Cashmere Lessons in Minor Key

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Cashmere Lessons In Minor Key

Part One

Let me tell you how it happened that Lori Sherman ruined my life by getting me mixed up with three sorry kids and their even sorrier mother. All this came about because Lori Sherman wore a cashmere sweater to school on the particular day I had decided to revenge myself for her multitude of misdeeds toward me. I had plenty of reasons for hating her and if I ever got close to running light of them, she made sure to give me more. It wasn’t that she was rich. Lots of people are rich. It wasn’t that she was prettier than me. Most girls are. It wasn’t even that she was smarter than me. I am smart enough to please myself. I hated her because she laughed at every stupid thing I said. Since I was talking all the time, she laughed a lot. And it made me mad. If I gave a wrong answer on my math paper, Lori laughed. If I fell on myself in PE class, Lori laughed. If my hair was standing up on the top like a stubby brown feather because I got gum in it and my brother had to cut it out with a pair of scissors, Lori laughed. Enough is enough and I decided it was my turn to laugh. This is where the cashmere sweater comes in.

Lori was sitting in the cafeteria eating her warm lunch because she was a "buyer." I was a "bringer," and ate peanut butter sandwiches every day. Not that I minded. Peanut butter is good for you and keeps all your organs stuck together so they won’t fall out. Many’s the night I lie in bed, dreaming about Lori Sherman’s parched, brittle organs cracking like old plaster.

On the day of the Sweater Incident, she was sitting all fancy with four other girls, twirling her hair with one hand and forking her Salisbury steak in gravy with the other. I walked up behind her, as calm as you please, and shoved the back of her head hard enough to bury the whole front of her in the Salisbury steak with gravy. When she jerked her head back up, it was the mashed potatoes rammed up her nose that set me laughing until I thought I would die, and be happy to do it.

There was a lot of racket, of course. Kids laughing, teachers shouting, that sort of thing. But the one sound I recall above all others was Lori, standing up and screeching hard enough to make my ears bleed, "My cashmere sweater!"

I laughed and shouted back, "Your cashmere sweater? Shoot, girl! You ought to blow them damned potatoes outta yer nose before you suffocate!"

Okay. I’d had detention before and knew it was a short haul. You sit in the office all day and read. Like that was some sort of deadly punishment. I could read for centuries and not care. With stupid punishments like that, I figured they should all thank Jesus that I hadn’t broken every window in the school yet. This time was different, though. This time they called my mama and I would sooner face the Devil on a hot July than face my mama when her jaw got stiff. I started thanking Jesus myself for all the blessings He had wrought me, and for His power and mercy. Amen.

Not that it did me any good. Mama took me home and whipped me half to death. At least it felt that way. Then she told me to sit right there in my room until she called for me. Under regular circumstances, that wouldn’t have bothered me. I would have read a book or written some stories in the storybook I’d put together. But I’d learned a thing or two in twelve Aprils. I’d learned that it takes more than blood to make people want you and I’d learned that boys are like kittens. When they are small, you can play with them but when they get big, they don’t give a shit about anybody. I’d learned that the only person in the world you can trust is your mama and when her jaw gets stiff, even Jesus can’t help you. And one more thing. When your mama whips you half to death and tells you to sit right there and wait until she calls for you, she doesn’t mean for you to go having a good time about it, reading and writing. She means for you to sit there with your throbbing backside and think about how bad you are. So, that’s exactly what I did.

I guess I fell asleep, because the next thing I remembered, Mama was sitting beside me on the bed. She was quiet and when I sat up, she said, "Camille, raising you is like trying to drive a team of wild horses. This is no Sunday ride, honey. You make a person have to stand and pull back as hard as they can."

I stayed still because I’d heard the "team of wild horses" story before. Best not to comment on some things. But her jaw was not stiff anymore and this was good news.

She said, "I spoke with Mrs. Sherman. That was an expensive sweater and you will have to pay for it."

