I pushed the door open and walked through the waiting area to his office. I stood in the doorway and watched as Dad rocked back in his large brown leather swivel chair, leaning in at various moments to scribble notes on a yellow pad with a sharpened pencil, phone cradled to his ear.
“I can get it to you by Monday, probably,” he said into the phone. His eyes looked up from the paper and met mine briefly, then returned to the pad. I stood there, expecting him to excuse himself for a few minutes and talk to me. Then I gave up and walked back to the waiting area, collapsing into a chair.
I chipped the polish off my nail while I waited for him to wrap up. I figured he would speak first, make his argument more apologetically this time, and I’d stand firm, express my hurt, and tell him I was going no matter what. He’d laugh at my petulance, relent, and everything would be fine.
Another ten minutes went by, and it occurred to me that he was staying on the phone on purpose. As he continued to talk, I got angrier. He was intentionally letting me stew. I folded my arms across my chest and looked down at my watch. The post office was closing in fifteen minutes. I’d give him five more.
My watch ticked forward like a bomb waiting to explode. The moment the second hand swept over the numeral twelve signaling the allotted time had elapsed, I bolted.
I was angry as I gunned the engine and flew down the street, pounding the steering wheel with my fist, angry at myself that I’d shown up and created an opportunity to be blown off again. I didn’t need his blessing, I didn’t need anything. At the end of the day, I was even more alone than I’d expected.
When I arrived at the Northridge post office, I rushed inside and waited in line to hand over my acceptance letter. The hand-to-hand delivery might have been unnecessary, but I wasn’t leaving my fate to chance any longer. I thrust the postcard at the clerk, and he smiled and raised his fuzzy eyebrows toward his receding hairline, knowing exactly what the card meant. It was that time of year. My eyes brimmed with tears, which confused him, so he simply took the letter without another word.
I rushed out the front door, having achieved my mission, and got into my car, throwing the gear into reverse and punching the gas.
Smash.
I didn’t see the truck behind me until it was too late. The impact jarred my head forward, hurtling my forehead into the steering wheel, but I hadn’t been going fast enough to really hurt myself. My heart jumped into my throat, and I burst into tears, now limp and defeated in the driver’s seat.
The vehicle I had hit was a navy blue pickup truck with a Domino’s sign on the roof. A Hispanic guy, no older than twenty, got out and came to my door.
“Didn’t you even look behind you?” he said angrily.
“I’m sorry. It’s been an awful day,” I tried to explain.
He backed his truck up and parked at the side of the row of parked cars, then got out and inspected both of our bumpers to assess the damage. I watched him circle the car in my rearview mirror without getting out. I wasn’t sure I could stand.
He returned to my door.
“Look, I don’t see any real damage. It was your fault, but . . .” His voice trailed off for a moment. “I’m going to get fired for getting into an accident, even though this wasn’t my fucking fault. How about we both just get out of here?”
I nodded in agreement, and he turned swiftly back to his truck and sped off, tires screeching as he peeled out of the parking lot.
I sat quietly for at least ten minutes, trying to collect myself. Finally, I put the car in drive and headed home.
When I told Mom what I’d done, she just nodded. Pretty soon, she was acting like sending the acceptance letter was her idea. I heard her tell another mom “we decided on Harvard.” Turns out I had more power than I’d thought. Cognitive dissonance set in. Once it became clear that the plan was going forward no matter what, she took ownership of it and changed the script to make herself the driver of the action.
Dad, on the other hand, didn’t talk to me for a while, which was fine with me. I figured he just didn’t want me to leave. Without me in the house, he’d be forced to face what had become of his relationship with Mom. They hardly interacted any longer, sleeping on separate floors of the house, eating almost every meal apart. And while I understood the trepidation he might be feeling, clipping my wings was neither fair nor a solution.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to make all of my own decisions from then on, and not let the potential backlash at home dictate my path. I was eighteen, and the rest of my life would be up to me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling, off-white and bumpy, as if cottage cheese had been spread evenly over the entire surface. Sunlight snuck in around the edges of the curtains. Judging from the brightness of the rays, and the temperature of the room, the sun had been baking the back of the house for a while.
