Pretty Things Don't Break

by Lauren Jayne

  Carmen and David finished their big blue drinks and when we stood up, the bartender told David to stop by his place for a party that night. They did a side hug, shoulder tap thing that guys do and we headed down to the beach. As my body was getting thrown in the late afternoon waves, David scooped me up in his sturdy arms and, towering at least a foot taller than my five-four, he stood steady in the waves. After I had told David about my boyfriend back home, I was as comfortable around him as any of my guy friends at home. He held me in the water like a baby, and I let my head fall back. He told me his Maui story as we lay next to each other on the sand.

  “I came here with my parents and sister on Spring Break of my senior year. It felt like home to me; I fell in love with everything. Being from Laguna Beach, I was born surfing, but something is different here; even the air is sweet. I couldn’t stop thinking about it when I got home. My dad asked me what I was daydreaming about one day; he’s the coolest guy I know. I told him and he said when I graduated he’d send me here. That was five years ago. I just can’t leave.”

  That night, he invited us to Benihana. We’d been on a one-meal-a-day plan since we were basically out of money, and a real dinner at a real restaurant with a normal guy sounded amazing. When we walked down our creaky, uneven stairs, we saw David hugging Deb.

  “I think everyone from the mainland starts off at this hotel,” David said.

  They were laughing as Deb kissed David’s cheek. “At least I know you girls are in good hands with this one,” she said to us, cheerily waving goodbye as we headed to dinner.

  During dinner, Carmen seemed a million miles away. David and I tried to get her into our conversation, but she was gone. When he put down his card to pay for dinner, Carmen took my hand and led me to the bathroom.

  “I’m not comfortable with him; something’s not right.”

  “Carmen, are you serious? He’s the best guy we’ve met. He’s like our boys at home; he’s a good guy.”

  “He’s not. Do you know he’s paying with a credit card in someone else’s name?”

  “Conan? I know– that’s his dad. He’s some kind of hippie zillionaire or something, and he gave David that card; he told me about it earlier today. I promise we are OK.”

  The next day, David picked us up and we headed down to the beach at the Sheraton for a day of frolicking.

  I asked David, “Have you seen Carmen in awhile? I haven’t.”

  “She’s OK, she just seems a little bummed; I’m sure she just went for a walk or something. Come swim with me.” He replied.

  After an hour, I told David I had to look for her. I walked up to the bar, no Carmen; down to the swim-up bar, no Carmen; up to the lobby, no Carmen. She was nowhere to be found. Feeling like my stomach was being wrung out like an old beach towel, I headed down the beach.

  “David, I need to go back to the hotel. I’m sure she’s there.”

  Walking through the open lobby and up the back stairs to our little room, I saw our door was left open. When I walked in everything was gone; her bags and mine too. There was no note and no Carmen. I ran downstairs to ask Deb what happened and, for the first time, another large beautiful Hawaiian lady with a flower tucked behind her ear was sitting behind the front desk.

  “You OK? What can I help you with?” she asked, seeing my concerned look.

  “I’m OK, I’m just looking for my friend; did you see a tall girl with a bunch of bags come by?”

  “About an hour ago. I asked if she needed help, but she didn’t.”

  Walking up to our empty room, I sat on my bed with just my bikini on and a sarong tied around my waist.

  David walked in, “What’s going on? I wanted to come with you, but you just left. Where’s Carmen and where’s all your stuff?”

  “I don’t know. She’s gone, and she took my clothes, too.”

  “Why did she take your clothes?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just worried about her.”

  Not wanting to leave in case she came back, we waited.

  “Let’s go grab sushi and I bet when we get back, she’ll be here. Without any money, she’s not going to last long.”

  “I can’t leave – you don’t understand – I’m all she’s got, and I dragged her out here. If it wasn’t for me, she’d be at home right now.”

  David waited with me and slept in Carmen’s bed, but she never came back. I left a note with Deb with David’s number.

  David had a condo on the beach in Kihei and said he’d feel more comfortable if I stayed with him. He bought me just enough clothes to meet his friends and took me to watch the windsurfers compete in Kahului, where we sat night after night around bonfires right on the beach under a blanket of stars. He took me on an amazing three-day trip through Kauai in a red jeep, and in a flash, as we swam under a waterfall, I knew it was time to go. The, ‘I have a boyfriend at home’ thing was starting to irritate David, I still had no idea where Carmen was, and I started to feel like I was just hiding from life in Maui.

