While I'm Falling Part 13

"Veronica? Is that you?"

I looked up to see Rudy, Tim's roommate, moving toward me with his odd, bouncy walk, his toes pointed slightly inward. He'd just gone through the checkout line, and he was carrying a can of soup in one hand and a new PC World PC World in the other. I greeted him as warmly as I could. Tim had told me once that I was the only girl outside of sisters and cousins that Rudy was able to talk to without breaking into a visible sweat. And even that had taken some time. The first few times I went over to their apartment, Rudy had stayed in his room. in the other. I greeted him as warmly as I could. Tim had told me once that I was the only girl outside of sisters and cousins that Rudy was able to talk to without breaking into a visible sweat. And even that had taken some time. The first few times I went over to their apartment, Rudy had stayed in his room.

But tonight, given that I was hanging out on a chair in the grocery store, I felt like the weird one.

"What are you doing?" He put the can of soup under one arm so he could get his keys out of his pocket. "Do you need a ride or something?"

"No...I'm just..." I gestured vaguely into the aisles. "I'm just waiting for some friends." I spotted Jimmy in the greeting card section. He picked a card out, read it, and put it back before getting out another. He looked up at me, saw me watching, and waved. Haylie stood beside him, flipping through an Allure. Allure.

"So Tim gets back tonight," he said. "I'm sure you know that."

I nodded. I tried not to let my face change.

"You might move in, huh? After I move out? He said you might."

I made a small, circular motion with my head, neither a nod nor a shake. The store's stereo was playing "Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car."

"You should," he said. "It's a great apartment." He looked away. He seemed nervous. He had never had to talk with me without Tim standing right there. "Plus, you know, I think it would make him pretty happy." He looked newly embarra.s.sed, but he pressed on. "I figure it's the least I can do, you know-move out and make room for you. He's been a good friend."

After Rudy left, I looked back up into the aisles. Jimmy was still looking at greeting cards. It was almost ten. Tim was well into his drive home, probably in southern Iowa already. Jimmy looked up and waved again. I waved back, smiling. He thought he was tormenting me, I'm sure. But I no longer felt a hurry to get anywhere. He was only wasting his own time.

I got back to the dorm just past midnight. When I first saw my mother sitting outside my room, I a.s.sumed she had come back for her phone. I walked toward her, shaking my head. I had asked for her phone again when I'd dropped Jimmy and Haylie at the town house. Jimmy said that he wasn't sure where it was, but that he would look for it, and that he would probably find it around the time his car was fixed. I tried to think of how I would explain all this to my mother, and I tried to calculate how long this conversation might take. Half an hour. Maybe more. She would have all kinds of questions and concerns. I needed to read at least a chapter of chemistry before I went to bed.

She didn't look up as I approached. She sat with her back against my door, her legs stretched out, one rubber-soled boot crossed over the other. She had her long gray coat spread out on top of her like a blanket. I stopped walking, and she looked up. She'd been crying.

"Hi," I said.

She started to stand. The bottom of her coat caught under her boot, and she almost lost her balance. I held out my hand, and she took it, righting herself with a smile.

"Hi," she said. "I met one of the girls on your floor." Her voice was hoa.r.s.e, quiet. "Marley? She plays the French horn?"

The ba.s.s drum of reggae music hovered overhead. I took off my mittens and put them in my pockets. I waited, my eyes on hers.

She held up one finger. She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. "I'm here because..." She looked at the wall behind me. "Veronica. I'm here because I need a place to stay."

My mind moved quickly to the acceptable. Her van had broken down. She had lost her keys, but she could get a spare from the office in the morning. The unacceptable-that she had had a fight with the boyfriend I imagined she was moving in with-hovered in the back of my mind.

She nodded, patient with my slowness, my steady refusal to understand.

I looked down. She had been sitting on a stack of folded sheets and blankets. I recognized the chenille throw that she used to keep on our living room couch, and the flower-print fitted sheet for the twin bed I had slept on for years. All at once, the floor seemed far away, and not at all dependable.

