Tails California (Heads and Tails)

by Grea Warner

  “It happens. I’m afraid that world will eat you up ... all that is good in you—"

  There it was again—I wasn’t strong enough or special enough or good enough. I had heard those words many times in my life, both from the music industry and others. And ... from him. The very first words he had ever said to me about others being way ahead of me reared their ugly head in my memory bank. I knew deep down it was unfair to think of that. But everything seemed so wrong. And because it was something I had been fighting my entire life, I didn’t want to hear it one more time. I didn’t want to hear it from the person I trusted and loved more than anyone in the world. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

  “Don’t patronize me, Ryan.” I sucked back onto the adult comment and more. “I am not some young and innocent porcelain doll. I am not going to break. I have fought hard to live my life on my own terms and keep my integrity. I am also not solely a good girl, preacher’s daughter. I have impure thoughts. I’ve done bad things. I’ve wished ill—”

  In a way I was glad Sallie was suddenly standing in front of us. I was on a rant, and it was leading nowhere good. Ryan knew of my impure thoughts and some of the bad things I did—which in no way compared to a lot of people in the world. But had I continued talking, I would have mentioned Kari and how, God help me, I had at times wished she would have gone away. The guilt that she had done so permanently was something that would probably always eat at my soul. Mentioning Kari at that particular moment would not have been good. And even if I had managed to muffle those thoughts, I knew other can’t-take-back-things, which probably had no merit besides simply for the sake of arguing, would have likely taken their place.

  I was not, however, glad that Sallie was in front of us because it was obvious our demeanor concerned her. Her light blue eyes shifted from me to her father. And her fingers fidgeted in front of her blue floral tank top.

  “Why are you fighting?” were her words.

  Ryan hadn’t seen Sallie as quickly as I had. He had just noticed that I suddenly stopped my mad monologue. He looked at his daughter. “We’re not,” he denied.

  “We’re having an adult conversation.” It came to me, and I couldn’t resist. I knew Sallie didn’t get my double meaning, but Ryan’s closed eyes and tension-filled face told me he did. My statement didn’t necessarily pacify the sweet, little blonde, though.

  She grabbed our hands in her own and started to tug us out of the room. “I need a snack for the show tomorrow.”

  “What?” I stopped walking, causing our human train to halt, too. “I asked you if there was anything you needed.”

  “I forgot.” She looked down.

  “Sallie ...” There was a smidge of warning mixed with exasperation in Ryan’s voice as he dropped his hand, therefore disconnecting the three of us.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said as my hand dropped, too.

  “All right.” He sighed but appeased, probably knowing, as I did, that it wasn’t like his daughter to be forgetful, but then again, she had a lot on her mind.

  Ryan’s readiness to forgive made me wonder why it couldn’t just be that easy for the two of us to say “I’m sorry” and things to magically be all right again. Being an adult struck again. It certainly wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  “We’ll leave a little early tomorrow and pick it up on our way,” he offered.

  “No. It has to be homemade.”

  He looked at a hopeful Sallie, who was standing as still as a statue and not blinking. Then he looked at me. While not one of his facial features moved—not his eyes, eyelids, nose, cheeks, or mouth, I could still read what he was thinking. A real couple didn’t need a blink or lip-curl to understand. They needed a year of being together and being in love. He “told me” he knew we weren’t done talking and trusted I could let it go for as long as operation kid snack took. I did the one blink back.

  Ryan accepted my nonverbal reply and spoke once again to his daughter. “Okay. We need to pick something easy then. It’s late. Come on.” He secured her little hand in his and started once again out of the room.

  But Sallie ceased their action. “Bethany.” She reached for my hand once more.

  “Uh ...” He sideswiped a look at me, and I couldn’t help but look away. “Bethany already made dinner. I think it must be my turn in the kitchen.”

  “Both of you,” she pleaded. “Please. We’re supposed to do it as a family.”

