by Susan Fodor
“Just like that,” I interrupted, struggling with the idea of my non-conformist mother obediently heeding her parent’s wishes.
“I was a different person then,” Mum replied, plucking a stray curl from the corner of her mouth. “I’d grown up in a very traditional home. I had responsibilities to the community I was in, and it was the best thing for everyone … or so I thought. Leo was kind and gentle, and we made each other happy---we had started out as friends rather than being infatuated.” Mum shifted her feet in the sand, the way she looked out to sea made me suspect there was more to the story.
"What aren't you telling me?" I asked.
"This is not how I wanted you to find out." She deflected my question. "Paul and George driving down from Sydney with the new car, and Miranda ... it's just not how I wanted to tell you...”
"So, does Leo know about me?" I asked, my mind slowly deciphering the sea of things I didn’t know about my own life.
"Yes," Mum said, taking my hand and looking into my eyes. "Leo loves you; you're his only daughter. He's protecting our country and can't communicate with you at the moment, but he adores you!" A shiver ran down my spine at the intensity of emotion behind Mum’s words. At least my father hadn’t abandoned me and there was no legion of half-siblings for me to worry about.
"Is he special operations or something, that he can't get to a phone?" I asked, desperate for information.
"Yes," Mum replied, but she was hiding something.
I waited for her to say something more to qualify her answer, but she was literally being tight lipped.
"He couldn't send me a card or anything?" I asked unconvinced.
"No." She shook her head, and I could tell that was true.
"Will I ever meet him?" I asked, unsure if I was even ready for a new father in my life.
"I hope so," Mum said as she looked out to sea, a dreamy expression on her face. "You're a lot like him. He's the most patient person I know…"
"It's all just so…" I searched for the right word; a word that would convey the sense of falling and the knot in my stomach and the fear and intrigue of having an absent father.
"Overwhelming?" Mum tried.
I nodded, swallowing the tears threatening to spill over. "We always told each other everything…"
"No one tells everyone everything," Mum disagreed sagely. "That's just a pipe dream; we all have secrets."
"I don't," I replied before realizing I'd never told Mum about Daniel's mermanitis.
Mum fixed me with a look that challenged my assertion, and I looked away, afraid she would see through my lie.
"Everyone has secrets, Mya," Mum said, hugging herself as the last rays of the sun began to disappear. "Time will bring them all to light."
I shuddered with a premonition of worse things to come.
dad
Mum and I stayed for dinner with Daniel and Sophia; it was a subdued event during which no one was sure how to address my paternity. We had assumed the dads would arrive during the meal. George called as we dug into the mini Pavlovas Mum had made for desert.
Sophia bolted to the marble kitchen island to retrieve her bejeweled mobile. Her secretly botoxed brow furrowed incrementally as she spoke on the phone.
"This is not a good time for a road trip," she told George curtly, lowering herself gracefully to sit at the table.
"What's going on?” Mum whispered, worried.
Sophia didn't try to conceal her frustration or even cover the receiver. "They want to visit different golf courses as they drive home. They're still at Kiama golf club!"
"Like a golf club crawl?" Daniel laughed. “The old man’s answer to a pub crawl.”
Kiama was a coastal village less then a quarter of the way home. Mum looked ready to explode, but her words came out subdued. "We should have told them everything."
Sophia agreed with her eyes. "George, a situation has arisen here, and we need you home… No, you don't have to abandon the new car and fly, but we'd like you home in the next forty-eight hours, not in a week."
Mum extended her hand for the phone, and Sophia asked to talk to my dad and handed the phone to Mum across the table.
"Hi Paul," Mum greeted heavily. "We're fine, except for Mya being brutalized at school and her paternity being splashed across the Internet."
Dad cursed in Russian so loudly we all heard it.
Mum retreated to the sparsely furnished living room for privacy.
Daniel tried to distract me by recounting how the math teacher had started crying during the class I’d missed that afternoon.
“Poor guy,” I commiserated. “It’d suck to teach such a group of morons.”
