by Ray, Lexie
The perfect families I saw on television had neatly clipped yards, mailboxes at the end of the driveway, and perfectly starched dresses with little aprons on them.
I was young. I was impressionable. And I was painfully aware that I’d never have that—the perfect TV family. Not in this lifetime.
I slept in the only bedroom to “ensure I’d have a good night’s sleep,” my mom had said. She was always gone by the time I woke myself up for school, and she was rarely there when I put myself to bed for the night. If and when she did find time for sleep, it would be on the battered couch in the living room.
When she did get some time off of work—usually around the holidays, or around my birthday, to celebrate—we had good times. I understood that everything she was doing was to ensure our survival, but it didn’t help my loneliness.
“Parker and Patty, two beautiful broads,” she’d crow, treating me to a makeover from her off-limits stash of makeup. “What do you want for your birthday this year?”
If I requested my own makeup, she’d say I was too young. If I asked for new clothes, they’d be from the thrift store. I dreaded this question every year, struggling to say the right thing and find the object that my mom could afford to give me to appease her sense of owing me something to contribute to my happiness. It wasn’t until I was already in high school when I discovered the perfect response: “Surprise me.” It gave her license to get whatever she thought was necessary, and I wouldn’t have to be disappointed to not get the things I really wanted.
One year, however, still too young to understand, I really blew it.
“A father,” I said, thinking that he could be the one to fix up our shabby house and to plant flowers in the window boxes that were filled with trash and insects. If he was gone making money all day for us to live, maybe my mom could stay home and clean so I wouldn’t be the only one in charge of the chores. She could cook, too, or teach me how so that we could switch off. I was always looking for that perfect life, the perfect home, the perfect family.
“You have a father,” my mom said and laughed after a beat. “He’s just not around. That’s all. A father. That’s a tough birthday present, Parker. Don’t you want it to be just Parker and Patty, two beautiful broads? Single and ready to mingle?”
“That’s what I want,” I agreed solemnly, but the seed had been planted.
I always suspected that it was probably my fault that she started bringing men home from then on. I was still given the bedroom, but I woke up late sometimes, hearing my mother’s laugh and deep voices I didn’t recognize. I didn’t realize that the search for a man involved such intense tryouts.
My childhood wasn’t an unhappy one. For the most part, the men were nice. When my mom deigned to introduce one who had showed some kind of fatherly potential, they’d ply me with presents, understanding that Parker and Patty were a package deal.
The older I got, the more brazen my mom became with the men she brought home. I got a firsthand sex education class when I walked in on her and one of her candidates for my father in the middle of the night, trying to go for a glass of water in the kitchen.
“Christ, Parker, get it from the bathroom!” my mom cried, doing a terrible job of covering her nudity.
We made the switch after that—my mom getting the bedroom so she could have her “alone time” with her many suitors, and me decamping to the couch.
I was a loner at school, but I started spending more and more time there, just to get out of the house. By the time I was looking at my senior year of high school, my mom had given up on her “Parker and Patty, two beautiful broads” bit and had resigned herself to the fact that she just wasn’t going to have a close relationship with me. She’d thrown herself to the mercies of dating and had found it much more interesting and fulfilling than me.
It was all the same to me. I had just one year of high school left, and then I could do whatever I wanted, go wherever I wanted to. The counselors at my school had been meeting with the members of the senior class to talk about options the summer prior to school starting. I didn’t know if college was going to be a viable option for me, like my own counselor had been urging. My grades weren’t great; I never saw much of a reason to try hard, and my mom didn’t push the issue. Plus, there wouldn’t be enough money for me to go if I didn’t get all of it paid for.
There were trade schools, too, to consider, but money was prohibitive.
“A lot of people get a job to pay for night classes at community colleges,” my counselor offered. “It’s hard, but you wouldn’t be the first or last to earn your degree that way.”
“My degree for what?” I asked, confused. “I don’t even know what I want to do.”
“That’s why you should take a variety of classes to start out,” she said helpfully, pushing a stack of brochures across the desk at me. “There are often general degree requirements, which cover all your basics, and if you find something that’s interesting, that could be your major.”
I hadn’t even started on my final year of high school. It was impossible to anticipate what I’d want to do with my life a year from now.
“Is it a tragedy if I don’t go to college?” I asked, the handful of brochures feeling awfully heavy.
“College isn’t for everyone,” the counselor allowed. “Who knows? You could make some man very happy.”
And that was my cue to get up and leave. So that was it? Enter the world of academia or marry rich? Appointments with my counselor weren’t things I needed to keep anymore, I decided.
As I was rounding the corner of the building to start the long walk back home, or wherever my feet decided to take me if I discovered that my mom was there with one of her suitors, I was practically bum-rushed against the chain-link fence that ran along the perimeter of the school grounds.
“Oh my God! I’m sorry! Are you okay?”
All of those colorful brochures went flying like confetti cut from the future I’d never have, and I let them blow in the wind. It was beautiful in a sad sort of way, the glossy pages catching in the sunlight, the smiling faces of the models they used to represent well-groomed college students landing on the cracked sidewalk beneath my feet.
