Belt Buckles & Pajamas Read online

  I am almost asleep when Stuart startles me. “Daphne,” he whispers, “Daphne, get up. It’s time. Plan C has started.”

  “What? I thought Andie was –”

  “That’s exactly what everyone was supposed to think. No, the real Plan C is a closely held secret, known only to myself, Pet Shop, the cow and maybe Shy Boy. I can never tell when he is listening.”

  “Well, I knew, too,” Violet says. Good thing it’s my room and nobody is supposed to be here at night. Might as well have roll call.

  Stuart is a bit miffed at everyone (but me) knowing his secret plan. Violet tells him she didn’t know exactly when he was doing it so they couldn’t have read her mind and spoiled it and he accepts that and says the plan is still a go.

  “We are going to have to break Pet Shop and Shy Boy out next. I don’t think they will make it on their own.” Stuart leads us down the corridor and we see Sam sleeping in a chair. I guess he is on night duty this week. We tiptoe by Sam and into the wing where Pet Shop and Shy Boy sleep. I’ve never been in their rooms but Violet says they are all the same and I don’t doubt that she’s been in most of the rooms if not beds in this building.

  We get Shy Boy first because we know he won’t make any noise. “He’ll be the perfect look out man,” Stuart says, “quiet as a mouse.” I decide not to point out that he will be just as quiet if he sees anyone coming, which won’t give us a lot of warning. I like having him with us, who cares if we get caught. He is so sleepy I muss up his hair and he smiles. I’m not sure if he knows this isn’t a dream so I give him a quick kiss so he will think it is a good dream and not a scary one.

  Stuart slinks down the hallway to Pet Shop’s room. He darts back and forth, hiding in doorways and waving us forward when it is safe to proceed. He isn’t amused when Violet suggests we skip and sing show tunes. “They would never suspect us if we were doing that,” she states, and she may be right but I agree with Stuart that perhaps a silent approach would be best.

  Pet Shop is excited when we get to his room. “I asked the cow if he could find a rooster to make sure I woke up on time but he said they only give wake up calls at dawn and it wouldn’t help. So I just stayed up and counted sheep.”

  “You have sheep, too?” I ask.

  Pet Shop looks at me in astonishment. “Don’t be silly. Whoever heard of invisible sheep?”

  We proceeded down the hall and to the staff offices. Arriving at Doctor Martin’s office, we were confronted with our first major obstacle. The door was locked. “How could he have known?” Stuart asked. “The one day we execute Plan C and he locks his door.”

  “I think he locks it every day,” I tell him.

  “That diabolical fiend. To enact a habit such as that just so Plan C could be foiled at some indeterminate point in time. I salute your manic genius, Doctor Martin, as I curse its ingenuity.”

  “Where’s that monkey when you need him?” Pet Shop asks. He points up at the top of the door. There is one of those small windows above it. “The monkey could go through the transom and unlock the door for us.” I guess those small windows are transoms. Damn but Pet Shop is smarter than I gave him credit for.

  “Well,” Violet says, “lacking a monkey I guess I can get through that. I’ve been in tighter places. Come on, Pet Shop, give me a boost.”

  Violet slides through the transom and lands with a thump on the other side. She unlocks the door. Stuart tells Shy Boy to stand watch and the rest of us enter the office.

  “Here little hedgehog, here buddy, it’s okay, we’re here to save you from the mean old doctor,” Pet Shop calls. Stuart heads for the filing cabinet.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are,” entreats the cow. I figure he has as much chance as any of us at spotting the hedgehog, being of the invisible variety himself.

  Stuart shuts the drawer of the filing cabinet. “Where can he be?”

  The couch starts squeaking as Violet bounces up and down on it. “Told you it squeaked,” she says. “I checked — he’s not under here.”

  Stuart paces back and forth. “He’s not under M, he’s not under the couch…”

  “You fool, you forgot about checking H!” Pet Shop races to the filing cabinet, opens the drawer.

  “Rescue me,” we hear crooning from Pet Shop’s arms. “Rescue me.”

