All That's True

by Jackie Lee Miles

  “Maybe later,” I tell her. Bridget escorts her out the bedroom door and closes it.

  Ashley knocks twice and opens it right back up. “Can I come in?”

  Bridget has just shown her out of the room. Does that tell you what a problem this kid is, or what? Not that I’m not willing to give her a chance, but I only have three days. I’m not willing to waste them on Ashley, who cried at the airport because her mother wouldn’t let her sit in the back seat with me and Bridget. And then at dinner she insisted that she sit between us and Bridget’s Aunt Ellen said it would be okay. So, I’m thinking that Ashley’s trying hard to muscle in on our time together, which makes me mad, because it’s very limited. Plus, Bridget doesn’t much like her either, so Ashley is hardly going to be on my good side. She whines a lot when she doesn’t get her way. Bridget suggested instead of cooking that we go to McDonald’s for dinner the next night.

  “Pig out on some junk food for once. You’re always cooking us nutritional meals so it probably won’t hurt,” Bridget points out.

  And her Aunt Ellen says, “That’s true.”

  And Ashley stomps her feet and says, “I want to go to Golden Krust!”

  Golden Krust it is. Bridget’s Aunt Ellen is always giving in to Ashley. At least the food’s good. They have hamburger wraps filled with seasoned meat, sort of Jamaican style, and a lot of other stuff to choose from, like curly-Q fries and cheese nuggets. But the point is Ashley gets what Ashley wants and that part is annoying.

  After dinner we play Sorry. Ashley cries whenever she’s losing, which is almost every other throw of the dice. Finally Bridget says, “Look, either keep playing and be a good sport or just quit!”

  Her Aunt Ellen comes into the room and says, “What’s going on?” Bridget does her best to explain that Ashley is being a poor sport. Aunt Ellen says, “Well, she hasn’t had much practice at this game. You need to give her a few extra turns until she gets the hang of it.”

  So you see what I mean about Ashley. Her mother is a big enabler for most everything that’s wrong with her. But do you think she looks at it like that? Forget it, she thinks Ashley is perfect. This is the main reason I don’t like Bridget’s Aunt Ellen. She plays favorites. Now the boys, that’s a different matter altogether. Take when they were brushing their teeth. Mostly they were just spitting on each other’s head, but still they shouldn’t have to go to bed and not watch television. That’s just boy stuff, but Ellen comes up and sees what’s going on and sends them straight to bed. Ashley could spit on her father and Ellen would say, “Don’t worry, darling, it’s just a phase.” She’d kiss the top of Ashley’s head and give her second helpings of pizza.

  One of the things we did that was really fun was play miniature golf at this course that has waterfalls, Zuma Fun Center. Ashley had a meltdown every time she hit the ball. For the most part, she knocked it into the next hole. Well, not in the hole, but in the playing field for that hole. Her father tried to explain that she was swinging the club too hard, but do you think that helped? Take one guess. So the entire time the rest of us are having fun trying to get our ball into the hole with the least strokes possible—and not doing that good of a job of it I might add—Ashley is crying and carrying on that there’s something wrong with her club or her ball.

  “This isn’t fair!” she says. “I can’t play with this club.”

  “Let me see that club,” Ellen says. She takes it from Ashley and gives it a good shake. “You know,” she says, “I think Ashley’s right. It’s out of balance or something.” She hands the club back to Ashley. “Just do the best you can, honey, and don’t worry about the score. We won’t count the ones that go over par by more than two. How’s that?”

  It must be fine, because Ashley doesn’t complain for the rest of the game. But you can see that her mother is the big problem here, and all that means in the future is big trouble. Like maybe Ashley is turning into a serial killer. When she’s fully grown, I can hear her mother, “Are you sure darling? You just have to kill her? Well, okay, then, sweetie, chop away, but I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see it, okay?”

