All You Need Is Love (10 page)

I head back to the house in time to have a surprise first meeting with my dad’s new (to me) girlfriend, whom had I not had a good description of her (tall, athletic build with wavy dark hair and a sort-of beaky nose — her words, Dad insisted, not his) I would have thought she was trying to break into our house.

“Louisa? Is that you?” I ask and take the few stairs up to the porch in one big leap to save her from further pounding on the door. I reach out my hand to shake hers and she grips mine.

“Oh, Love! Hi!” She smiles at me and seems a little embarrassed to be caught in mid-knock. “I was supposed to meet your father here but I couldn’t remember what time, and now I think I’ve missed him and…”

It should feel weird or forced, but it doesn’t. I guess I’ve heard so much abut her it’s like I already know her, even though I don’t. And probably, she feels the same thing about me.

“I think my dad’s in a meeting,” I say, and it could be true — it’s usually true or else he’s playing squash or having lunch, which is essentially a meeting but with food.

“Oh,” she looks genuinely disappointed. “Well, I’m happy to meet you — finally!”

We stand on the porch making chit chat for a bit and then it occurs to me that my dad would like it if Louisa and I could be friends. Feeling very mature, and noticing that she’s in full on exercise gear, I ask, “Would you like to play squash?”

Louisa smiles like I’ve asked her to the prom — but probably she’s way more nervous than I am — since her status with my dad is more precarious. “Oh, you’re sweet to offer — I know it’s not your favorite. I was going to play squash with David, not that I know how, but he’s…of course you already know this… a very enthusiastic player and since I showed him how to sheer a sheep…”

“My dad sheared a sheep?” I ask and crack up. She’s easy to be around, and pretty in that softer, older way — not a hottie like Mable — but gently attractive.

“He helped to sheer one, yes,” Louisa says. “It was more like ‘Now, lamb, listen to me…’ he tried to reason with the animal.” She watches me laugh and adds, “Don’t worry — I took pictures.”

Then there’s that post-laughter quiet in which we both stare at each other. I’m thinking okay, so here’s the woman my dad really likes — loves, probably — and maybe she’s thinking so here’s the girl I’ve heard so much about, and the only thing we really have in common is the man who isn’t here. The one who’s in a meeting.

“Your dad mentioned that you like to run,” Louisa says. She doesn’t come right out and suggest anything, but I’m sure my dad would be thrilled if the two women in his life (three if you count Mable) went running and got chummy. Or at least got in a cardio workout together.

“I do — I could show you the trails behind the dorms…”

“Fantastic!” She says.

“Let me get changed,” I say and unlock the door so I can put on shorts and a tee-shirt. I suspect that getting to know Louisa will be like wearing in a tee-shirt — bright and new at first and then — before you know it — comfortable and faded like my Hadley running shorts that were so stiff at first and now are fraying at the edges.

“That’s enough about college,” I say to Mable and stand up to try to shake off the talk of essays, classes, majors, grades, and summer tours. “Jacob had a good thing…how’d he describe it? That he wants to go to a great school but he’s not going to…”

“Jacob?” Mable clears her throat in dramatic fashion and commands that I sit down again. We’re in our spot in her hospital room. She’s been spending more and more time out of bed, taking walks in the hallways and even getting to sit outside every day. “You’ll need to backtrack — I need all the details.”

I shake my head. I’ve gone through it so much in my own journal, my over-analyzing brain and with Arabella and Chris that I can’t explain it. “I don’t know. There’s nothing going on there…he’s back, I’m back and we’re back in touch. We haven’t dealt with anything.”

“You never discussed your letters or talked about Lindsay?”

“No, not Lindsay, not any of his other — people,” I say, unable to get my mouth to form the word
girlfriend
and put my hand to the window. I don’t even add in that there were other hook-ups, presumably, Swiss maidens or foreign future princesses while he was aboard, the fact that he officially became a campus couple with Dillon Fuchs, one of those girls who is the subject of much lust but always seems to be too sophisticated to date people at school. My palm leaves a mark that stays for a few seconds then fades like a crush. “And the thing is I don’t really want to.”

