She gestures with her hand, “In addition to this lovely establishment, he owns half a city block downtown which includes, but is not limited to, The Diamond Diva Gentleman’s Club on Euclid Avenue.”
“Oh, wow,” Lindsey says, “Well, at least you’ll have job prospects after graduation. I hear there’s good money in that. Like thousands a week.”
For a snap second I envision what thousands a week might look like. Envision myself sliding down a pole wearing a garter belt and an insulin pump.
Shudder!
“Ugh, don’t ever do it, Taylor,” I say, punching Lindsey in the arm.
“Don’t worry,” Taylor says, “The only tips I’ll ever accept are for bringing a timely burger to your car. Speaking of which, I need to bolt, what do you guys want?”
She pulls a tiny plastic menu out of her apron and hands it to Lindsey who looks it over quickly.
“Cheeseburger, fries and a strawberry shake,” Lindsey says, before handing the menu off to me.
“The side salad,” I say, handing it back to Taylor, “I brought a water.”
Taylor rolls away, yelling “Be back in twenty!”
Lindsey looks at me with concern, “That’s all you’re having?”
“I need to eat light before going on the pump. A mini-fast. It’s very clinical and boring. Can we move onto a new topic, please?”
“Sure,” she says. “So, how’s the Brandon Wright thing panning out?”
“Good, I think. I’m pretty sure he’s into me but…,” then I pause.
“What?”
“He’s being actively pursued by this other girl—Adriahhhhna. Also known as Ade the Blade. She’s an ice-skater from Toronto and undeniably hot.”
“You’re plenty hot,” Lindsey says, waving it off.
“I’m cute—Brandon’s word, not mine—and we all know cute loses to hot.”
“He said that?” Her face twists.
“No. I mean, he told me I was cute; the other part was my own conjecture.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” she says. “Guys bang hot. They date and marry cute. Be happy you have a prospect going for yourself. My only prospect at the moment is a sixth-grade day camper named Weston. He follows me around like a sweaty little puppy.”
“What happened to Terrence?” I say.
“Don’t speak that name,” she says, throwing up a talk-to-the-hand. “He called me fat.”
“What!?”
“Okay, he didn’t say: Hey, guess what, fatty? You’re fat. It was in the context of sports. We were talking about workouts and he showed me this thigh squat that might help me with my problem area.” She uses finger quotes on that last part.
My hand goes to my mouth. “He didn’t.”
“Oh, but he did,” she snorts.
I stare out into the parking lot, trying to imagine the scene. I get pissed for her and want to hunt this guy down and tell him off.
“Where does this jackhole live?” I say. “We need to make a visit. Key his freaking car or something.”
“I know, right?” she says, trying to laugh it off. “He didn’t even realize what he’d said. I pretended not to care but whoo-whee that stung. So, anyhow, Terrence is out.”
“Well,” I say, trying to think of something to cheer her. “Things aren’t all bad, you know. There are a dozen stoners in this parking lot just dying for your phone number.”
I point out to the lot where people are starting to get out of their cars to smoke and walk around.
“You didn’t want to actually watch the movies, right?
“God no,” she says, smiling, flipping down the mirror to fuss with her hair, “Who on earth would come here for that?”
19.
Insulin Pump, Cedar Point, Job Interviews. These are the topics I’ve decided my mother and I will discuss during our breakfast. To veer into Crazy Dollhouse Foreclosure Land will only cause a fight and make us both miserable.
I’m going to open with a lesson on interview etiquette. I’m simply going to hand her the job openings list that I have cobbled together from my online searches, along with her new resume, and then tell her to act like a freaking adult when the places she’s applied to start calling. Clear nail polish. Sensible heels. Eye contact.
Walking into the diner, my plan of attack immediately falls apart. She’s sitting alone, waiting for me, and looking harried and exposed. When she sees me, she smiles, and stands up. She’s lost weight in that overnight, gaunt sort of way that makes you think someone’s getting over the flu or just had their wisdom teeth pulled. In the openness of the diner, set against a backdrop of regular everyday people, she looks pitiful as a scarecrow.
