“Sure …” I said. I wasn’t at all surprised that she was different, but I was alarmed at how different. Beyond that, it was her willingness to put it out there. Come on, you can like summer sausage and cheese that doesn’t require refrigeration, but why admit it to a stranger?
She was confident about being a freak. I hadn’t expected that. Really, I had thought she/I/we were freaks who had long operated a complex cover-up scheme, the masterminds of a hoax that made us look normal—well, almost—to the outside world. But, or so it would seem, that was the MO of the forty-six-year-old me, because the younger version of the voice inside my head was confident. She had confidence. It was more shocking than my parents’ party last night and a bigger surprise than finding out I really was, by far, Mom’s least favorite.
Perhaps we are all born with confidence, but life robs us of it. Maybe we’re all pretending we still have it, some of us more than others, while secretly dying inside day by day. Have we replaced it, our confidence, with unfounded smugness, hiding behind our bank accounts, expensive purses and riding lawn mowers?
We want better, for ourselves, for our children, but we don’t know how to fix it. Because we aren’t even aware that it’s broke.
Hand in hand we walked slowly toward Hickory Freaking Farms, in a mall full of what had to be the best retail shops in what was the fourth-largest city in the nation. It’s what she had picked. It’s what I had picked. Oh God…
The store itself was way better than I had imagined, a huge improvement over the holiday kiosk you still saw set up in malls during the holidays of the future. It was a little like a dumbed-down Cracker Barrel gift shop. What it lacked in Yankee Candles and weird old-lady sweaters, it made up for with poufy table skirts and stacks of canned nuts.
Mini-Me was thrilled as we sampled cheese balls garnished with shiny cherries, the famous beef stick, “cheddar” out of a brown crock, something exotic called “Sesami Stix” and a generous slice of a delicacy labeled “smoked cheese bar.” Pausing at the rear of the store, I watched as Little Amy literally salivated over the display of holiday gift boxes brimming with meat logs, cheese bars, miniature mustards, dessert loaves and imported petit fours. Each was lined with a healthy serving of fake Easter grass and hard candies wrapped to look like, I guessed, foil strawberries.
I really shouldn’t have, but only because I knew how she operated and what it would mean to her, I reached up and grabbed the biggest gift box I saw. It was something called “The Big Round Up.” Without turning back, I hauled it to the register. Following right behind, she literally squawked, “Wait up! You’re buying that? Who is it for? Your family back home in Ohio? My mom and dad? The lady friend who dropped you off? Your husband? Your postal carrier? You know …” She stopped, putting her hand on her hip in an almost Kim-like fashion. “That will make a FINE gift!”
I didn’t turn around as I shelled out the $9.99 for the three-pound box of happiness. She continued on, not being able to cope with the fact I was making an actual purchase at the ONLY fake red barn in this mall. “Oh it is nice, especially that beef stick summer sausage …” she cooed. “Oh, it will be delicious … Whoever gets that is LUCKY!”
The clerk, wearing a red vest and a black Colonel Sanders tie, put the box—which looked like a Duraflame log—inside a red bag and handed it to me, smiling over the faux butcher-block counter. “Don’t forget your complimentary holiday gift … free with every purchase!” he said, handing me a booklet called Cheese Chatter—A Fine Cookbook. I think the alternate title was something like Twenty-Three Ways to Not Have a Normal Bowel Movement for Two Weeks.
Amy followed me out of the store, past the Hickory Farms Christmas tree and past a ginormous wheel of “Citation Swiss,” still talking, still wondering. Once back into the mall, I finally stopped, looked down at her and smiled. “Do you know who this is for?”
“No,” she replied, solemnly turning her head to-and-fro, not understanding that I, well we, were about to alter the entire course of her life. Mary had said nothing in the future would change as a result of anything I did on this supposed journey, but if Little Amy remembered receiving this box of goodness, it could change the future. Yes, the actual receipt of fake meats and cheeses could mean she got something—a categorically ridiculous something—that she had always wished for. Something that in the future she would never admit to even wanting. If she got the beef stick, now, at age ten, would it mean that she wouldn’t push herself quite so hard later, trying to be something more, trying desperately to please every person she ever met?
