Gingerbread (2 page)

I wish I could live at Wallace and Shrimp's house. They have painted murals on the walls and a pirate flag hanging on the porch and old, beat-up furniture that would make Nancy's interior decorator's facelift split open like in a horror movie. They are always listening to rickety old blues music about some crazysexy woman's cheatin' heart.

They love hanging out together. It's hard to imagine a Wallace without a Shrimp, and vice versa. I cannot imagine anyone in my family feeling that way about me.

Wallace says he would rather be walking the earth instead of brewing coffee. Wallace is embarrassed by his success, but secretly he loves being known as Java the Hut. He has to work a lot of hours. Wallace's business seriously cramps his surfing time.

Now that Shrimp has finished his community service, he is going to work at a Java the Hut store. He will still visit Sugar Pie and the rest of the folks at the home because they have the coolest faces to draw and the best stories about the "good ole days." Shrimp and I like to listen to their stories and when we leave we talk about how the "good ole days" also were about Jim Crow laws, segregation, and fascism. But we admit we could groove on swing dancing, Coca-Cola

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for a nickel, and not worrying about leaving your doors unlocked.

Wallace and Shrimp's parents live "abroad," as Nancy would say. They retired from their teaching jobs and joined the Peace Corps to build houses and bridges in places below the equator. They let Shrimp live with Wallace so Shrimp can go to arts school. Sid and Nancy had no problem shipping me off to a school that was basically a prep academy for Alcoholics Anonymous but they would freak if I asked to move out at sixteen years old.

Lately I have spent the night at Shrimp's a few times. The first time I did, I snuck back home at around six in the morning and went in through the backdoor. I was sure Sid and Nancy would have called out the cops for me by that time. I don't know which I feared worse, that they would send me to some kind of GI Jane school as punishment, or that they would not care.

Leila, the housekeeper, was already up and about, pressing my half-sibs' school uniforms. Leila shook her head at me. "Naughty girl," she said, but I knew she wouldn't rat me out. My parents tweak her nerves as much as mine. My mom is always like "Leila this," "Leila that," "Thank you so much, Leila." It is such a phony act and Nancy only does it when Sid is around. When he's not, she'll be all, "I told you to fold the dinner napkins in a flower shape. Do I have to do
everything
, Leila?"

Nancy is actually super scared of Leila, so every time she says something mean, then she'll air kiss Leila and give Leila the afternoon off. Then Nancy will complain about how no one helps her. Nancy thinks Leila is some kind of superior maid creature because Leila speaks French. Nancy

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speaks French,
pas
. Nancy likes to act all hyper-chic Society Wife, but if you listen carefully, you can still hear the traces of a Minnesouda cornfield accent, eh?

Nancy is so clueless about the staff's actual lives, I don't think she even knows that Fernando the driver's little grandson had leukemia but
bless Dios
now he's in remission, or that Leila is actually French-Canadian, not French-French. I would like to know if that discrepancy disqualifies Leila from wearing an actual French maid's uniform. When Nancy is not around, Leila and I make lasagna and cookies for Fernando's family.

"Your mother will be up in five minutes," Leila said. She was brewing Nancy's chai tea. "I suggest you go mess up that bed of yours and make it look slept in."

"They didn't notice?" I said.

"Non,"
Leila said. She could not look me in the eyes.

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Five

I'm down with
the 411 on my real dad. I read about him in
Who's Who of Corporate America
, in the library at my old school. His name is Frank. He is the boss of a big New York advertising firm. Nancy met Frank when she was a model. That's how she made a living when she lived in New York. She never got very far with her true dream of being a professional dancer.

Frank real-dad has a daughter, Rhonda, and a son, Daniel. Rhonda is such a bad-girl name. She is about fifteen years older than me. I bet when she was in high school she smoked hash in the bathroom and skipped school to hang out in Greenwich Village. She probably wore thick liquid black eyeliner, green lipstick, and black tights with tear holes pinned together with safety pins, just to piss off Frank. If I were named Rhonda, that's what I would do.

