Because They Wanted To: Stories Read online

  “The good parent in yourself.”

  What did the well-meaning idiots who thought of these phrases mean by them? When a father dies, he is gone; there is no tiny, smiling daddy who appears, waving happily, in a secret pocket in your chest. Some kinds of loss are absolute. And no amount of self-realization or self-expression will change that.

  As if she had heard him, Marsha urgently pressed her weight into her hands and applied all her strength to relaxing his muscles. Her sweat and scented deodorant filtered through her sweater, which added its muted wooliness to her smell. “All righty!” She rubbed his shoulders and briskly patted him. He reached back and touched her hand in thanks.

  Across from where they sat had once been a red chair, and in it had once sat Kitty, looking away from him, her fist hiding her face.

  “You’re a lesbian? Fine,” he said. “You mean nothing to me. You walk out that door, it doesn’t matter. And if you come back in, I’m going to spit in your face. I don’t care if I’m on my deathbed, I’ll still have the energy to spit in your face.”

  She did not move when he said that. Tears ran over her fist and down her arm, but she didn’t look at him.

  Marsha’s hands lingered on him for a moment. Then she moved and sat away from him on the couch.

  Because They Wanted To

  Elise sat in the free medical clinic, studying the support group flyers on the bulletin board. There were support groups for gay youths, lesbian youths, bisexual youths, prostitutes and junkies and people who had AIDS. She did not belong in any of those categories, and even if she did, she did not think she would want to go to a support group. But she liked the idea that they were there, just in case. She sat rhythmically bumping her bare, filthy heels against the rungs of her chair. Although she was moving, she gave an impression of unusual stillness. She seemed hidden, even though she was sitting right there. Her nose and lips were small and finely drawn. Her large eyes were receptive and guarded at once. Her features were pretty, but there was something crumpled, almost collapsed, in her. At the same time, she had something that was very erect and watchful, something that didn’t yet show on her face. She sneezed into her hand and reached into the back pocket of her torn jeans for a wadded tissue, which she vigorously dug into both nostrils, then returned to her pocket. She sniffed daintily. She hadn’t bathed for a while and she smelled bad, but she didn’t know it.

  Elise was sixteen, and she had run away from home. She had come from Marin County to Vancouver. She had been getting money by begging on the street, and while she always got enough to buy the fried food and packaged snacks that she liked, she wanted to find a job. It was hard because she didn’t have any papers that said she was a Canadian of legal age. People said those papers were easy to fake, but so far she hadn’t figured out how.

  She had gotten across the border by hitching a ride with two men who were taking horses to Vancouver for a big horse show. They had hidden her in the back of the van with their horses. The older of the two was fat and English, and the younger was slim and wiry, with bitterness and happiness wound together in his own special shape. They seemed pleased that she was hitchhiking. They seemed to think it was very funny.

  “Doesn’t she remind you of one of those silent-movie stars?” said the younger one. “Sort of passive and ephemeral?”

  The older guy glanced at her with a luxuriant turn of his thick neck. “Yeah,” he said, “she’s like that.”

  They asked her how old she was, and she said eighteen. They said that just before they crossed the border, they’d stop and let her get in back with the horses. If the guards looked in back, they’d say she was there to groom the horses for them. But, they said, she absolutely had to be eighteen, or they could really get in trouble. She promised that she was. But the border guards didn’t even look in the back of the truck.

  When the men let her out in Canada, they invited her to come eat with them at a diner that had a rotating sign shaped like a half-moon on top of it. The men ate sandwiches filled with meat and mayonnaise and little sliced tomatoes abundantly dripping out. Elise had a strawberry milk shake and a piece of blueberry pie. The men ate with a gusto that almost disgusted her; it made her want to draw back fastidiously, but it also made her want to join in and have gusto too. “You know,” she said, “I’m not really eighteen. I’m sixteen.” There was silence. The big English guy stopped eating. Elise loudly sucked up the last of her milk shake.

  “Fucking hell,” said the Englishman. “Fucking little liar.”

