The F Word

by Liza Palmer

  “In my way,” Mrs. Stanhope repeats, shaking her head.

  “And you?” Joyce Chen asks.

  “Busy. Always busy,” I say.

  “We did have a tendency to be quite busy at that age,” Mom repeats Joyce Chen’s line.

  “That I am not nostalgic for,” Mrs. Stanhope says.

  “I do love a list, though. You can’t take away our lists,” Mom says, shutting off her shower. Joyce Chen and Mrs. Stanhope assure Mom that no one is going to be taking away her lists.

  Joyce Chen and Mrs. Stanhope have known me since I was a little girl. As I entered adolescence, concern for my weight quickly became concern for my future. Attempts to set me up with their sons were painful affairs, but it was their loving excuses as to why their progeny hadn’t been interested that stung far more. I know Joyce Chen and Mrs. Stanhope notice that I keep my swimsuit on when I shower. They also notice that I change into my street clothes under towels and back up against walls and coincidentally have to use the bathroom when the changing room gets particularly crowded and oh, I’ll just get changed in one of the stalls, no problem. Mrs. Stanhope said something once. The exact quote was, “Why did you lose all that weight if you’re never going to show it off, Olivia?” And I made that moment so unbearably awkward with my rambling excuses and stuttering explanations that no one has mentioned my weight since. Instead, they ask about Adam. As if he’s become the embodiment of me losing all the weight. Which isn’t that far from the truth.

  Later that morning, I follow Mom up the hill from the Rose Bowl, wind around the Arroyo, and park behind her on Mission Street in South Pasadena. She beeps her car locked and I hold the door open as she walks into La Monarca later on that morning. Despite me waving it off, she still hands me money to pay for our order and finds a table near the back. I order two café de ollas, a croissant for Mom, and I splurge on a cup of fresh fruit for me.

  “So, what is it that you think is going to happen?” Mom asks, taking the lid off her café de olla. She leans over and inhales the cinnamon and piloncillo scents wafting out of her coffee. “If she’s already seen as icy, then how can this impact her career?”

  “This could be the tipping point. She’s always going to be a working actress, but if there’s been this growing resentment of her—this could be the thing that pushes her out of that top tier,” I say, forking a piece of pineapple. “She’s already teetering.” I speak with my mouth full and the word “teetering” sounds like a mumbling mess. I swallow. “Teetering.”

  “And you think molding her into some—what was the word you used?” Mom asks.

  “Sweet,” I say.

  “Sweet.” Mom rolls her eyes. “Every time I think we’re out of the 1950s…” Left by my father when I was little, Mom never remarried. Not only has she never remarried, Mom unabashedly celebrates her freedom like someone who escaped from a gulag. “And you don’t think the simple fact that her husband cheated on her with a woman half his age will sway people?”

  “No, I don’t. I think women will think it was her fault. That she made him do it,” I say.

  “That’s the same poppycock the women at the club say. Hollywood is no different than any other nest of vipers.” Mom takes a sip of her café de olla. She closes her eyes and lets out a long “ahhhhh” afterward. “Oh, that’s good.”

  “I have to remind women she’s the one they should be rooting for,” I say.

  “So, is this where you concoct some big publicity stunt so the world can see how sweet Caroline is?” Mom asks.

  “And now we’re both going to have ‘Sweet Caroline’ stuck in our heads for the remainder of the day,” I say.

  “I do love Neil Diamond,” Mom says, smiling and swaying back and forth.

  “BAH bum bum,” I sing.

  “Maybe just play that song every time she walks around?”

  “The Boston Red Sox might have a little problem with that,” I say.

  “So, what kind of publicity stunt would work?” Mom asks.

  “People would see that coming from a mile away; no, this requires something a lot … smaller,” I say.

  “Smaller? How is that going to fix things?” Mom asks.

  “I’ve got to find the things people don’t consider publicity,” I say. Mom looks confused. “A famous actress gives up her first-class seat on an airplane to a soldier and one of your girlfriends posts it on her social media with the post saying something about how this makes her like that actress so much more!”

  “How is that…?”

