Steps

“Did you see her birthmark?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

He reached over to the lap of his wife and grabbed the infant, clasping her tiny leg in his arm like a man does a turkey drumstick at the state fair. Nate, the man in question, pointed to a tiny tan dot on his three-hour-old daughter, Madeline’s, knee. “See it now?” he asked. “It’s the shape of Texas. Almost the size, too.” He laughed. A snort escaped. He reminded me of Babe the Gallant Pig yet not as gallant.

“No, not really. I had one when I was born, too,” I said. “But it went away when I got older. That will probably happen with Madeline, too.”

I looked to that poor baby as Nate began to spout about how she looked like Dan Aykroyd from The Coneheads. I wanted to say that that was a vast improvement from looking like her father, but I didn’t. Instead, I focused my energy on Lindsey, who had now taken Madeline back into her arms.

Lindsey was my manager at work (a local grocery), and over the years we had grown fairly close. I felt comfortable complaining to her about old people who paid in dirty and exact change, obnoxious soccer moms who let their snot-nosed children run around like banshees, and especially about George, the head manager, who went into conniption fits if there weren’t enough homemade crouton samples out for our largely dentured clientele. In exchange for these effusive emotional dumps, Lindsey would often inform me of her love life, or for a while, her lack thereof. I never really understood why she married Nate in the first place, let alone dated him. And unfortunately it seemed like she didn’t either. I asked her once why they even got married and after much thought, the best answer she could give was that she thought it was just “a natural step.” Yet after a myriad of affairs and shouting matches between them that preceded this natural “progression,” I wondered if she thought the next step would lead her here, swollen-footed and with a baby planted on her lap like an anvil on Wiley Coyote.

I remember one particular morning she came to me and asked if I could talk. Immediately I worried if my till was short or if the beak-nosed woman called and complained when I said I wouldn’t give her a discount on an apple with a non-existent bruise. “Uh, sure,” I said.

Her subsequent words rolled off her tongue as heavy and awkward as a fat child canon-balling off the diving board, and I was the oblivious sunbather about to get drenched. “I’m pregnant.”

As a sometimes-supporter of government enforced sterilization, it was hard for me to convey the properly elated response to the glowing mother-to-be, however I felt that had there actually been some semblance of happiness on her face as she uttered those few choice words, I may have been more receptive. Unsure of how to respond, I muttered a simple and ambiguous, “Wow, were you expecting this?”

She looked down to her hands and began picking at her cuticles.

“Lindsey?” I asked.

“…no.”

Another pause.

“It’s Nate’s.”

Even worse.

“I thought you were going to leave him?”

She continued to pick at her cuticles. Her mouth began to form a pale pink asterisk and as she squinted her eyes I could see small wrinkles forming at the sides. And then she winced and stuck her irritated finger in her mouth like a child. “Goddamn it.”

“So you’re staying with him?”

She took her finger out of her mouth and began shaking it like you would a dirty rug. “I have to, now.” She sucked her finger once more. “I’m having a baby. Oh god, I’m having a baby.”

I have never had a single good experience with a baby. When I was a child and there were babies around, I thought of them as nasty, attention seeking toys whose batteries never died. And when I was older, the first baby I held was my cousin, Hope. She was overdue and resembled an Inuit. I found her to be quite peculiar and loathsome, as it seemed that she was allergic to the sound of others breathing. Subsequently, she was almost always crying. I put Benadryl in her formula once when I was babysitting to quiet her. It worked, and her parents never found out. I got an extra tip, too, so maybe that counts as a good experience. Regardless, I still didn’t care for her much. Babies, either.

 “And you’re not going to…”

“No, I could never.”

“Right. Have you told him yet?”

“No, I’m afraid to.”

“Well, he is your husband.”

“I know. That’s why.”

Perhaps this is another dynamic of marriage that I will never understand, but it’s always seemed to me that lots of people get married so that when they do become pregnant, it’s not taboo. All of that juvenile grit is removed from the act, it’s all filed and polished and then voila, you’re no longer having unsafe sex but rather “family planning,” even though all of the sweat and grunts are the same. It’s one of those natural steps, as Lindsey put it.

