If You Could See What I See

by Cathy Lamb

  “Please, Tory?” I said. “Be a threesome. The three O’Rourke Musketeers. Or the three O’Rourke Fashioneers.”

  “I don’t do threesomes,” Tory quipped.

  Lacey reached for my hand and held it.

  “We have to have a fashion show that’s more than a fashion show,” I said. “And we need the results to be spectacular, or we can roll this whole place up and call it a day.”

  Lacey whimpered.

  I saw Tory’s back tighten up.

  I thought of Grandma.

  Losing the business would kill her.

  I brought my video camera into work.

  Grandma sat behind her desk and I put the camera on a tripod. Her desk was white with gold trim. Her corner office was elegant, with light pink walls, white shelving, the expected pink fainting couch, and pink curtains.

  She wore a red suit, red heels, and her signature four strands of pearls.

  “Okay, Grandma,” I said quietly. “We’re ready. Talk to me. I want you to start off in Ireland. Tell me about your life there. Your family. Where you lived.”

  “This is ridiculous.” She threw a hand in the air. “I’d rather walk naked through the production floor.”

  “Please don’t, Grandma. If you did, then all the employees would be clamoring to prance about naked, too, and it would be distracting. I’m ready when you are.”

  Her eyes raked me, head to foot. “What are you wearing? Is that a beige T-shirt? You didn’t even iron it, did you? Is it clean?”

  “Yes, it’s clean. I haven’t sunk that far into a fashion abyss—”

  “You have. And your pants? They’re so big you could have someone else climb in there with you. Maybe a baboon. Are you trying to attract a baboon? I know I taught you about fashion. You neglected my lessons.” She sighed.

  I waited.

  She turned to the camera. I turned it on.

  She opened her mouth to talk, then shut it. “Turn off the camera, Meggie.”

  I turned it off. She focused on her chandelier, and I saw her chin tremble, her eyes fill.

  “Grandma—” I heard the breathy sound of my voice, my pain for her.

  “Stop it, Meggie.”

  I didn’t move as I watched her struggle to get control of her emotions.

  “Turn it back on. Let’s get this regrettable episode of my life over with.”

  I turned it back on.

  She said, “I was born in County Cork, Ireland . . .” She closed her mouth. Her lips tightened. She brought a shaky hand to her pearls, as if for comfort. “Turn off that damn camera.”

  I turned it off. I waited. I wanted to hug her, I knew I had upset her, that this had upset her, but she would detest the pity.

  I visibly saw her square her shoulders, and her emerald eyes became steely, almost frosty. “Turn it on.”

  I turned it on.

  This time she talked, straight through. When the tears fell, she brusquely, impatiently, swiped them away and kept talking.

  When she was done, she said, “That’s it, Meggie. Turn it off.”

  I turned it off and clutched my hands together to keep them still. I felt ill. I tried to hide my tears.

  “If I wanted your tears, Meggie, I would have asked for them. I’m not telling you about the rainbow, leprechaun, and owl so you can blubber on. I surely haven’t blubbered on.”

  “I’m so sorry, Grandma,” I whispered, broken. I shouldn’t have asked her to do this. I’d had no idea about the depths of her misery, her tragedy. Had I known I never would have broached it.

  “I never asked for your apology, young woman, or your pity, so get rid of it. This is my life. You wanted to hear it, and there it is.” She tilted her chin up, always proud. “Buck up, Meggie. Bad things happen to everyone. It’s life. No one gets out unscathed. The strong ones deal with it. The weak ones crumble. Don’t you ever be weak.”

  I nodded.

  She turned to leave, her heels tapping. “And put on some lipstick, for God’s sakes.”

  When she left, I crumbled.

  I offered to take Lacey’s kids all weekend because she looked ripped.

  I tried to keep them busy. We went to the movies and pizza on Friday. They all slept in until eleven on Saturday, then we had omelets. They all visited with Mrs. Friendly. I took them to the beach and we decided to spend the night, swim in the hotel’s pool, and jump in the freezing cold Oregon waves. I brought them home on Sunday at six in the evening.

