Dirty Red (Love Me With Lies)(9)

“Your father either slept with one, or she is one.”

I buzzed under his crooked smile. It extended all the way to his eyes this time.

“I like you,” he said.

“That’s swell, Boy Scout. Real swell.”





Chapter FivePresent



Two days after Caleb left for his business trip, my mother packs her bags and informs me she’s leaving as well.

"You can't be serious," I say, watching as she zips up her suitcase. "You said you wanted to stay and help."

"It's too hot," she says, lightly touching her hair. "You know I hate the summers here."

"We're in air conditioning, Mother! I need your help."

"You'll be fine, Johanna."

I notice the slight tremor in her voice. She’s slipping into one of her depressions. Courtney was the one who knew how to deal with her when she got like this. I always seem to make it worst. But, Courtney isn't here; I am. Which made Mother Dearest my responsibility.

I shrugged. "Fine, let's get you to the airport. Caleb comes back at midnight, anyway."

Let her scuttle home to her Michigan McMansion and pine away, popping pills into her mouth like Tic Tacs.

On the way back from the airport, I crank up the radio and feel like a bird out of her nest for the first time. Estella starts screaming from her car seat five minutes into my bliss. What does that mean? She’s hungry? Carsick? Wet?



I had almost forgotten she was there ... here … on this planet … in my life.

I do some Kegels and think bitterly of Caleb — baby free Caleb, who is basking in the Bahamian sun, drinking snifters of his damn Bruichladdich and eating crab cakes. It isn’t fair. I need a nanny, why can't he see that? Caleb is such a stickler for what is right and wrong. With all of his old fashioned values, I should have known that he would insist on me staying home and raising her myself. He is such a boy scout. Who raises their own children anymore? White trash, that’s who — because they can’t afford the help.

I bite my lip and turn up the volume on the radio to drown out the wailing. Right now she sounds like a tiny, shrill alarm, but what will happen in a few months when her lungs are stronger? How will I tolerate that noise?

I am trying to figure out how to get her to stop crying when something yellow catches my eye. To clarify, yellow is a terrible color. Nothing good comes from a color that represents egg yolks, earwax and mustard. It’s the color equivalent of a disease; festering sores and pimple puss, nicotine stained teeth. Nothing, nothing, nothing should be yellow, which is precisely why I turn my head to look. Immediately, I swerve my car into the far right lane and whip my steering wheel around like I’m on the teacups at Disney World. Choruses of car horns beep as I cut across two lanes of traffic to get to the plaza. I roll my eyes. Hypocrites.

Driving in Florida reminds me of navigating a crowded grocery store — either you’re stuck behind an old fart schlepping along at a mile an hour, or you’re being pushed into a cereal display by a hooligan. I am a good driver, so they can go screw themselves.

I follow the yellow sign into a strip mall and peer into the empty storefronts as my car edges through the parking lot. Crooked vacancy signs hang in most of the windows. The old store names still tacked above the doors are a depressing reminder that a recession is tiptoeing across the nation. I point a gun finger where a nail salon used to be and pull the imaginary trigger. How many little dreams had hit the dust in this crap hole plaza? In the far right corner near a gargantuan dumpster, sits the Sunny Side Up Daycare. I pull my car underneath the grungy egg yolk sign and tap my fingers on the steering wheel. To do, or not to do? Might as well go take a look.

I jump out, head for the door, and remember that there is a baby in the car. Sons of guns and motherf*ckers. I retrace my steps, making sure no one has seen my blunder, and creep back to unlatch Estella’s car seat. She is mercifully silent as I haul her through the doors of Sunny Side Up Daycare. The first thing I notice is that anyone can just walk into this crapstablishment and steal a kid. Where are the key card locked doors? I eye the receptionist. She is a frumpy twenty-something wearing blue eye shadow over dull brown eyes. She wants a boyfriend. You can tell by her overzealous use of perfume and cleavage. She has eyeliner on her bottom lid. Everyone knows you don’t put liner on your lower lid.

“Hellooo,” I chirp cheerfully.

She smiles at me and raises her eyebrows.

“I need to speak with your director,” I say loudly, just in case she is as slow as she looks.

“What’s it about?”

Why do people always staff their front desks with half-wits?

“Well, I have a baby,” I snap, “ — and this is a daycare.”

Her nose twitches. It’s her only indication that I’ve royally pissed her off. I tap my foot on the linoleum as she pages the director of the daycare. I take a look around while I wait. Pale yellow walls, bright orange suns painted across them, a stained blue carpet scattered with this morning’s Cheerios. The Director emerges minutes later. She is a mid-life crisis blonde wearing a Tickle me Elmo t-shirt, scuffed pink Keds and two melon-sized breast implants. I eye her in disgust and paste on a smile.

Before I can utter a word, she says: “Wow, that’s a new one."

“She was premature,” I lie. “She’s older than she looks.”