  “You selfish bitch,” said the young one. “Do you know how much trouble we could’ve been in? They’d of held us back and we’d miss the show!” All his happiness was gone, and his bitterness was coming out in a straight line. “You can just get your stuff out of our truck and get your ass back on the highway,” he said.

  They went out to the parking lot, the young man strutting with anger. “And another thing,” he said. “When someone stands you a meal, you’re supposed to say thank you.” He threw her backpack on the ground.

  She walked away so upset she trembled. She didn’t understand why they had gotten so mad when they’d thought everything else was so funny. She was a liar and a selfish bitch and rude. But then a woman in a fancy car had stopped to pick her up and Elise had sped away like she didn’t have to be those things anymore. She’d been glad she’d lied to those jerks.

  A nurse with big white legs and blond hair on her arms came out with a file folder and said, “Elise?”

  Elise followed the nurse back into the examining room. She took off her pants and put on a paper gown, and a woman doctor with a sad, handsome face came in and shook her hand. The doctor talked to her about AIDS and asked her questions about sex. She took blood from her arm and asked her to lie down for a pelvic exam. During the pelvic exam, the doctor asked her if she’d ever seen the inside of her vagina. When she said no, the doctor asked if she wanted to look. The doctor seemed to think it was a good idea, so Elise said okay. She lifted her head and looked in the mirror that the doctor was holding between her legs. The doctor smiled encouragingly. Elise thought that the doctor was doing this because she was trying to encourage Elise to relate to her body in a caring way, so she looked with what she hoped was a caring expression. It was a rather startling sight, probably because of the metal thing. “Thank you,” she said. Fleetingly, she thought of the men with the horses and how they’d feel if they could see how polite she really was.

  When she went back out into the waiting room, a group of people were clustered about the receptionist’s desk, so she had to wait a moment to make another appointment. As she stood there, she looked again at the support group flyers on the bulletin board. A small piece of torn-out notepaper with pink writing and drawings of flowers and a cat caught her attention. “Baby-sitter needed,” it said. “Good pay, friendly environment. No phone. Apply in person.” Elise recognized the street address; it was near Pigeon Park, only a few blocks from where she was staying. She asked the receptionist how long the ad had been there.

  “Baby-sitting?” The woman looked up, alarmed. She had a tiny green tear tattooed under one dark eye. She got up and went to the bulletin board. “Who put that there?” she demanded. She tore the ad off the board, crumpling the flowers and the little cat into a ball. “That shouldn’t even be here,” she said.

  But Elise remembered the address, and she went there straight from the clinic. The address was a tenement building in a slum with a dull, vaguely benevolent character. A family of foreigners sat on the front steps, drinking and spreading their lives out for anyone to see. The father sat holding a beer can between his big knees. He was sweating through his undershirt. There were patches of black hair on his fatty upper arms. He seemed intensely aware of Elise, even though he looked away. Inside, the foyer was close and full of innocuous smells made big and nasty by the heat. The glass in the door had been shot at and taped up. Elise pushed a dirty little button and a woman’s voice came furrily through the intercom. She had to
come down to let Elise in.

  She was very small and thin, and she seemed to flicker in the dark hall. Even from a distance, her personality shot off her body. When she opened the splintered door, her smile was tremulous and tight. She was about twenty-five. She made Elise think of a small, bright fish darting through deep water.

  “I’m Robin,” she said as they walked up the stairs. “I’m so glad to see you. I couldn’t afford to run an ad in the papers, and I wasn’t sure who would see the ones I put up.” Her voice was light and excited; it pulled on Elise with the tactile intelligence of a small child who wants something. “You’re exactly the kind of person I was hoping for, thank God.” She rounded a corner and looked back at Elise, her eyes wide and one hand on her heart.

  The apartment was a large room. There was a sink and a hot plate and a furiously humming refrigerator. The bathroom door was open; it looked like it was the size of a closet. Two little boys, about six and four, looked at Elise, the younger one peeping from behind his brother. There was an infant lying on the king-size bed in a diaper, softly jerking its limbs with the private movement of its thoughts. Robin offered Elise a chair with a vinyl seat and sat on the bed.

