by Carol Weston
Nice to know that while some changes were permanent, others were reversible.
I considered unloading my worries: What if I miss my friends? What if Dad and Kate break up? What if Sam and I break up? What if the teachers don’t think I’m smart? What if Alexa turns people against me?
Instead, I stayed quiet—and Dad opened up.
“When I was a boy, we had a porch swing like this,” he began. “Sometimes, after dinner, I’d look out and see a little red light. That red light was my green light, because it meant my dad was outside smoking a cigar, so I’d go sit with him. Father and son.”
It was good to be sitting with my dad, father and daughter. He always spoke fondly of his father; he too had been a doctor, a general practitioner in Katonah. I was sorry I never got to meet him.
I wondered how Dad had managed to accept his dad’s death, how so many people manage, generation after generation.
But I knew the answer: You can’t mourn forever. When you’re alive, you have to live.
• • •
Kate pointed to a hamper in the upstairs bathroom. “Dirty clothes go here.”
“Really?”
She laughed. “Really.”
I’d been doing my own laundry for fifteen months. Mine and Dad’s. Mrs. Morris in 6C had explained how to operate the basement machines and had told me to “hoard quarters.” She’d said to separate lights from darks, put in towels and heavy items first, and empty all pockets. “No pens, no makeup, no gum.”
It was only after Mom died that Dad and I understood how many jobs Mom did besides teaching. At first, neighbors brought food, but before long, our fridge and pantry grew bare. Pepper ran out of cat food. The printer ran out of paper. The shower ran out of shampoo. Only the laundry basket got fuller and fuller.
When Dad and I finally realized that elves weren’t going to pick up where Mom had left off, I volunteered to be in charge of laundry, and Dad said he’d vacuum and grocery shop.
Now Kate was offering to do our laundry? Score! I felt guilty and giddy. “I like to fold,” I said. “I used to help my mom when I was little.” I told her that Mom and I would take opposite ends of the sheets, fluff them, then step toward each other, meeting in the middle to match up corners. “It was like a dance.”
“It is like a dance!” Kate agreed. “I used to help my mother with sheets too, right in this very house. I always thought of ‘London Bridge.’”
“Do you have any clothes that need folding?” I offered.
“I bet I do,” Kate said.
As we headed to her laundry room, I asked, “Have you talked to Alexa yet?”
“No, but I called again, and the coordinator got back to me. He said the hikers are deep in the woods, ‘unreachable and far from civilization,’ and that I should let her enjoy her independence. He said that Alexa had told the group leader that she was getting a ride home from Logan with Victoria’s dad.”
“That saves you a trip to Boston.”
“Yeah, but I was looking forward to the one-on-one,” she admitted. “The coordinator also went on and on about some high-maintenance mom who flew in on a private plane to bring her daughter acne pills. He said his program wasn’t ‘a coddling American camp’ with camp cams and daily blog posts for helicopter parents.” She looked at me. “He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him.”
“He can’t lecture you about parenting! Doesn’t he know you’re an expert?”
“A wimp too.” She frowned. “But I do have a plan.”
• • •
Dad and I were driving back to the city, and I said, “Dad, you’ve got to talk to Kate. In three days, we’re moving in! In five, Alexa comes back! She’s going to blow a gasket when she finds my toothbrush in her bathroom.”
“Common sense is an uncommon gift, and Katie has it in spades. But right now, she’s being remiss.”
Remiss? Try moronic! “That’s putting it mildly,” I said, frustrated with both of them. Then I added, “But she did say she has a plan.”
“She told me she ‘took action.’” Dad said that Kate asked the main office to ask Alexa to call home. “She said she didn’t want to alarm her, so she told them not to use the word ‘emergency.’”
“That’s taking action?”
“No, but last night, she said, ‘I’m a writer, for God’s sakes,’ and then she spent hours composing a letter. She sent it to the main office and asked them to forward it to Alexa’s group leader.”
