Phoenix Rising

by Anais Ninja

  “Pretty and grown up,” he said, handing me the wineglass.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking a sip. It was dry but fruity, smooth.

  “So. Tell me what you’ve been up to,” my father said. “You’re in school, right?”

  “Not right now,” I said. “School doesn’t start for a couple of weeks.”

  “Really?” he said. “The kids have been back for a week now.”

  “It’s a private school. I think the semester ends later.”

  “Those people you’re staying with, how do you know them?” he asked.

  “Friends of a friend,” I said. For the last week I’d been trying to figure out what I could safely tell my father about my life since he’d left us. Obviously, the truth wasn’t going to work. How could I tell him that I’d been on the street, trading sex for money. Even before that, there was my relationship with Julia, my life with my papi and my stepbrothers, so much that I wasn’t able or willing to talk about.

  “That lawyer, Bradley was his name? He said that they’d been looking for me since they found you. Where were you?” my father asked.

  “I was living with Dee and Cami,” I said.

  “Who were they?”

  “Dee’s a nightclub singer,” I replied. “Cami’s just a couple of years older than me. I cooked for them, did housework sometimes.”

  “What about school?” Mia asked, taking a sip of her wine.

  “I missed a year,” I admitted. “I’d study on my own.”

  “But you have to make a year up now, right?” my father asked.

  “No, I won’t. I did pretty well on the entrance exam, and Helen hired a tutor to help me catch up.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Mia said. “This private school, it is a good one?” There was just a trace of a French accent in her speech.

  “Yes, it’s pretty exclusive,” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “We should get a move on,” my father said, looking at his watch. “We have reservations.” I took a last sip of my wine and followed them out to the driveway, where we all piled into Mia’s Volvo station wagon. I sat in the back seat, between David and Dana. David looked through the window, out at the twilight sky, while Dana reached for my hand, intertwining her fingers with mine.

  “Are you going to live with us?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said, catching my father’s eyes in the rear view mirror.

  “I’m gonna have a little sister soon,” she said, “but I want a big sister, too.”

  “You might be getting a little brother instead,” Mia said, turning around in her seat. I laughed, and Dana wrinkled her nose.

  “Boys are yucky,” she said.

  “What about David?” I asked. “He seems nice.” David sighed and kept gazing out the car window. He hadn’t said a word since we were first introduced.

  “He’s okay, I guess,” Dana said.

  The restaurant wasn’t far, only a few minutes away. We parked in the lot and went in, where we were seated almost immediately, despite a small crowd of people waiting for tables. Except for that tiny portion of lasagna I’d had on the plane, I’d had almost nothing to eat all day. I’d been too nervous about flying to have much more than toast and tea for breakfast. I had a craving for seafood, but the menu was heavily skewed towards beef. That was fine, though. I was hungry enough to eat anything at this point.

  We ordered, and the waiter brought a round of drinks, wine for Mia and I, soda for Dana and David, and a scotch on the rocks for my father. He drained it pretty quickly, and ordered another even before our food arrived. Mia frowned at this.

  “Slow down, Frank,” she said. “Don’t forget that you’re driving.”

  “I’m fine,” he replied. Still, he took it easy anyway, sipping instead of gulping.

  Our food arrived, and the waiter placed a plate in front of me that held the biggest hunk of steak I’d ever seen in my life. My father laughed when he saw my eyes widen.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to eat all of this,” I said.

  “Whatever you don’t finish we can bring back with us,” he replied. “I’m sure Schultzie would love it.”

  I ate far more than I thought I would, just about half of the tender, rare beef smothered in sauteed onions and mushrooms. It was probably the best I’d ever had. Dana and Davy had smaller portions, from the children’s menu, but my father’s steak was even larger than mine. Mia just had a salad and a broiled fillet of sole, though. As we devoured our hunks of dead cow, I wondered what Michael, that vegetarian artist, would think. For that matter, I tried to picture my father eating one of those rice cakes, almost laughing out loud at the mental image this produced.