Thoughts about the legal working age in Virginia pressed themselves hard against my tongue, wanting to come out. I might be stupid, but I’m no fool. I made those thoughts stay in.

Mama continued, "There is a woman who rides the same bus I do into town every day. I heard her telling someone she was looking for a baby-sitter for her children. A regular job, every Wednesday night. I’ll get her phone number tomorrow morning."

If I’d had any luck, that woman and her kids would have lived far away and, since Mama worked until late, I wouldn’t have to do it. Luck isn’t something I ever had in plenty and, as it turned out, they lived only four blocks from us and I could walk there. The plan was that I would watch three kids, make them go to bed on time, and their mama would bring me home. When Wednesday evening rolled around, I started walking, and I was mad every step of the way.

All I had to do was stand in the driveway and stare at that house to know there would be no soda in the refrigerator and no cookies in the jar. From the looks of things, they were poorer than we were, which was saying a lot. The grass and weeds in the yard were as tall as my legs and the mailbox hung all sideways beside the front door. I was thinking maybe I should make her pay me in advance. When I knocked, a dirty-faced boy of eight or so opened the door. Behind him, two other faces--a girl and a smaller boy--pressed close and all three of them peered up at me. One of them smelled of stale pee.

I said, "Hey."

The girl said, "Hey." Then, "Are you the baby-sitter?"

I said, "I guess I am. Why? D’you think I’m hiding Avon in my hip pocket?"

She smiled and the three of them stood back so I could step in. When the door closed behind me, the first thing that went through my mind was that, if I held my breath much longer, I’d pass out. So I took little breaths and my nose stung, but I was careful not to let it show on my face.

They led me to the couch and when I sat down, we got to the introductions. The older boy handled his end, telling me his name was Sam, his sister was Tina and his little brother was Danny. I was right about Sam. Eight years old, exactly. Tina was seven and Danny was five.

I said, "I’m Camille."

Sam said, "That’s a stupid name."

I said, "Big talk from a kid who don’t look like Clorox could bleach him clean."

Tina sat beside me and asked, "Do you like kids?"

"No," I said. "I can’t stand them. Either kids or boys. What time do y’all go to bed, anyhow?"

Their mama came bustling down the hall, tugging at the hem of a short skirt--which didn’t make it any longer, that I noticed--and checking her reflection in the hall mirror. When she saw me in the glass, she looked startled and turned around. The last time I’d seen that much paint on one person’s face was the thirty-first of October, the year before. We’d been out trick-or-treating and I wondered what her excuse was. When she leaned over to shake my hand, her blouse jiggled around like she had a live fish in there. I didn’t peek on purpose, but when big-bosomed ladies go about without the proper underclothes on, you can’t hardly help peeking.

She said her name was Bonnie and that she was already late for bowling. With one quick wave of her hand, Miss Bonnie was out the door and down the porch steps, moving at an amazing speed, considering the high heels and all. I ran after her and shouted from the door, "Hey!"

She stopped and looked back. Even from that distance, I could see her face get kind of hard. She said, "Yes?"

"I ain’t got the number where you’ll be. How can I call you if the house burns down or something?"

She eyed me for a second, then said, "I’ll call you every now and again, just to check up." She opened her car door and I shouted again.

"Hey!"

She said, "What?"

I said, "My name is Camille."

She said, "Great!" and that was that.

I closed the front door, turned to the kids and asked, "Okay. Which one of you smells like week-old piss?"

When I looked Danny over, he started crying, which told me he was the customer with the stink problem.

I said, "We’ll just fix this right now," and I took his hand in mine. He didn’t tug or fight or anything when I asked Tina," Where’s the bathroom?"

I told him to strip and, when I started the water running in the tub, his eyes got all big but I set that straight right quick. "Danny," I told him. "We can make this easy or hard. I’ve washed a fractious beagle before and I know what I’m doing. Let’s just decide now that I win."