  “Success!” Stuart exclaims.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” The booming voice of Sam rains on our parade. He has Shy Boy by the arm, dragging him into the office. I guess it isn’t going to be a happy dream for Shy Boy after all.

  Violet pulls Pet Shop onto the couch. He is very surprised and tries to get up but she grabs onto him and keeps him on top of her. “We’re just trying out the couch, Sammy. We heard it was the best place in the whole building. Want to give it a try after we’re done?”

  “There’ll be none of that in here. Now go on, all of you, back to your rooms. You are going to catch it from Doctor Martin when he hears about this.”

  Violet lets Pet Shop get up off of her and slides over to Sam. She brushes her hand against his cheek, running her fingers through his hair, pushing her chest up against his. “Now Sam,” she says, “you don’t want to tell mean old Doc about this, do you?”

  “I don’t?” He is mesmerized, entranced, totally looking at her boobs pressed against his chest.

  She continues to stroke his hair, rubbing his ear lobes between her fingers, leaning against him. “No, of course you don’t. We wouldn’t want him to know how a bunch of us were able to slip past you and break into his office, now would we? We wouldn’t want our friend Sam to get in trouble over that. Not when we can just all go back and behave and sleep real quiet, right?”

  Sam absorbs this. Violet is right, I think at him, trying to sway him to see her logic. She gives him one last caress, her hand trailing down his chest, circling his waist, cupping his butt briefly before she puts a finger to his lips. “Shhhh, we’ll just be tiptoeing back to bed. You be a dear and go back to sleep yourself.”

  Violet leads us back to our rooms. I give Shy Boy another quick peck on the cheek so he knows I don’t blame him for not warning us about Sam. It looked like Pet Shop wanted one too but I ignored him. He’s got the hedgehog back; he doesn’t need any loving from me. I ask Violet if she wants to sleep, just sleep I tell her, and she says that maybe it would be best if she didn’t. She wanted to stay up and keep an eye out for Sam, just in case. I say okay and slide under the sheets and go back to thinking about Shy Boy and Andie and how Violet is sometimes my favorite person even when she is sleeping around with anything that moves.

  I hear the door open and I can feel him standing there, watching me and I keep my eyes closed, and I know if I can stay asleep, then before I know it morning will come. I wait in the darkness and pray that he will go away. That when I open my eyes it will be morning and I will have made it through the night unscathed. The door closes and I bite my lip until I hear the footsteps receding down the hall instead of approaching the bed. I keep my eyes closed just in case and when I open them next it is morning and I did make it and I thank Violet for standing guard. She hugs me and says it’s no big deal but I owe her one and pretty soon she is going to want a favor from me. Anything, I tell her, but I’m not certain if I mean it. What could she need from me that she hasn’t taken already?

  Thirty-Eight: Andie’s Return

  We eat breakfast and I am feeling so much better that I even eat some eggs. No bacon, it isn’t that good but still the eggs are okay and not runny and I don’t feel like puking after I eat them. Shy Boy’s eyes are bright and he isn’t drooling and I don’t know if I have ever seen him look so alive and he smiles at me and I guess it was a happy dream for him after all. Violet even smiles at him and then at me, and she says softly so only I can hear, “Isn’t Shy Boy looking hot today?” I just give her a little nod. I don’t even blush, I just accept that I can think he looks hot and that Violet knows it and it is okay.

  “It’s a beautiful day in the
neighborhood,” the hedgehog tells us. Pet Shop is beaming and Stuart is also on top of the world. I think this is the first time one of his top secret covert missions actually came off without a hitch. Except for getting caught by Sam, but Violet took care of that and the hedgehog was rescued from Doctor Martin and no blood was shed so I would still call it a success.

  We go to morning session and I am afraid to look, I don’t want another session with Doctor Martin but it would be worse if Andie was there and hated me. If she didn’t forgive me. If she wasn’t Andie anymore.