  David brought me to the airport and when he hugged me goodbye he jokingly said, “When you’re single, let’s get married.”

  Chapter 24

  Be Nicer

  With a plane ticket from David, two weeks later I was home. Pushing open the door of my childhood bedroom, I was surprised to see my two bags sitting on my bed.

  “Where did these come from? When did they get here?” I asked Mom.

  “A week or so ago the airline called and said they’d delivered your bags. They were waiting at the front door.” Walking downstairs, I noticed that the old glossy framed photos of Mom that had lined our staircase had been replaced. Mom was working for a new company called Matol. Instead of selling a hundred amazing cleaning products that could really change your life or the best makeup ever manufactured, they made only one product. It was a black juice called Km, the symbol for potassium, and it was Mom’s answer to everything. Got a cut? Rub some Km on it, she’d say. Feel a cold coming on? Take an extra gulp of Km morning and night. With Mom, every new company was the best she’d ever worked for, and each new product line was so amazing that it was hard to believe we were able to live without it. Km was the answer to everything and Mom was quickly pulling out of her funk and up the ladder with Matol. Falling back into my old role as her caretaker, I sat by her side at most meetings. I sat and laughed at her jokes, and agreed as the people in the audience talked about her like she was a living legend.

  When the big bosses came into town, Mom and I went to Nordstrom to pick out just the right outfits. Walking into the Red Lion hotel in Sea-Tac with black slacks and a camel coat that I must admit, fit her like a glove, she was ready for her big speech. She introduced Anthony: tall with wavy hair, a thick French accent, and a red face. He was the son of Km’s inventor and hugged me just a little too long when we met. Sam, a short man with wild gray curls surrounding his tan face, was the new CEO and invited Mom and me to join them for dinner after the meeting. The next stop on their West Coast tour was Portland.

  At dinner, Anthony said, “Lauren, why don’t you ride down with us on the plane?”

  As I was about to say no thank you, Mom chimed in. “You should go, it’ll be fun. I’ll meet you down there tomorrow.”

  Anthony said, “We’ll take good care of her, we promise.”

  Just as I was explaining why I couldn’t fly alone with Anthony and Sam to Portland on their plane, Judy, a friend who used to be my makeup salesperson at the Shiseido counter at Nordstrom said, “Sandy, we’ll drive Lauren down with us.”

  *

  A few months later, as Mom really started to come back to life, I got a part-time job at a flower shop. On my way home from work one day, someone rear-ended me, leaving me bedridden for a few weeks. Mom drove me to my doctor appointments, and I did my best to get better. Laying on the floor in front of the TV downstairs where I had set up camp, I heard Mom coming down the stairs.

  She looked down at me from the black wrought iron handrail and said, “How long
will you be an invalid on the floor? I’m just wondering how much longer I’ll have to take care of you.”

  I lay there and wondered what an invalid was. In-valid was all I could come up with.

  When I finally felt like I didn’t have an ice pick stuck in my lower back, Mom asked if I wanted to go out the next day.

  In her sweetest voice, she said, “Let’s go for a walk and then have lunch and go shopping. Sound good?”

  It sounded perfect; I was sick of being trapped in our house since my accident. That night before bed I picked out an outfit, laid it over my desk chair and went to sleep, happy that Mom and I were both feeling better. Waking up around ten, the house was silent. Creeping down the hall to Mom’s room, I pushed open the door as quietly as I could so I wouldn’t wake her, but her bed was already made. Running downstairs, I opened the door to the garage, and her car was gone. After a long shower, I dried my hair, got dressed, and checked the time; it was noon. I flipped on the TV and after a few hours went to my room and lay on my bed. Hours later, I awoke to a dark room as I heard the garage door opening. Mom walked up the stairs and peeked into my room.

  Groggily, I asked her, “Where were you? I thought we were going out?”