“It was supposed to be funny.” Daniel sighed, slumping into his chair defeated.
“He probably became a teacher to try to make the world a better place, and instead he’s got Scott farting in his seat and everyone laughing at him,” I snapped. I felt sorry for our math teacher who had always been kind to me, but mostly I was frustrated by the day’s events.
Daniel’s face fell.
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking his hand, regretting my outburst. “It’s been a crazy day, and I just want to go home and wash the whole day away.”
“How about a walk on the beach?” he offered.
“May we be excused?” I asked Sophia politely.
I never asked to be excused at home, but Sophia seemed so fancy; I tried to be more polite. She beamed at me and began to clear the dishes so we could escape quicker.
The moon rose slowly over the lapping waves that were consuming the beach rapidly. It would be a short walk due to the high tide, but the cold air seemed to clear my fuzzy head.
Daniel took my hand, causing goose bumps to rise up my arm.
“I’m cold, huh?” he teased.
“Or so hot you give me goose bumps,” I disagreed, laughing.
He looked at me seriously. “It’s nice to see you’ve still got your sense of humor… I missed you today.”
“Me too.” In all that had happened, I hadn’t felt right till we were on the beach together.
Daniel wrapped his arms around my waist and lowered his lips to mine. The chill of his lips sent a thrill through me. Daniel’s kisses filled me with warmth; he pulled me closer, letting the heat of my body lend warmth to his. We were so rarely alone, and while we were comfortable with public displays of affection, our friends tended to complain about excessive PDA.
Daniel traced kisses down my jaw, his lips warm from mine. I wished we were in a more private place as I kissed his neck.
I heard Mum calling from the house. “Time to go back,” Daniel said regretfully.
“Just one more kiss,” I replied, playfully pulling him close. It was so easy to lose myself when I was kissing Daniel, to feel like a heroine in someone else’s story. My heart belonged to Daniel, but his amnesia from the last two years continued to fill me with apprehension. Even though Daniel freely gave me his kisses, I felt like I was stealing them---like they belonged to someone else.
“That was more than one kiss,” Daniel replied, pulling away as Mum’s voice drew closer.
“Fine,” I pouted, “but on the weekend you’re mine.”
“As you wish,” he chuckled; lacing his arm around my waist and pulling me back toward the house.
“It’s freezing out here,” Mum complained, more frustrated with our tardiness than the temperature. “Your Dad wants to talk to you.”
I took the phone and lingered on the cold white paving stones beside the pool. Mum and Daniel hurried inside to give me a moment alone. The lights in the pool created a marbled affect on the white walls and windows, lending an alien atmosphere to the pool area.
“Hi, Dad,” I sang, reminiscent of childhood phone calls.
Dad released a sigh of relief. Maybe he’d thought I would be angry with him or that I would call him Paul; whatever his reasoning he was happy with being called, “Dad.”
“Mya, you are my daughter,” he told me. “Th
e piece of paper was important, but in my heart and in all I’ve done, you have and will always be my daughter. I.... I....”
“I love you too Dad.” I smiled. “It doesn’t change anything.”
He sighed again, sounding more relaxed. “Find a recipe for a bomb on the Internet and we’ll blow up Miranda’s car!”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I laughed, rubbing my arms as the chill bite into my skin.
“She’s lucky I’m not there,” he said menacingly.
“I miss you.” I sighed. “We’re going to have to brush up on Russian kung fu.”
“When I get home,” he promised.
When I was younger he’d taught me Russian army fighting techniques from before he’d immigrated. I’d never had the need to use it, but after Miranda’s attack, I needed to brush up my self-defense.
“So, when will you be back?” I asked, noticing that I could see my breath from the cold.
“In two days,” he said sheepishly, “but I can come home tonight if you want.”
“Have fun; it’s nice you have a boyfriend,” I teased.
“Mya, that is not funny,” he said. I could imagine the vein popping above his eye.
“Are you sharing a room?” I asked suggestively.
“Mya...” Dad warned.
“I’m just saying, you sex my Dad, I shoot you.” I laughed.
