Five Things That Never Happened To Tricia Cameron
i. she is always sad like a house on fire always something wrong
Her older sisters had left for school already and now it was just her and mom in the big house until 3:15 when everyone came home again in a whirlwind. She wanders in and out of her sister's rooms, gazing at the jewelry box on Tammy's desk full of bright pink plastic jewelry and big scrunchies for her blah-brown hair that went all the way down her back. She played with the abandoned Barbies in the plastic tub under the bed. Tammy didn't play Barbies anymore because they were for babies and she was, after all, in the sixth grade now. Regardless, she still didn't allow her littlest sister to play with them but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.
In Teri's room, there were clothes and pictures on the floor. She had gotten a red plastic easel for Christmas and a set of watercolors. There was a rainbow still drying right by the window on the floor and there were stains on the beige carpets all around the once pristine piece of white paper. Mom, she knew, would be angry when she saw this but Teri's room was always such a mess that mom hardly bothered to go in there anymore. She just averted her eyes and closed the door when she walked by. Teri was in the third grade now and her name was written in shaky cursive at the bottom of every painting. Teri Cameron, it said in big loops with long black drips going down and off the page.
She made a stop in the bathroom before she headed downstairs. She wiped but didn't flush. She looked at all the toothbrushes and empty tubes of lip gloss carefully. She inventoried all her bath toys and saw all the bathing suits still hung over the shower curtain from the beach trip last weekend. Hers was navy blue and looked like a little sailor suit and she hated it because it always went up her butt but if she tried to pull it out, mom pinched her arm, hard. She left the bathroom, not bothering to wash her hands.
Downstairs, her mother was nursing a cup of tepid coffee and reading the paper. She slid into the wooden chair across the table and was quiet until her mom moved to turn the page and jumped at the sight of her.
"Jesus, Patricia. Don't scare me like that." she said, putting the paper down and tightening her robe.
"Sorry." she said, but she wasn't. Not really.
"Why aren't you dressed? Go get the spray bottle and the brush and I'll do your hair." she said.
"Okay." No one quite knew where her curly hair came from but her mother couldn't get the brush through without drenching it first and she always had headaches from it being pulled back so tightly. Right now, it gave her an angelic look, all blonde and flyaway with the sun coming in from the window behind her. It made her mother smile to look at and as her littlest girl was walking by, she grabbed her arm and pulled her up into her lap.
"You're my baby, you know that? I'm never going to let you go to school like your sisters. You're going to stay here with me forever while everyone else goes away, always leaving, we'll stay here and read books and watch cartoons and eat candy, how does that sound, baby?" Her mother did this when she'd been crying and Tricia gave her a smile that would have looked like pity on a face that was older.
"It sounds good, momma." she said and squirmed off to get the brush and pull off her pink jammies for some real clothes. When she was dressed with her little black Mary Jane's and tight ponytail, her mother was still sitting the kitchen, drinking cold coffee in her ratty yellow robe. "I'm ready." she said.
"Oh, go watch TV and stop bugging me." her mother snapped. Tricia left the kitchen and watched cartoons and talk shows until her sisters came home her feet in black pleather, swing far above the ground.
ii. coming of age during the plague of regan and bush.
"Shit, shit, shit." she wanted to scream it and kick out the door of the bathroom stall, but she said it in a whisper under her breath and swallowed again and again to avoid tears. She sat down on the toilet with a thud, not caring if the hem of her skirt came in contact with the nasty seat that she ordinarily wouldn't touch with a fifty foot pole. Her knees were knocking together and she wanted to vomit at the thought of how very predictable she was.
Catholic school girl in a little blue and green plaid skirt crying in the stall of the girls room, trembling and scared. She wanted to be smarter then this but Charlie had blue eyes and had picked her out of all the girls with long, straight hair and perfect teeth. He had promised in the back of his brother's car that he would never, ever leave her.
He would now. She pulled all the toilet paper left off the roll and wrapped up the little white stick with its little pink line so that when she dropped it in the trash no one would know what it was. Later, in detention, she daydreamed of how she would tell her parents. How she would tell Charlie, if she even would.
