“Thank you, sweetie. I knew this dress was a steal. You know, I got this and a toaster oven for six dollars at St. Vincent’s yesterday,” she whispers while smoothing out my bangs. “Have you thought about doing something different with your hair? It’s much too long and drapey for someone engaged to Evan.”
“Hello, Jane.” Wes extends his hand. “We met at the Orchid Lane house, remember?”
“Yes, of course. The architect.”
“Looks like you’re my date for tonight.” He slides into the chair beside her.
“I should warn you. I’m a cheap date. One drink and I babble on and on like a schoolgirl.”
“Must run in the family,” he mutters so only I can hear.
After we’re settled, the waiter offers Evan a wine list and he selects a bottle.
“I took the liberty of preordering dinner for us,” Evan says a few moments later as the waiter pours us each a glass.
“How thoughtful.” Mom beams.
We all raise our glasses for Evan’s toast. “To friends and family. A gift greater than life itself.”
“He’s such a sentimental man.” She pats my hand, then sets her glass down, nearly sloshing the wine above the rim, and grabs my forearm. “Good Lord!” She examines the scabs on my knuckles and Tootsie-roll-sized bruise on the side of my hand. “What happened?”
“That?” I shrug. “It’s nothing.”
“Jane, your daughter is fighting. Didn’t she tell you?”
Mom gasps. “What? Fighting? Who are you fighting?”
“I’m not really fighting, Mom.” My eyes briefly flicker toward Evan. “I took a couple of kickboxing lessons and . . . ouch!”
She presses her index finger deep into my black-and-yellow bruise. She frowns. “What is kickboxing? It sounds violent.”
“Because it is violent, Jane,” Evan adds.
“It’s not violent,” I protest, bugged by their alliance. “Kickboxing is fabulous exercise. We do all sorts of core strengthening, push-ups, squats, lunges, and yes, throw punches and kicks into the trainer’s mitts. I’m not hurting people.” Except Rudy. “I smacked the bag wrong the other day. That’s how I got the bruise. And the scabs, I have tender knuckles, that’s all.
They aren’t impressed.
“I don’t understand why you’d do this to yourself.” Mom leans toward me and says with a frown, “Kickboxing doesn’t sound very ladylike.”
“My words exactly.” Evan lifts his glass and air-toasts her.
She responds with a confident nod.
“Who cares if it’s ladylike?” I snap. “I’m learning something new and it feels good. Damn good. I like feeling strong. It’s empowering and motivating. What’s wrong with that?”
“I’ve seen these so-called women fighters. They’re thick in the middle and boxy in the shoulders. It’s quite unflattering. Think about how you’ll look in your wedding gown.”
This is infuriating. “Mom, I—”
“If I may?” Wes jumps in.
“Please,” Mom says, reaching for her wineglass. “Talk some sense into her.”
“For what it’s worth, the idea of Lanie taking a kickboxing class is rather smart.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Mom says.
“Neither do I.” Evan folds his arms across his chest.
I stare at Wes, curious myself.
“Think of it this way.” He focuses on Mom. “Your daughter is learning how to punch and kick, and yes, potentially hurt someone.”
“Sounds like fighting to me.”
“Fair enough.” Wes nods. “Consider this. She’s gaining strength and confidence along with learning basic self-defense skills. Let’s face it, Phoenix isn’t small-town Mayberry. There are a lot of creeps out there. Lanie’s a beautiful woman. She needs to know how to protect herself. What’s the harm in developing a few skills that one day may save her life?”
I never thought of it that way. Not only am I getting great exercise, but I’m learning how to defend myself, kick the crap out of someone. A mugger or something. Or Paige. I hide my giggle with my napkin, rejuvenated by Wes’s argument that kickboxing is beneficial for me. A life skill. A valuable tool that will prove . . . wait, did he say . . . beautiful?
He dips his head and offers a little smile. He thinks I’m beautiful.
I feel myself flush.
“Lanie?” Evan regains my attention.
