I remember feeling ashamed about that, and for a long time I wouldn’t invite anyone to my house. And who could blame me? I was a girly girl who loved to wear pink dresses, straighten my long curly hair, put on nail polish and an overdose of pink shimmer lip gloss, and I was living in a home with a peace sign nailed to the top of the front door and decorated on the inside with pictures of Gandhi, Mandela, and John Lennon. The two worlds couldn’t be more apart. How could I not feel embarrassed?
Back in the moment, I looked at Mom and Dad: The tree-hugger and Mr. Brockovich had finally put a lid on their sex drive and had moved on to the food drive. They sat side by side, organizing all the canned food boxes (probably containing a lot of canned tuna). They looked so happy—nestled together on the sidewalk, in the sprinkles, on a Sunday, in August. Suddenly I felt even more embarrassed for feeling embarrassment back then. Every little thing Mom and Dad had done had come from their big hearts. They just wanted to help or do what was best for me, the environment, the poor, and even the tuna fish. Maybe they weren’t that uncool after all. They both looked up at me and nodded in the direction of the cute, short blond guy, and giggled like teenage girls. Or maybe they are.
“Stop it!” I said, trying to glare at them, which only made them laugh even harder.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around. It was that cheesy guy from the local newspaper, covering the Good Samaritan story on neighborhood kindness. I had seen him when we first got here, taking pictures and sizing up all the girls. He was the kind of guy that would say anything to earn a few cheap points.
“What?” I said a little too hard.
He introduced himself as John Coffee. Seriously, who has a name like that? He asked if he could take a picture of me and my parents.
“Sure,” I said, heading for Mom and Dad and a pile of politically incorrect canned food.
And right there—in suburban Redmond—years away from Woodstock, tie-dyed t-shirts and Bob Dylan, squeezed in between Mom and Dad, I made a peace sign over Mom’s and Dad’s heads as the cheesy newspaper guy snapped a shot of us. I guess I was finally making peace with what my parents were all about, and I felt really happy and also quite curious about the short blond guy—Good Samaritan and easy on the eyes.
When cheesy John Coffee finally stepped out of my view, cute blond guy had disappeared! Vanished! And even though I hadn’t exchanged a single word with him, I was disappointed. How could he just leave without saying goodbye?
ON THE WAY BACK HOME, rain fell like crazy—reminding me of the sound of hail hitting the roof of Dad’s old Toyota back in Connecticut.
“That was fun, huh?” Mom said, clearly trying to cheer me up.
I nodded and tried to remember the smell of the old car.
“Still feeling a little sick?” Mom turned in her seat.
“Yes,” I said, having totally forgotten all about my sore throat for a minute back there.
“Maybe you want to come next time? You never know what might happen.” She smiled.
“You never know,” I mumbled, suddenly remembering what the car had smelled like; a mix of sweet corn and bread. I looked up into the black skies above. Maybe I should go. Maybe he would be there, too.
Double up on Frank
The next morning, I felt even worse. The sun was finally out, go figure, annoyingly bright and making everything around us come to life—everything except me. This particular morning, the sun was my enemy.
“Yep, it’s official; you have a fever.” Mom got up from the bed and looked down at me. “You just stay in bed and I’ll bring you some tea. I guess you don’t feel like coffee?”
I looked up at the big coffee mug in her hand, sending little java airwaves down in my direction. My stomach almost turned. “No, thanks,” I said, covering my face.
“By the way,” Dad said, standing in the doorway, “some guy named Frank left a message, no, the first message on the answering machine.” He looked down at me and smiled. I don’t know which part he found more exciting: the fact that someone had finally left a message on “our” nineteen eighties six-pack-sized answering machine, or that the someone was a guy named Frank, and he had called for me.
“Who?” I said, propping myself up on one elbow. Mom nodded as I looked at her for an answer.
