by Hope Lyda
When the timer buzzed on the Krups coffeemaker, Cass returned to the kitchen to help me. While our parents debated the negative effects of using artificial sweeteners in the living room, Cass whispered, “I baked you a chocolate marble cake to take home. Hopefully you will get a real celebration. I should have told you straight out on the phone. I certainly didn’t want to tell Mom and Dad this soon, but they really wanted to visit and the timing with your birthday seemed good otherwise.” Cass reached up to open one of the kitchen cupboards. There beneath the opaque, Tupperware covering, I could see the outline and magnificence of my cake.
I gave her a sideways hug and pretended to reach for the frosting for a quick taste. She slapped my hand down. “I know they are totally disappointed in me.” She looked down at her hands. They were frozen in tight fists.
“No, don’t do that, Cass. They have no reason to be disappointed. Why? You are being brave in the middle of a hard time. You love your girls, and…” once again I was stepping into an area I knew nothing about. Did she love Nate? Had she asked him to leave?
Reading my thoughts, she reached for my arm. “I do love Nate. And he loves me. This isn’t probably a typical separation. We just…got lost. Us. We were Mommy and Daddy twenty-four hours a day. I can’t remember the last time Nate called me by my name. Now we point to the other spouse and say, ‘Let Daddy tie your shoe.’ ‘Show Mommy your painting.’” She hugged herself against an imagined cold wind. “We realized we hadn’t had a real conversation in months. And sadly, that isn’t an exaggeration.”
“But a breakup? I mean, how does this…how does being apart help that?”
“We are both desperate to become the individuals we were when we fell in love. And we needed space to do that. I want to rediscover him as Nate, the great guy with kindness in his smile and patience that never runs out. And he wants to see a bit of the Cass who could laugh at spilled milk, enjoy pointless television once in a while, and who lived for a long solo bike ride down by the waterfront.”
I nodded. I remembered her like that. “Which Cass do I thank for the cake?” I teased to lighten the moment.
“Funny. Now get back out there,” she turned her narrow, pretty face in the direction of the living room, “so you can spend your birthday hearing how they plan to fix my life.”
I smiled an evil grin. “Don’t worry, sis. You made me this fabulous cake, and now I have a gift for you. Shall we?”
Cass had a sly, curious smile on her face as she loaded up a tray with the coffee carafe and china cups and followed me back out to the den of persnickety parents. She placed the selection on the center table and then joined me on the yellow satin couch closest to the kitchen. Mom and Dad sat across from us on its twin.
“It’s like we’re on Family Feud,” I said. There is that big toe of mine…pressing against my back molar again. Cass giggled and our parents looked baffled. They were not television junkies like their children.
“I have an announcement,” I said boldly. Mom’s back arched as did her eyebrows. Dad nodded and leaned forward, resting his palms on his shins.
“Yes, dear?” he asked.
“I’ve had a change recently…”
“Aldus broke up with her,” Mom interrupted and looked so completely bored and informed that I swear she was about to stifle a yawn. Instead, she reached up and rubbed the turquoise turtle necklace at her throat.
A huge sigh escaped my lips. “I broke up with Angus. And that is not my news.”
“The guy who looks like that beautiful lead singer of Torrid…Jude Shea?”
“Please,” I crooned. “Angus had good eyes, but overall he is not nearly as ethereal-looking.”
Cass thought about this for a moment and then jabbed a thin finger into my meaty upper arm. It was as though we were in high school for a moment. “Jude has those amazing lashes and such a bad boy reputation.”
“Bad boy is putting it lightly. Isn’t he a total druggie?”
Cass pulled an overstuffed jade pillow from behind her head and hugged it in front of her. “Maybe he’s misunderstood.”
“He forced a night security guard to take him to the top of the Space Needle last year so that he could bungee off the top…while high…and without a bungee cord.”
“I read that he passed out before he could try.”
Dad coughed a couple times to halt our tangent. “Cass mentioned you were nearing a promotion. That’s quite admirable.”
