In Trouble (7 page)

Me: She hasn’t told her, but she thinks her mom has figured it out. (I left out the part about the Kotex box, what with Dad and Uncle Maury and Uncle George sitting there. They don’t need to know everything.) Aunt Sheila: And the boy? Does she know who he is?

Me: For Pete’s sake, Aunt Sheila, it’s her boyfriend.

I must have been adopted. I couldn’t belong to this family by blood.

Grandma: Don’t get excited. Could be somebody attacked her. All these apartments, all these people, coming and going.

And it went on. Uncle Maury said, “Once they know, will her parents support her?”

“She’s Catholic, and she said Catholics don’t believe in . . . well, you know what I mean.” Aunt Sheila coughed. “That is one of those odd 70

things, seeing as how Catholics have as many abortions as anyone else.”

Everyone stopped to look at her, resulting in a bliss-ful, but only temporary, silence.

“People spend an inordinate amount of time believing something they often don’t act on,” Dad said. Everyone looked at him.

“Welcome back,” Mom said quietly, with a just a hint of sarcasm he didn’t seem to hear.

Uncle George tilted back his chair as if to launch into a sermon, but Uncle Maury jumped in. “Force of habit for a lot of people. What you grow up believing more often than not stays with you even if it doesn’t make sense to you anymore.”

Grandma gave three sharp pokes. “Better you should not believe in so many rules. Pick the important and keep to.” When she was excited, Grandma’s English could be fractured. Once you caught on, though, she made a lot of sense.

“Nonsense,” Mom said. “This isn’t theoretical. This is a young girl who’s in trouble. The question, it seems to me, comes down to what she wants.”

“What if she doesn’t know what she wants?” I said.

“Maybe sometimes someone has to tell you.” It was so clear. I had to make Elaine see. “I mean, Ma, you tell me lots of times what I should do,” I added lamely.

Mom shook her head. “I’m talking about big things, life decisions.”

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“Isn’t that just when a young person needs someone to talk to?” Aunt Sheila reentered. “Sometimes help helps,” she added.

I giggled. Uncle Maury clapped. Aunt Sheila blushed and ripped out several rows of the scarf.

“If you had children you’d understand,” Mom snapped.

You couldn’t miss Aunt Sheila’s stricken face.

“Sheila, I am so sorry.” Mom reached over, but Aunt Sheila pulled back. “All I mean,” Mom said, “is that you have to let young people make the decisions important to their lives. We’re not talking about a child. This is Jamie’s classmate. She’s a young woman.”

Aunt Sheila’s voice was low but distinct. “And I’m saying it’s hard for anyone any age to make certain decisions, and if you’re young, you’ve simply got less information.” That was the longest speech I’ve heard Aunt Sheila make at one of these family inquisitions. She talks at length with Mom about all kinds of things, but in these free-for-alls she’s usually quiet.

“Forget my friend for a minute,” I said, trying to sound theoretical. “What if you know somebody is going to make a really bad mistake?”

Uncle Maury tossed his napkin on the table. “In the first place, this is not abstract. This is about your friend.

And come on, Rachel,” he said to Mom, “who are you kidding? You’d fight like a ferocious mother hen to keep your chick in the fold. If Jamie suddenly decided she didn’t want to go to college, why, you’d truss her up and haul her 72

off to some freshman orientation before she knew what was happening. This is Jamie’s friend.” He patted my shoulder. “What is the nature of your involvement?”

“Involvement?”

Uncle Maury shook my shoulder gently. “Wasn’t that what you asked? If a good friend is about to make a really bad mistake, do you have a responsibility—” Aunt Sheila cut him off. “You can’t make someone else’s decisions for them. All you can do is give information if they’re willing to hear it.” She wrapped the scarf around the needles. “And let them know you’re there if they need you.”

Grandma poked four times. I’m hoping four’s all the hairpins she has. I can’t take much more.

After Aunt Sheila’s pronouncement, it petered out.

Dad came back to the world of the living. He and Mom did the dishes while I cleared the table. Their voices were low, but Mom’s tone was normal, not edgy like before.

Dad came out to the dining room with a dish towel in his hands. I’d moved all the dirty glasses down to the end of the table. He lifted one and held it up to the light. “Lipstick does leave its mark.” He put it back down and looked at me. “Okay about your friend Paul.” Then he went back into the kitchen with the marked glass.

