Roll with the Punches

by Gettinger, Amy

  I checked my email. Fifteen loan ads, twelve million-dollar spams from Africa, eight offers to lengthen my penis, three shoe sale coupons, and another of my interested agents, Mary Ellen Harrison, telling me never to darken her door again.

  I considered calling my brothers, both dentists, about Dad. But it was Wednesday. They'd either be golfing or drawing up pre-nups for their second or third wives. Too cool for us, they'd both flown off at eighteen to the opposite coast, never to return. Occasionally they called on holidays. But that was it.

  So I called Monica in Sydney. She'd know what to do. But I'd forgotten just how nasty an awakened Monica could be at 4:00 a.m. her time.

  She said, "Come on, Rhonda. Get real. He's damn near eighty, and he's stressed out from Mom being in the hospital. It's not comfortable for old people to move. You should never have taken him to that Purina place."

  "Ralston House. Look, it wasn't my idea. Mom told me to. And he's not old. Seventy-nine is not old. My father is not old.”

  "Fine. Tell his surgeon that. Besides, you know they're inseparable. Haven't you noticed he won't go anywhere without her anymore?"

  "I don't like the duh in your tone of voice," I said.

  "Look, he's the captain, she's the navigator. He's just feeling lost at sea." She sighed. "I've finally landed a decent part-time job and the kids love their school. But if you really can't handle it, I guess I could come home.”

  The last thing I wanted was for Monica to show up in California, kids in tow, pissed off because she'd spent thousands of dollars for an emergency trip home just a month after leaving us. She'd take over like a drill sergeant, and no one would get any rest for weeks.

  "Uh, never mind. I was just so—surprised that Music Man might have dementia."

  "Believe me, Rhonda. It's not dementia. He's fine. He's just stressed out. Look, watch him for a couple days. Take him home with you. Get him some Prozac."

  "From a doctor?"

  Monica yawned. "I don't care if it's from a veterinarian or an astrologer. But deal with it. Keep him out of trouble, Ms. Librarian. It's your turn.”

  Well, maybe it was. I picked up the Alzheimer's pamphlet from Julie Bauer and read it. Scary stuff. So I got on my mother's ancient purple laptop with the screen problem and typed in dementia. Scarier stuff. Of course, I'd researched memory loss for my book, but this was Dad. Whose memory wasn't that bad, except for some dream that he still had little kids at home. Yeah, it must have been a dream. Because if he truly had dementia, this article said he shouldn't be left home alone, ever. At all. Good grief.

  One website said his symptoms might be caused by a drug interaction, depression, a vitamin deficiency, or a thyroid problem. Or alcohol. I needed a doctor to sort it out, but Mom's computer suddenly went all white screen. My laptop was at home, so I called Mom. I couldn't reach her at the hospital, so I searched her index card file for doctor cards and called some.

  Funny. When the receptionists heard Dad's name, they got cagey and said they were booked up until Easter. It wasn't hard to imagine Dad pulling pranks in doctors' offices with Christian Scientist Mom egging him on, laughing at the ensuing office chaos. Finally, the doddering computer came back on and I surfed the Internet to find a local gerontologist and grabbed an available slot for the next day.

  Then I prayed for Hagrid to ride up on a magic motorcycle to get us there.

  CHAPTER 7

  By some miracle, my father was not cut by the broken glass in the dishwater that morning, although I was, when I let the dishwater out of the sink. On the way to see Mom before her surgery, Dad and I had another minor scuffle over his blue handicapped card, which he won as I swerved in traffic. When we arrived at UCI Medical Center in late morning, Mom, out of it on pre-surgery drugs, waved and dozed off again.

  Dad settled down near her to wait.

  I was antsy about Mom, but even more frustrated about being stuck here, unable to pursue my book problem. I needed to work with letters to calm me down and help me think. A new word scramble book sat on Mom's bedside table. Yummy.

  I unscrambled OYOILRSUT to riotously. My brain started a mental list of possible book thieves. Marian. Jackie. George. No. They were my mentors, and occasional tormentors, but basically friends.

  "Wow. How'd you get that so easy?" The little gray man was looking around the gold curtain over my shoulder.