“Get your mother!” Dad said seriously.
“Fine, fine,” I laughed. “I’m just teasing.”
“These things you do not tease.” I heard him chuckle.
“I’ll find Mum,” I replied, entering the warm glow of the house.
“I love you, Mya,” Dad said, sounding like he was being forced. Dad struggled with sharing his emotions; growing up in communist Russia with an emotionally paralyzed father, an exhausted mother, and eight siblings was a poor recipe for a good communicator. Dad tried really hard to give me everything I needed; he wasn’t perfect, but he was the best father I’d ever had and I wasn’t going to give that away.
“I love you too.” I smiled. “See you soon.”
Mum took the phone, and they spoke for a few more minutes, as Daniel and I restacked the dishwasher after Sophia had done a terrible job.
Mum had tried to talk to me on the drive home, but I’d been too tired to follow the conversation. I fell asleep that night before my head hit the pillow, dreading school the following day, but too exhausted to obsess about having to face Miranda again.
popular
The doorbell rang at seven in the morning, and I couldn’t imagine what door-to-door salesperson would visit at such an evil hour. I pulled my duvet closer, savoring the warmth of my bed. I drifted between sleep and consciousness; images of Daniel and the sea blurred together making no sense. A few minutes later Tamara bounded into my room, primped and prime ready for school.
“Out of bed, Princess; beauty takes longer than five minutes before the school bus picks you up!” Tamara announced, much too awake.
“Now I remember why I don’t want to be popular,” I said, pulling the covers over my head. “It’s too much work.” I wasn’t opposed to looking good for school; I just preferred sleep to primping and preening in the bathroom mirror for hours.
Tamara ripped the duvet from my fingers and deposited it on the floor. She did it so quickly it took me a few minutes to realize I was cold. The doorbell rang again; even before my door flung open I knew it was Jaimie from the way she was running down the hall.
“Good morning, MYA BELAN!” she announced gleefully. “This is your life.” Jaimie was more enamored by my newfound popularity than I was.
“Can’t I have someone else’s life?” I complained, curling myself into a ball to try to stay warm without my duvet, “someone who gets to sleep in, preferably.” When I’d agreed to Tamara picking me up for school, this was not what I’d imagined.
“I can see your nana undies,” Tamara said deadpan.
That got me out of bed to pull my pants up. “Fine, I’m awake.”
There was an underlying tension emanating from Tamara, an unspoken fear that she and the others had made the wrong choice. If I didn’t prove myself a worthy leader, then Tamara, Tammy and Jaimie would have to crawl back to Miranda—no one wanted that. The grim look on Tamara’s face and Jaimie’s hopeful smile filled me with insecurity, but I had to try. I didn’t want my friends to be disappointed.
“Get in the shower,” Jaimie ordered, sipping her McDonald’s coffee and handing one to Tamara. I noticed a third cup in the cardboard cup holder, which I knew wasn’t for me because coffee made me spew.
The doorbell rang a third time before I stepped into the shower and let the warm beads of water massage away the last stages of sleep from my body. My face throbbed as I stepped out onto the cream shower mat. I wiped the steam from the mirror to see a big bruise circling my eye and mottled purple and blue plastered across my cheek and mouth.
“Are you ready in there?” Jaimie asked, her voice shrill with the excitement of an impending makeover.
I was most definitely not ready. My friend’s confidence was humbling, but I felt totally inadequate. I was fat, bruised and tired---not fabulous like them. I tried to psyche myself up to face my friends who were counting on me to complete their group. Jaimie had told me a thousand times during the years to ‘Fake it, till you make it!’ I wrapped a towel around myself and opened the door.
“Let’s do this,” I said more confidently than I felt.
Jaimie, Tamara, and Tammy swept into the bathroom like a flood of teenage estrogen ready to beautify me. The room was too small for all of us, so Tammy said she’d work on my uniform. I felt a pang of nerves at what that might mean.
I noticed that they were wearing black-knee-high-socks instead of the usual white.
“What’s with the socks?” I asked.
