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Cradle on the Water 3/6
by Meredith Bronwen Tuesday morning found Naomi standing on the curb on 231 Lilly Road, a small purse clutched in her hands and no breakfast on her stomach. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dolores settling herself into the Goldman family Plymouth, but the younger girl stayed where she was, letting her mother's friend pull out of the drive and past the mailbox.
"Well?" Dolores reached over and thrust the door open so that it narrowly missed Naomi's knees. "Come on, get in. We don't have all morning." Without a word, Naomi folded herself into the passenger seat, escaping the faint smell of her mother's cooking for the too-fresh pine of the car. Her stomach turned as if on a double axis. "I couldn't find a place in San Jose. We'll have to go all the way into San Francisco. I hope you're ready for a long drive." As if it was the girl's fault.
"I'll be alright," Naomi insisted, when only nodding produced a frown in response.
"I'll turn on the radio," Dolores nodded to herself, as if a hostess at some family gathering, mediating between warring tribes. Too bright, too cheery, that voice. For a minute or two, she fumbled for reception, looking for anything that wasn't rock 'n roll. In the small confines of the car, Ella Fitzgerald sounded tinny, time-warpish, straight out of the fifties like some shadow that refused go away.
" got you, deep in the heart of me"
So deep in my heart–Naomi knew the words by heart, could hear their ghost from her mother's record player–you're really a part of me. When Mother played it at home, Naomi would sometimes creep up to the turn table, jumping the needle when Miss Fitzgerald sang 'repeats and repeats' some six or seven times, before her hand was slapped away.
(Don't you know, little fool, you never can win.)
The image made Naomi smile and almost laugh–behavior that seemed inappropriate, as if she had come dressed gaily to a funeral.
Gradually, familiar landmarks gave way to only the dusty, red and cactus-green California highway, and Ella smoothed into Frank Sinatra, into Glen Miller–though they were all overridden by Dolores commentary on the drivers around her. Naomi laid her cheek against the grubby window, letting the motion of the Plymouth rock her until it seemed she had been set adrift at sea.
(She's in the jungle, dense leaves and ferns rising up as if to defend against her. The jungle is green by the world is blue, the sun on some acid-trip high, wavering and given to moments of frailty. She turns and turns, following sounds that seem to echo from everywhere, and she is dizzy with trying to take in what is all around her. There–in the under brush, a hunter of some kind. First man, then sleek, midnight cat, eyes like this dream's impossible blue sun. The man again, face hidden by war paint (but–is that camouflage he's wearing?). He pays her no heed as he comes to kneel by a form previously sheltered by the ferns. As with the last dream, she can move without a sound, without feeling the dead leaves and branches littering the ground; the man is now a cat, licking tenderly at this patch of silver gray fur. A wolf in the jungle! Naomi's laugh makes no sound; dreams make no sense of course, and oh, if she only believed that. If she could foist off this dream as illogical and irrelevant–but she sees the panther become a man, become tender with his precious bundle of wolf-boy, lifting, cooing gently. Strange, strange. The air seems to close around her, a thousand ghosts and spirits at her shoulders, urging. Listen, listen to _me_, because--)
"Naomi!" Dolores lifted one hand from the steering wheel, briefly, to give the girl's bare arm a slight pinch.
"-that's when the lady's in love!" the radio advised, all too loud as Naomi struggled to consciousness. Blinking, eyes bleary, she stretched her arms as much as the low roof would allow and looked around her with something just short of relief.
"Yes?" she asked finally, seeing that they were stopped in traffic, the line snaking between a canyon of skyscrapers.
"We're almost there," the older woman pointed out dryly, dragging her purse into her lap. Waiting for the next red light, she began rummaging with a ruthless sort of nonchalance. Naomi turned away, only to have her shoulder tapped, a wad of green bills thrust at her like something rooted in disease.
(Have an apple, my dear.)
"Money," Dolores said, with an impatience aimed not at any one person, but at existence, "for the procedure." Naomi thought it quite bizarre that it hadn't occurred to her at all that this deed would need to be paid for in cash. This is America, she thought at herself, of course you have to pay for it. Everything costs something, here. Cautiously, she took the bills, folding them neatly; one, two, three, four, five hundred dollars.
"I'll pay you back some–" she began, trying to push words through the suddenly narrow passage of her throat.
"Never mind that," the other woman said, focusing her attention on pulling into a temporary parking space. "Frank is my son. Takes two to tango, and all that."
(a sudden image of Ruth, her mother, young and smelling of fresh peaches. dark curls like some inverse angel's halo.
'Don't be nervous, Dorie.' having already donned the wedding gown woven by two spiders. 'It's not so bad.' )
Presently, Dolores leaned over, ringed-hand resting all-too heavily on Naomi's shoulder. The touch was much softer than her voice, seemed to be speaking a totally different language. "Now, the clinic is just a few lots down, next to the Chinese grocery. I'm going to visit my sister in upper part of the city, and then maybe have my nails done."