Mom interrupted with her enlightening question. “You’ve been with that company for how long now?”
“Well, I have a funny story about that promotion.” Deep breath. “The company went through a major merger. Which is exciting from a corporate growth perspective, but a lot of people lost their jobs. And I didn’t. Not exactly.” I was a lousy joke teller and an even worse bad news/good news/bad news revealer. “I got a bit of a demotion. But it is a good situation, and I have a fantastic new boss.”
“A bit of a demotion. What does that make you then, dear?” Mom took on the posture and tone of Barbara Walters when she goes in for a friendly comment about a celebrity’s biggest secret or shame. Her eyes shifted to the left for a moment. She was doing the math. If one executive trainee without a future is given notice that she has even less of a future, how many failures is that in total?
“What does that make you?” she repeated with a brief smile at the close.
The phrasing of the question made me want to respond “a loser,” but I knew what she was really asking. “Well, instead of an assistant account executive, I’m an assistant to an account executive. Blaine Slater. He’s one of the best AE’s in the business. Just moved from Chicago…” I paused to take in the visual that name resurrected. The image of him looking over my file and commenting on my creative potential put me at ease. “He is new to the company and already is making heads turn.” Mine especially. “He is a good guy, a family man, and also really into team playing. I’m glad to be a part of his team.” I fell deeply into my interview persona, a tragic consequence of too many mock interviews with my mother every year since seventh grade.
Cass gave me a sideways glance and in her eyes I saw not only appreciation for derailing any talk of her separation but an entire thesis on “going overboard when a few words would suffice.”
“We’ll Google him, dear. Go on.”
All of a sudden, I felt fat and dumpy in my suede skirt. My boots felt tight, my big toes were numb and tingly. I wanted nothing more than to be home in my sweats. “That’s it. I got a demotion. My career could look brighter…” I stopped there. I didn’t want to betray the private truth that was forming for me. I was grateful for my new situation, and I didn’t want to see it completely destroyed tonight. Not even for the sake of a diversion for Cass.
“Working for a man,” Mom stated and sighed. She liked men as colleagues, but she would never want one immediately above her in status. She always said this was one simple rule that kept her career thriving from day one.
Dad stepped into his professional role. “I see that this could be a good move. Perhaps it’s a case of one step back and two steps forward?” He turned to Mother and said softly and sternly, “You know, dear, not all men are placed in companies to keep women down.”
Mom shrugged her shoulders in unconvincing acquiescence and adjusted her Southwestern attire. I knew she had never seen a cactus up close.
“And I don’t want everyone thinking Nate is the bad guy.” Cass responded to a nonexistent conversation. But I followed her tangent. And she was right to announce this. It was easy to see the spouse in the apartment across town as the bad one. The Leaver. He was, I’m sure, actually trying to keep life as normal for Cass and the girls as possible.
“No, dear. We have great respect for Nate. In fact, we had a good talk with him about the situation right before we came here,” Mom said.
Cass clenched the pillow more tightly. “You didn’t tell me that. What did you say? You didn’t guilt him, did you?”
Dad added some cream to his coffee to lighten the moment. “We wanted to approach him with the plan we are about to share with you.”
Uh-oh. I glanced around looking for charts and a telltale overhead projector.
“P-plan? Like your retirement?” Cass asked hopefully.
“We are moving in.”
Cass and I both sucked in our breath at the same time, speed, and velocity. The flame of the silver block candle on the coffee table leaned toward us and then went out.
“We’ll help with the girls. We can certainly help you increase order in the home. And, of course, we’ll be here to solve this family issue.”
“That cobbler was so good. Should we have more?” I chimed in to create a diversion so Cass could jump ship. Instead, she jumped right into the current of control.
“This is not a family issue. Well, it is, but it isn’t our family issue. It is my family issue. Nate and I are not a puzzle to solve. We are a couple in need of space.”
Ah, space. That final frontier that distanced us from our parents had just been annihilated.
