by Deb Caletti
“So I’m going to give your mom the name of a financial adviser I know over there. He’s a great guy, you can trust him, even if he’s…boring, okay? So don’t give him trouble for being boring, Indigo. We need boring people in the world too, or else no one would be there to do our taxes.”
“Okay,” I say, because I don’t know shit about financial advisers or accountants or banking. Mom set up a savings account for me years ago, and before last year when I started working at Carrera’s, I had all of about twenty-six bucks in there. I’ve got maybe five hundred now, enough to pay for maybe a few college textbooks if I change my mind about going, not enough for college itself. Certainly not enough to interest a boring accountant.
We sit on a rocky beach and Dad puts on his flippers, sliding his thumb under his heel with a thwap of rubber against skin. The mask is stuck on his forehead, so he looks like he’s some kind of a large insect. “And I don’t have any great advice for you, In. I wish I did. I want to say…stay true to yourself, but I know you’ll laugh.”
“Only because you look like a fly,” I say. “I’m not worrying about staying true to myself. I know myself pretty well.”
“Money changes things, In.”
“What’s all the ooh-ahh about money and change? It’s like it’s some voodoo curse. I plan on being me with more money.”
“Okay, In.”
“I don’t see why that’s not possible.”
“I never had a lot of it, okay? But even when I had maybe more than average? It makes you see things differently. Like yourself. What you expect from other people.” He’s tucking his keys and our sun lotion and shoes under three layers of towels, protection against marauding thieves.
“I will stand true against the forces of e-vil,” I say in a superhero voice.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he says. He’s still tucking and hiding. “Not to say there’s some kind of glory to being poor, because there isn’t. There’s nothing glorious about fear.” Dad stands, brushes the sand off the butt of his swimsuit. “Just that for some reason, money can make you expect certain things, owed certain things. And some people think they’re owed them just by virtue of having, not by virtue of earning. I guess that’s the easiest way to put it. Are you ever going to put your flippers on?”
“Flippers are the most ridiculous thing one could put on their body,” I say.
“Rainbow wig,” Dad suggests.
“Bowling shoes,” I say. I snap the flippers on, and Dad holds out his hand to help me stand. We flap, flap down to the water’s edge, balancing with arms out like tightrope walkers, as everyone around does a version of the same act.
Dad gets there before I do. His feet are in the water, and he turns to wait for me. It’s just another blue-sky day in Hawaii, and the black lava cove we’re in bends around us. “Here’s my great advice,” he says. He reaches out his hand, and I take it, hobbling the last few steps. “When it seems like too much, remember, this is the real world. Nature. Under here, no one cares about money, or about what race you are, or what car you drive. It’s just another day of everyone swimming different directions, looking for food, staying well, being beautiful.”
“One, two, three,” I say, and we dive. It’s the only way to do it, because no matter how warm the water is, diving in is always oh-shit cold.
At first, it’s just murky green, small bits of floating algae, Dad’s legs, the color of someone else’s swimsuit going past. I keep focused on Dad (don’t panic, don’t panic), push my fins against the push back of the water. I follow, and then suddenly, right there below us, is a school of fish, bright yellow, and a few orange striped ones (clown fish, I think), and I remember all this, the unreal National Geographic thrill, the am-I-really-here astonishment, the creepy unease that a fish might swim against your bare legs, mixed with complete, goose-bumpy wonder. Dad’s hair is serpent-wild, and he’s gesturing to the fish below as if I could miss them. I nod, not that he can see me. I hear my own Darth Vader breathing, try to forget that I do, and then, with a few pushes of my legs, there’s another color—blue like you’ve never seen blue, narrow fish with the vibrancy and shine of a first-place ribbon. And then a sad, scary guy, a spiky ugly brown puffer fish, headed right my way. I thrash around in sudden panic, flail my legs around, pop my head from the water. It seems so deep, but it’s really shallow where we are. I can stand. The beach is right there—not a thousand worlds away like it seemed it would be. There’s our rolled-up towels, that kid throwing rocks while his mom lies back on her towel with one eye peeking halfway open.
