Stop That Girl (3 page)

“I’m going to let you in on a terrible secret. Your grandfather is an alcoholic. One whiff of gin and I tense up, remembering all the nights he put away half a pint. And then he’d become abusive and say all kinds of terrible things to me. Didn’t want me to go to medical school, thought it would interfere with the running of his household. Sometimes he’d get home after a hard week and have his martini and then force himself on me. This was supposed to be married life. I can’t say I recommend it, Ann.” She patted me twice on the arm and returned to rustling her boxes and bags.

“Are you Mumsy?” I said. It suddenly occurred to me that she was an imposter.

“Of course I’m Mumsy.”

“Are you sure you’re Mumsy?”

“Pipe down now,” she hissed.

“What
is
a mumsy?” The more I said it, the more horrible it sounded.

“Ann, go to sleep.”

“I don’t want you and Granddad to be finished.”

“Even after what I’ve told you?”

“And why don’t you like Kathy? You never bring her along or play with her or even say her name.”

“Oh, I like her fine,” Dr. Frost said. “But she doesn’t need me like you do. I’ve been investing for you secretly, my dear. I’ve put away some Standard Oil and some Johnson and Johnson and some AT and T. Not much, but it’ll grow. Should help you out later. Now good night!”

On the bare plaster wall, starting at the bottom right, like hieroglyphics, a face, probably mine, with short messy hair and two freaked-out eyes, and then a little head, my sister’s, and then Mom and Roy, and then Granddad; and then favorite animals including giraffes and armadillos; then all the internal organs I could think of, including the appendix and spleen; and then some of the words I’d learned in my Teach Yourself Russian course: armchair, clothes rack, very good! thank you!; and then rough outlines of the states I’d gone to, including Utah and Washington and New Mexico; and then cactuses I liked, including saguaro, beavertail, and organ-pipe; and fruits I liked, including pomegranates, guavas, and figs; and spices we had in the cupboard at home, like cumin, coriander, and cayenne; and a picture of the boots I wanted, and a few of the outfits I wanted; and a few tongue twisters. Then a ghost story:

Once there were three nurses, and two didn’t like the other because she was mean, and one day someone’s arm got amputated and the mean nurse had to get rid of it, and later the other nurses opened the supply closet, and there was the mean nurse, holding the arm!
And
she was grinning!!!!!

And then a herd of cows with huge udders, massive udders bulging under tiny little cows, all in number-two pencil, rendered by flashlight during that long night, on my grandmother’s bedroom wall.

She woke me in the morning. “Ann, wake up. Ann! My goodness gracious! How in the world—? You sly dog! What a creation! They’ll be studying it for years! I shall treasure it always. My, my!”

I smiled with surprise. How she’d react to my master-piece, I’d been uncertain.

“Up and at ’em and grab your notebook. I want to show you the garden,” she said, charging back down the hall.

I dressed and followed her into an early morning yard filled with shadows and dew. Out the front door was an orchard of citrus trees rising in rows up the slow hill, and she showed me at least a dozen orange trees full of fruit, several lemons, a few grapefruit trees, and even a lime. I grabbed an orange, peeled it in two seconds flat, and gobbled it up. Then there was an avocado tree as wide as an airplane, its branches draped to the ground. “We’ll have guacamole coming out our ears!” she said. “Look at this too, there are one, two, three peach trees, three plums, and a loquat. We’ll make jam. I’ll show you how to put it up.”

I followed her down the brick walkway that skirted the house, and at the other end we stood before an enormous planted garden.

“Would you look at these matilija poppies?” she cried. “Six feet high and rising. They call them fried-egg flowers. Can you see why?”

I nodded, looking at the huge white flowers with the big yellow centers.

“How do you spell that?” I asked.

“M-a-t-i-l-i-j-a,” she repeated for me, and I wrote it down in my book.

I still have that list. In surprisingly childish cursive, considering how mature I thought I was at the time, it names jade plants, lantana, hens-and-chickens, holly, Norfolk Island pine, date palms, cypress, birds-of-paradise, and many more. I remember clearly following her around the property, which she told me was three acres, to every corner of it. “Look at the nasturtiums, will you?” she said gleefully, over in one far corner. There was nearly a meadow of the round-leafed orange and yellow flowers. “You can eat these,” she told me, and tore a leaf off and put it right into her mouth. “Try it!” she goaded me. “Go on!”

It was peppery, like a radish. I ate a few more.

“Try a flower,” she said. I was hungry and tried some of those too. “We can spread these everywhere; look how big the seeds are.” She showed me the nut-sized seeds, and I began to collect them in my pockets.

Paths wound through the grounds, and there were new specimens to be found at every turn. “Camellia, rhododendron, and azalea, all in the shade,” she said. “Doing beautifully. Everything grows here. It’s a superb Mediterranean climate, despite the occasional coastal fog. Oh, my lord, to top it off, there’s a macadamia nut tree. Can you imagine? I didn’t see it before.”

I wrote it down.