"I need to stay with you for just a while," she said. She reached over with her ungloved hand to touch my shoulder. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry. It's too cold to sleep in the van. You don't know this? You don't know this already? Honey. I don't have anywhere else to go."

10.

SHE WAS TOO TIRED to get into the whole story. In a nutsh.e.l.l, she said, she'd been evicted from her apartment because of the dog. Yes, she was having some financial troubles, which she was certain she could work out shortly. But she hoped I would understand if right now, she just wanted to go to bed. Her socks had gotten wet. She needed to borrow some dry ones before she went back down to the van to get the rest of her things and Bowzer. to get into the whole story. In a nutsh.e.l.l, she said, she'd been evicted from her apartment because of the dog. Yes, she was having some financial troubles, which she was certain she could work out shortly. But she hoped I would understand if right now, she just wanted to go to bed. Her socks had gotten wet. She needed to borrow some dry ones before she went back down to the van to get the rest of her things and Bowzer.

She didn't ask if she could bring Bowzer up to my room. The dorm had a strict rule against any kind of pet visitation, but I made no effort to stop her. I couldn't think or worry about anything besides how very wrong the situation seemed. Why did she suddenly have so little money that she couldn't even go to a motel? Some secret addiction? I couldn't imagine it. Gambling? She'd never seemed interested. I wondered how long she'd been out of her apartment and where, up till now, she'd been sleeping. In the van? In the van? I could not bring myself to ask her. I could not bring myself to ask her.

I didn't really have the chance. As soon as she put on my socks, she left to go get Bowzer. She was worried about him, even with his blankets, being down in the van for so long. "I'll be right back," she told me, pulling on her hat. Her cream scarf had gotten stained with something, maybe ketchup, since I'd last seen her. "I'll have him with me, so don't lock your door." She stepped into the hallway and glanced back and forth before peeking back at me. "I'll come up the back stairway. No one will see him. Don't worry. And he's all peed and p.o.o.ped out for the night. I'm sure of it."

I stood still after she left, staring at my closed door and listening to the vibrating pipes above. I blinked. I shook my head. I tried to come up with a sensible course of action-I would only have a few minutes before she returned. I could call Elise. But there was nothing she could do in San Diego, not tonight, not right now. I could call my father and insist that he help her. I could remind him that though they were no longer married, I was still his daughter, and she was still my mother, and that if he cared for me at all, he must still care for her a little. But that would be a long, loud conversation. My father could, and no doubt would, counter that the divorce-which she had caused-had put a financial strain on him as well, and that he was not responsible for her poor decision-making or whatever it was that had sucked up all her money. He was living simply, he would say. He hadn't gotten himself into a jam. Any concern for me would be overwhelmed by his refusal to be concerned for her.

And anyway, she would see my calling him as a betrayal. "He wants to see me poor," she had sniffed to me once, early on. "He wants to punish me. He wants to see me without anything at all."

I looked at my watch. She'd already been gone two minutes. I searched my room for anything I might not want her to see, as if I were fourteen again, locking my diary out of fear that her obsessive curiosity might get the best of her while she was putting my laundry away. I considered that her priorities were different now, and that she might be just a little too preoccupied with her own troubles to worry about my every thought or decision. Still, I picked up the note Tim had left for me, folded it carefully, and tucked it inside my desk drawer.

When I heard the door to the stairway open, I hurried across the room and peeked out into the hallway. She was jogging toward me, her boots heavy on the carpet, her gait awkward. She had both straps of a duffel bag looped around her neck, and her hands cradled her belly. It was Bowzer, of course, hidden inside her b.u.t.toned-up coat; but as she panted toward me, she just looked pregnant. A girl stepped out of her room with a dried green face mask, headed toward the bathroom; she pa.s.sed my mother with nothing more than a friendly h.e.l.lo.