Dad stands beside me. I raise my mask. “That was amazing!”
He takes the rubber piece from his mouth. “Isn’t it? It is amazing, each and every time.”
“That puffer fish was coming right at me.”
“He’s more afraid of you than—”
“Don’t even try that line on me. Let’s go under again,” I say.
We duck down again, and I follow Dad where he leads. It is up and down again, up and down, through my moments of panicky standing. We go one more time down, and Dad is pointing to sea anemones hiding in the rocks, when I see something round and large, heading past with purpose, wide feet paddling peacefully. I cannot believe my eyes; no, I cannot, because it is a sea turtle. A real, alive sea turtle swimming past in his own ocean home. I want to shout, do my flailing routine, but Dad takes my hand and for a moment we swim behind the turtle, giving him polite distance, paddle in his bubbly wake. And then he makes a right turn and he is gone, faster than us, the speed he’s learned from being ancient.
I paddle back quickly to where I can stand, fling off my mask. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
Dad’s mask is on his forehead. His eyes are bright. “The real world, In,” he says.
Jennifer stands with Dad at the airport, by his side. She hugs me good-bye, and I know I’ll be taking her perfume home with me as a parting gift. Dad hugs me too. He holds my arms, looks at me hard. This is the first time I’ve been with him by myself, without Severin or Bex. It wasn’t us kids and Dad this time, just me and him, two people. His eyes are wet. I think he might cry. I kiss his cheek.
“I love you,” I say. It’s true, I realize.
“I love you,” he says. And that is true too, I know.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says.
They stand there together when I leave, and when I look back over my shoulder to wave, they are still standing there. Jennifer is fishing for something in her purse, already moving beyond my visit, back to her own life, but Dad just stands there watching me, one hand tucked under his arm, the other cupping the side of his face. He sees me turn, puts his fingers to his lips, sends a kiss my way.
My eyes are hot with tears. That’s my dad there. See? I am leaving him to go back to his life, of pineapple juice and Jennifer’s paintbrushes and Neal and surfboards and windsurfers and Wade the bartender and the devoted Keiko. This time, I am leaving him behind. And I make a little vow then, to myself. To not let the backs and forths of forgiveness interrupt the steadiness of love. Dogs go on doing their job and we don’t stop to notice, but sometimes, so do people. Maybe I didn’t notice it before, but Dad was there, he was, his eyes never leaving my door. It was time, I guess, to let him in.
10
If I had a quarter for every time I heard the word “money” in the next few weeks at home, I’d be a millionaire if I weren’t already a millionaire. Melanie was averaging four calls a day to either ask how I was going to spend it or recommending ways to, and Severin and Bex kept looking at me with the wide eyes of those starving African kids in the ads. Jane was acting weird, as if me and the me who had money were two separate people—she seemed irritated, as if I’d gone off and done something she disapproved of, and even pulled me aside to ask if she needed to find a replacement since I was probably leaving. Trina invited me to go shopping, and Funny suggested she write up a story about me for the paper. Not only did I tell her no, I vowed everyon
e else to silence, didn’t breathe a word of it at school (not even to Liz or Ali or Evan). Still, KMTT, a local radio station, phoned and asked to speak to the waitress who got a really big tip, and KING 5 News knocked on the door. Severin told both that someone was playing a joke, but Severin’s a crappy liar.
And Trevor—a few days after I get back home, he tells me he has a surprise for me. Surprise—you think flowers. Balloons. A life-size cutout of Hunter Eden he might have gotten at Tower Records. No way am I expecting what I do see when he pulls into our driveway. I hear him honking, and I run outside barefoot ready to be happily grateful. I stop on the walkway.
“Wow,” I say.
There is an odd weight in my chest suddenly at the sight—Bob Weaver, gleaming in brand-new orange-red metallic glory, and Trevor, leaning out the window, his smile as bright as the glints of sun on the Mustang’s freshly painted hood.
“Doesn’t he look like a fucking king? Some king of cars?”