“This is Eden! This is heaven on earth! Now inside, to change your clothes. The Hoopengarners are coming soon. Something nice.”

“Then can I go home?” I asked.

“Let’s give a call tonight, all right?”

It was a place to start.

The morning sun spilled in the window like paint. To warm my feet, I stood in a patch of it, until the sound of two angry voices reached me in a snarling rush. A peep through the bedroom window showed me my mother on the front porch; Mom had come to get me! But my mother was shouting at Dr. Frost and Dr. Frost was shouting just as much.

Slam
went the front door,
bang
clattered a fist. Yells and cries made it sound like they were wrestling each other. Something smashed. Glass tinkled on the floor. Footsteps thundered down the hallway, and then Mom stood panting in the doorway, beholding me cowering on the cot at the base of my beautiful wall. “Oh, my God, did you do that?”

“I think it’s spectacular,” Dr. Frost said, right behind. “Do you know anything about children?
Do you?
”

“Get up,” Mom said, grabbing up my clothes. “We’re leaving.”

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” I said.

“I’ll be happy to see you later,” she said.

“Ann, tell your mother,” Dr. Frost said. “Tell her about our plan. You have a say in this.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Mom said. “Of course she doesn’t have a say, she’s a child. Put your shoes on!”

“Ann is like my daughter. More than you are. Why should she have to grow up with that gooney-bird you brought home? Give her a decent chance, for God’s sake.”

“Stop fighting!” I yelled.

Mom had my bag and was leading me by the arm, past Dr. Frost.

“Ann?” Dr. Frost said. “Ann. Speak up!”

With my mother’s arm around me, I couldn’t look back.

“Mom, let go.
Stop!
”

We stepped out the front door, into the sun.

“She’s telling you to stop!” Dr. Frost shouted. She attempted to grab my mother. My mother shrugged her off and kept moving ahead, holding on to my shoulders.

“Mom, talk to her!”

She bent, face-to-face with me, mouth tight as a bottle top. “You will listen to me now and you will get in the car and we will talk about this later. Do you hear?” She turned to Dr. Frost. “You are not welcome to come to my house anymore without calling. And you may never
ever
take Ann like that again.
Do you understand?
”

“Mom, it’s okay,” I cried. “It’s okay.”

“Don’t worry,” Dr. Frost called to me. “We’ll work this thing out, don’t you worry!”

“Stop brainwashing her!”
my mother screamed.

“You’re going to be sorry!”
Dr. Frost yelled.

“Get in the car,” Mom said.

“Wait,” I said.

“Get in the car!”

“You haven’t seen the last of me,” Dr. Frost cried. “Ann and I are going to Japan together next year. Don’t you forget it!”

Mom shoved me into her VW Bug, and we took off down the driveway as if making a getaway in a movie. The tires screeched. I held on to the little handle on the dashboard and tried to wave goodbye, but my mother actually slapped down my hand. She drove like that all the way out of the oaks and the narrow canyon, past the big houses and drive-ways, until we reached the lake and the golf course near the entrance to Hope Ranch. Then she started gasping and breathing as if she’d been underwater. Her face was red and welty. She glanced back and forth in the rearview mirror, as if Dr. Frost might be chasing us down.

Finally she coughed, “Do you understand what happened? Did you know she didn’t ask me if you could come up here yesterday?”

I shook my head.

“I found a note on the front door:
Picked up Ann at
school, will call later.
I tried calling my father. He was out of town. No one had any idea where she’d gone. I had to go break into their house last night, and I just happened to find the number of a moving company near the phone. But of course they were closed. I had to wait until this morning to find out where the house was. I was awake all night. I’ve been crying my eyes out!”

“Oh,” I said.

“That’s right, oh. Are you sure you understand? She kidnapped you! She’s out of her mind. This is the first time I’ve stood up to her in my whole life. Do you see what I’ve had to live with?” Mom was chewing so hard on her lower lip it was bleeding. She was bending her thumb and pushing the thumb knuckle into her lower lip. She chewed big round circles into her lip that would form soft scabs. “So long as you understand what happened.”

“I do, I guess.”

“I’ll never forget the time she chased our neighbor out of the house with a hammer, just because he asked permission to trim a tree on the property line. She’s insane!”

“She and Granddad are finished,” I said.

“Yes, I was going to tell you about that,” Mom said.

“Well, you don’t need to,” I said.

Mom looked at me. The little engine roared. “What did she say?”

“Anyway, where’s Granddad right now?”

“Fishing trip,” Mom said.

“In Denver, Colorado?”

“What difference does it make?” she said.

“Do I have to go to Japan with her?”

“Absolutely not,” Mom said. “As if I don’t even exist, as if we don’t have a family and a life—”

“What if I
want
to go to Japan with her?”

Mom froze. “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve told you?”

“I guess.”

“Then why would you ask that?” Shaking the wheel like she was strangling it, about to bite her lips off. “What were you thinking when you drew on her wall?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said.

“So you defaced the wall?”

“No!”