When I was about four or five and my parents hadn’t split up yet, I remember spending a nonspecific Sunday afternoon in their bedroom. My mother lay on the bed and I was trying on her heels and pouting my lips in the full-length mirror, talking to her about what all Mobin, my imaginary friend, and I had done that day. “Honey,” I remember her saying, “what do you think about having a little brother or sister?”

I froze. Relaxed my lips. I didn’t want one. “I don’t want one at all, Mom.”

I looked back at the mirror as she slowly rolled to the other side. I could see the mattress move up and down erratically for a moment until she stood suddenly and left the room. There was a dark spot on the pillow the looked like a water lily. I heard the click of the bathroom door a few feet away and then the footsteps of my father toward it. A few months later they sat me down to tell me they were not having a baby but rather a divorce. Maybe that’s one of those natural steps, too. If, then.

Years later, I was looking for a few pieces of paper for my book report on Laura Ingalls Wilder and stumbled across what I thought was an empty notebook. It turned out to be an old diary of my mother’s. I’d always had a hard time reading her writing, but my eyes immediately honed in on the word ‘abortion.’ Quickly, I flung the notebook out of my hands and ran into the bathroom, scrubbing them until the skin was raw. I felt guilty, as if I had killed something. Not something that was, per se, but something that could have been. And that seemed even worse. To this day, I can recall the exact slant of the line she drew to cross her ‘t.’ I’ve never brought it up to her. She’s never told me, either.

“You should tell him as soon as possible, Lindsey. Tonight, even.”

She shook her head. “I know,” she said. “It’s just hard.”

“Well, it’s not going to get any easier.”

“Would it anyway?”

I blinked and saw the lined paper and black ink. The mirror and the pillow stain. The heavy pressure of the mattress on both sides as my parents put their hands on my shoulders and said that they Loved Each Other Very Much But Not The Same As They Used To. Would You Like To Spend Weekends With Mommy Or Daddy. Shivered.

“Maybe not.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw shades of orange and red. A woman with a chiseled chin was placing bell peppers and carrots onto the counter.

Lindsey cleared her throat and sighed. “You’ve got a customer.”

“Guess so.”

She wasn’t going to tell Nate that night.

That was the last time she mentioned the baby to me. Eight months later and still unhappy, Lindsey went into labor. Both sides of the family packed into the tiled room to witness the arrival of the fleshy union of two unique genetic codes. There were flowers and balloons and cameras and white smiles. And I wondered if the firmness of baby Madeline, despite her malleable skull, was any indication of the firmness of feelings between her parents. I hoped so, though I would never be able to tell. And maybe they wouldn’t either, even though a baby is a natural step.

Their family photos turned out nicely, although Nate paid extra to get Madeline’s birthmark removed from the prints he sent to his side of the family. He was looking at the camera; she was looking at the baby, grinning and in love. Maybe she could leave him after all. 

handicapped stalls, city malls

As per usual, my shifts begin with a trip to the bathroom. All I can hear while I close my door in the handicapped stall (though I think they should all be handicapped, really, for what normal individual would willingly enter a department store?) are the cries of saggy-diapered toddlers to their equally saggy mothers. "If you're good," they coo, "you can get two cookies for lunch." (I would never give my hypothetical child a cookie, not because I don't love them but because it means two hours of additional activity.) Meanwhile on my porcelain throne, I'm staring at the grout between the tiles and am wondering how, given how dark and permanent it appears, it is so easy to fall beneath it and into the throes of retail. Or just anything, really. And all I do is sit on the toilet, with hands cupping my cheeks and listening to the vague sound of flatulence (suspicions are confirmed in approximately three seconds) of middle-aged women who probably once rolled their eyes at elastic waists, too.