I jump as if caught with my hand in the cookie jar. Jesus, Lanie. “Yes?”
“Tell your mom about the scuba diving accident and how you nearly drowned.”
“For heaven’s sake. What has gotten into you?”
“Nothing has gotten into me, Mom. I—”
“Here we are.” Our waiter arrives with our dinner and places a plate of chicken Marsala before each of us. He pours us more wine.
“This looks delicious.” Mom flattens her napkin on her lap.
“Enjoy,” says our waiter.
“Lanie, seriously, why all of this now? What’s made you want to entertain”—she glances at Wes—“practical or not, these activities when you’re a couple of months away from the most important day of your life?”
“Remember, I found the Someday Jar? I decided to accomplish the tasks, before the wedding, finish what I started and prove to myself—”
“Prove nothing. That jar and your father are ancient history. Get rid of it. You have other matters to focus on. Like your dress. Shouldn’t you have one by now?”
“Yes, Lanie. Stacee said you came in the other day but left without one. Said you and Kit hurried out of the shop. Where’d you rush off to?”
A quick glance at Wes reassures me he isn’t going to say anything about the speed dating. “Kit had an appointment. Don’t worry. I’ll find a dress soon.” I force a smile, telling myself to enjoy the dinner and not press on about them bulldozing my ambitions. Stuff my mouth with Marsala and let the conversation go. But I feel a pang of irritation and not just from the bruise. Listening to them ambush my goals, I grow defensive.
I set my fork down. “I’m sorry you two don’t support my Someday Jar, but it’s important to me. That should be enough for you.” I glance at Evan and then Mom. “Yes, I’ve hurt my hands and made a few mistakes, but who cares? Like it or not, Dad gave me this jar and though he checked out of our lives”—I exhale a long breath—“I think he’d be proud of me.”
“Damn that man,” Mom says. “He filled your mind with unnecessary fantasies, gallivanting across the world. No responsibility. No maturity. No dependability. All these years later, he seems to be doing it again through that silly jar.” She shakes her head. “He lived carelessly, Lanie, and you grasped onto his words as if they were your breath of life, listening to his stories of adventure and recklessness.”
“So?”
“So, do you know he never had health insurance?”
“There are worse things.”
“Your Someday Jar is full of his irresponsibility.”
Evan offers us more wine, but I lift my hand and refuse.
Mom accepts.
There’s a strange realization coursing through my veins as I watch the Chardonnay gurgle into her glass. An awareness. A truth, perhaps? Dad divorced her, wrote her out of his life, but what about me? Why did he divorce me, too? It’s never made sense. We were so close and then nothing.
“Mom, what happened with Dad? Do you know why he cut me out of his life?” It occurs to me that I’ve never asked her this before.
She pokes her tongue under her cheek. Her signature move when she’s nervous. “Evan this Marsala is lovely.” She takes a bite.
“Mom?”
“Sweetie, what does it matter? You have Evan now and your life is falling into place. All the things I didn’t have.” Mindful of my scabs, she squeezes my fingers. “I did
n’t want you throwing your future away, chasing after daydreams like I did with your father.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“You were young and impressionable. You idolized your father so very much.”
Tension builds in my shoulders and my tone turns rigid. “Wait a minute. You do know why he stopped calling me, don’t you?”
Wes stands. “Evan, how about I buy you a drink at the bar?”
Evan disregards him. “Lanie, let’s discuss this another time.”
“Why, Mom?”
“It all worked out, anyway.”
A stab of sorrow works its way to my heart. My chest is heavy, weighted by loss. I can barely utter the words. “You told him to stop?”
The look in her eyes confirms my question.
Oh my God. “How could you?”
“It wasn’t easy for me either,” Mom says. “Thanks to me, you didn’t get muffled up in his irresponsibility. You went to college, got your degree, and now you’ve got yourself a wonderful man. Your future is set. Who knows what would’ve happened if you’d followed your father’s reckless path.”