  Before I was fully awake mom snapped. In a blink, she was on top of me in my bed. As I rolled to get out of her tight grasp, I felt her ring slice my cheek like glass. Trying to wipe the blood from my face, her hands tangled in my hair. A swirl of screaming, twisting, chaos wrapped us in a tangle I couldn’t free myself from. A knee in my back, a scratch down my arm stung as I tried to wiggle from her vice grip. Covering my face with my arms wasn’t enough. All I could see were arms flailing and legs kicking as Mom’s voice echoed in my ear. "Selfish, ungrateful, brat. I don’t deserve a moment of happiness, do I, do I?" Mom wasn’t mom at this moment. It was as if once she snapped, she was gone.

  I heard Noah rip my door open. He ran to my bed and pulled mom off of me. Her body went limp in his arms and she started to cry.

  With his arm around her shoulder, he looked at me accusingly and said, “What did you do to Mom?”

  Mom answered as she sobbed, “I just can’t do enough for her, it’s never enough for her.”

  Noah turned around and said, “You need to be nicer to Mom.”

  I lay face down on my pillow, listening to Noah console Mom out in the hallway when I heard my door slowly open. When Mom sat down on my bed, my body flinched. Then she started to rub the spot in my back that ached so deep I couldn’t help but inch away from her.

  “Sometimes you make me crazy. You can’t make me crazy; I can’t handle it, OK?”

  As she rubbed my back, stabbing pain shot through my body. I lay motionless and silent; she walked back to her room and started crying to Noah.

  After an hour of breathing into my hot, wet pillow, waiting for them to go to sleep, I tried to lift my face, but it was stuck to the pillowcase. Gently pulling it off, I felt my skin tugging. Licking my lips for the first time, I realized they were covered with dried blood; fat and cracked, the taste of salt and blood made me want to spit. I tried to open my eyes; they stopped at a slit. I crept down our stairs in the dark. Too scared to go to the laundry room where I’d left my shoes, I walked to Mrs. Miller’s. Freezing concrete under my bare feet, I noticed Anna’s light was on in the basement. Mrs. Miller had turned it into a one-bedroom apartment when Anna had divorced her husband and returned home with her two-year-old angel, Vance. Nervous to be coming over so late, but knowing I couldn’t go home, I walked through the cold, wet grass to the sliding glass door in the back. When Anna saw me, she screamed and pulled open the door.

  “Oh my God – what happened – who did this to you? I’m calling the cops.”

  Anna grabbed me and pulled me into her big warm body. I was shaking when she said, “Did you get raped? Who did this to you?”

  “No, I’m Ok-I’m sure it looks worse than it is.”

  “Who!?” Anna asked again.

  Reluctantly I said, “My mom-­she kind of lost it,” with an embarrassed and protective tone.

  Anna hugged me into her body and started the shower. Standing under the warm trickle, I watched as the brown, rusty-looking water washed down the drain; I stood until the water ran clear. Every inch of my body ached; my eyes stung like I’d just sprayed perfume into each of them. When I got out, Anna gave me a pair of her sweats to wear even though she was close to six feet tall.

  “These are from the skinny side of my closet; somehow I think you’d fit better in Vance’s clothes than these.”

  It felt good to laugh a little.

  Anna insisted that I sleep in the bottom bunk while her baby, Vance, slept above me; she slept on the couch. Waking up the next day, it felt like the day after I’d learned to water ski with Carmen; every inch of my body hurt, especially my pounding head.

  Feeling like I could drink my way out of a bathtub, Mrs. Miller came down, handed me a cup of tea, and in her usual, calm voice said, “We can’t let you go back home, honey, not anymore; you’ll stay here with us. We have plenty of room; you can stay down here with Anna and Vance or you can take Therese’s old room upstairs.”

  Mrs. Miller had spoken those words before when I’d run down with a fat lip or a bloody nose, but somehow, this time, it was different. After a few days in Mrs. Miller’s clothes and slippers, I watched as my mom’s car pulled down our cul-de-sac. I went up to our house with Mrs. Miller’s spare key in my hand and opened the door. It was dark and cold and tears streamed down my face as I felt Mom’s sadness in the empty, silent house. A war raged inside me. My heart was saying, “Your mom has been battling her entire life, left to deal with everything alone, now you’re going to leave her too.” Then my mind countered, “When you were a kid, you were trapped here, but you’re not a kid anymore – you have choices. If you come back now, you’ll be telling your mom and Noah once again that this is OK. After a few days of silence you always come back, apology ready. Don’t do it again. You have a choice – now choose.”