  I squinted and tilted my head ever so slightly at the little one in our presence. Sallie’s snack was for the camp talent show the next evening. But, somehow, I think she was already putting on a little act right there in the game room. I had already slightly debated if the treat had to be homemade. But, supposed to do it as a family? Really?

  Truth or fabrication, I couldn’t let Sallie down. There had already been enough of that for one day. And if I was right, she was encouraging our joint participation because she was worried about what she had heard and what we were trying to conceal. She didn’t need any more drama or friction or sadness in her life. Not only had she lost her mother, but Sallie had been old enough to witness and understand the signs when Ryan and Kari’s marriage had been crumbling. Had there been scenes like ours in the game room? And even if she wasn’t keen on the negative vibe between Ryan and me, I couldn’t turn her down, anyway. Her including me meant she was definitely on board once again with me being a part of her life and us as a family.

  With the ingredients available, we could have either made “dirt” dessert or pineapple angel food cake. Since the dirt involved refrigeration and there wasn’t an easy way to serve it, that was almost immediately vetoed, much to Joel’s chagrin. Joel’s presence was to Sallie’s chagrin. But Ryan reminded her that she had insisted it was a family activity. He could bounce back words to his advantage, too.

  The angel food cake was easy to mix up but took a while to bake. We had put it in the oven and were discussing what container to bring it in when Ryan’s phone rang. I didn’t even try to disguise my eye roll. It was probably a fabulous offer for another client whom he wouldn’t hold his personal relationship against.

  “Daddy, it’s GiGi,” Sallie called out, looking at her father’s phone.

  That’s what I got for having unkind thoughts in my head. Business would have been better. Irene Hynes was the poisoned icing on the cake I called that day.

  Ryan, I’m sure, felt the same but didn’t let the kids know his detest of their maternal grandmother. Even after the incident at the hospital, when he spoke about Irene to the children it was in a neutral tone. They hadn’t, however, seen one another, despite Irene finally trying to contact Ryan to set up a time to see the kids. Ryan had, up to that point, ignored her.

  Recognizing the kids knew their grandmother was on the line, he couldn’t any longer. “You want to talk with her?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Joel answered.

  “Okay, give me my phone. I’ll put it on speaker and you and Sals can both talk.”

  Irene’s nails-on-chalkboard voice soared through the immense kitchen as soon as Ryan had connected the phone. “Ryan, well, I’m glad you answered. I—”

  “Hi, GiGi!” The Thompson kids said almost simultaneously, and, therefore, shut down whatever uncouth comment their grandmonster was about to say.

  “Oh, oh, hello, Sallie. Hello, Joel. What, uh, what are you two doing? How are you?”

  “We’re making ...” Joel looked at me for a confirmation of the food name, but I wanted absolutely no part of the conversation with Irene.

  Luckily, Sallie saved me in her typical I-know-more-than-you-do attitude with her younger brother. “Pineapple angel food cake.”

  “Yeah,” Joel agreed. “I couldn’t remember whose cake it was.”

  I put my hand up to my mouth to stifle a laugh. Thank goodness for Joel. He really was a bright light of sunshine.

  As I was rinsing cookware in the sink, Ryan put the last few items away. It was weird how in sync we were, despite the fury burrowe
d beneath our skin. We were a good team in so many ways.

  “What is the cake for?” Irene asked.

  “My talent show,” Sallie offered a little shyly.

  It was actually very surprising that it was Sallie who was going up on the camp stage and not Joel—a true character reversal where the siblings were concerned. Joel would have been up there doing an impromptu dance for sure. But he wanted no parts of practicing a routine, which Ryan said from the start was part of being on the stage. While it bothered Joel initially, he seemed to have gotten over it and moved onto something else. Sallie, on the other hand, had signed up on a spur-of-the-moment, yeah, let’s-do-this kind of whim. Since then, she had either been super excited or super nervous depending on the day. But Sallie was not a quitter. She was a girl who, if she committed, she was all in.

  “Oh ... oh ... oh.” Came Irene’s screechy voice. “I had no idea about any of this. What? What is this about? When is it?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow! What?” You would have thought Sallie had told her grandmother the house was on fire. “Where? Where is it at?”