Behind me, Sam said, "‘Fractious?’ What kind of stupid word is that?"

Without bothering to look back at him, I muttered, "Read more, kid."

Danny got into the tub easy enough and I set Tina to soaping his back. I told her to make it a game; draw pictures with her fingers in the soap and make him try to guess what they were. That way, his back and neck would be shiny clean before he knew what was happening to him. Then, I told Sam to show me where Danny’s clean clothes were. When I saw the bedroom Sam and Danny shared, I knew there weren’t any clean clothes to be had. And when I saw Danny’s bed, I knew why he smelled the way he did.

The sheets were all twisted and clumped every which way and the stink coming off them was giving me a headache. I stepped back and turned my head. I didn’t mean to make Sam feel bad but I just couldn’t breathe in there.

I asked him, "Do y’all have a washing machine?"

He surprised me by answering, "And a dryer, too."

I said, "You haul those sheets off that bed and I’ll go with you to the washing machine."

It was in the basement and we had to climb over what seemed like a dozen reeking mounds of clothes to get to it. Sam asked did I know how to work a washing machine and I told him I reckoned I did. I turned the dials to "hot" and "high" and dumped in some soap powder. Sam stuffed in the sheets and I stood there, waiting for the water to fill.

Sam said, "Come on. What are we waiting for?"

I looked over at him and shook my head. "We’ll wait for the water to fill up and let it swish a bit. Then I’m going to open the lid so it won’t wash. That way, the sheets can soak a while. I don’t guess we’re going to find any pajamas or anything, are we?" He just stared at the wall and said nothing. I asked, "A big old tee-shirt, maybe? It doesn’t have to be nice. It just has to be clean."

Sam said, "I have a tee-shirt, but it’s special and I’m not sharing."

"Sam," I said, trying to keep my voice gentle, "you can have it back. It’s just that Danny needs something clean to wear. You can have your tee-shirt back tomorrow."

"What if he pisses in it?" Sam shouted and I could tell he was more scared than mad.

I said, "Sam, if he pisses in it, I’ll wash it for you next Wednesday. I promise. You can’t very well leave your little brother to run around naked, now can you?"

Sam looked like he was about to cry and whispered, "If you wash it, it won’t smell like my daddy anymore."

Well, this was the first I’d heard about any daddy and I asked him, "Where’s your daddy? No one said a word to me about you having a daddy."

Sam blinked and started grinding his teeth. Finally he said, "He’s at the war right now. I’m taking care of his tee-shirt until he gets back. If you wash it, then it won’t smell like him anymore."

I said, "What does your daddy smell like?"

Sam glared at me and snapped, "Like a daddy! That’s how!"

Upstairs, Tina yelled that Danny’s back was clean so I told Sam to come on and we returned to the bathroom. That girl had done a good job. I’d never seen such a slick, clean back. I told her to work on his legs and arms. Danny seemed happy enough to let her. I washed his feet and he kicked and laughed and got me sopping wet, but that was okay. I’d been wet before and I figured I’d dry out just like always. I washed his stomach and his neck and he laughed some more. When I cleaned his ears, he yelped and fought me, but that beagle had yelped and fought me, too. And the beagle had sharper teeth. I told Sam to wash his brother’s beeswax and Tina and I hid our eyes until he was done.

Danny only got scared once, and that was when I set to washing his hair. Things got dicey because there was no shampoo in that house so I made Tina bring me dishwashing liquid. Sam objected, saying his brother wasn’t no sink of dishes but I shut that down in a hurry, reminding Sam that, the way I figured it, almost a hundred percent of what was rotting in Danny’s hair was food anyhow.

As for making Danny be still so I could scrub his scalp, I told him to pretend he was a whale and breathe out his mouth like it was a blow-hole. He liked that and kept thrashing his legs around like they were big whale fins. Between you and me, the beagle was easier.

When I’d gotten Danny out and wrapped in a towel, I turned to Sam and asked, "What’s it going to be? He’s cold."

