Starry Eyes

by Jenn Bennett

  I’m glad, but I also feel left out and unconnected from him. It’s weird to be on the other end of the no-phone-service problem. I liked it better when I was the one without reception.

  I’m not sure what it is about civilization, but now that I’m here, the nagging urge to stay connected has returned. If I can’t have him in front of me, I need him to be a text away.

  Resisting the urge to double-triple-quadruple-check my phone, I instead answer Sunny and Mac’s questions about the trip. They’re curious, asking questions, and I tell them a lot of things . . . but not everything. I get the feeling they know exactly what Lennon and I have been doing in the woods; they’re smiling a lot, and it’s making me a little uncomfortable, so I just focus on the life-and-death parts of the trip, not the sexlaxation parts. The doorbell rings as I’m telling them about the lightning storm, and when Sunny answers it, she talks to someone for a moment and then calls me quietly into the hallway.

  “It’s for you,” she whispers.

  I glance down the front hall toward their cracked front door. “Is it my mom?”

  She shakes her head. “Go on. It’ll be fine. And we’re steps away if you need us.”

  With trepidation, I shuffle to the door and open it. The face staring back at me is familiar, yet unexpected: a handsome Korean man in his fifties with short hair that’s gray along the temples, black in the back.

  “Grandpa Sam?” I say, utterly confused.

  “Zorie,” he says, enunciating carefully. Then he launches into a string of incomprehensible sentences that sound urgent and decisive.

  “You know I don’t understand Korean,” I tell him. I can say hello (Annyeong-haseyo) and please (juseyo) and a few choice words that my mom uses when the man who owns Pizza Delight tries to overcharge us for extra toppings. Occasionally, I can figure out what the actors in my mom’s favorite K-dramas are saying after we’ve binged several episodes in a row, but that’s about it.

  Grandpa Sam, on the other hand, understands most English. He just doesn’t speak it well. He says “okay” and “yes” and “no,” but he doesn’t bother with much of anything else, which is why emojis are his preferred way of communicating with me.

  Right now, he lifts his head and mutters to the sky. Then he sighs heavily and motions for me to come with him. “Okay?” he says.

  “Okay, hold on.” I run back into the house and get my stuff, and when Mac asks what’s going on, I tell her, “I have no freaking idea.”

  They tell me everything will be fine, and I head outside where Grandpa Sam is waiting. He silently guides me across the cul-de-sac, one gentle hand on my back. He’s still talking to me in Korean, but now he sounds less upset. He’s trying to assure me of something, but when I see my mom sitting in the backseat of his shiny Audi sedan, parked in front of our apartment, I have a horrible feeling.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. Mom is looking the other way. Is she avoiding me? What about her promises last night? She said she wouldn’t leave.

  Grandpa Sam points to our front door and gives me a command in Korean, then says, “Okay?”

  “No, I don’t want to stay here,” I tell him, desperate. “Take me with you.”

  “Yes,” he says, vexation in his voice.

  “What do you mean, ‘yes’? Yes, I can come? Yes what?”

  Before he can give me another one of his exasperated rants, the front door of our apartment swings open to a torrent of swear words that I do understand. Only, they’re coming from the mouth of my tiny Korean grandmother, which makes them sound so much worse—mostly creative combinations involving animals.

  Esther Moon never swears. She never yells, either, so I know we’re in uncharted territory now. She has Andromeda on her leash, and smoothly transitions from anger to murmuring baby talk at my dog in order to coax her down the front stairs. I’m not sure who’s having more trouble navigating them: the old husky, or the woman in stiletto heels and a designer skirt that fits like a glove.

  My grandfather calls out to her, and she lifts her head. “Zorie! Thank God. Pack a bag and say goodbye to your fly-covered dog turd of a father.”

  Like I said, unlike Grandpa Sam, she speaks English just fine.

  “Grandma Esther,” I say. “What’s happening?”