“Oops. I sort of heard it, too, but I had no idea it was meant for you. So, I only heard the first part.” Her voice went up an octave as she beamed. “I think it’s one of the guys from yesterday. From the food drive.”
“But how would he know where to call?” I sat up and was hit by a beam of sunlight. I leaned back and lowered my head. “Did you?” I said, already feeling a little tense. I looked up at Mom. Surely, she didn’t.
“No, Ella,” she said. “I didn’t talk with anyone or give anyone our phone number. You’re not ten anymore. I guess he had the number from when he signed up to volunteer. I am one of the organizers, you know.”
Dad placed a hand on her shoulder. “And good for you. Good for you,” he said, affection and pride in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I know.” Of course, she wouldn’t have. I looked up at her and smiled. “Which one was Frank?”
She looked down at me and giggled. “The sexy one with the nice hair. I hope. For you.” She winked.
“What do you mean by the sexy one?” Dad crossed his arms and leaned against the door.
“Oh, Frank, stop it. She’s almost eighteen.” I heard Mom saying, as she made her way toward the kitchen.
“My own wife, turning against me,” Dad said, shaking his head.
When they were both out of sight, I decided to defy the headache and sunlit house and tiptoe to the office, where I closed the door behind me. I sat down, took a deep breath, and pressed the red play button.
“Hi, it’s Frank, um, from yesterday, um, at the food drive. I’m calling because I, um, was thinking ... some of us are going out tonight to grab some coffee and talk about the event and, um, I was thinking that since you were there yesterday, with your mom organizing and all, well, um, maybe you would like to come, too. We’re meeting tonight around eight at the Starbucks in Redmond Town Center—the one by the water fountain. Hope to see you there. Okay. Bye.”
I stared at the answering machine, racking my brain. Who the hell is Frank?
Since I hadn’t talked to a single one of the guys at the food drive, I couldn’t recognize the voice, but at least it was a nice voice. The name Frank didn’t do much either; it could be any of them. I tiptoed back to bed and looked up at the ceiling. Who the hell is Frank?
MOM CHECKED IN ON ME later. She had a huge bowl of soup in hand. “Here comes the heirloom soup,” she said, laughing, looking for a place to put it.
I sat up and looked at her and the bowl. It was at least a gallon-sized dish.
“There! Just put it on the table, formerly known as the container,” I suggested, pointing at the plastic container underneath the desk.
“Feeling a little better?”
I nodded. I was feeling somewhat better, and my eyes had made friends with the sun again. “Not good yet, but better, I guess. What’s with the pot?”
“Actually, I don’t know what it’s used for, but it looks a bit like a giant soup bowl, right?” She walked over to the desk and grabbed the plastic box, balancing the bowl with one hand the whole time. She flipped the box over and placed the giant china bowl on it. “Dinner is served.” She sat down next to me.
I grabbed the spoon and looked into the bowl.
“Potato soup,” she clarified after I had scrutinized it for a minute.
“Ah,” I said as I sat down on the floor next to it.
“So, who’s Frank?”
“I don’t know,” I said over a mouthful of potato soup.
“Are you going to Redmond then?”
“Where—” I stopped eating and looked at her. “I thought you said you only heard the first few seconds.”
“I did the first time around, but I couldn’t help hea
ring the whole message the second time ... that is ...after you heard it yourself.” She bit down on her lip and smiled.
“We both couldn’t.” Dad popped his head in. “So, you’re going on a date, huh?” He smiled.
I sat up and dropped my spoon in the soup. Instead of going to the bottom, it stood straight up (I guess Dad was right; Mom sure makes a starchy potato soup). I looked up at Mom and Dad, shaking my head. “You two. Never a moment of privacy in this house. And for the record, it’s not a date. Didn’t you hear the guy? It’s a volunteer meeting.”
“Oh, listen to Mother Teresa here. Well, good for you. I’m off to tennis,” Dad added.
“We see that,” Mom said with laughter in her voice. I looked up at Dad. He had on a bright-green tennis outfit, not unlike the ones John McEnroe used to wear—headband and all.