Once we were in my room again, the door shut safely behind us, she eased Bowzer out from under her coat and set him gently on the spare bed. "There you go," she whispered. He looked like a little black and gray lamb; his legs were so thin compared to his body. He whimpered, watching her take off her coat. She reached into the duffel bag and pulled out two Cool Whip containers, one full of dry dog food, the other empty. "We can put his water in this one," she said, handing it to me. "It's probably better if you get it, right?" Her tone was overly careful, polite.

I pointed out that she would have to use the bathroom eventually. It wouldn't be a problem, I said. We were allowed to have overnight guests for up to two nights in a row.

"But you should probably keep a low profile," I added breezily, as if I were just offering a friendly tip, something to make her stay more enjoyable. I wasn't sure how many nights she thought she would need to stay.

"Okay," she said. "I'll just do it all now." She reached into the duffel bag and got out a ziplock bag that contained a toothbrush and toothpaste and several bottles and creams. "Can you stay with him while I'm gone? If we leave him alone, he might whine."

She was almost out the door before she stopped and turned back. "One thing," she said. She looked nervous. "I don't want you to tell Elise about this. Or your father. I'd rather this stay between you and me."

I rubbed my eyes. I shook my head, not so much refusing her as showing her my frustration. I had already planned on calling Elise in the morning, as soon as it was late enough in California. She would know what to do. She and her husband had a one-bedroom apartment, with no room for another person, much less a person with a dog. They were both just out of law school and, Elise had told me, still very much in debt. But I knew she would think of some way to help. Elise, more than anyone I could think of, always knew what to do.

"I don't know why you can't tell her but you can tell me," I started.

Her eyes narrowed, as if she suspected I was being stupid on purpose. When she saw that my question was sincere, she sighed. "Yes, you do," she said. She scratched her forehead with the hand that held the plastic bag, obscuring her face for a moment. When she brought it back down, to my surprise, she was almost smiling.

Bowzer whined anyway, as soon as she left, even with me standing right there. I moved him to my bed, scolded him, and then petted him lightly on the head, which probably only confused him. I had had been his favorite while I was growing up-he'd follow me around the house, and sit by the door when I went to school But in my absence, his obsessive love had clearly been transferred to my mother. He was silent while I made up the spare bed with the blankets and rose-print sheets she had brought with her. I held them up to my nose and breathed in. They smelled clean. They smelled like the detergent she'd always used. been his favorite while I was growing up-he'd follow me around the house, and sit by the door when I went to school But in my absence, his obsessive love had clearly been transferred to my mother. He was silent while I made up the spare bed with the blankets and rose-print sheets she had brought with her. I held them up to my nose and breathed in. They smelled clean. They smelled like the detergent she'd always used.

When she returned, she looked at the bed and smiled. "Oh," she said. "Thank you. Thanks for doing that." Something was different. For as long as I could remember, she had gone to bed with some clear cream with a pleasant smell spread over her face that made her skin glisteny and smooth. Tonight, her face did not glisten. The overhead fluorescent light cast shadows under her eyes.

"Do you need anything?" I asked. "Are you...are you hungry?"

She shook her head, her eyes on the dark window, the orange streetlights bright over the parking lot. "I just met another nice girl," she said. "Just now in the bathroom. Inez? From Albuquerque? Do you know her?"

I frowned. "You're supposed to be keeping a low profile." I did not know Inez. I looked at my chemistry book, waiting for me on my desk. I would not be able to study tonight, not unless I wanted to leave, and then wake her when I came in.

"I just said h.e.l.lo, honey." She put the ziplock bag back in the duffel, her free hand moving down Bowzer's back. "I didn't want to be rude. You don't know her? She lives right down the hall. You know, I don't think I've ever met anyone from Albuquerque in my entire life."