I like the handicapped stall because it's furthest from the sinks, and therefore furthest from people. It has a long counter inside it, too. But I couldn't really tell you why, nor could the legitimately handicapped, I'd imagine. Sometimes when I am seeking an extended vacation from the innumerable joys of clothes-folding and credit-opening, I like to prop myself up on the counter and examine my face after I've finished scoping my more important surroundings. I notice that the things that used to go away once I relaxed my jaw now stay a little longer, and I see what looks like a small boomerang beginning to form atop my eyebrow. I should stop being so expressive, maybe. However, I was unaware that mimicking the dead (lest I forget I work 40 hours a week) called for any semblance of brow arching. Occasionally I am distracted by the sound of excrement dropping into the toilets nearby like slightly overweight children cannon balling into a swimming pool, and realize that for better or for worse, I'm not alone in all of this. Funny it took the sound of shit to know this. Then I hear the flushing and the tap-tap-tapping of impatient feet and decide it's time to get back to work.

So I fake flush (because for whatever reason I want people to think that I too just finished my business) and saunter over to the sink, past the scrunchied women splaying their babies' pudgy legs and past the women with hands whose skin resembles a piece of paper that's been through one or three loads of laundry, and then I unfortunately stare at myself again and those growing wrinkles. Babies are crying to my right and I can just feel the heavy sighs of their tired mothers hit the floor in between the flushing and phlegm-hocking of musky women in polyster pants. And in the back of my mind, in the same place that told me to keep moving, there's also a voice that says that while I know that I'm no better and made of no worse, I really, really, am not ready for any of this. Please God, at least not now. Not yet. I'd rather cast aspersions on a line so far away into (and maybe from) my future that I never have to reel them in, or worse, be reeled in by them.

I finish washing my hands and pitch my lightly used towel into the wastebasket and wander like an ant back to my register, knowing that I will inevitably suffer the company of a yellowed man who thinks he's smoother than silk when purchasing his poor wife a neglige made of its cheap and scratchy imitation for $3, and all I can think of are the heavy sighs that reverberated on the tiles and how they probably sound similar to those made at night after the act (albeit brief) is over and she can finally take off that itchy nightgown that resembles a miniature tree skirt. And then I sigh, which probably sounds similar to that one made by an old woman looking at her confetti of pills that she must take each morning with food. But I guess there's no use in sighing, because soon enough I'll be wiping asses and then too-soon enough will be having my own cleaned as well, this time by someone whom I pay to be nurturing. Meanwhile, the voice of the faceless pop star provides a necessary distraction as I step foot on the escalator. It is vague and unobtrusive, making my ascent to reality a little less painful.

I see my coworkers, and the are smiling. Cheryl is full-time and has pepper colored hair. Karen is also full-time and offered me her aspirin the day I faked a sprained ankle to leave work early. She is one of the friendliest people I know, and part of me wishes that she knew I was (and am) full of shit. The act of keeping a smile even after you realize that life can be full of sighs and shit is one on which I need to work, but maybe it's something that comes with adulthood. I can only hope. I guess.

the past few days...

1. I realize my sloth has hit its peak when, after thirty minutes of staring at my reflection as it disappears and reappears in the spitty salad of partially digested food in the porcelain toilet, I think to myself, "Maybe with all of the contractions of my abs as they reject all of the fried green tomatoes, lemon meringue pie, and king crab legs that comprised of this evening's gluttony, I've done the caloric equivalent of one hundred stomach crunches?" I’ve got to get out of this mindset, or at least out of my grandmother’s kitchen.

Speaking of, as winter has finished taking its proverbial dump on Louisville these past few days, I've been spending quite a bit of time at my grandmother's house. And, between my bouts of binging, I've wandered around her bathroom and medicine cabinets and can't help but feel as if I've discovered another dimension. Never before have I seen so many combinations of consonants together on a pill bottle. For a moment, I felt like Michael Jackson, though without the vitiligo and that dreadful habit of not lifting my feet as I walk backwards. 

Continuing. Longing to be a bit tragic and therefore Winona-esque, I considered popping a pill whose name looked vaguely familiar, however stopped myself after remembering how I hyperventilated at age 12 when I stupidly thought I was going to die after swallowing two of her "dietary supplements" under the notion that they were "diet" pills. Anna Nicole had just died, and when I wasn't practicing the Pythagorean theorem I was thinking about the dangers of Ephedra. Thus, nine years later and some the wiser, I decided I'd rather not puke again by thinking that my grandmother's prescription-strength stool softener was some exotic form of hydrocodone. Instead, I put on some of her bright red lipstick and felt just as glamorous as the next bleach blonde bohemian from LA. Oxy moron? Precisely. 