He looked down at himself and adjusted his headband. “What?” he said when I started laughing.
“Hey, Dad, the eighties called and they want their tennis outfit back. And their answering machine.”
“Ha ha ha. Very funny. Suddenly you don’t sound that sick anymore, or is it just me?” He pointed at me with his tennis racket and made a weird loud noise, pretending, I guess, it was some kind of lightsaber. “Look, I am your father. I will not be ridiculed,” he said with his Darth Vader voice, then he turned around like some kind of robot and left. A few minutes later we heard his car in the driveway.
Mom smiled at me. “One thing about your Dad: he’s always entertaining,” she said, shaking her head. “You remember when he used to wear those tiny red shorts?”
“Not really.”
I reached for the bowl and looked down into it. The soup had turned cold and resembled mashed potatoes.
“Well, Dad had these red PG-rated shorts and, man, I tell you they were tight. Then one day...” she said, throwing herself on the bed. “Okay, Dad once had this friend who worked at Universal Studios and he would always send Dad and me these t-shirts with logos and movie titles on them. Well, one day I was out running with him and his red shorts, and...” She stopped. Clearly the visual was getting ahead of her and she was trying hard not to succumb to a hysterical fit of laughing.
She took a deep breath, and while fanning herself, she continued. “Well, at first I didn’t understand why everyone was turning their heads and smiling at us as we came running along the side of the road. I mean, besides a pair of super-tight shorts, who cares, right? Well, when we got back and Dad was opening up the door, I suddenly realized why. Dad was wearing an American Pie t-shirt and on the back, it said, “You never forget your first piece.” And I was ... I was ... I was,” she said, laughing so hard she could barely get the words out. “I was wearing a t–shirt from the movie Dick, and it said something like, “You can’t let Dick control your life.” What a couple of perverts, huh?!” She sat up and wiped her nose on her blouse. “Anyhow,” she said, still a little out of breath, “so you think it’s the tall guy with the dark hair, or the one with the blond hair who looks a little like Dad?”
Oh my God, she was so right; he actually did look a bit like Dad. He even had that “save-the-planet thing” about him. Had he actually been wearing a worn-out “save the tuna” t-shirt or was I imagining this? I looked at Mom. “Maybe I can pop a few Tylenols and make an instant flu recovery.” I felt my forehead, looking for signs of progress.
“I think you should go. Go have fun. Go make friends and worry about your headache in the morning. Remember what Martha wrote in one of the earlier letters?” She looked at me with curled eyebrows.
“No?”
“Don’t be afraid to live a little, love a little. She was right, you know.” Mom stood up. “Go out and live and love a little, okay? You can take my rental. Or I can drive you there if that will make you feel less nervous.”
“Nervous?” I said, already aware of the sweat pooling in my palms. “I’m not nervous. It’s the fever.”
“Sure,” Mom said, trying her best to sound sincere.
I got out of bed, walked over to the closet, opened the door, and took a long look at my sorry-ass belongings: two pairs of jeans, three t-shirts, a cardigan, a pair of sweat pants, a pair of flip flops, a pair of flats (and a pair of Washingtonian Crocs—still nicely wrapped in the box). I turned and looked at Mom.
“You know ... the upside to having lost pretty much all of your clothes is that you don’t have the usual problems with what to wear.” I nodded toward the almost-empty closet and smiled. It was true, but not as fun as I tried to make it sound.
“True,” she said, looking down at herself.
Mom had pretty much been wearing the same pair of flared pants since she had found them at some secondhand store in Redmond. On top she sported a blouse with tiny purple flowers she’d bought at Target. Besides the purple housecoat, even Mom had decided that wearing The Strangers clothes would, be too strange.
