“Hey, muffin,” I say tentatively. With Cody, I have to keep my emotions in check. A hysterically worried mom is his worst nightmare.
“Hi, Mom.” Cody seems pale and quiet, but fine.
“Aww, are you okay, punkin’?” I move toward the bed and run my hand across his head the way I used to when he was little, careful not to jostle him and hurt his thumb. “How’re you doing? Does it hurt much?”
“I’m fine, Mom. You’re totally overreacting,” Cody says. “I’m fine. Seriously. Fine. I’m feeling pretty chill, actually.”
“They gave him some kind of painkiller,” Ronnie says.
“It’s so chill,” Cody says again. “If this is opiates, uh, I get why they spent so much time on them in drug education class.”
I have to smile. I know Cody does drugs sometimes and drinks, but I don’t make a big deal out of it. This is probably the only place in my life I’m not trying to control. Oh, I did at first. The weed smoking seemed to start the first day of high school—it was like someone said, Here’s your locker, here’s your geometry book, and here’s your bong. I went crazy for the first few months. But the more I talked about it, the further away Cody went, until finally it became clear to me that if I kept searching his backpack, or scrutinizing him when he walked through the door on Friday nights, or gave him lectures about the dangers of drugs, I would lose him completely. And I couldn’t bear to lose him.
Sometimes I feel guilty about this—you know, like a real parent shames you, punishes you, sends you to rehab if they find out you party. It’s a fine line to walk, because I don’t want him to think I approve (I definitely don’t), but once your kid gets to that place where they’ve decided they want to drink and smoke weed you have two choices: accept it, or force them to lie. I’d rather accept it. Because I know there’s no world where you take a kid who really wants to drink and smoke pot and turn him into a kid who doesn’t. I mean, do you know one kid in high school who did that? Me neither. Everyone I know partied until they decided they didn’t want to party anymore, and then they stopped—like me—or they wanted to stop but couldn’t and went to rehab. Or they didn’t want to stop and now they’re a mess.
Ronnie is sitting on the bed next to Cody, and when I look closer, I see that he is the one holding Cody’s arm upright, at the elbow. He sees me watching this and explains. “He got tired of holding it up, so I took over.” Ronnie looks at me. “I’d stand,” he says, “but then I’d have to—” He motions to Cody’s elbow.
“No, don’t. It’s fine. Really.”
Ronnie’s got a concerned look on his face. “I’m more worried about you. Are you okay? This is a parent’s worst nightmare, getting a call that your son’s in the emergency room.”
“Now that I’m here, I’m okay,” I say. “I was having a lot of scary thoughts on the way over. But I can see now everything’s going to be fine.”
“It’s fine, Mom.”
I’m worried about my child, Cody, and my dad’s worried about his child, me.
“Thank you for calling the ambulance and getting him here,” I say. “Do they need me to fill out some papers?”
“It’s done. Cody had an insurance card in his wallet, and I handled it when I got here.”
“Wow, thank you.” Again, I find myself feeling grateful to have my dad on the case.
At that moment, a doctor rips the curtain back and sails into the room. “Hello, I’m Dr. Povgoricz.” She looks about twenty-seven.
“Hello, Doctor,” Ronnie says. He must think she’s hot, because he just patted his hair with his free hand. “Aren’t you the looker?”
Dr. Povgoricz ignores this statement. As she should.
Instead, she launches into her diagnosis. “I’ve seen the X-ray and everything’s fine,” she says. Her voice is surprisingly husky and, together with her vaguely Eastern Bloc accent, immediately makes her seem ten years older—and yes, hot. “You didn’t sever any of the most important things in there. Which is good news.” She says it like thingks and goot nyoozs.
Ronnie is spellbound. “I love your accent,” he says.
My dad can’t even go to the emergency room without trying to pick someone up.