Okay to talk to Paul, but not me. Everything leaves a mark, I wanted to yell.

Run!

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Uncle Maury left to go upstairs to his apartment, and Grandma kissed me goodnight and went into her room.

When Uncle George went into the kitchen to say goodbye to Mom and Dad, Aunt Sheila said, “Jamie, stop by after school tomorrow.”

That was a surprise. Usually I go over to Aunt Sheila’s when Mom sends me on an errand. “Do you want me to bring something?” I asked.

She smiled in a gentle way. “Just yourself.” 74

15.

I rang Aunt Sheila’s doorbell at 3:43. When something changes completely what you thought you knew, you re-play it over and over. That’s why I know it was exactly 3:43.

“Door’s open,” I heard Aunt Sheila call. “I’m in the bedroom.” I made my way down the hall and studied the framed Van Gogh prints I’d seen a hundred times. The bridge, the flowers. Everybody talked about the famous sunflowers, but to me they were brown and looked dead.

I stopped in front of them. The brown hadn’t brightened.

“Jamie?”

“Yup, coming.”

Aunt Sheila was hanging up Uncle George’s pants when I walked in. She took a shirt of his off the chair where it looked like it had been tossed and sat down. Her 75

sewing box was on the radiator under the window, and she picked up a skirt folded on the top. I sat in a chair across from her.

“I’m not in the habit of butting into things,” she said.

Aunt Sheila didn’t usually plunge directly to the point.

She couldn’t have guessed. Could she?

“You sound like Uncle George,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh no, sweetie. It’s just something I feel strongly about.” Then her voice faltered. She took out a seam-ripper from the sewing box. “I’m redoing this skirt hem,” she said, as if by way of apology.

“Would you like a glass of seltzer?” she asked abruptly.

“Sure.”

She put down the skirt, and I followed her into the kitchen. Glasses in hand, we walked to the living room and sat at the ends of the couch. She took two coasters from a painted wooden container on the coffee table. We bracketed the couch, and the two glasses were like candle-sticks waiting to be lit.

“I like needlework,” she gestured with her hands. “It’s hard to talk without something to work on.” Why was my own aunt so nervous in front of me?

“It was before the war, before I met your Uncle George,” she began. “I’d been on a trip back home to Chicago, and . . .” there was a long pause “. . . well, the details don’t matter. Two months after I returned to New York, I went to a doctor.” She got up and put her glass down on 76

the dining room table. “He confirmed my fear,” she said, turning to me. I must have looked startled, for she added,

“It’s more common than you might think.” She came back and sat down. “Everybody talks about bad girls, fast girls,” she said with some bitterness. “I wanted to talk to you about your friend.”

I could hardly breathe.

“What happened to you?”

“I was no longer seeing the young man and had no desire to get back together. He was the wrong person; it was the wrong time.”

She moved closer to me. “I wish I’d had a close friend to talk to, but I’d only been in the city a short while. There was a woman at work I occasionally had lunch with. She was very nice, I thought.” For a brief moment Aunt Sheila was lost in memory. “I hinted to her that I had a girlfriend in trouble. The words were barely out of my mouth when she picked up her purse and left. She said she’d forgotten she had an appointment.”

“Did you have to work together?”

“Yes, but we never had lunch again. She was always busy.”

This is my Aunt Sheila telling me this
. Except for those weeks when Uncle George was drunk after Dad got arrested, I’d never thought much about her.

“What did you do?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. Your friend, she’s your age?”

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“She’s a little older, seventeen.”

Aunt Sheila sat up straight. “If her mother won’t tell her, you tell her she’s not a slut,” she said. “And believe me, that’s what they’ll say to her.
Loose, fast, a slut
.” She looked angry. “A mistake, an accident, however it happened . . .” Aunt Sheila cleared her throat, “she should know she has a choice.” Her hands were clasped in her lap. “You said last night you don’t know what she wants. Well, I hope she can talk with her mother.” She looked directly at me. “As I hope you would if you ever need help.”

“Not me!” I said loudly.

Aunt Sheila looked startled.