  "I'm a genius," I said. The word SERANGO unscrambled to oranges in milliseconds. More suspects popped up in my head: James? Harley? But they loved me, right? Hmm. I had also given my parents early drafts to read, but I’d changed the book a lot since then. They'd never sell me out, but had they given my manuscript to someone else—knowingly or unknowingly?

  The little gray man poked my shoulder. "What’s your trick?"

  I sighed. "See," I pointed. "It's black and white on the page, but for me, it’s like—colors. I see a silvery blue S, a green E, a red R, a violet A, a gold N, a gray G, and a white O. Makes it easy to—"

  His eyes had gone wide. Oops. I'd said too much. I didn't tell him the colors had been assigned in my brain at birth to both letters and numbers by some really irritating power greater than me, one that enjoyed constant torture. The colors usually appeared stronger when I was upset, especially during life changes. Like now.

  The man said, "Do a harder one."

  "Sure." I flipped pages to PUDENTITIE and snorted. Racy sound, but boring colors: gray U's, white I's and black T's with only spots of green, orange, blue, and gold. "Of course, ineptitude," I said. Like me taking care of Dad.

  But Reynard Jackson wasn’t inept. Could he be an industry professional? Or one of those myriad agents and editors I'd given a packet to? Or Marcella Anderson, an agent who'd asked for the whole manuscript back in April?

  The little man grinned and flipped to the hardest section of the book. It said: SUE'S STOUT GRAIN. Silvery blue with threads of green, red, gold and purple running through. Like Ladrona Beach at twilight. I scribbled the letters in the margin.

  "Yep. Gratuitousness," I said, and he clapped.

  But my stomach was sinking. Reynard Jackson had taken my manuscript gratuitously, in both senses of the word: unjustifiably and without payment. Who was he? Who'd had access to my book? Mom and Dad's guests? Oh, God. Any garbage man or trash sifter in the county could have found an old copy. Wait. What about Yvette? If there was a God, it was her, but how could I prove it? I'd have to find out who in the writing group knew her, or if she had garbage man connections.

  "Damn!" I slammed the book closed, making the little guy jump back. “Oh, sorry. Hope your wife gets better. I gotta go.”

  I needed action. I needed a skate. No. I needed a good scream at the beach. Music Man in his chair and Mom were both flaked out, mouths slack, hands limp. They were safe here and could spare me for an hour. So I ran out of the room, down the hall, and out to the hospital parking lot.

  * * *

  Coiffed Moms with air conditioned vans gawked as I sailed by them down the 5 freeway in my Honda Civic with the broken air conditioning and rattling undercarriage, yelling my lungs out, flailing my arm out the open window, looking like Joe Cocker in concert. My hair whipped around my eyes and mouth in the hot Santa Ana winds that swooped down off the Great Basin that day just to add a little hot edge to our bland Southern California existence.

  Post-Joe Cocker attack, my mind was a snake pit of what-ifs and whys and hows about both Dad and my book as the car seemed to steer itself onto the 55 south toward the ocean. I probably should have stayed back at the hospital, but the sand, the long swath of blue water, and views of Catalina Island called me like sirens. The ocean had been my best personal solace ever since at age seven, furious at my mother for some injustice, I'd written my first short story about whales spouting off Ladrona Beach, or Thieves' Cove, tucked in between Laguna Beach and Crystal Cove. Today, I just hoped the waves off Balboa Pier would belch up a clue or two to my plight.

  My new cell phone, donat
ed by Monica when she'd left, vibrated in the seat beside me. Hmm. Ten new messages, and Monica'd taken the secrets of message retrieval with her to Sydney.

  "What," I snarled into it.

  "Hey, Dragon Lady. You wanna skate in the park tonight?" Harley said.

  "No," I said. My fantasies of roller victory from yesterday had been so stupid.

  "You're a drag, lady.”

  "Come on, Harley. No puns. I'm on overwhelm here with the book thing and Dad." I filled her in about Dad. "So you see my problem? In short order, I have to settle Music Man somewhere quick or find some saint to come and live with him. And Ralston House probably sent out a NOT WANTED poster about him to all the other senior homes. Then today, the hospital nurse told me there's no way my mother's going to Sydney. In fact, she won't come home for three weeks. What do I do?"

