by Unknown
I laugh. “I’m old enough to get my own cars, Daddy.”
“Not a chance. I like taking care of my girl.”
I settle more into my seat. It feels really good, better than any other time before, to be home. I don’t know why, but it feels incredible today.
I roll down the window and let the air tease my hair as we drive past the beach and turn onto the freeway.
I feel Jack’s gaze on me.
“Happy to be home?”
I turn from the window. “Ecstatic.”
Jack laughs. “The road can do that. Nothing makes home look better than the road.”
I smile, but I’m not sure if that’s what I’m feeling, relief to be off the road, or even if that’s why this feels so good to be here. There’s been a quietness in me that I didn’t expect since I left Neil at the hotel.
Strange. It makes no sense to be feeling this way. I’ve just left him alone on tour, where every night is filled with hundreds of girls panting after him, hot for his boxers. I should feel anxious not peaceful. Guys lie for guys. He could do anything he wanted while I’m gone and no one would ever tell me.
I should be suspicious. Paranoid. Jealous. Those feelings would be logical. Not this odd sense of almost relief to be taking a break from each other.
What a strange girl I am. My internal processes rarely ever are normal. Like my reaction to the marriage proposal. I feel myself getting emotionally messy all over again, and push the memory from my mind.
“What’s weighing so heavily on your mind, baby girl?” Jack asks, startling me. “Something tells me you didn’t come home just to be with me for your birthday. Something is bothering you, Chrissie.”
I shrug and stare out the window. I surprise myself by saying, “Neil asked me to marry him.”
Jack smiles. “Not exactly a shocker. Neil’s twenty-eight. Things are starting to take off for him. He knows what he wants.”
A long moment of quiet passes that feels as if Jack is waiting for me to tell him what my answer was. “What did you say?” he asks, finally.
We drive beneath the high black metal arch into Hope Ranch. I didn’t plan on discussing this with Jack, I don’t know why I am, but we’re nearly home so I can escape this conversation quickly if it grows too uncomfortable.
“I said maybe,” I answer softly.
“Oh,” Jack replies heavily.
I arch a brow. “What is that supposed mean? Oh?”
Jack makes a quiet, sort of sympathetic laugh. “Maybe doesn’t mean maybe in this situation. Maybe is no. How’d Neil take that?”
Crap, that’s exactly what Neil said. Is there some guy code book somewhere in this world that all men get? My maybe meant maybe. I don’t know what I want yet.
“He was hurt, but you know Neil. He got over it fast. And everything is fine.”
“So why did you say no?” Jack asks, and I can tell that’s far from a simple question. He wants to know if there is something he should be concerned about between Neil and me.
I shake my head. “Because I’m not sure. Not ready yet or even sure if marriage is the right thing for me.”
Jack makes an approving nod. “Then keep saying maybe, baby girl. It has to be the right thing for both of you for it to be a good thing for either of you.”
I frown. “How do you know, Daddy, when it’s right? Everything with Neil is really good. I just don’t know if it’s right.”
Jack laughs. “You’ll know when you know. Don’t worry about it. When something is right it isn’t something you can miss.”
I study my dad for a moment. I’ve always wanted to know this and have never asked, but we just rummaged around in my personal life, so shouldn’t it be fair for me to rummage in his?
“Why haven’t you remarried?” I ask.
Jack’s eyes remain forward on the road, but there is a strange look on his face.
“I almost did. Once,” he says quietly.
Holy shit. I wasn’t expecting that one. How could he have a relationship serious enough to contemplate marriage without me ever knowing about it?
My eyes widen to their fullest and I turn in my seat until I’m directly facing him.
“Who? When? How? What happened?”
Jack gives me an amused look.
“I’m not answering all that. And you don’t need to know the details. It didn’t work out.”
“Why didn’t it work out?”
He shakes his head, exasperated with me giving him more questions.
“It doesn’t matter why. I’ve had a good life, Chrissie. No one gets everything that they want. Having enough is a pretty damn fine thing. I have enough.”
