by Ingrid Ricks
“Okay. I want to schedule it,” Mom said in a determined voice.
I was floating when we walked out of the office. I didn’t know how Mom was going to afford it, but I couldn’t ask because I didn’t want to risk changing her mind.
“Thank you so much, Mom,” I said, hugging her for the first time since she’d married Earl. “This means so much to me.”
Mom hugged me back and I felt her tears on my neck. “I’m glad I can do this for you,” she said.
A week later, Mom took me for the procedure. When the stitches were removed, the thick scar was gone, replaced with a thin, jagged line. The doctor was right. When I smiled, the scar wasn’t even noticeable.
I felt pretty again and could actually stand to look at myself in the mirror. I also felt reconnected to Mom. But her kindness couldn’t begin to counter Earl, and I was already making plans for my summer with Dad. I didn’t ask Mom for permission to go with him anymore. It was now a given that as soon as school got out, I would be with him.
Dad’s tool business had fizzled during the school year and he was back on the road selling tools with his revolving sales crew. He had recently moved out of his Salt Lake City office and had given up the mobile home he was renting; but he was still dating Rhonda and came to Utah every few weeks to visit her and see my siblings and me.
In May, Dad stopped by to tell us he and Rhonda had gotten married.
“Can you believe it? Now I’ve got three more daughters,” he said with a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t know how I’m going to survive with all the estrogen floating around me. But I’m pretty sure Natalie’s fine with it. She just talked me into buying her a horse.”
Dad’s words stung. The only present he had ever bought me was the jade bracelet he gave me when he and Mom were getting divorced. How could he buy her a horse?
I tried to swallow my jealousy and convince myself that it was important for Dad to build a good relationship with Natalie. But Connie couldn’t hide her devastation.
“Well, can I have a horse too?” she blurted. She looked like the air had been knocked out of her, and for the first time I could remember, I actually thought she was going to cry. Connie had fantasized of a horse ever since the one time Dad took her riding when she was five.
If Dad noticed Connie’s heartache, he didn’t show it.
“You got the car,” he replied with a shrug, referring to the navy blue, two-door Honda Civic hatchback he had given her a few months before. “I’d say that’s the better end of the deal.”
Dad rarely gave Mom money for child support. He justified it by arguing that he didn’t want to support Earl. Instead, he decided that when each of us kids turned sixteen, he would give us a car. The car, Dad said, would belong just to us and would help set us free from the hell at home.
Connie loved her car. The only problem was that Mom needed a reliable car for work. Mom traveled as much as fifty miles a day visiting patients in their homes around the valley. Her junked up Impala was constantly breaking down and got horrible gas mileage. When she realized that Connie’s Honda got thirty miles to the gallon, she asked if she could use it.
Connie didn’t want to give up her prize possession. But she knew Mom needed it so she reluctantly agreed—meaning that her car was actually only hers on the weekend.
Connie didn’t explain the car situation to Dad. And she never mentioned the horse again. She just tucked away the hurt deep inside herself, like she always did, and continued on with her life.
Nine years later, she was rushed to the hospital with a perforated ulcer and had to undergo emergency surgery to patch the hole in her stomach. The doctor who operated on her said he had never seen an ulcer that had eaten itself all the way through the stomach lining in someone so young. He warned Connie that if she didn’t stop internalizing her pain and stress, she would die.
CHAPTER 11
DAD PICKED ME up the morning after school let out and said we were headed to Rhonda’s house, where we would stay for a day or two before leaving for Dallas, Texas.
Texas was where he had decided to set up his new business headquarters.
“Let me tell you something, Ingrid,” Dad said as we drove the ninety miles from Logan to Salt Lake City. “That’s where the money is and that’s where I’m gonna get rich.”
Dad explained that a huge oil boom was going on in the Midwest and said boom towns were popping up everywhere. The best part of that, he said, was that migrant workers were coming up from Mexico to work the oil rigs and were easy prospects.