I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not, tinkering with the delicate wiring of what was to become my adult personality. I may not have always liked myself, but the reality of who I was, and wasn’t, might be better than an unknown, untested alternative.
So, I would do this while trusting Mary that it would change nothing between 1978 and 2014. And, I would make a mental note, not a written one, because that would be keeping it too real, that this could be one of the questions that Mary very unwisely said I freaking had.
“YOU!” I said, with a degree of satisfaction I couldn’t explain.
She gasped, and staggered back as if someone had punched her right in the gut. “ME?” she uttered, barely managing to spit the word out.
“Yes, YOU,” placing the hefty bag squarely in her small hands, causing her to shift her weight.
“You mean this is for ME, it’s all for M E? The Hickory Farms BIG ROUND-UP pack is for ME?”
“That’s right, Merry Christmas, Amy!” I smiled. “Now, where is Oshman’s?”
“Where is Oshman’s?” she gasped, enunciating every word with eyes on full bulge. “You mean we’re still going to OSHMAN’S SPORTING GOODS even though I am holding a BEEF STICK SUMMER SAUSAGE?”
Oh my God, she was a freak, standing there by a fully lit Ficus tree, within hearing distance of eight different man-made fountains and a kiosk of hand-blown crystal animals, the same ones you couldn’t get in 2014 unless you went to a truck stop with showers.
“Let’s just call it an ‘Amy bonus’ since we share the same name.” I said, still smiling, because I couldn’t help it. If I couldn’t appreciate her, who would? And if I, of all people, couldn’t love her, who in the hell would?
With Little Amy grappling with the red bag in the same way I had struggled with my luggage yesterday, we headed back to the café courtyard and into Oshman’s, Houston’s finest sports retailer.
It was stacked to the gills with merchandise. So much so it was hard to gauge the décor, other than the wood shingling that copycatted what was going on over in Wards. Only this time around, there was more wood, but you couldn’t see it as well. Maybe it wasn’t so much that the ’70s had less “stuff” on sale, maybe it was just crammed into a smaller space.
Walking down the main path that zigzagged through the store, we looked at a dizzying array of shoes, balls, camping equipment and a bigger-than-necessary display of bumper pool tables. The deal of the day, or what everyone was gawking at, was an octagon-shaped table that could be a red-felt bumper pool table, a poker table, or, a regular dining set. It was advertised as a 3 in 1, a term that reminded me of how chili restaurants in Ohio—the same places that dare to mix cinnamon and nutmeg into their meat—offer their products in “three way” or “four way” variations. Look, I understand they mean you can have your “chili” with spaghetti noodles (yes, I just freaking said that) and cheddar cheese and sour cream, or not. But, what most everyone else in the country is thinking, when they see it on the menu, is that it comes served not on a bed of noodles, but on an actual bed with two, or three, nude people.
And where I’m from, that just ain’t right.
Before I could take anything else in, Little Amy gasped and pointed at a display to our right. There, stacked in two separate pyramids, were NFL locker bags and jersey and helmet sets.
“OH MY GOD!” she screamed, bug-eyed and arms in full flail. “I have ALWAYS wanted one of THOSE
!”
Pointing in the general direction of well, everything, it was difficult to figure out specifically what she was so excited about. I got that she was way into NFL football—this is the same girl who would save up her allowance to subscribe to the Pro Football Digest—but which of these items had she “ALWAYS” wanted?
“What have you always wanted?” I asked, trying to decide if I should be enthusiastic or scared.
“ALL OF IT!” she stated dramatically, gasping like the oxygen level had suddenly dropped in the store.
“Oh …” I said, walking toward the jersey/helmet sets. “Which team do you like?” I knew exactly what she was going to say, but I couldn’t let on to that, because frankly her choice was unusual given we were in South Texas, where she had lived for the entirety of her short life.