  “All planned.”

  “How?”

  “How was it an organic event when she was in full makeup and cameras were waiting for her at the gate?”

  “Someone emailed it from the plane?”

  “Exactly.” I arch an eyebrow.

  “Her publicist?”

  “Yep.” Mom smiles as if she’s just answered a question right on a game show.

  “That’s so déclassé,” Mom says, horrified.

  “Pictures of an actress at the park with her kids? Set up. Those photographers were either tipped off or downright paid to be there by her publicist.”

  “But, why?”

  “Because that actress thinks being a good mother is good for her brand.”

  “That’s awful,” Mom says, taking a careful sip of her coffee.

  “Is it?”

  “The kids…”

  “Sure, that aspect of it. But, don’t you warm to actresses you think are just like you? You’re more likely to see them as relatable?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Everyone has a story about who they are. Not just celebrities. Look at social media—we’re all pushing some version of the life we want you to believe. It’s all just PR.” I take a sip of my coffee. So good.

  “Should I be terrified or proud of you right now?” Mom asks.

  “Probably both,” I say and we laugh. “I just have to figure out…” I stop. Think. “Well, figure it out.” Shit. I run through all my old tricks, flipping through them in my mind. Did that, tried that, that flopped, that worked for a month. “This is going to take something different.”

  “Well, if we’re still using the same playbook we’ve always used,” Mom says. I look confused. “Betty Crocker cookbooks, three-piece suits, and signing your husband’s name to birthday cards for his mother?”

  “I think we are,” I say.

  “Fastest route? Charity,” Mom says.

  “Caroline started her I Made This Foundation, what was it … five years ago? It provides after-school programming in the arts,” I say.

  “That’s something,” she says.

  “Yeah, but all it did was make people see her as this Lady Bountiful as she swanned into schools in white cashmere with gifts or whatever,” I say.

  “Then don’t have her do that again.” I laugh.

  “It was a rookie mistake,” I say.

  “In the charity world, it’s all about boots on the ground, you little darling.”

  “Right.”

  “It can’t be about the photo op,” Mom says, trying out some lingo.

  “Photo op?”

  “I know things, too.” A wink. “What you’re doing is providing hard evidence that she’s a good person. So people will at least feel badly for gossiping behind her back,” Mom says, taking a rogue grape from my cup.

  “Maybe this is about people finally getting to see the real Caroline,” I say.

  “Ask her why she started her foundation. I’ve always found that people start the foundations they wish they could have had in a time of need.”

  “Hmmmm,” I say, taking one last bite. I push the fruit over to Mom for her to finish it up. We sip our coffees.

  “Myrna Dunn said that you ran into her son the other day.” And I choke. “Drink some coffee. Honey?” Mom stands up and pounds on my back as I gasp for air. “Raise your arms over your head.” I oblige as all of the patrons of La Monarca stare at the two women who have been transformed into professio
nal wrestlers lurking in the back of the establishment. “Better?” Pound pound pound. “Better?” I wheeze a breath.

  “Yes. Mom. I … good. I…” I put up a hand hoping she’ll just sit down. This is almost as bad as her holding up a bra to my burgeoning chest in that department store when I was fourteen.

  “Have something bready,” she says, offering me some of her croissant.

  “No, thank you.” She rubs my back and finally sits. “I saw him and his two daughters.”

  “Three,” she says.

  “Three?”

  “He has a daughter in high school,” Mom says with a raised eyebrow.

  “Oh. Well, he only had two with him,” I say.

  “You’re blushing.”

  “I am not.”

  “You absolutely are.” I shake my head. “You had such a crush on Ben Dunn in high school.”

  “We hated each other.”

  “Oh, is that what you’re calling it now?”

  “He was legitimately terrible, Mom.”

  “I don’t think that mattered to you back then. Plus, people change.”

  “Do they, though?” I can’t make eye contact with her. Mom doesn’t know to what extent I’ve hidden my past. As far as she’s concerned, I have nothing to hide. I’d love to think she’s right, but I have too much evidence to the contrary. “So, he told his Mom he’d seen me? Did he mention how different I looked?”