  We could be talking lethal injection here. But Bridget’s Aunt Ellen doesn’t see it that way. Bottom line, Ashley’s a pain and her mother is useless. The boys aren’t so bad. In fact, they’re doing fine on miniature golf. Actually, they’re not playing that well, but it doesn’t bother them, they just keep swinging and laughing and their father marks down the number of swings they take and we move on to the next hole, which is how the game should be played, without any complaints.

  We hit the bumper cars next. Abner is tall enough to operate one on his own, but Adam rides with me. Bridget and Ashley ride in another, which is too bad. I really want to crash into Ashley, which means I’ll get Bridget at the same time. It turns out I don’t have to worry about that. Abner is very good at bumper cars. I spend all my time just trying to stay away from him, but he always manages to bash right into us. Adam thinks it’s hysterical, but the truth is my neck is starting to hurt and my hands are numb from hanging on to the wheel so tight. I’m glad when our time is up. We got half an hour. The batting cage is our last stop. Bridget and I missed a lot of the balls pitched at us, but managed to slam a few good ones. It’s kind of addictive. The more times you swing the more times you want to. We had a great time. Except for the part where Ashley missed all the balls pitched to her and had another meltdown—which, of course, did not surprise me. Ashley spent the whole day being Ashley, but the boys were real good sports and lots of fun to be around. It’s like they came from a different family.

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  My mother and Dr. Armstrong pick me up at the airport. He is driving a convertible that has a cute little seat in back barely big enough to hold me. The car is bright red and he has the top down. My mother’s hair looks like a bird’s nest. Soon my own hair is sailing behind me like a flag flying in the wind. But who cares? It’s totally exhilarating. I want to call out, “Faster, faster.”

  Dr. Armstrong’s wife died of cancer when his children were still at home. My mother says it’s when he started drinking and almost lost his practice.

  “Is that when he joined AA?” I ask.

  My mother nods her head. “It saved his life.”

  Not to mention those of his children. He has three. They’re all grown. Two boys and one girl. They came over last weekend so we could all get acquainted. Still, my mother insists it’s nothing. She is not getting serious.

  “He’s moving a bit too fast,” she insists. “I’m going to have to let him know I’m not interested in a relationship at this time.”

  If this is the case, she better get busy and tell him. He acts like they’re going together. He’s always draping his arm around her shoulder. Then he winks and smiles like they have a special secret. Maybe they do. Maybe they’re sleeping together even though my mother insists she’s not interested in pursuing a relationship. Maybe it’s just a sex thing for her. After all, they’re grown-ups, so that’s to be expected, the sex part. So much has changed—my father marrying Donna, Bridget living in another state, Henry dead, Beth happy and busy with law school, my mother maybe having a lover. Life just keeps sending curve balls with no warning.

  My mother has a few curve balls of her own. She’s decided not to go to the south of France with Vivian. “I need to concentrate on my program,” she says.

  Dr. Armstrong slows down for a bend in the road. He turns around and yells, “You doing okay, Andi?” What little hair he has on top is zigzagging in the wind.

  He’s a very nice man. I think about him being left to care for his children when his wife died from cancer. No wonder he started drinking. There’s a girl, Libby, at school whose mother has some kind of terminal illness. She’s in my gym class and overnight she’s changed from being happy-go-lucky to being so sad it hurts to look at her face. Mr. Larsen, the gym teacher tries to be extra nice to her. He gives her lots of help on the parallel bars and pats her back a lot. Mr. Larson w
ears baggie cardigans and puts his hand in his pockets a lot so the pockets are all stretched out and they look like they still have his hands tucked in them, even when his hands are actually by his side. He calls everyone kiddo. When Libby misses the ball three times during volleyball he says, “Listen, kiddo, come up under the ball. Go up to meet it. And then go up under it. Okay, kiddo?”

  You really can’t be mad at that, when a teacher calls you kiddo when he’s correcting you.

  But I can be plenty mad at my father. He’s turned all of our lives upside down. He’s coming over tonight to pick me up. He has something important he wants to tell me. Maybe he and Donna eloped. Maybe they’re not going to Mallorca after all, which would be fine with me. I don’t really want to go anyway.

