The Belief in Angels Page 13

  I can see she’s buzzed. She yells over the blaring music, “Hey, little woman. How are you doing? You getting back from school? Do you wanna go for a quick swim? The seaweed is good for your hair, you know.”

  “No thanks. It’s a bit cold for me right now,” I say, laughing.

  It’s the middle of September in New England. People who swim in the freezing cold ocean past Labor Day are surfers or nutty.

  “Besides, I’ve got chores to do,” I add.

  “I dig it. See ya later,” Dorothy says.

  I watch her run down the road to catch up with her friends. Dorothy tears her clothes off as they go, as though she doesn’t know it’s chilly.

  Wendy and her friends love to take off their clothes. There’s a lot of nakedness that spills out onto the porch, the lawn, and the street, and I’m sure it shocks and amuses our neighbors. It embarrasses me.

  “Oh, brother,” I say under my breath. Three more people step out onto the porch. They’re high school students with baggies of dope in their hands, which they hastily hide when they see me. One of them speaks to me.

  “Hey Jules, you’re looking foxy. You won’t forget about me when you grow up, now, will you?”

  “Not in million years. How could I forget you?”

  I talk in a sweet voice he doesn’t recognize as sarcastic. He smiles as he walks away.

  It makes me mad that Jack sells marijuana out of our house, especially to high school kids. It’s risky and stupid. He could potentially blow our family apart if Wendy’s arrested.

  Occasionally, one of the high school kids will ask me if I can score them dope, and it pisses me off. I’m anti-drug, as are my brothers, and I resent being asked. Jack has started telling them to hide the marijuana and pretend he’s not selling to them anymore.

  It isn’t just the high school kids who know our house is a great place to score pot. It also hasn’t escaped the attention of the local police, who cruise by with regularity but never bust anyone. It’s like there’s a conspiracy to ignore Wendy’s behavior. I don’t mind, because allows my brothers and me to remain together—but I am obsessed with the possibility of being arrested along with Wendy and her friends.

  I can’t count on my grandfather anymore. My Grandmother Yetta died last summer, and my grandfather seems to drift in a depressed haze. Our visits with him are random and brief. Once Wendy drove us into Boston to collect a check from him and then drove us right back to Withensea. We didn’t even stay for dinner, and what’s worse is my grandfather didn’t seem to mind. So I don’t think there is another place to go anymore if Wendy gets arrested and sent to jail.

  I survey the scene inside. People pack the room wall to wall, and the air stinks of pot and cigarette smoke. People occupy every piece of furniture, sit on counters, sit on the floor. A man hangs off the bookcase like a chimpanzee. Everyone shouts at each other over the music.

  The coffee table overflows with pipe paraphernalia, a large bowl of dope, roach clips, rolling papers, empty prescription bottles, and film canisters. The piano has been shoved in the corner next to the fireplace. Sadly, it’s become scarred with more glass rings, scratch marks, and cigarette burns with each successive party. People sit on top of it as though it’s a throne, and other people sprawl around it like subjects.

  I wind my way through the crowd toward the stairs.

  Wendy’s still taking occasional classes at Northeastern University, and lots of her young college friends come to these parties.

  “How is school?” they ask. “Are you still drawing?”

  They question me as if we’re all at a parent-teacher meeting. It’s all formal and stiff and stupid to talk to them this way when I know they’re all high and won’t remember the conversation anyway.

  Then someone asks me the dumbest question: “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  I hate this question. “I’m ten years old and I don’t plan to have a boyfriend for some time,” I answer.

  I smile politely and continue on. When I climb to the top of the stairs, I pass a few people who have just emerged from Wendy’s room. I peek inside to see if Wendy is there. She isn’t. I step inside and chat with the people who are still hanging out until they leave the room.

  I close the door and open a window to air out the heavy pot stink. Then I open one of Wendy’s closets. I pull through several racks of clothing before finding the two vests I want. I stuff them under my blouse and am starting to leave when I see the handle turning and hear Wendy’s voice. I step back into the closet, pull it closed, and push the racks of clothing in front of me. I hear Wendy shouting over the music to someone.