  Lacey was so grateful, she cried on my shoulder. She smelled like morning sickness, and milk and chocolate chip cookies—two more things that keep the morning sickness away, she thinks.

  The kids thought she was crying because she missed them.

  Ah, no.

  There was no missing of the teenagers.

  Poor Lacey. Three teenagers and a surprise pregnancy.

  I spent part of Sunday night on the telephone with Tory, who was crying and, alternately, hitting her punching bag as hard as she could, which brought on panting.

  “I called Scotty and told him I had a date on Saturday night and he said I’m sorry to hear that and I said why are you sorry and he said because you’re probably going to sleep with him and that’s a bad idea and I said why is it a bad idea you don’t want me anyhow and I can do what I like I’m not living with you anymore and he said that’s right, you’re not, you left me, as if he wasn’t responsible for my leaving and I said are you dating and he said he didn’t have to tell me if he was or wasn’t and I screamed at him and called him a cheating, skinny, too smart, anteater, emotionless bastard and he hung up on me, that asshole.... Now I’m really glad I didn’t take his last name when I got married!”

  “I’m sorry, Tory.”

  “And I even looked at my star sign, the fish, Pisces, and it said that a former problem with a lover would be solved. It was wrong! That makes me even more mad! What’s wrong with these star sign readers!”

  She kept punching and panting.

  6

  My name is Abigail Chen. I work here at Lace, Satin, and Baubles as Meggie O’Rourke’s assistant.

  My real name is Lan, which means orchid in Vietnamese. Hardly anyone knows that, only a few people left in my family. I don’t know why I’m saying it now, Meggie. Maybe it’s because you’re filming me and then there’s a record that I existed as Lan, a long time ago, when I was a young girl in Vietnam.

  I took the name Abigail when I came to America. Lan, in almost every sense, was gone. I arrived with my mother and only one brother. Only one.

  You want to hear my story and then about a favorite bra? Okay, I can do that. My mother, two brothers, and I escaped from Vietnam in the middle of the night on a boat. We had to. Saigon had fallen. That’s where I lived. We tried to get out earlier. My father worked at the embassy, and he tried to get us out on a helicopter, but that didn’t work. He couldn’t get us seats. He tried to get us out in a car, but that didn’t work, either. He tried so hard, he was frantic. I didn’t have a word to describe it as a child, but as an adult, the word frantic is correct. We were being bombed. We were being invaded. It was absolute chaos.

  My father was sent to a reeducation camp. They do not reeducate you in a reeducation camp. They starve, beat, and torture you. That’s your new education. Later we learned that he lived ten years there. He was an educated man, so the North Vietnamese wanted him dead. They got their wish. We were told by my uncle, who was there in the camp with him, that my father . . . my father . . . I’m sorry. So many years have passed, and I still cry over this. Still cry.

  My father was regularly beaten because he had worked for the government. He had even attended college, UC Berkeley, in America. He spoke English. He taught us English.

  My uncle said he became sick and weakened and died working outside. Dropped one day in the field. They beat him, wanting to force him to get up or be beaten again, but he was dying. I loved my father, a kind and gentle man, and whenever I think of this . . . oh . . . oh . . .

 
; My mother and brothers and I had done what my father told us to do if he was ever arrested: Get out. Get out of Vietnam. My mother sold all we had, and we snuck onto a boat with a whole bunch of other frantic people. We were on it for weeks. This rickety boat, all crammed together, bopping around in the ocean. No toilets, no privacy. Crying and sickness and diarrhea. There was hardly enough food and little water. The Thai pirates came. They raped my mother. I saw it. I tried to stop it. The pirate kicked me in the head. That’s why I have this scar. See? It’s huge. My hair covers it so one sees it.

  My older brother has scars, too, from getting in fights in the resettlement camps. We ended up in a camp in Thailand. Pirates from Thailand, a camp from Thailand. Both dangerous.

  One of my brothers died there. He was seven. He became sick, so weak. He died in my arms, his eyes wide open. He was there one second and I kissed him on his cheek, and he smiled and said, “I love you, Lan,” then the next he was gone. My mother was out in the fields working.

  When my brother died my mother cried all day for weeks. She didn’t speak for a month. We all slept together on a mat on the floor.