  “You and Joy are staying with us for a few days,” she says brightly, scratching Andromeda’s head while the dog tries to lick her skirt. Grandma Esther is the Korean dog whisperer. She has two Frenchies and a Boston terrier, and they adoringly follow her around the house like her posse. She coos at Andromeda, “And you’re going to have so much fun with my girls, aren’t you, sweetie?”

  My head is trying to process everything. “We’re going to Oakland?”

  “No, to our vacation home in Bali,” she says sarcastically. “Of course, to Oakland. Are you all right?” She tears herself away from the dog and gives me a thorough once-over, smoothing my curls with delicate fingers.

  “I don’t know,” I say truthfully.

  “You will be. I’ll make you chicken and rice soup.”

  Admittedly, that’s a strong motivator. Grandma Esther is an amazing cook. She does that in heels too.

  Grandpa Sam pleads with me about . . . something. I can’t tell. He talks too fast.

  I look back and forth between them. “What?”

  Grandma Esther sticks her tongue out my grandfather. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s trying to rush back to watch the football game. Take your time. We’ll be waiting in the car.” She clucks at Andromeda, and as she heads toward the sedan, adds sweetly over her shoulder, “If your pig-shit father tries to talk you into staying, tell him he can sue for custody.”

  Oh, God.

  Grandpa Sam chuckles to himself, pats me on the back, and follows her to the car. I’m left alone, and I really wish I weren’t. It feels like I’m walking into a haunted house filled with ghouls waiting to jump out at me.

  Steeling myself, I step inside our living room. My dad is there, red-eyed and bleary. He looks like he’s just been told someone died. Shell-shocked. Blank. Unable to comprehend.

  Confident, charming Diamond Dan has left the building.

  “Hey,” I say warily.

  “Oh,” he says, sitting down on our sofa. “Zorie.”

  “What’s happening?”

  He rubs his head. “That’s an excellent question. I’m not quite sure, myself. What did Esther tell you?”

  “That I’m staying with them for a few days.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  He nods while placing both hands on his knees as he gathers his thoughts. Then he gives me a reserved smile. “So, your mother and I may be separating. It’s not decided yet. I won’t go into the details, but you don’t want to hear them anyway. Well, you already heard a few things last night, so I’m assuming this isn’t a surprise—”

  “Dad, the entire last two weeks have been nothing but surprises.”

  “Ah. Well.”

  That’s it? That’s all he’s going to say? How about, Hey, I’ve been sleeping around and this family is a sham. Oopsie! I mean, come on. Give me something.

  A silence hangs between us.

  “Why?” I finally ask.

  He shakes his head slowly. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I understand more than you think.”

  After he looks away, I think about what Mom had told me—that my father was still having trouble getting over my birth mother’s death after all these years. Last night, that sounded like a convenient excuse, but now I’m thinking about the photo book, and how that woman looked a little like my birth mother.

  “You can’t bring her back,” I tell him. “She’s dead, and there was only one of her, and you can’t bring her back.”

  “I know,” he says in a broken voice.

  “You could have talked to me instead of shutting me out. I was mourning her too, you know? She was my mother.”

  “I know she was.”


  “Then why didn’t you talk to me? Ever?”

  One shoulder lifts slowly, and then falls. “I was unprepared to raise you on my own. I felt like a failure. And then I had to watch while Joy swept in and provided what I couldn’t. She was a natural. How could she do better than I could, when I was your own flesh and blood? Her parents spoiled you—”

  “Spoiled?” I hardly think so. It’s not like Grandpa Sam showers me with gifts constantly. He just buys me practical stuff.

  “Christ, even the Mackenzies do a better job raising you than I could,” he says. “Your mother would roll over in her grave.”

  I don’t remember my birth mother being homophobic, but maybe I blocked that out.

  “You don’t need me,” my father says in a low voice, despondent.

  “Dad—”

  “It’s true,” he says. “I know it. Everyone knows it. You’re better off without me.”