  “… fucked me, then he told me he was taking off to sail Saul’s boat through the Panama Canal up to California and left the next day.”

  “No shit? Far out! Why didn’t you go with him?”

  It’s Dorothy with her. She closes the door behind them, muffling the sound of the music so they don’t have to yell.

  Wendy opens the closet and lifts the laundry chute in the floor beside me with a rope hanging from the ceiling of the closet. She drops Dorothy’s wet T-shirt and jeans through the chute, inches away from my feet, and grabs another shirt and pair of jeans from the edge of the rack I’m standing behind.

  Wendy’s motorcycle accident a year and a half ago left her with neck herniations that make it difficult for her to turn her head completely without pain. She doesn’t see me standing behind the clothes in the closet.

  “I don’t have the dough to go with him. He kept the money from last year’s weed crop and Samuel already gave me money for this month’s bills. I fucking hate asking him for money. I have to make up shitty excuses and I’ve already had enough car trouble for this year, you dig? He takes a fucking pound of flesh, believe me.”

  A year ago, Wendy signed us up for welfare checks and food stamps from the government even though my Grandfather Samuel totally supports us. She never reports his money. This embarrasses me and my brothers and leaves our closest friends confused as to how we can afford expensive clothes and summer camp but still qualify for free lunches at school.

  I can see through a parting in the clothes as Wendy walks to her bureau and opens one of the top drawers.

  I’m familiar with this drawer. Wendy’s pharmacy, a shallow drawer stuffed with pill bottles. I know from my nosy explorations that the bottles hold multicolored pills with prescription labels wrapped around the exteriors that sometimes have Wendy’s or Jack’s or other people’s names on them.

  The contents of the pills and their effects remain a complete mystery to me. I have no intention to check any of it out myself, but it’s an impressive collection.

  I watch as Wendy opens one of the bottles, shakes a few pills out and throws them back in her throat.

  Dorothy asks, “Downers? Benzo?” and when Wendy nods, she holds her hand out and waits while Wendy walks over and shakes one into her hand. Wendy puts the bottle back, shuts the drawer, walks over to the bed and lies down on it. Dorothy lies across the foot of the bed. Completely naked. I wonder if she came in from the beach through the wall of people at the party without putting clothes back on.

  Dorothy rolls herself up, pulls on the T-shirt, and tries on the jeans Wendy pulled from the closet, and I watch as Wendy lights a sandalwood cone in the brass cup on the bureau.

  “I wish I had a sugar daddy to take care of me, lady. You don’t know how lucky you are!”

  “My father? Samuel’s a bastard and a bully. He’s lied to me my entire life. He acts like he’s penniless but he’s got a fortune—and he wants to dole it out in pennies so he can keep me attached at the hip and begging. Ever since I found out they all lied to me about my parents he’s been afraid I’ll try to find out who my real parents are and tell them to fuck off.”

  Wendy never talks about my grandfather this way in front of us kids. I inhale the sandalwood scent that drifts into the closet and remind myself to stay still so I won’t be found.

  “You never told me you were
adopted. Would you do that … tell them to fuck off?” Dorothy asks.

  “Absolutely. They’re crazy. I grew up believing my grandparents were my parents until I was ten and they were too old to take care of me. That’s when I went to live with Samuel and Yetta … who acted like they hated each other. He barely tolerated me, and Yetta smothered me until she drove me crazy.”

  My nose tickles from the incense and the wool inside the closet. I think I might sneeze, so I hold my nostrils shut.

  “Nobody told me the truth about anything, and when I asked they screamed at me that I was nosy and ungrateful. When they did tell me anything … it was always a lie. Lies on lies. Fuck them all.”

  “Well still, it’s nice to have someone to go to when you’re in a jam. Jack’s an asshole, Wendy. I don’t know why you stay with him. I would have left after he banged that stoner chick.”

  “He’s so fucking adorable … and not just because of his dick,” Wendy says.

  They laugh.

  Dorothy says, “These are too fucking small, I’m gonna grab another pair.”

  She peels the jeans off and walks over to the closet. She stops directly in front of me.

