My pediatrician, Sally Amos, who saw me through all the stomachaches (that were purely psychosomatic, but there just the same) smiles at me through a thin veneer of confusion. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here either. There’s nothing like seeing how little you truly mean to people in your past, and I suppose I should just be thankful this isn’t my funeral.
My childhood neighbor, who didn’t have any other friends: Kate Lockston. Kate lived with her mother Eloise (who’s here also). Mrs. Lockston never worked, never left the house, and clothed Kate in boy’s plaid snap shirts and corduroy. My own mother forced me to play with her, and let’s just say, neither one of us is all that fond of the memories. There’s emotional baggage that comes with being forced to play with someone. Even if you actually might have been friends. With the pressure comes a little resentment. I can see it in Kate’s eyes even now.
And there’s my father, smiling broadly with his arm around his lovely Sharon. He’s grinning at her as though he’s pulled off the Olympics. He’s proud of his accomplishment, and I grin to acknowledge that, Yes, Daddy, you do have a talent for surprising me. I’m surprised. Can I go home now?
“Surprise!” They all yell in unison once they’ve noticed my presence.
Bigger mohair smile. “Hello, everyone,” I say barely above a whisper because I can’t find my voice. With that, they all come towards me and I am surrounded by the reality that was my childhood. And trust me, they’re as thrilled as I am.
“Dr. Amos,” I say before clutching her like the anchor she was for me. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it. Your father says you’re thinking of moving back into the house.” She lets her voice fall to a whisper. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but I’ll be there to support you. And if you ever decide to have a little one of your own—” She pats my stomach. “—I’ll be at your service.” She goes back to her wine, a habit she always had. I remember the scent at ten in the morning and suddenly wonder if my pediatric experience was all that healthy.
Next up: my first boyfriend. First sloppy kiss, first breaking of my heart: Jed Pierce. I loved him, I think to myself. Really loved him. Granted, I also wrote in cursive Mrs. Jed Pierce over and over on my notebook and really loved George Michael, too, so I’m not completely sure I was capable of real love. But here he is, as if to remind me all over again how he never really loved me back. He’s accompanied by the real Mrs. Jed Pierce. She’s a little blonde thing with a jealous eye and a vice-like grip on Jed. It’s really odd to see what attracted you as a high school girl. Something makes me wonder if I wasn’t just attracted by everyone else’s opinion of Jed, because I’ll tell you, I can’t see it now. He’s still so basketball-star-looking, the complete opposite of what I would find attractive.
“Hi, Jed. Allison,” I say, acknowledging his wife. He gives me a simple nod, making me wonder why the heck he bothered coming. His wife only looks me up and down, as though I want her husband with a passion that is worthy of a Shakespearian tragedy. And you’ll just have to trust me on this one: I don’t.
Jed awkwardly gives me a kiss on the cheek. Check that. The ear. I think he was going for the cheek, though. We smile at each other, shamed by the horrible experience of being placed in the same room as though we have missed each other one iota since we saw each other last. I’ve thought about “Now & Laters” more than I have Jed Pierce. Yet, another reason I think love was a bit overzealous a word for my emotions.
Finally, my old neighbor Kate and her mother come up and stand uncomfortably and I extend my arms for them. “It’s so good to see you!” I say with my most enthusiastic squeal. Seeing Kate’s brown eyes, I remember times when we waded into the creek to pull out frogs and tadpoles. History can’t be undervalued.
Finally, Kate puts out her hand. “Poppy, good to see you.”
“You, too, Kate. You’re looking well.”
She takes an abrupt turn on her heel, followed by her mother, who never actually said hello, and finds her way back to the table. I’m beginning to wonder if my father didn’t offer up a bribe for my so-called “friends” to be here. As reunions go, this couldn’t be more pathetic. I like to think I had some dignity before college and that my funeral wouldn’t be this pathetic. I did have friends, after all, and this is what he dredged up?
My dad grabs a wineglass and dings a fork against it. “Thank you. Thank you all for coming all the way over the hill for our precious Poppy. Please, find a seat and we’ll get started with the festivities.”
