by Lisa Yee
I love Ted.
My heart is racing.
I follow Ted to the front door. He rings the bell. After a long wait, a young woman answers. She scowls down at Ted. “Yes?”
Then she fixes her eyes on me and squints for the longest time before saying, “Oh. It’s you. Is your mother with you?”
I shake my head. This is beyond weird. My knees are weak. I reach out to lean against the door so I don’t fall over. I wish I was wearing nice clothes.
“May we come in?” Ted asks, already stepping forward.
“If you have to,” the young woman says, moving aside. She looks like a model. A mean model.
From the entryway I can see the ocean. This is like one of those houses in a magazine. Suddenly I gasp. I cannot believe what I am seeing.
The walls are covered with photos of Chessy.
There are even some of me.
“It was only a matter of time before one of you showed up.” Miss Model lights up a really skinny cigarette. “Make yourselves at home.” She looks me up and down and doesn’t even try to hide her disgust. “He should be back soon. I’m sure you’ll want to catch up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It’s been over an hour of awkwardness. Nothing like this ever happened on Nelsons Neighborhood. As Ted keeps up a monologue about how his father was twice voted Osceola Rodeo Clown of the Year, Miss Model chain-smokes and never takes her eyes off of me. My freak-out factor is so intense I’m not sure if I am even breathing.
At last, the front door opens. I brace myself.
A voice calls out, “Willow, who owns that Rolls-Royce parked in front of the house?”
The man freezes when he sees me. I do the same. Then he opens his arms and I fly into them. He hugs me tight. It feels so good, I never want to let go.
“Maybe?” he says. “Is it really you?”
“Sammy? Oh my God, it’s you!”
“Oh geez,” Miss Model says, rolling her eyes..
“Is your mother here?” Sammy asks, eagerly looking around.
“Just me,” I say apologetically. “Just me and Ted—that’s my friend Ted over there.”
Ted puts down the sculpture he was examining and strides over to shake Sammy’s hand. “Nice digs you got here, Sam.”
Sammy doesn’t know Ted, although Ted knows everything about Sammy. He’s heard me talk about him a lot. Sammy gives me another hug. He smells the same, like coffee and trees. “Maybe, it’s great to see you! Let me look at you. Wow, you’ve grown up. What are you doing in California?” He turns to Miss Model. “Get these kids something to eat, will you?”
She snuffs out her cigarette and huffs out of the room.
“Your wife?” I ask.
“Girlfriend. But you! Let’s talk about you! Maybe, you look so different.”
I touch my newly Kool-Aided hair. “I know,” I say apologetically. Suddenly I wish my hair was plain and long, and that my eyes weren’t rimmed with kohl and my lips weren’t purple.
“My Little Maybe isn’t so little anymore. Look at you, you’re almost as tall as me!”
I start to cry. Sammy always called me his Little Maybe. After Chessy divorced him the second time, I felt an emptiness that was only filled when I met Ted.
When Sammy passes Ted a box of tissues to give to me, Ted starts sobbing and making honking sounds. Then he hogs the tissues as I tell Sammy my story. I leave out the part about looking for my biological father. Somehow, I think that might make him feel funny. It makes me feel funny. And I skip the part about Jake trying to rape me. It’s not something I want to discuss. Instead, I say that Chessy and I had a huge fight, which is true.
Because he asks, I tell Sammy about Chessy and the husbands she’s had since him, only I try to make it sound like they didn’t mean anything to her. Partly because I know that’s what he wants to hear, and partly because I know that it’s true. She cried over Sammy. He was the only one she really cared for. Still, she didn’t care enough to get on a plane and fly to California. Instead, she drank herself into a deep depression that neither of us has recovered from yet.
There’s a big crash in the next room. Sammy and I look up. When did it get dark? Miss Model never did come back.
“Sam,” Ted says, strolling out of the kitchen and flipping on the lights. He’s munching on a huge sandwich. “Sorry about that jar of pickles. Hey, Sam, can Maybe stay with you for a while? She’s homeless. I’d let her stay at my mansion, but my old lady has rules.”
