The Girl On The Half Shell

by Susan Ward

  Now I feel teary because I’ve thought of Mom. There are more emotional punches inside, but in the driveway tonight the first emotional punch is Mom.

  Jack climbs from the car. “You girls are going to have to share your room, Chrissie. There is not a spare room in the house, I’m afraid. And stay away from the pool house. Its current occupant doesn’t need you bothering him.”

  That’s it? That’s what he has to say to me after I created that enormous scene? I nod and focus on pulling my cello case from the trunk.

  Rene smiles and takes her bag from Jack. “Maybe I’m exactly what your pool house guest needs.”

  I start to laugh. That comment I didn’t expect, but it effortlessly lifts the mood. Even Jack seems to be unbending, I notice, which is strange, because before the unbending I didn’t even notice he was tense. Rene probably saw it and I didn’t. Too close to the problem is what she always tells me. Perhaps she is right.

  Jack’s smile this time is pleasant. He ruffles Rene’s dark hair. “Not on your life. I want you somewhere I can keep an eye on you.”

  I watch and follow them into the house. Jack’s relationship with Rene is more father-daughter normal than it is with me.

  The house smells good, Maria cooked dinner tonight, and for about the hundredth time I wish we hadn’t gone out to dinner and had just come home. It smells like enchiladas and I love enchiladas made at home.

  We find Maria in the kitchen busily tidying the mess created from feeding a house of guests. She has been with us forever, a refugee from Somoza, whom we all pretend is legal, but isn’t.

  Maria carefully rinses a used paper towel. Everything has value to her. Nothing is ever thrown away after a single use. We have adjusted to living with her—the used paper towels, the giant balls of foil, and the wrapped half-finished meals in the refrigerator.

  I watch her flatten the Brawny across the twenty-thousand dollar marble counter.

  Maria’s round, matronly face softens when she sees me. “Chica. You are home. I have missed my beautiful girl. ¿Cómo está mi niña”

  The feel of Maria’s embrace is familiar and warm, but I slowly grow agitated because it lasts longer than I am ever comfortable with, and the perfume on her flesh is slightly smothering.

  I disengage and step back quickly. “Is Daddy being good to you? You tell me if he’s not.”

  Maria looks aghast. Jack laughs. I stare at the used paper towel spread neatly on the marble.

  “Señor Jack, he is no trouble. Never. It is good when there are people in the house. Señor Jack’s band is like family. I don’t mind the extra work. It is never work for family. And the new one, the young one, he is like a ghost. A sad ghost. Four months he’s been here and so sad and no trouble. It is good he is here with Señor Jack.”

  She crosses herself in silent prayer for her sad ghost and I struggle not to laugh because I am really a very bad Catholic and Jack is an atheist and no one prays at the drop of the hat faster than Maria. And whoever Jack has tucked away in the pool house is most likely not sad, most likely an atheist, and most likely just a burned out musician in need of a crash pad.

  Rene sticks her finger into the guacamole, loudly sucks it off the tip, and makes a popping sound as she pulls her nail through her lips. “A sad ghost in the pool house. I am intrigued.”

  Jack squeezes Rene’s shoulder. “Be intrigued some other time. I mean it, little girl. Stay away from the pool house. Now go away.”

  Chiding, parental and smoothly charming. Jack can be so multifunctional with Rene.

  “Before you disappear, go out on the patio and say hello to the guys,” Jack says to me. “Just a smile and a hello, Chrissie. Then you two can run off and do whatever you two do.”

  Just a smile and a hello. I feel her again, the small child in me. I didn’t talk from 1975 until 1977. One morning, I just lost my words and they all stopped. Mom was alive when this phase of me started, and the way each of my parents handled it was so very different.

  It was mom who forced me to play the cello, to take the lessons that would force me into public recitals and get comfortable speaking before people and hopefully end my silence. I remember my first recital. I was five. I had to give my name and the piece I selected to play. I didn’t want to talk. The words were painful in my throat and made me sick in my stomach. I had to force them out which didn’t feel good and I hated that people were watching me. When the performance was over, I ran to my seat beside my father, promptly threw up and cried in his lap. Jack was a good dad that day. He said nothing, let me cry, and I remember those gentle fingers stroking my hair even though Mom was humiliated by me.