“Oh, I love the Washington Redskins!” she said, again confident despite the fact we were likely to be within earshot of at least a couple of Dallas Cowboy fans. “But,” she continued, still in the full throes of drama, “they probably don’t carry that here …” Her voice trailed off like nothing in life could have been more disappointing than the shocking statement she had just made.
“Well, I could ask …” I looked around for somebody who worked in the store.
“Oh, could you?” Little Me said, in a tone that both delighted me and made me want to throw myself in front of the truck that had delivered the bumper pool tables. “That would be so fabulous.”
Suddenly she sounded like a thirty-two-year-old woman from Vermont, but her marginally impressive grasp on the English language couldn’t hide the fact that she was a prepubescent girl asking for a football uniform as a gift, when she could have anything in the entire mall. And, beyond that little anomaly, she had almost fainted upon receiving a processed meat log.
Again, and this time with feeling … Oh God.
It didn’t surprise me one bit. How well did I know this kid? But, seriously, who was she? WHO WAS SHE? How was she ever going to survive what was coming? Her life wasn’t necessarily going to be worthy of a Childhood of Famous Americans book, or one of those Dear America diaries, but it was going to be a life. And that meant all the twists, turns and painful moments that are destined for any living, breathing thing.
I couldn’t help her. And she couldn’t help me. We were just going to have to trust God that this would all work out, despite our obvious combined shortcomings.
I waved down a salesperson wearing gray sport slacks and a snug white shirt with a wide collar, the orange Oshman’s logo emblazoned over his eastward-facing nipple. He looked like he might be on the coaching staff for the Miami Dolphins, with thick black hair, a mustache and an attractively bulky body.
“Yes, my lady, how can I help you?” he asked, as if we were standing just outside the drawbridge of the local medieval castle.
“Uh, yeah,” I started, not sure if I wanted to ask him my question or date him and his caterpillar mustache. “We were wondering if you had any of these NFL items, the bag or the helmet set, for the Redskins … The Washington Redskins?”
“Well, miss,” he said. “That is an unusual request, indeed it is. Now,” he continued, “are we looking for a Christmas gift for a special little boy who lives at some great distance from us, because we can ship directly.”
Good Lord, these people needed a good internet connection. Back in my day there would be absolutely no reason, ever, and I mean ever, even with a hefty discount, to make the arduous trek down to the mall, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, to mail order some stuff to be shipped to another state. This was precisely why eBay and Amazon were created. More things to be thankful for.
“No!” Amy the Younger cut in, marching right between me and Mr. Gallant. “It’s for me, for today, I’m a BIG Redskins fan.”
“Oh,” the salesman said, pausing to scan Amy’s bowl cut and cat frock. “Well, isn’t that something?”
While his voice wasn’t dripping with condemnation, it was easy to detect just the slightest change in his tone. Suddenly, I felt myself becoming defensive, for her, for us. She could be confident about her fanhood all she wanted to, but I wasn’t going to take any crap from this guy, even if it wasn’t actually happening. Even if I was the only one who noticed there was anything to be offended by.
“Yes,” I said as firmly as I could, putting my hand on my hip in a decidedly Kim-like fashion. “She’s a big fan, she’s a prodigy, really. She can run like a deer, catch a ball in full stride and she’s got a real head for statistics … And she, well she …” I said, unable to stop myself. “Plays championship-caliber soccer.”
I may have been overstating things a little, OK, I was flat out making stuff up, but, at the very least, I was going to speak up for her/myself/us and most of all, me. I wouldn’t be here tomorrow, or for the 13,140 days that separated the age of ten from forty-six, but I was here today. And even if I only had the guts to defend us in front of a total stranger, I had the kid’s back.
I had my own back.
Little Amy looked at me as I worked up a suitably direct glare for Mr. Handsome, her eyes glowing in what I perceived was pure awe. Though I’m one hundred percent sure she didn’t really get what was going on, she got it.