  "Send Music Man off to Sydney on his own. Let Monica deal with him," Harley said.

  "Are you kidding? He'd get lost in the airplane bathroom without my mother. He's the captain, and she's the navigator."

  "So go with him."

  "Um, who’ll pay for the ticket? It’s hundreds of dollars. And I'll get fired."

  "Look hon, my folks are only sixty and my grandparents are dead. I don't know from old people." She slurped something into the phone.

  "Mom and Dad are not old." My voice rose. "My parents are not old! What are you slurping?"

  "Soup."

  "You are so not. That's an ice cream slurp if I ever heard one."

  "I had a salad first, okay? And besides, this chocolate shake had been in the employee freezer too long. It was going to go bad. I had to eat it."

  "How long's too long?" It was noon. My stomach pleaded for food.

  "Five hours." Another phone slurp. "So—"

  "You bought a shake for breakfast?" I started hunting for fast food in the endless mall by the freeway.

  "Two-for-one coupon. So what are your options?"

  "(A) Come over there and slap you silly and steal your shake or (B) listen to you slurp it." I saw Burger King next to a furniture store. All red letters. No imagination.

  "No, about your parents.”

  "Hmm. Well, there’s (A) freezing Dad cryogenically, (B) zapping him into outer space along with a TV and the dog, or (C) parking him with a friend so I can work and make daily hospital visits. You game?" I got off the freeway, biting a fingernail.

  "Rhonda," she said. "I work."

  "It was a joke. If I don't laugh, I'll cry. Or hit someone.”

  "Okay, (D) put him at the Hilton.”

  "You know my father'd never waste his money on a fancy hotel."

  "Oh. I thought we were joking to relieve the ten—"

  "You don't do it right. Your timing sucks. And Mom may take months to recover. What do I do?" I wailed, pulling into the Burger King drive-through lane. I muted the phone and barked at the speaker, "A large fries and a chocolate shake.”

  Pause.

  "Harley!"

  "I don't know anything. My timing sucks."

  "Oh, crap. I'm sorry, but I'm about to explode here!"

  She sulked a few seconds, then said, "Can't the neighbors help?"

  I breathed to calm down. "Most of them work all day."

  "Even the mothers with little kids?"

  "They're scared of him.”

  "How about your condo? The guest room?"

  I envisioned dad comfy at my condo and savagely bit another fingernail. "(A) He'd rearrange my house while I'm at work and (B) With his bad hip, he can't climb the stairs to the bedrooms. (C) He doesn't fit on the couch. Plus (D) Bing would have to come too, and he'd be over the fence in a minute, despite his bad hips, and pollute the pure line of champion Dalmatians next door. So (E) my neighbor would kill me."

  "Then take three weeks off until your mom gets back home.”

  "Remember me taking June off? All my vacation time's gone." My voice rose again as I paid the pimply teenager and took my bag of junk food.

  "Fine. You figure it out, Miss Crabby."

  "Harley!" I pounded the steering wheel. "Help!"

  "Okay, then listen. You stay at your folks' house at night, commute to your job, and get someone to stay with him during the day." The voice of reason burped.

  "Say 'excuse me', Brunhilda. And who do I get for days?" I inhaled half the chocolate shake at the thought of moving back in with the folks. Hello, brain freeze.

  "I don't know. A college student? Hey, about your book …"

  "Look, I'm working on it! Copyright infringement is a mess to prove."

  "What if you change it some? Different characters, different story? Then sell it. I always said those characters should end up on the lam in Brazil or something, at each other's throats."

  "It's not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Besides, why should I change it? I wrote it, and it's already selling big. My book is selling huge. Isn't that a laugh? But how do I, silly little David, fight a big, nasty publishing Goliath for rights to my own work with Dad hanging around my neck? Agghh.”

  I got cut off by a Hummer as I merged back on the freeway.

  "Looks like you have to, in order to get your good name back."

  I growled.

  "Come to the park tonight? Skate off the anger? You can pretend you're skating arm in arm at Venice Beach with James-of-the-Dimples, your long hair flying and your tan perfect.”