“Are you homeless?” Sammy asks, surprised.
“Noooo,” I say slowly. “I just don’t have any place to stay at the moment.”
“Of course you can stay here,” Sammy says. “I insist.”
Ted winks at me. It’s not such a bad option, actually. For the first time in California, something feels right. “Well, maybe just for a couple days, if it’s no trouble . . .”
“Maybe,” Sammy says, “of course it’s no trouble. If you didn’t stay here, I’d just worry about you. Do you remember how much I used to worry about you?”
I nod. One time when I was little, Chessy passed out and I wandered away. Hours later, Sammy found me. I had fallen asleep under the kiddie slide at the park. I will never forget the look of relief that crossed his face when he woke me up and carried me home.
I try not to start crying again.
“There’s just one thing,” Sammy is telling me. “You have to call your mother and let her know where you are and who you’re with.”
“I can’t do that,” I protest.
“Maybe’s run away from home. She’s supposedly living with Carla,” Ted explains. “Do you have any chips? Barbeque would be great, and dip. Did someone say ‘onion dip’?”
“Who’s Carla?” Sammy asks.
Ted shrugs. “Hell if I know.”
As Ted searches for chips and dip, Sammy plops down on the couch and rubs his forehead. He looks the same as when he lived with us. Same Levi’s and crisp white collared shirt. Same open face, same boyish looks. His hair is longer than before, almost touching his shoulders. He always did look handsome, like a surfer all grown up. I remember wishing I looked at least a little bit Chinese, so people would think he was my real dad.
Ted returns with more sandwiches, regular chips, and a pitcher of lemonade. He sets them down on the wood coffee table. There is a flower in a vase on the tray. I tune back in to hear Sammy still talking. “. . . and then if your mother says it’s okay, then it’s okay with me.”
Wordlessly, Ted flips open his cell phone and offers it to me. I hesitate and for a moment everything stops. Finally I take the phone from Ted and dial. It rings and rings until the answering machine picks up. Chessy hasn’t bothered to change the message and I hear my old Florida self say, “No one’s home. Leave a message.”
“Uh, Chessy, it’s me,” I start to say. Sammy and Ted nod encouragingly. “It’s Maybe. Your daughter. I’m in California with Ted and Hollywood. I’m staying with Sammy. Sammy Wing, your second and fourth husband. That’s all.” I hang up.
Sammy takes the phone from my hand and hits redial. “Hey Chess, Sammy here. Hope you’re doing well. Maybe’s with me. Everything’s fine. Call me, okay?” He leaves his number.
Ted looks at his Mickey Mouse watch. “This has been fun, but I gotta go. Maybe, I’ll see you tomorrow. Sam, keep in touch. Here’s my number in case our girl causes you any problems.”
“Wait, my bag’s in the car!”
As we walk to the Rolls, I ask Ted, “Why didn’t you tell me you were taking me to Sammy?”
“You would have just complained or refused to go.”
He knows me pretty well.
“How did you find him?” I ask.
“It wasn’t hard. I knew he lived in California. I knew he was a photographer. And I knew his name. So I just looked him up.”
If only finding my biological father could be that easy.
Sammy is still standing in the same spot when I return with my duffel bag. He has
a wide grin on his face. “Maybe,” he says, hugging me again.
I hug him back. When we finally let go, he asks, “Who was that kid?”
“Thammasat Tantipinichwong Schneider. Also known as Ted, or my best friend.”
“Interesting person,” Sammy notes. “He wears platform shoes?” I nod. “Was that Rolls-Royce his?”
“That’s his boss’s car. He works for Gloria de la Tour.”
“The movie star?”
“Yep.”
“The elusive Miss Gloria de la Tour,” he muses. “I thought she was dead.”
I gesture to the walls covered with portraits of Chessy. “Uh, Sammy? What’s with this?” In some photos she’s posing, looking every inch the beauty queen she once was. But the most beautiful shots are the candids, like the one of her hugging a happy little girl with pigtails and missing teeth.
“What can I say?” Sammy gives me a sheepish smile. “Some people drink, some smoke, some do drugs. I took photos of your mom.” He pauses, then adds, “I’m over that now.”
