by Claire Cook
My mother clicked into teacher mode. “A chiasmus is when the second half of an expression is balanced against the first half, but with the parts reversed. It’s essentially an inverted kind of parallelism. We started encouraging them at the dinner table when the children were quite young.”
“And look how I turned out,” I said. I took another gulp of Choco-Vine.
“We’re a very chiastic family,” my father said. He wiggled his eyebrows. “Sounds almost sexy, doesn’t it?”
“Actually,” Tag said, “they’re pretty much the method to my mojo. They’re amazingly powerful. And totally addicting—once you start coming up with them, you just can’t stop.”
“And don’t think he’s kidding,” I said. “Trust me, I have to write them all down. Morning, noon, and night, my brother is pretty much a chiasmus machine, and a chiasmus machine is pretty much my brother, morning, noon, and night.”
“That reminds me,” my father said. “We’ve got a new product on order for Tag.” When he grinned, his whole face lit up. With his button nose and curly gray hair and eyebrows, he looked like a trimmer, off-season Santa Claus. “And let me tell you, it’s a humdinger.”
My mother shook her head.
My father grinned some more. “Okay, you know the guy who invented the Jesus Toaster? The one that toasts the likeness of Jesus onto the bread like a holy vision?”
My mother let out a puff of air.
“What?” my father said. “It’s tastefully done.” He did his eyebrow thing again. “Get it? Tastefully?”
“Is this in any way related to the likeness of the Virgin Mary that recently appeared on the potato chip?” I asked.
“That’s my girl,” my father said. It was hard to tell if he meant me or Mary.
“I always wanted one of those see-through glass toasters,” Tag said. “You know, so you can get the toast exactly the way you like it?”
“Oh, please,” I said. “When was the last time you made your own toast?”
My father slapped both hands down on the table to get our attention. “Anyway, we’re not going for the Jesus Toaster because”—he held up one hand to block my mother’s view and pointed at her with the other—“you-know-who wouldn’t go for it. But we ordered the peace sign toaster, and the pièce de résistance, the one that toasts a custom imprint of—”
“No,” I said.
“Seriously?” Tag grinned. “Awesome. I’m going to be toasted the world over. Which photo are we using?”
I rolled my eyes. Across the table, Steve smiled. His square teeth were still the color they were meant to be, as opposed to the fake white of my brother’s, and he had a slightly off-kilter smile that gave him kind of a childlike quality. In a good way. If only I could stop thinking of him as Captain Underpants. If only I’d started working out about six weeks ago.
If only I’d worn better underwear.
I drained the rest of my ChocoVine. “Now where do you think that waiter went?”
My brother blinked his baby blues, conjuring up the waiter, who brought us another round of drinks. Then we ordered dinner. If I ate any more turkey, I was going to start to gobble, so I went with the broiled salmon. What I actually wanted was the blue-cheese burger and sweet potato fries my brother ordered, but there was no way in hell I was going to eat anything high calorie in front of somebody who’d recently seen me practically naked. I mean, let him think I had metabolism issues.
“So what brings you to Austin, Steve?” my father asked.
Steve smiled his crooked smile. “I’m an urban landscape designer. I pitched a design to the university today.”
“I’m sure it went over brilliantly,” my mother said.
He shrugged. “Time will tell. And I also want to check out the gardens at Lake Austin Spa Resort while I’m here.”
I reached for one of my brother’s fries. “Ooh, I hear that place is amazing.”
My brother slapped my hand. I handed him a lettuce leaf by way of trade.
Steve tilted his head and looked in my direction. “I’m planning to head over there tonight to see it all lit up, if you want to take a ride over.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tag said.
Okay, so maybe he hadn’t been looking in my direction. Whatever. I’d head up to my room, try to catch a decent rerun.
“Deirdre?” Steve said.
Two women in sundresses and great Texas boots stepped up to the table. “Tag?” one of them said.
Tag smiled his dazzling smile. He also kicked me under the table.
I held out my hand to the woman who’d spoken. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Tag’s sister Deirdre.”
“Wow,” she said. “Lucky you.”