“Because you live in a dream world, Love,” Mable says. Maybe she meant it as a joke but her voice sounds weary which gives her statement a validity I find hard to take.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you don’t always look at things for how they really are. You choose to accept a situation at face-value rather than looking deeper, exploring what you feel and what’s really there. You’d rather fantasize about the prospect of something than do it.”

I press pause on my video camera. It’s been on the last few times I visited, and once when my father came at night with the doctor’s permission to film Mable as she slept just so I’d have the footage.

“Don’t turn it off now — that’s what I’m saying — capture all of this,” Mable say and rises up to press record again.

“This project is about you,” I say, “Remember?”

“Right,” Mable says.

I look at my hands in my lap and wonder when Mable will get out of here, when we can stop spending so much time at the hospital. “It’s so weird you should say that before…because I see myself as someone who is always looking deeper, always trying to uncover the hidden meanings in conversations.” I’m not so much hurt as I am surprised — Mable probably right, but seeing myself through someone’s else’s eyes is so revealing.

Mable nods, her eyes wide. “Oh, I agree with you there, Love. I meant more that your expectations are like you assume everything will work out, that the right college will appear in front of you, or the boy you’re meant to be with will suddenly proclaim his desire, or your songs will magically find their way into some famous person’s mouth.”

Her words settle on me like sparrows, clustering and pecking until I say, “Yeah. That’s about it. It’s like I’m half-counting on the path just appearing in front of me. But at the same time, if it did — would take it? If life were this treasure hunt, would I follow it?” The camera keeps going, pointed at Mable who breathes through her nose audibly. “Andthe thing is, once you know something about yourself, how do you get past it? Like how do I take over the figurative reins and experience some adventure?”

Mable mimes horseback riding then hands me invisible reins. “Like this.”

Later, we’re outside at the hospital’s small patio café. Mable is drinking a high-calorie protein drink and I’m nursing some ice water. “I have to get my caffeine consumption under control before this summer. Can you imagine me on full-buzz at Slave to the Grind two?” I ask.

Mable smiles and sticks out her tongue. “You’re right, by the way, you do have to rename that place — maybe you can do a promotion or something in June?”

“Yeah — that sounds good. I’ll talk to Arabella about it. And you, of course.”

“And Ula and Doug,” Mable says. “They need to be kept in the loop about those kinds of decisions. They’re part-owners now.”

I don’t deal with the mention of the coffee twins or ask about the business dealings. Instead I venture, “Did my dad mention anything to you about canceling my plans for the summer? Like that I wasn’t going to be able to help you with the café?”

“No, why?” Mable sips her drink and pouts. “This stuff is so thick it’s like drinking vanilla pudding.”

“It sounds good.”

“I’d offer you a sip, but you know…” she points to her mask. We call her Super Germ Fighter, since the mask takes over her mouth and nose, protecting her from all the viruses floating around outside.

“Your dad hasn’t mentioned anything like that to me…but then again, he’s been otherwise distracted lately. Which is a good thing. I hear you and Louisa are getting to be friends?”

I shrug. “I guess so — we’ve been running together — I think it helps Dad get over the three of us sitting around the breakfast table in that silence that means we all know she spent the night.” I finish my water and crunch the ice cubes, giving myself a cold headache. “But she’s fine…better than fine. She makes him happy.”

“Good,” Mable says and looks away. Even though it’s very warm outside, Mable wears a light blue cardigan from which she pulls a worn manilla envelope the size of a piece of toast. “I thought you’d like to see these,” she says. “Now, don’t go crazy…and your father doesn’t know I’m showing them to you. He and I have started to disagree on some things and I don’t want to go behind his back, so I will tell him that you’ve looked at this, but I wanted to make sure that…”

“Do I need a top secret decoder for this information?” I ask and take the envelope from her. “I’m assuming this has something to do with my mother? Galadriel?”

Mable winces when she hears me say that name, brining up all my fears and confusion. “Yes. No. Kind of.”

She leans forward and gives me a pictorial lesson in history. “This is where you lived when you were first born.” She points to the grainy picture in my hand — it’s a triangular brick apartment building set on a corner. “This was your parent’s apartment.”

I touch the third floor window with my finger, trying to get close to the details. “So this is where they brought me home after the hospital?”