“It’s about time.”
“True.”
“Dad, you know her dad’s gay, right?”
“Katie told me.”
“Sam told me. I had no idea. What’d she say?”
“That she and Bryan are better as friends than spouses, and that theirs was a ‘happy marriage’ but not a ‘real marriage.’ She said I’d like him. His partner is also named Brian, but with an I, so everyone calls them the Bryans. Oh, and they’re engaged. Katie said that at first Alexa did not like the extra attention from her peers, but she adores Brian—the partner—and sometimes refers to him as her ‘fairy godfather.’” He shook his head. “She’s a pistol, that kid.”
“Where do they live?”
“Chelsea. He’s a freelance videographer. Katie said he does weddings as well as sports and theater videos for schools. They also do travel assignments.”
“Sounds cool.”
“Yeah, well, apparently, when Alexa learned what I do, she told her mom, ‘So Dad couldn’t deal with women’s bodies and this guy can’t get enough of them?’”
“Signature Alexa.”
“She also said she was the only person she knew whose parents both had boyfriends.”
I had to laugh. “What’d Kate say?”
“That you never know about people’s private lives.”
“Remember what Mom used to say? ‘Cada familia es un mundo.’”
“‘Every family is a world’?” Dad ventured.
“Yeah. I’m not sure I ever got it before, how complicated everything is.”
“Well, your mom did. At parent-teacher conferences, she saw a lot of families from the inside, even high-profile ones.”
I nodded.
“I’ve been reading Katie’s columns,” Dad continued. “Maybe there’s no such thing as ‘a normal childhood.’”
“Maybe not.”
We drove under the George Washington Bridge, and I was amazed at how fast the trip had gone. Had Dad and I really been talking the entire way home?
“Alexa’s childhood couldn’t have been easy,” he added.
“No,” I agreed. “And right now, she’s a happy camper who’s in for a shock.”
• • •
Pepper was not a happy camper. He was meowing more than ever, asking about his favorite blankets and cushions.
On moving day, he paced. He still had his kibble, water, and litter box as well as the occasional fly to chase. But he kept looking at me as if to ask, What’s going on?
“Come here, scaredy cat.” I picked him up, then sat with him on the floor in a diamond of sunlight. I petted him until he started to purr. He was shedding up a storm.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “In your new home, there’s a fat old cat named Coconut, and you two are going to get along great, you’ll see. You’ve been a city kitty, and your world is about to get a whole lot bigger.”
Pepper purred, clueless.
I hoped he could handle the transition. Halsey Tower was the only home he’d ever known, and he’d never even tried to sneak out the front door.
“The end of one chapter,” I told him, “is the beginning of the next.” Dad had said those very words to me that morning, our last in my childhood home. He’d placed a pound of coffee and a welcome note on the counter for the young family who was about to take our place in 5C.
The buzzer sounded, and Pepper arched his back and jumped sideways. Dad pressed the button, and soon, three burly men wearing matching black Movers Not Shakers T-shirts entered our apartment. Pepper puffed himself up like a Halloween cat, but the movers, unfazed, started packing up the remaining furniture. Pepper hightailed it to my bedroom.
Too late. My canopy bed was already gone. There was no place to hide.
August
Kiki and Sam helped me turn Kate’s guest room into my bedroom. We unpacked boxes, shelved books, hung my mom’s oval mirror, and lined up photos on my bureau. One was of my parents standing back-to-back when Dad was very skinny and Mom was very pregnant. (Dad says you can’t be “very pregnant”—you either are or you’re not.) Another was of Kiki, Alexa, and me jumping off the deck in May, knees up, arms outstretched. Kate had it framed, probably hoping we’d morph into the three musketeers.
“When does Alexa get here?” Kiki asked.
“Tomorrow around four thirty.” I couldn’t believe Alexa was going to show up and find an insta-sister who’d moved in on her mom, house, and sort-of ex.