“Dad.” The second I say the word, I realize this is the first time I’ve called him Dad since he came back into my life. I’ve always been okay with referring to Ronnie as my dad, or calling him Ronnie or Hey to his face. But not since he went to prison (the second time) have I called him Dad. It feels somehow excruciatingly vulnerable, and I am eager to shake off that feeling. “Leave the poor woman alone.”
I can almost feel my face burning. Not that my dad’s even noticing.
“Seriously,” he says, beaming at the doctor. The way he’s looking at her, apparently he’s engaged in some fantasy halfway between love at first sight and Dr. Playboy Bunny. “Where are you from?”
“I am from Bulgaria,” she says evenly. She goes back to her examination.
“Is that the one next to Romania? On, what is it, the Black Sea?”
Well, that got her attention, all right. Never in a million years did Dr. Povgoricz think this handsome older guy with the blue-blue eyes knew where Bulgaria was. “Very good, Mr. Daniels! Most Americans have no idea.”
“Yeah, well I’m not most Americans.” Ronnie’s got a sly look on his face. He knows he just impressed the hell out of her. “Naw, man. It’s just, I love geography.”
I’ll admit that part of me is a little bit proud that my criminal, Lothario dad is still one of the best-educated people I know. Not in a French-Existentialism-and-Critical-Theory way. But he’s read more books on more subjects than half of my undergrad friends.
Dr. Povgoricz pulls the needle off of the tray and holds it up. “Now, Cody, you’re going to need to sit very still.” She holds it poised over the deep gash between his thumb and forefinger.
“Mom, can you take a picture for me? I have to Instagram this.”
If there was ever proof he’s going to be fine, I guess this would be it—he wants the world to know he’s sitting in a hospital emergency room, getting stitches. I take the phone from him and wake it up. Even Dr. Povgoricz looks up at me and smiles.
“Cheeeeese!”
That is going to be a good one.
* * *
“I have seventy-two likes so far!” Cody posted a video of the hot doctor sewing up his cut, and apparently now it’s blowing up on his social network. “That’s one in every three people who follows me. I gotta do crazy shit more often.”
We all walk out to the car. Ronnie’s whistling and doing the occasional dance step, as he sometimes likes to do. When I’m stressed, which I am right now, I find this irritating. Does he not realize that in the history of the world, no one ever said to another person, “Oh, I love your whistling”? Whistling is like eating Doritos—it’s only good for the person doing it.
“What do you all say we go get some ice cream?” Ronnie says.
I shoot him a look. “I think we’re a little past ice cream.”
“No one’s ever past ice cream, Nicki,” he says. He’s almost mad, but not really, because Ronnie doesn’t really get regular guy “mad.” He does something more like peewee soccer coach mad. “Come on now. Give me those keys. I gotta practice my driving.”
I surprise myself by handing over the keys. Ronnie slides in behind the wheel and Cody gets in the back. Ronnie hits a button on the dash and the radio starts blaring. Not what I’m in the mood for, but I go along with it.
“Oh! This is my jam!” Ronnie starts singing along.
“Just hold on, we’re going home.”
“Cody, when your mom was a little girl, I used to take her out in my car and we’d roll all over Portland, just hanging out.” He claps loud, even though it means he takes his hands off the steering wheel for a second. “Your mom was so cute. Everywhere we’d go, people wou
ld be fussing over her. ‘Look at your little girl! She’s so cute!’ They couldn’t get enough of you!”
“Oh my God.”
“You’re still cute, baby!” Ronnie actually pinches my cheek. “Do you remember that old car I used to have?”
“Was it blue? And it had a cool little thing on the end of the hood?”
“Oh shit! That’s the one! Before the Mercedes.” Ronnie claps again. He’s getting all excited. “I had a big old Lincoln. It had a cool hood ornament. Man, that thing was posh.” He hits the last word hard. “You loved that car, baby.”
“I did?”
