The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real (35 page)

I turned on the CD player as soon as I got in the car. Fill the car with praise! I wasn't going to let Leslie Stuart ruin my day. Adjust the car seat . . . check.Adjust the rearview mirror . . . check. Click the garage door opener . . . check. I turned on the ignition, put the mini-van in reverse, started to back out of the garage—and nearly backed straight into Stu's silver Celica, parked broadside in front of our garage door, blocking my way.

That does it!
I bolted out of the car, out the garage door, up the back walk, and literally stomped up the flight of stairs to Stu's back door.
Who does she think she is? She
thinks she can park anywhere, not even answer the phone,
because it's all about her!
Well, she was going to answer the door now.

I pounded on her back door with my fist. “Stu! Leslie Stuart! Your car is blocking my way—I can't get out!”
Pound! Pound! Pound!
I listened. No answer.

Okay. Two could play this game. I hustled back down the stairs, ignoring the short stabs of pain in my leg with the rod in it, grabbed the key marked
Stu
from the key rack in the kitchen, and stormed up the stairs again. It had been Stu's idea to exchange house keys “for emergencies.”Well, this might not be an emergency, but I knew she was there, her car was blocking my garage door, and no way was I going to let her ignore me.

I inserted the key, opened the door—then hesitated. “Stu! It's Jodi!” I yelled through the kitchen. No answer. Silence.What in the heck . . .?

Stu's ring of keys lay in a jumble on the kitchen floor. A flicker of worry nudged my anger aside. Something was wrong. “Stu!” I called out, checking the dining room . . . living room . . . bathroom . . .

Nothing. Nobody.

Stu's bedroom door was closed. Maybe she was taking a nap. Maybe she was a heavy sleeper. Maybe—

I slowly turned the knob and quietly opened the door. Stu was sitting on the edge of her bed, long hair falling over one shoulder, staring at her lap. On the bedside stand, an empty prescription bottle lay on its side. In one hand, she held a drinking glass, half full of water. In the other, a handful of blue caplets.

I shot into the room and slapped the pills out of her hand. Stu's head jerked up as the pills flew wild. She grabbed at me as I snatched the empty prescription bottle, but I pushed her away, scanning the label.
Zoloft.
An anti-depressant.

“How many of these did you take?” I screamed at her.
“How many?”

34

S
tu shrank away from me. “Just . . . just one. No . . . maybe two,” she whimpered. “I forgot to take my meds this morning . . . I feel so bad . . .”

“I don't believe you!” Panic bubbled up in my throat.
Oh God, Oh God, what should I do?
Call 911, that's what. I lunged for the phone on her nightstand—but Stu's free hand shot out, grasping my wrist with a surprising steel grip.

“Don't, Jodi! Please!” She dropped the water glass in her other hand, grabbed the phone, and clutched it fiercely to her chest. “Don't call an ambulance. I didn't do it! I . . . I was thinking about it, but I didn't! I didn't!” The braided rug beside her bed had broken the fall of the glass, yet I felt water splash all over my shoes.

“I don't believe you,” I hissed, twisting my wrist free. “I called up here—twice. I banged on the door. You didn't answer! Something's wrong. You need help.”Why was I even arguing with her? I turned and headed for the door. I'd call 911 on my own phone.

Stu came hot on my heels. “Jodi, please don't! I'm okay! See?”

I kept moving, out the back door, down the outside stairs. She clattered right behind me. “Jodi! Jodi! Wait! I can explain!”

I charged through my kitchen door and tripped over Willie Wonka, lying in his usual spot. Stu collided with my back and we both went down, cushioned by Wonka's soft, square body, like a football pileup. The dog grunted heavily and tried to wiggle out from under our tangle of legs and arms.

The ridiculous heap we made was all out of proportion to how upset I was. The feelings in my chest felt ready to explode—either in hysterical laughter or hysterical crying. But as I struggled to get up, Stu's arms clung tightly around me. “Jodi, wait. Please wait. Don't call any-body. I'll tell you.”