  Jack’s solution was to pretend I had no problem. He would take me with him to those places in town he could go comfortably, he would hold my hand, and before we entered a store or restaurant he would say: Smile and say hello, Chrissie. It makes people happy when you smile and say hello. And he would smile his stunning smile and I would want to make him happy so I would force myself to smile and say hello to each stranger we met.

  I still smile and say hello to every stranger I meet. I can’t seem to stop myself, and sometimes I have these really long, involved conversations that are more comfortable and significant because I don’t know these people. It is just easier to let out the words when the people are not people active in my life. It really annoys Rene, because while I can’t manage a reasonable conversation with the kids at school, I can talk thirty minutes with the gas station attendant.

  I don’t want to please Jack tonight so there will be no smile and hello from Chrissie. I lean across the marble breakfast bar and grab Jack’s keys. “I can’t get my car out of the driveway. Do you mind if I take yours?”

  Jack lifts a golden brow. “You just got home, Chrissie. Where do you want to go?”

  It’s not a reprimand and not words that precisely express that I can’t leave, just a query I can do what I want with. There is a hint of disappointment in Jack’s voice, that is all, but it is not enough to make me stay. I feel a familiar desperation to get out of the house.

  “I want to go sit at the beach and have some dessert. We won’t be late,” I say, smiling.

  I can tell Jack doesn’t want me to leave, but he won’t say it. “You have an early plane in the morning. Drive carefully. There isn’t any fog now, but it’s been rolling in every night so be careful.”

  “Let’s go, Rene.” I drop a fast kiss on my father’s cheek, push away from the kitchen counter, and go quickly to the front door without bothering to look if Rene is following. I know she will eventually.

  I wait in Jack’s car a handful of minutes before Rene comes bouncing out front. She sinks in a disgruntled way into the seat next to me.

  I turn on the ignition and put the car in gear. “What took you so long?”

  “Since you’re dragging me away, I wanted to at least be sociable and say hello to everyone. Are we really going to get dessert? I can’t eat another bite.”

  “No, I just wanted to go to the beach for a while. Get some air.”

  “You’re pissed off about dinner aren’t you?”

  “I’m not pissed off about anything.”

  “Then why are we at Hendry’s Beach hiding from Jack?”

  “I’m not hiding from anyone.”

  Rene stares at me speculatively, but I ignore her, pretending to focus on the short drive to the beach. I pull into the empty beach lot and park in a space close to the walkway to the sand. I quickly climb from the car.

  Please, just let her let this go. My trusty lockboxes feel all shaky at present, I don’t want Rene to probe and for some reason I am afraid for them to open. I just went postal over a cocktail. I don’t want to know how I will feel, what I will do if a lockbox is opened. Not tonight.

  I make a hasty retreat toward the beach. I am sitting on the bottom of the narrow, short flight of steps from parking lot to sand, pulling off my UGGs, when Rene sinks beside me in her loose limb way. The beach is nearly deserted: a couple wal
king, a man with a dog, and us, spoiled brats from the Ranch as the public school kids like to call us.

  We leave our shoes by the steps and Rene takes my hand, dragging me across the sand to put distance between us and the restaurant on the rocks.

  “Why didn’t your father come tonight?” I ask.

  “He’s in DC on a case. Remember?” I flush. I know that, but in my desperation to make any conversation, rather than conversation of why we are here at the beach, I foolishly blunder into sensitive territory. Rene is studying me. Then she shrugs. “He’s going to be gone four weeks. Remember?” Then making a face: “One week trial. Four weeks screwing young law associate. Maybe you’ll get to meet his fembot thirty-seven at dinner.”

  Fembot: Rene’s term for her father’s pretty young girlfriends. They are pretty. They are young. I loop my arm around her shoulders and sing: “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child...” and because we are alone I sing louder, letting my voice flow from that place deep inside of me that makes it bluesy and throaty and pure like Jack’s.

  Rene instantly laughs and when I am done I can hear someone somewhere clapping. We collapse into each other, laughing harder as Rene pulls me farther away from my secret admirer.