Mable nods and swallows. She’s obviously nervous, her voice is shaky and her hands tremble slightly, though some of her medication makes her do this anyway. “Your mom wanted to have a home birth but your dad fought her tooth and nail.”

“Why? Didn’t he like the au natural approach, you know, delivering on the bed?”

“No way — he was so afraid of something happening to you. He really just wanted to make sure nothing went wrong.”

“That’s Dad, always planning for disaster.”

Mable changes her tone, “There’s really nothing wrong with being prepared. David — your dad — is just cautious, that’s all.”

“I know,” I say and look at the next picture. “Is that you?”

Mable chuckles. “Nice, huh? It was the eighties — not a great decade for hair.”

We go through, looking at dated pictures of my dad, Mable, infant me (with strawberry blonde hair and a toothless grin), Dad sitting on the hood of a rusting car. When we finish, I realize I’m kind of let down. “Aren’t there any of Galadriel?” I ask.

Mable puts the pictures away. “Of course there are — but not right now. Another time.” She pockets the past and with a look tells me it’s time for me to do the same. “Now show me that list of names and contributions for the Avon Breast Cancer Walk.”

“We’re still waiting on one name — some big thing that Chris was working on,” I say, but I show her the list of what we have so far.

“This is incredible,” she says and smiles wide. Her eyes crinkle at the edges and then she looks at her watch, it’s so big on her now that she wears it like a bracelet. “You should probably get going.”

“Why, you have a big date?” I ask.

Mable swallows and shakes her head but says, “Not a date, not exactly.”

I raise my eyebrow at her, and pinch my lips together. “Do tell.”

When I see her ex-boyfriend, twice ex-fiance, Miles, at the door, he waves in a sort of defeated way and I take my cue to leave.

Chris has the legs of his pants rolled up and I’m in knee-high Wellington boots. We slosh through the mud and puddles on campus, enjoying the warm downpour and intentionally soaking each other. I was pretty drenched already, having gone running in the rain with Louisa while my dad wrote verbage for some handbook that will be mailed to parents this summer.

“She’s cool,” I say to Chris who’s been curious if Louisa is marriage material for my dad or just another datable. “I think this’ll last.”

“You’re lucky you like her — it sounds good.” Then Chris pokes me in the belly and we crack up. “I’m so psyched!”

“I know! You’re incredible. I can’t believe you got her to do it!”

We’re celebrating Chris’s big pull for the largest donation for our walk. We have most faculty signed up, tons of students, random people we’ve stopped on the street, Arabella, Chili Pomroy and her parents, and — now — an enormous donation from Lindsay Parrish.

“She fell like a stack of tinned vegetables,” Chris says and stomps in a puddle, coating my shirt with muddy drool.

“Is that even an expression?” I ask.

“No. I don’t think it is — but who cares. All I had to do was go through her mother. Senora Parrish controls everyone — including her bitchy daughter and when I phoned her…”

“With your charming English accent…”

“Exactly. And I told her that EVERYONE had donated — of course Madame had to be the biggest name on the list, and I promised her that if she made Lindsay donate from her own grossly cushy trust fund, that we’d list the Parrish name at the top of our thanks yous.”

“Which of course we will because that’s an easy thing to do.”

“We rock,” Chris says and gives me a damp hug from the side.

“And who else rocks?” I ask, nudging Chris for a boyfriend update and checking his expression from the side. Water runs from his hair to his ears, cascading down his nose in a steady stream. “My it’s raining.”

Chris holds up his palms as if checking for drizzle. Thunder cracks over us. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Chris opens his mouth to drink the rain and with his face still turned skyward says, “Well, you know how I feel about Haverford, right?”

“Yes, I’m aware of your predicament. Straight? Gay? It’s anyone’s guess. When are you going to act or move on?”

“You notice he’s all but vanished in the past couple of weeks?” Chris asks and I give an affirmative thumbs up. “Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know — did you scare him off or something? I mean, not everyone’s going to be out in high school, you know?”

“Totally — it’s like he knew but he didn’t want to know therefore he chose not to know. Or maybe he’s not and doesn’t want to be gay-by-association. He does live and act very straight.”