That would be so cool to call her up one day and just be like, "Yo Rhonda, this is your flave-flave half-sis Cyd Charisse. Let's hang together but utterly." She would want to brush my hair until it shimmered and then plait it into a dozen braids. She would give me advice about birth control and maybe sometimes, if we were feeling really giggly, she would pass on secret sexual techniques she learned from reading smutty books when she was my age.

Daniel is ten years older than me. If he knew me, he would be really protective of me and call me "kid" all the time. He would muss my hair up, slap me on the back, and

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always pick me first on his touch football team at Thanksgiving. He would give his friends the old "nuh-uh" when they checked me out. Daniel would have beat the crap out of Justin for getting me into trouble. He would have let me cry on his shoulder after I came back from the clinic, and he would have brought me Dunkin' Donuts in my room afterward and promised never to tell.

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Six

Shrimp, Sugar Pie
, and I have decided to take Gingerbread on a field trip. Java the Hut has to work, of course, so he let us take his cool new VW beetle. Java's beetle is shiny red with black leather interior. It looks just like a ladybug.

We are going to Santa Cruz. Shrimp is going to surf and Sugar Pie and I are going to take Gingerbread for a walk on the boardwalk.

Nancy threw a freaknik when I said I was spending Sunday with Shrimp and Sugar.

"But that's our family day," she whined. "Dad promised to turn his cell phone off and not go into the office at all. We were going to take you and the kids to the museums in the park and then out for ice cream."

"Oh, could we
really?"
I said, doing my best impression of a Von Trapp child.

I almost felt bad because Nancy's icy white face
did
look very crushed. Then she snapped, "I don't remember you asking permission to spend the day with
that boy
." She refuses to call
that boy
"Shrimp." I told her
that boy
also answers to his middle name, Flash. She's sticking with
that boy
.

"I asked you last week right before you had tea with the other ballet moms!" I actually never did ask. I thought about it when she was entertaining my little sister's friends' moms, but I didn't. But since Nancy is famous for not paying attention to me when she is showing off the house to

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her high-falutin' society friends, I knew I could get away with the lie.

"Well, fine Cyd Charisse, that's just fine, just go. I had to rearrange everyone's schedules so we could spend one day together as a family, but you just go ahead out with
that boy
," Nancy huffed. I could see Leila in the corner of my eye arranging some flowers. Leila was shaking her head that Nancy was letting me off the hook.

When I was leaving, Nancy stopped me at the tall glass door. Her eye makeup looked like it had run from crying, which for Nancy is unusual. She always looks impeccably blonde and perfect.

"How come you hate me?" she said.

That question stopped my heart cold.

"How come
you
hate
me
?" I answered.

I stormed out of the house because I felt I was supposed to after a comment like that, but actually I was very quiet and sad the whole drive down to Santa Cruz. Not even sharing a booty of chocolate with Sugar Pie made me feel better.

"You are a very spoiled child, Miss Sulk," Sugar Pie called to me from the back of the bug when we were about halfway to Santa Cruz. She passed me a miniature Butter-finger bar to show me she meant the comment in a nice way. Sugar and I both love to eat our candy in miniature size, except for Nestle Crunches, which we both agree are too whamma lamma ding dong to be eaten in miniature. We prefer our Nestle Crunches to be king-sized.

'Am not!" I said. 1 did not eat the mini-Butterfinger. Being called spoiled tripped me from a sad mood into a really bad mood. I like to think of myself as misunderstood.

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Shrimp laughed as he munched on his frosted strawberry Pop Tart. "Cyd Charisse, you are too," he said. "I don't know how I ended up with the most spoiled girl in the world. Sugar, it's your fault!" He was teasing and all singsong. But he must have felt my heart go tumble, because then he leaned over to kiss my cheek, which was not a good idea seeing as how we were driving on a windy road on a cliff over the ocean and Shrimp's hands were jumpy from his morning double espressos. The car swerved suddenly and Shrimp snapped back to attention less than a second before it was too late, right before we went splash over the cliff.

At my commune, there will be no cars. We will probably be so enlightened and unspoiled that we will be able to fly.