  With a knife of sadness ripping through my body, feeling like a traitor and a terrible daughter, I threw my clothes into bags and dragged them down to Mrs. Miller’s house for the last time.

  After months of being surrounded by Mrs. Miller, Anna and Vance, I felt almost human again. Nights were spent cooking together and watching Anna mother Vance in the same loving way Mrs. Miller had mothered her. Mrs. Miller was the only other person I knew who loved God the way I did. We spoke the same language. We both talked about Him like He was the coolest, smartest, best guy we knew. He felt like my boyfriend, my mom, my dad, my life; without Him, I wouldn’t take one breath. With Him, I was always OK, always loved, always guided, always protected. He was the love of my life. Mrs. Miller and I could talk about God until the sun came up, and some nights that’s exactly what we did. Before bed, I prayed for Mom and then thanked God for saving me and guiding me and loving me even when I wasn’t lovable. I’d lie in my new room thanking God for Mrs. Miller and for my warm bed and my vision and for being surrounded by goodness. Feeling overwhelmed with gratitude, I fell asleep listening to Mrs. Miller’s sewing machine hum away in the next room.

  Walking out to my car, which had been parked in front of the Miller’s for months, I saw my childhood friend and neighbor, Jeani, who lived directly across the street. She came up to me, standing a willowy six feet tall, with long bouncy blond hair and sapphire eyes.

  “Hi,” she said. “Why’s your car parked down here? I keep meaning to come over, but I’ve been crazy with work and school.”

  “Just time to move out; you know how it is,” I said.

  Then she looked up at her childhood house, and we both laughed.

  As we stood there talking, a car rolled up right behind us, and a guy got out and hugged Jeani. I headed back into Mrs. Miller’s house.

  Later that day Jeani called.

  “So, did you see the guy that came to pick me up today? Do you think he’s cute?”

  “Jeani,
what? Isn’t he your boyfriend?”

  “No, he’s one of my best friends. He’s gorgeous, but he’s like my brother. We’ve gone to school together our entire lives; he’s a great guy. He thought you were really pretty, and he asked me for your number. Can I give it to him?”

  “Ugh, I was so gross when I met him; I’m disgusting. I haven’t put makeup on or dried my hair in months; I don’t really think I should.”

  “You guys can just talk. Can I give him Mrs. Miller’s number?”

  “I guess.”

  Later that night Warner called and asked me out. Getting ready for him to pick me up, I had no idea what to wear or what to say to this stranger. He looked like a normal guy, and I felt like a zoo animal. As I stood in the bathroom I thought, why am I going out with this person I don’t know? Because he saw me for two seconds and thinks he – what? I wanted to cancel but didn’t have his number. Looking through my bedroom window to see if Jeani’s car was out front, I panicked when I saw nothing but an oil spot on the concrete. I walked out of my bedroom with some brown liner around my eyes; my hair was blown straight and a little of my favorite L’Oreal mauve lipstick on.

  “Oh honey, you look beautiful,” Mrs. Miller said. “Just go and have fun.”

  “I’m sure I won’t be gone long.”

  “I won’t wait up, honey. The door will be unlocked when you get home; just enjoy yourself.”

  When the doorbell rang, Warner stood there a foot above me, with almost as much thick brown hair as me, and bright blue eyes. I hadn’t noticed them before, and I had to talk myself down just a little when he spoke.

  “Should we go?”

  Blue eyes, particularly bright blue eyes like my dad’s, scared the life out of me, but I couldn’t really say, “Sorry I can’t go out with you, you have blue eyes, so I’m scared to look at you.”

  In his car, I just looked out the window, never being uncomfortable with silence. Warner talked about Jeani and how she looked like a glamazon model but was still the same old goofy, kind of gawky Jeani that she was growing up. When he drove over Lake Washington, I felt my entire body melt into the seat. The gray clouds blew gently over the Cascades, Mount Rainier peeking out like an ever-present friend, the waves bouncing on the dark water, and everything seemed right in the world. Pulling up to the Leschi Café, Warner got out of the car and opened my door, then held open the restaurant’s big door and told the girl at the hostess stand his name. Warner had made reservations; all of a sudden I realized I was on my first grown-up date.