I looked at her and smiled. I guess, even with me being the teenager and all, she was actually the one having the hardest time dealing with the whole missing wardrobe situation. At least I could go out and replace most of my stuff—bit by bit. Mom, on the other hand, had had a lot of clothes going all the way back to her early twenties—and some of those were hand-me-downs from Aunt Annie (that’s how the whole seventies theme started, I guess).
“You miss your old clothes, Mom?” I said, grabbing my skinny jeans and the purple, short-sleeved shirt.
“Nah,” she said, shaking her head. “They’re only clothes.” I could tell she was lying as she looked up at the ceiling. “At least we saved Winnie the Pooh.” She smiled.
“True,” I said, trying to squeeze into my skinny jeans.
“You look amazing.” She got up and walked over to me and took in my eyes in the mirror. “I like it when you have your hair up. It looks pretty on you, El.”
I stared back at myself in the mirror. Considering my wardrobe options, and the few accessories I was limited to, I didn’t look too bad. Not bad at all. I nodded and smiled.
“You know what I’ve always told you about beauty being on the inside?”
I nodded at her in the mirror.
“Well, that was all true, but I must admit that beauty on the outside sure helps a lot, too,” she said, almost whispering.
“Helps?” I said, turning slightly to check out my butt.
“With the boys,” she said, “like Frank,” she added, checking out my butt, too.
We both burst into laughter. I was beginning to enjoy moments like this with Mom, though I’d probably never admit that to her.
The wrong Frank
“Hi, Eleanor. I’m so glad you could make it.” It was the tall and skinny guy with sideburns and, even better, one missing front tooth. So not the right Frank.
“Me too,” I said, lying through all of my teeth.
“Sit down.” He took out the chair for me.
“Thanks,” I said, and sat down. Maybe not the right Frank but at least a polite Frank.
He introduced me to the other people sitting around the table. There were two Susans (one with glasses and one without), one Kirsten, and a guy named Luke, and of course, Frank. No sign of Blondie. The two Susans were both studying at UW; Kirsten and Luke were working as substitute teachers together, and Frank was working as a software developer. When it was my turn, my face grew red, and I stuttered through the entire story about how I had graduated high school but flunked math before we had moved to Seattle, but when I explained about the U-Haul truck mix up, it was suddenly so much easier (probably because it’s not really about me). Note to self: always use that story as an icebreaker.
“So, let me get this straight. You’re living in a house with somebody else’s furniture, and you have no idea where all your things, furniture, clothes, or personal effects are? I mean, that must be so weird, so weird. Absurd, absurd.”
Apparently, Susan with the glasses was one of those women who repeat the last words of a sentence.
I nodded, “Yes, pretty weird.
”
“It must be. It must be,” she agreed. “But how could this happen? I mean, what about the people who were driving the other U-Haul? Why haven’t you heard from them? They must be missing their stuff too, right?”
“Good point,” the other Susan added.
“That’s what we have been wondering all along. That is actually the weirdest part of it all. But the thing is: no one has contacted U-Haul. No one seems to be missing their truckload of stuff.” I looked around the table at everyone’s eyes locked on me.
“Maybe they realized that your stuff was so much cooler and they just kept it?” Frank said, nodding his head like he was saying, “Hey, I’m on to something here,” and slurped his coffee. So not the right Frank.
“Good point, good point,” the other Susan added, repeating the same words just like the first Susan. Note to self: don’t spend too much time around either Susan. The repeating thing may be contagious.
“We thought about that possibility too,” I explained, “but, um, that just doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t seem like they would like to get rid of what they had to begin with. To me it seems like a lot of the stuff has great sentimental value. For starters, they had a gorgeous antique piano, and I don’t think Dad’s old Italian scooter can beat that. Besides, I, um, think I might know, um, who or what they are like. These are good people. They would never just take our stuff.”
“How would you know?” Susan One adjusted her glasses and looked at me.
“Yes, how would you know?” Susan Two repeated. Now they were freaking doing it together—in sync, as Dad would have observed.
Lost in Seattle (The Miss Apple Pants series, #2) Page 13