I’d slept in later than I’d planned. The night before I’d been on a date with Patrick, a guy I’d met a few months earlier during a shift at Islands, a loud burger bar in Westwood, the college town that surrounded UCLA. My plan to man the hostess stand at the front of the restaurant and collect fraternity boys for the summer was a stroke of genius. I secured an apron and started working before graduation. Now my sore feet and meager paycheck reminded me why I was leaving for college in the fall.
I’d worked my shift the night before and then met Patrick for a late dinner. He’d graduated from UCLA a year earlier, so when he first came into the restaurant with a pack of friends and asked for my number on the way out, I lied to him.
I told him I was home from Stanford for the summer going on auditions, trying to decide if I wanted to go back. Since I’d been enrolled there the previous summer, I knew the lay of the land. I thought it was unlikely that at twenty-four, he’d date a high school senior, so I’d just invented the story on a whim.
He had a boyish, Woody Harrelson look and manner and a lean muscular build that made him seem very collegiate. But in a flash he’d expose a thoughtfulness and maturity that could calm the choppiest waters. I expected the relationship to run out of steam after a few dates like so many others had, so lying about my age seemed harmless. Now I was hooked on this guy, and leaving for Harvard in a little more than a month. I had no idea how to untangle the web of duplicity I’d woven around us. Perhaps the situation was doomed since I was moving thousands of miles away anyway. At least that’s what I told myself to quell the remorse I felt for lying to him.
I rolled onto my side and heard chatter coming from the kitchen. Mom was talking louder and more feverishly than usual.
Then I heard it, Tiffany’s voice. But not her voice. This voice was calm and in command.
Her flight had been delayed on its return from Europe last night, and I’d tried to wait up for her but couldn’t keep my eyes open. She’d been gone for almost six months, riding on a Eurail pass to every corner of the continent with her boyfriend, Colin. She’d packed only what her backpack would carry, convincingly taking the role of Berkeley hippie on the road. They’d even traveled with tents, so they could camp out when they weren’t near a youth hostel. The trip sounded bohemian-horrible to me.
I got out of bed and padded downstairs in my slippers, eager to see her after so long. I had thought the idea of spending a whole semester traveling without even getting course credit was indulgent and wasteful but I’d missed her all the same. Plus I was curious.
When I entered the kitchen, I was struck by the stranger sitting at the table. Six months of blackish brown roots grew from her scalp and abruptly turned blonde five or six inches from the ends. The hair was tangled and matted from the plane and so much time away from a salon. But even that couldn’t distract from how thin she was, and how clear her eyes and skin looked. She shone.
“Look how skinny your sister is!” Mom exclaimed. Of course that would be the salient change in Mom’s eyes. “She’s a waif! I’m making bacon to put some meat back on her
bones.”
“Really? Has the fire started yet?” I said, looking directly at Tiffany. She laughed. Dad snorted from the far side of the table. I hadn’t noticed him sitting there.
On the rare occasion that Mom made breakfast, she’d broil batch after batch of bacon in the oven without draining the boiling grease from the pan. Inevitably the crackling, bubbling fat would burst into flames, and one of us would have to pull out the rack and beat the fire into submission with a sacrificial dish towel that then ended up in the trash with gaping burn holes. We’d all played firefighter so many times, the ritual had simply morphed into part of the process.
Mom frowned, pretending to be offended, but unable to hide her delight at the daughter who had returned from Europe. This could be the Tiffany she’d always wanted.
She went to the counter and came back with a plate of bacon that was half blackened and half raw. Apparently I had slept though the fire.
“Aren’t you a vegetarian?” I asked as Tiffany stuffed a piece of bacon in her mouth.