I can’t believe this. I can’t wrap my head around what she did. She took Dad away. Took him out of my life. How could she? How could she alter the course of my life? How could he? And why did Dad give up on me so easily? Why did he cast me aside like a cracked oar from one of his rafting trips? Didn’t he miss me? Even a little?
As if she can read my mind, Mom says, “He did call. Many times. For years, actually. The man wouldn’t give up.” Mom glances at Evan. “I threatened to file a restraining order. It was too much.” She returns to me and clasps my wrist, but I yank it free. “Honey, please, it’s a little jar full of fanciful notions, all in the past. Really, there’s no point—”
“No point?” I jab at my chest with trembling hands. “I’m the point.”
“Calm down, Lanie. You’re causing a scene.” Evan’s voice is pained with embarrassment.
“This broke my heart, Mom. You watched me pace back and forth by the phone and cry myself to sleep when he didn’t call. I hated birthdays, hated Christmas. Cried every Father’s Day. Everything hurt too much without my dad. You never thought about that, did you? You never thought about Dad or me. You thought about yourself, just yourself. How could you be so goddamn self-serving?”
Tears cloud her eyes. “I’m sorry you feel hurt, but you must understand, it was for your own good.”
“No. It was for your own good. You were angry with Dad for walking out. Hell, you still are. You figured keeping me from him was the closest you’d get to revenge.”
“How dare you!”
“How dare you. You used me as leverage.” I yell back, throwing my napkin on the table and rising from my chair.
“Lanie, sit down.” Evan says.
I remain focused on Mom. “All these years I assumed Dad thought I was a waste of time. That he didn’t care about me. I was wrong. Truth is, you didn’t care about me.” I march out the door before anyone can stop me.
“Lanie,” she calls after me. “Wait!”
My mind swirls with rage and disbelief as I distance myself from the entrance, weaving among the cars in the parking lot. I march farther and farther away from the restaurant’s lights, farther and farther away from that moment of truth, farther and farther away from her.
My nails dig into my palms as I pace with clenched fists. I bite my tongue so as not to scream. How could she? And what did Dad think? Did he wonder why I never took his calls? Did he check the mailbox as often as I did? Did he hurt as much as I did?
And yet, as angry as I am with Mom, there’s a voice whispering in my mind, questioning if she’s right. Is the jar pointless? Is it a silly token from my childhood and nothing more? Should I forget about it?
Dad has.
I reach the far end of the asphalt and sit on the curb, slipping my aching feet out of my too-small shoes.
He did call. Many times.
What does that mean to me now? For years I’ve stuffed the pain from feeling abandoned and forgotten in the depths of my heart. Spent nearly as many years without Dad in my life as I have with him. Am I all of a sudden supposed to erase the heartbreak? Forget the missed birthdays, skipped track meets, and empty seat at my graduations? Wipe the slate clean and reach out to him? Call him and say, “Hey, remember me? It’s been a while.”
Truth is, it isn’t all Mom’s fault. Dad didn’t need to agree to Mom’s restrictions. He could’ve fought. He could’ve surmounted any obstacle she threw at him. He tackled challenges in all other aspects of his life, the highest mountain, the wildest river, why not claw and climb to get to me? Wasn’t I his greatest adventure?
Damn you, Dad. Why didn’t you try harder?
Regardless of the obstacles Mom put up when I was a minor, he hasn’t contacted me as an adult. What Mom did or didn’t do doesn’t matter. I close my eyes and accept the fact that if Dad wanted to be in my life, he would be. It’s that simple.
And yet, playing over and over in my head like a scratched record album, I hear Mom say, He did call. Many times.
I gaze at the cloudless sky with hopes a shooting star will sail across the night. “Wish for tomorrow,” my dad used to say fireside during our Labor Day camping trips. But because of the city smog and overhead streetlights, the stars are obscured. With a heavy heart, I let my eyes drift toward the strip mall across the street.
It’s then I see it.
