Chapter Twenty-Four
DIAL 411 FOR INFORMATION
We found Dick and Sue sitting on a bench in the Children’s Court, located on the outskirts of the food court, called “the Patio.” Kim and Rick were somewhere in the play area, a plastic maze consisting of interconnected red-and-yellow cubes stacked randomly on a black-rubber floor. Missing from the scene were automatic dispensers of hand sanitizer, height-restriction signs and really any sort of rules.
Little Amy ran over to Mom and Dad, detailing our retail adventures. I hadn’t thought of it, but it was good that Kim and Rick couldn’t see the huge haul of items I had bought for Amy. I had spent about four times as much on her, a fact that made me feel extremely uncomfortable once I realized it.
Dick just smiled as he looked down at the goods, but Sue, while she wouldn’t confront me, surely understood the level of inequality I had achieved. I worked hard not to care about either—my complicity or her reaction to it—but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Amy,” Dad said, “if you want to play, you had better go now, it’s getting busy and we can’t stay here all day. Cousin Amy has to be back by this afternoon for her ride into town.”
“Yes,” Mom agreed. “We’ll need to get her back.”
Little Amy plopped down her bags and started toward the nearest cube. “Amy,” I said, following behind her. She stopped, looking perplexed. Guiding her closer to the play area, but further away from our parents, I whispered carefully, “Hey look … Don’t say too much about all that stuff I bought you. Umm, you know, you got a little more than the other two, but there is no reason to rub it in.” Looking up, a sly smile came over her face, an expression that made her look like I’d just given her—and only her—the launch code for the nuclear missiles on our submarine.
“It will make me look bad,” I continued, trying to make her understand that it was more about protecting me than not hurting their feelings. I understood that she, and everyone else with siblings, would wholly appreciate any edge she could gain over Kim and Rick. “Let’s just say I got you some stuff that was on sale—and that you’re sharing the Hickory Farms box, even if you’re not.”
“OK. Yeah,” she said, still looking like we were about to engage in some sort of espionage. “I got it, I understand … I surely do …” As she turned to go, she patted me on the back firmly, as if we had just sold some unsuspecting yahoo a used car with no air conditioning.
Who knew what she would say, later, after I’d gone and the three kids were alone, upstairs, lowering stuffed animals down the stairs in laundry baskets with jump ropes.
Turning back toward Mom and Dad, I knew I had created an awkward situation. And then I had made it worse by trying to tell the younger version of myself how to handle it. Little Amy may not remember this specific instance in thirty years, but it combined with the 1,000 other times people would instruct her on how to interpret things, or maneuver through issues, would shape who she was.
It made me think of Will and Matthew and the millions of words I had spoken to them or for them since they were ripped from my nether regions. The everyday, never-ending nature of talking covers up the fact that every word means something, especially as a parent. The words themselves, the tone of voice, and most importantly, the perception of the recipient.
Even if I got that and understood the vastness of the potential impact—the big “lightbulb” moment in front of the Children’s Play Center, where one hundred kids frolicked in itchy polyester shirts and Toughskins jeans—it was wholly improbable that I would act on it. Maybe once or twice I would slow down and think about what I was saying to my kids, to my husband, to my friends, to my family … carefully considering how it sounded, what it meant and the effect it would have, both in the long and short term. But, eventually, and probably very quickly, my own human nature—the same force I blamed everyone else for letting go out of control—would take over, and I would run my mouth nonstop, talking at more than listening to, and making all the same mistakes that I accused everyone else of.
LOOKING past my young parents, sitting quietly and staring blankly, I scanned the retail vista. Brother’s Pizza, the Taco Spot, Baskin Robbins, the Original Cookie Co. and Famous Ramous Pretzel Shoppe. I was having a moment, a hungry moment. I wondered who Famous Ramous was and if Wyatt’s Cafeteria—that dark and smoky wondrous haven between here and the movie theatre—was still open for business.
“Well, folks,” I stated as I approached Mom and Dad. “This sure has been a lot of fun.”
“Yes it has, Amy!” Dad said, as Mom looked on. “It’s close to one o’clock, I bet you are getting hungry.”