  Eventually we were sponsored by a church in America. When we arrived in Portland we were met by my aunt, my mother’s sister, who arrived about two months before us on a different boat. They were both so young, I realize now. My mother and father had me when they were 18.

  Your grandma, Meggie, hired my mother and my aunt. They had nothing. Two dresses each. They barely spoke English. They were scared and traumatized. My mother had lost her husband, her young son, her country, my aunt had lost her husband and a daughter. Your grandma hired them as seamstresses. Amazing. Whenever I think about it, I want to cry. Okay, see? I am crying.

  Your grandma gave them new bras and underwear, and she took them shopping for more dresses. They never forgot it. My mother said, “I arrived in rags, and Regan O’Rourke had me in lace and satin by the end of the week.”

  They still live together, as you know. They bought that yellow house where my brother and I grew up, and they’re so proud of it. They like working here. I like seeing them here. We’re a family and we work for your family. We consider your family our family, and we are loyal to you.

  You asked me to talk about my favorite bra, too, for this video. I will tell you that it was a bra my mother brought home for me when I was thirteen. It was light pink, made by our company.

  “This is for you, Lan,” my mother said to me. “Beautiful. Like you, my orchid, like you.” I put it on and it fit perfect, and my aunt said to me, “You are a woman now. An American woman.

  “Yes, an American woman,” my mother said, her eyes all teary, and I knew she was thinking of my father and brother. “You, Lan, me, your aunt, your brother. We are Americans now.”

  We had lost so much because of violent men. But we were here. There were no bombs, no guns, no women raped on boats, no invading armies, no threat of starvation. They had jobs, and we had food. I remember my mother and my aunt both adjusted the straps to make my pink bra perfect for me as I stared at myself in the mirror. They kissed my cheeks. They were proud of me, their American girl.

  That pink bra is my favorite bra, Meggie. It was when, in my head, I became an American. My father died so I could be American, and I honor him every day in this country by working hard and loving my mother, aunt, and brother, my husband and my children. Please stop crying, Meggie, it’s okay . . . it’s okay . . .

  7

  “Thank you, ladies, for joining me on this sunny afternoon for our first Bust Out and Shake It Adventure Club event,” Grandma said. “The three of you look like wrecks.”

  Lacey, Tory, and I stood in the circular driveway of Grandma’s home, her fountain flowing high in the middle. She had told us to wear jeans and boots—not fancy boots. It was Saturday, and I was so tired from working that it felt like peanut butter had invaded my bloodstream. I could hardly move.

  Lacey was battling morning sickness and was the color of white sheets with light green stains. Cassidy had been caught by the PE teacher, a friend of Lacey’s, having sex with Cody in the locker room. Cassidy’s excuse was, “I earned an A on my AP Chemistry test and I wanted to celebrate, Mom!” Regan had brought home yet another mouse that was now loose in the house, and Hayden had been crying.

  Tory was wiped out, as she can’t sleep without Scotty, that “freakoid, nerdy, computer obsessed weirdo robot and I hate him.”

  “Your outfit, Grandma,” Lacey said, grinning, though bent over from nausea.

  “You are flippin’ rockin’ it, Grandma,” Tory said, thumbs up.

  “Love it, Grandma, I love it,” I said.

  Grandma was dressed in leathers. She opened up the trunk of her red Porsche, pulled out a helmet, and put it on over her perfectly coiffed hair. “Guess what we’re doing today for our first event?”

  “What?”

  “The four of us are going to be daring and dangerous.”

  “Daring and dangerous?” Lacey said, swaying a little, hand to stomach. “I am not daring or dangerous. I am having a surprise child and he is making me sick.” She suddenly turned and threw up on Grandma’s hydrangea plant.

  “Did you have to pick the purple one?” Grandma asked, taking her helmet off. “And it’s not a boy, it’s a girl.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Because I’m magic,” she snapped.

  I patted Lacey’s back. “Want some crackers?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Gross, Lacey, gross,” Tory said, examining her nails, which were painted bright red with tiny pink flower on the pinkies.