Our hug is clumsy and I feel like I might crush her, like she’s made out of eggshells and bird bones. At least she smells like she might have showered in the last few days, though, meaning she doesn’t actively stink. I breathe deeply and envision a dozen yellow balloons. Creative visualization is the only way I’m going to get through this meal.
“You’ve lost more weight,” I say, sitting down.
“Yeah,” she says, “New day, new diet. Probably should get my hormones checked. Did you drive here?”
“I borrowed Dad’s car. We’re staying at the Rourke’s. I only have half an hour so we need to hurry. The ferry.”
“Oh, okay,” she says, picking up her menu.
I decide to work my way up to the job thing. She looks too fragile at the moment for me to come at her with both barrels.
“I saw Dr. Pakesh yesterday,” I say, opening my menu.
But before she can respond and I can elaborate, the server, a girl from my school approaches all smiling to take our order. I scan quickly, looking for the cheapest option that is still socially acceptable to order.
“Two eggs over easy with rye toast. And a glass of skim milk if you have it.”
She nods and then glances at my mother.
“Dry toast and coffee,” she says.
“That’s it?” I say.
“My stomach’s been a little jumpy.” She laughs a little and fiddles with her napkin.
The server tells us she’ll be back in a flash and my mom’s eyes follow the girl through the diner.
“The waitress seems nice,” she says. “Her hair reminds me of one of my Crolly dolls from Ireland. Those are hard to come by nowadays. You can only find them—,”
“Do you want to see my pump?” I say, lifting my shirt and standing up a bit in the booth. This snags her attention right up.
“Oh, honey…,” she says, looking at it and touching her fingers to her lips. “I always hoped you’d get one but I never wanted to pressure you. What made you take the plunge?”
Dad pretty much pushed me overboard.
“I just thought I’d give it a try,” I say, sitting down, smoothing my shirt. “It’s going to take a while to get used to. If I don’t like it, I’ll go back to the shots.”
Her eyes fill up. “I should have been there for this.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I assure her. “It’s not like I bought a wedding dress or had a baby. It’s just an ugly pump.”
“Still, I should have been there,” she says, dabbing her eyes with her napkin.
“I met a boy,” I say, changing the subject again. Apparently Brandon Wright is acceptable conversation now, too.
For the next half hour we eat and talk about Brandon and Adrianna and Dieter and Cedar Point. It’s almost like we’re a normal mother and daughter. But finally, there’s nowhere left to go. We sit marinating in uncomfortable stillness. There’s nothing left to say, nothing left to talk about except the elephant in the diner.
“I don’t want to get into a big discussion about the house,” I say, finally. “I’ll just say this. I’m coming home at the end of the summer and when I do, we’re getting it done. You can’t do it on your own, I realize that now. But between the two of us, we’ll get the foreclosure situation squared away and the mess in the house all sorted.”
She starts
fidgeting in her seat. “Julianne, the house…it’s…,” she looks around, her voice trailing off.
“Going to be fixed,” I say, touching her arm across the table. “The house is going to be fixed. We’re going to fix it. You and me.”
I reach into my bag and hand her the jobs list and twenty copies of her new resume. It’s printed out on that heavy, fancy paper. Lindsey swiped it from her dad’s office and I must say, I’m really freaking proud of how it turned out. Lindsey’s good at making things sound better on paper than they are in real life.
Secretary = Administrative Assistant.
Shop-o-holic = Retail Sales Specialist.
Doll Hoarder = Antiquities Purveyor.
“I already applied online to a bunch of jobs for you. But you can take these hard copies around town yourself. Like if you see a Help Wanted sign you’ll be all set to go. Don’t worry about wearing a suit or anything. It’s just nice pants and a blouse these days. But wash you hair and put on some lipstick if you get a call.”
She looks at me with drowning eyes, her forehead etched with affliction. I want to give her my yellow balloon, tie it around her wrist.
“Don’t worry, mom, I’ve got this handled,” I say, squeezing her arm again. “I’m doing all the hard parts but you have to do this little bit, okay? Like if you get a call, you have to show up to the interview and get some money rolling in, too. Not even all that much. Just something. This is all you have to do.”
