Prettiest Doll

by Gina Willner-Pardo

  Dan stood up, so I did, too. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  Mr. Jacobson leaned around and opened the desk drawer. He pulled out a checkbook.

  “No, don’t,” Dan said.

  “No?” Mr. Jacobson put the checkbook back and stood up, then reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Take this, then. Take something,” he said, holding out a small wad of bills.

  Dan took the money and stuffed it into his pocket. I knew he was thinking what taking it meant: that he was forgiving his father, saying everything could go back to the way it was, and hating himself a little for it.

  At the door, Mr. Jacobson said, “I hope you understand.”

  Dan nodded with the smallest possible movement of his head, the way a man does, not letting anything out.

  “You going to be all right? You got a place to stay?” Mr. Jacobson asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well.” Out of questions to ask, things to say. He smiled, ready to let it go at that, and I thought, A real daddy would want to know where.

  He held out his hand to me. “Nice to meet you, Liv.”

  I shook his hand and said, “Thank you,” knowing Dan wouldn’t want me to make a scene.

  “Danny?” he said.

  Dan looked at the outstretched hand and then met his daddy’s eyes. “It’s Dan,” he said, keeping his hands jammed deep in his pockets.

  “Well.” Mr. Jacobson flushed. He pulled open one of the massive front doors. “I’ll call you.”

  We stepped out into the deep, gray morning cold.

  “You know how to get back to the station?”

  Dan turned around and nodded yes, his chin just barely tilting up.

  “Safe travels, then.” And he disappeared behind the closing door.

  We hiked back out to the sidewalk on the gently curving driveway. I looked Dan’s way, but he kept his eyes straight ahead. “Asshole,” he said, his breath a cloudy puff of steam.

  On the train, he said, “Do you think it was bad I didn’t shake his hand?”

  “No.”

  “You think maybe I should have said I was sorry for not calling first?”

  “No.”

  He kept his eyes on the passing landscape: cars spewing exhaust, the ghostly trees. “I don’t even know those two kids and I feel sorry for them.”

  Everyone has something horrible in life to get over: a mean daddy, a dead daddy, being short, singing lessons. Not being beautiful. I said, “They’ll be all right. Nobody’s going to have to work two jobs, paying for things.”

  “I still feel bad for them.”

  “They’ll be all right.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I guess,” I said, letting him be sad, because that was what he wanted. But I was thinking that they would be all right because most people are, eventually. And that struck me as amazing—s taggering—t he kind of thing you can think a million times and not even notice and then think once more and be shocked.

  Later, as the train slowed at the Belmont station, I said, “What do you want to do now?”

  He puffed out his cheeks, sighing, tired. “I want one of those pretzels.”

  “That sounds good,” I said. The train doors whooshed open, and a few people entered the car, the cold on their coats. “We have to watch out. There are a lot of policemen down there.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, and I could tell from the way he said it that he was almost done, too tired to care.

  Navy Pier was now a place I knew, a place I was coming back to. The lady at Auntie Anne’s smiled as she handed me my sour cream and onion pretzel. “I think she remembered me,” I said after we paid. It felt good, being remembered. It made me think of Chicago in a different way, as thousands of Luthers Bridges that just happened to be close together, each one full of people who could be neighbors, friends.

  We smiled at the man dressed in a dog costume, wearing pirate clothes and an eye patch, patting little kids on the head with his big paw-hands. I saw a couple of policemen as we strolled along, but they didn’t pay any attention to us. “Maybe they’ve stopped looking for us,” I said.

  “Too many real criminals,” Dan said. “And they weren’t looking for us. They were looking for you.”

  I was going to argue with him, but then I thought, Maybe Dan’s mama was like his daddy, not really wanting to know where her boy was, glad it wasn’t her having to be responsible. Without thinking, I grabbed his hand and held it. He didn’t say anything, but he closed his eyes for a second, reminding me how long his lashes were, and that, even though he didn’t want to be found, there was pain in not being looked for.

  I knew we were heading to the Ferris wheel without either of us having to say so. In the gondola, we sat close together, holding hands, facing forward, both of us tipping our heads up at the sky as we started to move. We climbed and climbed, and there was a second at the very top that was like taking a breath, and then we skidded around and down. I was dizzy with joy, with not thinking, not wanting anything else except this.

  Then the wheel began stopping, letting each car have a turn at the top. I missed the moving, the flying feeling, but I knew we were heading toward the highest point. It reminded me of Carson Jeffries painting New Faith Gospel, sitting on top of the scaffolding at lunch, seeing Luthers Bridge in a whole new way.

  “It was really good today, the way you talked to Suzy,” Dan said as we lurched upward. “It was amazing.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you hadn’t done it, I never would have gotten to talk to him.”

  “That’s why I kept talking. I don’t usually do that.”

  “I know. I just wanted you to know I knew.” He paused so long that I turned to look at him. He said, “The reason I’m thinking about getting the shots is that I thought, maybe, you might like it if I did. If I was taller.”

  “I don’t care anything about that,” I said.

  He kissed me. He kissed me for so long that, when he finally stopped, I realized we’d already had our time at the top and were heading back down to earth.

