“Momma, remember you used to put lotion on me and clean out my ears and wash my hair?” I asked as I got up from the bed, grabbed one of my drugstore bags from the table, and disappeared into the bathroom.
I turned on the bath water, checking the temperature with my fingertips. I swished the water around, cleaning the tub before I put in the rubber stopper. I pulled the bubble-bath balls out from my CVS bag and dropped the lavender balls into the warm-hot water. Leaning over the side of the tub, I watched the balls dissolve, creating a nice scent and pretty purple bubbles.
“Do you think I’m filthy?” Momma said, startling me some, standing in the bathroom doorway.
“No, but I want to take my momma to dinner. I’m hungry so we should both get pretty. Come in, I’ll help you. I can wash your hair, too. I’m good at doing hair these days,” I told her softly.
“I got my wig, it’s in your bag,” she said.
“I know, undress, get in. I’ll give you the beauty treatment.” I was speaking so softly not to agitate her. I wanted her to relax, trust me, and confide in me. I looked away so she could undress and step in the tub. She did.
I began cleaning Momma with the squishy sponge I had just purchased, cleaning her shoulders, raising up her arms, cleaning her armpits, tickling her on purpose.
“Don’t it feel good, Momma?”
“It’s alright,” she said. As I cleaned each of her fingers, I overlooked the dark patches on her skin. I cleaned her neck and her back, her stomach with soapy water. I cleaned her thighs, legs, calves, and toes.
“What color would you like me to paint your fingernails?” I asked her. She drew her hands back and hid them underwater.
“I aint got none,” she said.
“Yes, you do, I brought you some press-ons and some eyelashes.” I smiled. She was sweating. Racing through her beads of sweat were her tears.
“Do you want your toes and fingers to match colors?” I asked her.
“I don’t want no press-ons on my toes,” Momma said. We both broke into our first laughter.
“I know, Momma,” I said. “I just asked about the colors.” I began clipping her toenails carefully.
I wrapped Momma in a towel and walked her to the sink. I washed her hair with Herbal Essence. It was short, about five inches long, but I was happy that she was not bald.
“All done,” I said after a warm rinse.
“But we only got one towel,” I said.
Momma removed her body towel to dry her hair.
Sitting naked in the uncomfortable chair, momma put her feet up as I first weaved tissue in and out of each toe space to separate her toes. I began to paint them a pale pink color. I blew on all ten toes until they were dry enough.
After I completed her fingernails, I removed the tissue between each of her toes. I washed, then dried, my hands in the air. Next, I told her to tilt her head back so I could do each lash. I concentrated really hard to line them up just right. As Momma’s eyes were closed, and I could no longer see that vulnerable, insecure look in her, I asked, “Momma, where is Winter? Why isn’t she taking better care of you?”
Momma’s tears squeezed out of her shut eyes. I paused, then dabbed them away with toilet tissue. My own heart dropped. Was my big sister dead? She had to be dead. No other way all this could’ve taken place with Momma, unless her first daughter and closest friend was dead.
“She’s locked up, doing fifteen years . . .,” Momma said. My fingers shook. I dropped a lash or two on Momma’s skin. I tried to pick it up with my fingertips without pinching or scraping Momma.
“For what?” I finally asked, but it was hardly possible for anyone to hear, not even Momma, whose face was only inches away from mine. Maybe I only asked it in my mind.
After a long pause, Momma said, “Conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine.” She sounded like a courtroom lawyer. “And some other shit, too . . .,” Momma said bitterly.
“When did this happen?” I asked my most important question. Used to keeping count, I wanted to know how many days my big sister was walking around free, without coming to check on me. Or had she been arrested immediately after the last time I saw her and that’s why she never came to see me or better yet to get me?
“About a year and a half after you got tooken, your sister was arrested right there in Bed-Stuy on our Brooklyn block. She was sitting in a car dressed up real rich, and balling real hard. She almost could’ve gotten away, but she was chasing after your father’s letters. I had ’em. Winter wanted ’em, and then the police came. It was a mess,” Momma explained.