  “He did.”

  “Hm.”

  “He’s back in town, you know.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that.”

  “So, just because we’re talking about your teenage crush, does that mean you’re going to revert back into the teenage version of yourself?” The Sweaty Marble version of me rolls through my brain. My stomach drops.

  “God, no.”

  “Good, because I did my time raising a teenager,” she says. I laugh, despite my growing anxiety. “Apparently, Ben’s a principal now at some elementary school in South Pasadena. Oh, probably right around here, come to think of it.” Mom turns around in her chair as if the elementary school is going to pop up within the walls of La Monarca. She turns back around and takes a sip of her café de olla. “Divorced.” A cleared throat. Mom smiles at a passing patron on his way to the bathroom. “Oh, you know what, though?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Maybe this is your … oh, yes. This could really work,” Mom says, scooting to the front of her chair.

  “What could work?”

  “Myrna is in charge of the big Halloween fair up at Asterhouse—a foster home in Altadena. Kids from all over are coming. She put Ben in charge of making sure all the kids have costumes, so maybe Caroline can help out with that. If her foundation is in the arts, she can … I don’t know, say it’s something to do with theater or…”

  “No, that’s actually perfect. This is perfect, Mom.”

  “Caroline could donate some costumes and then volunteer the day of,” Mom says. “Everyone wins.”

  “I think this is a good place to start.”

  “And bringing some much-needed attention to the good work Asterhouse is doing is a lovely silver lining.”

  “This is so great,” I say, pulling out my phone.

  “No phones at the table, Liv.” Mom eyes my phone and I tuck it back into my purse. “I don’t have many rules, but I refuse to sit across from someone tapping away on one of those infernal devices.”

  “No, you’re right. It can wait.”

  Mom reaches into her purse and pulls out a little journal with a pen attached. She flips through the pages and I can’t help myself.

  “You know that’s just as bad, right?”

  “Oh, shush—I’m trying to find Ben’s contact information,” she says with a smirk. She starts writing as I try to keep my composure. She tears off a slip of paper and there it is.

  After twenty years, I finally scored Ben Dunn’s phone number.

  THE ADVENTURES OF SUPER HOBO AND SWEATY MARBLE

  “Hello. Hi. Is this Ben Dunn? I’m Olivia Morten … this is … it’s Olivia Morten. You know, A Thousand Pounds Olivia Morten? Maybe this’ll help, just imagine … if you draw a face on a beanbag chair and then ignore it completely until you mock it in front of all your friends. Yeah, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA—maybe tell the beanbag chair she has a really pretty face?” I rest my hands on the top of the washing machine and breathe. “Oh my god.” The laundry room closes in around me as I imagine actually talking to Ben Dunn on the phone. I’ve been picturing this moment for twenty-plus years, and I’m just as unable to craft a cool conversation starter as I was when I was fifteen.

  Ben and I waxed and waned with our battles like most mortal enemies do. And then the football team’s charity pancake breakfast happened. I went with Mom, as one does, and Ben was on the griddle, kitchen towel lazily slung over his broad shoulder and wearing an apron that read, “A rose is a rose is a Rose Bowl.” The apron was tied twice around his narrow waist. It was early on a Saturday morning and there was something disarmingly intimate about how disheveled he was. He made charming, friendly conversation with everyone who came through the line. He quickly remade a little girl’s pancakes that’d fallen on the ground and called her “sweetie” when he presented them to her with a heart-melting smile.

  When I got to the front of the line, there was this split second before either of us spoke in which I allowed myself to finally and officially swoon. And then:

  “Practicing on what will certainly be your future working in the fast-food industry?” I asked.

  “Eating enough for twenty, I see,” he replied.

  And all went back to normal.

  “Liv? Are you talking to someone in there?” Adam calls from the kitchen.

  “Oh, it’s just a funny cat video! I’m … uh … watching it on my phone,” I yell through the door, hoping he won’t investigate further. I frantically pull up a video of a cat swinging around on a ceiling fan that’s actually hilarious. I watch it three times.