  My father had yet another scotch after he finished his meal, even though Mia and I had yet to finish our wine. He began to get boisterous, laughing loudly at his own jokes, making Mia roll her eyes.

  “So, Annie,” he said, too loudly. “You have a boyfriend back in Boston?”

  “Not really,” I said. I still felt a little raw over the silent treatment Bradley’s son, Brad Jr., had given me when he’d come back from school for winter break. He’d been so sweet to me just a year before, so passionate, that his coldness had hurt even more.

  “What’s the matter?” my father said. “A pretty girl like you...”

  “Frank...,” Mia said, sharply.

  “Stay out of this, Mia,” he barked back. “I wanna know if my little girl is fucking someone, dammit.”

  “Frank!” she gasped. “Where’s that waiter? I’m getting the check.”

  “We’ll leave when I’m damn ready,” he said, slamming down his drink. A melted ice cube escaped from the glass and skittered over the table. I looked at David and Dana: they were terrified, embarrassed. People at the adjoining tables were turning their heads and whispering to each other.

  “Frank,” Mia said, softly. “You’re making a scene.” As if on cue, the waiter appeared with a small leather folder that held the check. My father reached for his wallet, pulling out a credit card without even looking at the bill. He was quiet now, saying nothing until we were out in the parking lot.

  “Give me the keys, Frank,” Mia said, standing in front of the driver’s side door of the car.

  “Fuck off, Mia. I can drive,” he said.

  “Not with the kids in the car you won’t,” she said, lunging forward to grab the keys from his hand. My father sidestepped her and stumbled backwards, nearly falling to the asphalt. “Frank! The keys!”

  “Come and get them,” he taunted her, holding them over her head and laughing. Even on her toes, they were still a foot beyond her reach.

  “This isn’t funny,” Mia said. “Davy. Dana. Annie. Come. We’re going back in to call a cab.”

  “The hell you are,” my father said. He was about to say something else when he doubled over and retched all over the pavement and on the tire of the car parked in the adjacent spot, dropping the car keys in the process. David was on them in a flash, snatching them from the ground and handing them to Mia. While my father paved the parking lot with his dinner, Mia unlocked the car and got behind the wheel. Dana, David, and I scooted into the back seat and we were peeling out of the lot before my father was finished puking.

  Dana was sobbing, and I put my arm around her, holding her trembling little body. I reached out for David’s hand, but he moved it away. I could tell he was on the verge of tears, but he was putting up a brave front, looking away, out the window, into the night.

  Dana had quieted down by the time we pulled into the driveway, but now it was Mia’s turn. She rested her head on the steering wheel and softly wept.

  “You kids have a key?” I asked them. David nodded. “Go inside. Give Schultzie the leftovers. We’ll be there in a few minutes.” As they got out of the car, I went around to the passenger side and sat down on the front seat, next to Mia, putting my arm around her, trying to comfort her as I had with Dana. She shrugged off my hand at first, but then she relente
d, letting me put my arm around her shoulder.

  “Does he do this a lot?” I asked her. She shook her head.

  “Just the past few months,” she said, her voice cracking. “It’s been hard on him lately, with the baby, so much work. These houses aren’t selling as well as he thought.”

  “Does he hit you?” I asked.

  “No. Never. He just becomes an asshole when he drinks.”

  “Has he thought about getting some help?”

  “No,” Mia said, shaking her head. “I tried to talk to him about it, but he just gets angry.”

  “Maybe you should leave him,” I said. Mia stopped sobbing and looked at me.

  “Never. I could never...,” she said.

  “Okay, it was just a thought,” I whispered, caressing her tear-stained cheek. She winced, bringing my hand down to her swollen belly.

  “Did you feel that? The baby’s kicking.”

  “Wow,” I said. I’d never felt that before, and I wondered what it would be like to carry a child within me.

  “I think it’s a boy,” Mia said. “Girls aren’t supposed to kick like that.”

  “Do you have a name yet?”

