Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl (4 page)

“I’m ready,” I say as I button my coat. And before I can get my hat on, she’s walking down the hallway, grabbing an umbrella from the stand near the door, and walking out into the hall. I hurry and do the same, before locking the door behind me.

It’s gotten dark outside, and lights flick on in the windows of the apartment buildings surrounding us. The rain is coming down in the form of little ice pellets, which the wind is smacking right into me. My umbrella is not exactly cooperating, as it keeps turning inside out and flying up into the air.

“Where we going?” I ask once we’re a couple blocks into our walk. But Mama doesn’t answer. I can’t tell if she doesn’t hear me or if she just feels like ignoring me. It’s already been too traumatic a day. Even though the temperature is near freezing, I’m so shaken up inside, I feel as if I have a
fever of 103 degrees. And there are so many different crazy thoughts invading my brain all at once. This is definitely one evening I could just as well skip one of Mama’s moods.

A woman coming toward us is having as much trouble with the wind as I am. She’s trying to control her umbrella, carry her groceries, and keep her skirt from flying up all at the same time. After a sheet of newspaper hits her in the face, she manages to wrestle it off, but then it takes aim at me. I grab at it and find myself staring at the bold black letters of an old headline:
1ST APPLE MACINTOSH COMPUTER GOES ON SALE
.

Mama just keeps walking on ahead, oblivious to how the storm is mistreating me, her giant umbrella as strong and as sturdy as ever. I wonder why the wind doesn’t take hold of her. If it did, she’d probably be lifted into the air and be flown across Brooklyn like the black Mary Poppins, flying over the Brooklyn Bridge, across the East River, and over to Manhattan. Maybe it would let her down on top of the Empire State Building, like King Kong. And she’d be stuck there and helicopters would have to take aim and shoot her down.

Mama finally slows her pace once she gets to Holy Rosary Church. As she turns down the walkway and pushes the giant wooden door open, I stop in my tracks. I’m seriously wondering, what with my potential-murderer status, whether I’ll remain intact if I cross its threshold or burst into a ball of flames.

I’m surrounded
by Catholics. Not only did Mama enroll me in Sunday school for longer than I care to remember, she’s also forced me to receive four of the seven sacraments. I’ve been baptized, reconciled, communioned, and confirmed. Not that I remember the lessons I was supposed to have taken away or how they’re supposed to affect my soul. So that leaves only marriage, holy orders—which I don’t have to worry about unless I suddenly become male, lose my mind, and decide to join the priesthood—and last rites, which I also don’t have to worry about right now, unless Mama decides to go through with one of her unoriginal sayings and “take me out of this world as easily as she brought me into it.” Whatever.

If that isn’t bad enough, I attend Bishop Marshall High in Crown Heights, although that part didn’t come about because of Mama. See, you have to pay tuition to go there, which completely goes against her financial belief system. Basically, I was just minding my business over at my zoned
high school when there was a stabbing not ten feet from me. This was right at the start of my freshman year. Come Thanksgiving, we get a call from my dad saying he’s made plans for me to be enrolled at a Catholic high school beginning the following semester. Boy, did Mama ever pop a blood vessel. She couldn’t understand him wasting money on high school tuition when it could have been used to help out with so many other things, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Truth be told, I think I’m one of those kids the school allows in with only a portion of the tuition paid. Either way, Daddy sends a check directly there each month, so Mama doesn’t really have a say.

Anyway, I decide to go ahead and test my evilness factor, so I open the door to the church, step forward, and wait there for a moment. I don’t combust. I take that as a good sign.

Just to the side of me is a font filled with holy water. That stuff singes vampires and those from the dark side, so I decide to leave it be. I walk in a little farther. Mama is up front lighting a candle. There are only a couple of other people in the church: an old woman in one of the last pews, praying to her rosary, and a Spanish-looking man with a thick red scarf looped around his neck, sitting alone crying. I see Father Randall over near the confessionals. The man is as old as dirt and nearly as blind as he is deaf. Mama walks up to him and shakes his hand; then she looks over at me, snaps her fingers, and points to one of the pews. What the hell am I, a dog? Normally, I’d be rolling my eyes and mumbling under my breath at being treated like a four-legged
creature, but tonight, that’s the least of my problems, so I sit obediently and watch as Mama disappears into one of the wooden confessionals with the thick crimson curtain pulled across the front. I wait a few moments, then crumple up the wet newspaper I never got rid of and stuff it into one of the hymnal holders before getting up and easing in closer to the booth. Mama speaks in a low voice, so it’s hard to make out very many of her words.

“He’s sent the papers again” is about all I’m able to hear, so I move off and go sit in another pew.

I know she’s talking about Daddy. Who knows what’s set her off now. My mother and father are still married, even though they don’t live together, which is pretty weird if you ask me. They’ve been apart since I was eight, so it’s been a hot minute. How are you going to be apart from somebody for six years and still be married to them? Though, when I think of it, Daddy wasn’t around much when they were actually together. He was always traveling to some other city or town, playing his bass, trying to earn some money. I always wished I had one of those dads who went into the office at nine every morning and was home by six at night, sitting around the dinner table, telling stories about his horrible boss. I know if Daddy was around, Mama wouldn’t be so mean to me. And there would even be laughter and giggles in our house, instead of silence all the time. Maybe then I would have somebody to tell me they loved me. Or call me pretty—even if they were lying just a little.