She nods and smiles and scratches her neck. We say goodbye in the parking lot and our parting hug is even worse than our hello hug. She’s a wilted noodle in my arms. It is the most pathetic hug in the history of hugs. It’s okay, though. It’s probably overwhelming for her. It can’t be easy admitting to yourself that your daughter is now your mother. I’m just going to try and give her a damn break about it already.
20.
The water rocks underneath me as I lie face down, floating on a raft that is tied to the dock. I’ve been working on sorting out my god-awful farmer’s tan. SPF 50 on my arms, legs, and face, Hawaiian Tropic everywhere else. My back is on fire and I wonder how much more of it I can take. I hate tanning on purpose. Tanning is boring especially when you have nobody to talk to.
I left my pump inside because I’m allowed to take it off for up to an hour at a time. It’s been programmed to send me a calibrated trickle of insulin throughout the day and then I bolus, meaning press a button, if I need more.
The doctor has cleared me to go back to work tomorrow. It’s been three days now and everyone keeps Facebooking me to ask how I’m doing. Dana has taken it upon herself to reassign me to an air-conditioned gift shop. Mysteriously, a slot opened up at The Sandusky Mining and Gem Company Shoppe, a stone’s throw from Brandon’s kiosk in Frontiertown.
I dismantled the Brandon Wright online diet the day after it all happened. It didn’t feel right to try and toy with him. So, now we talk all day long. Silly stuff on messenger mostly, but a couple times a day I’ll walk over to the nature trail and call him for a real conversation. We talked for twenty minutes last night and I’m finding out a little more about him each time. He’s majoring in art education at Toledo with a minor in studio drawing. When I picture him teaching art to grade school children, it somehow makes him ten times more hunky. Our phone conversations are nice. I try to keep it low-key on my end, stick to topics like the park and then news I’ve heard from friends back home. He tries to dig deeper sometimes, asks about my diabetes, and about my mom. I kind of skate over the answers, keep it vague and upbeat, because who wants to hear the bizarre crap that runs through my brain when I’m thinking of such topics and talking to a boy who makes me freaky-gaga inside.
My diabetes? Well, you should see my sexy new insulin pump! It’s H-O-T hot!
My mom? Oh, she’s still a doll hoarding fruitcake. Nothing new there.
Heyyy…do you think our kids will look like her?
No.
I cup some water into my palm and then throw it over my back to cool off. I can practically hear the drops sizzling as they hit my skin. I flip over to start tanning my chest and stomach. I bob and doze and daydream of Brandon Wright and Cedar Point.
What I do while I talk to him—and I’d die of embarrassment if he knew this—is take the binoculars and then sit on the little pier that juts out from the crushed zebra mussels beach in the bird sanctuary. While we talk, I occasionally look out at the tiny tips of the Ferris wheel and roller coasters on the mainland in the distance. I tell him that I can see the Ferris wheel a little bit from where I’m sitting but don’t tell him that I’m using binoculars to do it. When you add binoculars into the equation it starts to sound creepy and stalkerish. I guess it is, though. I guess I’m stalking Brandon Wright from across Sandusky Bay.
But I think I’m stalking Dana and Hutch, too. And then Cedar Point, in general. I can’t fathom the rest of my summer without Dana, Hutch, and that job. At first it was the money that I was primarily concerned about—and believe me, I’m still concerned; three days of not working is going to put a substantial ding into my already rickety financial plan—but along with the money, I miss the job itself and the new friends that I’ve made. I imagine the smell of elephant ears, the songs from the carousels, the screaming from the roller coasters and all the faces of the people I’ve come to know—Dana, Hutch, Brandon, Dieter, Ring Toss Nita, Married Chocolate Banana Man. Even, in a weird and twisted way, Adriana and Rigmora. It all mixes up into this shimmering summer dream and as anxious as I am to get home to straighten things out with my mom, now that I haven’t worked at Cedar Point for three days, haven’t smelled the smells, heard the sounds, and seen my friends’ faces, I realize how much I truly love it and want to get back.