“We had to make our money last on the road. We sort of ate whatever was cheap and looked safe. I couldn’t be that picky.”
She picked up another piece of bacon and ate it, her shoulders relaxed, an easy smile on her face.
Dad got up from his seat and walked toward the coffeemaker on the counter to refill his mug.
“How did you lose so much weight?” I asked.
“Yeah, Tiff,” Dad said. “You look so fit.”
“Well, like I said. We only had so much money. Nothing for extras. Too much food meant less for something else. A museum, or a beer. And we certainly didn’t spend money on cabs, or even buses really. We walked everywhere, carrying our packs,” she said proudly.
The notion of being too poor for food was laughable. She’d had one of Mom’s credit cards the whole time. Does Europe not take Visa? She certainly wasn’t going to starve. But if they were sincerely on a budget, God bless them. She did seem to have the body to prove it.
We ate the rest of the charred bacon and she announced that she needed a long bath.
“Yes, you do!” I said teasingly.
She rolled her eyes. “What are you doing later?” she asked.
I was surprised by the question. She had stopped asking me about my plans years ago. “I was going to go the gym to work out before my shift at Islands.” I hesitated before adding, “Do you want to come? I have some guest passes.”
She shrugged her shoulders, but looked directly in my eyes when she answered. “Sure.”
When we arrived at the gym, I took her over to a machine that was supposed to tone thighs. I’d been a slave to this machine all summer and was on the cusp of abandoning it as a cruel hoax.
I did one set and then got up and wiped the seat. “Want to try?” I suggested.
“Sure. Maybe a little less weight. I’m not as strong as you are,” she said.
She sat down on the machine, wearing a pair of black bicycle shorts I’d loaned her and a white tank top. She stood nearly six inches shorter than me and now she was so thin, I thought I could fold her up and just slip her in my purse.
“Hey, Melissa. Who is this?” Eric asked. He was a personal trainer I’d agreed to go on a few dates with in the spring. I’d stopped retuning his calls, but it hadn’t made a dent in his resolve.
“This is my sister, Tiffany,” I said with a guilty smile. She immediately sized up the situation.
“Hi,” she said.
“Your sister’s been very busy lately,” he chided. “Maybe you want to get some dinner sometime?” he said, pretending to joke around, though I had the feeling he’d turn very serious if she expressed interest in his offer.
“Oh, well, that doesn’t seem like a good idea,” she demurred.
“She has a boyfriend she’s been traveling around Europe with for the last six months. I don’t think he would like it,” I shot back, slightly annoyed.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with taking both of you out. We could all go to dinner,” he persisted.
“I don’t think so. You are so kind to offer. But I haven’t seen my sister in so long, I’m not prepared to share her,” I said firmly.
And with that I moved to another machine across the room, leaving Tiffany no choice but to follow me. Eric smiled and continued to the trainers’ office, where he was already late picking up his next appointment.
“Oh my God. Are you dating that guy?” she teased.
“We went on a few dates. It was months and months ago and it was nothing serious. Didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time. He’s cute enough. And actually smart for a personal trainer. He goes to Pepperdine.”
“So do you only date college guys?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“Well, Patrick, the guy I really like, isn’t in college anymore. He graduated. Now he works in banking. I have no idea what he does actually,” I admitted.
“So do either of them know you are in high school?” she laughed.
“I’m only in high school for another week,” I shot back.
“So they both know that?” she pressed.
“No.”
She laughed as I lay back on the next machine, exposed.
That weekend the blistering heat of the San Fernando Valley forced us into her car and up over the Santa Monica Mountains to the beach. Tiffany had convinced Dad to remove the roof and the doors from her Jeep, so the wind whipped through the cab as we swept down the highway, tangling our hair and sending anything flying that wasn’t secure. We blasted Nirvana’s new hit, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” on the radio as we drove. Grunge rock dominated the airwaves in 1991, and we sang along at the top of our lungs.