  We all sit down and Shy Boy scoots his chair closer to me and I still don’t blush. Kareem is watching us today and at least that part of the session is better than before. The door opens and it isn’t Doctor Martin, it is Andie and she is wearing the sweater that wants to roll in leaves and walk hand in hand and she sees I am there and she smiles and I know it is the real Andie and she doesn’t hate me.

  “Good morning, everyone,” she says, and I say “Good morning, Andie” back to her and she is still smiling and her eyes are still Bambi-brown and she still smells of coffee and I know I will always love her.

  “Good morning, Vietnam,” sings the hedgehog, and Andie raises her eyebrows at Pet Shop.

  “We rescued him!” Pet Shop tells her.

  Stuart places his finger on his lips, “Shhhh, we might need to use Plan C again, you know.”

  Andie has a puzzled look on her face but she can tell just how gosh-darned happy Pet Shop and Stuart are and she lets it alone. Doctor Martin would have hammered them about any secrets until it wasn’t a good day anymore. Andie is so different from Doctor Martin.

  “Well, Herbert, I am glad your friend is back. Remember what I told you before, though – there might be a day when he leaves again, and that is his choice. Sometimes our friends have to go to other places, sometimes places we can’t follow them to. That’s part of life.”

  I soak in the words. She goes on with Pet Shop and Stuart about letting the animals make their own choice but I am still thinking about friends going to other places. Leaving. Abandoning.

  I reach for her; she lets me take her hand. “Don’t leave, Andie. Please don’t leave me.”

  “Oh, Daphne, I’m not leaving. I have no plans to do anything but stay here and help all of you. To get to know you better. There may come a day when you decide it is time to leave, but that will be your choice. Not mine.”

  Shy Boy starts at these words, almost falling out of his chair. Andie looks at him, “What’s wrong, Gordon?”

  He keeps his head down, almost shrinks as he sits in the chair. “Gordon, please tell me, what is it?”

  He shakes his head “no,” and I can see the surprise in Andie’s face that she got that much of a response out of him. She writes something down on her notepad. I have never seen her do anything but doodle or tap her pencil on it before.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it right now that’s okay.”

  I scoot over a little in my chair, so my leg is just barely touching his. He feels the contact, stops shaking his head, settles down. It feels nice when he scoots a little toward me, increasing the pressure of leg upon leg.

  I gather my courage and clear my throat to get Andie’s attention. “Andie, are you… okay?”

  She clasps my hand. “I’m fine Daphne. I know it gets emotional in here. I know sometimes we do things we don’t mean to.”

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you. It was him, not you.”

  “Who was it, Daphne? Who hurt you?”

  The words hang there. I’ve been asked them a million times. I know she knows what happened, most of it anyway. They all do. But they still want me to say it. To repeat the worst events of my life, over and over. As if the nightmares weren’t enough to remind me. As if telling the story would make the world a safer place where little girls didn’t love their daddies during the day and fear them at night.

  But this is Andie. This is the one who cares. The one who helped Glen and Theodore and who loves me. I know she loves me. I close my eyes, I squeeze her hand, and I tell her the dreams.

  I tell her about hiding in closets. I tell her about crying into pillows. I tell her about bacon and newspapers in the morning. I tell her about Daddy becoming Dad and Mommy becoming Mom. I tell her about my dad’s face dissolving into hers and she holds me and rocks me and I cry on her shoulder and she still loves me, she doesn’t think I am a worthless or evil little girl who made my daddy do those things.

  I don’t tell her about her undressing me. I don’t tell her about loving her, about how she smells, how the curl of hair around her ears makes me feel like dancing. I don’t tell her about Melissa. I only tell her all the things she already knows but it still feels good and if she accepts these things about me then maybe someday I can tell her the rest of them too.

  Thirty-Nine: Arts And Crafts

  We are finishing lunch when Andie comes to our table. “Hey, how would you all like to work on our project this afternoon?”

  She asks this like we would ever choose to do anything other than be with her. As if any sentence with the word project would be anything other than an automatic “pick me” from Stuart. As if we didn’t sit around and try to figure out ways to spend more time with her.