“Well, honestly,” I said, “you just read my mind! I am hungry!”
Mom joined the conversation. “Yes, the kids will be starving any minute, desperate to eat.” Without me in tow, the family would have dashed off to Dairy Queen in Spring or Charlie’s Hamburgers, if that was even open yet. Either way, it wouldn’t be fancy, but it would be a big event simply because eating out, anywhere, was a big exception to the normal rule.
“I’ll round the kids up,” Dad said, rising slowly from the bench, because, well, we were all hungover at the mall, even though we weren’t going to talk about it. “And you ladies, you can discuss where to eat.”
Mom and I watched as Dad walked over to the play center. “Thanks for buying the kids such generous gifts,” Mom said as I sat down in Dad’s seat.
“You’re welcome,” I said, happy for the silence to be broken, but not really. “I enjoyed doing it.”
“Look,” Mom said, finally turning to me, “I know you feel a connection to Amy, and I think that’s really nice. She craves attention, she can be difficult …” She stopped, looking down at her shoes. “You treating her like she’s special is exactly what she needs.”
I didn’t reply because I had no idea what to say. She was right about the craving attention part, but I wasn’t as sure now about the difficult label. Before this trip, I would have bought into it all being my fault, my own personality fueling this perceived difficultness. But now, after being here, I wasn’t at all sure if Amy’s status as a “handful” was completely her—or our— fault. I would need to think about it more, obviously, but I couldn’t help feeling that in a lot of ways, she was just reacting to how she was being treated. That isn’t to say she wasn’t responsible for her own actions, because she was, but that they were driven by something deeper. What didn’t help was my role as a visitor, meaning I was seeing a watered-down version of “reality.” It was all muted—Mom’s bias and Little Amy’s challenges—for my benefit. Sue was nicer and the younger version of me was better behaved. Something was definitely there, something that before this I had been convinced was a figment of my own imagination.
Either way, I couldn’t believe that she would say such revealing things, out loud, to a person who was virtually a stranger. But, on the other hand, of course she would. She was a mom, and a woman, and I was another woman, and a mom too. She needed to talk as much as I did and wanted the conversation to be with another female, just as I did in the wee hours of last night. And, really, she had no idea who she was talking to, and I had no idea who she was either. The only 411 she had on me was what she had been told and what she had seen since I walked into her house, basically unannounced on the second-biggest holiday of the year. As for me, I only had the scattered memories of forty-six years. They weren’t woven in any particular pattern, and though I guess I had no control over how they were wrapped around my brain, they were the foundation of my emotional response to her and everything else.
“You know, Kim and Rick are special kids too …” she continued. “And Kim does a really great job of being a big sister to both of them. She’s such a special girl.”
“I agree,” I said, knowing she was one hundred percent correct, but still nonetheless bedazzled that she felt the need to point that out. In case there was any doubt: Kim was exceptional. We all got that. But, that said, Sue Weinland
was these people’s mother, and she didn’t want anyone left out. And, as much as I had always felt like I had gotten the shaft with her, and Dad had overcompensated for it, maybe she felt like Kim got the shaft, and she was overcompensating for it. So, all those people who thought I had an over-serving of Dad’s support might see Mom’s clear fascination with Kim as nothing more than a natural response to the situation as it was.
Maybe both these themes—Amy shafted, Kim shafted and Rick as the only owner of an actual shaft—were all running together at the same time, and depending on who you were, you probably only saw one side of the story. Little Amy would grow up feeling like it was all about Kim, little Kim would grow up thinking it was all about Amy, and Rick wouldn’t see any of it, instead wondering why everyone was dredging up the past, unnecessarily.
Maybe these were the questions Mary was talking about.
Looking over at Mom, I thought about what I could possibly say. “You have good kids,” I said, my voice trailing off. “I know they will all turn out good.”
Mom glanced back over and smiled. “Thanks, we just have to survive this part.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I totally get that, but I think it’s going to go way faster than we think.”
“But,” she responded, “it will feel like it’s taking forever.”
