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"Thanks. Should I bring anything?"
"Yes," she said, "you."
I laughed again and quickly hung up just as I heard Geraldine's footsteps on the stairs. I knew how good she was at seeing deceit in my eyes, so I finished putting away the dishes quickly and told her I had a headache and was going to lie down. That was the one excuse she always seemed to buy. I think that was because she had headaches so much herself.
"All right," she said, retiring to the living room to look for something "decent" on television. "Don't forget. I'll be doing the week's shopping in the morning."
I didn't volunteer to go along and she didn't ask. We did so little together. We never went to a restaurant, to the movies, or even to the mall. It made her nervous when I accompanied her to stores because she was always watching the way men looked at me and then telling me to close my coat more or hold my arms up higher so my upper body didn't swing so much. She made me so self- conscious about myself, I didn't enjoy being with her anyway.
As quickly as I could, I went upstairs to my room and closed the door. That was one of her house rules ...keep your bedroom door closed, guard your privacy, and don't expose yourself and therefore make someone else uncomfortable. With my father gone and just she and I here, what did it matter now? Even though I wondered, I didn't question it. It was easier to simply let her dictate her laws of behavior and let them float on through the house like birds without eyes, bumping into everything until they settled somewhere and waited to be nudged again.
I went to sleep that night dreaming about the girls, about having friends and doing fun things together, maybe even having parties and meeting boys.
I met Misty, Star, and Jade when Dr. Marlowe put us together for group therapy. We were all so different, and yet, we were all alike in one way: we were all victimized somehow by our own parents.
It had been a while since we had last seen each other. Every time the phone rang, which it didn't do often, I was hoping it was one of them. Who else would care to- call me? Geraldine had no family to speak of, no sisters or brothers, other than me, of course. Our mother and her father were long gone, and my adoptive father's family, none of whom had wanted anything much to do with him anyway, were now as much persona non grata as he was. It got so I welcomed solicitors, just to hear another voice over the phone. Geraldine was always right nearby going, "Hang up, hang up, just hang up."
But Jade had finally called. She had called!
The hardest thing for me to do was conceal my excitement the next morning. I took the easiest way out. Since Geraldine never wanted to know about my periods, she had no idea when they should be occurring. I complained about menstrual cramps and told her I didn't have much of an appetite. As usual she put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes if I said anything like that.
"If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, Cathy. You don't talk about those things. Those things are personal and should be kept locked up inside your own head. They're not for the ears of strangers."
"You're not a stranger, Mother," I pointed out, even though I thought she behaved like one sometimes.
She shook her head.
"That's not the point. What happens in your body is nobody's business, not even mine," she insisted.
We'd had this same discussion on and off before. Sometimes, I liked to have it just to get a rise out of her, to see and hear her say the same things. It was as if I needed constant proof that she was the way she was and she actually believed the strange things she said.
Once I said, "But what if something's wrong? How will I know if I don't tell you?"
"You'll know," she insisted. "Your body is your best judge of itself."
If that's true, I better head right for the mental hospital, I wanted to say, but sealed my lips and gave up instead.
To avoid any more discussion and especially any nitty- gritty details I might let slip from my mouth after what I had told her about my period this morning, Geraldine hurried along, diving into her chores like someone jumping into a pool to get out of the hot sun. She had already eaten her breakfast, which was usually just a piece of toast and a cup of tea, followed by one of her herbal panaceas. My father used to make fun of them, but she ignored him. I never took them and she never offered them or encouraged me to take them. It was as if she had some secret super-remedy for everything and didn't want to share it.
This morning I just had some juice and a little bowl of cereal. Before she went up to her bedroom to change into what she called appropriate clothes for the public, she told me she would like me to clean out the food pantry.
"Take everything off the shelves and dust around, and then make an inventory. I've got an idea about what we have and what we need, of course, but I want it better organized," she instructed.
Geraldine ran the house as if it was a nuclear submarine, polishing, cleaning, checking, and rechecking every nook and cranny. At times she made me feel like some sort of junior officer or worse, a grunt. While most girls my age were enjoying their summer vacation, going to the beach, to the malls, and movies, meeting friends and having parties, I was at work in our backyard, on our patio, in our house, straightening and reorganizing things I had
straightened and reorganized only a week or so before. Once, while I watched a squirrel working hard to accumulate its food, going through the same motions, I thought, I'm not much different. Maybe that's why he stops, gazes at me, and goes on without any concern.
I thought the best thing to do was get right into the pantry so she would think things were clicking along just as she had expected. She came downstairs all dressed, her cloth shopping bag in hand, and looked in on me.
"Good," she said, watching me clean out one of the shelves. "Take your time and do it right. I won't be any longer than usual."
I waited until I heard the front door close and then I quickly went up to my room to choose something nice to wear. It was a warm day, but I didn't own a single pair of shorts. Geraldine wouldn't buy me any, but I had a pair of jeans I had cut at the knees without her knowing. I had them stuffed in the leg of another pair.
I put them on and found a light pink cotton sweater she hadn't thrown out. She often sifted through my meager wardrobe, searching for anything I might have grown out of, and then either donated it to the thrift shop or simply put it in the garbage. Anything that might have become slightly tight or even suggested being too short was doomed.
The girls at Doctor Marlowe's had always been critical of the way I kept my hair. It wasn't entirely my own fault. Gerald
ine trimmed it unevenly and wouldn't let me go to a beauty parlor. She thought that was a big waste of money.