I got out my little bucket and headed for the bathroom, hoping that she would take a cue from me and change into her pajamas while I was gone. I had not seen her undressed since eleventh grade, when she and I joined a gym together. The joint membership had been my idea: I'd wanted to take yoga, but I knew that she might not be thrilled with the idea of me signing up for one more cla.s.s or hobby, so she could spend two more afternoons a week driving me there and back. So I'd pitched the yoga cla.s.s as something we could do together. I didn't just want to take yoga, I said. I wanted to take it with her!

My motives were not purely selfish. I really did think it would be good for her. Both of the grandmothers were still alive then, and my mother was spending a lot of time driving to the two different nursing homes, checking in on them and running their errands. She'd put on weight that year, not a lot, but enough to make her frown at herself when she pa.s.sed the hallway mirror. Still, she would pick me up from driver's ed and tell me that she was too tired to cook or even fix a salad, and more often than not we would go through a drive-thru, switching seats after we ordered so I could practice driving home. She usually got a chocolate sundae, and she would start in on it right there in the car, mumbling driving tips and stayed suprisingly calm as I carefully steered and shifted. I couldn't wait until I had my license and I could drive by myself, but in the meantime, driving with my mother wasn't so bad; I much preferred her company to my humorless driver's ed teacher or my very excitable father. She let me choose the radio station, as long as I kept the volume low enough so I could hear her instructions and warnings.

And then one evening, as we were about to pull up our steep driveway, I asked her if we could keep going, if I could circle the neighborhood just one more time. She shrugged, digging her plastic spoon into her cup. "Fine with me," she mumbled. "This is the best part of my day."

That night, I looked up "depression" on the Internet. Experts suggested exercise, rest, and time with loved ones. I decided that yoga, and more time with me, might help.

But as it turned out, she wasn't interested, at least not in yoga. She said she wanted something more intense-she'd recently had a dream about lifting something immense far over her head, and in the dream, she had been amazed both by how heavy the object was and also that she was able to lift it. And if the last two years had taught her anything, it was that she didn't want osteoporosis. She looked at the schedule and saw that the gym offered a weight-lifting cla.s.s called "STRENGTH CAMP" at the same time as the yoga cla.s.s I wanted to take. What a coincidence, she said. What a sign. She said I was thoughtful to think of her. We could get some together time in in the car.

When she first started, she was miserable. She was too self-conscious to wear anything but baggy black sweats and a big shirt, and she came out of cla.s.s red-faced and clammy with sweat. At home, she moved stiffly, wincing when she vacuumed, when she bent over to put on Bowzer's leash. But then little bulges appeared in her arms. In the grocery store one day, without warning, she raised her hand, squeezed her fist, and made me feel her biceps. She started doing push-ups on the living room floor while my father watched the news. In late spring, she told my grandmothers and their attendants that she couldn't help with any appointments before ten in the morning, and she signed up for a.m. Taebo. She modeled the punches and swipes for me in the kitchen, moving like a shadowboxer, sometimes laughing at herself, sometimes not. Her legs grew lean and muscular. She bought tank tops in different colors.

By June, it was too hot out to get in the car when we were still sweaty from cla.s.s, and so we brought towels and shampoo and fresh clothes for the drive home. In the locker room, she did not exactly parade around naked. She wrapped a towel around her before she stepped out of the shower stall. But I would occasionally look up at the wrong time and catch a glimpse of her body, and it always made me uncomfortable. I didn't know why. I had grown up seeing her naked, walking in on her while she was in the shower, on the toilet, and once-horribly, when I was nine-straddled on top of my father as he sat in his office chair. I was familiar with her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s and their dark, downward pointing nipples; the paleness of her belly marked by the crisscrossed scars from two Cesarean sections; the dark patch of pubic hair that had mystified and frightened me as a child; the tiny, snaky, blue veins on her outer thighs. This was all familiar. What was strange, and strangely disturbing to me, was the new leanness, the p.r.o.nounced curve between her hips and her waist, the enviable tautness of her belly.

