Читать книгу The Shyster's Daughter - Paula Priamos - Страница 9

THE FIRST SOUNDS OF FAMILY

I should be suspicious a few weeks later when my sister asks right after dinner if I’d like to go get ice cream. She never asks me to go anywhere, never even comes out of her room. Despite the statewide manhunt for Cooper, our parents have allowed her back in her own bed at night. It’s not like she’s busy on the phone, talking boys with friends. She doesn’t have any. Ever since we moved to Chino, she keeps more and more to herself. She misses too much school because she’s tired. And the few friends she did make have all but given up calling to find out what’s wrong. My parents now pay a shrink in L.A. to figure out what they can’t.

As I reach the car I call shotgun, forgetting in my excitement that I’m to be the only passenger.

We ride in her 280-Z, my father’s old sports car. It was a gift for having aced her driver’s test. The car is intended to be an incentive for her to drive to school, providing her with another kind of license—to show off. Before accepting it, she insisted that the maroon car be painted white like the Z the cool photographer drives in Madonna’s “Borderline” video.

My sister takes me to Baskin Robbins and buys me a double scoop of chocolate chip. For some reason she doesn’t give me time to eat it there. Never before has she let me eat or drink in her beloved car.

I hang behind in the store, convinced this is some sort of trap.

“Are you sure?”

Rhea has the lightest colored eyes in the family. They’re hazel, and they change colors depending upon the light in them. Something dark is in them now, something deliberate and dead set that’s doing more than clouding her judgment.

“C’mon, Paula,” she says. “Let’s just go.”

On the way out, I grab a wad of napkins.

Instead of returning home, she speeds south down Central Avenue, toward the outskirts of the city. We pass Chino Grain and Feed built like a gigantic aluminum shed, where my parents pick up bales of hay and straw for the horses. We pass the grass field and wooden bleachers that is the Chino Fairgrounds. I don’t like where we’re headed. The prison is less than a block away.

“Where are we going?”

“I told you. We’re going on a drive.” She looks over at me in disgust. “It’s dripping.” My sister no longer likes food. She used to be overweight, so overweight that our grandmother, our yia yia, would sew her polyester pants with an elastic waist. In the last six months, she’s dropped more than fifty pounds. Now too thin, her weight still eats at her in other ways, and she subsists on nothing but Diet Coke and Cup o’ Noodles.

Quickly, I lick around the sides of the cone and stare out the window. The prison is surrounded by chain link, which is how it got its nickname “the prison with no walls.” Barbed wire coils across the top, though Cooper didn’t risk climbing over it and cutting up his hands. He didn’t have to. According to my father, he walked right out through a hole in the fence. “Either he cut it himself or somebody else had before him,” my father explained. “Naturally, they’re trying to keep that part out of the papers.”

All of the front towers are unlit, except for one where a man in a dark gray baseball cap is visible. Even at this distance, I can tell he isn’t looking where he should be. He’s focused on something inside the tower, maybe watching a baseball game or a game show on one of those portable TV’s.

I lean toward the dash and point at the guard.

“How come he isn’t on the lookout? He’s watching TV, I can tell. Don’t you see him?”

My sister bats my arm out of her line of sight.

“He’s probably watching the monitors, Paula.”

At the stoplight, she turns right, in the direction of the hills, and there is now no denying where she is taking us. I roll down the window. The night air blows hard and fast in my face, and I can’t catch my breath. Ice cream melts cold down my fingers. I toss out the cone, hoping a cop will see it and cite her a thousand bucks for littering. Anything to make her stop.

The 280-Z doesn’t have power steering and she needs both hands to make this next sharp turn. There are no streetlights so I’m not sure how she knows this is the right road. It’s made of dirt and gravel, and at the sound of the spoiler scraping the ground, I’m convinced she’ll change her mind and back right down. Instead she downshifts into first gear and steps harder on the gas.

Hurriedly, I roll up the window, as if being separated by glass is an actual form of protection.

