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10

No Turning Back

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Once when I was in the fourth grade we had a

terrible fire drill at school. The principal had bawled out the student body--just a week before because we took too long to evacuate our classrooms and the building and there was a great deal of talking.

"This time it was just a drill," he warned, "but next time it could be for real and if you take as long as you did this time and make as much noise, some of you will surely die."

I didn't think he wanted to put panic in our hearts so much as he wanted us to take it all more seriously. Nevertheless, when the alarm rang the next week, there was an air of frenzy. Someone swore she smelled smoke. The next thing I knew, we were all rushing out and our class ran smack into another class in the hall. There were two classes already crowding behind them. The orderly way we were supposed to exit broke down when another student cried, "It's a real fire!"

The kids around me screamed. My heart felt like it had melted in my chest. Someone pushed someone else and then all of the classes began to run toward the exit despite the protests of our teachers. I was numbed. Panic had put glue on the bottoms of my sneakers so I didn't move fast enough. However, the momentum was behind and around me as waves and waves of swinging arms and legs rushed by. Bodies pushed on mine and I found myself being carried along, moving fast whether I wanted to or not. We burst out of the building like drowning people gasping for air. I have never forgotten my sense of

helplessness, my inability to oppose the power that was sweeping me along.

It was just how I felt in the limousine as the world I had known fell away behind me. Once again, I was being carried along, swept away, rushed over highways, unable to stop. In a real sense, I thought, I was escaping a burning building, a fire. At least that was what Mama truly believed. I saw the relief in her eyes when the door of the limousine was closed and I was sealed in this plush vehicle that moved with the glitter and sharpness of a needle through the shroud that had once covered me in this city.

The driver said little to me during the trip. About an hour after we were on the road, he asked if I wanted to hear any music. He explained that there was a radio above me on the ceiling of the limousine. I wasn't in the mood for music so I just thanked him, and I didn't push any buttons or turn any knobs. He glanced back at me once and then ignored me until we were closing in on what would become my new home. He muttered, "Not much longer now."

Instead of bringing relief, his words sent a finger of ice sliding down my chest, between my breasts and over my ribs. I tightened my arms around myself and sat frozen in the corner of the limousine gazing out the window. When the driver had left the main highway and we were moving through the countryside, I began to see the large estates with beautiful grounds. It was hard to believe that a single family owned so much. The houses looked larger than embassies. Everything was clean and spankingly new, the hedges and flowers brilliantly dressed in their greens and reds and yellows. The water gushing from magnificent fountains sparkled like liquid diamonds in the late morning sun. Uniformed gardeners and grounds people manicured the landscaping. They resembled an army out to conquer ugliness. The opulence was so great it frightened me. Anyone could take one look at me. in this setting and know I was an immigrant from poverty, fleeing the dirt and the crime. They'd wonder how I ever got here.

Fear actually made my teeth chatter along with the electric chills in my bones. This was a horrible mistake, I kept thinking. I should go back and I should return all the beautiful things my real mother had bought for me. I was too awkward, too unrefined. I would be a total embarrassment to my real

grandmother and she would send me packing almost minutes after I had arrived.

Convinced of the impending disaster and full of dread, I found it hard to breathe when the driver finally announced, "We're here!"

He turned up a long circular driveway toward another one of those large houses I had seen along our route.

This mansion was two stories with four large, tall columns holding up a front-gabled roof that made the house look like a Greek temple. This impression was reinforced by the stone steps running the width of the entry porch.

The lawn and gardens seemed to go on forever to the right and to the left. I saw a three-car garage on the left with what looked like a vintage Rolls Royce parked in front. Someone had just washed it. The hose and the pail of soapy water were still beside it.

The driver got out and then opened my door. "This is it," he said with a small smile. I stepped out slowly and looked up at the house.

There was a breeze, but nothing moved, not even the leaves on the small trees or hedges. Everything was so still, I felt as if I was about to enter a painting. Suddenly, a cloud slipped over the sun and a dark shadow washed across the front of the mansion. On the second floor, a curtain moved, but I saw no face. The driver began to unload my luggage.

"You can go on inside," he said. "I'll bring everything."

I had half expected the front door to open and my grandmother to step out, anxious to greet me, but there wasn't any sign of life. Even the birds that flitted from tree branches to fountains and benches seemed to keep their distance, eying that front door nervously.

/> I started up the steps. The stone looked pristine beneath my feet. I imagined the steps were swept and washed as vigorously as the very floors inside. I found no doorbell button, just a brass knocker in the shape of a ball hammer with a brass plate beneath. I let it fall once and then, thinking it wasn't loud enough of a knock, did it again, holding it back and pushing it down so that it sounded louder.

Moments later the grand door opened and I was facing a maid who looked no more than twenty, if that. She had short blond hair trimmed with precision to the length of her ear lobes. It was brushed straight and sat over her temples and forehead like thin wires, devoid of softness, dry, almost painted on. Her eyes were a dull brown set back too far from the bridge of her nose. She squinted as the cloud moved off the sun and some light was reflected off the cold white stone floor of the portico. I didn't imagine she was outside much. She had a pale complexion with a prominent birthmark on her narrow forehead.

Her apron was knee length over a dark blue skirt and her blouse was buttoned tightly at her neck. She was small busted, but somewhat wide in the hips. Sad and dumpy, she looked like someone destined to go unnoticed, to be forever a menial servant. The reality of her situation had planted a dark depression in her eyes. I imagined a smile was as rare as a diamond in her life. She glanced at me and then shifted her body to look at the limousine and driver.

"You're Rain?" she asked. She seemed surprised. What had she been told? I wondered.

"Yes."

She grimaced as a look of annoyance and disgust washed through her face.

"This way," she said and turned her back on me quickly.

I hesitated. This was my greeting? I glanced at the driver who was starting toward the steps and then I stepped into the large, long entryway with creamy marble floors. To my right was a tall, wide mirror in a rich oak frame. It nearly reached the ceiling. On my left was a matching oak antique table with what looked like a pewter vase now full of jonquils.