  “Why don’t you ever sing? You have a beautiful voice.”

  “Too close to home. I prefer the cello.”

  “That’s close to home, too. Only it’s your mother not Jack, that’s why you prefer orchestra.” She says it in that knowing way, as best friends do.

  We lie back against the sand. Above us the moon is a hazy blur and the sand feels good. A light fog is rolling in; the air is slightly damp and heavy with the mist, and the white bed beneath me is inviting, moist and slightly chilled. Behind me is the sound of the restaurant, to the left a dog barks from the sandy stretch beyond the slew where dogs are permitted to run unleashed, and in front of me there is only the sound of waves. The sounds are familiar and calming.

  Rene pulls from her pocket a pack of Marlboros and pops one into her mouth in a careless way as she rummages in her pocket for a lighter. I watch the smoke swirl around Rene’s face.

  I turn on my side to face Rene. “Why do we call this beach Hendry’s? The sign says Arroyo Burro, but I’ve never heard anyone call it that. It’s always been Hendry’s.”

  “I don’t know. Why does it matter?”

  “Why don’t we just stay here? Let’s not go off to college, Rene. It all seems so pointless. Does it seem pointless to you?”

  Rene seems to give it thought. Then, “You know what our problem is, Chrissie? Why everything seems so pointless? We are the generation of nothing. There is no war. There is no grand social struggle. There is no political wrong to right. There is nothing. We have everything we want and nothing we need. Even the music isn’t good. We live in empty houses. We have too much time to think only of ourselves. It would be better for there to be a little strife than to be a generation with too much time to think only of ourselves.”

  And just like that out of nowhere Rene can say something profound and tap into exactly what I’m feeling. How does she do it? That comment is the first thing that has made sense to me today. ‘We are the generation of nothing.’ And of course, nothing is pointless. Whatever I do it will be pointless. It’s the times we live in so I should just surrender like Rene.

  I watch her, thankful she is my friend. The silence is comfortable and I lie there watching Rene smoke.

  She hands me the cigarette. I focus on the cherry-flame. “Where did you get these?”

  “They were on the table on the patio. I snaked them. What is it about Catholic girls sneaking cigarettes to sneak a smoke? It’s so cliché.”

  I take a puff. I don’t like to smoke, but tonight I want to be me more like Rene, less like myself than ever before.

  Rene sits up and pulls from another pocket a small bottle of scotch. She takes a long swallow and then says, “I wish my dad was like Jack.”

  “I wish my dad was more like your dad. I wish once Jack would just yell at me like your dad does. But he never yells. He never just says You screwed up, Chrissie. I’m disappointed in you. He never tells me what he really thinks.”

  Rene takes another drink, longer, more. “Then come to my house and next time my dad starts yelling, stay in the living room instead of running off and hiding. Why would it be better if Jack yelled?”

  “Then I would know what he thinks. What he expects. That he cares. He never says I’m disappointed in you. He never says he’s proud. Sam was always his favorite. It feels more like he’s just stuck with me and doesn’t know what to do about that.”

  Oh crap, one of my lockboxes is opening. No, Chrissie, not tonight. Don’t let yourself dwell on your brother tonight. Don’t think about how Jack was after he died. Don’t think about how Sam looked laying blue and cold in his bedroom. Don’t think of how his flesh felt. Don’t think about how everyone loved Sammy, how much he screwed up, and how remarkable he was. Don’t think of Jack’s months of drunkenness. Jack’s rage. The days of being forgotten by Jack. All the bad days. So many bad days. Before those days of boarding school, Jack’s recovery and second run at sobriety.

  I lift my cheek from the sand to find Rene staring at me.

  “Jack said he was proud of you tonight.”

  “Oh, no he didn’t. He said, ‘Your mother would be so proud of you,’ but not a word about what he thinks. Never a word about what he thinks.”

  “At least Jack tries, Chrissie. I’m not saying he’s perfect. I’m not saying he’s even good at it. I’m saying he tries. Cut him some slack if he’s not doing it right.”

  “He’s not doing it at all. We are going through life tiptoeing around each other.”