“I’ve got my whole sales crew out there working the boom towns and you wouldn’t believe how the money is flying. It’s like the gold rush they had in California in the 1800s. It’s crazy.”
Dad reached over and patted my leg. He was clearly on a high and his mood was infectious.
“So do you want to hear how your daddy is capitalizing on it all? Here’s what I do, Ingrid. I go to the Dallas/Fort Worth area—that’s where all these wholesale tool warehouses are located—and I stock up on a bunch of tools and give them to my guys on consignment. Then they go work these boom towns and oil rigs throughout Kansas and Oklahoma and a few days later, they return with a pile of cash and I restock them. And I always figure in a ten to fifteen percent margin for myself for supplying them with the tools.”
“That’s great, Dad,” I said, feeling his excitement. “Sounds like a perfect set-up.”
“Let me tell you something, Ingrid, it really is the perfect set-up. See this way I don’t have to carry an inventory like I did when I was working here in Utah. That was my problem. Plus I had to pay for shipping costs. Now I’ve cut out all of that expense. I just give the guys tools on consignment, wait until they are running low, and then use the money from the sales to buy more tools.
“Can you imagine how fast that money can add up?” he continued. “I tell you what, Ingrid, I know I’ve said it before, but your daddy is going to be a millionaire someday. And at the rate we’re going, it’s going to happen sooner than you think.”
I was so happy to be free of Earl and the suffocating rules in our house that just being in the truck with Dad was enough to make me want to start shouting hallelujahs out the window. But Dad’s story about all the money flying in Texas had my heart pounding.
“I always knew you could do it,” I said, sliding over on the vinyl bench seat so I could give him a squeeze. “Texas sounds incredible. I can’t wait to get there.”
We made it to Salt Lake City and headed for Rhonda’s house, a beige split-level located in a run-down neighborhood on the south side of the city. I was nervous about camping out at a stranger’s house and I worried about how Dad’s new marriage would interfere with our time together. I was also nervous about how I would get along with Rhonda’s daughters. But within a few hours, I relaxed. Rhonda was quiet, but nice to me and didn’t seem at all possessive of Dad. And her daughters weren’t even around. When I asked Dad about it, he said Natalie was staying at a friend’s house but would fly out to Texas with Rhonda in a couple of weeks, after he and I got established.
“Andrea and Dana both live with their boyfriends so they won’t be coming,” he added. “I’ll tell you something, Ingrid. I’m sure glad you don’t have boyfriends yet. It’s their life, but in my book, they are way too young to be shacking up with guys.”
Within a couple of days, Dad and I were on our way. I hadn’t left the state since our move to Mississippi in the third grade and couldn’t wait to hit the road.
Before pulling out of the driveway, Dad handed me a road atlas and said I could be the navigator.
“We’re a team, you know,” he said as we turned onto the interstate. “I might be the one behind the wheel, but you’re the one who’s going to figure out how to get us there.”
I knew Dad had driven the route plenty of times, but I was proud to have a job to do and took it seriously. I took out a pencil and carefully plotted our route down through New Mexico and the Texas panhandle.
�
�So tell me about Dallas,” I prodded as we drove, searching through the music stations on the truck radio.
“Oh, it’s something else, Ingrid. There are so many buildings and skyscrapers it makes Salt Lake City look like nothing. See it’s not just one big city, there’s two of them. Dallas is the big city but Fort Worth is only fifteen miles away and it’s a pretty good-sized city on its own. The airport that sits between the two of them is so big it’s like a little city in itself.”
Dad and I drove until it was late and spent the night at a roadside motel in Amarillo, Texas.
The next afternoon, we made it to the Dallas area.
Though Dad had described it, I couldn’t hide the rush I felt as I took in the city buzz around me. Glass skyscrapers were everywhere and the highways that looped through the city were so packed with cars it almost made me dizzy.