What a long strange trip it’s been, and what a stranger longer trip it’s becoming.
I was decades too old to be sitting in the backseat of a rented minivan driven by my parents. It didn’t help that I was wedged in between the two blondes from the restaurant, Cindy and Tracy. Or maybe it was Kimmy and Stacy.
“Great boots,” I said once we were all buckled in.
In the impossibly small space, Tracy/Stacy managed to cross one leg until her cowboy boot was resting on the ruffled hem of her sundress. “Allens,” she said as she wiggled her toe.
I was pretty sure I’d read about Allens Boots. “The place with the antler chandeliers and the stuffed armadillo holding a beer bottle?”
They looked across me at each other.
“Maybe,” Cindy/Kimmy said. “I only noticed the boots.”
“Gee,” I said. “Give me a stuffed armadillo holding a beer bottle any day.”
My human bookends laughed uncertainly, and Tag turned around in the middle seat to give me his knock-it-off look. I crossed my eyes at him, then went back to trying to yank the left side of my pashmina out from under Tracy/Stacy. I was wearing a black bohemian skirt and a black tank top. I figured any parts of me that didn’t disappear into the darkness would be camouflaged by the pashmina’s yard and a half of deep teal fabric. Silver and turquoise glittered from my sandals and added what I hoped was just enough bling to keep me from looking like a total loser.
Tracy/Stacy reached forward and twirled a lock of Tag’s hair around her finger. I was pretty sure he was only pretending to remember her, but it didn’t seem to be bothering either of them. If they’d been sitting next to each other, they’d probably be making out by now.
There’s a Dentyne commercial that says the average person has twenty-eight first kisses. When I first saw it, I thought it was meant ironically, as if we’re all in such denial that we pretend every kiss is our first one, over and over again, until one day that magical twenty-ninth kiss wakes us up to the reality that we’re not kissing virgins anymore.
When it finally hit me that the commercial meant that most people actually kiss twenty-eight separate people during the span of their lives, I was depressed for days.
I mean, if that stupid commercial was true, I still had at least ten more strangers to kiss. To date. To maybe move in with. To probably move out on. To have to get over.
Steve Moretti turned around in his seat next to Tag. “Piece of gum?”
He seemed to be looking at me, so I took one. Since he was Tag’s wingman, I figured it was just a matter of time before Cindy/Kimmy put the moves on him. I mean, really, in the bubble of this minivan, it was like we’d flashed back a couple of decades and my parents were driving us all to a junior high dance.
Sure enough, Cindy/Kimmy flipped her hair, giggled, and reached for a piece of gum. “I like your shirt, Steve,” she said. Then she giggled some more. Maybe I should pass her a note or something. Do u Stevie?
I’d always hated not having a window seat, especially in a situation like this one, but I finally managed to twist around enough to get a partial view of the passing scenery. In my geographically impaired brain, probably inspired by the wooden puzzle of the United States I’d had as a kid, I’d pictured all of Texas flat, but Austin was surprisingly hilly. Big, S
panish-style terra-cotta-colored McMansions looked down on us from above.
The Very Best of the Grateful Dead was blasting from all four corners of the minivan. This was for our benefit. My parents were so inseparable they even shared an iPod. Wherever they went, even when they drove, a pair of twin earbuds forking out from a single wire connected them to each other like a plastic umbilical cord. To be good minivan hosts, tonight they’d plugged in an adapter. It was impossible not to sing along, so we were all butchering the lyrics as we rode. Even I had a hard time being depressed listening to the Grateful Dead. When “Truckin’” came on for the second time, I was almost ready to hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.
“Uh-ooh-ooh,” my seatmates sang on either side of me, like human stereo speakers. As they clapped their hands and played air tambourine, my mood began to plummet. The more I thought about it, the more I knew what tomorrow would bring: more of today.
