by Susan Oloier
I meandered around, venturing into the hallway where Aunt P and dull Doug had disappeared. I heard voices emerging from the cavernous sections of the house.
A chorus of moans was accompanied by the squeaking of bedsprings. Either the paperwork they were viewing was completely engaging or my aunt and her college buddy were having sex. I felt utterly repulsed. How could they do that while I was in the next room? Gross!
I hurried back to the couch. Is this what she intended to teach me? Did she plan to turn me into a woman by introducing me to the lurid sex games she played? And what would my mother think? My mother! She said she wanted me to call every day, and I knew she meant it. I searched for the phone, finding it on the end table next to the love seat. She answered it immediately, obviously awaiting the ring of the phone.
“Mom, it’s me.”
“Everything okay? You sound upset. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
I hated that my mother was able to decipher the nuances of my voice over 2000 miles away. I didn’t need her knowing that Aunt P was the screw up she believed her to be. I quelled the panic in my voice.
“Everything’s fine. We went to a really fancy place for dinner and…”
“And what?” She hung on my every word.
I gritted my teeth at the lie I was about to tell. “And now we’re back at the hotel.”
“You’re up awfully late. It has to be eleven o’clock there.”
“We’re getting ready for bed.” I looked toward the hallway wondering when the two lovers would emerge. “We stayed up and … played cards.”
“Let me talk to your aunt.”
Think fast! “Can’t. She’s taking a late-night soak in the tub, and I don’t want to disturb her.”
“Um hmm,” my mother moaned skeptically.
“I’ll have her call you.”
“You do that.” There was a moment of silence between us. I desperately wanted to hear her say she loved me, or at least that she missed me. “Behave yourself.”
“I will.” I hung up. It was Aunt P who wasn’t behaving.
P finally returned to the living room. Her hair disheveled, her pressed dress was imprinted with wrinkles. Doug shadowed her, a trail of misbehavior following him.
“Paperwork looks good.” P poorly played out the final act of her part. “You ready to go, Noelle?”
“I’ve been ready.”
“Anything good on the telly?”
The telly? What, was he English all of a sudden?
“Not really.”
I made my way to the door, and Aunt P followed.
They said their goodbyes. “Talk to you soon.”
I hoped not.
“What was that all about?” I questioned her in the taxi as the city and all its lights whipped by the window.
“What was what all about?” Aunt P reapplied the lipstick that was sampled from her lips.
“Claire? Doctor Doug? I don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing for you to get. You’re fourteen years old.”
“That’s right,” I came back at her. “I’m fourteen. You shouldn’t be exposing me to certain things.”
“What certain things are you referring to?”
Instead of responding, I caught her off guard. “My mother wants you to call her.”
It worked. “You talked to your mother? When?”
“Tonight. At Doug’s house.”
She lunged at me. “You didn’t tell her anything. Did you?”
“You mean about you and Doug and the paperwork?”
“Don’t get smart-ass with me, Noelle.” Her voice was threatening.
“I told her we were at the hotel and you were taking a bath.”
Aunt P relaxed and eased back into her seat. “Thank God.” She revealed herself for a brief moment, but she rapidly recovered. “I mean, fine.” Pause. “Nothing happened, you know?”
Sure. Nothing happened. It was my first night in Chicago and already I felt I had learned enough.
The next few days were spent in a Doug-free zone. Aunt P made it up to me by taking me to the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. We ate lunch in the Loop and went to the top of the Willis Tower. It finally felt like we were on a real vacation. Aunt P and I stood side-by-side peering down onto the bustle of the city below—a metropolis in miniature.
“So what’s the scoop with your love triangle?” Aunt P asked.
“There’s no love and no triangle,” I said.
P twisted her mouth in disappointment. “Well, what happened to your two boys? One was in college if I remember correctly.” She prodded me with her elbow.
“Yeah.” I laid my chin on my arms at the concrete overlook. “He’s cute, but he’s not the one.”
“The one?” Aunt P turned and looked pointedly at me, raising an eyebrow. “Sounds serious.”
“It’s not,” I said, staring out at the twinkling of a city that looked strung with Christmas lights. “In fact, it’s nothing. It was over before it started.”
“Why?”
One word. “Grace,” I said.
“Because she likes him, too,” Aunt P said to the city as though we’d touched on something personal for her.
I nodded.
“Well, find a distraction for Grace. Someone who will make her lose interest.”
“I don’t know,” I said, focusing on the randomly-lit windows across the way, trying to forget about Jerry Searfus who had suddenly crept into my mind. “Can we go now?” I asked. “It’s getting cold.”
I knew her advice, indulgences, and maternal tendencies were the result of feeling guilty about Porcelain Teeth, but I didn’t care.
“Sure.”
By the end of our third day, I was tired. I thought it would be the ideal ending to order room service and watch a movie. Aunt P had other ideas.
“We’re going out.”
“But I thought…” I motioned to the menu, the TV.
She swallowed hard. “We’re having dinner downstairs.”
Not room service, but still okay.