  “Summer camp,” Sallie related.

  “Oh ... oh, my. You’re doing your ballet, right? Beautiful ballet. We need to make sure to continue your lessons.”

  Sallie looked at Ryan as her face immediately took on one of horror. She hated the dance class that Kari and Irene had encouraged her to take during the school year. And from what I could tell, I didn’t blame her. It seemed to be part dance and part finishing school. Sallie already had better manners than most adults and found her craft in art and words, not dance. But in true Sallie spirit, she had stuck it out through completion. Ryan was going to talk with Kari about not having Sallie do it again after our honeymoon. But that obviously didn’t happen.

  After smoothing his hand on his daughter’s hair, Ryan stepped into the conversation. “Irene, Sallie is—"

  “Ryan! How come I didn’t know anything about this show?”

  “I guess your invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.” He rolled his eyes while simultaneously throwing a bag into the trash ... which I found to be an ironic symbol when speaking with his ex-mother-in-law.

  “I can’t make it tomorrow! We have a social event at the country club. If I would have known ... oh. Oh, Ryan, we’re going to need to discuss—”

  “You know what, Irene? We don’t. Certainly not right now.” He glanced at his two offspring, who looked a little cautious. “Joel needs a bath. And Sallie is going to help finish the dessert. Have a good night.” He tilted his head toward Sallie and Joel.

  “G’night, GiGi.” Again, almost in unison.

  And before Irene could protest, Ryan promptly hung up the phone. He then looked over at his still apprehensive daughter. “Sals, sweetie, you don’t have to go back to the dance place, okay? I promise. You should be able to do what you want to do.”

  “Yeah, kids get that freedom,” I said encouraging Sallie, but Ryan instantly knew of my double meaning.

  He tilted his head in my direction in an almost daring, patriarchal way. “Bethany ...” When I stared him down, he resorted back to the kids. “All right, I wasn’t kidding. Joel, let’s go. We’ll get you in the bath, and Sallie, help look for a container and whatever else here.” He glanced at the kitchen timer. “It should be out of the oven soon.”

  “I will, Daddy.”

  “Thanks. Shower for you tomorrow.”

  Kissing the top of her head, he peered at me and then left with Joel, who always seemed to find a mess wherever he went. Again, Ryan was extra vigilant with his youngest around a water source and wanted to be there. At least that was the reason I went with for him separating us into completely different areas of the home. There was some validity to it. But I knew there was also another bigger reason, too.

  ***

  After operation angel food was done, I helped tuck Sallie into bed. For a while, she had been insistent that she was a big girl and could do it herself. But since Kari’s death, she once again liked to have someone wish her sweet dreams, turn off the light, and shut the door.

  “I love you, Bethany. I love you and Daddy.”

  I was so touched by her words and, selfishly, needed them right then. It had been a bad day, but when I put it in perspective, it was nothing compared to what the little girl and her brother were dealing with. Knowing I was a harbor for her meant the world to me. And I had to be a sturdy rock, especially when I knew her tagging Ryan and me together meant she still wasn’t sure how things were between the two of us after the game room scene. And who could blame her? I wasn’t either.

  “I love you, too, Sallie.” I smiled.

  “Bethany, are you and Daddy fighting about me?”

  “What?”

  Oh, geez. It was bad enough she knew there was tension. But to think it was over her?

  “No,” I followed through right away. “No, honey. No. We’re just not agreeing about something. Besides”—I touched her sweet face right above the covers—“how could we fight about you? Did your daddy ever tell you that you are the reason he and I actually started liking each other?”

  Her eyes grew from tiny to large in less than a second. “Me?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure you don’t remember this because it was over a year ago now, but you got sick at school and had to come home. So, we had to switch our meeting to this house. And had we not done that, we never would have had the time to really get to know one another.”

  “To love each other.”

  “Yeah. You are like our little matchmaker.”

  “I had magic powers and didn’t even know it.”

  “Pretty much,” I agreed. “You know everything’s okay, right?”

