Thursday afternoon came and Ash and I did regular things. We changed the sheets and pillow cases on all three sleeping spaces. We made bottles out of powdered formula and refrigerated them. We took Teddy outdoors with his trike. We pranced around the deck chanting the alphabet over and over basking in the late afternoon sun; Evvie safely barricaded by a makeshift fort of soft toys and pillows at our feet.
When the sun set, the kids were fed, and I washed Teddy up bathroom sink style with Ivory soap and a sponge. Ash held Evvie on her lap and read aloud from a waterproof plastic book made for tub time. After carrying him to the white carpet, I raked a Garfield comb through Teddy's thick hair while he sat wrapped in a warm from the laundry towel, listening attentively to the story. Then, far earlier than normal, it was time for pajamas.
Quiet and settled in the living room, the kids drowsily listened to Ash read from another book, her voice layered atop the hum of the clothes dryer and the low purr of the tv in the kitchen. Not long after she finished the second reading, Teddy, in his red footsie sleeper, rubbed his eyes and walked Ash down the hall. She tucked him in and motioned for me to bring Evvie who was asleep on my shoulder. We went together to her room.
"What do you think of the color?" Ash inquired.
"What color?"
"Uhhh, Evvie's room." she said, arms aloft and pantomiming.
Cautiously, I expressed my feelings as I settled the baby on her back.
"It seems like a lot for a baby. It just...seems like a lot."
Ash lamented, "Ugh. Really? I picked the paint before she was born, when I found out she was a 'she'. All I could think about in the hardware store was my butt-ugly bedroom when I was a kid. The wallpaper had big orange and gold flowers on it. Can you imagine?"
I thought yes I could, and not in a bad way.
Ash never had a voice as an artsy small fry. No one cared about her likes or what she wanted, either in terms of room décor or future plans. She mentioned being flighty and forgetful; her parents expecting a lot from her, but what they held her to wasn't anything she herself cared about or desired. Then, she walked out of the hideously purple room and when she returned, she had a bottle, a glass and a corkscrew.
"We serve no wine before it's time." she chortled. "I think it's time."
We returned to the living room where she dropped gracelessly onto the couch and remembering that I had nothing to drink, motioned to the kitchen and suggested I go grab a soda.
"I'm good." I said. "I had milk with Teddy at dinnertime."
"Oh, ok." She opened her bottle with a no nonsense jab and twist into the cork and released it. Pouring a glass, she broached a subject I couldn't have prepared for.
"You know what bothers me about Vanessa Williams?" she asked.
"No, what?"
Ms. Williams had been the subject of a recent news piece on Entertainment Tonight because she was trying to break back into the entertainment business after a scandal involving her Miss America crown and some nude photographs.
"It bothers me that people buy into this puritanical bullshit. Who hasn't taken a few topless photographs?"
"I don't know." I stammered. "I honestly have no idea."
"Want to see mine?" Ash popped up, sloshing the wine in her glass, dangerously close to the rim.
It was more of a forecast than a question. I sat and waited uncomfortably as she felt with one hand through a library of fat white photo albums arranged neatly on a shelf next to the fireplace.
"Ah ha!" She plunked her glass down on the table, grabbed one, and came and giddily knelt next to me.
"Look here." She showed me two pages' worth of pictures clearly shot at some sort of outdoor gathering, perhaps a concert. She'd taken careful steps to put small squares of black electrical tape over the sensitive parts, but it was Ash, beyond a doubt in white overalls, one strap broken or maybe just carelessly unhooked, totally shirtless and free-spirited.
"Good thing you aren't running for Mrs. America." I giggled, my eyes wide.
She laughed, too, and then mumbled something, while gulping the last of her drink, about there being far too many skeletons in the closet for any public contests.
"What about Rob?" I said, meaning that I wondered what he thought about her righteous public bareness. I figured he probably was there with her.
"Yeah, he's got skeletons too. Don't we all? I can't see us lasting here. He isn't exactly making friends at work."
Not the answer I expected, I waited as she rose and poured a second glass.
"He understands pain, but only when it comes to patients, certainly not to me. He's good with their pain. But he's reckless. And he's playing with fire."
Feeling uncertain about the level of disclosure she was approaching, I said nothing but then after a few seconds there was jazz music; the theme song from the Cosby Show trumpeting breezily from the kitchen.
"Hey, do you want to watch Cosby?"
"Oh God, no." Ash uttered. "Do you know any families like that? I sure as hell don't."
Picturing Bill making goofy, pursed lipped faces as he danced around in his expensive but awful sweater, I didn't mind that the Cosbys' family dynamics weren't real. I sort of liked that they weren't.
The next twenty minutes were spent briskly discussing her state of unemployment, how she'd wished for her children but now found raising them tedious and tiring, how she and Rob had very different ideas about how the future would play out, and how disgruntled she was at this point in time. I listened. I nodded.
"Go to college. Get a career. Then, and only then, think about kids and a husband." she pronounced. "Otherwise you will be fighting for the next twenty years to get your life back."
Jut then, a car pulled up outside. Grateful for the distraction, I leapt up and jogged to the door, peering though thick glass.
"Is it a Cutlass Ciera?" she called.
"I think so, It's big and black."
Just then Rob appeared at the door, pushed it open enthusiastically, and gave me a million dollar smile.
"Hi! You're Ash's helper!"
"Yes, I'm Valerie." I held out my hand.
He shook it with a firm grip. A contrast in styles, wearing sage colored scrubs and clean sneakers, he held a black leather padfolio in his left hand; a Burberry trench coat draped over his elbow.
Giving Ash a kiss on the cheek, he said, "Am I driving her home?"
"Yeah, and you're paying her too."
Taking my queue, I said goodbye, gathered my stuff, and nodded to the open album on the table so Ash would put it away but she missed my signal.
"See you Monday?" she proposed.
We'd agreed during the afternoon that since I stayed late tonight I could have Friday to myself. She was going to get a haircut and Rob was due home early. I nodded, waved, and walked to the car.
Rob closed his door and said, "Hey, I'm really glad to have this time."
Pulling out of the driveway, he asked a few questions about my previous babysitting jobs, and my studies in high school. I provided short answers because I was also providing driving directions. Seemingly satisfied that his wife and kids weren't in the company of a imbecile, he launched into a sermon about how Ash was not herself; how Ash had hated moving here for his job but that there would be another move sometime soon; and how he needed to find the right community in which to raise kids. When I suggested that this was a great community, he shook his head indignantly and stared ahead.
"I'm not so sure it's for us."
When we got to my Mom's street, I had him drop me at a house three doors up. I couldn't put my finger on why, but I didn't want him to be familiar with where I was staying. Maybe it's because his speech vaguely suggested I not get too close to his family. Maybe it's because Ash had said he didn't adequately acknowledge her pain and that made me feel like I didn't want to know him. Maybe it's because my gut told me something was alarmingly absent behind his huge, forced smile which manifested more like a clenched jaw than an expression of happiness.
"See you next week." I said.
Forgetting to pay me, he scanned the neighborhood, locked the doors and drove off without making sure I was safe inside.
#1970s #1980s #mushroomtumbler
