“It’s good to be accountable once in a while, Dad. I just want to meet her before I have to plaster on a fake smile in front of people. Is that too much trouble?”
“Your mother taught you how to handle social situations; you’ll be fine. You could have met her at home, but you’re the one who left. Made me trudge across town to visit this box you’re living in.” He checks his watch yet again. “Where are the windows in this place, Morgan?”
“At twenty-nine, I left home. I’m twenty-nine, Daddy, and I’ve been gone all of two days. I would think with a new woman in your life, you’d be happy for my independence.”
He gazes around the loft, and that marked disapproval I’ve tried my entire life to avoid comes to his face. “And this is what you have to show for it?”
“I’ve been a little busy, Daddy. Working in your shop, attending functions with the jewels. I didn’t have time to build the life I might have. I’m just now discovering what that might be. Give me more than two days to build it, all right?”
“Shouldn’t you know by now? This whole searching for self business is just a way people avoid work. You have a fine job wearing the jewels and honing my sales pitch. I don’t know why you need more. It buys you all the things you love, doesn’t it? You prefer this?” He raises his hands to the industrial ceiling.
“Yes, I do.”
He brushes his tongue over his teeth. “You’re an ingrate, you know.”
“Just like my mother,” I finish for him.
“Don’t blame others for your problems, Morgan. That’s how your mother got to be so selfish. Everything was someone else’s fault. She would have blamed me for the cancer if she could have.”
This inflames me. Suddenly—perhaps because for the first time in my life I’m standing up to him—I’m seeing my dad in a different light. Rather than just distant, he seems cruel. I’m apparently seeing the brusque, sharp personality my mother saw on a daily basis, and all at once I think maybe their lack of love wasn’t completely her fault. Maybe she yelled because he never heard her otherwise. I know shouting seems to be the only thing that penetrates that thick skull of my father’s. Even Mrs. Henry has been known to shout when she needs something taken care of. No wonder my father thinks all women do is yell.
These thoughts are so disturbing. I wish I had more time to contemplate them. I gaze at my father as though I’ve never known him and wonder where the truth of my childhood lies.
“I don’t
really want to go to the club. You can introduce her without me.” Besides, if I go the emphasis will be on me, anyway. “I can’t come on Saturday night.” I search for a reason, but what does it matter? He’d belittle anything as an excuse, anyway.
“You can come, and you will. I won’t have the city taking away the moment from Gwen to notice you’re not there. Saturday night is her night, and you will not upstage her with your absence. It’s time you grew up, Morgan.”
It is time I grew up, and I’m going to start by finding myself something to do on Saturday night. “I think you should leave, Daddy.”
“You want to live like this forever, Morgan? Where you’re struggling for food and a decent living arrangement? You think this is romantic? Your mother lived like this until I rescued her, and let me tell you, she was living no picnic.”
My father’s face is red with rage, and I know he sees my mother in me right now, but for once in my life, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. I’m proud to have her spunk and her fire while he tears down the world I’ve created. Well, the world Lilly has created.
“I’m not pretending to be poor, Dad. I’m discovering who I am and what I like to do. Newsflash: I don’t like to wear diamonds and attend parties with people twice my age every night. There has to be something more than dripping in jewels and getting my picture taken.”
“Which is why you ran off with that Andy character, and look where that got you. Maybe there isn’t anything more, did you ever think of that? Maybe you’re searching for something that doesn’t exist and wasting my time and money in the process.”
“Maybe I am, but it’s a free country. I can search.”
“Not without a credit card. It may be a free country, but life costs money.” Again he glances at his watch to let me know how much valuable time he’s wasting with this conversation.
“I should think you’d be happy I ran off with Andy. It was good publicity for the store.”
“It was terrible publicity,” he spits. “Men refused to buy their girlfriends trinkets for fear of being seen at the store.”
His comment makes me sick to my stomach. He really does care more about the sale than the dozens of marriages he’s helped crumble. In truth, he was thrilled for the publicity, and it’s only now, when my comment doesn’t serve his purpose, that he chooses to rewrite history. “There’s more to life than money. You’ve got enough now to retire a million times over; why can’t you go enjoy yourself? Maybe take your new wife to Fiji or something?”