“Hey, you okay?”
I finally dragged my eyes away from the shiny brochures scattered across the pavement and looked up into the warmest eyes I’d ever seen. The color was difficult to ascertain—dark, but not plain. They shimmered, making me think that they had many layers for some reason.
“Hi.”
I was finally able to drag my eyes away from his, down to his mouth, his perfect mouth, which had formed all of those words. What was he saying? Why would he be saying things to me? He was too perfect, too foreign. I’d never seen him before. Had getting pushed up against the fence actually knocked me unconscious? Was I dreaming?
“Hello,” I said, figuring that, if this were a dream, I didn’t really have anything to lose by talking to the gorgeous guy standing in front of me.
“I’m sorry for running into you,” he said, sounding about as dazed as I felt. “I really didn’t see you coming around the corner, and I’m late for my meeting with the counselor.”
“You’re meeting with the counselor?” I asked, frowning. “I just got done with mine. It’s just … do you even go here?”
“I do now,” he said, studying the decrepit school building with trepidation. “My dad just moved here for a job, and I have one more year of following him around wherever he has to go.”
“So, you’re new,” I said, the wheels in my brain turning slowly. “You’re going to be a senior this year, but you’re new.”
“That’s what they tell me,” he said, grinning at me. “I think I knocked into you pretty hard. Want to sit on that bench over there?”
I let him steer me toward the bench, stepping on the brochures that littered the ground.
“Let me get these for you,” he said, stooping, but I seized his elbow and stopped him.
“Leave them.” T
hose strange eyes studied me, and he slowly straightened.
“If you’re just coming from your meeting with the counselor, don’t you need these?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do after I graduate. Not go to college, that’s for sure.”
We sat on the bench. Colors seemed brighter, somehow, even though they didn’t need that much help. The sun was always intense here.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked seriously, then cracked up at himself. “Sorry. That’s such a stupid question.”
“It’s probably even stupider that I don’t have an answer for it,” I said, laughing. “You know what the counselor told me? If I don’t go to college, then I should try to marry rich.”
His laughter intensified. “Seriously? What did you say?”
“Not a word,” I gasped, breathless with mirth. “I stood up and walked out on the bitch. Seriously. Hasn’t she ever heard of the women’s movement?”
“Doesn’t seem like she’s very liberated,” he observed.
“Don’t you have to go meet with her now?” I asked, cocking my head, sorry that I’d even said it. I didn’t want him to go. I never wanted him to go anywhere out of my sight.
He shrugged. “It doesn’t sound like she’ll help me very much,” he said. “You’ve already given me pretty good advice. Go to college, or marry rich. I’ll have to find a sugar mama as soon as possible.”
“So what do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked, smiling.
“Besides a kept man?”
“Yes, besides that.”
He studied the grass beneath our feet. I tried to curl my toes under themselves, aware that the pink polish I’d lifted from my mom needed a reapplication.
“I don’t know, specifically,” he said finally. “I want to make my own decisions. I want to be comfortable. I want to be someone everyone looks up to.”
“Join the Army,” I teased.
“That’s what my dad wants,” he scoffed. “Does he think I want to follow in his footsteps for the rest of my life? No way. The second I’m eighteen, I’m fucking out of here.”
“Me, too,” I said dreamily. It was, lately, my sweetest fantasy. I had no idea where I’d get the money. I was trying to save up by babysitting some of the neighborhood kids whenever I got the chance, but it was hard since I tried to help my mom out with rent and bills and stuff.
“Where would you go, if you could go anywhere in the world?” he asked, a smile playing around his lips.
“I’d live on the beach,” I said decisively. “I could never be landlocked.”
“You already live on the beach, practically,” he said, laughing. “Hello? It’s California.”
“Right on the beach,” I said proudly. “I want to open my eyes and see the waves lapping against the shore. All I can see from my window is nothing, because I don’t have a window.”
“You don’t have a window?” he asked, curious.
“Well, I sleep on the couch,” I said, feeling suddenly shy, like I was revealing too much. “It’s next to the TV, so that kind of counts as a window. I guess I can see anything I want through that window.”
“I think it counts,” he said, nodding thoughtfully.
“What about you?” I asked, eager to get the attention away from me and my awkwardness. “Where would you want to live, if you could live anywhere?”
“In a place I could call home,” he said immediately, not having to think about it. “A place where I knew I would be staying for years and years. For forever. A place where I could hang pictures and really settle into it.”
“But by a beach?” I pushed. “The mountains, maybe? The desert? A forest?”
“Anywhere,” he shrugged. “They’re all pretty good. The trick is to find someone you love and stay in one place.”
“What do you mean, they’re all pretty good?” I asked, curious. “You’ve lived in all of those places?”
“Sure,” he said. “My dad moves around a lot. Hates staying in one place for longer than a few months. He was an Army brat. He was in the Army for as long as they would have him. He’s used to living in lots of different places, but that’s not what I want for me. For my future family.”