Sam spun around and ran from the bathroom. I heard his bedroom door slam and I wondered if I should go after him. Danny’s teeth were starting to chatter.

Tina asked, "Can I take a bath, too?" I nodded, watched the bedroom door, and waited.

Nothing happened. Sam did not come back out and Danny was starting to cry. Okay. I’d been in this situation before, too, so I tied one towel around Danny’s body and tucked it in. Then I tied the ends of another one around his neck and told him he looked like Superman. It was a good idea but he got all squirmy while I combed his hair. I finally got mad at him and told him to be still or he couldn’t be Superman because nobody ever saw him flying around town looking like a drowned rat. When I let him go, that boy took off like a shot, tearing down the hallway with his arms outstretched and making all kinds of racket. Well, at least he wasn’t crying and cold.

I walked around the house a bit, noticing everything. I have an eye for things, for studying how they look and remembering it. Tina stayed right with me, quiet and watching where I looked, like she was trying to guess what I was thinking. I was mighty glad she couldn’t.

There were dishes on the kitchen table, all crusted with food, and there were beans and pieces of hard black meat on the floor. I figured that meat might have been chicken in a former life. My sneakers stuck to the kitchen floor and made a nasty sticking sound with every step I took. The sink and every inch of counter space was stacked with dishes, glasses, forks, knives, and spoons. I sent Tina back to the bathroom for the dishwashing liquid. As she turned to leave, I glanced at the backs of her legs and wondered how long a person has to go without being washed before dirt starts making patterns on their skin.

I made Tina my Special Helper and, even though it took us better than an hour, we got that kitchen cleaned up and the dishes washed and put away. All the while, Danny was jumping off furniture and singing and racing up and down the hall with that towel stretched out behind him. Once, he climbed on top of the kitchen table and got all ready to jump. I just glared over at him and said, "Act like you’ve got some sense, okay?" He got down and pouted for a while before he went racing off again.

I sent Tina down to shut the lid of the washing machine so the sheets would wash and then we set to wiping off the kitchen table. It took us awhile, seeing as how we had to work at it here and there with spoons to scrape off some of the hard stuff. We’d just finished straightening the living room and stacking all the magazines and newspapers when I noticed Sam standing there, not saying a word and holding an old white tee-shirt in his hands. He was grinding his teeth again.

I sat on the couch and waited for him like you might wait for a squirrel to come eat a peanut out of your hand. If you move, it’ll run. But if you stay still, sooner or later, it’ll come to you. After a minute or two, Sam walked stiff-legged over to the couch and shoved that tee-shirt at me. I held it in my hands and thought about his mama off bowling and his daddy off to war and this tee-shirt. All of the sudden, I wanted to know what his daddy smelled like so I brought that tee-shirt to my nose and sniffed. You need to move slowly in life sometimes, or you miss things. Like, if you are hurrying, you miss how three robins can chase a blue jay right out of your yard or how, when the sun hits them just right, drops of rain dangling from the tips of leaves look like diamond fingernails on green, drooping hands. Or you miss a smell you really need to find. Popular people are usually in a hurry to get someplace, but when you are alone most of the time, you can go as slow as you want. I breathed that tee-shirt in and out, and I smiled.

I said, "Sam, I know this smell and, after Danny is finished with it, I’ll wash this shirt and make it smell like your daddy took it off just this morning."

Sam’s eyes got wide and he swallowed hard a couple of times. I could see he didn’t believe me. He whispered, "D’you promise?" I nodded.

"Sam," I said, "My daddy smells like that, too. It pours from a bottle and I know he’ll let me borrow some, seeing as I buy it for him for his birthday, Father’s Day and Christmas every year. He has about twelve bottles right now. He saves them in his dresser drawer, in case he runs out."

