"We don't want you to leave. We want you to stay," Toni insisted. Debbie sighed. Carlotta had introduced Debbie to Toni and her three kids. Toni loved to go out. One night, they had all met at a Mexican Restaurant for happy hour. Carlotta grimaced teasingly at Mindy and Charlene as Bruce fell asleep on his mother's lap.
The next day, Toni drove Debbie and the kids to Cave Creek. Desert plains and olive green cacti surrounded them for miles. This was not the leafy green lush existence of New England. The desert Spring had already passed when cactus flower graced the now barren landscape.
"A filming crew was out here one day," Toni told her. "They were filming Real Life Adventures."
Upstairs in the Treehouse Restaurant, aptly named, Toni, Debbie, Bruce, and the girls had lunch. In the back seat of the car, the kids dozed in the heat. Bottles of juice and koolaid, half finished, lay on the back seat. Toni drove into a greenhouse parking lot. She knew the people who owned it. The man gave Debbie a small potted cactus to take home.
MEET THE SINGLE MOM
Toni wanted to have a child.
"You can be as involved or uninvolved as you want," she had told the prospective father.
Driving her pizza delivery car gave way to her own at-home daycare business. "I don't much believe in babysitters," Toni told Debbie, and then, "Get away from the windows!"
Five tots scrambled off the old couch and sat sedately on the rug in front of the television set. A striped cat lay under the end table. Mindy smiled at Debbie, at once shy and sly. Charlene asked Debbie what colors she liked. She colored a blue gown onto Cinderella.
"Elizabeth is a beautiful child. She and Bruce could read books all day. Todd likes to climb trees, get dirty." The girls eyed a lovely long-haired slender girl. At age seven, Elizabeth was the oldest of the daycare kids. She reclined against the edge of the couch, sitting on the floor next to Bruce.
"I tried leaving him with a sitter when I delivered pizza. He cried all day," Toni said. Bruce read silently, his white-blond hair neatly framing blue, long lashed eyes, his mother's eyes.
"Their mother calls every Easter and Christmas to talk to the girls." Toni nodded toward Mindy and Charlene.
"But you won't let her, right?"
"No. People ask me why I get involved with other people's children."
"At least, they have somebody." Debbie eyed Mindy and Charlene, sandy-haired; watching cartoons quietly. Their mother had left them at Toni's at home daycare center one day and had never returned. The adoption papers were complete and Bruce, Mindy and Charlene had formed a natural stairstep trio at ages three, four and five. "I didn't tell Terry I have three children under six. Think that would scare him away? Get away from the windows!"
The toddlers had flocked to the couch again and had become entranced with a sewer truck outdoors. A tree grew out of the dirt front yard. There were no lawns here, just yards. An arrangement of cacti twisted out of the sand in the front yard across the street. It was a yard; there were no lawns here. Well, Carlotta did have a lawn over at the apartment complex. Holes had been bored into the curving sidewalks on the grounds so that pink petunias could be planted at Carlotta's apartment complex.
Debbie needed to use the bathroom. She closed the door. The knob turned from the outside. Mindy peeked in. "No!" Debbie said. It was a dilemma she was to deal with for the rest of the day. The bathroom door didn't have a lock on it andthe girls were accustomed to opening the door at their convenience.
Debbie imitated a cat, fingers for ears, and went through the kitchen after the two girls. They howled with delight, their blue eyes round with fright. Debbie was inspired by the tabby cat wearing a coat of unusual, distinct markings, hiding under an end table in the living room.
The heat was stifling. Mindy and Charlene kept coming over to sit close to Debbie on the couch.
"She doesn't want you around her! Go watch TV!" Toni commanded.
Debbie looked up from Charlene's colored picture she had given her. Elizabeth was inside the screen door, her eyes swollen, trembling with tears. The tears kept flowing out of her already puffy eyes. "Bruce and Todd are making fun of me." She sobbed in disbelief.
"Bruce! Todd! Get over here now! Look at her! How does that make you feel?"
Both boys stared at their shoes and squirmed.
"Well? It should make you feel pretty yucky. What are you going to say to her now?" Toni demanded.
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth," Bruce said politely.
Todd hesitated. "Sorry, Lizzy."
At four o'clock, Debbie glimpsed Carlotta through the screened window.
"Doesn't Toni make it look easy? How does she do it?" Carlotta wondered.
Debbie agreed. "One, maybe two kids. Definitely not three or four."
UP NEXT: BACK EAST.