I step toward the street’s edge, vying for a better view. My pulse pounds in sync with the flickering letter G on the weather-beaten sign. I hadn’t realized we were so close. I hadn’t realized I’m a stone’s throw away from my childhood. A stone’s throw away from some of the best moments of my life. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I stand across the street from the Golden Lantern restaurant.
I slip into my shoes and hurry across the road toward the building, swinging open the heavy glass door and inhaling wafts of warm air laced with fried rice, sweet spices, and stir-fried veggies. I breathe in the memories.
Beyond the hostess stand, where a teenage girl sets her math book aside and gathers a few menus from a tray behind her, are several tables bordering along the windows. I spot the worn booth Dad and I shared.
“How many?” the hostess asks, and then we both glance at her cell phone, which lights up with a message beside her book.
“No, I’m not here to eat. I just wanted to take a minute and look around. Is that okay?”
“Whatever.” She reaches for her phone.
A man, presumably her father, for they share the same crook in their nose, joins her at the lectern and chastises her in Chinese with excessive enthusiasm; the teenager drops her phone into her purse, then returns to her studies.
He smiles at me before heading to the dimly lit dining room. I recognize him. He’s the owner. His hair has thinned and his belly grown, but I recall him pulling up a chair beside our booth and talking with my dad every time we came. I glance at the girl. Her mother was the hostess and this girl was just a baby at the time. She bounced in a play saucer with a giraffe-colored rattle. She’s all grown up. Funny, how time flies.
I step toward the wall on my left. The wall I came to see. Painted a lighter hue of pink than previously, as the uneven ceiling edge reveals a darker shade, the wall is coated with fortune slips, pinned with tiny tacks. Just like I remember. Just like so many years ago. All the tacks are snug against the wall, except for one, which threatens to fall onto the ground. I push the pin and the fortune catches my eye. Happiness is truth.
I glance at the girl, surreptitiously texting on her cell phone. I snag the fortune and, with a clear head, make my way toward the Ivy.
In the parking lot, I find Evan waiting for me. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.”
I point across the street. “Th
at’s where Dad and I went for my birthdays.”
“Really?”
I can tell he’s not impressed.
“Yes.” I hide the fortune in my palm and wrap my arms around myself. “Where’s Mom?”
“She left in a cab. She’s truly upset.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Listen.” Evan faces me. “I’ve been preoccupied with Orchid Lane, the wedding, and work. I’ve failed to appreciate the importance of this jar and the longing you obviously feel for your father. All the same, I think you’ll agree that I’ve been patient and more than understanding with your behavior lately. Chasing adventure before the wedding, I get that. I honestly do. Hell, the other day I passed the Porsche dealership and nearly pulled in for a test drive. But, in light of everything that’s happened, especially seeing how upset your mom is, don’t you think it’s time to put the jar away?”
“Did you not hear what she said? She chased my dad away.”
“I heard her say she was protecting you. Just like I’m trying to do now. Let this go before it inflicts more pain on you or anyone else.”
I step back. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“I don’t get it. You haven’t approved of this jar since day one.”
“Can you blame me? Look at the havoc it’s caused.”
“Jesus, Evan. It’s not a tsunami. It’s a jar of wishes.”
“I’m aware of what it is.”
Wes clears his throat, standing underneath a nearby streetlamp. “Sorry to bother you, but the valet’s pulled the car around. It’s blocking other cars. We should probably . . .”
“Thanks, we’re on our way.” Evan rests his hand on the small of my back and says, “C’mon, babe. Enough of this. Let’s go home.”
We reach Evan’s car and before separating toward our respective seats, he squeezes my hand as if to say, So glad we worked this out.
I glance at the Golden Lantern one last time and feel the fortune paper crisp in my palm, then climb inside his Mercedes. “I won’t do it.”
“Won’t do what?”
“Give up on the jar. If anything, I’m determined more than ever to see it through.” I click my seat belt. “Just thought you should know.”
The Someday Jar Page 15