  I’m watching out the window and spot his car as it pulls into the driveway. Donna is in the passenger seat. My father toots and I grab my sweater. Most likely he’ll head to a restaurant and some of them have the air conditioner on too low. It’s like standing in a grocery store in front of the frozen foods.

  My father waves and grins and gets out and opens the door to the back seat. I climb in and nod at Donna.

  “Hello, Andi,” she says. “How was your trip?”

  We spend a few minutes going over the details and then my father clears his throat and says, “How about we head over to Chopstix?”

  What did I tell you?—another restaurant. But it’s okay with me. They didn’t serve lunch on the plane except in first class and I’m hungry.

  Chopstix is an upscale Chinese restaurant. Inside, the walls are lined with mirrors and there are these velvet banquette benches all along the walls with fancy table settings placed in front of them, sort of what you’d expect in New York. And the food is good, too. A little fancy, but very tasty.

  Once we’re seated and the waiter has taken our order my father gets a very serious look on his face. Here it comes. He’s going to tell me to say hello to my new stepmother.

  “Andi,” he says and folds his hands in front of him and leans them against his dinner plate. Donna sits quietly by. She has a half-smile on her face. The kind when you want to look friendly, but not silly. She’s wearing a black pantsuit that has a square neckline. It’s very attractive on her. It looks like something Audrey Hepburn would have worn. Bridget and I watched her biography on television the last night of my visit, while Ashley and the boys went to bed. Donna’s wearing a strand of pearls. Definitely an Audrey Hepburn look. I bet my father gave those to her. He was always big on pearls when it came to my mother.

  I look up at my father and wait to hear whatever he has to say. Not that I’m anxious to hear it. Lately, whatever he has to say has been bad news for me. And I notice he seems very nervous which is making me even more nervous. Maybe this is not about them being married at all. Maybe he has a terminal disease. A lump gathers in my throat. I realize that no matter what he’s done with Donna, I still love him and want him around.

  “Andi,” he says again.

  “What is it?” I lean in closer to the table.

  And then he just blurts it out.

  “Donna and I are going to have a baby. We’re going to be married in a private ceremony this Saturday.” He sits quietly, waiting for my reaction.

  I don’t have one. I’m in shock. My shoulders slump. I hadn’t counted on this and I don’t know what to think. Mostly I think I’m mad. I’m breathing deeply and there’s a familiar anger gathering in my chest like when Alex died. The kind of anger where you know you can’t do anything about it and you want to and you want to blame someone but you don’t know who to blame, except this time I do know. I blame my father. Donna didn’t get pregnant all by herself. My father’s a skunk. It’s bad enough that he leaves my mother and decides to marry Donna. Now he’s starting a brand new family. He probably won’t care about me anymore. I’m being replaced.

  I get up from the table and head to the restroom as fast as I can. The napkin on my lap flutters to the floor. Normally, I would lean over and pick it up and place it back on the table. It’s the proper thing to do, but at the moment I no longer care what’s proper, so I ignore it and continue on to the ladies’ room. I hope it’s empty so I can sit in a stall with no one around. I don’t want anyone to witness how badly I’m falling apart.

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  At least school is going okay. I got most of the classes I wanted and just one that I didn’t, geometry. I hate math. But the teacher, Mr. Blakely, jokes around a lot and tries hard to make angles and variables interesting. He lists the equations we’re to solve on the chalkboard and puts smiley faces next to where the answer should be.

  Something else nice happened. I met a girl who just moved here from Texas. We hit it off right away. Her name is Julia. She has long dark hair and eyes as big as pancakes. She has this habit of saying, “Well, wouldn’t you know?” She nods her head when she says it and you realize she’s really listening to you. Like, when I told her my father left my mother and didn’t give us any real warning. She said, “Well, wouldn’t you know?”

  Don’t ask me why I told her such a personal thing. I’d just met her, but there’s something about her that makes you want to confide in her. She loops her arm through mine and says her parents are divorced, too.

  “I live with my mother and my stepfather,” she says. “And he’s a jerk, wouldn’t you know?”