“Doug will be joining us.”
My momentum for the evening stalled. Porcelain Teeth again? I had hoped we had seen the last of him during this trip; I didn’t care if I ever saw him again in my life. The moment Aunt P and I shared was forgotten by her.
“I think I’ll stay in the room,” I said.
“You will do no such thing. Doug’s son is coming tonight. I told him all about you, and he’s anxious to meet you.”
“I don’t want to be set up.”
“He’s very good-looking. I think your generation would call him a hottie.”
If that was true, I figured he had to resemble his mother.
“He’s sixteen,” Aunt P gave me a nudge.
It was worth a try. I wasn’t thrilled about eating with Doug again, but if his son was as hot as Aunt P let on, dinner wouldn’t be so bad.
She urged me to wear some dress with a low-cut V-neck that she picked up at a boutique. It was so snug that I felt all my parts were on display. It was totally not me.
“Can’t I wear my khakis and a T-shirt?” I whined.
“Absolutely not. You want to make a good impression on Flip, don’t you?” Flip? What a name! Only Porcelain Teeth would name his son Flip.
The dress P made me wear felt like a sleeveless sausage casing. I would definitely make an impression. My look screamed whore, slut, and hourly rates available. Great first impression!
We met at a seafood restaurant that was a walk away. Aunt P was not the walking type. She hailed a cab to take us two doors down. It was excessive and ridiculous. It was Aunt P.
Flip sat next to Doug. My immediate reaction was that this was not Doctor Doug’s son at all. There must have been some mistake because Aunt P clearly stated that he was hot. Flip. How to describe him without being mean? The one word that came to mind was ugly. Totally superficial. For all I knew, he possessed the sweetest personality ever. But that face. It was blistered with acne. E
very inch of skin, every remote place where a pimple could crop up, it did. He wore glasses, had a bony frame, and his coffee-colored eyebrows grew together like Cro-Magnon man. But he did have nice teeth. Straight and meringue white. When he smiled, it improved his appearance—slightly.
We moved through the same formalities, introductions, and ordering as before. Flip eyed us suspiciously. He acted aloof. I was impressed merely on the basis that he seemed to want to be there less than I did.
As Aunt P and Doug lit the flame of their conversation, Flip and I communicated with sideways glances and mistrustful leers. Eventually, with much prompting, Doug and Aunt P managed to get us to talk to one another. Of course, they did it so they could ignore us.
“Flip. Does that stand for something?”
“Nickname,” he uttered, holding close watch over his dad’s behavior.
“Why Flip?” I dipped my bread in some sauce.
“Long pancake story.”
I squeezed tidbits of information from him while P hand-fed Doug rye bread. Flip went to an all-boys’ school. He had a girlfriend named Lucy who lived in Mississippi whom he met during a music camp in Colorado. I didn’t know whether or not I believed him.
“Don’t believe me? Ask Doug.”
I spotted Porcelain Teeth kissing crumbs off P’s face. Maybe later.
We managed to make it through dinner. Doug and Flip walked us back to the hotel, which I thought marked the end of the night.
“Flip, why don’t you take Noelle to the gift shop and buy her something nice?” Doug handed Flip a wad of bills. He took it without making eye contact with his father and inched away complacently.
“We’ll be right back.”
Aunt P pulled me aside, giving me slightly more attention than Doug gave to his son.
“You and Flip are getting along swimmingly, right? You don’t mind if we take a walk along the lake, do you?”
“It’s thirty degrees outside,” I said.
She ignored me. “Maybe you can get some ice cream,” P insisted.
“I’m not six years old. Plus, I’m tired. Can I have the room key?” I held out my hand.
“That wouldn’t be fair to Flip.”
“He can come, too.”
Aunt P raised an eyebrow. “I don’t mind if you and Flip,” she cleared her throat as a substitute for the words she didn’t care to speak, “but I think Doug might not approve.”
“I was talking about watching TV.”
“It’s better if you just stay down here.”
“Why?” I asked.
Flip gently took hold of my arm, allowing Aunt P to accompany Doug on an icy walk along the lake.
“You’re more clueless than I thought,” Flip said to me.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not going for a walk on the beach, Ms. Naïveté. They’re going back to your room.”
“No way,” I said.
Flip skirted around my denial. “Want a candy bar or something?”
We walked to the gift shop. He picked out a Hershey’s and a Pepsi. Not exactly helping the complexion. I snatched a box of Junior Mints. We wandered around the lobby until the doorman chased us out. We didn’t have much to say to one another.
“Want to ride the elevator?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess.” Both of us were more bored than we had ever been before.
“Did you know New York City as over 722 miles of subway track? Chicago only has 106.”
“Well,” I said, “it is a bigger city.”
“When I turn eighteen, I’m moving there. And I’m never looking back.”
“They did this on Saturday, too,” I confessed.
“I know. My dad does it all the time.”
We stepped inside the elevator. “What floor?” Flip asked.
“Five.”
We rode in silence until we reached the fifth floor.