I hesitated.
Oh God, I don't know what to do!
Then it came to me.

Ipecac syrup. The little brown bottle that sat in our bathroom cupboard in case any little kids ever accidentally chewed on the philodendron or mistook the anti-histamine pills for candy. I scrambled to my feet, pulling her up with me. “Come with me,” I ordered, hauling her toward the bathroom. To my surprise, she didn't resist. I put the toilet seat lid down. “Sit.” She sat.

I stood on the little wooden stepstool—another relic from the kids' younger days—and got down the brown bottle. “Hold this,” I barked, feeling like an army sergeant with a new recruit. I dashed back to the kitchen for a tablespoon and a glass of water—thirty seconds, tops—and to my relief she was still holding the bottle, looking bewildered.

“Throw up,” I said. “That's the deal.You throw up and I won't call 911.”

I knew good and well I was supposed to call poison control or some medical person before giving ipecac, but Stu was no two-year-old and if she'd swallowed any-thing, it was medicine—not anything acid or toxic like cleaning supplies that would burn coming back up. I poured the dosage into the tablespoon; with the resignation of a cornered stowaway, she swallowed it. I pushed the glass of water at her. “All of it,” I ordered. She drank.

We didn't talk. I just sat on the edge of the tub, and she sat on the stool, staring at the floor, waiting. Willie Wonka's nails clicked on the wood floor of the hallway and hesitated outside the bathroom. A neighbor's door slammed. The bathroom window rattled—
boom! ba-da
boom! boom!
—as a car with a serious sound system invaded Lunt Street, then faded away.

Within fifteen minutes, it all came up. Afterward I wet a washcloth with warm water and washed her face, feeling a sudden tenderness for Stu I'd never felt before. I knelt awkwardly on the bathroom rug, put my arms around Leslie Stuart, and pulled her close. She leaned into my shoulder and began to cry. The sobs became a wail; her whole body shook within my embrace. But I just held on, murmuring comforting words, wondering. Had I done the right thing?

HALF AN HOUR LATER, I'd gotten Stu back up to her apartment, picked up all the pills that had flown around her room, and was making some peppermint tea to settle her stomach. Denny wasn't due home till late afternoon, but the kids might've wandered in at any moment, and they'd definitely ask questions if they'd seen us entwined in the bathroom. I put two mugs of hot tea on the pert white table that served as a breakfast nook and sat down in one of the matching chairs across from Stu.

“All right. Tell me.” My words came out gentle; she gave me a brief smile.

“I thought . . . I could do it,” she said in a half-whisper. “I knew what his birth date was, but I prayed about it, I really did, and I knew Yada Yada was praying for my visit.” She suddenly squinted at me. “You did send that e-mail for me, didn't you?”

“
Yes,
I sent it! Whose birth date? Andy's?”

She nodded. “When I got his case reassigned . . . there it was. That date. And I wasn't sure I could do it. Becky was counting on me, though, and . . . I knew all the Yadas were wondering why I hadn't been to see him. So I asked God to help me, but—”

“Stu.What in the heck are you talking about? What
about
Andy's birth date?”

Tears welled up in her eyes, and I pushed a wicker holder of paper napkins toward her. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “His birthday,” she whispered. “The same day . . . the same day . . .” Her shoulders began to shake.With a dose of wisdom from on high, I said nothing, just reached out and touched her arm.

She finally took a long, shuddering breath. “His birthday is . . . the same day
my
baby was due.Would be the same age. But . . . but my baby died. I mean . . .” Her voice fell to a mere whisper. “I killed my baby.”

It wasn't wisdom that kept me from saying anything this time.
Killed her baby?!
I was so shocked, I could hardly breathe, much less talk.