Sometimes it’s crazy to think of myself as a little girl. I feel like I was born a grown-up. I’m so damn capable and I always have been. Except for my boyfriends—that’s the one area of my life I’ve never been able to get right. Everywhere else, I’m like the efficiency police. On top of everything.
“Oh hell yeah. You used to say, ‘Daddy? Can we go for a drive?’ ” He busts out a little girl voice.
“I did not sound like that!” There is something really fascinating about hearing stories about myself. I guess regular people who have parents around are probably used to it. Which makes me wonder, do I tell Cody stories about himself? If I don’t, I need to start.
“Did she really sound like that?” Cody says.
“Naw, man. I can’t do her voice. But she was so cute. You had this little lisp.” He sticks his tongue through his teeth and tries to say My name is Nicki.
“Mom, I want to see a picture of you when you were little.”
“Forget it. There aren’t any,” I say. “I was neglected as a child.” I wait a second. “And I’m only half joking.”
“Of course there are!” Ronnie’s shaking his head. “What are you talking about? We took a million pictures of you.”
“I’ve never seen any of them,” I say.
Ronnie stares at me for a beat. “Is that right? That’s news to me.”
It’s true. That’s the kind of mother Beth was. Even if she had the pictures, she would have been too lazy to get them out of whatever box in whatever place she’d stuck them. She’d rather just say they were lost. And even if she had found them at some point, I was long gone by then. I moved out of the house, more or less on a dare. I dare you to go live somewhere else, she said. Go ahead, I dare you. You have nowhere to go. She was right, but I didn’t care. I snapped. I had Peaches come pick me up in her dented white VW Golf stick shift. For the next two months, I slept on the floor in her room.
I never talked to my mother again after that.
“I have one picture,” I say. “Me standing with a big cotton candy. I think we’re at the zoo or something.” I turn around to look at Cody. “Are you good back there, honey? How’s your hand doing?”
“I’m fine,” he says. Then, after a long, customary silence, he says, “I’m thinking about how you only have one picture of yourself. And I have no pictures of me with my dad. We’re a family of pictureless people.”
Dude. It must be the opiates. I’m speechless for a second. I look over at Ronnie, who looks over at me. I make one of those holy crap faces and he makes one back like, damn—smart boy. And before either of us can say anything, Cody pipes up again.
“I mean, my hand’s fine.”
I can feel the tension rising in my throat, and in my face. Ronnie reaches out and touches me, but not like he’s feeling sorry for me. It’s just really light and like he knows something’s up with me and he wants me to feel better. I pull my arm away.
“We definitely need a new song. Who’s with me?” he says. Super upbeat. He punches buttons on the radio until he hears something that makes him stop. “Oh, now don’t tell me you forgot this song! Oh shit!” He’s popping his fingers and singing “Come On, Eileen” at the top of his lungs.
“You remember we used to sing this one together, baby?” he says to me.
“Jesus, that song is really inappropriate. I never really listened to it before,” I say, grateful for the change of subject. I don’t want to get all sad in front of Cody. I’m taken by surprise at how much emotion is just sitting there, right under the surface. You think you’re in control of your life, you know what’s going on. Then your kid says something that just breaks you open. “I should not have been singing that.”
“Nickles! Come on, sing!” Ronnie keeps going, pointing out the words with his finger, bobbing his head up and down like invisible karaoke. When that doesn’t get me to sing, he drops into a cuddly voice you would use to talk to a little kid. “You can do it. Come on, Nicki Beans.”
“Yeah, come on, Nicki Beans!” Cody pipes up from the back. Then he starts singing, substituting, Come on, Nicki Beans, for Come on, Eileen, and next thing you know he and Ronnie are singing it over and over. “Come on, Nicki Beans, too ra loo rye ay.”
So finally, I quietly add the background vocal: “These things they are real, and I know how you feel!”
Then they sing the next line a little bit louder: “Come on, Nicki Beans, too ra loo rye ay!”
And I add my line: “These things they are real, and I know how you feel!”