Festivities? My stomach is in absolute knots. I cannot imagine why these people, this odd collection of history, is here. Nor why my father lied to me about dinner alone. Though I must admit, there’s a relief factor that our shopping spree is cancelled. It’s not all a loss; at least my stepmother is ignoring me. Usually, by now, she’s commented on my clothing and offered to take me out with a stylist.
My dad clears his throat ceremoniously and continues, “As you all know, Sharon and I are leaving California.” A round of half-hearted gasps here as though they aren’t all thinking, Maybe that house will finally be landscaped and our property values will rise. “But what you don’t know is that we’ve been living in Poppy’s house all these years. Her mother left her that house long ago and it’s time it returned to its rightful owner.” Dad looks at me. “And that its rightful owner returns to the house. She’s going to fix it up or sell it, so it won’t be the neighborhood eyesore anymore.”
A few cheers here.
I’m just counting the moments until I can run screaming from the room. I have my first and third fingers clasped together, trying to find a little peace meridian energy. As one might guess, it’s not working.
“What you don’t know,” my father goes on, “is that Sharon’s sister is in rehab in Arizona, and we’ll be taking custody of her children.”
I feel my smile fall, and I try to force it back, but it won’t come. I don’t want to put my father down, but I think I did a little more parenting in that house than he did, and I can’t imagine what he’s thinking.
“So it’s with great pleasure I hand Poppy back the keys to her home and kiss my daughter farewell. Into the future. If she were a ship, I’d break a bottle of champagne against her. This is where I send her off into the great world on her own.”
I’m not exactly sure what planet my father is currently inhabiting, as I’ve been a working chiropractor for three years with my own practice, my own condo, and even a cat to call my own. Where exactly am I being launched? I don’t know if he actually remembers this, but our past hasn’t exactly been the stuff of gumdrops. I mean, if he’s going to give me a gift, couldn’t he pass on the Lexus? It’s probably worth more than the house in its current condition anyway.
It’s everything I can do to stand up for my father’s “ceremony.” I can’t reach out for the keys. I look to Sharon, who is smiling as though to tell me she’s won. And I know it’s true— she has. She’ll take my father away, leaving me with a rundown house near the ocean to console me. And my father will parent her relatives—who I’m sure need it, but all the same . . .
Excuse me, I think. But what I actually say is, “This is too much excitement for my bladder.” Then I jogged towards the restroom in my own live commercial for an incontinence narcotic. I should have gone to dinner with Jeff.
Looking in the bathroom mirror, I’m struck by my wan appearance. The grown-up, Christian thing to do is be happy for my father starting the second half of his life—even if I do think it’s repeating the first half, which he wasn’t all that adept at. When it comes to parenting, my father is the weekend Disneyland dad.
Lord knows Daddy deserves some joy in his life at this point, but the small, little, whiny girl who seems to be so prevalent is upset that my other parent is riding off into the sunset. Captured in the clutches of a disease called Sharon and her do-gooder future. Of course, he wants to do a good deed, but he has no clue what his weaknesses are. And stability
is definitely not a trait he embodies.
My cell phone is trilling again, echoing off the tile in the sickly-sweet-smelling bathroom. I find the little bench and slide down onto it, my legs no longer strong enough to hold me up.
“Hello?”
“Finally. Poppy, it’s Morgan.”
Just the sound of her voice makes my eyes well up. “I need help, Morgan.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t begin to explain. It’s everything, and it’s nothing at all. How soon can you get down here?”
“I was on my way when you hung up on me. I’m almost there. Where are you, the condo?”
“I’m in Jackson’s. It’s a restaurant on Steven’s Creek by Vallco.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Lilly wanted to come, but she’s so tired at night with the pregnancy. She stayed home. I’ll be there soon. We knew you were having a bad day when you hung up. And you took the wedding stuff so badly and asked for Spa Date. Hang on, Poppy, I’m coming.”