“I mean—” what
do
I mean?—“I . . . I won’t need help.” Aunt Sheila nodded. “And if your friend needs a name, there’s a woman—”

“Mrs. Hanson?”

Aunt Sheila blinked rapidly. “No. Someone in Brooklyn. Someone,” she paused, “your mother doesn’t know.”

Rooms with hidden corners.

Wide angle, dark room. A cone of light on a small circle. Mrs. Brooklyn and Aunt Sheila huddle around a cot. Mrs. Brooklyn wears a nurse’s hat. “Fear not!” She sings an undiscovered aria written by a famous Italian composer. A steaming kettle sits on a burner in front of a mirror.

Camera moves in close. Steam from the kettle fogs 78

the mirror. Mrs. Brooklyn reads from
The Rubaiyat
of Omar Khayyam.
A moving finger writes “SHEILA” on the mirror, and, having writ, moves on.

“First your friend will need a pregnancy test, and I can give you the phone number of a doctor who’ll do the test,” Aunt Sheila said. “She will have to say she’s married, or at least engaged.”

“But you, you weren’t married.”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “I wasn’t, but I had a friend in Chicago whose husband was a doctor. He gave me the name of someone here.” She spoke as if it was the most natural thing in the world to help a friend.

A curtain of silence enveloped us. Then she added,

“Jamie, please, this conversation is between you and me.” She looked right at me. “Between us,” she repeated slowly.

“Sure.” I tried to sound casual, like a friend might. But this is my aunt who’s my mom’s age, and she just told me something no one else in the family knows.

Three people, three secrets.

Aunt Sheila wrote down a name and number and handed it to me. “Thanks,” I said, and I really meant it. I gave her a hug, grabbed my books, and left.

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16.

Aunt Sheila. I can’t get over what she told me. Paul tried to get my attention in trig class. Lunch period I’ll leave him a note about Dad. My brain feels fractured.

I stood in the caf entrance but didn’t see Paul. Fingers crossed he’s waiting on line and out of sight, and it’s safe to go to the
Record
room.

Outside the office door I could hear the radio. The Platters were singing about being a great pretender. Pretending? Lying I call it. My song.

This is ridiculous. I’ll leave a note at his locker
. I turned away just as the door opened, and of course it was Paul.

“Hey, Jamie, I was going to look for you in the cafeteria.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing hysteri-cally. Get it over with. Deep breath.

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“My dad says he’ll talk with you, but it has to be today after school.”

I really don’t want this to happen. It feels wrong that Dad won’t talk with me, but he will with Paul.

“Any chance we can do it tomorrow? I’ve a meeting after school.”

I stared at him. “My dad said today. Your choice.

Gotta go.”

He yelled after me, “Okay, okay. See you at the side entrance at 3:20.”

I nodded and waved with the back of my hand as I walked down the hall.

Dad was reading in the living room. He looked over the top of the newspaper and motioned us to the couch.

I headed for my room.

“Jamie,” Dad said, “please stay.”

“Didn’t think you wanted me to know about this.” How humiliating. I sound like a whining seven-year-old.

“It’s a test to see if you can help interview someone you’re close to,” Paul said. He has an irritating talent of raising one eyebrow while the other lowers. “So, can you?”

“I hate tests,” I said in a low voice, but I put my books down. “I’m staying only to listen.”

“Your choice,” Paul said in a mild tone.

I gave him what I hoped was a serious dirty look.

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He was all business. Out came the notebook and pencil. He flipped pages and looked up at Dad. “Mr.

Morse, I really appreciate this chance to talk with you. I saw the McCarthy committee hearing on television when you pleaded the First—”

“I know taking a plea is a legal phrase,” Dad said, “but I vastly prefer saying that I
asserted
my First Amendment rights.”

Paul nodded. “Point taken, sir.”

I settled back into the softness of the couch. Times like this I like Dad’s pedantry.
Correct away, Pops!

“Do you consider yourself a ‘political prisoner’?” Paul asked, poised to write down Dad’s answer.

“Well.” Dad folded up his paper and set it on the little table next to his chair. “I’m accused and convicted of a crime. But what kind of crime did I commit? I didn’t rob a bank. I didn’t break into someone’s home. I didn’t physically attack anyone. I certainly didn’t commit murder.