“Hell yeah, little girl! You got it!” Ronnie’s embarrassing himself, but he doesn’t care at all. “Go, baby!”
Pretty soon we’re going back and forth at top volume like we’re in a movie. Even doing the parts that aren’t even words, just toora-loora over and over.
Ronnie takes my hand like he did that very first day when I couldn’t get out of bed, and this time it feels familiar and okay—better than okay, it feels good—and he holds it and he’s smiling at me and I’m even smiling back at him. I’ve never in my whole life done something like this. Ever. I’m not worrying about anything or stressing out about what’s going to happen next, or telling Cody to do his homework. I’m just being right here in the moment where I am.
I guess you could say I’m happy.
PART FOUR
* * *
Open Houses
20
* * *
NICKI
I’m here to pull the plug. I’ve done the math, and in order to open the restaurant I need another fifteen thousand dollars—for the last of the interior work and the first three months of food and labor costs. I am down thirty thousand dollars already, not counting the twenty thousand Jake put in, and because I’m still committed to buying the new house, I simply don’t have any more money to put into it. There’s no other option. Now I just have to break the news to Miguel.
He’s outside finishing up a call and when he comes back in, I’m going to tell him. Not going to be easy. This place is stunning! So simple, but so beautiful. All Miguel’s choices—from the tile floors to the backsplash behind the counter to the perfectly understated lighting—are beautiful.
But without Jake, I’m in no position to run a restaurant. I’m a real estate appraiser. That’s what I am. The idea that I could be part of a community, that I could make the world a better place by serving artisanal sausage and preserved Meyer lemon waffles? What was I thinking?
I wasn’t.
I was dreaming, and that’s not what I’m supposed to do. I’m practical, pragmatic Nicki. I can always be counted on to do the right thing, to be the stable one. I won’t lie: fantasizing was fun. I guess I know why people do it now. Wanting this restaurant, dreaming big? I’ve loved it. It made me feel alive. But it’s time to let go of the dream, because now look at me. As Peaches would say, I’m fucked. Actually, I’d say that, too.
Miguel walks into the room and tucks his cell phone into his back pocket. “Miss Nicki,” he says. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m all right,” I say. “How are you?”
“Doing good, things down here are on schedule.” He eyes me as if to say, how are things going on your end? “Did you get my messages?”
“About the chef? Yeah, I did.” Miguel h
as been wanting to know who I’m hiring as the executive chef, so that person could consult on the final decisions in the kitchen. Naturally he wants to know this sooner rather than later, because he’s good at his job.
Ugh. Here we go. This is where I need to say it: there is no chef. Then I need to say the rest of it: because there is no restaurant. Which Miguel isn’t going to believe, because he’s been working on the restaurant around the clock for the past six weeks. To him there’s a restaurant and it’s gorgeous.
I’ve thought over and over how I could solve this problem, but I can’t come up with anything. Not even working will work. Work has always been my drug of choice. It’s like Spanx for my emotions—it gives me something to bury myself in and, because of the money, makes me feel secure. There’s almost no life problem I can’t get through just by taking my list of things I have to do and places I have to go and dutifully marching from one task to the next, thinking about nothing in between except maybe the most efficient route to getting there.
I can pinpoint the start of my workaholism to the summer after I left home. I needed money to pay for my next semester of college. I think it was something like $2,850. An insurmountable sum! I already had a five-nights-a-week job working the five to ten p.m. shift at an answering service (a job too boring to discuss in any detail), but that wasn’t going to get me the money soon enough. So when a friend asked if I wanted to work at the administrative office of a law firm five mornings a week, I said yes. Then I saw a job to work the breakfast shift at a hipster café on Saturdays and Sundays and I said yes to that. I worked seven days a week and it was brilliant. Not only was I able to anesthetize the pain of having a criminal dad and an absent mother, by the beginning of September, I had $6,240. In cash. All mine. I was a self-made six-thousandaire.
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