Ingrid.”
My mom turned around and glared at me. I met her eyes. She hated me right then. I was afraid but I didn’t really have a handle on what was going on. The whole car ride was becoming a weird emotional journey. I got Brandy back in between Jay and me. I couldn’t even look at Jay, I was so embarrassed. What happened? What was I thinking?
As we rode along, I started picturing us back in Chicago all together. I thought about my dad going back to work. I thought about Jay being in Preston’s room next to mine. I thought about Mom going shopping and Jay and I being alone together in the house and wondered what that would be like.
Mom had been saying for many miles that we needed to stop and eat. Unannounced, Dad pulled the car into a fast-food barbecue place in Wisconsin. We were all very hungry, having only eaten the doughnuts from that morning and what little snacks we brought from the closing down of the refrigerator at the cabin: a few slices of cheddar cheese, a few leftover bunches of green grapes, a few handfuls of crackers.
Dad asked me to put on Brandy’s leash. When he shut off the engine, he immediately jumped up out of the car, bounding around to my side where he opened my door for me, which was such an uncharacteristic move that I was immediately frightened. He reached in and grabbed Brandy’s leash and jerked the dog by his neck out of the car. “Dad! Don’t! You’re hurting him!”
“Shut up you little slut,” he growled, “Go with your mother and your stupid hick pimple-faced boyfriend. Look at them. Turn around and look at him. He isn’t even waiting for you. Don’t you get it? Don’t you get what’s happening here? Are you that naive?”
I saw that Jay and Mom were talking and walking into the restaurant together. I thought that was good because Jay didn’t hear how my dad was talking to me.
“Dad what are you talking about? I’m not going to let you put him down. He’s a really nice person. He’s not even my boyfriend. We haven’t even known each other that long. It wasn’t my idea to bring him.”
“Okay Sidney. You’re a fool.”
I went in to meet Jay and my mom. They were in line and my mom was in surprisingly good spirits. “Sidney, what is with you? Come on, put a smile on your face! Jay is going to start thinking you’re no fun at all. Now, I’m ordering us all the barbecue beef sandwiches. Sidney, do you think you should go back out and ask what your dad wants? I do. Quick, go ask before we’re up at the front of the line.”
I dreaded going back out, but I went. “Dad, Mom wants to know what you want to eat.”
Dad was standing under a tree on the side of the parking lot with Brandy, smoking a fat dark brown cigar.
“Just get a dish of water for the dog. I don’t want anything.”
“Dad, you haven’t eaten all day.”
“I’m not hungry.”
I ran back and joined them in line.
“He says he doesn’t want anything.”
“Oh, that’s ridiculous. He’s just being impossible.”
I got a plastic cup from the self-service area and filled it with water from a cooler they had set out. I carried it carefully back to Brandy and set it down. Brandy’s big face was immediately slopping water everywhere, all over my arm, but I held the cup so he could drink and not tip it over. My dad stood looking on in silence. I trotted back in again, and after a few minutes, our trays of food were ready.
The parking lot was hot and sunny and Mom didn’t think Brandy should be left alone in the car. She said I should go get Dad and let him eat his sandwich while I held the dog. Jay and my mom brought the four trays to a table and sat down and I jogged back out.
“Dad, they got you a barbecue beef sandwich and Mom says I should stay with Brandy so you can eat.”
“Go back in. I’m not eating, I told you that.”
“Please, Dad. Go eat. I’ll take the dog.”
“Go back in there and have fun Sidney. He’s your friend.”
I went back and I told Mom that Dad wouldn’t come. Jay looked concerned and asked if he should go out and let the family sit together. My mom answered, “Don’t be silly Jay. Finish your sandwich. Sidney, here, just bring your dad out his tray and he can eat out there then.”
I carried a plastic tray with a sandwich piled high with barbecue beef; a cup of cole slaw; and a paper dish of fries with ketchup on the side. There was a root beer in a plastic cup, with a straw. People brought the trays out to the few picnic tables along the edge of the driveway, so it didn’t seem like a bad idea to bring Dad this one.
“Dad, here. Mom says to give you … ” As I was right up to him he suddenly knocked the entire tray hard out of my hands.
The food flew everywhere. Brandy lurched for the beef on the ground and Dad jerked his head back and kicked at him to get him away from the food.
“Dad!” I shouted.
Dad’s face was burning. He turned his back to face the car and pulled Brandy away. I stayed and picked up what I could and carried it as quickly as possible to the nearby garbage can and dumped the mess. My heart was pounding in my throat. My hands shook. I brought the tray in and put it on the stack of used ones.
I went to Jay and my mom. I sat down without saying anything and ate a little but my hands were shaking and the food tasted like sawdust. My mom was entertaining Jay with some silly story and neither of them noticed that I was upset.