“I don’t know,” I said, uncertain. “I’d like to see the world. See everything. Then maybe settle down by the ocean. I don’t know though. Maybe I’d find something I’d like better. I’ve never even been out of L.A.”
“I wish I could know a place like that,” he said. “As soon as I think I’m starting to understand a place, my dad wants to move again.”
“I’d trade places with you,” I declared. “I’m sick of staying in one place. I’m ready to explore the world.”
“Let’s trade then,” he said. “I’ll take the couch with the TV as a window.”
“And I’ll take everything else,” I said, smiling. I gasped. “I don’t even know your name.”
He threw his head back and laughed, wild and free and perfect in every way. “I don’t know your name, either. How do I already know all of your hopes and dreams and don’t even know your name yet?”
“I’m Parker,” I said.
“Parker,” he repeated. I loved the way his mouth looked when he said my name. “Parker. I’m Marcus.”
“Marcus,” I intoned, serious for a moment, then laughed. “It’s strange, isn’t it Marcus?”
“Everything’s strange, but what strangeness in particular are you talking about?”
“I’ve never talked with anyone like I’ve talked with you right now,” I said. “I don’t know. I feel like I just have so much to tell you. Like I’ve been waiting for you to come so I could.”
He smiled and raised his hand, stopping centimeters from my face before tracing the line of my jaw with the tips of his fingers.
“I feel like I’ve known you all along,” he said. “Is that cheesy?”
“It would be, but I’m sitting right here, feeling the same thing.”
Thus began my summer of love, a time when magic filled the air I breathed, where my gritty neighborhood bloomed and ripened and fed parts of me I didn’t know were hungry. I rarely spent time at home, preferring to roam the streets and parks with Marcus, who, despite his desire to ultimately settle down in one place for years and years, had an enviable wanderlust that drove him to explore parts of the sprawling city I’d never seen before.
We pooled our money together and were able to afford two public transit passes for an entire month. There was nowhere we couldn’t go; there was nowhere we didn’t go.
And when we kissed for the first time, watching the sun go down at the Santa Monica Pier, it was just an acknowledgment of the unnamable rightness of the thing we shared between us.
“I wish we didn’t have to go to school,” I moaned, as we walked in the evening light, hand in hand, down the street toward my house. My mom had told me that my summer hours were over, and she expected me back and asleep at a decent hour the night before school—which was very unlike Patty. She usually took no notice of my comings and goings, especially as I grew older.
“Why?” Marcus asked. “We’ll still see each other all day, every day.”
“Aren’t you tired of me yet?” I asked, smiling but still wanting to know. We really did spend all day, every day together. For a guy who was used to moving around a lot, always shaking up his schedule, we had been pretty stunningly consistent.
“Never,” he said, kissing my hand. “This is something you don’t just get tired of, Parker.”
“I believe you,” I said. Marcus had been my breath of fresh air and made living my whole life in one place utterly worth it.
“Then let’s get through this last year of public schooling and travel the world,” he said.
“I thought you wanted to stay in the same place,” I said, laughing.
“Sure I do—eventually. But I’ve been lots of places that I want to show you, beaches you’ve never dreamed of. Much more than
beaches. Places I think you’ll really like.”
“That’s all I want,” I said. “I don’t care where we are. A couch with a TV for a window. A dumpster. A cardboard box beside a dumpster. As long as we’re together, I’ll be happy.”
“Then sleep well,” he said, stopping short of the gate to my house and kissing me lightly on the lips. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
“Good night.”
School that year crawled by. I wanted nothing more than to be done with it so I could start my next great adventure with Marcus. The thought of seeing him kept me up at night and woke me up well before my alarm. My obsession with him was so noticeable that even my mom brought it up.
“You look like you’re walking around in a dream, Parker,” she observed as I finished up some homework at the kitchen table. It was a rare evening she was home. If she wasn’t at work, she was generally out on a date.
“Maybe I am,” I said, lifting my eyebrows in what I hoped was a mysterious way.
“What do you want for your birthday this year, you beautiful broad?” she asked, sitting down beside me.
“My birthday’s not for months,” I said, frowning. Plus, she hadn’t pulled the “beautiful broad” routine in years.
“Yeah, but just tell me,” she said, nearly vibrating in excitement.
“Just surprise me, I guess,” I said, eyeing her uncertainly.
“Remember the year you asked me for a father?” she gushed, pinching my cheek painfully.
“Ow. No,” I lied, pulling away from those sharp fingernails. I’d been so embarrassing as a kid. My dearest ambition was that Marcus never found out how foolish I’d been.
“Well, what do you say now?” she asked, her eyes bright. “Do you still want a father for your birthday?”
“After all these years?” I asked, squinting at her. “Did you meet someone?”
“I met the most wonderful man,” she said, gripping my forearm tightly. “You haven’t been around the house much this summer, so I haven’t had a chance to tell you. He’s asked me to marry him, Parker, and I’ve said yes!”
“That’s great,” I said, politely happy but more curious than anything. Out of the parade of men she’d allowed into her life, had one of them finally been good enough for her to tie herself down to?