“You think you need space, but what you really need is us. We’re moving in.” Once again Mom clapped her hands above her head. This time apparently to signify that, for all pretense and purposes, a contract had been negotiated. The hemp fabric of her loose blouse slid from her bracelet-clad wrist to her shoulders. I noticed her biceps were more toned than mine and tried to recall where I had placed my gym card, gym bag, workout clothes, and motivation for such things.
I looked to Cass and raised my eyebrows in our nonspeak for, “Do what the lady says and nobody gets hurt.”
While poor, frustrated Cass bit her tongue and turned blue in the face, my tongue located a last bit of blueberry in my upper left wisdom tooth.
It was now officially, unequivocally, my worst birthday ever.
Seventeen
I stared down at my blue clogs. Drops of rain buoyed on the surface and formed a sloping smiley face. The rain was winking at me, prodding me like a school yard taunter to step forward.
This would be the perfect day for me to go in those double doors. A new year of my life and a chance to begin again with the elements I wanted to take with me into this decade. What would those be exactly? I interrogated myself instead of moving. Faith, happiness, contentment…purpose. Direction.
I checked my watch. The service would start in five minutes. I could hear the first welcoming chords of the organ. Families and individuals reached for those doors, opened them, and went in. If I shuffled in behind the next group, I could appear to be connected and then slip into a pew in the back. I always imagined that my initial venture would be on a rainy day. There were so many distractions to hide behind when the weather was wet—umbrellas opening and closing, brightly colored boots being wedged from children’s feet and lined up under the coat rack, people shaking their heads to unsuccessfully rid locks of moisture.
I could write Aunt Maddie about my experience. She would love to have a peek at an American church these days. The bus doors opened and shut behind me. A man in rainbow-striped suspenders walked past me to wait for the next bus. If a grown man can wear suspenders and short pants with boots, surely I could enter a house of worship.
I shook my head to unsuccessfully rid my locks of moisture and walked toward the back. The final aisle was my destination. I walked toward it, glad to be breathing in the history, the meaning, the sacred air.
“Any closer?” came a familiar voice.
I turned slightly to my left and gave Mr. Diddle a sly look. Nomad awakened to the sound of his master’s voice and trotted over to us, slow with sleep and age.
“Closer to what?” I asked innocently.
“Did you bring me a Danish?” He smirked, looking a lot like the winking raindrops on my clogs.
I reached into my Columbia jacket and my fingers located the inner pocket and the small white bag containing a glaze-drizzled strudel. Mr. Diddle leaned forward but the rules of appropriate personal space boundaries kept his nose too far from his pastry. He licked his lips with anticipation. I handed him the bag and reached into the pocket again, this time for Nomad’s treat.
“The other place even offers free dog biscuits to customers. Wouldn’t that be a cool way to serve your loyal customers and feed the hungry canines of Seattle?” I turned our attention to his areas of weakness and not my own.
“Publicity propaganda!” Mr. Diddle hollered with lazy lips that allowed a flake from a sugary layer to tumble onto his horizontal-striped knit sweater woven in the shades of a carnival.
“Good business,” I corrected.
“You seem to believe in your little business tactics.”
“They are proven methods of customer service.” I pointed back out toward the front of the store. Someone had drawn graffiti symbols in the dirt of the window. “Putting up a sign and cleaning a window are not business tactics. They are common sense.”
Mr. Diddle turned his back to walk with wide steps toward his checkout counter. I’d never noticed how he and Nomad walked the same cadence. “I’m just saying, you show a great deal of faith in what you believe in.” He said this quietly, but I saw his sides expand and contract with laughter.
I got the point but would not give him the satisfaction of further discussion. I decided to go immediately to the religion section. Let him see that I was serious about learning more and growing in my faith. I’d already admitted to myself that I was a person of faith. There was no changing that…except in growth. I had told Pan. I had even told Blaine in so many words. So now I could be open about wanting to deepen my walk in front of Mr. Diddle.