The screen door slides open up near the house, waking me from my Cedar Point suntan trance. Melody walks down the steps of the patio, across the lawn, and down onto the dock, her flip-flops snapping like firecrackers. She sits down, takes off her flops, and hangs her long legs over the dock, her toes grazing the surface of the water.
“So, you’re going back to work tomorrow, then?” she says, sipping her lemonade.
I shield my face from the bright sunlight and look up at her directly.
“Mm-hm.”
“You know, there’s a position open in the clothing boutique near the sports store. A girl quit. Well, not quit exactly, but was asked to resign. She was skimming the register. I could get you in no problem. It’s about fifteen hours a week.”
I lean back again, close my eyes and drop my hand over the side of my raft, swirl my fingers in the water.
“I have a job.”
“But it would be so much more convenient, don’t you think?”
“No. I don’t think.”
“The manager is very nice. It would be a fun place to work.”
I sigh and lift my head again. The noon sun is right over her head so I have to squint extra hard to look at her.
“First off,” I say. “Fifteen hours a week is a joke. So, no, I do not want to work at the clothing boutique. And secondly, did my dad put you up to this? I mean, I started pump therapy like you guys wanted. The deal was that I could go back to work once the doctor cleared me, which he did.”
She pauses, sips her lemonade, and swings her legs a bit, dragging her toes through the water.
“We’re just worried, J-bear,” she says.
I jerk and she instantly realizes her misstep. My mom made up that nickname for me so the sound of it crossing Melody’s lips is like a matchstick to the skin. We exchange an uneasy glance.
She starts stuttering, backpedaling, but I roll off the raft and plop into the water so I don’t have to hear her awkward, damage-control weirdness. The cold water shocks me but then feels heavenly on my hot skin. I swim a few strokes over to the two jet-skis that are anchored just offshore to a buoy.
“I’m going out for a bit,” I say, climbing out of the water and onto one of the skis.
“Uh, okay,” she says, get
ting up. “But you need a life-vest. And you’ve been out here for forty minutes without your pump so can you make it a quick run?”
Jeez, did she set a timer for me and my pump?
“Fine,” I say.
She walks over to the Adirondack chairs on the dock where a life-vest is drying from yesterday. She picks it up and tosses it over to me.
“Latch on,” she says; reminding me to latch my vest to the safety mechanism that stops the engine should I fall off the ski. I turn the engine on and take off, not waving goodbye. I’m usually not one to hot-dog but I make a couple of daredevil zig-zags before shooting off toward North Bass Island at top speed. I’m not supposed to go out of view but I do. That J-bear comment is starting to sink in and really piss me up the wall. I need to put as much distance between Melody and me as I can right now so I zoom around to the other side of North Bass.
After scanning the horizon for Homeland Security patrol boats, I race off toward Pelee which is all the way in Canada. I ride for a while and Pelee looks so close, so big. But it’s not. It’s very far and the closeness is just a visual trick that the mind plays on you. I’m not really going there, but if feels good to imagine I am.
It’s peaceful and the water is smooth like glass. I skim along and the wind courses over me, lifting my braid out like the tail of a kite. My eyes water and my vision blurs because I forgot my sunglasses back on the dock. It doesn’t matter; the water is deep and wide and the nearest boat is far away. There is nothing out here but me, the sky, the water, and the occasional seagull overhead.
After what feels like a long time, I look down at the gas gauge. I’m stabbed with panic because it reads less than a quarter tank. Suddenly, the lake feels a bit more enormous. I cut right and head back toward Middle Bass. The island is so much smaller than it should be.
I start to imagine what I must look from high above; small and insignificant, a tiny iota of a dot buzzing along the deep, cold water. I’ve been out here for a long time without my pump; I can feel it in my body; the thirst, the burgeoning pulse of a fresh headache. My glucose is climbing higher and higher while the gas gauge dips lower and lower. Opening the engine up, I fly as fast as I can back toward civilization. About halfway between Middle and North Bass, though, things reach a whole new level of complicated. The engine sputters, chokes, and then fizzles out altogether, leaving me stranded on my ski, floating dead in the water.
Doll Hearts Page 19