"Watch where you're going," I said. I think pouting is stupid but sometimes it serves its purpose. I did not kiss him back since he'd practically just killed us all.

"Burr-ito," Shrimp said. He always says that when I fall into what he calls my "chill factor," all moody and cold.

Sugar was dizzy from the sudden swerve. Maybe it had made her think of her dead Honey's honeymoon. We stopped the car at a rest area because she thought she might need to hurl, but actually she was fine once the car was no longer in motion. Once her hurl urge had passed, Sugar said could we stay here and rest awhile before getting back on the road. Shrimp said that's why they call it a rest area. He put down the backseat of the bug so Sugar could take a little nap. He covered Sugar up with an old mohair blanket which had been laying on the car floor stuck to a piece of bubble gum, and I put Gingerbread in her arms to keep Sugar safe and warm.

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While Sugar napped, Shrimp and I walked down a trail toward the ocean. "What are you so tweaked about?" Shrimp said.

I hate it when this happens, but tears started streaming down my face, totally out of control. I was remembering how after we first moved to San Francisco, while Sid was working, Nancy would get bored and lonely from not knowing anybody. Some days she would keep me home from school and we would drive down the highway along the ocean and she wouldn't even mind if I brought Gingerbread along, even though she hates that doll. One thing about my mom is that she is so beautiful, and as we drove along the windy cliff highway, I would feel so secondhand cool sitting next to her in the convertible. I used to want to dress like her, so before we'd leave she'd place a silk scarf identical to hers on my head and tie it under my chin to protect my hair from the wind, and then she'd hold my chin in her soft, perfumed hands and put lipstick on me, then give me an eskimo kiss on my cheek so she wouldn't ruin her lipstick. She always had a spare pair of rhinestone-studded cat-eye sunglasses to place over my eyes. When we got to Santa Cruz, she would buy me cotton candy and take me on the scary rollercoaster, not the kiddie one, even though I was not old enough. I have always been tall and looked a lot older than I am and besides, I would beg her to let me ride. Nancy would scream all bloody hell at the rollercoaster's sudden turns and heart-pounding dips, as I laughed and laughed. You are fearless, she used to say.

I shrugged at Shrimp's question. Sometimes when there's too much to explain it's easier to say nothing. Shrimp looked confused. I was chilling on him and crying

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and not explaining. He had that look Wallace gets when one of his girlfriends goes postal: "Women!" Sid gets the same look when Nancy complains about how much time he spends being Big Corporate Boss man, and not enough time with the family. It is some kind of universal guy look, a mixture of annoyance, desire, and wishing they could be watching Sports Center instead of witnessing their woman's freak-out.

If Justin had been standing with me in this scene, he would have bailed so fast I wouldn't have been able to emote word one even if I'd wanted to.

Luckily Shrimp did not do that sensitive boy routine and try to hold me and wipe away my tears. Sometimes tears just have to run their course, and it's nice to have a boyfriend who understands that without being either mean or all smothery. When I was finished, we sat down on some rocks overlooking the ocean. I was glad Gingerbread was curled up with Sugar because the ocean breeze was seriously freeze.

Shrimp said, "Let's play Job for a Day," and I brightened up a little. He was eyeing the sun and the surf below and I knew he was jonesing to get back in the car and finish the drive to Santa Cruz. I appreciated him offering to play my favorite game so Sugar could have a rest and I could mellow out.

Shrimp started. "I would like to be the bellman at Campton Place Hotel who looks like the Beefeater guy for a day." The mental image of Shrimp wearing the bellowing bellman costume with the tights and the queer hat and flagging cabs for tourists made me giggle. The uniform would be bigger than him.

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"Short-order cook cuz I would like to know how to make perfect eggs," I offered.

"You think in one day you could master perfect scrambled eggs and sunnyside-up eggs and eggs-benedict eggs?" Shrimp asked.

"Everything eggs," I assured him.

"Toll taker at the Golden Gate Bridge," Shrimp said.

1 told him, "You would look so cute in that park service uniform."

A ray of sunlight shone right through the platinum spike in his hair, and he grinned. "Ya think?" he said, and in an instant my burr-ito melted.