“Turn around,” I say. “Please, Rhea.”

“You need to confront your fears.” Her tone is polished, adult sounding, possibly like her new L.A. shrink.

The house is just a dark bulky shape and I tell myself my sister might’ve gotten the addresses mixed up. This house could belong to a family that is off on vacation or simply out to the movies. The front yard is in need of trimming.

She stops the car in the circular driveway and outstretches her arm as if she’s performed a magic trick.

“You see? Nobody’s here.”

If this isn’t the spot where the worst mass murder in San Bernardino County took place, others have apparently made the same mistake as my sister. Beer bottles and fast food wrappers litter the front yard. Less than a couple of months, the house has become a creepy hangout spot for teenagers. It seems too soon. The cops should’ve secured it longer, but there’s no trace they were even here. No yellow police tape sealing shut the front doors or fingerprint dust around the windows and door knobs. No obvious signs of the bloody slaughter that occurred inside.

Cooper attacked the father first because he was the strongest, an ex-Marine who would’ve fought back on instinct. He stabbed and struck the father’s head and chest so many times that one of the man’s fingers was later found inside the closet. Next, Cooper turned the knife and hatchet on the wife who only got as far as the foot of the bed. The children, awakening to her screams, must’ve run toward the bedroom where Cooper hid like a shadow in the dark.

“I want to go home now,” I say.

“Or else what?”

My sister is taunting me by bringing me here. It has nothing to do with overcoming my fears. All she wants is to scare me.

Maybe it’s my anger that forces me out of the car and makes me grab an empty beer can. Although the lip of it is too smooth to do any real damage, I have a plan. The tab twists off easily and there it is, a tiny, jagged stump. I hold it against the car door, the custom paint job that my father jokingly said cost him an early appearance in L.A. Superior Court with a perverted high school gym teacher. The man was caught, his silk running shorts around his ankles, in the backseat of his Prelude during lunch period with a seventeen-year-old girl. Luckily for him, the student thought she was in love and clammed up. My father got the charges dropped, arguing that although he exercised poor judgment, the gym teacher did nothing criminally wrong by showing this girl how to avoid a groin pull.

I rattle my threat for effect.

“A long curly swirl would look cool,” I say. “Or maybe my name in cursive.”

Even in the dark, I think I see her eyes change color.

“You little skatofatsa.”

Cursing me in Greek, calling me a shitface, is just a start. Part of me is scared because I could be in for a serious beating. Sometimes she play fights with me, getting too rough, and I wind up locking myself in my room, hating her, with a reddened cheek or a welt on my forearm. It occurs to me that my sister might even ditch me here on Cooper’s murdering ground.

“Don’t think I won’t do it,” I warn, thinking up my own Greek curse word I’ve heard my father use. “From taillight to headlight, palio hondree.”

I’m not sure what I’ve called her. My father shouted those two words once on our way back from an Angels’ game when we were cut off on the freeway by a female driver. They are successful in getting a reaction out of my sister. She reaches into the glove compartment, pops a pill from a prescription bottle, and downs it with a gulp of Diet Coke. I’ve only seen her take medication if she has a cold. This is different, and I worry if what she’s just swallowed is going to make her sleepy. Already, she looks worn out.

“Christ,” she says. “Just get in.”

I wait until we’re safely back on Central before I dare ask what I called her.

My sister smiles, though it’s an uneasy one. The pill has relaxed her some.

“You called me a fat ass.”

The worst I’ve ever yelled at her is vlaka. Moron is nothing compared to what I just said.

“Sorry,” I say. “You’re not fat.” And although I mean it, my apology comes too late.

For a moment my sister is lost in thought, busily adding up how many more calories she’ll have to subtract from her diet, one less Styrofoam package of soup, one more can of Diet Coke to bloat fullness in her belly. It will be my unintentional insult that starves her to the bone.