  Grandma picked up her cell phone, dialed a number, and said, “We’re ready, gentlemen!”

  We heard the growling blasts seconds later.

  Three Harleys appeared at the bottom of the hill and roared on up.

  The men on top of the Harleys were dressed in full leather. They were definitely hard-core biker dudes. Dark glasses, tattoos, bandanas. Scars. Grandma told us later that two of them were ex–Hell’s Angels. The other one was a family doctor, the brother of one of the Hell’s Angels.

  “What’s going on?” Lacey said.

  “We’re going on a motorcycle ride to a biker bar,” Grandma said. “Get on, ladies.”

  Grandma opened a box and pulled out leathers for Tory and me.

  “Oh, this is spectacular,” Tory breathed. She pulled on her leather jacket and pants and yanked on a helmet. She pointed toward the roughest-looking guy, one of the Hell’s Angels. The Hell’s Angel guy gave her the thumbs-up. His name, we later learned, was Harold Jr. “I’m taking that guy right there. He’s enough to get my mind off Scotty.”

  Grandma climbed on the back of the other motorcycle, the doctor driving.

  The third biker waved. His name was Monster Mouth.

  I looked at Grandma, whose hands were up in the air as if she was going to ride the bike that way, then to Tory, whose arms were already around the waist of her Hell’s Angel, and finally to my Monster Mouth.

  “Might as well do it,” I muttered. I pulled on my leather pants, jacket, and helmet.

  “What about me?” Lacey yelled.

  Grandma dug in her pocket. “You, my dear, being pregnant yet again—do you not know what a condom is, can you not use a diaphragm—are going to drive the Porsche.”

  Lacey’s face said it all. Grandma doesn’t let anyone drive her red Porsche. No one.

  “Really? Really, Grandma?” Lacey said, bopping, the pale look leaving as joy spread like a song across her face. “I can drive it?”

  “Did you think I would put you on the back of a motorcycle? Hello? Has pregnancy taken your brain synapses along with your uterus? No pregnant people on motorcycles. Now get in there, and let ’er rip!”

  “Oh, thanks, Grandma!” Lacey tipped up on her toes and wriggled about, clapping her hands, before her face paled and she leaned back over the hydrangea bush.

  “Don’t do that in my Porsche, Lacey!” Grandm
a called.

  Lacey wiggled her bottom in reply.

  It was sunny.

  It was warm.

  We rode fast.

  Monster Mouth was an excellent driver.

  We danced with the biker dudes in the bar.

  We drank beer (except for Lacey) and had terrible nachos. Tory and Grandma had martinis.

  We laughed and talked.

  One of the Hell’s Angels recited a poem, all dramatic, about a pirate who lost his love when he sailed the seas. She wasn’t waiting when he came back; her soul had gone to heaven without him. The doctor motorcyclist regaled us with a raunchy song about three truckers, which we learned and sang with gusto.

  Monster Mouth showed us how he could break small pieces of wood against his forehead.

  When we walked out, back to the bikes and the Porsche, Lacey and Tory had their arms wrapped around each other and were singing the raunchy song, their foreheads marked where they’d tried to break wood.

  Grandma looked at me, nodded at Lacey and Tory, and whispered, “That’s what I wanted. Right there. Those two happy together and not spitting or hitting or flinging things.”

  “You have your wish, Grandma.”

  “You three are sisters, Meggie. Tory’s never felt included. You need to fix that. Promise me.”

  “I promise, Grandma.”

  “Sisterhood is not always by birth, it’s by love.”

  She kissed my cheek, and I climbed on behind Monster Mouth. His forehead was red and sore.

  He winked at me.

  I winked back.

  I could feel him crawling inside me.

  The rat was back, black and insidious.

  He stroked my insides with his sharp claws, my heart, my lungs, my arteries. He bit me, here and there, his rat body lumbering around, squishing me, puncturing my organs, until he bit through a hole in my stomach and crawled out.

  The rat giggled and Aaron’s face appeared, then his body. He whispered, “I will live in you. I will breathe in you. I will bite you. Bleed for me, my Meggie. Wherever you are, wherever you wander, bleed. I bled, now it’s your turn.”