  “I guess that would be okay,” Violet says. “I don’t have anyone – I mean anything scheduled right now.”

  Andie ignores the innuendo and smiles and says “Great” and we put our lunch trays up and follow her to the art room.

  We sit down and Andie unloads the box that Kareem was carrying for her. She gives us each several cardboard rectangles.

  “It is going to be very difficult to draw aerial surveillance maps on these,” Stuart informs her. “I need a full sheet of paper to detail where the guard posts are.”

  “These aren’t for maps, Stuart. What we are going to do is write the names that we discovered for the people in the cemetery. We can add drawings on the cards also, like flowers or rainbows or anything we think the person might have liked.”

  “Can I draw animals?”

  “Yes, Herbert, but we want to be able to see them, so only draw visible ones.”

  “How about an orgy?”

  “Let’s try to draw things that are okay for kids to see, alright?”

  Violet pouts. “Fine.”

  “There is a flaw in your plan. We have observed rain in the cemetery. I do not believe these cards will be able to withstand the rain. They can’t just take off their clothes like we can.”

  For a moment Andie looks like she is going to ask Stuart about the taking off clothes part, but she shakes her head slightly, apparently judging it best to just address his concern. “The cards won’t be out there. After we have them all prepared, Kareem is going to take them to an engraver for us. The engraver will take our cards and use them to create metal copies that we can attach to a plaque. We will put the plaque in the cemetery so everyone can see their names and your drawings.”

  “As long as the plaque is rust-resistant.”

  “I’ll make sure it is. Now, shall we start?”

  It’s interesting, trying to decide what to draw on the cards. What would Shelly Thurber want on her card? A rose? A cat? I think about her, try to imagine living here back when she did, when they gave you a number and took away your name. I go with the cat. Something to curl up with her and purr when she pets it and make her feel special and wanted and needed. A cat, that should work just fine.

  Norman Jameson? A jack-in-the-box. He can wind it up whenever he is sad and it will pop up and surprise him and he can laugh. I’m not sure if I draw it very well but I am sure he will understand.

  I peek over at Pet Shop’s card. It looks like he is drawing the whole zoo on his. I see a tiger and an elephant and a zebra. His drawing looks better than mine. If I ever get a card I want him to make it. Except maybe without the tiger.

  Shy Boy has added a couple stick figures to his card. I remember the picture he drew for me and I wait
to see what the girl stick figure is holding on to. It ends up being the boy stick figure’s hand and I pat his hand for behaving. He looks at me and I don’t know if something got in his eye but I think he winked! He goes back to drawing and I sit there and wonder about how Shy Boy is changing. He isn’t so shy anymore.

  Violet has taken a card and has colored the entire thing black. She shows it to Andie. “See, I censored the parts the kids weren’t supposed to see.”

  “Thank you Violet, that’s a fine job.”

  I go back to the card for Norman Jameson and decide that it would be better if the jack-in-the-box was out of the box. Because it kind of looks like just a box, sitting there closed. I ask Andie for another card and try it again.

  We aren’t the fastest artists, and Andie has to help us with most of the spelling. Except Pet Shop, he is a good speller. We get about a dozen done before suppertime (not counting Violet’s which I think Andie threw away). Andie tells us we can finish up tomorrow, so we help her pack up the cards and markers back into the box.

  Forty: Never Been Kissed

  It is night, and I think about Shy Boy more than Andie. It was great that Andie is back and that she still loves us but it was really weird when Shy Boy winked at me. I wonder if I am falling for the silly boy and what would it be like if I was with him. Really with him. Like he wants. I hug my pillow and kiss it and pretend it is Shy Boy and it is different with Shy Boy than it is with Violet, but it isn’t like it was with him, no he never kissed me, he was all hands and fingers and penis. Forcing and shoving and thrusting and pain.

  I think about boys and kisses and then I am fourteen and I want to go to the movies with Jennifer and Mom says okay. It is an early show so we will be back before dark, I tell her, and she gives me an extra five dollars so I can have popcorn and candy and a drink and not just a movie.