I watch him as we pull into the driveway, and suddenly I remember that day when Maria told me about Jack’s long-term lady friend. I wonder if the long-term lady friend is the woman Jack wanted to marry, if he still loves her, and if I will ever meet her.
He hops from the car and moves quickly to get my bag. For once it looks like he’s running from one of our father/daughter chats.
I climb from the car, shaking my head. Why doesn’t Jack share the details of his personal life with me the way he expects me to share mine with him?
He opens the front door for me, smiling as he waits for me to enter. Conversation over. Well, maybe we’ve both talked enough serious shit for one day.
Jack goes in one direction to put my suitcases in my room and I make my way through the rooms, poking my head in here and there, looking for Maria. I pause at the entry to the family room.
Maria is sitting on the couch, folding laundry and watching her Spanish soap opera. Well, it’s noon. Even my coming home today doesn’t change her routine. Her eyes are fixed on the set, and she doesn’t even notice I’m here.
“Well, this is anticlimactic,” I say. “Not even a hello.”
Maria whirls on the sofa, and her round matronly face brightens with excitement.
“Chica. You are home. ¿Cómo está mi niña?”
Mi niña. My girl. Warmth moves through my veins. I feel really home, finally; I’ve now heard mi niña from Maria. I’m home.
“I’ve missed you, Maria.” I drop down on the couch beside her and she quickly pulls me into her arms. “I’m so glad to see you.”
She lays a palm on my cheek. “I am glad to see you, Chrissie. You look good. Everything going well for you?”
I nod, sinking down to sit cuddled up against her. “I’m doing great.”
She nods in a serious way, as if the important matters have been taken care of, and then starts folding the laundry again. I bite back my laughter.
“¿Tu novio no está aquí?”
I stare at her and frown. Nope, can’t translate that one.
“What does novio mean?”
Maria arches a brow. “Ah, you forget your Spanish, Chrissie. You have been from home too long. It means fiancé. Boyfriend.” She stares at me with wide eyes and makes a funny face. “Neil.”
I laugh. “I don’t hear a lot of Spanish these days. I’m surrounded by surfer boys and Brits.”
“So where is Neil?” she asks, in that nosy mother sort of way.
“Working. He wanted to come with me, but he couldn’t. He told me to ask if you would make enchiladas to take back to him. We can’t get good Mexican food on the east coast.”
“I like him.” She nods, takes a fast peek at the action on the TV, and then glances back at me. “He is a good boy. Remind me, Chrissie. I’ll make tamales just for him. You can take those back. They’ll travel better.”
My brows hitch up as I pull back from her. “Tamales, huh? You don’t even make tamales for me when I ask for them. Jeez, you are such a pushover for a cute guy.”
Maria gives me a stern look, but her cheeks flush a tad. “You are so full of it.”
I smile. “I’m glad you like Neil. I couldn’t date him if you didn’t.”
She rolls her eyes. “Chrissie does what Chrissie wants to do.”
“I’m not that bad.”
Maria tilts her head to the side and gives me the look.
“Maria! Stop it. You’re going to hurt my feelings and I haven’t been home five minutes.”
She pats the sofa beside her. “Sit down. Watch our program with me, and help me finish my work.”
I grab a towel from the basket. We sit together, eyes glued on the set, neatly stacking folded laundry on the coffee table. I come home and Maria puts me to work. Some things never change.
Maria shuts off the set, stands up, grabs the empty laundry basket from the couch and puts the piles of towels in it.
She points. “Carry that for me, Chrissie. I need to put it away.”
My eyes widen in surprise. She’s never asked me to do anything except help her fold, but then she’s not as young as she used to be.
I follow her down the back hallway to the linen closet, holding the basket until she’s emptied it again.
“Put it on the floor and come to my room with me,” she orders.
I set down the basket and follow her. When I enter her bedroom she is rummaging through her armoire. She turns back to face me and my heart drops to the floor.