"Sister, may I use the restroom pass?" she asked, raising her hand. The room felt stifling and she needed some air.
"Isn't that why you're in here, Patricia? Sister Margaret says you had the pass for over forty five minutes. I think you can hold it." she said. She scowled, even though it was a fair point. She stared down at the flatness under her white blouse, poking at where a baby would grow. She was going to be sixteen next month and for as smart as everyone said she was, she felt kind of stupid.
She knew there were ways to get rid of it though. She'd read about them in her mother's magazines, heard about them from some of the older girls. She knew it was murder and that she would go to hell. She chewed on the end of her hair. But, having sex with Charlie before she was married, well, that was a sin, too. If she was already going to hell, she might as well go all out.
She called her sister's dorm room, dragging the phone with the long cord into the bathroom and locking the door.
"Hello?"
"Tammy?" she said, her voice sounding smaller than she realized it would.
"Trish? Is that you?"
"I'm in really big trouble." and here she was crying when she'd been practicing this all day.
"Is it mom? You just have to ignore her when she yells, she doesn't mean it." her sister now sounded bored and she could hear laughter in the background.
"No, it's worse. I-" and then something huge and round got stuck in her throat.
"What? Spill it, twerp."
"I haven't got my monthly in like, two months." she whispered.
"What? Oh my god. SHUT UP." her sister yelled to the party in her room. "Boy, are you fucked."
"Tammy, what do I do?"
"Did you go to a doctor?"
"I peed on a stick."
"Did you tell mom or dad?"
"No! I'm not stupid." Tammy didn't say anything and she knew that she was, in fact, stupid. She was intelligent but she was stupid. Those things went in hand more often then not, especially in her case she found. "I mean, I can't... you know? I've read about ways to not..."
"An abortion? Are you out of your catholic mind? You aren't Gloria Steinem, you're a fifteen year old school girl." her sister had adopted her holier than thou tone and she stared at the phone, her hope fading.
"And fifteen year olds shouldn't have babies." she said.
"Fifteen year olds shouldn't have sex!" It was true. She knew it was true now and after this problem was solved, she would go talk to the head sister and find out about becoming a nun. She was crying and sniffling and shaking again. "Okay, look. Let me see what I can find out and I'll take you to a doctor okay?" her sister promised, her voice softening.
"I have to pee, you brat, get out of there." this was Teri, pounding on the door. Teri who had just dyed her to look like Debbie Gibson and wore pink and blue eye shadow.
"Okay, thanks." she hung up and when Teri saw her younger sister's face, she decided not to say anything and just let the girl walk by.
Tammy refused to go into the clinic with her and promised to wait in the car.
"I still think this is wrong. You could put it up for adoption." Tricia got out of the car without saying anything.
iii. one's suffering disappears when one lets one self go, when one yields even to sadness.
After five years, there were still no babies. She and Eric had both gone to the doctor for fertility tests and things seemed to be okay with him.
"You have some scarring, though." the doctor said, giving her a piece of paper with numbers and abbreviations that she didn't understand. "I don't think it should affect your ability to conceive, but that is always a possibility." the doctor told her. Eric was at work, he didn't want to go with her, and she was on the lunch break but the bell would be ringing in fourteen minutes and if her kids were lined up outside her room while she wasn't there one more time, her job would be at stake. She really had to stop being late to everything. "Why don't we set up a consultation appointment and we'll talk about some options, okay?" The doctor was still talking and she nodded numbly as he thrust at her a slip to give to the receptionist and was out of the exam room in a blur.
She knew why she couldn't have a baby. She'd had her chance and now God was pissed. She'd never told Eric (or Charlie, for that matter. Or her mother, or Teri, or anyone else, ever). She sped through yellow lights and there was Eric's truck in her parking space because he was new to the faculty having just come from the high school out in the boonies this year and didn't have a spot in the unrealistically sized parking lot. She didn't know how that made it okay to park in hers.
