The House on Olive Street (28 page)

“I know, I know…. Let’s move on past this tabloid subject if we can. I cringe every time I think I’m giving them more fuel for their fires. I know you’re anxious to get back to the original subject of what happens to young women in this country when they’re trapped in the welfare and foster care system, but we’re not going to be able to ignore your transformation—both intellectual, emotional, and the obvious, physical. We got the picture we’re about to show from a network affiliate, and even though you don’t have any idea where that picture came
from, we do have your permission to show it. I want to make that clear to our audience and viewers.”

“Yes. You can show it. You’re about the last person in America to get around to it.”

“This is a picture of you when you were twelve or thirteen?”

“I don’t remember when it was taken, so I’m guessing.”

“Obviously, you’ve made some changes in your appearance.”

“Improvements, I’d like to think.”

“So that you wouldn’t be recognized by old friends and family members?”

“No, there was hardly anyone to hide from. I was pretty intent on creating a whole new person. When I left Fresno—”

“Let’s start there. After the death of your son, you left Fresno and headed south. Why Los Angeles, first of all?”

“That’s exactly how much money I had when I went to the bus depot. I had to choose between Los Angeles and Redding, California. Since I had no idea what kind of work might be available in Redding, I chose the bigger, more anonymous city….”

The show went well. Sable handled even embarrassing questions from the audience with candor and cool. There wasn’t any more in her past to own; nothing more to say. A very excited—and probably relieved—publisher tried to convince Sable to go on the talk show circuit and accept interviews with everyone and their brother, including the very shows that had trashed her. But she would not do it. She’d promised to come out of hiding, but she wasn’t going to create fame for herself out of this story. There was something greater at stake—
a larger issue. Which was what she told Rachael Breeze when they had their first, nontelevised conversation.

“I’m really not interested in cleaning up the stories, even though ninety percent of what they printed about me is total fabrication. What I am interested in doing is having a conversation about poor girls who the system has failed. There are a lot of young girls out there, right now, who aren’t going to become famous novelists or talk show hosts because the system keeps them oppressed for eighteen years and then cuts them loose to find their own oppression. They have a self-fulfilling prophecy to fail.”

“Your story should serve as an inspiration to a lot of young—”

“They need a lot more than inspiration, Rachael. Look, I’m afraid this can never be discussed on television, but I’ve contacted you because I plan to use you as my personal example. Since I can’t cover up the past anymore, since I have to open up about it now in order to move on, I’m going to let this disaster make a positive impact on my life. Very Rachael Breeze style. I’m going to find a way to help young women who come from the place I came from. Maybe only a few, but if I can reach even one—”

“That’s the most wonderful thing I’ve heard this week! I know you’re going to have so much joy from that! But we should talk about your plans. We should—”

“We should be very careful,” Sable said, cutting her off, “not to ever make it seem as though the actions of the tabloids—as unforgivably cruel as they can be—have created any positive outcome for anyone. They certainly never had any higher motives when they stripped me bare, so they’re not going to get any credit if I can turn a nightmare into a decent reawakening. I’d like to
think I might have come to this point without having been publicly humiliated first.”

“If you feel that strongly, we don’t have to discuss it on the air,” she replied. “But will you keep me informed about your plans to help young women? And let me know if there’s any way I can be involved?”

“I am letting you know,” Sable replied. “When I’m brainstorming ideas of what I can do and how I can do it, I want your advice. And your support.”

“You mean, you haven’t even driven by?” Beth asked Barbara Ann. “Not once?”

“Nope,” she said. “I was afraid to. But I have to make a decision. We’re moving out of Gabby’s house in ten days. If I’m going back home, it has to be because I can live with what I’m walking into. Otherwise, I have to find a small apartment somewhere.”

“Do you think it’s fair, Barbara Ann? Sneaking over there when you think no one will be home? Shouldn’t you call them, give them a chance to spruce it up a little bit?”

“I think this is best,” she said.