2. In yet another attempt to rouse me from a state of “whatdoesmyfuturehold” anxiety today, someone asked me what the first thing I want to do is when I wake up each morning. That, the person said, is what I should do with my life. It is my “purpose” or “passion,” per se. I immediately thought of my ceramic turquoise bowl filled to the brim with Corn Flakes. Because in reality, all I ever want to do when I wake up (and on most occasions, really) is eat cereal. With that said, it appears that the only avenues to which my “passion” will lead me are failure or trade school. Thus the anxiety continues with the pace and strength of a Roman chariot, but now with milk dribbling down my cheeks.

3. I despise artisan sandwiches. Not the “sandwich” so much (as I think that most anything can only benefit by two additional pieces of bread), but rather the “artisan” aspect. I’ve seen that name slapped on the sides of faux-rustic restaurants all over the suburbs to make things seem, I don’t know, slightly more upscale. Worldly, even. Less Pontiac, more Peugeot. To make one forget, albeit momentarily, that while they are eating something with vaguely European connotations and are thus feeling slightly superior to the Subway customer across the street, that they still are in a strip mall and are wearing sweatpants with elastic ankles. And oh yeah, that their fancy Havarti cheese and aioli sauce add-ons just made their sandwich have more fat than a Big Mac. Whose meat probably comes from the same grain-fed cow yet is at least three dollars cheaper.

But the fact of the matter, really, (and this is something that bothers me even more than elastic-ankled sweatpants) is that artisans weren’t even classy back in their heyday. They were plebeians. Not even artists, these were the people who weaved ugly straw baskets and shared their meager meals with their family that consisted of dying mules.  The ones for whom, if bitten by a snake while on the Oregon Trail, you would not slow your pace. An artist is to an artisan as a sculptor is to an expert Chinese finger trap maker. You’d never put a finger trap on layaway, so why pay more for an equally subpar sandwich?

 4. And finally, according to an anonymous tipster, I write like a vague, shitty hipster. And to that I say thanks. As one who regularly trips over her ankles, along with having a past filled with recesses spent alone in the computer lab, both upper and lower braces, as well as spending years thinking that the pedestrian crossing sign (re: PED XING) was pronounced "zing" and not "crossing," I have never really felt hip in my life (let alone like a hipster), despite the time in Statistics class when my teacher docked points for my use of the Helvetica font in my final presentation. But really, thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to read my stuff.

retail hell: a reflection

1. I can see now why most people who work full-time are alcoholics. Actually, why most people are alcoholics in general. I find that the more time you spend with and around others, the more likely it is you will one day suffer from cirrhosis. This is my second 9-hour shift in a row and already I find my wine bottle to be not quite big enough to swallow my bitterness and erase the pig-colored hue from my swollen feet. Maybe I'll just start drinking cheap vodka from a water bottle while on the clock and then save the rest of the wine for when I'm home. A drunken stupor is much better than somber sobriety while working in a department store.

2. If I were president or future dictator, I would enforce a strict curfew for teens as well as the elderly. You're 80 and can't hear. Why in the hell are you at a department store on a Friday night? Go home and swallow some pills and fall asleep to M*A*S*H* or something. Jesus. And girls, get more creative. It's the weekend and you're milling over cheap ruched jeggings with your boyfriend? Don't blame him if he cheats.

3. As a lowly peon, my only pleasure while on the job comes from disappearing into the dressing rooms or bathrooms for five minute intervals. I do this twice every hour, so if I work six hours or more, it shaves off approximately one hour of work. That helps me get by, as well as giving or not giving the spare coupons I have in the drawer upon my sole discretion. If I don't like the way you breathe, I'm sorry, we're all out. Try downstairs. Other times, I like to be extremely helpful. It's usually a ratio of 4:1.