  Now I sort of have a new best friend. Not that she’ll really take Bridget’s place but I figure there’s no problem with making new friendships. I hope Bridget is making some, too. It doesn’t look like her father is coming back for her anytime soon, so it would help for her to have a good support system with friends to lean on.

  Julia and I are going to the mall on Sunday. It’ll have to be after Mass. But that’s okay. The mall doesn’t open on Sunday until noon. And they’ve opened an indoor skating rink. We’re going to give it a try.

  “Think we’ll meet any cool guys?” she says and her eyebrows go up and down.

  I tell her about what happened to me and Bridget on the cruise ship and she giggles. “You’re lucky you’re not grounded for life. My mother would have put me in a convent.”

  I tell her about the Angels program at the nursing home and ask her if she’d like to help out.

  “I’ve signed up again,” I say. “At first I didn’t think I would like it. But then I had this great old couple I would read to and it kind of grows on you. Want to give it a try?”

  She says, “Why not?” And then I realize she could be part of Table Grace, too and help out at the boutique. “You don’t get any extra credit at school or anything,” I explain, “but it really makes you feel good inside. Wait ’til you see the look on some of the girls’ faces when they get complete outfits! One girl broke down and cried, she was so happy.”

  “Wouldn’t you know?” Julia says. “I’ve only been here two weeks and I have a full schedule already.”

  She grins and loops her arm through mine again and we head to the lunchroom. She picks out a table loaded with boys. “Hey, want some company?” she says. They shrug their shoulders. They scoot over a bit and we sit down. Julia doesn’t waste any time. In five minutes she manages to get all of their names and what classes they’re taking.

  ***

  Julia and I don’t get on the bus. We decide to walk home. We’re not supposed to do that, but it’s a beautiful fall day and we don’t care that we’re breaking the rules. At least, Julia doesn’t and that makes me extra brave.

  We’re having what my mother calls an early fall. The trees are showing their colors early. They’re dripping in shades of orange and yellow and red. When we get to my house the lawn is peppered with leaves. We no longer have a gardener. Now that Henry’s gone, my mother can’t bear to replace him. She hires a service instead. They come once a week and do their thing. The truck is now parked in our circular driveway. It’s towing a long trailer with all sorts of equipment dumped in the back. Personal Touch Lawn Care is etched on the panel of the
pick-up. There’s a stocky man in khakis blowing the leaves on our front yard. He’s gathered them into a big pile off to the side of the house. Julia looks at me and winks. She sets her book bag down and makes a run for the pile. I watch as she throws herself into the stack. She gathers up as many of the leaves as both her hands can hold and throws them over her head. They rain down on her, sticking to her hair and her sweater. It looks like too much fun not to join her and I make a mad dash for the pile. By now the nicely stacked pile is a total mess. I run through the leaves and plop down beside her. The mass of leaves is like a blanket of giant cornflakes beneath us. We roll around and around. We’re being totally stupid, but we don’t care. The man blowing the leaves stops and scratches his head. I don’t think he knows what to think of us. The front door opens. It’s my mother. Rudy bounds out the open door.

  “Andi?” my mother calls as Rudy comes over to join us. Dogs know instinctively what to do with a pile of fresh fallen leaves. Rudy happily rolls over and over beside us. His tongue is long and lazy, lolling out of his mouth.

  “Here, boy!” I say and gather him in my arms. His coat of hair is covered with broken bits of leaves and twigs. He barks twice, and leaps from my arms. He runs in circles around us. He’s having a grand time. Julia and I stand up and brush at the leaves covering our clothing. She is laughing and stomping at the leaves still under her feet.

  I can’t help but laugh at the sight before us myself. The neatly blown pile of leaves is no longer a neatly blown pile of leaves. The lawn man is still standing with his blower still blowing. My mother is at the front door shaking her head. It’s a glorious day. We’ve made a big mess. But it’s so much fun. Rudy is in dog heaven. If only life could always be so carefree.

  Chapter Seventy

  Julia is talking non-stop about her father.