“Yep …” I said. “You are one hundred-percent right about that.”
Dad returned with the kids, his hands on Kim’s and Amy’s heads as Rick bounced over and hugged Mom. “Did you girls decide where we should eat?” he asked.
“You mean we’re eating lunch OUT?” Amy screeched.
“TODAY! AT THE MALL?” Kim said, with her hand on her hip.
“With Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers!” Rick added, winking, holding his Montgomery Ward bag high in the air.
“Well,” Dad looked down at Mom. “I think the mall is getting a little crowded, what do you think, Sue?”
“Absolutely,” she said, scanning the area. “I am ready to get out of here, this place is crazy.”
“Your mom is right, let’s get back in the car and decide. Here we go, kids!” he said as he turned, putting his hand on Mom’s shoulder. “And you too, Momma Bird.” It was cute the way he said it, loving and sarcastic at the same time.
Winding back through the mall, which was now packed with overdressed shoppers, I followed the family of five. Looking back to me lagging behind, Little Amy left the group and joined me as Mom watched, making sure she wasn’t running off to the brick façade of Casual Corner. I shifted the Hickory Farms box to my other arm and reached down to grab her hand.
For the moment, Little Amy and I had everything we needed, and had ever wanted, right here. I had always wanted to go back in time, maybe not to this situation specifically, but backward nonetheless. As for Little Amy, she had always wanted that football helmet and the beef stick. We had both wanted to feel loved, mostly by ourselves.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE GOOD STUFF
Exiting the dark paneling and orange hues of Foley’s, the bright Houston sun blinded us as we searched for the family Oldsmobile. It was a lot like coming out of the womb, only this time I remembered it.
“Well, kids,” Dad said as we got back into the car, which was amazingly toasty given it was late November. “Your mom and I have discussed it … And we’ve decided, we’re going to have a big treat and take cousin Amy to BONANZA!”
This sent the backseat into absolute hysterics. It was as if they’d been told they were going to Six Flags or Disneyland or even the Red Lobster. This—the thought of burger patties smoked on a pit, a full-fledged salad bar and a dimly lit dessert buffet—was apparently the best news they had heard in years.
And, OK, if I was going to be honest, I’d admit that I too— the well-heeled connoisseur from the future—was equally excited about a trip to the Bonanza Sirloin Pit. It was yet another memory that would, after this, never be the same, transformed into the double-edged recollection of two completely different people. Only they shared one body. Mine.
North on I-45, the sense of excitement was palpable, so much so it lessened the blow of the classic roadside scenery whizzing by, sites that would be relegated, once again, to mere photos before the sun rose on the morrow.
Dad pushed the horizontal, silver buttons on the car radio until a scratchy but familiar melody began to waft from the speakers. It began with what sounded like a small Casio synthesizer being pounded on by fat fingers. “Cryin’ on my pillow …” a male voice sang.
Though I couldn’t remember the title, or the artist, it’s a song I had heard before but not in a long, long time. Kim and Amy sang along, Dad did his rhythmic whistle, Rick flailed about in his seat and Mom gazed out the window at the passing scenery. As the chorus neared I suddenly remembered, BOOM, it was UNDERCOVER ANGEL. Oh my Lord, this was that sweet, old-fashioned midnight fantasy.
I loved this song, I loved singing this song, and I could definitely dance to it. As I began to rock my shoulders to the beat, I looked ahead and saw little Rick dramatically repeating the chorus, “I’ve never had a dream that made sweet love to me.”
Hold the phone! Wait a second! It hit me. OMG! We were all, in unison, singing about a wet dream, a guy’s freaking wet dream. Apparently, there were no song ratings here in the land of eight-track tapes and AM radio. While this, the undercover naughty business, wasn’t worthy of an “Explicit” rating, it needed some sort of warning, because the truth was, my eight-year-old little brother, sandwiched between my parents, was lyrically commemorating something well, something we weren’t supposed to talk about, either in 1978 or 2014.
Unsheathing my notebook I scribbled, “UNDERCOVER ANGEL. Artist? Year? Download on iTunes. When did song ratings begin?” Then I added, “Download lots of music from the ’70s.” And, “Find Andy Gibb poster.”