“Something’s wrong with Mom.” Rhea changes the subject. “They think she has diabetes.” Hearing this scares me as much as having seen the outside of that family’s house. The real reason why my sister took me out for ice cream was to break the news that our mother is sick.

“How do you know?”

“I heard them talking.”

“How’d she get it?”

“It’s not like it’s contagious. She got it from being pregnant. It’s taken too much out of her. She’s not exactly young, you know.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

My sister nods and takes another sip of Diet Coke. On average she’ll finish two six packs of diet soft drinks plus the fountain kind she picks up in drive thrus per day.

“She just needs to see the doctor more until the baby comes.”

“She’s carrying it low.”

“So?”

“They say high if it’s a girl, low if it’s a boy.”

“Who’s they?”

“I learned it in health class,” I lie. Truth is I listened to Mrs. Lincoln and Miss Marks, the teacher’s aide, talking softly after we came in from lunch recess, when we were supposed to have our heads on our desks, taking a rest. “Besides,” I add. “Men Dad’s age have a low sperm count. All he has left are the male swimmers.”

Rhea seems disinterested, maybe even a little disturbed by what I’ve learned.

“I want another sister,” mine says.

In shame I look out the window, even staying quiet as we pass the prison, because I know she means it.

To waste time while my mother is in the doctor’s office, I play Frogger, a miniature electronic arcade game. She has been in there long enough for me to reach the third level, one I’ve never gotten to before. The digital logs shoot out fast, and there are no lily pads to jump onto for safety. Within a few seconds I’ve let two frogs drown before my finger even presses the “hop” button.

Finally, my mother appears while I’m on my last frog life. The doctor has escorted her to the waiting area, which I know is a bad sign. Usually that job is left for one of his assistants. Dr. Simpkins is old, long past retirement age, probably in his early seventies, and I imagine his age shows the most in his hands. At this stage in his life they’re meant for simple tasks like holding onto a fishing pole off the Florida Keys or pulling down the handle of a slot machine in Laughlin, Nevada. They’re no longer meant for something as delicate and urgent as reaching into a woman’s body to help guide out a new life.

The game beeps indicating the loss of my last frog life, and quickly I turn it off.

My mother’s hands cover her face and her body heaves so hard from crying that her shirt rides up. Something slick and gooey is visible on the bottom of her belly.

Without thinking, I leap out of my chair at Dr. Simpkins.

“What did you do to her?”

Yelling at an adult is wrong, but sending my mother into hysterics isn’t right either.

Awkwardly, with her belly between us, she holds me by the shoulders.

“Don’t raise your voice, Paula.” Her reprimand is weaker than her touch. The last thing I want to do is upset her even more, so I listen. Purposely, after I retrieve my game from the chair, I wedge myself between her and Dr. Simpkins.

He hands her a slip of paper, a prescription order, probably a new medication to treat her diabetes.

“They’ll be expecting you at seven in the morning on Monday,” he informs her.

Dr. Simpkins pats her on the back, a swift show of consolation before closing the door and moving on to his next appointment.

As my mother stares at the slip before stashing it in her purse, I’m able to make out enough of the doctor’s scribbling to see it’s not a prescription for medication. Instructions are written down for the hospital’s technician to Check for demise of fetus.

“He’s dead?”

This comes out before I consider what it will do to my mother. I’m only thinking of myself, my own hurt, how my little brother, and I’m sure it’s my baby brother, might be gone before I ever get a chance to meet him. My father and I have big plans. In a couple years, when he’s old enough, he’ll fill the third seat at all the Angels’ home games. I will teach him how to throw, how to catch and how to bat like Rod Carew and heavy hitter Brian Downing. I think of my mother and how she’s spent her entire pregnancy decorating his room in yellows, not just because it’s a neutral color, but also because it’s a cheerful one. I think of how it took my father half a day to figure out the directions to put together the new crib. Just yesterday my sister helped my mother string up the safari mobile—little stuffed zebras, lions, and giraffes hanging by invisible string. The changing table is equipped with baby powder, cloth diapers, and Baby Magic lotion. Our home smells and feels like my baby brother already lives in it.