I sit on the bench, drumming my fingernails along the fake leather and wondering what it is I should do next. I mean, it’s not like those people out there don’t know me. It’s not like they haven’t watched me run to the loo. At some point, I have to go back out there, plaster the best mohair smile of my life on my face, and tell them that under no circumstances am I coming back to live in Santa Cruz. My dad is the only one being launched at this party. I’m a grownup. This shouldn’t bother me, and yet I’m completely annoyed at myself that it does. I want to believe my father’s dream of an Arizona orphanage is a good idea. Of course it is. Unwanted children need homes. What kind of Christian am I?
I love Santa Cruz, I remind myself. I grew up there under the blanket of fog and sunshiny days. I took hikes in the nearby redwoods, and I embraced all that was Santa Cruz. For crying out loud, look at my clothes. If that doesn’t tell you I have enough of the beachside city in my heart, I don’t know what will. But I am not going back to that house. I am not going to grow old beside Eloise and Kate. I am not going to run into Jed’s wife at the grocery store. Just because my father is leaving doesn’t mean that I’m stepping into his role. We should have sold that house a long time ago.
The bathroom door swings open and Sharon stands in front of me. “What are you doing?” she asks. “Your father is throwing you a party.” She says it with a warmth in her voice that reminds me she is not always the monster I make her out to be.
“Hello, Sharon.”
“Your father planned this party for you, and you’re the guest of honor.”
“I know that, Sharon. I went to Stanford,” I remind her. It’s my way of saying duh! without being rude.
She sits down beside me and sighs deeply. “You don’t have to live in the house. Is that what this is about?”
I look at her, totally shocked she has any clue what’s going on inside my head. “Sort of,” I say, keeping the truth close to my heart.
“I imagine it doesn’t bring up the best memories for you. You can get a reverse mortgage on it and take care of the financial effects that way. It needs a lot of work.” She pats my leg. “Your father isn’t into the maintenance side of things.” She laughs. “But I guess you know that.”
I shake my head. “I’ll figure it out.” With this statement, I succumb to the knowledge that I am, indeed, getting stuck with the house.
“Do you want me to put the house on the market for you? I have a friend in real estate.”
“I don’t know what I want to do.” I look at the keys in my hand. “Why does Daddy want me to go back there?”
“He thinks you need to break free of your childhood.” She pauses for a moment. “Trauma. He thinks going back will help.”
“It won’t.” I feel that familiar knot in my stomach and I wish with everything in me that I could run right now. I wish I had my workout gear, which I usually keep in my car, and could just run until I couldn’t go any farther.
She pats my leg again. “I’ve waited a long time to get out of that house, Poppy.”
I nod, thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, this woman hasn’t been quite the vixen I’ve created her to be in my mind. I still don’t like her, and it’s so much easier to believe my father was duped than that he actually left our lives and my mother in the recesses of his mind. But still . . . “You’ve been more than patient, Sharon.”
She smiles. “Come out and mingle with the hodgepodge of weirdos your father assembled. He went to big trouble.”
We laugh, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror. Who am I kidding? I look like that group’s leader. There’s no getting around it. Suddenly, Morgan’s words today don’t seem that far-fetched.
As I follow Sharon out the door, Morgan is there. She’s wearing diamond earrings the size of peacoat toggles and is dressed to the nines. Her blonde hair is up in a perfect swirl.
“Wow, you look great.”
She smiles at me. “You’re not mad at me.”
“I’m a little miffed, but I have bigger fish to fry. Come smile with me.” I give her a toothy grin. “Like this.”
“I set up the spa weekend,” Morgan says as we walk the hallway. “We’re all set and Lilly’s coming too. I brought you a picture of your date.” Morgan looks down at the floor. “If you’re interested in meeting him. Otherwise, you come alone or with whomever you please. All right?”
I smile at her and put my head on her shoulder.
“You know, I’ve never heard you mad like that. Well, maybe that one time when I wouldn’t drink that orange slop you were giving me. But I realized I overstepped my bounds. I’m sorry.”