“So, what’s the deal … do you have anything?” I asked him, now completely uninterested in him except for the purpose of getting what WE wanted.
“Well …” he said, still dashing, but not quite the same guy he had been forty-five seconds before. “You won’t believe this, but the supplier sent one of each for every team in the NFL, just in case. And, we still have one bag and one uniform set for the Redskins. Would you like me to show yourself and the young, um, lady, the sets, or— ”
I cut him off before he could continue. “No, we’ll take both.”
“Well, ma’am,” he said. “The helmets and jerseys are technically sold separately, the jersey is $7.99, the helmet is $9.99, and the bag, well, that’s $7.89, so …”
“We’ll take all three,” I barked. “Wrap them up please.” I made a big deal of looking for his employee name tag and added, “James.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said less enthusiastically, but proving that while chivalry hadn’t been completely vanquished, we were moving further from the castle gates. “Follow me, please.”
I didn’t even look down at Amy. I just grabbed her hand and followed Jim’s tight ass—and I’m not referring to his fiscal conservatism—to the register.
“Are you sure, Big Amy?” she asked, almost shyly now.
“Yeah, I got this … We got this,” I replied.
She was thrilled. I was riled. And as for James, he was either perplexed or totally unaffected as he handed Little Amy the Oshman’s sack containing everything she had ever wanted, only she wasn’t afraid to ask for it.
For all I knew, I was the only one of the three us of who thought James was judging Little Amy because she loved football and wanted to wear a helmet and jersey and store them in a vinyl locker bag with plastic handles and fake stitching. She looked so happy, he looked so hot, and I was ready to punch somebody, or lay on the floor in the fetal position and sob, or do both, at the same time.
Little Amy had spent hours looking at the NFL page in the Sears Catalog, the Holiday Wish Book, dreaming of having these items, falling in love with the freaking Redskins’ logo and uniform. I knew that, and I was happy to comply.
But, I was still not at one with her wanting them. What did it mean that she was OK with it, but I wasn’t? After all, she had to live with that, not me, right? I knew too much to spend time with her. And she knew just enough. Maybe that’s why we were meant to stay in the parts of our lives that we were supposed to be in. Maybe that’s why time travel isn’t possible.
Mary and her damn questions.
LOOKING at my watch, I realized that despite hitting two stores, we still had a couple of moments left before we had to meet up with Mom and Dad. “You thirsty?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. To be honest, I
could have really used a Starbucks, or any kind of caffeinated coffee drink, but that wasn’t happening here, any more than I was going to be able to look up the meaning of life on my iPhone.
And so, we settled for an Orange Julius.
“I’ve never been here before, Big Amy,” she said, looking up at me.
“I know …” I said. My response didn’t seem to faze her. Did she know what was going on? Clearly, no. What concerned me even more was that she seemed oblivious to everything that was going on. She was so trusting, dangerously so.
I ordered two smalls, totally unsure of what an Orange Julius really was. The mall had become busier since we had arrived. The only place I could find for us to sit, even though we only had a few precious minutes remaining, was outside of the Children’s Place store. It was a shop that was still alive back in the real world, that is, minus the yellow neon sign and the red entrance.
As Little Amy stared out into the crowd, I pulled out my little notebook. “Orange Julius … What the hell is it? Buy somebody, or myself, a Hickory Farms giftset this Christmas—what can I get for $9.99? Find a place to show Will and Matt how to play bumper pool.” And finally, “Should I write down some questions about my life and try to answer them?” Pausing for a moment, I added, “HELL NO!”
We made quite a picture, the two of us, sitting in the glossy red circle cut-out, sipping our Orange Julii and saying nothing. We both liked to say nothing and we both liked other people who were OK with saying nothing. We liked pretending that special moments didn’t faze us, but inside absorbing every emotion, delighting in each one. The reflection of the lights on the red gloss and the shiny mall floor made our drinks glow. I wondered if her heart was doing the same thing mine was.
You Cannot Mess This Up Page 24