I had to admit I was sooooooo over it. I mean, how did a perfectly intelligent, attractive, at least relatively, woman like me get here? At this stage of my life I should either be chauffeuring my own kids to middle-school dances, or jetting around the world doing something so fascinating and all-encompassing and important that I’d made the conscious choice not to have said children because it wouldn’t be fair for them to play second fiddle to my incredible, possibly world-impacting career. I mean, it’s not that I had to be famous, but I thought by this point I should at least be significant.
Back—okay, way back—in high school, I was named “the girl most likely to leave this honky-tonk school for the big time.” Granted, my friends and I were on the yearbook committee, but still. How could I have fallen so short of my goals? My hopes. My dreams. The truth, the sad, sad truth, was that I couldn’t even remember what my dreams had been anymore.
Was there a cutoff age for late bloomers, or could I still squeeze in for last call? Sitting there, in the back of the minivan, I had to believe there was still time.
I mean, if Texas could turn out to be hilly, why couldn’t I turn into someone who razzled and dazzled, who wore sundresses and cowboy boots? I’d knock off the ChocoVine and switch to seltzer. I’d eat only fish and fruits and veggies. I’d use all the extra time I gained by not eating to walk, then run, then run some more. I’d have my plain brown curls dyed platinum, and then I’d get somebody to teach me how to flat-iron my hair without losing a finger. Then, when I was a whole new me, I’d buy my own damn ruffled-hem sundress and some kick-ass cowboy boots.
The minivan dipped like a seat on a roller coaster as we headed down a steep hill. I clawed the vinyl seat in front of me to brace myself. To our right, a lake appeared, house lights glowing along its shore as far as the eye could see.
“Wow,” I said. “So beautiful.” Even I knew that Austin was landlocked, but I said it anyway: “It looks like it could be the ocean.”
Kimmy/Cindy leaned in front of me to see. “Maybe the Pacific?”
Tag turned around and laughed like she’d said something witty. My brother has a penchant for women like Kimmy/Cindy. In fact, I was pretty sure one of his ex-wives had still believed in the tooth fairy until their daughter lost a tooth and Tag apprised her of their parental responsibility. So if Tag ended up with Kimmy/Cindy, instead of Tracy/Stacy, the old flame he didn’t seem to remember anyway, would his wingman go along with the switch? Ooh, the plot inside the minivan might be thickening.
Wait, I was losing my focus. It didn’t really matter who ended up with who, or even whom. What mattered was keeping my eyes on the distant prize. I made a promise to myself: As soon as I got my act together, I would never be a wallflower wedged into the third seat of a minivan with my parents, my brother, and my brother’s posse du jour again.
Steve turned around. “That’s actually Lake Travis.”
“Really?” I said brilliantly. Maybe as soon as I was all blond and thin and interesting, I’d work on becoming a scintillating conversationalist.
He smiled. “Really. It’s almost sixty-four miles long, and about four and a half miles at its widest point. It was created with the construction of the Mansfield Dam, which impounded the Colorado River—”
Kimmy/Cindy leaned across me and poked Steve’s shoulder with a fingernail. “See, I knew you were interesting.”
She had a nice manicure—rosy at the base and tipped in crisp white. Maybe after I worked on my conversation, I’d move on to my nails. In the meantime I settled for gnawing off the jagged edge of a thumbnail.
My mother caught my eye in the rearview mirror and shook her head. I squinted at her. She mimed taking my thumbnail out of my mouth. Seriously. It had come to this. My AARP card was practically right around the corner and my mother was still telling me to get my thumb out of my mouth.
“Truckin’” played for the third time and we all joined in on the chorus. Either my parents’ iPod was having shuffle issues, or they’d programmed “Truckin’” to play every fifth song. Maybe it was their theme song. Or maybe just the featured song of their Driving in a Minivan with the Kids mix.
“Uh-ooh-ooh,” Tracy/Stacy and Kimmy/Cindy sang. They were starting to show real potential on those air tambourines.
Steve looked up from the GPS on his cell phone. “Take the next left.”
My father turned onto North Quinlan Park Road and we passed a big sign for Steiner Ranch. We drove along a beautifully landscaped road with nice wide walking trails on either side and clusters of newer-looking homes until the neighborhood changed to something more rustic.
