteen. Kids know everything. They are fully aware of what’s going on. He told them he was not giving me child support anymore because I could get a job. I have a job. I was a full-time mother before he walked out, and I’m trying to launch my rock jewelry business, but the kids live with me and he doesn’t want to help feed them.”

“He’s like a bad virus. What a prick.”

“I wish it would fall off. Plunk.” She started to cry and I hugged her by the coriander. I was surprised that I hugged her that quick. I am not usually skilled at female friendships, especially not in groups. After high school, I decided I didn’t trust them. But here I was, at Gobbling Gibbling Gardening group, hugging Rowena.

“I know you’re going to be a rock-solid, proper friend, Charlotte,” she whimpered.

“A rock-solid friend who will accidentally trip The Slut if I see her.”

“Thank you.” She sniffled. “That’s loyalty.”

Gitanjali had one room upstairs, with a bed in one corner covered in a swirling scarlet-gold bedspread and a kitchen in the other. There were windows front and back.

It was filled with color and Indian decor, including silky scarves hung on the walls, colorful baskets, framed fabric artwork with sequins and mirrors, and paintings of India and elephants. Gitanjali had folded about twenty swans out of thick white paper and hung them from the ceiling.

Burgundy velvet curtains hung to the sides of the windows. A book shelf, painted red with faux jewels glued to it, was packed with books and Indian art. Stuffed green, purple, yellow, and orange elephants climbed up a wall. Everywhere, color, humor, art, creativity. I loved it.

The seven of us sat on the floor on huge red and purple embroidered pillows with gold braid, except for Lorna Lester, who sniffed and said, “I don’t like clichés, in speech or in literature. I don’t like improper behavior. I don’t like spicy food, and I don’t sit on the floor.” Her daughter, Malvina, was on the floor. I wondered if she’d speak at all tonight.

Malvina saw her mother’s glare, sighed, and heaved herself up on the couch. She was wearing black pants and a black T-shirt.

Kenna, the doctor, blond hair back in a bun, came in scrubs. Rowena wore the red dress she was going to wear for a date on Friday night when her “prick-arse ex-husband” had the kids with “his bubble slut.”

We agreed she looked fantastic, except for Lorna, who raised a judgmental gray eyebrow and said, “Too tight.” She put her palms on the top of her chest. “Breasts in.”

I liked the dress. Summery. Light. I could never wear something like that. Could I?

“A window box must be neat and tidy,” Lorna said, pointing a finger in the air, her body reminding me of human oatmeal again. “Red geraniums are best. That’s what I plant each year. Three of them. There should be nothing in the box that distracts from the original display. Three in a box, no more. Think, ladies: Organization. Control. Neatness.”

Malvina studied her short nails. She wanted another plate of food, I could tell.

I couldn’t blame her. If I had a mother like that, I’d want to eat all the time to numb the pain and the stress that would undoubtedly produce excessive gas. Plus, Gitanjali had made Tandoori chicken and chicken tikka masala. And naan bread. It was so delicious, my taste buds melted.

Lorna picked at it and said it was “exotic,” in a sniffy sort of way.

“I plant mine with petunias, flox, marigolds, and I usually add those swirly branches,” Kenna said. “I like different textures.”

“Different textures can confuse the display,” Lorna said. “It can dilute the purity of the plant in the flower box, usually a flower that the homeowner has planted year after year. My mother planted geraniums, so do I, so does my daughter. No need to change or mix in other varieties.”

“I always plant different flowers,” Rowena said. “This year I planted nasturtiums and white petunias and put a giant ceramic frog in each one. I liked the humor. I named them The Croaker, Ribbet the Ripper, Froggy Fog, and Jane. Want more wine, ladies?”

We did.

Gitanjali reached out and poured it, then poured herself another glass.

“Red chilis in my flower boxes,” Gitanjali said. “I sell spices, so that right spice to do.”

“Why spices, Gitanjali?” Kenna asked.

Gitanjali’s eyes were liquid black, her skin perfect. She was wearing a red and gold cotton shirt embroidered with elephants, over jeans.

“My mother love spices. They gold to her because then she make her family the food that we like. Nourish us. We so poor in our village. In hills. We were the Untouchables. I was Untouchable, that what I told.” She paused and folded her tiny hands in her lap. “An Untouchable. As if no one can touch me as I am dirty.”