I’d enjoyed the peacefulness of the last six weeks. Dad and Kate and I had dined on the deck and watched movies on TV. Sam and I had taken evening walks, serenaded by crickets, and gone to the club after 7:00 p.m., when the lifeguards went off duty and we could swim beyond the lanes to the gazebo in the middle of the lake.
One evening, Sam had suggested we go down the giant slide playing Categories. When I climbed to the top and pushed off, he called, “A Founding Fathers musical!”
I shouted, “Hamilton,” seconds before splashing into the water. When he climbed up and pushed off, I shouted, “A Nobel Peace Prize winner!”
He shouted, “Mandela!” before being submerged and “Malala!” when he came up for air. “Winged insect!” he shouted to me.
“Firefly!” I said. “Another winged insect!” I shouted to him.
“Dragonfly!” he replied. When I climbed up a third time, he shouted, “Hottest girl in Windmill!” I said nothing but smiled underwater.
Of course, I still thought of my mom. But I was remembering how to have fun again. I was picking raspberries and baking pies and…coming back to life.
Kate invited both Kiki and Sam to stay for dinner the night of our move, and afterward, the five of us played Boggle. Kiki shook the set, put it down, looked it over, and proclaimed, “Too many vowels. Let me shake again.”
“No!” I protested. “I already found a seven!”
“That’s impossible,” Sam said.
I pointed to tapioca snaking around the cubes.
“Wow,” Kate said, impressed. “You’ll have to teach Alexa.”
So not gonna happen, I thought, and wished that Kate would accept that we were not about to turn into one big, happy family.
“Kate, you must be so excited that Alexa is coming home,” Kiki said. I knew Kiki was still excited to be on a first-name basis with her idol.
“Oh, I am!” Kate replied. “But I wish she’d answered my last email, the one about—” She gestured to Dad and me.
“Maybe she didn’t know what to say,” Kiki said.
“Maybe,” Kate answered.
• • •
“You like your new room?” Dad stood in my doorway in Armonk. I was proud I’d emptied the boxes and found places for everything, even my turtles, which were in a huddle on my bedside table.
“I do,” I said, looking up from a Spanish novel I was reading.
“Shouldn’t you go to sleep?” Dad said. “It’s after midnight.”
“I will. One sec.”
A few minutes later, he came back. “Can I turn out the light?”
“One sec,” I said and kept reading.
Five minutes later, Dad was back again. “Cupcake, I’m turning off the light.”
“One sec!” I said.
“You’ve had lots of secs!”
Lots of…sex?! We stared at each other.
“Seconds!” Dad said. “I mean seconds!”
He turned off my light, and I tried to turn off my mind. I was thinking about Sam and how “hooking up” and “love” meant different things to different people. A lot of girls said “I love you” to other girls, but I still couldn’t imagine saying it to a boy. Yet I did love being with Sam, and I hoped Alexa wasn’t going to mess that up.
I looked at the ceiling and missed my pink canopy. Funny thing to miss. I told myself that canopies were for little girls and princesses, then imagined Alexa cackling, And you aren’t a princess anymore—you’re a wicked stepsister.
I drew up the sheets and listened to the quiet.
Was it possible that I missed the hum of traffic? The sirens and honking and car radios? The people on the sidewalk who laughed and argued at all hours, sometimes drunkenly?
When I used to look out my old bedroom window, I’d see lights in other people’s apartments. I’d peer out during the day too. Adults would hurry by with briefcases, strollers, shopping bags. Kids would be going to or from school. Doormen, dog walkers, delivery people, bicycle messengers—someone was always there.
Did I miss the city now that I lived in the “country”? Kate thought it was funny that we called Armonk the country. She said, “It’s pretty here, but don’t kid yourselves. It’s the suburbs.”
The door opened. Dad again? No. Pepper. He’d found me. He didn’t join me in bed—not his style—but he leaped onto my soft desk chair and settled in for the night.