  "I wish, but I'm babysitting Dad." I hung up and shoved more fries in my mouth.

  I was just coming off the 55 freeway onto Newport Boulevard when Darya Delhi appeared on the right.

  Wait. It was lunchtime.

  Oh, my God. I had a date right here, right now, today. Wow. Even in my funk, the universe had led me here just ten minutes late for my date with James. He was inside waiting for me! I completely forgot the folks and turned into the lot, parked the car, and crumpled up fast food wrappings.

  "I'm coming, James!" I grabbed my purse off the floor, but it was under my sweater, whose sleeve was snagged on something. Crap. A damned pink sequin on a darling little pink purse. Perfect for any six-year-old Barbie fan. My generous mother would have said Yvette wasn't really mean. She was just the messenger of bad news. After all, her stupid little purse had saved my life. And she had offered to help me with my manuscript. Like it needed help. And she had taken an interest in James. Like he needed that. And she’d completely disdained my father. And almost let me choke to death. And accused me of plagiarism.

  I needed her purse out of my car.

  And James’s blue, blue eyes and yummy smile were calling me. My legs would not sit still, so I found myself outside the car before I could yank the stupid thing off my sweater. When I finally managed it, a small explosion of pink and white sequins rained down on the asphalt parking space and the car seat, leaving a long, knotted pink thread hanging off the bag, like a scraggly tail. And a newly exposed slice of faux pink leather. A little pink piglet butt.

  Now my own roomy, adult purse was made of soft, buttery, leather in rich ivory, gold, russet and deep brown. So I was standing there in the parking lot, trying to tuck the stupid pink piglet tail inside the stupid little butt purse before running into James’s arms and the rest of my sparkling future life, when my own lovely purse fell off my shoulder, making me catch it and drop the stupid pink thing. Swear to God. Which scattered its meager contents everywhere—half in the car and half out.

  Hey, it was an accident. Would I willingly have put off meeting James just to pick up the insect's stupid stuff? And her stupid coin purse? I scrambled around and gathered stuff up. There was no cell phone, no tampon, no Kleenex, no condom—Monica’s list of purse essentials. Just a little cash, a tiny key, and some cards. Which I couldn’t help peeking at. Blockbuster. Nail salon. Hair salon. City editor for a newspaper. Publisher. Sex toy store. (Bad image: insectoid sex. Erase, erase, erase.) Driver's license. Hey, she was thirty-seven! A geezer. Way too old for James. Weight: ninety-eight pounds. R
eason in itself for insecticide. But didn't being almost double her weight surely double my value over hers as a human being?

  I considered jotting down her fancy MasterCard numbers, but mentally slapped myself. Besides, the numbers were all cool blues and greens and purples, and a perfect mirror of my mother's birthday plus my high school locker code plus the Dewey Decimal number for books on famous women. I guess I accidentally memorized them.

  No library card. An editor with no library card? Damned suspicious.

  I felt around under my front seat and found two more cards: Melinda Rawls, Agent. Reynard Jackson, Author.

  Oh. My. God. I sat back down in my driver’s seat, stunned. Jackson's business card in Yvette's purse? With his trademark jaunty, colorful letters dancing annoyingly across the top. Where had she gotten this? Was he British like her? Did she know him, or maybe even work for him? The sneak. Pretending she was just one of his readers. Before I got a look at the phone number on it, someone spoke at my open car door.

  James said, "Hey, Rhonda! How's your mother?"

  My eyes flew up. My hand went to my wind-swept hair. The little pink bag fell to the passenger side floor.

  "I was inside and saw you pull up." His gaze lowered to my chest.

  I looked down. Okay. A woman's body has a few trick features, among them the boob shelf that's ready to catch any random food stain, and make it into a flashing neon sign saying: "Yes, I eat chocolate ice cream, Chinese food, French fries, fudge sauce, and pasta. I'm a carboholic with no willpower and a messy eater, to boot. Call me Miss Piggy."

  So these two round ketchup sauce stains and one big chocolate shake drip stared up now like a big, crooked happy face from the old gray T-shirt I'd thrown on this morning. And oops. I'd spent so long calling doctors that I'd forgotten my bra. And my makeup.