  I’m not sure if this pity party is genuine, or if he’s trying to manipulate me into feeling sorry for him—or if he’s trying to push me further away. But I give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “It’s going to take me a long time to forgive you for what you’ve done,” I say. “To Mom, and to me. However . . . you’re still my father. I’ll always need you. At some point, I think you’ll realize that you need me, too. And when that day comes, I’ll be here.”

  He looks up at me, face pinched in pain.

  “But today,” I tell him, turning away, “my mom needs me more.”

  28

  * * *

  We spend the weekend at my grandparents’ house in Oakland. They live in a small house in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, where everyone pays landscapers to maintain their lawns. Which may sound nice, but it’s also boring, and it doesn’t take long for me to feel unmoored and restless. As though my life is going backward instead of forward.

  As though we’ve been fighting a war and lost.

  Grandma Esther feeds us constantly, and that seems to help my mom. She’s not completely falling apart like I worried she might, but she’s crying a lot, and that makes me cry. And all the conversations in Korean between her and Grandpa Sam make me feel ineffectual.

  Everything’s chaos. I’m homeless. Our family’s broken. My entire future is up in the air. And I’m missing Lennon desperately. Even though he made it home from Condor Peak just fine, and we text constantly and occasionally talk on the phone when I can get away from everyone, it’s not the same.

  I miss him in a way I never have.

  I miss his deep voice and his dark sense of humor. I miss his face and the feeling of security I have when he’s nearby. I miss the way he holds me, and the thrill of his fingers stroking down my back. I miss him so much, I feel physically ill.

  I don’t want more food or a nap or to watch a movie. I just want to go home and see Lennon. Only, I don’t know where home is anymore. I think about how Lennon and I spent the last year avoiding each other, and what a waste that was. We didn’t know how good we had it, living so close. We were both stupid. I wish I could erase the entire year and start all over. Stop him from getting that hotel room. Stop my father from cheating and ruining the business and our credit, because now Grandma Esther is saying that he’s the reason my mom was having trouble with the bank before I left on the camping trip. He secretly spent all my parents’ savings and credit on his affairs. Trips. Hotel rooms. Expensive restaurants. Gifts. He was living large while my mom was trying to keep the business afloat.

  My grandparents say they’re going to sue him for all the money they gave him to invest in the business. Grandma Esther is sure the judge will grant my mom full custody if my dad fights it. The good thing is that he won’t; the sad thing is that he won’t. I can’t decide how I feel about him, and I’m tired of trying to figure it out and weary of my life being in limbo. Something has to give.

  And on Tuesday morning, it does.

  Everything changes.

  I’m restless and a little depressed, watching Andromeda lounge listlessly in a dog bed that’s too small for her while Grandma Esther’s energetic dogs unsuccessfully try to coax her into playing. Mom appears in the doorway, and I think it’s probably to check my hives again, because she’s been monitoring me like a doctor.

  But Mom is not interested in my allergies. She has a strange look on her face. It’s like happiness, but a little angrier. Happy angry. Hapry.

  “Get your stuff,” she says. “We’re going home.”

  “To Dad?”

  “Your father has moved in with one of his mistresses in San Francisco. You and I are going home, changing the locks, and I’m going to figure out how to keep the clinic running without him.”

  It sounds too good to be true. “Can you do that?”

  “Zorie, I can do anything I damn well want.” she says, sounding unexpectedly confident and positive. “And what I want is to go back to Mission Street and be the East Bay’s best acupuncturist while raising my future astrophysicist daughter. So that’s what I’m going to do, goddammit.”

  “Maybe sound a little surer of yourself, while you’re at it,” I mumble, smiling.

  And for the first time since all of this chaos exploded, she smiles too. Just for a second.

  “I’m not sure,” she admits. “Not yet. But I have to have faith that I will be one day. We will be. We’ll make a plan and take action. And that’s how we start.”

  Her words click into place inside my head, and I realize something.

  Planning can’t save you from everything. Change is inevitable and uncertainty is a given. And if you plan so much that you can’t function without one, life’s no fun. All the calendars, journals, and lists in the world won’t save you when the sky falls. And maybe, just maybe, I’ve been using planning less as a coping mechanism and more as an excuse to avoid anything I couldn’t control.

