stand upright. They go on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays now to see her with all their friends. What do you think of your mom being a stripper?”
I hit that girl so hard she had to go home because her nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. She shut up about our momma, but I got suspended for five days. We knew she was lying.
When girls in pigtails and Mary Janes came up to me and Cecilia and told us our momma was a whore, we whupped all of them. Five against two. They shut up about our momma.
When an older boy, his teeth buck and sticking out, told us his daddy thought our momma had an “ass tight enough to hold nuts,” Cecilia and I took care of his tooth problem and he shut up about our momma.
That took care of the overt teasing at our school, but nothing could take care of the laughter and snickers and pointed fingers behind our backs.
But Momma wasn’t a stripper. We knew that. She was a dancer—feathers, sequins, and all. We knew it so well we waited around the corner from the strip club in town that we knew she didn’t work at because she wasn’t a stripper.
We waited and waited and we cringed with disbelief when we heard the wheeze and thunking of our ancient car and Momma drove up and parked around in the back and went in a side entrance wearing an old sweatshirt of my dad’s that said UNITED STATES ARMY, her hair in a ponytail.
Cecilia and Janie and I leaned back against the wall in shock. Too shocked to cry. Too devastated to move. Too humiliated to breathe. Within fifteen minutes, that parking lot was packed, with loud, boisterous men getting out of cars.
We trudged home, heads down, avoiding the streets of town, avoiding each other’s eyes, trying to avoid the truth but knowing the truth was beaming and bold and undeniable: Our momma was a stripper.
We waited up for Momma that night, one light on in our shabby, brownish family room, us three lined up on the sofa, our feet on our stained carpet.
“Momma, are you a stripper?” Janie asked, soft as a mouse, a frightened mouse.
Momma froze in the doorway. She had bruisy circles under her eyes and was pale with exhaustion. One of the take-home boxes of food she held in her hands dropped to the floor. Chicken wings fell out. I still remember that. Still remember those chicken wings. To this day, none of us eats chicken wings.
“How dare you,” she said, her voice so quiet we could barely hear it.
Janie cringed, Cecilia wrapped her arms around herself, and I put my chin up.
“How dare we ?” I asked as I stood. I was furious. So embarrassed I could have died. Momma took her clothes off for the men in this town. On stage.
“Yes, how dare you,” Momma said, starting to shake.
“You’re the one taking off her clothes!” I shouted.
She sent the other box of food flying across the room. Noodles with tomato sauce spilled out. I was steaming about that, too. That pasta was dinner! I was hungry!
“Who told you?”
“Everyone, Momma! We’ve been beating kids up for weeks! We thought they were lying!”
She swayed.
“How could you do that?” I was so frustrated, so destroyed, I felt like the devil had set my stomach on fire.
I heard Henry start to whimper in his bedroom. Momma’s eyes darted in that direction.
“You didn’t tell Henry, did you?”
“No, Momma, we didn’t think he needed to know about your pole twirling!”
Her face flushed. “Do you think I like what I do, you spoiled brats?”
There was silence. We were young. We didn’t get it, didn’t understand.
“Do you?” she shrieked, her blond ponytail swinging behind her. “Do you?” She threw her purse across the room. It broke a glass vase we’d found at a garage sale.
“You must like it!” I shouted back. “You must because you do it!”
God, I had a momma who took off her clothes!
Janie said, “Momma, we love you, but—”
“But what?” she seethed.
“But don’t do it!” Cecilia yelled. “Don’t strip! We gotta move, Momma. Everybody knows!”
Momma didn’t move.
“Even being a waitress is better than that!” I told her, superior, snotty. “You’re holding a tray in the air kissing people’s asses but at least you’re not naked!”
“Momma, they’re calling you the River of Love at school!” Cecilia accused. “They say, ‘My dad wants a sexy river.’ That means they’re going to see you!”
“It’s a little slutty, don’t you think, Momma?” I sneered.
That did it. Looking back, I’m surprised she didn’t pound me into the wall. She was not known for her restraint.
“You think I’m a slut?”
“I think you’re acting like one!”
Janie whimpered.
“You’re judging me, Isabelle Bommarito? You, who has never had to work a day in her life? You who has never had to worry about supporting four kids, on your own?” she shot back, her bright green eyes with the light in back of them filling with tears.
Henry made a moaning sound in his bedroom.
“Yeah, Momma, I am. That’s disgusting! You’re disgusting.”
“Isabelle, stop—” Cecilia pleaded.
Her whole body shook. “Then you do it, Isabelle. You support this family.”
“I can’t, Momma, I’m fourteen!”
Momma charged right up to my face. “Do you know why I have this job, you little snot? Do you have any clue? It’s because I had to take it. I don’t have any skills. I don’t have an education. I don’t have a husband. Waitressing, you obnoxious brat, did not pay our bills. Do you think you all were eating crackers for lunch because I wanted you to eat crackers? Do you think we had noodles all weekend because you liked them? We ate them because that’s all I could afford.”
She pulled away from me as if she couldn’t bear to be near, then picked up the nearest item on a table—a clay imprint of my hand I’d made her as a kid—and hurled it across the room. It smashed a mirror and both the hand and the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces. I felt the blood draining from my face like liquid through a sieve.
“Do you know how much Henry’s stomach medicine is each month?” she rasped out. “His asthma medicine?”
I shook my head.
I could hear Henry sobbing.
She picked up another item. It was a ceramic sculpture Janie had made last year. It was supposed to be a dog. It looked like a snake with a porcupine back. It went flying over the couch and crashed into a lamp. The lamp toppled and broke.
Janie moaned. Cecilia sucked in her breath.
“Do you know how much I owe the hospital and doctors for Henry? Do you?” She named an enormous sum. “I will never, ever be able to pay that back, but they’re suing me anyhow. At least I can keep the lights on.”
The third item that went flying was a framed photo of the four of us plus Momma.
Janie covered her face with her hands and talked to herself.
Cecilia trembled, red, flushed, scared.
Momma shoved her face, twisted with anger, one inch from mine. “I hate stripping, you get that? I hate it. I do it for us. Even you, you judgmental, stupid child. I do it because