I put a hand to my throat. How does a society get so out of shape, lose their way to such an extent, that they would call millions of people the Untouchables and treat them like trash?

“We not have the pipies for the loos or the . . . the . . . . elect-on-tricity. Today, in this house”—she waved an elegant hand—“I still cannot believe I pull lever and clean water come out. I have glass of water. Anytime! I not have to walk to forest, or to well, and carry bucket on my head. Please excuse me, but I cannot believe that I have a loo. You cannot think how unclean village is when there are no loos.”

“It would be disgusting!” Lorna said, her face flushed. “All the people would be unsanitary! Disgusting! Living in raw sewage, it’s a disgrace!”

Lorna said it as if it were the fault of Gitanjali and her village.

“Yes, it is a disgrace,” I said, “when you have a group of people at the top who will live in extreme wealth and lavish comfort and yet you have hundreds of millions of people who are relieving themselves by a river that is the same river people drink from because the government cannot or will not provide for them the basic infrastructure and support, like water, sewage lines, toilets, heat, electricity, and plumbing that they should be entitled to.”

“Revolting,” Lorna said. “I could never live there. I would refuse. I would leave. I would work my way up.”

“You can’t refuse, you silly chicken,” Olive said, waving her wine. She spilled some on the demented raccoon. “You’re born where you’re born. It’s not a matter of chance.”

“If the people living with Gitanjali could have refused to live there, they would have,” Rowena scolded. “You don’t get to tell God where you want to land on this planet. If I could, I would land on my ex-husband’s slut’s fake boobs and pop them.”

“They could have cleaned around and about. We’ve had toilets since 1890. Why don’t they have them in 1990? They could have made loo lines and bought loos,” Lorna said, staring hard at Gitanjali. “There’s no excuse to be living in filth.”

I sat straight up. Ignorance bothers me, especially when it comes out sanctimoniously. “Lorna, I don’t think you’re understanding the micro- and macroeconomics here, the governmental ineptitude that caused and maintains this structure, the debilitating societal dynamics, the religious beliefs and the stranglehold those beliefs have on that environment, or the lack of capitalistic, democratic forces and general fairness that we’re discussing in this conversation.”

“I understand the economics and the . . . the . . .” Lorna was flustered. “Everything else you . . . you
babbled
on about! It’s a very primitive way to live. We Scots would never live like that.”

“I am having a difficult time understanding why you are not understanding this,” I said. Her brain was not functioning in a progressive, analytical manner.

“I understand everything, Charlotte—” Her face was flushed, her cheeks trembling with rage.

“You don’t understand poverty,” Kenna said. “As a doctor, I see it all the time.”

“Or how rich people keep people in poverty,” Olive said. “You’re giving me a headache, Lorna, and I still have to feed the pigs tonight.”

“Perhaps I could give you a lobotomy,” Kenna muttered. “Where is my surgical bag?”

“I think it is ignorance that will kill the world,” Olive said.

“Or stupid people,” Rowena said.

“Or people who don’t have lobotomies,” Kenna said, “but should.”

Gitanjali said, “I understand, Lorna.” But I saw those dark eyes. Hurt. She was hurt. Again.

“I don’t like the way you’re treating Gitanjali, Lorna,” I said. “Dismissive. Rude.”

“Please,” Gitanjali said. “Peace. I am not on the off.”

“The off?” Kenna said.

“What that word? Off and the ten?”

“Offended,” Olive said. “Why so mean-spirited and domineering, Lorna? You won’t keep friends that way. I had a pig once who was aggressive. None of the other pigs liked her. I killed her and she was delicious, but still. Her life was spent making other pigs upset and irritated.”

“You’re a grouch, Lorna. You need tequila,” Rowena said. “I have one whenever I think of The Slut getting near my kids. Those two, happy all the time, as if they haven’t destroyed our family’s life. Wait until the lust wear off.”

“You do need tequila,” Olive said. “It’ll loosen up that body and rigid mind-set of yours.”

“I do not. And I don’t drink tequila.” Lorna glowered.

I noticed she rarely glanced at Gitanjali, one more way to put Gitanjali in her “place.” If you don’t acknowledge their presence, you are telling them they’re not important. Gitanjali had the audacity to come from a foreign country, with a foreign religion, and she had dark skin. That was too much for Lorna.