“Yeah, it would be hard to take her photograph from three thousand miles away!” Sammy laughs, but I can see a flash of sorrow on his face. Quickly, I say, “Nice place here!”
“I’m doing okay.” Sammy has always been modest. “I shoot a lot of editorials for magazines, and I’m still doing portraits. Should we eat?” he asks, pointing to the sandwiches.
Suddenly I realize I’m starving. I devour my turkey sandwich while Sammy watches. When I am done, he hands me his and I eat that too. He doesn’t criticize me for eating too much.
“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here?”
“Willow will pitch a fit, but it’s my house.” “She’ s pretty.”
“So are you,” Sammy says. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”
It makes me smile when I see that he still wears cowboy boots.
There are three levels in the house. I assume his room is upstairs. We go downstairs. Lining the walls are framed magazines. Many feature celebrities. I recognize some of the covers. “Did you shoot these?”
Sammy nods. When he pushes open the door to the guest room, I drop my duffel bag. It hits the floor with a loud thud.
There is an awkward silence.
Sammy clears his throat. “Uh, well, I’ll give you some privacy so you can unpack. I’ll put fresh towels in the bathroom. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. If I knew you were coming I would have stocked the kitchen with mint Oreos. Are they still your favorite?” I nod. “Consider this your home, Maybe. Get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
All I can do is stare at the room. I hear Sammy coming back. I whip around to face him. I have so many questions. But it’s not Sammy, it’s Willow.
“It’s freakin’ weird, isn’t it?” she mutters, then takes a long drag on her cigarette. She exhales slowly, right in my face.
As the smoke whirls around my head, I nod. It is freakin’ weird.
The room is bathed in pink. There’s a canopy bed with a white lace bedspread and purple heart-shaped pillows. The wicker rocking chair in the corner is filled with dolls and stuffed animals. A poster of Nelson B. Nelson from Nelsons Neighborhood is on the wall. In a silver frame on the dresser is a black-and-white photo of Sammy, my mother, and me taken on the day of their second wedding.
It’s a dream bedroom—for a ten-year-old girl.
I wonder what my life would have been like if I grew up in this room, overlooking the ocean, instead of above a charm school in Kissimmee.
“I’ve got some of my stuff in here,” Willow says, brushing past me. Her voice is high-pitched and slightly nasal. “But you can just move it anywhere. After all, it’s your room. It always has been.”
Before I can thank her, she’s gone.
I unpack my stuff. It doesn’t take me long. Some of the drawers are full of mini shampoo bottles and pieces of ribbon and other things you wouldn’t think you’d find in an expensive house like this. Finally I come across an empty drawer and put my clothes in it. There are wooden hangers in the closet, but I have nothing worthy enough to be hung up.
I sit on the bed, then get up immediately like it’s on fire. I don’t want to get the bedspread dirty. From the window is a view of the ocean. A full moon reflects on the water and lights up the sky.
I am on overload. Snippets of memories race forward, then fade away. I rub my temples and try to recall when I was ten. Sammy had already bought the house, this house, and our plane tickets. He gave me a red duffel bag to put my most precious belongings in—the same bag I have with me today. Chessy insisted to Sammy, “Go ahead, hon, you get things set up. Maybelline and I will pack up the apartment and close the charm school. Then we’ll join you.”
We never did make it. Well, one of us didn’t, anyway.
As I head to the bathroom, I hear Willow and Sammy upstairs.
“She’s what???”
“She’s staying here until she gets her life sorted out.”
“Oh great. And how long will that be? One day? Two? A week? A month? Forever?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know. You don’t know? How could you do this without asking me?”
“I didn’t know I needed your permission. It’s my house. Willow, she’s my daughter.”
“Your ex-stepdaughter. This is about the mother, isn’t it? You’ve never gotten over her. Look! Look around, you’ve got her photos everywhere. . . .”