I led Flip to our room. We slouched to the floor and waited for them to finish.
“I don’t know why my aunt didn’t just tell me she had a boyfriend. She’s being so sneaky about it.”
Flip shrugged. Then he turned and examined me. Not with a leering look of interest, but like I was a curious painting in an art museum. “I bet people tell you all the time how pretty you are.” Question marks must have flashed in my eyes because he quickly added to his statement. “I’m not saying that to hit on you. I’m just saying. Besides, I have a girlfriend.”
“You already said that. And, not really. I mean, no one says it to me.”
“Guys in Arizona must be blind then.” His words sounded like an oral recitation of the state capitals.
I smiled to myself. It was one of the nicest compliments I received.
A long-lasting silence passed between us while we waited. Flip took micro bites out of his candy bar.
“You said your dad does this all the time. Does that mean my aunt comes to Chicago often?”
“I don’t know about that,” Flip studied the segments of chocolate. “He sees a lot of women.”
I turned my complete attention to him, but he refused to make eye contact with me. I wanted him to continue with his explanation, but he needed prompting for everything.
“He has other girlfriends?” My question was like a tiptoe.
Flip laughed at me. Apparently, I didn’t know much. “Oh, he doesn’t commit to one woman. He can’t even commit to my mom.” His tone was harsh and littered with hostility.
“How long have your parents been divorced?”
“Divorced?” He finally looked at me. “They’re still married.”
It took me the rest of the trip to process the information Flip had given me. I hated all of the remaining time with Aunt P. We went to Phantom of the Opera; I paid no attention.
“Something on your mind?” she whispered to me during the performance.
“No.” I refused to discuss anything else with her. She’d offer one of her unacceptable excuses and tell me how much I resemble my mother. I wasn’t in the mood for any of it. I never thought I would miss home so much, but I did.
At home, my parents barely asked about my trip, so I offered them nothing. I celebrated my fifteenth birthday on Christmas Eve.
No kid likes having her birthday on a holiday, but especially not at Christmastime. I, like all others in this situation, felt gypped out of a true celebration. My birthday present was one of the gifts under the tree. The day always seemed like an inconvenience to the family, an interruption of the true holiday they wished to celebrate.
My fifteenth was no different than any other from the past. Grace came over earlier in the day to give me a gift—an olive branch of sorts—and to spend some time with me. Seeing her that day made me realize that our friendship was as strong as ever. She seemed genuinely interested in my vacation.
“Were there tons of hot guys there?” Grace asked while flipping through a fashion magazine.
I studied the scrolled-out Gustav Klimt art print Grace had gifted me as I considered her question. I thought of Flip—what he had to stomach with his dad—and I felt a little sorry for him.
“I met this one guy who was pretty nice,” I finally said.
Grace sat upright and put the magazine down. “So,” she said with anticipation. “Tell me about him.”
“He’s just the son of one of my aunt’s friends.”
“Was he cute? Did he dress nice? What’s he like?” she asked, prodding me with her foot.
“He was…” I thought about what Flip was. Not cute. Not hot. Not any of the things Grace appreciated in a guy. “Sad.”
“Sad?” Disdain tainted her voice and she made a face. “How…attractive, Noelle.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I said, thinking of the forged connection Flip and I shared—one Grace could never understand. “He was just different. Nice.”
“Whatever,” she said, returning to her magazine.
“Did you have a good time at Trina’s party?” I asked to change the su
bject and alleviate the awkwardness.
“It was fine,” she said unconvincingly.
“You didn’t have fun?” I don’t know why I pushed her. I didn’t want to hear all the gory details of Trina’s party. Or did I? I supposed I wanted Grace to mention Chad. Was he there? Who did he talk to? Did he hang around with Trina? Did they kiss?
“I don’t really want to talk about it.” Grace shrugged me off.
I let it go. Best not to know what happened.
At night, I was forced to go to church. And it wasn’t just any service, it was Midnight Mass.
When we arrived, the place was lit like the inside of a museum display case, bright against the starkness of the chilled night. The moment we entered the warm insides, I could smell the melting wax of candles and feel the piousness in the air.
We shimmied down one of the aisles, taking a seat on the hard pews. I yanked at my skirt as I kneeled, completely uncomfortable dressed in anything other than pants. When I finally sat back, I flipped through the missal, then glanced around the church lit up with twinkling white Christmas lights, a life-sized nativity scene at the alter. As my eyes flitted around, they stopped on him, and my heart seized. Chad was looking right at me, and when our eyes met, he gave me a brief and sad smile. I heard myself take an audible breath.
“You okay?” my dad asked.
“No,” I said. “I need to…”
I suddenly felt hot and faint. I didn’t finish my sentence. Instead, I clambered out of the pew and into the cooler air of the vestibule. I knew, behind my back, my mother was giving me a reproving look. I didn’t care. I felt the prickle of tears at the corners of my eyes as I stormed past the fonts of holy water and sloshed a hand through one, sending a small shower of droplets to the floor in blasphemy.
