Towelhead (18 page)

Then Daddy told Mom that he was going to get to go and watch a shuttle launch in March, since he had designed a part for the mission. “Rifat!” my mother said. “That's incredible!” She really seemed to mean it, too. Then my mother asked if Thena would be going, and Daddy didn't answer. “She
is
going?” my mother said. When he still didn't answer, she yelled, “I put you through graduate school, and she gets to see the fucking shuttle launch with you?”

“Calm down,” Daddy told her, and she said
fuck you
to him again.

When we got to the restaurant, it was happy hour, and Daddy ordered regular margaritas for him and Mom, plus a nonalcoholic one for me. I wished they would go and pee together so I could sip from their glasses, but they only went one at a time. “Your mother is a pain in the ass,” Daddy said while she was in the restroom. “I can't imagine why I ever married her.” Then, when Daddy was in the restroom, my mother said, “I swear to God, if he tries to split the bill with me, I'm going to break out those fucking pay stubs.”

“You didn't put them back in his desk yet?” I asked.

She shook her head, sipping her margarita. “Don't worry. I'll do it tonight.”

I got really nervous then about when the bill would come. I didn't see why Daddy would try to split it if he'd already said he was taking us out, but maybe he'd only meant the offer for pizza.

Our food came, and I couldn't really concentrate on it. “What's the matter?” Daddy asked. “You don't like your dinner?”

“No,” I said. “I do.” I'd ordered the same chicken enchiladas I'd had with Mr. Vuoso.

“Then eat,” he said, and I nodded.

A few minutes later, I got a really hot pepper. My eyes started watering, and they wouldn't stop. “Drink this,” my mother said, handing me my water, and I did, but it didn't help. She signaled the waiter for more water, but it didn't seem to matter. No matter how much I drank, my mouth wouldn't stop burning.

My parents looked at me. “Pull yourself together, would you?” Daddy said.

“I'm trying,” I said. My voice came out hoarse.

“It's just a pepper, for godssakes,” my mother said.

“I know,” I said. “I can't help it.”

They looked at each other and made faces. The faces said that they both thought I was being a baby, that I was making things up, even though the waiter had gone to get the manager, and she'd come to apologize. She was an older lady with gray and black hair, and I wondered if she was the real Ninfa. “This happens sometimes,” she explained to my parents. “The cooks are very careful, but it does happen.” Then she put her hand on my back, like since she had hurt me, I was hers.

When the bill came, it said that our dinner was free. “Look at that,” Daddy said, and he smiled.

“How nice of them,” my mother said, and Daddy's pay stubs stayed in her purse.

In the car on the way home, I held my unfinished enchiladas in a bag on my lap. Slowly, my mouth began to burn less, which I guess should've made me happy, but it didn't. I found that I didn't want the burning to go away. As long as it was there, I could feel Ninfa's hand on my back, trying to make me feel better.

 

On Christmas morning, we got up and Daddy made us pancakes. Then I opened the presents my mother had brought me. Mostly, they were clothes—pretty ones that fit me perfectly. When my mother saw that we really didn't have any presents for her, she got upset. She told Daddy she thought he'd been kidding about that, and he said why would he have been kidding? Then she told me that at least I could've made her something in art class. I wanted to remind her that she'd told me not to give her anything, but I didn't think she would like that.

I wasn't sure what to do then. I liked my new clothes and wanted to wear one of the outfits, but I had a feeling they weren't mine anymore since I hadn't gotten my mother a present. I would've liked to have gone to Melina's to read my book, but ever since the night before there had been a lot of cars in her driveway that I didn't recognize, and I didn't feel comfortable going over and knocking on the door.

My mother got up and went in her room. I figured she was going to get in bed and read her book, but then she came back with some papers in her hand. “You're a cheap bastard!” she said, waving them in my father's face. “I put you through fucking graduate school so you could make this kind of money, and you can't even buy me a fucking bottle of perfume!” She threw the papers on the floor, and I saw then that they were the pay stubs.

Immediately Daddy bent down and picked them up. “Where did you get these?” he demanded.

“What do you mean where did I get them? I got them where you keep them. Don't you remember where you keep them?”

“My salary is none of your business,” he said.

“Of course it's my business! We have a child! She costs money!”

“Where did you get the key to my drawers?”

“I didn't need a key.”

He looked at me then. “Did you give it to her? Did you find the key and give it to her?”

“No,” I said. “I don't even know where the key is.”

“I don't believe you!” he said. “I don't believe you in the least!”

“Oh, she didn't give me the key!” my mother said. “For godssakes, I used a nail file.”

“No!” Daddy said. “Those are good locks! You couldn't have used a nail file.”

“Well, I did. So lay off her.”

“It's not the first time she's broken into something, you know.”

“What?” my mother said.

“She broke into the neighbor's house with that black boy.”

My mother looked at me. “What is he talking about?”

“Daddy,” I said, turning to him, “I didn't give her the key.”

“ ‘Her'?” my mother said. “We don't say ‘her.'”

“I didn't give my mother the key,” I told Daddy.

“What house did you break into?” my mother asked.

“The Vuosos',” Daddy said; then he told her the whole story, except for the part about how Mr. Vuoso had threatened to call Protective Services.