“It’s a small sign that Miranda’s reign is over,” Tamara replied briskly, over the roar of my archaic hairdryer.
“Huh?” I asked, confused.
“I told her it was crazy,” Jaimie yelled to be heard, as she perched on the side of our pink bathtub.
“It’s not crazy,” Tamara stated, giving up on the hair dryer and pulling a straightening wand from her backpack. “We need to demonstrate that there’s been a change in power, the socks show everyone that Miranda’s reign is over.”
“OK,” I chewed my lip. The socks would have to be magical to convince everyone that I was worthy to replace Miranda, but I didn’t want to discourage anyone.
Tamara’s hands expertly took section after section of hair and ran the straightening wand across my dirty blond locks.
“I’m so going to be a hairstylist to the stars.” Tamara smiled, satisfied with her handiwork. I turned my head in the mirror and wondered if straight hair made my face look fat, but I was too grateful for Tamara’s efforts to offend her with such a vain question, so I said, “It looks great, Angelina Jolie would be jealous.”
I glanced Tammy wrestling Mum’s tired old ironing board. I tried to quell the anxiety rising in my gut. “What are you ironing?”
“Nothing.” She giggled as Jaimie and Tamara began covering the bruises on my face with foundation.
I could hear the iron hissing over Tamara and Jaimie’s endless chatter about what color would work best. I wasn’t sure which worried me more Tammy and the iron, or showing up to school in party makeup. Tammy brought me some toast for breakfast after she finished whatever she was doing in my room. Mum popped her head in and told everyone they were doing a great job, before retreating to the safety of the kitchen.
My makeover coaches stepped aside with a flurry. “Daaaadaaaa!” they announced.
My face looked flawless, the bruises had disappeared under the heavy foundation and bronze blush. The mascara gave my eyelashes a longer and fuller appearance, and my lips were slick and shiny. Tamara’s skills were more advanced than I’d ever imagined; I looked really good, even if it was a little trashy.
�
��Wow,” I enthused. “I look better with a bruised up face than my normal face.”
“It’s not that good,” Tamara disagreed. “But once it’s all healed up, I’ll show you how to do a simple face for school every day.”
“I have to wear makeup every day?” I moaned.
Foundation made my face feel like it was suffocating, and mascara made my eyes feel sleepy with its weight, so I rarely wore makeup. It was beginning to dawn on me, that there was way more to the popularity thing than I’d imagined.
I consoled myself with the fact that I would only have to wear makeup so thick for a short time. I would heal quickly, a family trait that had been handed down from Mum. She broke her arm once and the doctor couldn’t believe it had healed in ten days. That vagrant thought reminded me that Daniel had been sick, and now he was ok. I really wanted to know what had happened to him during the last two years, but without any clues, we had to wait till Daniel’s memory returned.
“You’re popular now,” Tamara stated, interrupting my thoughts. Her tone asserted that popularity was an exclusive club, and I would have to wear makeup to fit in.
“Just a little color, when you feel like it.” Jaimie rolled her eyes at Tamara’s rules for cool.
Tammy sauntered in proudly with my newly ironed uniform. “Here, it’s popularized.”
I stifled the groan brewing deep within me; the girls stepped out of the room so I could dress myself. The skirt seemed normal, just ironed, till I put it on. That’s when I realized the hem had risen an inch to match Tamara, Jaimie, and Tammy’s length.
“Seriously?” I asked the mirror, looking like Mya the tramp. I didn’t look like myself, or feel like myself. It was just plain strange looking at the girl in the mirror, but I had to face Miranda, and my usual self wouldn’t do that either. If I wanted Tammy, Tamara and Jaimie to be safe from Miranda’s bullying, I had to embrace this new persona.
“Come out,” Jaimie thrilled through the door.
I walked out trying to exude the confidence they would expect, rather than the crawl-in-a-hole feeling that I’d woken with. They had woken early to prepare me, and I owed it to them to make an effort. I would put on the show to keep them from Miranda’s tyranny, but it felt as foreign as wearing a fur coat in summer.