  “Your clothes are far out! You could sell the clothes you never wear and raise money that way. Jesus, you’ve got twenty million things in here.”

  Dorothy reaches up and grabs a bunch of jeans off the rack right in front of where I’m hiding. She sees me standing there, staring with eyes as frightened and surprised as hers. She whips the hangers back up on the bar and pulls the closet closed before Wendy can see me, although I can still see a sliver of them.

  “If you think that’s a lot, you should see the shitload of stuff I have downstairs I never even wear. It’s all in storage in the basement,” Wendy says.

  “Far out! Let’s go see. I’ll bet you’ve got stuff you could sell for lots of cash!”

  “Now? I’m tired, Dorothy, I wanna …”

  Dorothy walks over to the bed, grabs Wendy’s arm, and pulls her until she rolls off the edge of the bed onto her feet.

  “I know you wanna take a fucking nap, Wendy—you fall asleep at every party. Don’t be a drag. Get your ass downstairs and pick out some shit to sell.”

  Dorothy pushes her toward the door.

  Wendy argues, “How am I gonna sell the clothes?”

  “You’re shitting me, right? You’ve got a crowd of buyers right here, right now! Go sell, Mama! Hell, I’ll buy a pair of jeans if I can find a pair that fits me.”

  Dorothy stays in the middle of the room.

  “Aren’t you coming with me?” Wendy asks.

  “You go ahead; I wanna start here and try on a few things. I’ll meet you down there to help you haul it up.”

  “All right, all right. You don’t have to pay me for the jeans, only no Raindance or Old Glory labels. Those’re new threads from the last show.”

  Wendy leaves.

  Dorothy waits a beat, then opens the closet and pushes the clothes aside. “You can come out now, Jules. What are you doing in the closet, little woman?”

  I pull my blouse up to reveal the vests I’ve taken.

  “There’s a school dance tonight and my friend and I want to wear these.”

  “I don’t think she’ll miss anything in this mess, but you better bring them back in case she does and thinks I took them. Throw them on the closet floor when you’re done. She’ll think I dropped them. Have fun at your dance.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I say, “Get thee to a nunnery.”

  Dorothy laughs and I do too.

  I make my way toward my room at the end of the hall. As I pass the bath I see two people sitting in the empty bathtub while someone sits on the toilet.

  I open my room and breathe a sigh of relief. No one in here. No pot stink. Just the smell of the sunbleached shells I left on my window ledge.

  I post a huge sign on my door: JULES’S ROOM - KEEP OUT OR SUFFER EXTREME PAIN.

  Most of the time the sign preserves my privacy in our very public house, but occasionally I find people using my bed. Not for sleeping. It grosses me out.

  I stuff the vests into my overnight bag, along with a pair of underwear, socks, pajamas, a shirt, and—as an afterthought—my swimsuit, in case it warms up again tomorrow.

  Before I leave, I check my art supplies and set up the trap I created to alert me if someone ignores my sign and tries to sneak in: a rubber band tied to a ribbon that stretches from the back of the knob to an old hook nailed into the wall. I cover the knob with half a rubber ball pushed through with straight pins that stick out like porcupine quills to thwart the efforts of anyone who tries to release the band from the inside. I love inventing things.

  At David’s room I knock. We practice this courtesy with each other. Wendy completely ignores it.

  “Yeah?” he yells.

  David, thirteen, looks more like Wendy than Moses and me. We all have her almond, almost Asian, eye shape. But he also has her olive skin, brown eyes, and kinky, dark brown hair.

  He lies on an unmade bed reading a comic book and eating a Butterfinger candy bar. The room smells like moldy socks. Dishes, books, magazines, even his muddy football uniform, cover the floor. I yell over the blare of the music. “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be reading those.”

  Comic books are forbidden. Wendy considers us immune to abuse, neglect, drugs, and alcohol, but adamantly swears that comic books will rot our brains. We’re all punished if they’re found and one of us doesn’t confess to the crime. David never does.

  “Have you done your homework? Where’d you get candy? Make your bed, pick up your clothes. Put your uniform right into the washer, please, and put those bowls in the sink or you’ll attract ants again.”