Her strength has returned because my mother hugs me hard.

“We don’t know yet. Dr. Simpkins couldn’t hear a heartbeat. He said it’s a possibility.”

“So he’s making us go home, not knowing?”

“There’s nothing more he can do.”

There’s plenty more he could do. He could admit her into the hospital. They could run the test right now and find out. Sending her home, not knowing if she’s carrying around a dead baby, is cruel.

By the time we reach the car, my mother stops crying, and even insists on stopping off at 7-11 for my favorite dinosaur egg jawbreaker as my reward for having to wait so long at the doctor’s. When we get home, my father is still at the office, and she secludes herself in their bedroom where she’ll rest until dinner.

My sister and I are in charge of making it and she actually comes out of her room without threat or force. I boil pasta for spaghetti and my sister chops tomato, carrots, and red cabbage to make a salad. Something stops me from telling her what happened at the doctor’s, how our brother or sister may be dead. Guiltily, I like making dinner with her, and if I say anything she’ll want to comfort my mother and they’ll freeze me out.

Tonight, instead of eating in the dining room, we set up at the kitchen table. Before my father has a chance to finish his salad, my mother breaks the news that Dr. Simpkins couldn’t hear the baby’s heartbeat.

My father refuses to believe it. In his line of work, there’s almost always a catch, a way out.

His reaction is exactly what she’s expecting and her face visibly tires.

“He tried a couple of times, Paul.”

“Well, he didn’t try hard enough.” My father stuffs a forkful of pasta in his mouth, ignoring the rest of his salad. “That deaf old man probably couldn’t hear his own heart with a stethoscope.”

Nobody else at the table seems so convinced, though my mother lets it drop. Rhea serves herself a plate of what we’re eating. Of course, she’s eating the spaghetti noodles plain, no Prego sauce, not even melted butter or olive oil. My mother nudges her plate of spaghetti away but forces down a glass of whole milk, hopeful the baby still might need the calcium.

Worry has taken over all of us. It keeps us in the same room when usually, after dinner, we scatter. Instead of sprawling out on the family room floor, just inches from the TV, the way my father always does right after dinner, he sits on the couch beside my mother. One arm is behind her on the cushion, and he gently rubs her neck. With the other, he holds out the remote, channel surfing. Rhea collapses on a black and white polka dotted beanbag she brought in from her room, and I take a couch pillow and lay belly down on the floor.

My father decides on Magnum P.I., my mother’s favorite show because it takes place in Hawaii. We’d planned a trip there this summer before we learned my mother’s due date is in late September.

Halfway through the program, Kevin Cooper’s face suddenly appears on screen. It’s the same mug shot my mother and I saw the night we first heard he escaped. She turns up the sound.

“Paul.”

There’s no need for her to call out to him since he’s just in the kitchen, right next to the family room, and he can hear everything.

The female reporter is standing in front of a jail in Santa Barbara where Cooper has been arrested for raping a woman at knife point. My father comes back into the room, leaving the bag of popcorn he’d just popped in the microwave. After two months of running, Cooper has been captured. He was working as a deckhand for a couple and their five-year-old girl, with whom he’d sailed from Ensenada, Mexico, to Pelican Cove, just off Santa Barbara.

“I told you people he ran to Mexico,” my sister pronounces.

What she says isn’t what makes us laugh. We laugh for other reasons. We laugh in relief that Cooper’s finally been caught. We laugh that we’ll no longer have to blockade our sliders with big dining room chairs. We laugh at the awful dinner we just ate. We laugh at how I boiled the noodles for too long, how we didn’t even need to eat them with a fork since they stuck together in clumps like finger food. We laugh at how all of us ate the salad Rhea made even though she forgot the dressing.

My mother holds her belly and that’s when she cries out she feels it, buried deep inside the womb, the baby roused and agitated by the first sounds of family.