• • •
Dad and I made shish kebabs and a tomato-mozzarella-basil salad for Alexa’s return. I suggested dousing everything with hot sauce.
“Don’t you dare!” Dad said.
We heard the crunch of gravel, and I looked out the kitchen window. A silver Mercedes pulled up, and Alexa emerged, tanned and toned. Here we go, I thought. Let the games begin.
“Alexa’s home!” I called. Kate went flying out the door so fast, I was afraid she might trip.
“Think we should say hi?” I asked Dad.
“Let’s give them a minute.”
“No argument here.” I brought forks and knives to the deck where we’d set the table with a red-checked tablecloth, red napkins, and a bouquet of just-picked day lilies and black-eyed Susans. Two tall candles stood inside hurricane lamps. I walked behind the porch swing and peeked toward the driveway. Once again, I was spying in broad daylight.
Kate and Alexa gave each other a long hug (I felt the sting of jealousy), and Kate invited Victoria and her father in for lemonade. “Thank you,” the man said with an Argentinian accent. “Victoria’s mother is anxious for us to get home.”
“Believe me, I understand,” Kate said. She thanked him, and soon, it was just mother and daughter in the driveway.
“You look great!” Kate said, beaming.
“I’m in unbelievable shape! Feel my bicep.” Alexa flexed her arm. “And have you ever seen me so tan? Check out my feet! I have a flip-flop tan!”
Kate laughed, eating her daughter up. “So how was it?”
“So perfect! The group was great—well, except for a few idiots. The rest of us became, like, best friends. We did everything together! I’m really looking forward to lazing around the house alone—just us.”
Kate lowered her voice, and I couldn’t make out what she said.
“Mom, I was in the boonies. I haven’t been online in, like, six weeks! Our tents weren’t exactly wireless, and there are no Internet cafés on the mountaintops. Besides, the director kept saying this was our opportunity to ‘cut the electronic umbilical cord’ and ‘face the world wit
hout Facebook and Instagram.’”
Kate said something I couldn’t decode.
“Yeah, he mentioned you wanted to get in touch but said it wasn’t an emergency. I was going to call from the airport, but everyone started taking pictures, and I knew I was about to see you…”
“Oh Lord,” Kate said.
“What?”
“You don’t know?”
“What?”
“I wrote you a long email.”
“What did it say?”
“It’s not something I wanted to summarize.”
“Mom, you’re scaring me! Is Dad okay?”
“He’s fine.”
“Brian?”
“Fine.”
“Then…?”
“Honey—” Kate’s voice got quiet again and then I heard:
“Are you kidding me? Mom, you just met him!”
Kate mumbled something. She was trying to keep the volume down, but there were no birds or crickets or lawnmowers or airplanes to drown out their conversation.
“What? He must’ve been shocked out of his mind!”
Mumble, mumble, mumble.
“Mom, how well do you even know him?”
Mumble, mumble. “I know myself.”
“Oh, spare me. So what did he say?” Alexa sounded shrill.
Mumble, mumble.
“WHAT?!” Alexa’s voice rose an octave. “What do you mean ‘moved in’?”
Mumble, mumble. “Sofia—”
“Sofia? Sofia! I practically forgot about that little brat! Please tell me she’s not moving in too!”
Mumble, mumble. “…his daughter.”
“Yeah, well, I’m your DAUGHTER!”
Dad stepped onto the deck. I shushed him and pointed. Their voices wafted over loud and clear, and he got sucked in too.
“I wanted to tell you!” Kate said. “But the first time you called, you were ecstatic, and the second time, you were distraught, and there was no third time. Honey, I spent hours writing you that email. I revised it over and over—”
“Oh, thank God, because a typo would’ve sent me over the edge! Tell you what, Mom. I’ll print it out and you can sign it with one of your rose-colored calligraphy pens. And I’ll get it framed! Ooooo, a letter from Dear Kate! God, Mom, I can’t leave you alone!”