Pulling off the interstate in Spring, we stone-cold grooved our way into the Bonanza parking lot, just a short walk from the Rattan Mart, Graham’s Menswear and Weiner’s department store. Speed ahead thirty years, and a Goodwill occupies Weiner’s old space, the Graham family now sells liquor rather than three-piece suits, and instead of rattan furniture, suburbanites can purchase Geico Insurance at the same location. As for the Bonanza itself—a building that on this fine day sparkled with a bright-red roof—it would become the El Palenque Mexican Restaurant.
Exiting the car we walked past an orange Honda Civic that was the size of a golf cart and then a two-tone beige Dodge Maxi Wagon that was the size of my first apartment. Reaching the double doors to the restaurant, we were welcomed by the dim lighting suitable for a fine steakhouse. Through a second set of doors, the lights dimmed further, so much so we had to grope our way down a long, wooden corral to find the ordering station.
There we were met by a short-haired young woman wearing a brown-and-orange plaid shirt and a matching brown apron, with straps that made it look like she was wearing overalls.
“Welcome to Bonanza!” she said, almost over-convincingly.
“Well, thank you,” Dad said. “Glad to be here.”
“What can I get you today?” Lizette said, her name embroidered on the brown western tie she wore loosely around her neck. She looked a lot like a grown-up Brownie scout, only better, I guess, because adults in scout uniforms never, ever look quite right.
“Well,” Dad looked at Mom, “we’ll have three chopped steak dinners, two rib eye steak dinners and …” He paused to look back at me. “Whatever our cousin here, from Centerville, Ohio, wants.”
That made Mom wince. “Dick, why in the hell does Lizette need to know where Amy is from?” Looking back at me, she smiled. “Just ignore him, and order whatever you want.”
Though the possibilities were endless, well, kind of, I went for the rib eye dinner as well, a real value at $1.99. It included a well-charred steak, a baked potato, Texas Toast and a trip to the new all-you-can-eat salad bar.
After putting table-tent numbers on our trays, Lizette sent
us down the long, stainless steel road that would ultimately end at the cashier. This was where the real fun started. First up, we had to decide on what to drink. The cold choices—because there was also copious amounts of coffee available—were basically water, iced tea and lemonade. Though Coke products were offered, those were behind the bar and not in high demand. The other thing that surprised me was the size of the drinks, eight to ten ounces at the most, made of actual glass, and pre-filled. I wondered about refills. Where were the sixty- four-ounce mediums that you could refresh on your way out the door? Everyone in the family grabbed a water, Kim helping Rick with his. I opted for the same thing.
Next up were the desserts, laid out on three stainless-steel shelves. There was chocolate pudding in tall parfait glasses with whipped cream, a rainbow of Jell-O cubes and then the cakes and pies—all playing the naughty temptress under the fluorescent lights. Looking longingly at the display and back at Mom and Dad, the kids hesitated, hoping for a miracle. Dad couldn’t resist, seemingly overcome with the collective moment we were sharing. “OK, kids,” he said. “Take your pick!”
“Really?” Kim questioned both him and Mom, her eyes nearing bulge-status. “We really can?” “Yes, Kim, pick whatever you want,” Mom said.
While Kim and Rick chose their desserts quickly, Amy took forever, fingering almost every plate until she decided on the cherry pie. “Oh, I love cherry pie,” she whispered to me, “even more than chocolate cake.” I understood.
Lurking in the smoke behind the drinks and desserts was the grill, or pit, where a couple of guys were slaving over a ton of thin steaks and chopped-beef patties. There was no chicken, salmon or tilapia ready to be placed on these jumping flames, and when I say “flames” think actual fire, lots and lots of fire. So much so, it made me think somebody had been assigned underneath the grill with a can of Gulf Lighter Fluid, squirting it every couple of moments for effect.
The smell was captivating as the smoke swirled through the darkness, up through the fake brick walls and into the exhaust fan far over our heads. Maybe that’s also where all the real memories went.
You Cannot Mess This Up Page 25