  “We missed it,” I whispered, not even caring.

  “Let’s go again,” he whispered back.

  We rode the Ferris wheel for over an hour, until it started to rain and the operator made us get off so he could shut the ride down. The pier was almost deserted. We ducked into King Wah to get out of the rain and ordered pot stickers. We found a table in the back corner and sat next to each other. The pot stickers were sweet. When he kissed me, his lips tasted like soy sauce.

  “We can’t stay here too long,” I said. “Two kids kissing. Someone’s going to complain.”

  “I don’t care,” he said.

  So much happiness. I thought I would burst from being so full with it; I had to smile just to let some of it out. It was the happiest I’d ever been. Winning pageants? That wasn’t happiness. Now I knew.

  “But I have to go back to Uncle Bread’s,” I said. “Even if the police are there. Even if he calls my mama.”

  “I know,” he said.

  He didn’t know, not really, but he said it as if the only thing he was thinking about was making me happy, doing what I needed him to. I kissed him again and knew that we were coming up on the end, whether we wanted to or not. And I thought that, for the rest of my life, that was what the taste of soy sauce would remind me of: a mixing on my tongue of happiness and the knowing that happiness can melt away in an instant, leaving just the slightest hint of itself behind.

  It was almost dark when we got back to the apartment. I let myself in with the key Uncle Bread had given me. He wasn’t home. I went into the bathroom and toweled off my wet hair. In the mirror, my skin looked pink: rain washed, scrubbed clean.

  When I came back to the living room, Dan was sitting on one of the love seats, waiting for me. He’d turned on the lamp. The low yellow light warmed me like fire. I settled in close to him and we kissed a little, but not the way we had before. Now it felt like gratitude.

/>   I heard the key in the lock, the door pushed open, Uncle Bread saying, “Liv! Is that you?” Before I could say “Yes,” he’d come into the room, still holding his briefcase, water dripping off his raincoat. “My God, Liv!” he said, dropping the briefcase, pulling me into a hug. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  “I know,” I mumbled into his wet shoulder, “I know. I know,” a part of me wanting to say I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t let myself.

  Finally, he pulled away and said, “Oh, God. Look at me dripping all over you.” I went into the bathroom to use the towel again, and when I came out, he had taken off his raincoat and was sitting across from Dan, who was saying, “We’re fine. Really.”

  “But where did you go? Where were you?”

  Dan looked at me, not sure if he should say. And I realized I didn’t want him to, that I wanted our night in the movie theater to be just ours, something only we knew. I wanted to be able to remember it when I was an old lady and know that, somewhere out in the world, Dan was remembering it, too, and that it was just us.

  “Liv. Dan. I want an answer.”

  He said it as though we were kids who’d lost our backpacks or come home after curfew. And I didn’t feel like a kid. I was someone who’d kissed a boy I really, really liked, who had just made a memory that would last me all my life. I didn’t need to be lectured or given a talking-to. I felt a wave of anger wash over me.

  “Uncle Bread, I need to talk to you,” I said. “Alone.”

  fourteen

  UNCLE Bread closed the door to the guest room and looked at me like, Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through?

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Suddenly, I was speechless. My nerves gave out.

  He sat down on the straight-backed chair across from the bed. He looked pale and weary. “Does this have anything to do with you disappearing last night?” he asked.

  “Not exactly—”

  “Because I have yet to hear an apology. And I would like to hear one.”

  I had never seen him angry at me before.

  “Do you have any idea what last night was like? The worry? Wondering if you’d been hit by a bus? Kidnapped? If you were dead? Do you have any idea?”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”

  “Olivia.” He got up and sat next to me on the bed, scooching up close and taking my hands. “This is so unlike you, scaring people. What is the matter?”

  I jerked my hand away. “Nothing. And I said I was sorry. What more do you want?”

  “I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Why does something have to be going on? Why can’t this just be me being a normal girl?”

  “Do you think normal girls run away from home without telling their mothers where they are? Or their uncles?”

  “How would I know? How would I know what normal girls do?”

  He leaned back, away from me. “Oh-h-h-h,” he breathed, as if the whole thing were dawning on him.

  “What?” I said, irritated that he thought I was so easy to figure out. Just one more box to be put in. “Look, this isn’t about pageants.”

  “Well, what, then?”

  “Not everything in my life is about pageants!”

  “Okay. Okay,” he said soothingly, but it was too late: I was already crying. Sobbing, holding my face in my hands. “Shhh. It’s all right, Jammie,” he said, rubbing my back.

  “Quit doing that,” I said, arching away from his hand. “And don’t call me Jammie.”

  He took his hand away and sat quietly while I cried. I couldn’t stop, even though I knew crying made me look ugly. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop thinking about the dresses. The evening gowns and the costumes, the organza and the tulle, the bows and lace. So many dresses. When I got a new one, I couldn’t wait to wear it. Stiff and sparkly, it crinkled with the magic of possibility. I couldn’t wait. And then, after I wore it, it was just a dress. Mama would sell some of them on eBay to help pay for another one. Gone. Now it seemed like such a waste.

  Maybe I wanted to look ugly right now.