  “Frank Junior, if it’s a boy,” she said.

  “And if it’s a girl?”

  “Frank wanted to name her ‘Anne’,” she said. “That was before you found him.”

  “Anne?”

  “Yes. Now she’ll be Cherie, after my grandmother. But I think it’s a boy.”

  “Cherie. It’s a beautiful name,” I said.

  “That it is. You know, Frank was so excited to hear from you. He thought he’d never see you again.”

  “I know,” I whispered. My father had nearly cried when I first spoke with him on the phone.

  “He wants you to live with us,” Mia said. “He’s even looking for a bigger house with an extra bedroom.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” I said. I had a life back in Boston, and compared to Bradley and Helen, my father was practically a stranger. They’d been so good to me, so supportive, so generous. Still, if I did decide to move here I knew that they’d understand. After seeing my father drunk, though, this was pretty far from my mind.

  “Think about it,” Mia said. “I’d love to have you around.” She kissed me on the cheek, softly, taking my hand and holding it in hers.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’ve got to go in,” she said. “Frank, Jr. is kicking my bladder.” She laughed as she reached for the door handle.

  As Mia trundled off to the bathroom, I went into Dana’s room to take off my cocktail dress. She and David were sitting on her bed, his arms around her, holding her protectively. Her tears had abated, but she looked as if they’d start again. I sat down next to them and kicked off my heels.

  “You kids okay?” I asked. David nodded for both of them. I put my arm around him; this time he made no attempt to shrug it off.

  “That was a nice move, back in the parking lot, grabbing the keys,” I said to David.

  “Thanks,” he said, weakly.

  “You play baseball?” I asked him. The way he scooped the keys up from the pavement reminded me of a shortstop snatching a ground ball before it could roll into the outfield.

  “A little,” he said. “I like soccer better.”

  “My stepbrothers called it ‘futbol’,” I said. “We used to play together, but they loved baseball even more.” I rubbed David’s back as I remembered how Del and Paco and I used to play catch in the field behind our house in Maine. Sometimes Ramon would come out and bat fungo, hitting fly balls for us to shag in the tall grass.

  “Time for bed,” Mia said, standing in the doorway. She’d changed from her mid-length burgundy maternity dress into a long white bathrobe. David and Dana stood up from the bed and filed into the bathroom to wash up and brush their teeth. When they’d left, I reached back and started to unzip my dress.

  “Let me help you,” Mia said, pulling down the zipper.

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching into the dresser for my chemise and my kimono.

  “I can’t wait until I can fit into something like that again,” she said, as I stepped out of the dress. “It’s lovely.”

  “Thank you,” I said. Mia gave me a quick kiss goodnight and went into the bathroom to make sure the kids did a proper job of brushing their teeth. I unclasped my bra and shrugged it off, slipping on the chemise before skinning off my panties, wrapping my kimono around me as Dana returned from the bathroom. I helped her out of her dress and underwear and into her nightgown. She was a skinny girl, her hips just starting to take on a womanly shape. After I tucked her in and gently kissed her forehead, I reached into my knapsack for my journal and a pen.

  “You’re not going to bed?” she asked.

  “I want to do some writing first, sweetie,” I said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. I was tired, somewhat jet-lagged, but I wanted to put my thoughts on paper while they were still fresh in my mind.

  “Is that your diary?” Dana asked.

  “Yes. Yes it is.”

  “Oh,” she said, barely able to keep her eyes open.

  “Go to sleep, honey,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I kissed her again and turned out the light. She was probably asleep even before I closed the door.

  I sat in the living room and opened my journal, writing down everything that had happened that day, from the moment I woke up, boarded the plane, my conversations with Robby, our tryst in the tiny lavatory, seeing my father for the first time in years, meeting my new stepmother and my half-siblings, watching my father get drunk, the scene in the parking lot, right up to this moment, sitting in a strange house in Phoenix, Arizona. Then I sat alone with my thoughts, trying to picture what my life would be like if I came to live here. The house was quiet, chilly. There was a hand knit quilt draped over the arm of the couch. I unfolded it and draped it over my shoulders.