“Poppa’s letters? Letters he wrote to you, Momma?”
“Nope, letters he wrote to her, bout ten of ’em,” Momma said.
Tears were streaming down my face. I was happy Momma couldn’t see them.
Ten letters kept repeating in my mind. Ten letters to Winter. I didn’t get one bloody fucking word or even a sentence on a postcard.
“So where are the letters?” I asked her.
“I told you, I gotta little living space. They in there, inside of my bags,” she said.
“Is that where the twins are, too? Are they living there with you in your living space? Do they have a good babysitter who won’t let anybody steal them away? Can I go see them in the morning? Would that be okay?” I asked.
Momma’s eyes popped open, half short lashes, half long. She gave me a strong stare. She never answered my questions. Silently I cried, still trying to get her lashes on straight. After some silence between us, Momma said, “I used to be just like you, Porsche. I used to walk around thinking everything was so special, me, Winter, the twins, and of course your poppa. But I found out that in this life, ain’t nobody shit, even me. I ain’t shit and things come and go. Don’t try and hold onto shit, and you can be happy. Try and hold on to it and you’ll end up with nothing but a gigantic hole in your heart.”
Numbers paraded through my mind. Winter was free for 545 days walking and riding round Bed-Stuy without checking on me. Poppa wrote ten letters, without writing to me. No one knew where the twins were: if they did, it was a place too terrible to mention.
We were silent until Momma’s lashes were completed.
Momma pulled on her yellow wig. Naked, she spun left and then right, shaking her hair, checking herself in the mirror. She extended her arms and wiggled her fingers, admiring the press-ons. She checked her toes, and then pressed her face up close to the smoky mirror, batting her eyes, flaunting her new lashes.
“I wanna wear that dress,” Momma said, pointing.
“The one I’m wearing?” I asked, as I pulled it off and gave it to her. Her body was so slight; she fitted her eleven-year-old daughter’s dress with room to move around.
“I should give it back to you, right?” she asked, but I could tell she didn’t want to.
“Momma, whatever I have, you can have it,” I told her. “It’s yours.” I slipped into Riot’s old outfit; the one Momma had taken off before bathing.
• • •
Dawn was coming, a different dawn under a different sky in a cheap rooming house with one permanently locked window, no breeze, and no view.
Momma was asleep. She went to bed after she knocked back four glasses of “Moet Peach Nectar Imperial Baby!” at twenty dollars each at our late night mother-daughter reunion dinner. She ordered filet mignon. My heart swelled with each forkful she ate, even though she didn’t eat much. It was my first time buying a meal for her with money I had earned on my own.
I didn’t say much. Momma did the talking. She’d go from depression to comedy in less than seconds. Then she switch to cursing about beefs with people I didn’t know and never heard of. Then she’d cursed out family members who I did know all my life who she used to be close with. Next she’d be yelling too loud to be sitting in a restaurant.
She didn’t know Riot’s name even if she had overheard me saying it. She didn’t remember. She’d just throw back a drink and say, “That little white girl is a liar.” The sh
e’d switch, laugh, and say, “But she ain’t the only one!”
I sat, not eating the food I ordered. I was waiting on Momma to really see me. It never happened. I had confirmed at that late night–early morning dinner on the infamous Forty-second Street, that I am Porsche L. Santiaga, the invisible middle daughter. No one came for me. I lived my young life fighting to get back to Momma and my family. I crawled on my hands and knees, barked like a dog. I worked my young ass off. I cried, cramped, spit, cursed, vomited, and even laid down in fucking doo-doo. I fought, fainted, starved, wrote letters of protest, letters of love, even wrote a book. I made money, saved money, beat shame, blame, guilt, and humiliation.