The rest of that trip was one long painful silence. Jay came to Chicago for three uncomfortable days. I don’t think my parents spoke to each other the whole time. Jay slept in Preston’s room, which felt weird and sad to me because I missed my brother. Jay was very sweet and cordial and we had fun, but I was relieved when Mom and I drove him to the bus station. I loved him for who he was, but he didn’t belong in Chicago and I needed to get on with readjusting to school and suburban life.
THE ESCAPE
On a sunny warm day in late May, my dad called the school and asked for me. It was the end of my junior year, summer was coming early to Chicago, everyone was sitting outside during lunch break. I had put my mom on the Greyhound bus a month and a half ago. I never talked about my mother being gone to anyone. Sophie was the only kid who knew. I heard my name blasted over the loudspeaker, across the campus lawn packed with teenagers. “Sidney Duncan, please come to the office for an urgent message.” My face was red, my heart was beating in my throat. I threw my yogurt container at a trashcan and ran through the double doors and down the winding halls to the office.
The administrative assistant told me I was supposed to call home immediately. She set the big plastic student phone on the counter and told me how to dial out of the school system. I called our house. My dad answered. He talked in an officious phony way. I hated him. “Sidney, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your mother and I are divorcing. You need to come home right now and be with your father. I am destroyed. Your mother was seen in a car with Seymour Hoffman, our old neighbor. They were holding hands. I have hired an investigator. It has been confirmed that she is having an affair with this man and that’s why she left.”
“No Dad, she’s up at the cabin. I wasn’t supposed to tell you, but you must know. She’s not around here. That can’t be true.”
“IT IS TRUE! Of course I know where she is! He’s up there with her and they’re sleeping together! Your mother is a deceitful whore. God damn it she’s cheating on me with my friend! One of the few people I counted as a true friend. That bastard. That sniveling alcoholic. How could she? How can she touch him? She couldn’t stand by me when things got rough. God damn her.”
“Dad, listen, I can’t come home, I have a big test today.”
“What? Are you deranged? What is wrong with you, Sidney? You need to come home. Now. You need to be here with your father. You don’t understand that your life is being pulled out from under you. You better get home here and start figuring out where you’re going to go and what you’re going to do.”
My insides were screaming, alarms were clanging in my head. My life was changing forever? What did that look l
ike? I wanted to say, Dad, be there for you? When have you been there for me? I don’t know how to be there for you. I don’t know what being there for someone means. After everything you guys have done to each other and to me and to your son, why should I stand by you?
All I said was, “I don’t have a pass to leave and I really have to take this test today.”
He hung up on me. I tried not to think about any of it. I tried to get my schoolwork done. I tried to do a good job on the test in American History. Then I drove to the ice cream parlor for work.
When I got home late that night, poor Brandy had pooped on the pale-green living room carpet. I cleaned it up and took him out for a walk.
When I got back in, the kitchen phone was ringing. “Sid, thank God.”
“Preston?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Look what the hell is going on there? I’m taking the bus and coming home in about a week for the summer. Dad sounds completely freaked out. Is Mom really at the cabin? Is she really having an affair with Seymour Hoffman?”
“I don’t know what to think, don’t ask me. I have a job at the ice cream parlor now and Dad leased me a car so I just do my homework and go to my job. And try to take care of poor Brandy.”
“Dad sent me money to come home, but he says I can’t return because he’s so broke. What the hell? It’s gonna be my senior year.”
“Yeah, he’s been staying out really late. I don’t know for sure if this is true but he says he stays out late driving a taxi for cash. Is that true do you think?”
“I have no idea. He says he’s going to pick me up from the bus station downtown. I’m supposed to call him on the floor of the exchange. I guess he’s still going there every day. He says I can work with him as a runner this summer. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I think I have to stay here and work.”
“Did you hear that Tommy’s in town from Florida helping Dad down at the exchange too? He wants to become a broker I guess and Dad’s helping him out.”
“Oh great. I hope he doesn’t come over here.”
“I thought maybe you’d seen him already. Dad says he might stay with us for a while.”
“Oh … ”
“Well, don’t worry about anything. I’ll be there soon. You can drive me around in your car. I still don’t have my license so you can chauffer your old brother around.”
“Great.”
“Okay, don’t worry sister Sid, I’ll be home soon.”
The next day when I got home from school I could not believe my eyes when I walked in the open front door and saw, standing right in front of me, my awful cousin.
I froze, horrified, as Brandy came over and nuzzled me, wagging his tail. Poor guy was probably really freaked out by this strange character.
“Hey! Sidney! Whoa. Look at you. Seriously all grown up. Wow, your dad didn’t warn me that you had turned into such a looker. Whew! Come here and give ol’ Tommy a hug!”
I didn’t. I was paralyzed.
“How did you get in the house? Is my dad here?”
“Oh come on, why that face? It’s just you and me. He went back to the exchange, said I could move my things in, get comfortable, which is just what I intend to do.”
“Where are you going to sleep? Preston’s coming home in a few days.”