Out of nowhere another lake appeared. We took a sharp left just before we drove into it. A gray metal gate stopped us. Under the minivan headlights it looked like a modern sculpture. My father lowered his window to address the small rectangular box beside the gate.
“Welcome to Lake Austin Spa Resort. How can I help you?” a disembodied voice said from the box.
Steve leaned forward and called out from his seat. “Hi. Steve Moretti. I should be on your list. And I hope you don’t mind, but I brought a few friends with me.”
“Enjoy your visit, Mr. Moretti.”
The huge gray gate swung open soundlessly.
We drove through and parked along the edge of a cobblestone drive. My father pushed a button and the child-safe side door of the minivan opened on its own. Maybe if we sat there long enough, he’d come around and let us out of our car seats.
Tag jumped out and reached two hands back to the Tambourine Twins. Tracy/Stacy ground the heel of one cowboy boot into my instep on her way past me.
“Excuse you,” I said, but she didn’t seem to notice.
My guru brother draped an arm around each of his groupies’ shoulders, and the threesome sauntered off toward the twinkling lights.
I turned sideways in my seat and tried to lift my foot up high enough to inspect it for damages. “What a long strange trip it’s been,” I said, mostly to myself, “and what a stranger longer trip it’s becoming.”
“Ha,” Steve said. He jumped out of the van and leaned back in so he could make eye contact. “Need a hand?”
“Sure,” I said. “Unless you happen to have an extra pair of crutches.”
When you dig in the earth, the earth digs you.
Lake Austin Spa Resort was spectacular. Vine-covered arbors dotted the property and framed a meandering promenade that shaded a long row of connecting cottages. I recognized wisteria climbing up one arbor, and Steve identified bright orange trumpet creeper swirling around and around another. The guy knew his greenery.
Soft, inconspicuous lighting illuminated trees, bushes, and garden after garden after garden. I knew somebody must have put them there, but the plants looked so natural it was as if they’d all just sprouted up spontaneously one day.
“Wow,” I said. “Everything looks so happy here.”
“When you dig in the earth, the earth digs you,” Steve said.
My mother clapped her hands. “Good job, honey. Your first chiasmus.”
Steve bowed,
his right hand in front of his waist and the left one behind, then he switched hands and did it again. He had a nice, easygoing way about him. Back at the conference center garage, when we’d gotten into the whole who-rides-with-whom thing, I liked the way he’d left his own rental car behind and jumped in the minivan so we could all ride together. Maybe I could ask him for a spontaneity lesson.
“Hey, Dee,” Tag said. “Write that down. I might be able to use it.”
I ignored him.
He gave me his I’m-not-kidding look.
I sighed and took out a purple marker from my purse and started writing Steve’s chiasmus on the palm of one hand.
“Oh, grow up,” Tag said.
“You grow up,” I said.
The Tambourine Twins giggled. “I used to do that for math tests,” one of them said. “I could get all the multiplication tables on my hand without writing on any fingers.”
“Impressive,” I said.
I’d expected the resort to be one of those stuffy, relentlessly upscale places, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was laid-back in the way a truly beautiful woman can throw on jeans and a T-shirt and some pink lip gloss, and look stunning.
On that thought, I hiked up my pashmina for a little more upper arm coverage, then bent down to fish out a pebble that had wedged its way between my sandal and my instep.
Guests strolled the gently lit walking paths, many in white bathrobes and flip-flops. A black-and-white cat stretched out decadently across the steps leading up to some guest rooms as if waiting for the delivery of a bedtime snack to cap off a perfect evening. The day’s sweltering heat had mellowed, and the air carried the peaty scent of garden soil and hints of sweet flowers. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a moment to notice the night air, let alone to breathe it in.
We checked in at the reception desk, and then our group headed out to the patio where a duo was performing some kind of jazz/folk fusion. I stood for a minute listening to a woman with a haunting voice sing, “I Could Get Used to You.” Then the male half of the duo began to play the saxophone, rich and sexy. My parents started to dance off in a corner of the patio, and I knew it was only a matter of time until everyone else in our group began to couple off.