She stopped going to the gym sometime after the divorce. She was still thin, but it just looked like a tired skinniness, even a frailty-the muscles were gone from her arms. I didn't want to see her like this, either. Tonight, especially tonight, I did not want to see her even a little unclothed. I needed the illusion of order, of distance. We were not friends or even roommates. She was still my mother, just staying in my room for a short time.

When I walked back in, she was still wearing her coat, unb.u.t.toned, the cream sweater and brown cords underneath. "Uh, can I..." She sat on the foot of the guest bed. Her legs were crossed, one hand resting on Bowzer. She'd taken off her boots, showing the pink socks she had borrowed from me. "I forgot my pajamas. They're down in the van, I mean. Do you have something I could wear?"

I gave her some leggings and a long-sleeved sweatshirt that I'd gotten during training, "TWEETE HALL STAFF" emblazoned across the front.

"Aww." She held it up to her chest, swinging her head from side to side, her curly hair brushing against her shoulders, her small, silver hoop earrings staying completely still. "I'm one of the gang now. This makes it all worth it. Really."

I studied her smile. It was hard to tell if she was just joking around, or if something had actually happened to her attention span. In any case, she seemed to take my silence as a reproach-she looked away as she slid her coat off.

"I'll tell you the whole story," she said, pulling up her sweater with a quick yank. The T-shirt underneath came up with it, revealing a beige bra and, when both arms were fully raised, the faint outline of ribs.

I sat at my desk and opened my chemistry book, to a diagram of some chemical reaction, something to look at besides her. "Why didn't you tell me you were having money problems?"

She said nothing. I did not look up to see her face, to find a clue in her expression. I heard a zipper unzip, her heavy sigh. I kept my eyes on my book, my eyebrows furrowed with feigned concentration. I could not say now, or even then, what kind of molecule I was looking at.

"If you need to stay up, I can sleep with the light on," she said.

I looked up. She was in my leggings and my staff shirt, getting under the covers of the guest bed. Bowzer, lying at the foot of the bed, stood, stretched, and made his careful way up to her arms. "It won't bother me," she said. "Your father used to watch television in bed, and I got used to it. Really, I'm tired enough, I'll go right out."

It wasn't true. They used to fight about the televison. My father liked to set it to a timer, so he could fall asleep with it on. My mother had a velvet eye mask, and headphones that played white noise; but she said she couldn't keep the flicker of the television, the hum of it, completely out. She needed to sleep in the dark, she said. That last year before the divorce, I had twice woken up to find her sleeping in Elise's old room.

"That's okay." I shut my book. "I usually go to bed about now." I stood up, looking around the room. She'd left her bags on the floor by her bed. They were zipped up, arranged neatly, and pushed out of the way.

"Do you need anything?" I stood by the light switch, my eyes on her bags. "You want some water or anything? I can go get it. It's no problem."

She shook her head. She already had her head on the pillow, her eyes closed, Bowzer spooned up against her. "Thanks, though," she said.

I turned out the light and stood still for a moment, trying to think if I should ask her to stop saying thank you. No, I decided. That would just make everything more awkward. That would make us both feel worse.

I had almost groped my way back to my bed when she started talking.

"I'm just out of money." Her voice came out of the darkness, monotone, objective, a newscaster reporting misfortune that had happened to someone else. "That's really all I can tell you. There's no secret. That's just all I know. I shouldn't have taken on the house instead of cash. That was my first mistake. I thought I couldn't bear to sell it, but then I had to anyway, and by then the market had slowed, and it took a long time to sell. I didn't talk to you or Elise about it because I didn't want to worry you. And then there was mold in the attic, water damage. Dan said that it happened after he left, that he wasn't respons-"

Here she stopped, apparently remembering that Dan was also my father. For several minutes, we lay in silence. I could hear an engine revving in the parking lot, a m.u.f.fled television in someone else's room. My mother is homeless, My mother is homeless, I thought. I thought. My mother is homeless and living with me in my dorm. My mother is homeless and living with me in my dorm. I was being dramatic. It wasn't true. She just needed a place to stay for a while, and only because of the dog. I was being dramatic. It wasn't true. She just needed a place to stay for a while, and only because of the dog.