  There was the sound of a key in the front door lock. It was my father. His clothes were askew, his eyes bloodshot, his face looking drawn and haggard. He closed the door and took off his sport jacket, sitting down heavily in an easy chair across from the couch. Next to him, in the other chair, Mia had left a pillow and a blanket. He stared at them before speaking.

  “Looks like I’m sleeping in the den tonight,” he said.

  “Daddy...,” I said, quietly.

  “Annie, I’m sorry.”

  “Daddy...,” I said again. He looked defeated, older than his 45 years.

  “I don’t want to talk about it tonight,” he said. He stood up and gathered the pillow and blanket in his arms. “I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Daddy.”

  “Good night, sweetheart.” He walked down the hall to his office.

  I felt sad for him. I felt angry, too. Sad because he looked so pitiful, so ashamed of what he’d done to the people he loved most. Angry because he was fucking up again, in a different manner from the way he’d fucked up his marriage to my mother, diddling my babysitter who was only thirteen at the time. I knew little about his second marriage, to the mother of David and Dana, just that Betsy had run off to an ashram in Oregon, cleaning out my father’s bank account in the process and giving it all to some Maharishi Mahesh Yogurt. It wasn’t fair to blame my father for that sort of flakiness, and he’d done the right thing, taking care of their daughter and her son, the child of another man.

  But here he was, doing his level best to screw up his third marriage, probably putting his job in jeopardy as well. I had no idea what to do, what to say to him, or if it was even my place to say or do anything. I was his first child, his oldest girl, but he’d been out of my life for over a decade, and to be truthful, I hardly knew him. That was the reason I’d flown out here, to reconnect, to get to know my father, a man I hadn’t seen since I was four years old.

  I had to stop thinking about this. I was tired, at least my brain was, thought my body felt restless, an excess of energy surging through my limb
s. I thought about taking a walk, just to burn it off. I thought about going back into Dana’s room, into my backpack, where I’d kept some sleeping pills and a few Valium left over from the prescriptions my therapist had written for me. Instead, I went over to the bar set into the flagstone wall of the living room, pouring myself a scotch. I stood by the tall picture windows, looking out over a dark green fairway. There were a few stars shining, but the rest were masked by the haze of light that filtered up from downtown Phoenix. In the distance was a dark mountain range, the one I’d seen from the plane, separating the city from the desert beyond.

  I sipped the scotch, feeling its warmth start in my belly and spread through my limbs. It was just what I needed, something to ground me, to stifle my restless energy. I didn’t even have to finish it, and I spilled out the rest of the scotch down the kitchen sink, placing the glass in the dishwasher and heading off to bed.

  Dana was sleeping quietly. I slipped off my kimono and watched her for a while, her curls spilling over her pillow and framing her face as she slept. She kept a picture of her mother next to her bed, and though Dana had her father’s eyes, the curls, her cute little nose, and the shape of her face belonged to her mother. I stifled the urge to kiss her and climbed into the cot, trying to make as little noise as possible. Dana stirred, but didn’t wake up.

  “Good night, little sister,” I whispered, pulling the sheets up over my body and laying my head down on the pillow. There was once a time when I had no end of trouble falling asleep in a strange bed, but after all the places I’d found myself over the previous year, all the dark and scary places I’d slept, I didn’t have that problem any more. I closed my eyes and let sleep embrace me.

  * * *

  It was a strange dream, precisely because it wasn’t strange at all. Its logic wasn’t inconsistent with the waking world. My surroundings were unfamiliar, but only until I remembered where I was, Dana’s bedroom, Phoenix, night.

  My father stood over our beds. His pants were down, his cock was out, and he was stroking himself, a look of lust and hunger in his eyes. The sheet that had covered my body had been pulled down, and my chemise was bunched up around my waist. I looked over at Dana’s bed: she was asleep, but her nightie had been lifted over her slim hips and her legs were spread.