I go into the bathroom and shut the door. Even here, on the other side of the country, I can’t get away from Chessy. I scrub my face until it’s red and raw. Then I head to bed, but first I open the window. The smell of the salt air surprises me, and I breathe deeply, greedily, trying to inhale as much as I can, before sinking down into the soft mattress. At last, somewhere between the sounds of Sammy and Willow arguing, and the ocean lapping the shore, I begin to drift off to sleep.
I am ten years old. Safe in my bedroom in Kissimmee. I am deliriously happy because soon I will be moving with my mother and stepfather to a new house in a new place, all our own. Even though they have been fighting a lot, I know that once we get to California, everything will be all right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sammy may be really nice, and have a trendy house, and be all artsy with his photos, but he’s still an adult. Over break-fast he lectures me as Miss Model stabs at her grapefruit half with a spoon. It’s as if the cool I-want-to-help-you Sammy has morphed into the parental-unit let’s-be-sensible Sammy.
“I spoke to your mother this morning,” he says as he pours himself a second cup of coffee. I recognize the mug. It’s the one with Snoopy dancing that I gave him on our last Christmas together. “She said you can stay.”
“Did she say anything else?” I take a bite of my French toast and try to act casual.
“That’s it.” He sounds apologetic. “How old are you now, fifteen?”
“Sixteen, almost seventeen.”
“Well, you can’t just hang out all summer. So I expect you to go out and try to get some work, or sign up for summer school, or whatever kids your age do.”
They fight off rapists, watch their mothers turn on them, and run away, I’m tempted to say. But instead I put on a smile. “Sounds like a plan!”
I can’t afford to get Sammy mad at me. He might send me home.
Sammy leaves for work. He’s shooting a portrait of a family on their Santa Barbara estate and won’t be home until late. Willow and I sit at the far ends of the table and try to ignore each other.
Something about her is familiar. I sneak glances as she scans the newspaper, circling fashion ads and drawing mustaches and tails on the models. Willow’s really skinny and tall, like supermodel tall, but she slouches. She looks a lot younger than Sammy. Her skin is translucent and her breasts are fake. Some mothers teach their daughters things like “Look both ways before you cross the street.” My mother taught me that “Big breasts on a thin girl are always bought and paid for.”
&
nbsp; Suddenly, I realize who Willow reminds me of. Blonde hair, upturned nose, big boobs . . .
I’m no longer hungry. I get up and take my dishes with me. As I pass, Willow turns the page and mutters, “Great, the Santa Anas are coming again.”
“The Santa Anas?”
“I hate the Santa Anas and so does Sammy, but they’re coming and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”
“That’s too bad,” I say, even though I still have no idea who they are. Maybe they’re clients of Sammy’s. I wonder if my being here will get in the way. I resolve to stay in my room anytime Sammy or Willow has company.
“I’m outta here,” Willow announces. She has an audition for a television commercial, something about “a breath mint so minty, it takes your breath away!”
I stare at the huge black-and-while photo on the dining room wall. Chessy is caught off guard with a towel wrapped around her head. She’s wearing her bathrobe and nothing else, not even makeup. She would die if she ever saw it, but I think that she never looked better.
I clear Willow’s dishes and start up the dishwasher. Then I sweep the kitchen. I pick up the newspaper off the floor and stare up the stairs. Since Sammy and Willow are both gone, I figure it’s safe. Still, I tiptoe.
There are two bedrooms and two more bathrooms. One bed-room has been turned into an office. Sammy’s telescope sits in the corner. I remember it from when he lived with us. We were always going to the roof to see the stars, Sammy and me. I peer through the eyepiece, but the lens is cracked and dirty and everything is out of focus. It looks like it hasn’t been used in a while.
On the desk is a computer, stacks of papers, and a photo of Chessy. There’s a photo of me on the wall. It’s the one I’ve always liked. The one where I look happy.
The second bedroom is the biggest one in the house. The bed is huge and covered with a thatched canopy, so it resembles something you’d see on a tropical island. The ceiling fan is made of what looks like bamboo and banana leaves. The master bath-room has a sunken-in tub that looks out over the ocean. There’s a walk-in closet that’s bigger than my room at home. Most of it is filled with Willow’s clothes. One entire wall is lined with shoes.