“So what do you think, Ingrid? Think you can make this your home for awhile?”
“YES!” I almost shouted. “Definitely.”
“Well, that’s good. Because I’m going to need your help picking us out a place to live.”
Dad looped around the city so I could get an up-close look. But instead of staying in the downtown area, he headed to Arlington, a connector town located between Dallas and Fort Worth. As soon as we arrived, he found a Motel 6 for us to check into and purchased a local paper from the newspaper vending machine.
Then we headed to our room.
“What do you say we start planning our future,” Dad said, handing me the paper and a pen he pulled out from his shirt pocket.
“Why don’t you look through the rental section and circle all the apartments that look good to you. Just make sure that it has at least two bedrooms and doesn’t cost more than four hundred dollars a month. That’s our maximum budget.”
I couldn’t believe Dad trusted me to help find a place to live. I looked up and saw him smiling at me.
“Like I told you, we’re a team,” he said. “Your opinion is every bit as important as mine. And I know you’ll make sure we have something that Rhonda and Natalie are going to like. You’ve got a better understanding of female tastes.”
“That’s for sure.” I replied with a laugh.
I plopped down on one of the double beds, spread open the newspaper to the classifieds, and began combing through the “For Rent” ads, looking for apartments that had at least two bedrooms and a swimming pool. One thing I had already discovered about Dallas—it was scorching hot. And the air had so much humidity in it that just walking from Dad’s pickup to the room had made me sweat.
I knew a swimming pool was going to feel nice to all of us. Plus I was already thinking about all the fun Natalie and I were going to have once she arrived.
I spent the next hour scouring the ads and circling the ones that sounded good while Dad headed to a nearby payphone to make some calls to his sales crew. When he returned to the room, I had ten possibilities.
“Look at that,” Dad said, glancing through my selections. “I knew I was in good hands with you.”
Dad checked out the addresses on the apartment complexes I had found and eliminated six of them because the locations weren’t right. That left us four possibilities.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” he said, jumping up from the bed. “Let’s go check them out.”
On the way to the truck, he stopped by the lobby soda machine and bought a couple of Sugar Free Dr Peppers. It was Dad’s favorite and was quickly becoming my favorite too.
“This will give us the extra kick we need,” he said, tossing one my way.
We stopped by a gas station for a street map and began making our way to the apartments. Even from the outside, we could tell we didn’t like the first apartment complex. The lawn was brown and overgrown, and Dad said that was the first sign of problems. But as soon as we reached the second one and pulled into the complex parking lot, we both knew we had found our home.
“Well, this is nice,” Dad said, taking in the acres of green, landscaped lawns. “I’d say it’s beautiful, wouldn’t you? Why don’t we take a walk around?”
The apartment complex looked new, with several buildings sprawled across the green grass. Automatic sprinklers were going off everywhere and I thought it must cost them a fortune to keep the grass so green. Dad loved the palm trees that dotted the grounds, making it look like a tropical island. But what caught my attention was the enormous outdoor swimming pool with a diving board that sat in the center courtyard. It was surrounded by lounge chairs, and a few residents were lying out on them with a book or a drink. Next to the pool was a tennis court. It was what I imagined a luxury hotel would look like.
“This place is so perfect!” I shouted, running over to the pool to take a closer look. “I hope they have a two-bedroom left. I hope, I hope, I hope. And I hope they’ll rent it to us.”
I was on such a high I was almost dizzy.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Ingrid,” Dad said, chuckling. “If they’ve got an apartment available, it’s ours. Nobody can say no to me. Don’t you know that about your daddy by now?”
We headed back to the main parking lot and found a set of glass doors with the word “office” stenciled on it. The woman smiled warmly at us when we walked in and asked us if we would like a tour of the two bedroom apartment she had available. An hour later, Dad and I walked out with the keys and a rental agreement.