  He jumps up toward me. “Out of my room, you bossy hen. It’s Friday and I don’t have to do homework until Sunday night. Moses got the candy at the store. You can’t have any and you’re not my mother.”

  He slams the door in my face. A second later he whips it back open, smiles, and says, “Did you do the laundry? Did you wash my blue shirt? I wanna wear it tonight. Oh, and Dad called. He said he’s coming back into town for a while to stay at Aunt Doreen’s and he’s coming to pick us up on Sunday.”

  “Your crummy blue shirt’s done. It’s in the laundry basket downstairs. You’re welcome. Oh, and I’m not making dinner tonight. You should make sandwiches or a TV dinner, okay?”

  “Thank you, Julie-Bo-Bulie, you’re a skinny ninny. Too bad you have no boobies.” He points to my chest, laughs hysterically, and slams the door again.

  I open his door again without knocking.

  “And feed Moses dinner. And feed Felix. I’m sleeping over at Leigh’s. I can’t.”

  I smile, satisfied. I know dinner for Moses and David will be meager. TV dinners or spaghetti. But we have all existed—during the two years post-divorce and before the motorcycle accident—on not much more than cereal, school lunches, and the kindness of our friends, and we’ve done okay.

  I’m not sure David will feed the cat, though. I make a mental note to do that before I leave. We smuggled Felix inside a while back. Wendy didn’t notice we were living with a cat for a long time—a good thing, because she doesn’t like animals. But for some reason, she’s letting us keep her.

  David is three years older than I am, yet Wendy leaves me in charge of him and Moses. This creates still more anger between us. He’s pissed that I’m in charge. I’m pissed he isn’t more grateful. David can be crude and annoying. He never listens to me. He speaks like a robot, asks ten questions at once without waiting for answers, and ends conversations abruptly. At times, he makes loud, nonsensical pronunciations to no one in particular. He avoids doing anything he can cajole me or pay Moses to do. Sometimes I hate him.

  Howard’s call surprises me. We’ve hardly seen him since his hasty departure during Wendy’s hospitalization. He lives in California now. Wendy says he’s started a new scam with business card placemats that he sells t
o restaurants.

  After Wendy came back from the hospital, she pretty much put me in charge of running the house while she recuperated—doing all the laundry, cooking, cleaning, caring for and keeping tabs on my brothers, and feeding Felix.

  It’s been over a year since her accident, but when Wendy became mobile again, she never resumed the chores she handed me. She tells me I’m “obviously old enough to handle it,” because I’m doing “such a good job.” She’s the queen of manipulation.

  I never receive or expect anything resembling an allowance in return for my service, but I’ve progressed in my cooking ability from TV dinners to boiled pastas and broiled meats. I never explore beyond these simple dinners. Salt is my main spice for taste, and when I feel especially daring, I add pepper to the recipe. Still, my cooking is more proficient than Wendy’s. My brothers are, I think, happy to have regular dinners prepared for them.

  I’ve also become a pretty good baker. I bake casseroles and lasagnas, as well as occasional treats. Even though we buy them at the store all the time, sweets and soda are not really allowed. Our “dental health” is the excuse Wendy gives, although we know the real reason: her inability to control her binging if they’re present. However, if I bake something sweet, like lemon cake, chocolate-chip cookies, or raspberry tarts, the rules are off. It’s as though “home baking” makes sugary things somehow healthier. Maybe she can’t resist home-baked food. But it’s probably Jack, with his sweet tooth, who she tries to please by allowing it.

  The laundry is done with much more regularity, and the house, though a mess most of the time due to the almost constant party of people, is generally cleaner and more organized than it was before the accident.

  I don’t understand why Wendy, who rejects the social rules for women’s behavior, gives me all the stereotypically female chores while my brothers are left with a minimal amount of stereotypically male chores. They split taking out the trash and mowing the lawn in the summer months. Everything else falls to me. I argue they ought to help out with laundry and dishes. Wendy says they’re “women’s jobs.” Until my friendship with Leigh, I had plenty of time to fulfill my role as mother to the family. Now, I’m ticked off I don’t get to be a kid and my brothers aren’t helping out more.