It was eleven in the morning. What she gathered from the boys was that everyone was working at least part-time. Billy and Joe were both working at the municipal golf course, starting at about 5:00 a.m. Thursday through Sunday, and not getting off until afternoon. Bobby was still working at the nursery, 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., potting palms and selling posies, he said. Matt had his job with UPS, delivering packages. And, of course, Mike left at seven every morning.

Eight weeks, she thought miserably as she drove toward her house. It was certainly enough time to figure out how to plug in a vacuum cleaner or operate a dish
washer. Mike had said they’d been working on it; she’d had a hint or two from the boys that they were attempting to do housework just from the questions they’d asked her. But even Barbara Ann hadn’t figured out how to make a house sparkle in eight weeks. It had taken her months, even years, to fine-tune her homemaking skills.

A lot had happened to her in eight weeks. She’d lost twenty-five pounds for one thing; she hadn’t had much money to spend on clothes, but those few things she bought were size eights. It had been years since she’d had a size eight she could squeeze even one thigh into. Sable had opened up her suitcases and unloaded a lot of very nice, very expensive stuff on Barbara Ann; all she had to do to the pants and skirts was shorten them. Eight weeks of lettuce, diet sodas, chicken breasts and exercise with the Morning Show Lady had given her back her youthful figure. But she was not foolish enough to believe it had been willpower. It had been the summer at Gabby’s house, where she had people to talk to when she became frustrated. Where she had nurturers who genuinely cared about her feelings and understood her pain. She’d had her problems during the eight weeks, but she hadn’t fallen into the Milky Ways to hold back her fears and ease her pain because she had love and understanding.

She had gotten the three-book contract in record time; the fastest response ever. And the special clause about not returning the advance money on a refused book unless it was sold to someone else. Her revised manuscript was approved and—something she’d never have thought of without Sable—she was going to spruce up that earlier refused book and use it as her tool for finding another publisher so that she wouldn’t be forever betting all her hard work on the quirky tastes of one editor.
She’d added up the amount of money she would soon be receiving—twenty thousand dollars plus whatever came in on her next royalty statement. After she put money aside for taxes, she’d have twenty-six thousand dollars. Even if she had to move into an apartment and start paying her own expenses, she could afford Bobby’s trade school tuition plus a little money for Mike to make a healthy dent in some of the charge accounts.

This time, though, she was going to be sure that a little something was getting saved for her retirement. She was done letting Mike’s retirement plan from the helicopter manufacturer be the only cushion they had for their old age.

“Are you scared?” Beth asked her.

Scared? She was terrified! What if it was worse? It well could be. After weeks of stealing matrimonial bliss in the backseat of the car, she longed to lie in bed beside her husband again. She ached to hear the sound of her sons shouting for her the moment they came in the door. She yearned for the thrill of their appreciation when she’d found the time to surprise them with some sweet dessert treat only Mom could make. The smell of their freshly laundered T-shirts as she folded them; the sound of their wild laughter; the shock of their crass, objectionable conversations that she wasn’t meant to hear.

“I have to decide what I’m willing to live with,” Barbara Ann told Beth. “I mean, if the house is basically picked up, but still dirty, is that acceptable? That’s half the battle, really, if they’d just put away their stuff and pick up after themselves. I mean, I can
clean.
If I’m not fighting shoes, lawn mower motors, jeans, rags, shirts, pop cans, Doritos bags, I can dust, mop, vacuum….”

“What if it’s tidy, but everything is crammed in closets and under beds?” Beth asked.

“That’s how they usually clean—by trying their best
to hide the clutter. That’s what I have to be prepared for. So, do I go back there and attempt to teach them how to do it? Part of me thinks they’d be willing to learn now…but the other part of me wonders if they’re not pretty happy this way. At first they swore they were cleaning up the house and begged me to come home…but they haven’t even mentioned the house in weeks. I have a feeling they
think
they’ve cleaned it up, but they haven’t actually done it. So, do I want to move back there and fight that losing battle again?”

“Well, do you?” Beth asked.

“I don’t know,” she whined. “Oh God, I don’t know!”

“Is that why I’m with you? As a witness? Or so someone can pick you up off the floor, pour you into your car and drive you home where it’s safe?”