“I enjoy working. It’s the only thing that life rewards you for.” My father reaches for the doorknob and takes another glance around the room. “What is that smell?”
“It’s Lysol. Lilly likes things to smell clean.”
“Saturday night at the club.” He yanks open the door. “I’ll see you then and introduce you to Gwen. She’s a good, solid person and she doesn’t yell.”
Well, now there’s a profession of love. “I can’t be there.” I say it as much for myself as him.
“You will be there. You’ve done enough to damage my reputation in the last six months; you’re going to help me rebuild now or you really are going to find yourself in the school of hard knocks.”
“I’m not.” I cross my arms, and I feel them trembling. I have never stood up to my father this way, and I can hear my blood vessels pounding in my temples.
“You are, Morgan.”
“I’m not,” I say, like a testy teenager.
“This is for your own good—you come or I’m cutting you off.”
“Meaning?”
“No exclusive gym, no country club, no shopping in your little shops with my credit cards.”
My mouth gapes open, but I quickly shut it for fear I’ll inhale too much Lysol. I have lived my entire life trying to please this man, but there is no appeasement. There is only my total and complete annihilation of self.
“You’re threatening me?” I ask.
His tone softens to the soft sell. “You leave me no choice, Morgan. It’s not like that, and you know it.” He gives me his best “close the deal” smile. “When people live a privileged life there are things that go along with that responsibility. You have been given so much, and I don’t ask for a lot in return.”
“And my responsibility is doing what you tell me to do.” I raise an eyebrow at him.
“Morgan, you are not prepared for the world that your friends live in. Do you realize that you’ve lived a very sheltered life, and when you’re in contact with the real world, things like Andy happen?”
“A parent’s job is to prepare children for the world.” My words are like an icy sheath cutting through him. He cannot stand criticism of any sort, and I have just told him that if I am remarkably lame, it is his fault. I see him clench his teeth, and his jaw twitches with unreleased fury.
Through his tightly bound porcelain veneers, he growls, “You are well prepared for the life I raised you to live.”
“But I think I want something different.”
He looks around the room again. “This is fun for a while, isn’t it? Living the life of a struggling single woman in San Francisco? So romantic. But you’ll see how fun it is when you can’t run home and be protected by my credit limit. You’ll see how fun it is when you can’t fill yourself with those expensive lattes and don those fancy shoes.”
Like a weight, I suddenly hear my mother’s words. Her vicious accusations against the man I thought loved her intimately even in the face of her steely bristling. But with unusual clarity, I see that my father’s love is conditional. It always has been, but I can honestly say until this moment I never saw it. I only tried harder to please him and live up to his expectations because my mother was so appallingly bad at it.
Now I think maybe that was her choice—to jump off the boat and swim for her life.
“So you’ll be there Saturday night.” He reaches for the doorknob. “If you aren’t, I’ll have no choice, Morgan. You’ve got a responsibility to the Malliard name: you either keep your commitments, or you give up the privileges that are afforded with it.”
He starts to walk out the door, his line in the sand drawn.
“You never told me her name?”
“Whose?”
“This precious wife you’re taking. You never told me her name, other than Gwen.”
“Gwen Caruthers. She’s in real estate and sold me my last property.”
Apparently that’s not all she sold him.
With that, he shuts the door, determined that I will be there on Saturday. I slump down on Lilly’s futon, and I feel like all along I’ve thought my dad was a respected member of the military, only to find out the SS on his uniform stood for Nazi.
I have to know more about my mother. Something tells me I don’t remember everything as it was. Not only do I have no image in this life, but apparently, I don’t have a credit limit either. This reeks. Poor, I think I can handle, but I should at least stand for something. Every Christian should.
M
y cell phone trills, and it’s a number I don’t recognize. “Hello,” I say warily.
“Morgan?” Andy’s voice emanates from the telephone, and I’m lost between wanting to ask him so many questions and realizing he is at the root of my newspaper popularity. A million thoughts run
through my mind, but like a cat, I feel my back arch.