Now that Stu had said the words, it was as if she'd pulled her finger out of the dike. “An abortion. I had an abortion. Maybe it was a little boy—I don't know. A little boy like Andy. I didn't want to, but what could I do? The jerk left me, dumped me like a rotting carcass when I told him I was pregnant—”

A loud knock at Stu's back door made us both jump. “I'll get it,” I told Stu, hastily rising from my chair and spilling my tea in the process. Stu waved me away and mopped up the spilled liquid with a wad of napkins. I could see Josh's shaved head framed in the glass window of Stu's kitchen door.

“Mom!” he said when I slipped out onto the second story porch. “Stu's car is blocking the garage door! I can't get the minivan out, and I want—”

I held up my hand to stop him, stepped back inside and scooped up Stu's car keys, still lying on the floor, and went back outside. Josh's quizzical expression made him look like an overgrown, comic-strip Swee'Pea. “Here. Move Stu's car into the garage. Leave the keys downstairs on the counter. Yeah, yeah, take the Caravan.”

He shrugged. “Okay.” As my lanky teenager headed down the outside stairs, it occurred to me that I hadn't done my errands yet. Or asked Josh where he was going. It also occurred to me that it didn't matter. Not now.

IF I WASN'T GOING to call 911, I sure didn't want to leave Stu alone for even a minute. I didn't trust her. Wasn't even sure I understood what was really going on. I knew I needed help; I couldn't be her shadow every second.With another person we could spell each other, get some sleep, whatever. I thought about asking Stu whom I should call, then decided just to tell her I was calling Avis. She opened her mouth to protest, but I was getting good with the steely eyed
“This is the way it is,
buster,”
and she deflated.

All I got was Avis's voice mail.
Humph. Where could
she be?
Now that she'd given Peter Douglass the boot, seemed to me Avis ought to be home staring at her four walls, realizing she'd made a big mistake.

Who else could I call? Chanda lived closest—
ha, not
likely.
Not the way Stu had skewered her a few weeks ago. There'd be no sympathy there. Adele? It was Saturday. Adele's Hair and Nails was surely full of weaves, pedicures, and braided extensions.

I dialed Flo's number, told her Stu was having a melt-down, and asked if she could help me sit it out. Florida didn't even ask what it was about. Just said, “Be there in an hour. But Carl and the boys ain't here. I'll have to bring Carla.”

My heart sank. “Carla? I don't think—”

“Carla?” Stu, who'd been slumped on one elbow at the small kitchen table, sat up. “Sure, let Carla come. I'd like that.”

I covered the receiver. “Stu, I don't think that's a good . . .”

But she was smiling. I let it drop. If Stu was comfortable with Florida and Carla being here, so be it. Maybe it was a cover, so she wouldn't have to talk about her feelings or what had just happened.
Almost happened.
Or maybe it'd be a good thing. It wasn't as if I really knew what I was doing here. Just knew, for the first time since I'd met Leslie Stuart, that God had crossed our paths, and I needed to walk with her right now.

Turned out, Carla was a good thing. An air of normalcy returned to the second-floor apartment. Carla's short, beaded braids bounced from room to room, then she settled down to play with a set of Russian dolls from Stu's bookcase—ten wooden babushkas of graduated sizes hidden inside one another.While Florida hunted in the refrigerator for something to cook for supper, I took advantage of the distraction to go downstairs, where I dis-covered Amanda and José eating pita pizzas and watch-ing
Spiderman
in the living room.

“Ahem!”

Amanda sparred first. “Where
were
you, Mom? I would've asked if José could stay to watch a video but nobody was home, and the door wasn't even locked!”

I let it go, even though we had a no-boyfriend-if-an-adult-isn't-home rule. When Denny got home, I gave him a brief rundown of what had gone on upstairs, told him not to ask any questions because I didn't know any answers, and handed him the grocery list. “Would you mind?”

He recovered from the blitz. “Sure. Except the car's not here.Where's Josh?”

Huh. Like I know.
Probably down at Jesus People. He'd been hanging out there nearly every weekend. Undaunted, I spied Stu's key ring he'd returned to the kitchen counter. “Here. Take Stu's car. Take Amanda and José. Buy out the store.”