“I did not keep this from you, chica. It came last week. I did not know how to send it to you, but I kept it because I knew you were coming home.”
She sets the envelope in my trembling hands and tears burn behind my lids. There is no return address, but I don’t need one to know who it is from. I recognize the handwriting with an instant jab to my heart.
I stare at it. Ten months. A single letter. Alan wouldn’t return a phone call, but he sent this. I get a single letter ten months later, probably just a briefly penned note to tell me to buzz off since I pathetically called him repeatedly after we first broke up.
I can’t feel my arms. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t breathe. I desperately want to open it. No, Chrissie, no. Be smart.
I shove it back at Maria. “Rip it up. Throw it away. And if he sends more don’t give them to me.”
I leave the room before Maria can answer me and rush down the hallway to my bedroom. I shut the door behind me and stand in the middle of the room, staring, trying to figure out if I should run back in there for Alan’s letter.
Do I retrieve it before Maria can destroy it? Or is it better never to read it?
I breathe in. I breathe out. Slowly I become aware that the trembling in me has stopped. I’m surprised by how quickly it left me. I’ve never before driven away the Alan internally messy so quickly. I feel myself easing into comfortable order again. It’s a new feeling, really good, and I know with a certainty that not reading his letter was the best thing for me.
OK, Alan panic attack over. But new panic is here to replace it.
What the hell do I do alone in Santa Barbara for two weeks? Rene’s not here. Neil’s not here. I don’t have any friends, not really. There’s Jack. But I can’t exactly hang exclusively with my dad all day. How pathetic that would be.
Shit, Chrissie, why didn’t you think of this before you came home? I’m never more alone than when I am in Santa Barbara, which is so bizarre because this is home.
I drop to my knees beside my suitcase and rummage through my clothes for my bathing suit. I quickly change, grab a towel, shove some things into a small carry tote, and head for the beach.
Sun. I’ll lie in the sun. Sun makes everything less awful.
I cut across the lawn to the steps built into the cliffs. I look in both directions. No one. Perfect. Not even Jack.
I trot down the steps and settle in a lush spot not littered with driftwood and seaweed. After spreading out my towel, I lie down on my stomach.
My mobile phone rings and I tense, wondering if it’s Neil and if this is how the two weeks apart are going to be, him calling me endlessly.
Then I chide myself for the snotty thought as I search in my bag for the phone, and I admit that I’m already kind of missing him. Not kind of, Chrissie. You do miss Neil.
Less than a day apart from him and I really miss him. I didn’t expect that. Nor did I expect it to be a surprisingly nice feeling. It’s so unlike me, but I’ve had two uncharacteristic nice feelings in a single day: not completely melting down over Alan and missing Neil.
I flip my phone open and hold it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Chrissie, I’m not bothering you, am I?”
Michelle Stanton. A smile covers my face because Neil’s mother is such a sweetheart and I’m more than a little thrilled that she called.
I sit up. “You’re not bothering me. I’m just lying out on the beach.”
“You take calls on the beach?”
She laughs and I shake my head. She makes that sound like the strangest thing in the world to her.
“Where I go, my mobile goes. You raised a worrier, Michelle. If Neil can’t reach me by phone he starts to call nonstop.”
She sighs.
“Yes, that boy is a worrier. Always has been. I haven’t the first clue why he’s that way. I think Neil was just born a worrier. But it’s sort of sweet that he cares so much that it’s important to him to talk to you, isn’t it?”
I’ve never looked at it that way before. “Very sweet.” I curl around the phone, hugging my knees. “So what’s up? You didn’t call just to discuss Neil.”
She laughs. “No. A smart mother stays out of their children’s relationships. We’re supposed to have lunch tomorrow. Remember?”
“Of course I remember. Where do you want to meet up?”
A long pause. “I’m not really sure I’d know any restaurants you’d like, dear.”
I bite back my laughter, but the any restaurants you’d like, dear makes my smile grow. “I’m pretty much good with anywhere.”