  I hiccupped and wiped my nose on my sleeve. Uncle Bread reached for a box of Kleenex on the bedside table and held it out to me. After I blew my nose, he said, “Your mom will understand, Olivia.”

  “Understand what?”

  “About the pageants. That you don’t want to do them anymore. She might pitch a fit, but she’ll come around.”

  “I know that.” His being on my side was getting on my nerves. “That’s not why I’m crying.”

  “Why, then?”

  “It’s just...” I sighed, exhausted. Crying is hard work.

  “I know your mother. She doesn’t like being thwarted. She can be scary. But I’ll help, if you want. We’ll tell her together. Don’t you worry about it,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. “I’ll stand by you.”

  “Oh, really? Is that what you’ll do?”

  He let me go.

  “You’re not going to stand by me. That’s a lie,” I said. “Maybe what you meant was that you’ll send me a letter.”

  He didn’t answer. He crossed one leg over the other and watched it bounce up and down.

  “That’s what you meant, isn’t it? And you’ll write all kinds of good things. You’ll say how you love me and you’re proud of me and how everything will work out! ” I was yelling now. “And how busy you are with all your kids at school! How amazing they are!”

  “Liv. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what? You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” The more I yelled, the more my insides burned.

  “Just ... sorry. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

  “You know what I remember? How Valentine Biswell got run over by a Subaru Forester.”

  Uncle Bread sighed.

  “I got three whole letters about that. How someone else’s mama accidentally backed over her foot in front of the Augustus Hodge School and carried Valentine into the front office even though she wasn’t crying or screaming or anything because she was so brave. And how she had to stay home for a week because her daddy didn’t have enough money for pain pills, and how you bought her Children’s Tylenol with your own money, and visited her every day after school and brought handmade cards from all the other kids so she would know how much they all missed her.”

  “I wanted you to know what my life was like. You were important to me. I wanted—”

  “Why did you leave?”

  Everything in my body was on fire, the sobs in my throat like flames.

  I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. When it was over, I had no bones, nothing to hold me up. He put his hand on my back; my skin hurt. Everything was sore and tender.

  “It was complicated,” he said. “It was too much for a four-year-old to understand.”

  “I wanted to be Valentine Biswell, all bent up with pain, hobbling around on crutches, not being a very good reader anyway, and now being even worse with all the school I’d missed. I didn’t care about any of that,” I said. “I just wanted to be her.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “I hated Valentine Biswell. For years. I had the meanest thoughts. That she must have been retarded, being a slow reader. That she wasn’t brave for not screaming—she just liked all the attention, everyone fussing. And that her daddy ... Well. How at least she had a daddy.” I paused. “I liked to pretend that she was ugly, really ugly, the kind of ugly where kids whispered nasty things and teachers were hateful to her because they knew the other kids didn’t like her and they were trying to win them over.” When he looked at me funny, I added, “Teachers do that, you know.”

  “I know,” he said.

  I reached for another tissue and blew my nose hard. Then I asked, “Was she?”

  “Was she what?”

  “Ugly.”

  He ran one hand over his scalp.

  “It was a long time ago, Liv. Seven or eight years.” He met my eyes and said, �
�I think she was a perfectly nice-looking girl. A nice, average-looking girl.”

  I felt better. If you’re ugly, people feel sorry for you. In a way, it’s worse to be average looking than to be ugly.

  “So explain it to me now. Why you left,” I said.

  “It’s still complicated.”

  “Was it because you’re gay?”

  Uncle Bread look shocked for a moment. Then he burst out laughing.

  “I’m not gay,” he said. “Where’d you get that idea? Oh, wait, don’t tell me. Janie?”

  “Well, yes.” I was embarrassed to be so wrong. Then, when the embarrassment wore off, I was shocked. For the second time in one day, I thought, remembering Dan’s daddy being crazy and mean one minute, sad and rejected the next. Sometimes I went for weeks not even being surprised.

  Uncle Bread laughed again, but sadly. “Your mama is a piece of work,” he said. “Talking shit about someone she doesn’t know at all. Making up stories.”

  “She said you were gay and you had to leave Luthers Bridge because there were no other gay people for you to hang out with. And that, if you’d wanted to, you could have taken a class or something and learned how to like girls.”

  “When did she say all this? When you were four?”

  “No. I don’t remember exactly. She used to mention it every once in a while. I think she wanted me to stop missing you so much and she thought ... maybe...”

  “That if you thought I was gay you wouldn’t love me anymore?”

  I nodded yes. Then I said, “It didn’t work, though.”

  “Thank you for that, sweet Liv.” He turned my shoulders so I would face him. “Gay people are just gay. They’re born that way. It isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”

  “Okay.” I pretty much knew that anyway.

  “They can’t take a class, and why should they? There’s glory in being who God meant you to be. And as for me, well, I’ve been hearing things like this my whole life. If you’re a skinny boy who doesn’t like sports and likes to read, you hear it all the damn time. You get awful tired, after a while.” He shook his head. “So I left because I wanted to live somewhere crowded with people. So that, even if there were still a lot of people who were like your mother, there’d be a few who weren’t. Who’d get me. Who’d see who I really was. That answer your question?”