  “You see the situation,” she said. She looked Elise in the eyes, as if acknowledging something she’d prefer not to mention directly. “We’re from Sacramento,” she said. “And I’m going to tell you the truth. We’re here illegally. I just drove us across the border. I said we were shopping and kept going. I had to leave because my husband was abusing me and he was starting to hurt the boys. I couldn’t stand it anymore.” She sat very straight, with her legs tautly crossed. “I was afraid all the time,” she said. “I didn’t want the boys to . . . to . . .” She made a strange crumpled gesture.

  There was a silence. The children were in the corner playing with their toys, but Elise felt their attention on their mother.

  “I’m an American too,” she said. “I ran away from home too.”

  To her surprise, Robin smiled. “So we have something in common,” she said. “Were your parents abusive?”

  Elise hesitated. She pictured her father sitting in his armchair, looking miserable.

  Robin held up her hand. “It’s okay,” she said. “You must’ve had your reasons. You can tell me later if you want, and if not, that’s okay.”

  Elise said she had done a lot of baby-sitting but hadn’t taken care of an infant before. Robin said that it was okay, that she would make up some bottles of formula before she left in the morning. She would show Elise how to change diapers.

  “There’s one thing, though,” she went on. “I know it’s bad, but I can’t pay you for at least a week. I don’t even have a job. That’s why I need a baby-sitter. I need to find a job. Until then I need every penny for food. I know it’s asking a lot. But if you can just stick with me for a few weeks, I promise I’ll take care of you.”

  “Okay,” said Elise. She felt irritated with herself for saying it; she wasn’t sure why she had.

  “Thank you,” said Robin. “I know it sounds flaky, but I’m a good judge of people. I feel I can trust you. Only two other people have come by, and they were just. . .” She gestured with distaste. “Druggy, crazy. I was getting frantic, you understand.”

  Elise nodded. She felt as if Robin had reached out and grabbed her.

  Robin asked if she could start the next day at nine o’clock. She said she had a job interview at ten. “I think I’ll be back around three,” she said. “But if he offers me a job right away, I’ll take it. Then I probably won’t be back until six or so.”

  It did not occur to Elise to ask what kind of job it was, or why the interview was being conducted on Sunday morning. Robin introduced the children. The oldest boy’s name was Andy and the little one was Eric. The baby was Penny. The boys looked at Elise gingerly, as if she might do anything.

  Elise left feeling strange about the arrangement. She was glad she had a job, but she didn’t like having to wait for money. The family on the porch registered her departure. The little girl crouched and stared up at her as if from the bottom of a pit.

  She went back to the flat she was sharing with a guy named Mark. She had not known him until four weeks ago. He was the friend of a girl in Seattle named Wren, and when she told him that Wren had given her his address, he let her in. He was a pale, exhausted twenty-five-year-old with an air of affable ruin. He offered her a cup of tea. They sat together in the living room and talked while he sewed leather patches onto his jeans with dental floss. He told her he had come to Vancouver to stop using heroin and to recover from romantic disappointment. He sewed very deliberately, as if each fine, repetitive movement replenished his faith in the bodily truth of his existence. He told Elise that his roommate had gone to London for the summer; she could stay in his room. She had been sleeping there since then. The sour, musty little mattress was covered by a faded flannel sheet with blue sheep on it. Instead of a blanket, there was a heavy pink curtain that she slept under. Once she got used to it, she’d come to like its exaggerated scratchiness.

  She found Mark in the kitchen, drinking tea out of a flowered china cup and reading an article about an actress who had been a porn star at the age of twelve. She told him about the baby-sitting job, the abusive husband and the no money at first.

  “It sounds fucked up,” said Mark cautiously. His face had the abstract look of someone who has just categorized something and then quickly stepped away from it.

  “I think she’s just freaked out,” said Elise.

  “I guess she would be.” Mark scratched his stomach and blinked at the sunlight trembling on the table.