“I think Mia is going to join us. Perhaps we should let Mia pick where we go.”
This time I can’t hold back my laughter. So she doesn’t know where Neil gets his worrying? Oh, Michelle, he gets it from you, and all we’re trying to do is figure out a place to eat.
“Why don’t we all meet at your house tomorrow at noon?” I offer, surprising myself. “I’ll drive. We can just figure it out after I get there.”
“Perfect.” She sounds relieved. “See ya tomorrow, Chrissie.”
“See ya, Michelle.”
See ya. Something else Neil got from his mother. I toss my phone onto my bag and lie on my back, shading my eyes with an arm.
Funny, but I never noticed before how much like his mother Neil is. His at times extreme worrying over nothing. That’s Michelle. See ya. That’s Michelle. How considerate and understanding he is. Michelle. He’s just like his mother.
I crinkle up my nose. I wonder if I’m just like Jack. Nope, not going to go there. I wish I could remember my mother better. I wish I knew if I was like Lena. But I don’t remember her well so I won’t ever know if I’m like her or more like Jack.
I roll back onto my stomach, almost decide to go sleep, then I reach for my mobile phone. Four hours in Santa Barbara and Neil hasn’t called yet. It surprises me.
I grab the phone and punch in the numbers for his mobile.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Chrissie,” is whispered into the receiver.
I laugh, and everything inside me starts to warm. “God, you sound like such a pervert when you say my name that way. It isn’t the least bit sexy, Neil.”
His laughter sounds rough, a touch gravelly. “I’m not trying to be sexy. My voice is shit today.”
I make a pout, even though he can’t see it through the phone. “Sorry. You didn’t call me after I landed. I was wondering if you forgot about me.”
“Nope. That’s not going to happen, not ever.”
I smile. “Well, I don’t want to wear out your voice. You sound awful today. I’ll let you go.”
“No.” This word is spoken on just a breath.
“No?”
“I know you hate the sappy shit, but I really do miss you. I really do wish you were here.”
“I miss you, too.
” How quickly I say that surprises me.
“I hate the road without you, Chrissie.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Have fun in Santa Barbara. I didn’t mean to be such a downer before you left. I get why you went home. Everyone needs time alone to think. You always run home when you need to think. Think about us getting married, will you?”
Shit. How did he know that was partly the reason I left?
I change the subject. “Do you think I’m like my dad?”
His laughter comes loudly and more gravelly. “Shit, Chrissie, you’re exactly like Jack.”
I scrunch up my face. “Really?”
“Yep.” A few minutes of quiet, and then he says, “You’re both pains in the ass.”
I burst out laughing. I don’t want to laugh, but Neil is probably right.
“I love you anyway, baby,” he whispers into the phone.
“I love you, even though you’re exactly like your mother,” I taunt.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Laughing, I click off the phone.
~~~
I park in the Stantons’ driveway and sit in the car, staring at the house.
I love this house. A small, lively blue bungalow with white shutters and a pretty porch crowded with plants and furnishings. It’s the kind of place I imagine when you have to imagine home in a story and the author doesn’t help you by providing a description. The iconic Americana image of home, California-style, crowded with a loud, rowdy, outdoors-loving family.
Yep, that’s the Stantons. Even if Neil does like to say he was raised in the 6-6-6, which pisses me off because his family is wonderful and should never be compared to the satanic, but I know that isn’t how he means it. It’s just Santa Barbara code for the rougher neighborhoods on the eastside—six blocks from the beach, six blocks from State Street, and six blocks from school—the 6-6-6.
I crinkle my nose, I definitely don’t like that, and pull my keys from the ignition. I climb from the car, hurry up the walkway, and then pull back the black iron security screen and knock on the door.
Lots of sound comes from inside, then the door is jerked wide and Mia Stanton, her pretty face bright with excited welcoming, closes in on me as she grabs me in a fast, exuberant hug.
“Chrissie. I’m so happy you’re home.”