While I was sitting down on a red, white, and blue rag rug and skimming all the titles, Nomad leaned against me with his full weight. I liked the feeling of his body rising and falling with each deep breath as he began to sleep. The rhythm soon made me tired and my eyes became heavy. Every few minutes Nomad’s back right leg would kick and jolt me back to awareness.
“Oh, I have something for you,” Mr. Diddle said casually.
“More travel books?”
“No.”
“Are you finally going to let me write up a travel itinerary for you? I think you should take a vacation. It’s not right for someone to work so many years without some kind of break or change of scenery.”
“Who would run this crazy busy hub?” he asked teasingly.
“Well, it would have to be someone who could handle the high stress and demands of this kind of establishment.”
“Exactly. Me. I hired me in the beginning, and I have no intention of firing myself. But I do take your advice to heart. Some day, my dear, I will surprise you and ask for one of those brilliant itineraries. Now wake that drooling dog and come on over here.”
I tapped the top of Nomad’s head until his eyes opened halfway. He yawned and repositioned himself so that he was stretched out on the rug and not on me. I stood and did my own stretching before walking over to the counter.
Mr. Diddle’s glasses were on the edge of his nose. He was totaling his inventory. I stood in front of him patiently and impatiently, like a student awaiting her grade. “Almost done here,” Mr. Diddle said, and then he started to whistle. “Ah, found the error. I hate it when I’m off by just a few pennies.”
I almost asked what it could possibly matter, but it was clear by his meticulous focus that he and I approached life with different standards of preciseness. When I was about to excuse myself, Mr. Diddle looked at me, smiled, and reached below the counter, where he retrieved a present wrapped in white sketch paper and red string.
“How’d you know?” I stammered.
“A little bird told me.”
“We don’t know any of the same birds.”
He smiled a knowing smile. “We do now. This little bird lives in a far-off land and she loves you very much.”
“Aunt Maddie? How…” I remained baffled but was enjoying the mystery surrounding this gift on the counter.
“You
left that printed email here a while back, and on a whim I wrote to your aunt just to tell her that we’d found a copy of the book she suggested for you and to let her know what a wonderful niece she had.”
“And so she told you when my birthday was?”
“She mentioned earlier this week that she wished she could be here with you.”
“This week? So what? Now you’re pen pals?”
He pushed his lips together and grinned, obviously pleased.
“This is very interesting.”
“It is indeed. I kind of like this email correspondence. I get why your generation has embraced it. It makes me more of a man of the world, don’t you think?”
“A man of the world would understand the concept of advertising.”
Mr. Diddle pushed the small package toward me. “Aren’t you curious?”
I nodded and began to undo the loose knot of string in the center of the gift. The paper unfolded when the string was removed, and I could see a bit of dark brown leather. Pushing aside the wrapping, I saw a slim, elegant leather-bound book with a delicate attached gold ribbon bookmark draped in the layers of thin pages. The gold-edged pages had worn places, which gave them the rich look of copper.
“It’s beautiful, Mr. Diddle. I love it. Is it poetry?”
“Look and see. You’re a browser, remember?”
I laughed and picked up the slim book. I opened to where the page marker was set and it was the book of Psalms. Surprisingly, the print on the fine pages was easy to read. “You bought me a Bible?”
“Not just a Bible…but a travel Bible. Do you like it?”
I held it close to my chest. “I love it.” I stood on tiptoe and leaned over the counter to kiss my old, dear friend on the cheek. “I absolutely love it. You just made my birthday, Mr. Diddle.”
Eighteen
Other than the rumor mill about Cecilia being AWOL, there wasn’t much excitement to welcome me on Monday morning. The only personal call I had was from the doctor’s office confirming my annual exam. I always scheduled it for the week of my birthday so I wouldn’t forget. I read that trick in some fitness magazine, but it was rather a depressing ritual. From now on I would schedule my womanly exam every Flag Day or something. Who needs such an experience on her birthday?