"Fuck it." she said, taking down her permit and parking in the visitor space. The tardy bell rang as her heels clicked on the cement hallway and her kids glared.
"You're late again." one of the snottier ones snapped.
"No, I'm not." she said loudly over the complaints of the rain and cold. "Just get in and sit down." She was pissed off, now, at how this day had turned so very sour and so she made the kids copy over head notes and no one got to take the bathroom pass. "You just had lunch, you can hold it." she found herself saying even though she swore up and down she wouldn't be one of those pious bitches in a penguin suit that she was forced to grow up with.
Out her window and into his across the way, she could see Eric pacing the front of his room and writing in his chicken scratch on the white board. Watching him teach used to soften her heart but now she whipped off the overhead and put up the next, knowing not even the fastest writer could have gotten it all down in that short amount of time. Her kids knew this far into the period complaining would only hurt them so they just bit at their lips and kept furiously scribbling. She could see some kids giving up, tossing their pens down and leaning back on two legs of their chairs.
Sadly, this was one of the groups of kids she actually liked. Finally, the bell rang and she told them to read the chapter and they bolted. In the passing period, she could see him coming across the hall to stick his head in. She felt like crawling under her desk to avoid it but kids were already starting to flood in and it was ridiculous behavior -- he was her husband and he loved her.
"How'd it go?" he asked, standing close to her like he always did -- his voice so low. His wool sweater smelled like wet dog because of the rain.
"Fine. I have another appointment in a few weeks." she said vaguely. He reached out to touch her arm and she tried not to but she flinched. If it had been a rape, she would have told him on the third date but it was her mistake and it belonged to no one but her. "We'll talk about it later." she prompted and he nodded and left her classroom for his. They were one of three teaching couples on campus. Two and a half with the trial separation in the math department and she didn't want to think about what would happen if they just couldn't conceive. He'd been talking about kids since day one.
She tried not to picture little boys with curly blonde hair and white bassinets. Sippy cups and t-ball games and little white Keds to match her own. She tried not to think about his blue eyes with her chin late at night when they slept.
iv. to cross this sea of loneliness, to part this red river of pain
She found the lump in the shower, after watching one of those mammogram commercials on TV, warning women everywhere that breast cancer could happen to them! She thought she was imagining it; she was always kind of a hypochondriac. She slept on it and checked in the morning, and did this for a week before she made a doctors appointment. It was August; school started in three weeks and on the first day she had a tiny band-aid under her bra, under her dress from when they did the biopsy.
No one was there with her when they said it was malignant or when they planned the surgery or the chemotherapy; hopeful they wouldn't need radiation. She'd always been private and personal and maybe that was why she didn't call her parents or her sisters right away. She didn't mention it to her co-workers or her students. She whispered to herself, late at night, under heavy bedcovers. "Cancer," she breathed, making no sound. "Cancer," she mouthed. To her puppy, she said, "Cancer," into her soft, black ears while they sat on the sofa, or rode in the car.
Throwing up into a small blue plastic tray, the nurse was appalled when she said she had no one to drive her home.
"I'll be fine." she insisted, between retches, her face pale and gleaming.
"No, you won't. You couldn't find your car by yourself right now. Tell me who to call, and I will call them." the nurse was a stout, black woman who Tricia imagined went to some Baptist church and interrupted the minister with 'Praise the lord!' and 'Amen!' every few words. She had long red nails and chunky gold jewelry and cats on her scrubs. Her name was Nordine.
Actually, Tricia was a little frightened of Nordine. She gave a phone number. Her choice was an interesting one. When the girl arrived in her brother's truck (her old Volvo was in the shop indefinitely) she didn't say anything, just pushed the wheelchair out to the car, helped her English teacher into the seat, and thanked the male nurse who escorted them to the parking lot and took the wheelchair with him when he left.
"They say the first treatment is always the worst." Tricia said by way of explanation. She was handed a pink plastic pail with a yellow handle, something you would take to the beach. The nurse must have said something over the phone.