“As moral support,” she said.

She drove right past her house.

“Barbara Ann! Jeez, you missed it! Come on, it hasn’t been that long!”

She slowed to a stop and backed up. She hadn’t driven past it because she’d been away so long. She’d just never realized until now that she navigated toward the messiest house on the block—the one with the brownest grass, the highest weeds, the most peeling paint and curling shingles, and the greatest number of vehicles in the driveway and on the street.

She sat for a moment staring at it. She was speechless. The house was painted. It was the same color, but it was
painted.
There were no vehicles around. Flowers had been planted in the planter boxes under the front windows. Shrubs were planted along the drive. The grass was cut and it was
green!
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered in awe. This was far more than she had ever dreamed of.

“This looks fantastic,” Beth was saying, undoing her
seat belt. “I can’t wait to see how they’ve managed inside.”

“I can’t do it,” Barbara Ann said. “I can’t. It’s too scary.”

“Come on, don’t be a wimp. Look what they’ve done out here! It’s got to be an improvement inside. Come on!”

But how had he managed it? she wondered. Mike must have hired someone to paint the house, and she knew they didn’t have the money for that! They’d had plenty of talks about money, over the phone and when they went out to dinner. Mike’s paycheck was just about enough to cover their bills, food and a few of the surprises that came along every month no matter what. Her last advance and royalty had been eaten up on home repairs, maxed-out charges and things the boys needed. She had told him exactly how to juggle things so that he could get from paycheck to paycheck, and she’d promised him that as soon as she got any money from her publisher, she’d make sure he had some. On top of that, he’d forced fifty dollars or so on her every week when they had dinner. She had kept saying, “No, Mike, you’ll need it. I know you guys aren’t eating anything but pizza and junk food. And that stuff’s expensive.” But he had too much pride to think of his wife living off the generosity of her women friends.

“Barbara Ann, give me the keys if you can’t unlock the door,” Beth was saying. “The suspense is
killing
me!”

“It won’t be locked,” she said, trancelike. “They never learned to lock the doors or turn off the lights.”

“It’s locked,” Beth announced. “Come on, give me your keys.”

Barbara Ann handed over the keys and put a hand
over her eyes. She couldn’t take it. The outside looked so nice that, if the inside was a trash heap, it would break her heart. On the other hand, painting and planting was pretty easy. There was no reason to expect that much of the inside just because they’d managed to—

“Oh my God, I can’t believe it!” Beth said. “Barbara Ann, get in here!”

She stepped over the threshold tentatively. It was only the entryway, the little-used formal living room to her left. It was perfectly clean. There were vacuum cleaner tracks on the rug. The wood accent tables were shiny with oil. She could smell sweet chemicals—soaps, glass cleaners, disinfectants, polish.

“Whew,” Beth said. “It’s really hot in here. Why do you suppose it’s so hot in here?”

Barbara Ann didn’t answer. She wandered into the house, her mouth standing open, her eyes darting around suspiciously. Eventually she’d run across an explanation for this—a pile of trash so big that a semi would have to be called for it. Surely they’d scraped everything from one end to another. The backyard or the garage, she guessed, would be impassable. Or, she would find a bill—thousands of dollars paid to someone to do this to her house, her family all sleeping in their cars so they wouldn’t muss it.

The family room was immaculate. The cushions were all straight on the sofa, love seat and chairs. The magazines were neatly stacked in a wicker basket. The television screen was wiped clean—no fingerprints. No shoes, no pop cans, no plates or wrappers or trash. My God, the walls were painted! Not so much as a smear or scrape anywhere. She gravitated toward the thermostat for two reasons—one, it was sizzling in the house and two, there was a paper taped to the wall. She approached
it and read it. 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.—90 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.—78. That’s why it was hot. The temperature was turned off during the day to save money. She’d been trying to conserve for years, but someone would tinker with the temperature at will. One of the boys who had stayed up real late and wanted to sleep until 2:00 p.m. would turn the thermostat down to seventy and chill the whole house even if he was the only one at home, rather than plug in a fan. But now, either by law or consensus, the temperature was monitored.