  “When’s your dinner with Caroline?” he says through the door.

  “Check the calendar,” I say. After one too many instances of “Hey, can you whip up dinner tonight for so-and-so from the hospital board,” I hung a calendar on the side of the refrigerator in a desperate attempt to make Adam understand the concept of planning ahead and setting us (read: me) up for success. It’s gone over about as well as you’d expect.

  “Can’t you just tell me?”

  “No, I’m trying to get you in the habit of using the calendar,” I say. The grumbling tantrum that follows implies that this mythical “calendar” and the details of my dinner with Caroline will have to be found at the summit of Mount Everest. In reality, it’s approximately one centimeter from his face and all I’m asking him to do is gaze slightly to the left. Teach a man to fish and all that. I wait. And wait. And wait. “The dinner is at 6:30,” I say, finally giving up. I don’t have time to teach a man to fish right now.

  “Was that so hard?” Adam asks. I hear him moving away from the laundry room door. I will myself to stop procrastinating. I hold the cell phone in my hands. Tight. Tighter. Just call him. JUST. CALL. HIM.

  “You’ve got to pull yourself together. People change. This isn’t the halls of our high school. You’re an adult. He’s an adult.” I put the cell phone on the shelf and transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer. “You had a crush on me, too? No, I didn’t know that, Ben Dunn. I mean, I had my suspicions. So, all of that posturing was just to get my attention?” I pluck a dryer sheet from the box and throw it into the dryer. “I mean, I haven’t really thought much about high school, you know? It’s … oh, yeah, we’ve been married ten years. I know, he’s very successful and good-looking, you’re right.” I slam the dryer door and set the timer. I pull the dark clothes from their hamper and load them into the washing machine. “You think I’m beautiful? No, don’t feel bad for … you just had to tell me? What—” I pour the detergent into the washing machine, close the lid, and set the t
imer. “That you love me? That you’ve always loved me?”

  I move the empty hamper out of my way and let the whirring sounds surround me. I pick up my cell phone again and lean against the doorjamb. Okay, I dramatically collapse against the doorjamb. What familiar ground this is. I’ve been having imaginary conversations with Ben Dunn for as long as I can remember.

  I can feel the flush in my cheeks that used to plague me. I can feel that old awkwardness tingling in my fingertips. That sinking feeling in my stomach that I’ve said something stupid is returning. That sickening vulnerability and the quick attack mode that always followed. My greatest fear is being realized.

  She’s waking up: the Fat Me.

  I pick up my phone and check the time—4:47 p.m. Dinner is down on Beverly Boulevard, so it’ll take me over an hour to get there. I have to call Ben now. I have to be able to pitch this plan to Caroline later on tonight. This is business.

  I stand tall. Shut it down, Olivia. Tighten the tourniquet. I close my eyes. A deep breath. Tamp it down. Swallow it. The horizon straightens as the world comes back into focus, my ship finally righting itself. I push my shoulders back. Open my eyes. I turn and walk out of the laundry room, cell phone in my hand.

  I shut the door behind me and stand in the kitchen. I open up my address book. Scroll through the names and find Ben Dunn right where I’d been obsessing about him earlier. I press his name and put the phone to my ear. Adam walks down the hallway toward the master bedroom.

  “Hello?” Ben’s deep voice crackles through the phone.

  “Ben? Hi, this is Olivia Morten.”

  “Oh, hi. Hold on a sec,” he says. I can hear rustling and some fidgeting. He muffles the phone and continues speaking to someone. Another word. A stronger word. Crying. A word that sounds like the last word. A closing door. “Sorry. Had to … Tilly took a toy and, well, it didn’t go well for her.”

  “I can call back,” I say, my stomach flipping.

  “I’m afraid this is kind of the norm around here,” he says. Another fidget. I can hear Louisa talking in the background. Ben is telling her he’s on the phone. Some more talking. “Honey, the whole idea of homework is that you do it yourself. Me giving you the answer is … yep, I know.” I can hear Louisa stomp off as Ben finishes her sentence. “I’m the worst dad in the world.” I laugh. “Why did I think girls would be easier?”