  “Uh-huh.” She sounded a little more reassured, and I secretly wished I was, too.

  “Everyone’s gonna love the cake, and I can’t wait to hear your story tomorrow.”

  For the talent show, Sallie was reading a story she wrote and illustrated. And no one had heard or seen any of it yet. The show was going to be the book’s world premiere.

  It was only when I stood up and started toward Sallie’s door that I saw Ryan propped against it. “Hey,” was the only thing that managed to come out of my mouth.

  “Hey,” he repeated quietly and then leaned a little into the room. “Good night, Tink.”

  “Good night, Daddy.”

  He closed her door behind us and followed me down the hall and into the master bedroom. A good few feet apart, we stood and looked at each other for a couple minutes. Our heated conversation in the game room had been abruptly discontinued. And it was probably best that we had been given some time in between. But there was no way we could end the night like that. Good, bad, or ugly had to be better than the aborted dialogue. We had to say something ... anything ... just the two of us.

  It was Ryan who spoke first. “You told Sallie everything is okay. Is it?”

  My shoulders drooped. “I want it to be,” I admitted my true heart. “You told her earlier that we weren’t fighting. Do you really believe that? You don’t think that was fighting?”

  “No. I do,” he said at the same time as he let out a sad breath of air.

  “Ryan, geez, sometimes I feel like that is all we’re doing.” I knew it wasn’t really the whole truth, but when the ache was so overwhelming and it felt like every time we dipped our toes into the water ...

  “I know,” he admitted, seemingly with a hint of regret. “But, Bethany, we still are those two sitting in the living room with Sallie home sick from school. I promise.” He had heard more of my conversation with Sallie than I realized. “Can I tell you something and you just listen ... let me get her name out first?”

  It was my turn to sigh. For sure, he was going to say something about Kari. But I trusted by the way he asked, it would be something I was going to want to, or at least should, hear.

  My silence gave him permission to continue. “Kari and I never fought. Really. Truly. Until th
e very end of the marriage and then after the concussion. It wasn’t healthy. I realize that now. We were too busy thinking everything was fine and building careers. We never fought because we started to not really talk. We had the kids and we had sex. Sorry. We did.”

  “It’s not like I didn’t know that.”

  But it also wasn’t like I wanted to hear about it or think about it. I’m not sure why he felt it necessary to add the last fact. Unless, oh ... because he wanted to show that our connection was much deeper than sex or careers. It was why he stopped the night the television execs were over. He only wanted to make love with me.

  And he backed up my thought. “Bethany ... us? The kids are older and in a lot of ways more demanding. And we both have careers. But we know about each other. We talk. We get things out. It’s been like that since I first got to know you. I want to know what you’re thinking. It’s not always going to be pretty. But there’s not one single time when we’ve argued that I felt like ... I don’t know ... like I can’t do this. I love you and the world we’ve created so much. And I’m sorry about the adult comment. It wasn’t what I meant. It’s just that I have so many things I have to think about and consider all the time.”

  “Okay.” In my heart, I knew all he said was true and, maybe, because of that, I knew we could discard the earlier mudslinging and move on to what really mattered. “Can we get back to what all of this is all about, then?” I asked tentatively. “Why are you so opposed to me taking the television show offer? I need you to explain it to me, Ryan.”

  He resituated his stance and brought his bottom lip up a tad, as if debating what exactly to say. “All right.” At least our conversation was much calmer compared to the earlier standoff. “You know how you asked me a while ago what you had to do to measure up to Kari?”

  “Yeah,” I answered quietly, not knowing exactly where he was going with the question. “It was another time we argued and one I am not proud of.” I recalled my jealousy over his bar fight with Olsen. “I know I should have been more understanding of what—”

  “You were,” he interrupted. “What I’m trying to say is, part of my reaction today? It’s kind of like how you felt then.” My eyes automatically scrunched my confusion, and he continued. “It seems like you aren’t thinking of me or putting us first ... how quickly you made up your mind about leaving for Nashville.”