“I’m glad I got mad. It helped me know what I want out of life, and being set up is not that thing. Come meet my other weirdo friends.” I pull her into the room of my history, where she is greeted with sheer astonishment. To say Morgan is beautiful is a vast understatement to her presence. She gives off an aura that acts as a magnet to all around her. You’re drawn to her like a lighthouse on a stormy night. “Everyone, this is my friend Morgan Malliard.”
Jed looks for a little too long, and I think his wife kicks him under the table, “What?” he asks in all innocence and I have to muffle my giggle.
I find us seats next to Dr. Amos. “Morgan, this is the woman who encouraged me to be a doctor. She was the only female doctor on the coast at that time, and I just worshiped her.” I smile at my mentor, and she speaks to Morgan.
“Poppy was always an interesting child. Interested in what everything did and how you diagnosed all the different diseases. I think she had the medical dictionary memorized by age twelve.”
Interesting. Now there’s a word I’ve heard to describe me for years. I believe it’s a thesaurus word for weirdo. Not that I shun that title, either, but if you look around the table here, everyone’s a weirdo. Even Morgan’s a weirdo, though no one can tell because they’re too blinded by her beauty. But I’ve been one of her best friends since college, and trust me: she’s a weirdo too. She just dresses better. I wonder if I let my girlfriends dress me I’d hear the adjective interesting less often.
Morgan is laughing. It’s her Get-me-out-of-here-now laugh. But we still have dinner to sit through. A long and uncomfortable dinner. Full of my childhood foibles and quirks—and let me just say, I hardly needed to be reminded. I look at Sharon and suddenly see her as my alibi instead of my enemy. Get thee to a realtor. Poppy Clayton is leaving her shell, and her childhood, behind!
chapter 6
Home.
Desperation scale: 4
I get home to the condo and drop my keys into the basket at the entry. Some days, it just feels better than others to be home. I flick on a sunlight lamp, and the house is illuminated with low-end energy and all the brightness of natural light. My answering machine is blinking, but the last thing I need is more negative energy, so I let it blink. I take my sweater off and with the recessed light overhead, it’s like I’m about to be beamed up. And when I go? I realiz
e that I’m in a really bad skirt.
I wonder if aliens would notice.
I scan my outfit in the mirror, looking at the tinged, wild colors of the worn cotton, which I’ve taken to hand-washing so it won’t fall apart, and it occurs to me my statement is getting old. It used to be that I felt different, set apart and unique in a look that brought me joy. But tonight, being around my past, I see I’m really not all that different. I’m just your average product of Santa Cruz and a mother who loved all things natural. I am a human banana slug. Loveable, but a loner.
For a brief second, it dawns on me that perhaps I don’t want to look like my past anymore.
Morgan parks her car and follows me into the house and Safflower, my cat, goes straight for her nylons. Morgan is all politeness, but she hates that cat. Morgan sees me eyeing my skirt, and I know what she’s thinking, but she says nothing, like the loyal friend she is.
“Are you going back?” she asks me, meaning to my childhood home.
I shake my head.
“Your father thinks you should. At least for a little while. I’ve never known your father to ask you to do anything, Poppy. Maybe he’s on to something.”
“My father also thinks I should have five children and be homeschooling them on the beach in a jumper. Any questions?”
“I’m inclined to agree with him on this one.”
I look at her like the traitor she is. “You think I should go back to that house and drive the long commute over the hill? For what reason exactly?” I put a hand to my hip. This I have to hear.
“Seriously, Poppy, you want to help everyone but yourself.” She looks at my skirt again. “I think it’s time you helped yourself. No offense, but you date weirdos. You dress like a beatnik in the Silicon Valley. And you know, Poppy, I’m beginning to think it’s all an act, quite frankly. No one who cares about her body-fat percentage as much as you do is oblivious to her body’s affect on men. I just don’t buy it. And I’ve seen the plastic surgeon. You’re blind, deaf, or dumb on him because he is hot. I know you believe in all things natural, but love chemistry is as natural as it comes and—”
Calm, Cool, and Adjusted Page 6