Sam didn’t smile or say thank you or anything. He did stop grinding his teeth, though. We dressed Danny in the tee-shirt and Sam and Tina helped me rub Danny’s mattress down with some warm water and dishwashing liquid. Then, we hauled it out the back door, down the steps and leaned it against the house.

When we came back in, I looked at the clock. Nine already. I’d been there three hours. Seemed like three days. Sam and Tina were bugging me to take a bath. Kids and ducks. You let one get into the water and all the rest of them got to do it, too. I sent Sam first and Tina after him. I did some wash, put the clean sheets aside for Danny and helped Tina wash her hair. By ten o’clock, I wondered if Miss Bonnie was ever coming home, and I wondered why she still hadn’t given us a "check up" call.

Tina and I folded laundry for a while and Danny fell asleep on the couch, all wrapped in his daddy’s tee-shirt. I knew I had to get those kids to bed so I had Sam help me bring in the mattress. It still wasn’t dry so we put it wet-side down on the bed and made it up with the clean sheets. Danny never even woke up when I carried him in and put him to bed.

Tina and I had managed to get enough laundry done so they had clean clothes for school and when I sent her off to bed, she hugged me and kissed me. I don’t usually tolerate such things, but I let her because she was little and didn’t know any better than to kiss strangers who don’t like kids anyhow.

Sam and I watched TV for awhile. When I sent him to bed, I gave him some advice.

"Sam? D’you get up in the night to pee?"

He nodded.

I said, "Okay, from now on, every time you get up, wake Danny and make him go, too. Right soon, he’ll get the hang of it, but you have to teach him first. Now, before you go to bed, haul him out, shake him a little so he wakes up, and make him go."

Sam took a deep breath, still no smile or talking or anything. He just walked down the hall toward his bedroom. A few seconds later, he came back out, dragging Danny with him toward the bathroom. Before Sam went to bed, he said exactly four words to me, "See ya next Wednesday."

Miss Bonnie came home well after two in the morning. She was falling-down drunk and hit the curb on every corner when she drove me home. I decided that I’d rather walk home next time than risk riding with her again.

I’m not sure whether or not to tell you this next part because I know what you’ll be thinking: "Doesn’t that girl know stealing is wrong?" Well, of course I knew. But I needed to buy some things and, since I had to give all my baby-sitting money over to Mama for Lori Sherman’s blasted cashmere sweater, what choice did I have?

I’d seen Mama’s open wallet on the coffee table, like it was just waiting for me. I could even see the corners of money poking out the side. But when I started to reach for it, my insides got so sick, I wanted to puke. I don’t think any sin could be worse than stealing from your own mama, because she is the only person in the world you can trust. I prayed for forgiveness right away, just for thinking such a wicked thing. Then I went rooting under all the cushions on the couch and chairs, seeing what change Daddy might have lost from his pockets.

Stealing from a daddy is different. Daddies are men and so they don’t ever really love anybody. Besides, I didn’t exactly steal it from him. I just cleaned up the mess he’d left under the cushions. Finders-keepers, you know. Like I said before, I’d never really had much luck. If I had, Mama would’ve married a rich man and I would have found more than two dollars and seventy-three cents in change.

With that pitiful fortune in my pocket, I started walking toward town. We called it a town but people from real towns would laugh if they heard that, I bet. Real towns have rivers. I know that because I read it in a book. Think about it. Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York, Savannah, Paris and London all have rivers. Not having a river is a shameful thing for a town. Take Russia, for example. Sure, they have rivers for their towns. But those rivers freeze up in the winter and then what good are they? This explains why Russians are forever trying to take over other towns that have rivers, in case you didn’t know. In Springfield, we had a creek back in the woods but, during dry spells, we barely even had that. It’s enough to make any decent citizen feel ashamed. Think ill of the Russians if you want, but it entered my mind a time or two that the true reason the people a few miles away in Alexandria were so stuck on themselves was because they could float their inner-tubes on the Potomac River any time they wanted. Anyhow, I walked to town.

Go to Part Two

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