  Rene takes another drink. “Jack tries.”

  Jack did try, but somehow it makes it all the more awful.

  Rene springs to her feet and begins to brush the sand from her legs. “We should go back.”

  “You just want to party on the patio with the rock geriatric ward.”

  Rene laughs. “That is a terrible thing to call your dad’s band. Jesus, your dad is young and hot. You just can’t see it because he’s your dad. And why not hang with the rock geriatric ward since we won’t be at Peppers with the rest of the seniors?” Rene closes the scotch bottle, almost puts it back in her pocket, and then buries it the sand. “We’ll leave something for the bums instead of tossing it. I am sure Jack would disapprove of that since I took it from his bar.”

  I stand up, brushing the sand from my backside. Rene loops her arm around my neck and we walk toward the car. I can smell the scotch on her breath, and I like the smell, though I should hate it, just as I hate the endless glasses always sent to our restaurant table.

  “I have a rule pact for New York,” Rene announces out of nowhere.

  I start to laugh. “When did you come up with it?”

  “Just now. I make your rules. You make mine. And Doctor Rene thinks what Chrissie needs is to do one crazy thing a day until we are back at school.”

  I laugh harder. Only Rene could float between profound and ridiculous in an hour. “And how will I know if it’s something crazy to do? Do I ask you?”

  “Oh, you’ll know. Did you think what you did to that poor waitress was crazy? Well, you’re right. It was crazy. But it was a good thing to do. I loved watching you do it, Chrissie. You let some of it out for once. When the voice insides you says no, just do it. Be bad. Be young. Be wrong. Lose your virginity. It’s OK.”

  Rene takes my cheeks in her hands and does a fast friendship kiss on my lips and suddenly this isn’t silly but deadly serious to her.

  Oh crap, why tonight? Another of Rene’s sneak attacks on all my little issues.

  I fumble in the dimly lit parking lot to unlock the car door. “Fine. One crazy thing each day. But here’s your rule pact, Rene. You can do anything you want and I won’t tell, but you have to spend one day with your dad and be nice to him even if he’s with fembot thirty-seven.”

&nb
sp; That was a really bitchy thing to say. She leans with her arms on the roof of the car. Then she points at me. “You stay sweet.”

  Now I want to cry again. “You stay cute.”

  It is our ritual, how we prop each other up or how we say hello and goodbye to each other as we pass on campus on our way to class. I can’t remember how I became sweet and Rene became cute, but it is how it is, how it has always been.

  I pull the car from the parking lot and I am there at the intersection to Cliff Drive. I feel all shaky and loose inside again. If I go left I drive into the fog and back home. And right—where will right take me?

  I turn right toward the city and away from home and Jack.

  * * *

  The parking lot is packed and thumping with the sounds of a live band. We are on State Street on a Friday night about to enter a club at midnight. I know this is not a good idea, but this is where the car has taken me: To Peppers and Eliza’s private party and Brad. For some reason I feel pissed off enough to come here and do…do what?

  I unbuckle my seatbelt and climb from the car. I look at my modest t-shirt and worn jeans. Jeez, I’m wearing UGG boots. Not exactly club gear. I haven’t any makeup on and my hair is a ponytail. Rene is waiting, staring at me from the other side of the car.

  “We are not actually going to crash Eliza’s party, are we?”

  “We’re not going to crash the party,” I say quickly.

  “Then what?”

  I stare at the giant tote Rene hauls everywhere with her. “What do you have in your bag? You must have something cuter than this t-shirt. I look like a lost school girl in UGGs.”

  Rene makes a face. “That’s because you are a lost school girl in UGGs. If you’re going to go postal again tonight, warn me in advance.” She dumps the contents of her bag onto the passenger seat as I come around the car.

  Rene’s giant tote is a very, very odd thing. She carries everything she might need, I mean everything, absolutely everywhere she goes. It used to worry me. I used to call it the ‘everything I need to book bag.’ And I was afraid Rene was just going to take off and disappear one day. Then I wouldn’t have anyone. A selfish thought, but it used to worry me because without Rene I wouldn’t have anyone.