She cleared her throat and started again. The sum of it wasn't anyone's fault, she said. It was more a series of unfortunate incidents, one after the other, boxing her in. Or out. In September, she'd cracked a molar on a popcorn kernel and had to get a root ca.n.a.l, and she was no longer on my father's health plan. She was still looking for a steady teaching job, she said, something with benefits; she was having a hard time with that, of course, since she hadn't used her degree in over twenty years. But she was subbing, and she was putting in fifteen hours a week at DeBeck's. She had thought she would be okay. She'd planned on just living simply until something better came along, or until the divorce settlement was adjusted.

"It sounds fair, just cutting everything in half." She paused to yawn. "But we had so much debt. And my...future earning potential needs to be taken into account."

Potential. Usually a good word. But here, it was turned around, as in lack of. I tried to think of something nice to say. "You sound like a lawyer," I said. "I'm impressed."

"Yeah," she said. "I'm quoting mine." She did not laugh. "Anyway, then I got evicted, because of Bowzer. I already found a place that will take dogs. I can afford the rent. But it won't be available until next week. I need to wait until next Friday anyway, when I get a check, so I can pay the security deposit. I lost the last one because of the dog."

She was silent for a while after that, but I lay awake, listening. Someone running down the hallway laughed, loud and shrill. And I could hear Marley's French horn, the same three notes played over and over. She wasn't supposed to play the horn in her room, not after ten o'clock. But it gave me some relief to picture her, oblivious to all the worry in this room, working through her music so diligently, those same three notes: one two three, one two three, one two three.

For some time, maybe minutes, maybe hours, I lay awake, eyes open, staring up into the darkness. Just two nights earlier, I'd ignored her calls. I was aware of everything shifting, new regret a sharp pain in my throat. The hurt felt real, and truly physical, and also, strangely, like something necessary and right. When I was young, lying in bed at night, the backs of my calves would hurt so much that I would sometimes cry out. Growing pains, my parents said. They were a myth, the doctor countered. But night after night, my legs hurt; until one night, they stopped hurting, and I was taller.

11.

SHE GOT UP EARLY to take Bowzer out. She did not get dressed to do this-she only threw her coat back over the clothes she'd slept in and pulled her boots back over my pink socks. Her hair was messy, curls everywhere, but she didn't bother with a comb. She didn't even turn on the light, though it was raining out, and only the faint gray of an overcast sunrise glowed around the window shade. to take Bowzer out. She did not get dressed to do this-she only threw her coat back over the clothes she'd slept in and pulled her boots back over my pink socks. Her hair was messy, curls everywhere, but she didn't bother with a comb. She didn't even turn on the light, though it was raining out, and only the faint gray of an overcast sunrise glowed around the window shade.

When she noticed me watching her, she put her hand to her throat, startled. "Sorry," she whispered. "I didn't want him to have to wait."

"Why are you whispering?"

She was already b.u.t.toning Bowzer under her coat. He gave me one last confused look before his eyes and snout disappeared.

"Because you were sleeping." She was still whispering. "What time is your first cla.s.s?"

"Nine," I said, lying. I only had a conference with my English professor at eleven, nothing before that. I rubbed my eyes and squinted at her, trying to think what other people would think when they saw her in the hallway, or down in the lobby. She didn't look pregnant now. She looked like she was hiding something lumpy.

"You've got to be careful, Mom. You can't just take him out on the front lawn. Seriously. I could lose my job."

"I know." She patted the pockets of her coat. "I'll take him back down the stairs to the van, and then drive to a park or something." She blew me a kiss. "And I'll make my bed when I come back. I'll make yours, too, okay?"

"It's raining," I said.

"I know."

When she turned to go, she walked into my metal trash can, knocking it on its side. She put her hands to ears, wincing.

"Sorry," she whispered.