“But you're not supposed to see that boy,” my mother said.

I didn't say anything.

“She does what she wants,” Daddy said. “I can't control her.”

“What do you mean you can't control her? That's why I sent her down here.”

“I can't control her,” Daddy repeated. “Period. That's it. She's uncontrollable.”

“You're a grown man!” my mother said.

My father didn't say anything. He just shrugged.

“Well, then she can come back and live with me,” my mother said.

“No,” I said. “I have to finish the school year.”

“What is this school year bullshit?” she said.

Daddy sighed. “Let her live where she wants.”

“I want to live here,” I said.

“But you hate your father!” my mother yelled. “That's what you told me on the phone.”

“I did not!” I said.

She turned to Daddy and said, “You might as well know that all she did was complain about you when she first moved down here.”

“I don't hate you,” I told Daddy. “I never said that.”

He looked at me.

“Selective memory,” my mother said.

I thought Daddy would kick me out for sure then. I knew my mother thought so, too. But he didn't. He turned to her and said, “You have invaded our privacy.” Then he said he was going to Thena's and walked out. My mother went in her room.

I didn't want to talk to my mother. I was mad at her for bringing out the pay stubs, but mostly for lying to Daddy. It was true, I had hated him when I'd first moved to Houston. But I'd only thought it. I'd never said it. And then I'd changed my mind. It wasn't that I loved Daddy now; I could never imagine loving him, or even liking him very much. It was something different from all of that. What I had learned about Daddy was that it was very hard for him to be nice, so when he was, it would've been wrong not to try to appreciate it.

I just wished my mother would stop acting so jealous. I could understand how she didn't want me and Barry to like each other, but me and Daddy, too? He was my own father. He was supposed to like me. Most of the time he didn't, but then today, when it seemed like he did just the teeniest bit, when he said I could live wherever I wanted, she had to go and wreck it.

I wished I could be at Thena's with Daddy. Instead I went and knocked on my mother's door. “Do you want to do something?” I asked.

“Come in here,” she said.

I opened the door and saw that she was packing her suitcase. “Where are you going?” I asked.

“Home,” she said. “Where else?”

“But your plane isn't for two days.”

“I'm changing it.”

I didn't say anything, just watched her fold her clothes.

“I need you to call me a cab. Do you think you could do that?”

“Sure.”

“It's going to cost me a fortune,” she said, laying her pale blue sweaterdress in the suitcase.

“Sorry,” I said.

“This is your last chance,” she said. “If you want to come home with me.”

I tried to think of something else to say besides that I needed to finish the school year, but I couldn't.

“You know what?” she said. “Never mind. I don't want to live with someone who doesn't want to live with me. Just call me a fucking cab.”

I went to the kitchen and took out the phone book. I looked in the yellow pages under
cab,
but it said to look under
taxi
. There were a lot of different companies, so I picked the one that said it specialized in taking people to the airport. When I called, a man put me on hold for a minute, then came back and said, “What's your address?” I told him, then he said, “Where you going?” and I told him that, too. “Twenty minutes,” he said, and he hung up on me. I wished I could go and tell my mother what I had just done, since I'd never really called a cab for anyone before, but I knew she wouldn't care. Instead I just told her it would be twenty minutes.

She stayed in her room until the cab came, then carried her bag out by herself. The extra bags that had held my presents had been nylon duffels, and I assumed she had folded them into her one hard case. I tried to help by reaching for her purse or briefcase, but she said, “I've got it.” Then, when she got to the curb, she let the cabdriver help her a lot.

I stood on the sidewalk, even though I knew she wasn't going to hug or kiss me. She just got in the car and slammed the door. The window was open a crack, and she didn't shut it or make it bigger. She didn't look at me, either. Just stared straight ahead. I knew all of this was important to her, to try to make me feel bad. I understood this, and stayed out on the sidewalk as her cab pulled away and she didn't turn around and wave.

When she was finally out of sight, I went back inside and tried on some of my new clothes. There were khakis and a skirt and some pretty shirts. I thought about calling Daddy to tell him that my mother had gone, but he had once warned me to use Thena's number only in case of emergency. I thought it might've been him when the phone rang around dinnertime, but it wasn't.

“Jasira?” a woman's voice said. It was strange to hear my name pronounced like this, with the
s
like a real
s,
instead of a
z
.

“
Oui?
” I said, almost without thinking.

“
Bonne Noël, Jasira!
” my grandmother said.

“
Merci,
” I said.

“
C'est votre grand-mère!
” she said.

“
Oui,
” I said. “
Je sais
.”

She laughed. “
Comment ça va?
”

“
Je vais très bien
.” It seemed funny to say lines from the character dialogues of my
French in Action
textbooks. It was the kind of talk I'd learned, but never thought I'd actually use.

“
Bon, bon
,” she said.

“Um,” I said, “
mon père n'est pas ici maintenant
.”

“
Ah non?
” she said.

“
Non
.”

“
Et ta mère?
”

“
Non,
” I said again. I got confused then, unsure if my grandmother knew my mother had been visiting, or if she thought my parents were still married. I began to panic a little, worried that I would say the wrong thing.