  For some reason, this conversation made her more determined to make the job work. She lay in bed that night, imagining herself going to the apartment every day, playing with the children and caring for them. She imagined greeting Robin as she came home from work with that tremulous smile on her face, her shoulders drooping as she stooped to take off her shoes. They would form a team. Elise would save money. Years later, Robin would still write to her to tell her how the kids were doing. Elise lay awake under the curtain all night, thinking these thoughts and listening to people walk up and down outside the window. Every now and then, one of them would yell terrible abuse, and she would strain to hear it.

  In the morning she had some of Mark’s bread and cheese for breakfast, along with olives snuck from an old jar, and left to baby-sit. There were only a few people on the street; they seemed random yet deeply set in their private purposes. Two men with big blunt faces walked along drinking beers and talking about how some ridiculous awful thing that was always happening had happened again. “Pop goes the weasel!” said one. “Yeah, pop goes the weasel,” said the other. A pretty, peevish young man in a dress and a wig swiftly padded along in his stockinged feet, his tiger-striped pumps and matching purse in one hand. A middle-aged woman carrying three heavy bags pressed forward as if she had decided that no other direction was allowed.

  The front porch of Robin’s apartment building was bare except for a child’s red plastic bucket with some dirty water and a dead gold-fish in it. Robin let her in, greeting her as if they were both already far away in some happy future. The two boys, however, were sitting at a rickety table eating bowls of cereal, and the baby was sitting up on the bed, flailing its tiny fists at the present. The older boy, Andy, stopped his spoon in midair and watched her. His eyes made her feel guilty, even though it wasn’t her fault.

  “Penny’s just dropped a load,” said Robin, “so I can show you how to change her.”

  They sat on the bed, and Robin laid the infant on her back, supporting her head with one slim, splayed hand. She unfolded the diaper as if it were a little paper puzzle. The smell of perfect shit rose into the air. The baby’s private body was blank as the flesh of a plant. She kicked her legs, working the fierce new engine of her body. Robin’s hands were deft and quick, and Elise thought their movements pleased the baby. Elise expected that Robin would want her to redo the
diaper, to show that she had learned, but instead Robin just smiled and said, “See?” The baby gurgled at her mother’s big smile. Robin showed her the bottles of formula she had prepared and told her how to heat them. Then she opened a badly dented tin cupboard and showed her a jar of peanut butter, some bread, and a yellowing orange that they could eat for lunch.

  “I know you’ll do great,” said Robin. She turned to the boys; her smiling profile tingled wildly. “Be good for Lisa,” she said.

  When she left, the air felt roiled, like water in the wake of a furious propeller. Elise sat on the bed. The boys sat at the table with their eyes down. Eric, the little one, fiddled with his spoon as if he were rubbing a secret comfort spot. Elise looked at the baby; it dispassionately stared back. She looked at the boys. She had lied about her baby-sitting credentials; she had had very little experience with children. She went and sat at the table with them.

  “Hi,” she said.

  She felt something move between the brothers, invisible and cellular. Andy looked up and back down. Eric watched him.

  “Do you like animals?” she asked.

  “Um hm,” said Andy. His brown eyes showed intelligence and strength, veiled by a thin, protective opacity.

  “We have a cat,” she said. “His name is Blue.”

  “We have a dog at home,” said Andy.

  Eric looked up suddenly and said, “His name is Roscoe.”

  “He’s a genius,” said Andy. “For a dog.”

  They both looked at her. Eric had a delicate elfin chin. His intelligence seemed more fragile than his brother’s.

  “Blue was an orphan when we found him,” she said. “He was living with his brothers and sisters under a deserted house.”

  “What’s an orphan?” asked Andy.

  “Children with no parents. The mother cat had left them, and my brother Rick found them when his friend’s dog ran up to the house and started barking because he smelled cats. Blue was just four weeks old, but he came out and stood up to the dog. He arched his back and spat, and the dog was so surprised he just stopped. Rick saved the litter and we adopted Blue.”