"To your house?" she asked, starting the Toyota pick-up with a bang. She didn't seem angry, or uncaring, or surprised or worried or hurt. Just... efficient maybe. Like this was something she had to do all the time and she didn't mind.
"Please." She didn't speak as she navigated the parking lot and then took side streets across town to avoid the commute traffic.
"Am I the first person you told?" she asked, finally.
"Does that surprise you?" The girl didn't answer, just drove as Tricia threw up and sweated and moaned and felt like death would be welcome. She couldn't imagine doing this again, willingly.
"The doctor said to take tomorrow off." she said, shutting off the engine in front of the modest home. Two bedrooms, one bath, the kitchen was too small but there was a garage and some grass for the dog and she bought it, really, so she could sell it for more later.
"I can't." she said. "I have to save my sick days. I always use them all before spring break."
"Yeah, because you don't do your grading. You have cancer, Cameron. You need to rest." she said. Usually, Tricia would have snapped at a comment like that but from the girl, it came out soft. "Let's get you in the house, okay?" Tricia clung to her arm, the world more tilted then usual, and went to bed. When she awoke, she wasn't alone. It was dark out, and her alarm clock said 11:00.
"Hey."
"Hey." she croaked. Her throat hurt from throwing up.
"There's food in the kitchen, all stuff the nurse said you'd be able to keep down. I gotta get home, but I wanted to make sure you were okay. They said to stay until the fever broke, and you don't feel as warm anymore." she said. "I'll come by tomorrow to make sure all is good. Your pills are in the bathroom, and if I see you at school tomorrow, there will be ass kicking. Got it?"
"Got it." she said.
"Bye." the girl turned and was half way down the hall.
"Kate?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
"No problem. You can call whenever you need me, okay? Any time."
"Okay."
"Bye, Ms. Cameron."
"Bye."
v. what a lark! what a plunge!
She wanted silver or blue, perhaps, but the red one was on the lot no waiting and she wasn't about to be picky after all this time. She was small and looked good with her hair blowing back as she sped towards campus to pull into her parking spot and put the top up. Really, she was lucky to get a color choice at since in was used and her other options would have to be picked up or shipped or something. Who could afford a BMW new, let a alone the roadster convertible, anyway? It was only four years old and 50,000 miles and it glistened in the way that expensive toys do.
It made her speed. She could just go so fast without even realizing it. 80 felt just like 30 miles per hour, especially if the top was up. She was on 101 on a Sunday, speeding towards her parents (and sisters to gloat) with her dog curled on a towel on the floor of the passenger seat when she saw the lights in her rearview and heard the sirens through the wind. How long had he been following her? She pulled over, wondering how fast she had been going with so little traffic.
At one point, she would have been confident that she'd be able to flirt her way out of the ticket; she did it all through college but that was 25 years ago and there was definite gray in her hair these days. She got the registration out of the tiny glove compartment (everything was tiny in this car) and waited for the officer to approach her while the dog popped her tired head up to see what was happening. Parker getting old was far more depressing than her own inevitable decline and she tried not to think of it but the dog was 11 now and her black hair had a few strands of white in it as well.
"License and registration, please." she handed it over. "Do you know how fast you were going?"
"80?" she guessed though she knew it was wrong; it was way too optimistic for her kind of luck.
"95, ma'am." she winced. That was too fast for three lanes on a Sunday morning in Sonoma County when all the good people in the world were devoting themselves to some organized religion.
"I'm so sorry. It's a new car and I'm just getting the feel of it, I guess."
"It's a beautiful car." the cop confessed and Tricia smiled. "Regardless, I still have to issue the ticket. 20 miles over the limit is too much to ignore." he said and handed her the ticket. She didn't look at how much it was for as he walked back to his car and pulled back into the traffic.
Parker put her head back down now that the excitement was over. Tricia decided to tempt fate and sped the rest of the way to her parent's house listening to BBC news on the radio and appreciating the way the leaves on the grape vines turned gold and put color into her drive almost time for harvest now.