(coral pink or poesy dust for your nails, Ma'am? how about a nice, blood red?)
"I'll be back for you in four hours, and then maybe we'll go for lunch. It can't take more than four hours, don't you think? I'll just wait if it's longer, but make sure you're here as soon as you can."
"Yes, Aunt Dolores," Naomi recited, head down, eyes on her white knuckles where she gripped her purse. Five hundred dollars is the going price, you see.
"Well," Dolores sat back, and in the shiny, fake-wood dash board, Naomi could see that the older woman was also biting her lips, eyes shifting as if afraid to look this in the face. Unable to draw in another breath, Naomi pushed the door open and stumbled out into the bright street, nearly tripping over the frayed ends of her bell-bottoms. Regaining only a little of her balance, she moved quickly away, without turning to say goodbye.
Dolores sat in the car, door open and air conditioning running full blast. For a moment, she toyed with the end of her long braid, eyes as hard as any armor, before she reached over widely, and pulled closed the door.
#(#)#
An abortion clinic. An abortion clinic on a bright, yellowed California day; with the state license posted in the window and a little bell to ding'
(an angel goes to heaven!)
each time the door was opened. Inside, the walls and floor were white, hospital-pale, sterile with red chairs lined up and a magazine or two on the table. The front pages all mentioned something about Vietnam. Courage broken and grasped in each hand, Naomi drew a breath and came to stand before the window of the welcome desk, head bowed.
"Can I help you?" asked a receptionist, a slight, too-fresh faced blond woman who's nurses' cap was tilted a little to the side.
"Somebody better," Naomi said through dry lips.
"Beg pardon?"
"I'm sorry," she said a little louder, "I'm here for" (how did Dolores put it?) "the procedure."
The receptionist's smile was vaguely sympathetic, "How far along are you?"
"Three, four months."
"Alright," the blond smiled a toothpaste commercial smile–too many white teeth. She pushed a clipboard towards Naomi, "Just fill out these forms, and a doctor will be out to speak with you when you're done."
"Thanks."
[Name? Naomi Jessica Sandburg.]
(My mother's name is Ruth, and I'm Naomi, which is kind of a reversal, if you're familiar with the book that bares my mother's name.)
The air conditioner was humming just a little too, loud. Hard to concentrate.
[Age? 19.]
(All of nineteen and three months and two days. When I turned eighteen, I decided that I was a woman, and after all the birthday candles on my girly pink cake had been dowsed and tossed, dripping wax, into the trash, I took Frank's hand and told him that my first time out to be with someone I trusted. Someone who was my best friend.)
The little silver bell above the door cried, pushed open violently, ushering in an older man, hands gripping the shoulder's a dusty, twelve year old girl. They stood for a moment, just inside the doorway, the girl like a frozen cactus flower, until the man gave her a little prompt and Naomi looked away.
[Place of residence?]
(So, anyway, Frank said he would be honored and he kissed each knuckle on my hand and we stole up to the attic and when we laid down on the old mattress there were billows of dust like fairy magic. The whole time we were laughing, trying to be quiet, because who knew when Dolores and Mr. Goldman would be home from playing bridge across the street?)
[Reasons for seeking an abortion? Do you have a preexisting medical condition the doctor should be aware of? Are you allergic to any medications? To any foods? How long have you been sexually active? Do you have an STD? Do you]
(Do you really want to do this?)
It surprised Naomi, because one minute she was filling out the form, just trying to complete it–like an assignment in school, and then all the words were jumbling together, jumping like crazy Mexican beans and she thought, really thought, about what was going to happen after she put her pen down. The world was dizzy and this concept, this deed, was suddenly very real and clear to her (and she'd thought it had been real before!)–deadly, stark and true. Without really thinking about it, she stood on unsteady, sandaled feet, feeling like her bones were glass. The pen dropped with a blasting click' to the tile floor, rolling away and away, just like Naomi's consciousness, and she was going to faint, she was and then what would
(god, god what am I going to do? Huh? Are you there God, cause I'm in a pinch, and you know, you know. Dolores said, God knows' so why the fuck don't you do something to help me here!)
she do?
Blood teased her tongue from where she'd bit into her lip, and right where her gaze blindly rested–on the white, doctor's door–a shape began from pieces of shadow and the curious, blinding white of the room.
A panther. A blue eyed panther, growling, pacing, tail twitching to some unseen beat.
(Come on, Sandburg. Please don't do this to me)
"I can't," Naomi said to the room at large–she'd thought the words and they had simply tumbled forth, but she found she didn't care. Unforgivingly, she tore the form from the clip board, pitching it in the waste bin and she retrieved the pen. Almost, it seemed, like some sixth or seventh sense, she felt the panther rub up against her as she returned the things to the secretaries desk; it seemed to purr, to vibrate warmth where there was only arctic fear in her bones. "I'm sorry," she blew the words hurriedly over her shoulder, as she ran back out into the real world,
"I just can't do it."