For Momma, who I love so much it burns, it seemed like one ordinary night. She didn’t say I did well, am good, look good and dressed up for her real pretty. She didn’t recognize my fight or my effort. She didn’t even ask me about it. Momma didn’t recognize my dancer’s legs, little lady hips, or my new pretty titties. She didn’t say my hair was long and lying on my back like a bad bitch would rock it. More than that, she didn’t recognize my pain or my love. Momma didn’t explain herself, turning heavy topics into light jokes. She didn’t apologize for even one thing. She never said sorry, didn’t seem sorry for abandoning me. Momma was too hurt for her to care about me.
Chapter 27
Riot walked in with the sun, her hands filled with clothes and shoes. She dumped them on the desk before I could even help out. Honey walked in behind her, with another black eye.
“Santiaga!” Riot said to me with whispered excitement. “Get up! And let’s roll.” I pulled myself up. I had not slept for even one second all night and early morning long.
Honey collapsed on the bed next to Momma, in the space I opened up soon as I stood.
“I paid the old guy downstairs for one more day. Let’s let them sleep it off.” As I walked to the door, wearing the same clothes Riot wore yesterday, including her old skips, I looked back at sleeping Momma. Would she be here when we got back from wherever we were going? Maybe I should stay on guard right at her side?
“They’re not going anywhere. I promise,” Riot said.
I opened the door and walked out into the hallway. Right now Riot was the only reliable person in my little fucked-up world. She came out the room smiling.
“Wake up. We gotta get that money tree!” Riot said, cheering. “And why did you switch back into my old clothes?” Riot asked me. We were walking. I didn’t turn to look at her. Instead I kept my eyes in the straight ahead direction. It was a cloudy morning.
“I wanted Momma to have my new dress. It was a gift from me to her.”
“You didn’t have to. I was bringing clean clothes for your mom and for Honey, too. New York City is an incredible place. Business never stops. It’s convenient,” she said.
“So you want to chill here?” I asked.
“No, I didn’t say that. I’m just saying whatever you need to get done out here, gets done triple time. You don’t have to wait for stores to open. They never close! The lights are always on.” Riot sounded excited.
“That’s cause we’re in the Forty-second Street area,” I told her, remembering the bright lights and packed crowds when my whole family went to dinner and a late-night film together. Momma, Poppa, aunts, uncles, cousins, and all to see The Lion King, Poppa’s treat.
“It’s gonna rain,” I said, looking up.
“It’s perfect,” Riot said. She opened the car door. It was out of the expensive lot and parked in a regular money-meter curbside space.
“Not really. Today is Labor Day. The rain gonna mess up the parade,” I said in a sleepy mumble, as I settled into the backseat.
“It’s going to fuck up the parade, but heavy rain is gonna help us out.” Riot started up the car and pulled off. “Porsche, you know exactly where this money tree is located in the backyard? Right?” She was watching me through the rearview mirror.
“Exactly,” I assured her and collapsed into sleep across the backseat.
• • •
I thought it was a nightmare when I woke up hours later facing the Porta-Potty. Was I just gonna keep reliving the same shitty scenes? When I looked down, I had on Riot’s clothes. So I was sure I was awake instead of dreaming. But why was I alone in a parked car in a rainstorm, the windows so soaked all I could see was the portable toilet, a memory that I’d like to forget.
My back car door opened. “The dogs are inside!” Riot said in an excited voice. “We gotta move now!”
The cold water shocked me into a clear reality.
“Put this on.” Riot slid a rain poncho over my head. When the poncho was covering my whole body, she shoved an object underneath and said, “Keep it hidden.”
I held the handle, slid my fingers down and felt the shape of a small shovel.
“We’ll walk fast. No one will think twice about two girls trying to hurry out of the rain.”
No one would even know we’re girls, I thought to myself. We both now had our black rain hoods up and our bodies covered in black plastic.
When we reached my Long Island house, Riot said, “Stand over there in the driveway. I’m gonna open the gate. Then, run in and get the money. If I’m not here when you get back, walk, but don’t run, to the car and lay down in the backseat. Got it?”
“Got it,” was all I said. I saw Riot reach in between the bars of the front walkway entrance. She didn’t enter. I couldn’t see what she was doing with her hands. The gate opened. I ran in.