“Wow,” I say again. “You had him painted.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind. It would have taken me, what, five, six more months to save up the rest of the money? But now, why not just get it done? I couldn’t wait to see your face.”
Trevor springs from the car. The car door is still flung open, and he takes my face in his hands and kisses me hard.
He pulls back. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
I wipe my wet mouth with the back of my hand. It is hard to say the words, because he looks so happy. They feel heavy, like I am pulling something hard but necessary. “Don’t you think you should have asked?”
“You’re kidding, right?” he says. He shakes his head, as if he didn’t hear right.
“I think you should have asked,” I say. My voice sounds thin, even to me. It stretches far and long, across some great expanse of distance that seems suddenly possible between us, some vast space I’ve never seen before.
“God, In,” he says. “This is what, crumbs? A drop in the bucket? I thought you’d be happy. This doesn’t even sound like you. We share everything.”
Twisty tree roots of guilt wind up my insides. I shake my own head, to exile those thoughts. He is right. Crumbs. And yet, the small voice inside says, “everything” isn’t the same everything it was before. “I’m sorry,” I say. And I am sorry. “It’s beautiful. I’d want you to have it done. Of course I do.”
He pulls me close again. Kisses my hair. I close my eyes, against the sight of new differences. “It’s for us, In. Let’s put the top down. I want you to see it with the top down too.”
And let’s not forget Mom. Mom, who is on her third talk with me. Now she calls me to the kitchen. She’s got her yellow legal pad and pen and sits at the table with me across from her, same as the other two times. A yellow legal pad and a pen means a PLAN. She even has PLAN written across the top of the paper, same as she did during the last two talks that went nowhere.
“Indigo, we’ve got to make some decisions here,” she says.
“I want to buy a house,” I say. “For you.”
“No, Indigo. I told you. No.”
“No,” Chico says. “No, no, no.”
We might as well play a tape recorder. It’s the same conversation we’ve had twice before. “Why are you being like this, Mom? I want to help. I want to make things easier for you.”
“Pride, okay? Just let me have it.” College, she writes. “We need to talk about college.”
“As I said before. Of course we’ll use the money for Severin’s college. And Bex.”
“And you.”
“Mom.”
She slaps the pen down on the paper.
“Cars,” I say. “For everyone. You, me, Severin—”
“Too much. Too much at once,” she says. “I don’t want this to change us all suddenly.”
“Then I’ll buy my own.”
“Fine,” she says. But her voice has edges. She doesn’t write down the word “car.” Instead she doodles a dark spiral on the page, circle within a circle within a circle.
We are at some sort of standstill, and the argument is so new and strange, we might as well be attempting to argue in a foreign language. “Look,” I say. “I’ve had the money all of, what, a few weeks now? It’s sitting nice and cozy in the bank. We don’t have to make any decisions about it right this minute, do we? Can’t I have a little time to get used to this?”
Mom sighs. She tilts her head back, looks up at the ceiling and shakes her head. “Money, money, money,” she says. And right there, three more quarters earned.
“You know what the problem is?” Trevor says. “The problem is, you’re treating this like a problem.” We’re talking on the phone. I’m sitting on my bed, legs folded. I stare at my guitar case across the room. For some reason, since I got the money, I can’t open it. I haven’t felt like playing. I don’t know why, except that I don’t know if I’m the girl who plays that guitar or not. I’ve got old-me and new-me pieces, and I’m not sure where they belong.
“You don’t understand,” I say. “Maybe it’s just new. But everyone’s different and it’s bugging me. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just adjusting to it.” “It”—the word has its own definition. “It” means the money.
“In, you’re not having any fun with this. This should be fun. This is, like, every person’s dream.”
“It’s hard to have fun when everyone is acting so weird. They’re not relating to me. Just me with money. Already. My family, the Irregulars…” I don’t mention Trevor himself. That’d put us on opposite sides, and I need him now on mine. “You should hear Jane. Her voice is all distant-cool. I don’t get it.”
“It’s all new, In. And maybe, are you maybe reading too much into things?”