We relaxed that night and checked out of our motel the following morning. Now that we had our housing nailed down, Dad said it was time to search for office space. Dad hadn’t said so the day before, but one of the things he had liked about our new apartment was that it was close to several strip malls and he had seen a couple of “For Lease” signs while we were driving by them.
That’s where we headed, and by noon Dad had secured office space at a small strip-mall storefront located two blocks from a movie theater. It was also less than a mile from our new apartment.
“You know what I think, Ingrid?” Dad said as we climbed back into the truck. “I think you’re good luck. That’s what I think.”
I laughed. It was hard to believe that only a few days before, I was sitting at the dinner table waiting for Earl to allow me to speak. The change was so night and day it was like I had entered another planet.
Dad and I headed to a nearby McDonald’s for a lunch break. Afterward we went to Kmart to load up on house and office supplies. When we entered the store, Dad motioned for me to grab a shopping cart. He grabbed one as well.
“We’re probably going to need another basket before it’s all through, but why don’t you get started on bedding and dishes while I hunt down office supplies.”
I loved shopping with Dad. He gave me free reign over the household department and agreed with anything I chose. Whenever I asked him what he thought of something, he put it back on me.
“If you like it, that’s all that matters,” he said. “You’re the boss.”
By the end of our shopping trip, I had picked out sheets, blankets, towels, shower curtains, pillows, dishes, and a variety of kitchen cleaning supplies. Along with office supplies, Dad picked out a small TV set so we had some entertainment.
The next day, while I was busy getting the apartment set up, Dad purchased a queen-size mattress and metal bed frame for him and Rhonda. He also picked up a couple of foam mats for Natalie and me, and said we could use those for a while until he had the money to buy real beds for us.
Rhonda and Natalie arrived at the end of the week. Natalie was five foot seven—a good five inches taller than me—and had a perfect, thin body and long, dark hair. I knew from what Dad told me that she had a lot more experience in everything than I did. She had tasted alcohol and had already been on dates—something I wasn’t allowed to do until I turned sixteen.
I wasn’t sure how we would get along, but we hit it off immediately.
“Why don’t we pretend we’re sisters?” Natalie suggested that evening as we headed to the swimming pool. “I mean, we pra
ctically are.”
Natalie and I spent the next two weeks living like we were at some tropical vacation resort. Most mornings, we got up around 9 a.m., ate breakfast, and then headed to the swimming pool for a few hours while Dad and Rhonda were at the office. In the afternoon, the two of us lounged around the apartment watching TV. In the evening, we helped Rhonda make dinner and then headed back to the pool or relaxed in front of the television set with Dad and Rhonda.
I was just getting used to my new leisure lifestyle when Rhonda received a phone call notifying her that Andrea had been rushed to the hospital with a tubal pregnancy. The next morning, we drove her and Natalie to the airport so they could catch a flight back to Utah.
“Well, Ingrid, I sure wasn’t counting on that expense, I’ll tell you that,” Dad muttered as we headed from the airport to the office.
I hadn’t spent much time with Dad during the two weeks that Natalie and Rhonda were in town and hadn’t realized how bad our money situation had become. As soon as we arrived at the office, Dad began making calls to the three guys on his sales crew. I didn’t have to overhear much to get the picture.
“Now you listen to me,” Dad yelled into the phone. “I have got to get some money in here. Do you realize what kind of expenses I’ve got to cover? I’ve fronted you all of these tools and need the sales so I can keep things afloat. If you’re not going to sell anything, give my merchandise back to me and I’ll find someone who will!”
Dad spent the afternoon pacing through his office. That evening, he announced that we were heading out on the road to sell.
“I guess they can’t sell without me showing them how it’s done,” Dad fumed. “So I better head out there and set an example.”
As much as I had been enjoying my time at the apartment, I was always up for an adventure, and hitting the road sounded like fun. When I asked Dad what we were going to do about the apartment and office, he said we’d just keep them both and use them as our base when we came back to Texas to restock on merchandise.