My tree had multiplied. It was more wide than tall. The branches that used to have money dangling from them were now filled in with dark green leaves and yellow blossoms. I looked up, rainwater beating down onto my face. My bedroom window was there, in Poppa’s house, where Momma, Winter, Lexus, Mercedes, and me lived. Who the fuck told these people they could live in the house my poppa bought for his family? I felt cold water on my neck sliding down beneath the plastic poncho and over my breast. When I looked straight, there was Siri. She was also standing in the pouring-down rain facing me.
“Siri,” I said. “Where have you been?”
“Porsche, your feet are sinking in the mud. Hurry up and dig. We gotta get out of here,” she said.
I looked down at my feet. They really were sinking. I ran to the tree, turned around and walked out the combination that I would never forget. I started digging at the right spot.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Siri sang to me over and over again, but I was worried about her. She didn’t have on a rain hoodie.
When my shovel hit the metal I knew it was my moneybox. I used my fingers to push away the rest of the mud. Siri and I pulled the thin handle of the box together, until it moved some. Then we wiggled it and pulled it out.
“You got it!” Siri said, clapping with soft excitement. I started to run.
“Walk, don’t run,” Siri reminded me. “Even though we’re soaked we have to walk,” Siri said calmly. Even though her hair was soaked and her clothes were drenched and clinging to her pretty skin, she walked the same as if it were a sunny day. We both ignored our feet squishing in all of the dog poop piles, which had become a part of the soil. We left out the backyard and through the gate, which was left opened. The metal box was concealed beneath my poncho.
The car door was unlocked. We crawled into the backseat from squatting down and laid on the backseat both shivering. The car started, although I didn’t see Riot. I lifted my head to peek over the seat. Riot was sliding up from the floor.
“You got it?”
“We got it. Siri helped!” I said.
“Where’s the shovel?” Riot asked. She was looking back at us, as she drove the car in reverse out of the driveway.
“We left the shovel?” Siri said.
“Did you forget the shovel?” Riot asked.
“Yes,” I told her, sitting up.
“We gotta get it,” she said. Because of the way Riot spoke those words, I knew we had to get the shovel. As she rounded the corner to my
house, driving at a low speed through the downpour, two police cars were coming from the opposite direction. Me and Siri ducked down. Our hearts were beating so fast it felt like an attack. It was as though someone was throwing rocks at my chest. No, like someone was burying me and Siri. Smothering us with pounds of rock and gravel. Siri began stroking my hair like Momma would when I was little. Riot wasn’t saying nothing. She wasn’t stopping or slowing down the Volvo. She didn’t slam on the brakes.
In the back, in the uncomfortable small space on the floor, we were shocked into silence. The cold plastic poncho was pressed against my already wet clothes. My lips were shivering. My head was pounding. I smelled shit. I knew I hadn’t shitted. I peed on myself all the time, but never shitted. My sneakers were covered in dirt. “It’s dog shit,” Siri whispered. Her lips were pressed against my ear. We held hands. All of our fingers were dirty. Mud was caked beneath our nails. Momma must be right, I thought to myself. I ain’t shit either.
• • •
Storm turned to drizzle. The gray-black clouds still churned. We were parked. “We’re here,” Riot said. I unfolded my legs from the locked position I had held them in for the more than an hour drive. I peeled off the poncho and still shivered in my damp clothes.
“It’s a holiday. We can leave the car here as long as we move it before 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning,” Riot said. “Are you okay? You look like you caught a cold.” She placed her palm on my forehead.
“You got a fever,” she said calmly, like a mother in thought. “Go ahead up. I’ll get you some medicine and be right there.” I couldn’t argue or even tell her I didn’t want no medicine. I felt drained of all of my power, even the energy to talk. I used whatever strength remained to hold the handle of my metal money-box. As I walked down the street to our motel room, I thought about how people would mug me if they knew I had five thousand dollars cash. But they didn’t know. This is New York. I’m a shitty little girl wearing skips soaked in watery dog poo and someone else’s cheap ugly clothes.