I guess I can’t blame Daddy for leaving. Mama’s just plain evil. I’d run from her too, if I could. Actually, I did try
to run—twice. Once when I was nine, just after Daddy left. Things were worse then, if you can believe that. I decided to take another shot at it when I was eleven. But I didn’t have it planned out that well. First rule of running away: don’t do it in the middle of winter while wearing your fuzzy slippers. There’s only so far you can get before everything below your knees goes numb. Second rule: go farther than the creepy basement of your building.

Yeah, if Daddy was around, maybe I wouldn’t be as rotten as I am. But I don’t want to make it sound like I’m the cause of Mama’s stress, because I’m not. She’s the cause of mine. I think she’s the reason I’m so rotten. Then again, maybe it’s a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg. And who’s the chicken—me or Mama? I guess it doesn’t really matter.

Mama steps out of the confessional and motions for me to come over. When I do, she just points to the booth. You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s like the woman is a witch. It’s like she senses that I’ve done some wrongful deed. Mama is from the Caribbean—Dominica. Dominica, not the Dominican Republic. Everyone always mixes the two up, but they’re not the same. I went there with her and my uncle Paul when I was eight. The water was so clear, I could see all the way down to the sea bottom and to the little fish kissing away at my ankles. Anyway, Dominica is one of those little teeny islands they never put the names of on maps, like Nevis and Montserrat. Most people have never heard of those either—most people who aren’t from the Caribbean or don’t have any ties to it.

I used to hear stories about how Mama’s grandmother, my great-grandma, would work her magic across the island. How she would look into a person’s eyes and tell his past and his future. I never really believed it, but I’m starting to wonder. Maybe Mama has the power of sensing but isn’t powerful enough to change anything, so she has to rely on religion for that. Maybe she thinks my wrongdoings are the cause of the misfortune in her life and that ridding me of my sins will lead to a cure for all her issues. I don’t know. Although, if ever there was a time I needed to confess and have a priest say that no matter how serious my crime, with two Hail Marys it will all be forgiven, this is it. But how do you say to someone, “I think I might have killed some old person … oops?”

As I walk into the booth, I see Mama heading back over to the candles. And I’m thinking, Light as many as you like, lady. It’s not going to help any with Daddy coming back.

“When was the last time you confessed?” Father Randall asks before I’m even fully seated on the small bench. I can see bits of his white skin and white hair through the patterned wooden panel between us.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I think with Father Hoppe a little while ago.” It’s a lie. I haven’t confessed since my confirmation. Only, Father Randall is so old, I figure I can tell him anything and he won’t dispute it.

“You do not confess your sins weekly?”

“No.”

“You’ve done nothing you’d like to ask God’s forgiveness for?”

I pause here for a really long time. My temples are beginning to throb again, but I can’t seem to form the words to verbalize what I’ve done, so I just sit quietly.

“You haven’t sworn, thought ill of another?” he asks.

“Are those really sins? I mean, seriously, who hasn’t done that?” I mumble. Man, the smart-ass really comes out in me when I’m freaking out.

“What?” he says louder than I think is necessary. I’d forgotten about his auditory issues, so I lean forward and repeat myself, minus all the sass.

“Just because others do, does that make it right?” he responds.

I shrug and get quiet again.

“Each day we walk through the darkened forest of life. In the time since you’ve confessed, there’s been nothing you’d like to get off your chest?”

I inch the curtain back a little and peep outside the booth, just to make sure Mama isn’t involved in any of her snooping tactics—tactics I learned from her. But she’s on the other side of the church. Just as I turn away from her, I glimpse the area just above the altar, where a giant Jesus hangs on the cross. Crucifixes really creep me out.

I allow the thick velvet curtain to close and shield me from that image. Suddenly, I get an idea.

“Will God really forgive me for anything?” I lean forward and ask.

“Of course. You are his child.”

“And anything I tell you, you can’t tell my mother, right?”

“It’s between you, me, and God.”

“You can’t tell the cops, right?” I try not to sound too hopeful.

“You, me, and God,” Father Randall says again.

“Well, what would God think if I told him I stole money from someone who was super old?”

“Why did you steal this money? Were you hungry? Were you in a bind?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause …”

Silence.

“Because it was something to do.” I suddenly realize I haven’t actually seen a dime of that money. I was so on another planet about everything that happened, I didn’t even get my share from Caroline.

“But the money isn’t the bad part,” I continue.

“Stealing is not the bad part?”

“No, this is kind of a two-broken-commandments sin.”

“What’s the second one?”

“Well, what if … someone … accidentally maybe pushed another someone, and that other someone fell and sorta hurt themselves?”

“Accidents happen. This person who was injured, did the other person call in medical help for them?”

“Uh, no.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. ’Cause no one thought of it at the time.
Anyway, I don’t think that part even matters anymore. I guess. Because the person who was injured … what if they were not exactly injured anymore?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Yeah, I know.” I take a really deep breath before continuing. “Let’s say the person was more kinda … dead … than injured?”

There is the longest silence, and I start wondering if he just didn’t hear me. Then I start wondering whether he did, and I’ve made my second big mistake of the day. I would do anything to be able to take my words back.

“Are you saying you may have killed someone?” Father Randall finally asks.

I’m trying to swallow, but my mouth has become cobwebs-across-the-tongue dry. What have I done?

“No. Definitely not.” I try and backtrack. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. No, no, nope. What I’m saying is, well, I’m trying to figure out when a sin is beyond asking forgiveness for.”

“So you want to know if murder—”

“No, not murder. An accidental ending of a life. And I never said it was me. Or that it was something that really happened. Anyway, is all this forgivable?”

It’s pin-drop quiet for a while again, and I’m wondering if the old priest has snuck away to call the cops. I peep through the slats, where I can still see his shock of white hair.