“What do you want?” I ask, thinking,
Why on earth didn’t
I grab a restraining order to keep him from my vicinity?
I mean, the papers would have eaten that up, and I missed a golden opportunity.
“I need to see you, Morgan. I’m out of jail, and I have to explain. The newspapers have it all wrong.”
Oh my goodness—five minutes with him and I’d probably be married again. I have this weakness for the sales pitch, and I still remember how I felt when he catapulted me off the ground in that fashion show. Now that was an emotional high. . . .
Reality check: bigamist here.
“You know, I don’t think so. But thanks for calling. Best of luck to you now.”
“Morgan, please.”
“Please what, Andy? Or should I say
Arnold
?”
I keep my hand on the button, but I don’t hang up. I want to hear an excuse. I want to know he loved me, and even though I hate myself for waiting on such a myth, I stand here, hope filled.
“I just wanted to be who you wanted me to be.”
“I wanted you to not be married, for starters.”
“My marriage was not really a marriage.”
Oh brother.
Click
. I do it. I hang up, and I feel empowered. Perhaps it wouldn’t take so much for the average woman to get fed up, but I am not your average woman. I am your typical love-starved socialite without a solid dating history. I’ve only known dates as an act for the media. I don’t remember my heart ever being involved like this. It makes me feel so incredibly stupid.
After my talk with Andy/Arnold I feel dirty. I need a bath. But there’s no bathtub in the loft, just a small stall shower. That’s the one thing that tempts me to go home. I miss my double-head, full-sized shower with the removable spray handle. Lilly’s shower has this trickle that is so paltry, I’m almost embarrassed for it. It’s like this little stream of “I think I can, I think I can.” But it can’t.
“Hello?” While I’m standing there musing about plumbing Lilly’s upstairs neighbor, Nate, appears at the front door, which is propped open with a shoe. “Lilly said you had half-and-half here,” he says.
“In the fridge.” I motion towards the pink, outdated appliance and Nate helps himself. “Lilly’s having coffee and then she said to tell you she’d be down. She wanted to let you sleep.”
I nod, feeling a bit guilty for tossing Lilly out of her own place.
“Tell her she doesn’t need to do that.”
“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.”
I brush my fingers through my wild morning tangles. “And?”
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself. Kim fell for a con artist, too. Remember when she took Lilly’s check for the business?”
“This is not making me feel better, actually.”
“I’m just saying, it happens to the best of people.”
And Kim, too,
I think. “Tell Lilly she’s free to come downstairs. I’m awake.”
“Will do,” he says, lifting the half-and-half in a sort of pathetic toast to my ignorance.
I don’t trust Nate. Not as far as I could throw him. He’s too smooth, always in the right place to dole out wisdom and play the understanding male. When in fact he’s probably no different from Andy: a dog in sheep’s clothing.
My cell phone rings again and I can only assume it’s Andy with more excuses and more tools to tear down my armor.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Nate asks.
“No,” I say without further explanation.
“Do you want to come up for coffee?” Nate is handsome in a scholarly way. I sort of imagine him as the hot professor you had a crush on in college. But his friendship with Lilly is a mystery to me. He and Kim live together but don’t feel truly satisfied with one another, as if they’re always looking around for someone better. I would prefer Lilly find another place to hang out, but she’s an adult, and they seem to share her love for reality television.
I feel my eyes thin as I stare at him trying to figure out his motive. I think about his question: do I want to come up and see the other half of the appliance brigade? You bet. I want to know what’s up with the constant sharing and why he can’t seem to have a life with his girlfriend alone. “Thanks, Nate, that would be nice.”
I slip on a pair of flip-flops Lilly left by the door and follow Nate up a dingy set of stairs to a hallway that is almost elegant by comparison. There’s even a painted cement walkway that’s straight out of
Architectural Digest
. But when we reach his apartment, I go into shock. The cabinets are a light maple with stainless-steel appliances, and Nate’s furniture consists of black particle-board shelving for his equipment and industrial-type chairs. It’s minimalist at best, with a shock of red here and there. And something else—a smell that about bowls me over.