When we got to the beach, we parked the car and walked to the end of the parking lot where the black tar met the golden sand. Then we threw our sandals in my tote bag and ran down the scorching beach to the edge of the water, where we dipped our toes in to cool them off and laughed at how silly we looked running down the beach like little kids.
The waves were powerful in this part of the Pacific Ocean, nearly knocking us down as they crashed into the shore and spraying our clothes before trying to drag us back out to sea in the undertow.
“Let’s go back up over there and throw down our stuff and lay out the towels,” Tiffany suggested.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I agreed. We made our way back out of the water to a spot a few yards back. The waves had soaked the bottoms of our shorts, but I knew they’d dry in minutes in the hot sun.
My towel fluttered in the breeze as I snapped it and then laid it flat on the sand. Tiffany did the same and we lay down, having taken off our shorts and T-shirts. The sun was hot on my face, but it felt good.
“Did you remember to grab those Cokes out of the car?” Tiffany asked.
“You bet,” I said pulling two out of my bag.
Tiffany had carried a portable radio, and she tuned it to the same station we’d been listening to in the car. We lay back on the towels and let the hours pass, flipping over occasionally. An even tan was our only worry on that blissful day.
I spent the first few weeks after graduation feeling like an adult. I didn’t have school anymore, I was eighteen, and I took as many shifts at Islands as I could stand. I thought the extra cash would come in handy when I left for Harvard at the end of the summer.
I still went on a few auditions, but I’d told my agent that I was leaving for Cambridge soon, and she’d pretty much given up on me. We both knew I wouldn’t be flying home for auditions.
It was Thursday night, and I’d picked up the closing shift, which meant I’d be done a little after eleven. I liked that shift, since Thursday was the most popular night to go out at UCLA, and this kept me busy and awake until an acceptable time to arrive at any club or bar.
I’d told Tiffany to come before closing and have a salad so we could go to a bar in Westwood afterward. She walked into the restaurant, and I saw Gary, the bartender, take a second look. Mom had treated Tiffany to a
whole head of light blonde highlights. She’d always had thicker, stronger hair than me. Now it was a golden color that caught the light and spilled all the way down her back.
She wore a pale pink cotton tank dress that showed off her tan, paired with a bangle earrings and studded belt to add an edge. With lots of black kohl eyeliner and a pale frosted lip, she looked sizzling. Gary’s eyes didn’t leave her as he mopped up a spilled drink and shoved a tip in his pocket.
I showed her to a table near my hostess stand, surprised by how excited I was to see her. I wanted to be around her more than anyone else. I hadn’t felt that way since we were little kids.
“I highly recommend the Hawaiian salad. My friend Tory says it has the fewest calories if you get it without cheese. Or you could get it with cheese, and then it tastes really good.”
“No cheese. I don’t want to gain any weight before I get back up to Cal. Also, why the hell did you torture me on the treadmill this morning if we’re just going to eat cheese?” She sighed.
“Excellent decision. I will let them know. You eat, I will clean up my station. We can close up and go in like fifteen minutes.” I smiled.
A short time later, we were sitting at a bar a few blocks away known for loud music and careless bouncers.
“It never ceases to amaze me when we get into a bar with the same ID!” I laughed. I’d been using her ID since she turned twenty-one. It was guaranteed to work, except when we were together.
“How do they not notice it’s the same name, the same birthday, and nearly the same picture?” Tiffany said.
“I don’t know. The picture looks different. You have short hair on yours. Long hair on mine. That’s something,” I said, sipping a rum and Coke.
“Which one of us is driving home? I don’t mind,” she offered, pushing her drink away.
“Actually, I don’t care either,” I said quickly. I loved that she didn’t feel compelled to get hammered. I’d seen her drink compulsively so many times, pouring drinks down her throat as quickly as they came. She had a casual relationship with this cocktail that I didn’t want to upset.
Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter Page 18