“I don’t know.” I trace the squares of my quilt with my finger.
“In, God! This is great! You’re forgetting it’s great. Okay, I know what we’re going to do. We’re going to go shopping.”
“Shopping.” Maybe he’s right. I have forgotten the fun parts, haven’t I? I’ve been sucked up suddenly into the weighty and spinning frenzy of Important Decisions.
“What’s the point of having money if you don’t spend it? What’s the fucking point, In? Come on.”
And right then, I’m sure he is right. I’m sure, because this small spoon starts stirring a little pot of glee inside. The glee of the traitor, the swapping over from you shouldn’t to why not? Fun—permission internally granted.
“I don’t understand why you don’t just go for the big stuff right away,” Trevor says. We’re in Bob Weaver, who is gleaming so hard it’s nearly a gloat, heading out for our planned outing of disposable income amusement. We just got fueled up with a double espresso and a brownie, and I am officially and legally high. “If it were me, I’d be getting a stainless steel beauty, freezer on the bottom, an ice maker, cubed or crushed.”
A refrigerator. Hmm. With caffeine jazzing through me, everything seems like an exceptional idea. I have to force myself to stop and think. “Maybe tomorrow,” I say. I see a folded sheet of notebook paper sticking out from underneath Trevor. He’s sitting on it. I give a little tug and he moves a leg to free it. I unfold it and read.
“What?” I say. Happiness jets over to irritation. “What’s this?”
“It’s nothing,” he says. “Just a few ideas.” Refrigerator, it actually reads. Car stereo. Floor mats. The words run down the paper and extend to the other side.
“A list,” I say. “But your list.” And there it is again, suddenly, some heavy feeling in my chest. Something that feels like anger but that might be disappointment. I’m hoping for anger. Anger is brief and vacates the premises quickly; disappointment is the uninvited guest that never leaves. I try for anger. “What, am I Santa and you’ve been a good boy?”
“Ideas, In. Come on, lighten up.”
Nothing makes you feel less like lightening up than someone telling you to lighten up. But this is supposed to be a fun day. We have planned for fun, and when you pla
n for fun, you don’t want a fight. Fights on days you’ve planned for fun are especially upsetting. I don’t want to argue, not today. So I forcibly shove aside my prickles of pissed-off, which is easier than it sounds when millions of little sequined caffeine dancers are doing their big Broadway number on your internal stage.
We go to the mall. For the record, I hate the mall. I hate the mall music and the mall lights and the mall chicks with their mall chick outfits, and the mall foam boat that the screaming kids play on. I hate the mall women spraying you with mall perfume and the mall escalators (I always find the down when I need the up) and the mall parking lot. The only thing worse than the mall is the mall at Christmas.
But let me tell you something about the mall. The mall is a very different experience when you have money as opposed to when you don’t. It’s the difference between standing outside of somewhere and going in.
You can tell that Trevor and I are mall virgins, because we make strategic error number one right off the bat. Trevor doesn’t want the Mustang scratched, so he parks on the top level of the garage, in the farthest-away spot, a spot that has its own zip code and isn’t close to anything except the JCPenney photographer and the catalogue purchase return counter. I should have brought my hiking boots and compass and trail mix.
The main part of the mall…well, it’s like being on the inside of a pinball machine. We bounce from flashing lights to flippers to bells. My mood improves by the second. This is way better even than the caffeine rush. By the time I get out of Radio Shack, Trevor has to make a trip to the car. I buy tiny televisions and travel alarm clocks and five cell phones (family plan), and a DVD player and a big-screen TV that will be delivered the next day. Headphones. Xbox for Bex. Games for aforementioned Xbox. Digital camera. Ipods, docking stations (whatever those are—Trevor says we need them), a laptop, a remote control robot.
Trevor wants to go into Victoria’s Secret, but I say fuck off. It’s my money, and I go into Sharper Image instead and I buy a travel pillow and massagers and something that measures your golf swing (Trevor likes this) and a weather forecaster and a machine to make our air pure and this thing to clean our jewelry, even though we don’t have jewelry yet.