  But that doesn’t mean preparation is altogether bad. Planning can be useful when you’ve come out on the wrong side of a cave and need to figure out a new way to get back on route.

  When all you can do is put one foot in front of the other and push forward.

  “We’ll be okay,” Mom tells me, and I believe her.

  “All right,” I say. “Let’s go make a plan.”

  * * *

  All I wanted was to go home and see Lennon. So of course the Mackenzies would pick now of all times to leave their assistant manager in charge of Toys in the Attic while they go visit friends in the city—some old punk musicians who knew Lennon’s father. I want to scream. I need to see Lennon. It’s not optional. Need. And I know we spent an entire year apart, so a couple of days should be nothing. But it’s not. It’s painful.

  Lennon briefly considers taking the BART train across the Oakland Bay Bridge to meet up with me. But we decide it’s best to wait until he comes back on Thursday, when we can have an actual real, live date. Funny that we’ve never had one.

  Meanwhile, he has tickets for a concert in San Francisco—some band that’s dark and despairing—and I’m insanely busy. Grandma Esther is staying with us for a couple of days to help with something she’s dubbed the Purge. It’s not the horror movie by that name, but it might as well be, because it’s endless hours of work that involves getting rid of everything that doesn’t help us move forward.

  It’s as bad as it sounds. And as much as I love Grandma Esther, she’s starting to drive me nuts. Apparently, my mom feels the same way.

  “I’m going to kill her,” she tells me privately.

  “Please don’t,” I say. “Her body would be just one more thing we’d have to carry to the porch. She looks lightweight, but so did that box of shoes I just took downstairs.”

  “Right. Good thinking. We’ll wait until she’s outside. You trip her, and I’ll push her into oncoming traffic.”

  “Who will cook for us?”

  “Dammit, Zorie. I’m trying to plan a murder!”

  “I don’t think you can kill her. She has too much energy. It’s unnatural.”
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  “Imagine growing up with her,” she says. “It’s a wonder I’m not in jail.”

  By the time we’re finished with the Purge, we’re pretty sure Melita Hills is going to charge us extra for excess garbage pickup, because the curb outside the apartment is overflowing with black plastic bags—and that’s not counting the stuff we gave away to a local charity. I never knew we had so much literal baggage. I even take down the old glow-in-the-dark stars from my ceiling, and Mom helps me paint my room a new color, a sunny yellow that contrasts nicely with all my night-sky photos.

  All my homemade wall calendars? I threw them in the trash. But I’m not ready to give up on blueprints altogether. Instead of obsessively bulleting every detail of my schedule for every day of the year on multiple calendars, I use star-patterned washi tape to map out a single grid on a corkboard, and pin fun paper cutouts on major holidays and planetary events.

  Baby steps.

  Avani comes by on Wednesday with her mother. They bring hummus, homemade banana bread, and a tray filled with sandwiches. It feels like someone died, and when I point this out, my mom jokes that she should get divorced more often.

  In her defense, it’s really good banana bread.

  While our moms chat, Avani tells me in detail what happened after we left Condor Peak—and everything that happened the two days before we arrived. Apparently, I missed both everything and not that much, all that the same time. It’s only when she shows me some of her photos of the meteor shower that I feel a little envious. But there will be other meteor showers, other star parties. For the first time, it really hits me that if Lennon and I hadn’t stayed in the sequoia grove that second night, no one would have worried that we were missing, and we may not have set off the chain of events that led to all of this.

  The important thing is, I don’t have any regrets.

  When Thursday arrives, Grandma Esther leaves after buying massive amounts of toilet paper and laundry detergent as a housewarming gift “for good luck”—a Korean tradition, she says. I’m sad to see her go, because of all the home cooking, but also glad, because the murder fantasies were starting to get out of control. And I have better things to think about than bumping off nice old ladies.