“Yeah, well I’m taking his room for now and we’ll figure it out once he gets here, okay? Don’t you worry your pretty little head over it. The men have it all figured out.”
I walked past him in the hall, making sure to not even slightly brush up against him. I went straight for the kitchen phone. Thank God Sophie answered instead of her mother, “Sophie, it’s me, what are you doing right now?”
“Oh my God, I’m working on my final project for World History. If I don’t finish this thing it’s no Miami of Ohio for me. What’s going on?”
“Can you take a break and come over right now? Remember my horrible cousin, the one who they said got a sewn-on toupee? He’s here … in the house … alone with me … right now … he’s a total pervert … you have to come see what he looks like … you will die … ”
“No way. Is he as bad as you thought he’d be?”
“Worse. Seriously. He’s disgusting. You have to come.”
“Okay, I’ll tell my mom I’m getting the stuff I forgot to get her from the store. I can only stay a little while.”
I heard Tommy go up to Preston’s room. I couldn’t stand the idea of him in there wrecking Preston’s stuff right before he got home. Preston had all the things he cared about in there. And his bed had clean sheets on it and a nice quilt that my mom bought him and that I knew he really loved. I didn’t want that disgusting guy touching any of it, stinking it up with his awful cologne.
I stood at the front door waiting for Sophie to pull up. She lived close enough to walk so in the car it took just a minute or two. Brandy’s leather leash was hanging in the front hall closet. I grabbed it and put it on him and he stood next to me.
Upstairs I heard Preston’s door open again. I didn’t want to turn around so I kept looking out the door for Sophie, but I could hear Tommy coming down the stairs behind me. I could smell him too. It was as if he had put on every product in his toiletry bag, a combination of maybe coconut suntan oil, herbal hair products, and some terrible manly cologne wafting its way in front of him as he descended the stairs.
Sophie’s conservative old grandpa car, a tan four-door Buick, pulled into the driveway. Sophie waved as she shut off the engine. I opened the front storm door. She ran up the walk beaming with glee that we were going to check out this atrocity of a human being together. Sophie was the best for this kind of cruel but funny judging thing.
She was just starting to say, “Oh my God Sidney, I couldn’t get here fast en … ” and then she stopped, speechless.
I was holding the front storm door open for Sophie to come in but as she wasn’t moving I turned and looked behind me.
There stood Tommy in his full glory. He was deeply Arizona suntanned. He had huge bulging muscles. His face was coated with some kind of bronzer or concealer probably meant to smooth out his complexion. His only articles of clothing were a pair of shiny gold metallic disco style jogging shorts and striped athletic socks with Adidas running shoes. No shirt at all. Worst, or best, of all was the thick shock of yellow blonde hair hanging over one eye just a bit, perfectly sculpted into place. His hair on the sides and in back was shaved very short and was blonde too. My recollection of Tommy was that he, like my dad and grandfather, and even Preston, had very thin hair that was obviously heading toward baldness at an unusually early age. I had heard that he paid for a very expensive procedure in LA where they actually sew, with thread, a toupee on to the top of your bald scalp. Could it be true? Sophie and I had already puzzled over this. By looking at him, you honestly couldn’t tell how it was being held on, but you could for sure tell it wasn’t his real hair.
Tommy was eyeing Sophie up and down. “Oh man! Two for one! What, the beauties around here just keep multiplying! Who do we have here? What’s your name, you little morsel?”
Sophie was the Junior Miss of our town for several good reasons. She was by far the most beautiful girl I had ever known personally. She made my mom look like a sad long-faced starving horse out to pasture. She was wearing old Converse sneakers, a pink oxford button-down collar shirt, and cut-off denim overalls that were pretty baggy on her because she was so thin. She always wore smudgy eyeliner that perfectly and subtly emphasized her wonderful huge brown eyes, so even in tomboy clothes, she was spectacular. I looked at those expressive eyes and they looked back at me. Our horror was sheer delight. Tommy could not have been weirder. Sophie’s intellect was a much bigger delight for me than her pretty appearance, so I was thrilled that she had made it over just in time for us to witness his arrival together.
He was still talking, “Sidney, are you just going to stand there? Don’t you have any manners? Who is this beautiful creature?”
&nbs
p; Sophie turned to face him and her beautiful brow furrowed. She stepped one foot forward as a gesture of bravery. I smiled.
“My name is Sophie and I came here to see Sidney.”
With her chin held high she turned her pretty face to me, “Sidney, let’s sit out here on your porch, shall we?”
I could see that we couldn’t get past him into the house and honestly it didn’t feel safe to be inside with him. Brandy wanted to go out too.
Sophie, Brandy, and I went out to sit on the stoop. Brandy peed on the bushes by the door and then threw himself down in the sunny grass.
Tommy followed us. He stood shirtless, hands on hips, facing us, his back to the street.
A Girl Called Sidney Page 10
