by Delia Rosen
“When I first met your father, he was slouchin’ forward on a bar stool in the Bluebird Cafe, his ice-cold Schlitz beer in his right hand, and he was just sittin’ and starin’ at their big ole television set. Well, big in those days. I was there that night to catch Kathy Mattea, before she went gold, and I spotted your father in the back, waitin’ for the replay of the Kentucky Derby, the one where Swale ran away with it.”
I wanted to tell her to lose the stage setting, but I was too stupefied to talk.
“Your pa just looked so pathetic all alone, completely unaware of the crowd beginning to pour in around him, like he’d been there all day and night, like that statue of the thinkin’ man, and no one was gonna move him. And I can still see his adorably ridiculous glasses and sideburns! So I sauntered on up to him and asked, ‘Are you from Kentucky, mister, or are you just fond of horses?’ He turned. ‘Not a big fan of the program tonight,’ he said, then smiled. ‘Present company excluded.’ Well, that got my attention, and we got to chattin’ some. I told him that I was originally from West Virginia, right on the border of Kentucky, and that I’d often gone to see the races as a kid before moving here in my teen years.
“I don’t suppose he seemed too impressed, although it took a few minutes for him to realize that he’d missed the replay on account of our conversation. But he didn’t seem too upset by that, either, so I assumed I was doin’ all right by him. Soon Miss Kathy started her set, and we left the café on account of the noise interruptin’ our fairly decent discussion. About what I don’t recall. But we spent the night walkin’ the streets and talkin’ about his dreams of doin’ somethin’ meaningful, somethin’ wonderful with his brother, somethin’ special. That was over twenty-five years ago.” Her gray eyes seemed to stare through the door. “And just look at the deli now.”
“It’s the eighth wonder of the world,” I said.
“Your pap did that, too,” she said.
“What?”
“Got sarcastic when someone said somethin’ nice about him. Don’t ride yourself,” Lydia chided.
I almost said, “What? Are you my mother?” but stopped myself. That would have been creepily inappropriate.
I told myself to stay calm, think this through, not react. Because reacting right now would be overreacting, like slapping this bitch into last week. My dad had a right to a private life here. He was separated from my mother, even though they never divorced. But this was still seriously, uncomfortably strange and definitely unwelcome. Oh, and really bad timing.
“I’m sure you have a million questions, my darlin’. I know I do. It’s been nearly thirteen years since I lost your father, and he left such a big hole in my heart. And an even bigger one in my life. I’ve worn black every day since his passin’, and since we never got hitched, I’ve been one step short of strugglin’ to stand on my own two feet. He was always quite the provider. Early on we moved in together into a two-story colonial home. He split that halfway up the middle with Murray, your late uncle.”
What? I thought. He lived with her in what was now my house?
Something knotted deep down. I had a bad feeling this part of the story was just a preamble. God help her if she made a move to try and kick me out.
“We had such wonderful times there,” she went on gaily. “And Murray, God rest his soul, was always drummin’ up somethin’ new for us to all do together, on the town, at all hours of the night. Your daddy said he hadn’t had as much fun since his time in the air force when he was stationed in Germany. I always loved to hear him tell those stories, didn’t you?”
No. It was always about him. That was what my mother said.
“You know he had a lady there, too?”
Okay . . . time to shut up, Lady Lydia.
“It was this local girl he’d always sit next to on the bus on his civilian rides into town. He’d always offer her a stick of gum, he said. And she’d always accept. Until one day he didn’t have any regular chewin’ gum, only that laxative-type gum, but he didn’t want to disappoint her, so he offered her that, and she accepted. Well, their many afternoons together ended after that bit of business. Can’t blame her, really.”
Thank goodness my mother has passed on, because this gal’s monologue would’ve stopped her heart.
“I hope you don’t mind that I’m tellin’ you all of this. I know it’s a lot to take in and I’m blabbin’ at the mouth, but I’ve just been dyin’ to get to know you for years, and I wasn’t sure until I saw you on the news the other day that it was actually you runnin’ this establishment.”
She finally stopped talking. So I said, “I’ll admit I don’t know what to say. It’s a little shocking, to say the least.”
“A little like finding a live dead body, I’d imagine,” she said.
“I guess,” I replied. That was almost a Dani-ism. “You know, I didn’t know he had a girlfriend. I probably should have guessed.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be something for a proper lady to think about, would it?”
I didn’t bother to explain that that did not apply. At all.
“I know how you must feel. Your father having a secret kinda life and all. But he was dead set on never divorcin’ your mother, even though they were never going to live together again. Of course, your daddy was heartbroken when your mother passed in ninety-nine.”
Don’t mention my mother, you witch. Don’t.
“To tell the truth, I imagined that her death had something to do with his own passing later that same year, like they were soul mates separated by a quirk of him not wanting to work for her father.”
“It was a little more complicated than that.”
“So I’ve heard. Still, it was all very sad. Very sad indeed. He never really got over it. And I never really got over him.”
Okay, no more trips down memory lane, please. It was time for her to go. My dad didn’t care enough to introduce us, so why should I waste any more of my time? She’d already unpacked enough skeletons to choke a snake.
“He was a gifted man, though,” Lydia said, pressing on, “who, like his idol John Wayne, lived by a code of conduct. Take care of your family, take care of your friends, don’t step on too many toes, and do what you can to help the rest of the world. In your father’s case, he provided the people of Nashville with many a full belly.”
And, I wondered, what did my amazingly wonderful father leave you with? A bellyful of memories and a whole lot of sadness, apparently.
“And as for me,” she said, “I may not have gotten a house or the business or even an honorable mention in his will, but at least he gave me Stacie.”
Thinking back bitterly to Robert’s rottweiler, I said, “Who’s that? Your dog?”
“Your sister,” she said.
My what? I couldn’t say those words or any other words, for that matter. It was as though I’d poured paste down my throat.
“You have a sister, Gwen. Stacie. There! I said it again! Oh, it feels so good to tell you after all these years. Your father and I had a daughter. He named her Stacie, after your great-grandmother Sonia. She’ll be twenty-three this May.”
“I have a what?” was all I could say.
“I know it’s a lot to take in, but I felt it was time for you to know.”
“Why? Because you saw me lying on the street with Candy Sommerton? Was that one of the prophecies that needed to be fulfilled?”
“No, because your father forbade me to tell you! It wasn’t up to me. He kept a lot of things private, separate.”
“In all the letters he wrote, in the yearly visits I made here, what did he do? Hide you then?”
“I stayed at a motel,” Lydia said. “He visited me when he could.”
“Oh. That’s why I spent so much time flying solo with Uncle Murray. Got it. So in all that time, at his funeral. . . Were you there, too?”
“In the background, where no one could see.”
“Right. So with all that history between you . . . Wait. Did his lawyer, Dag Stolten
berg, know?”
Lydia nodded.
“Jesus. So the four of you knew, and three of you survived him, and no one once thought, Hmm, gee, maybe we should tell Gwen she’s got a little sister?”
There were footsteps outside the door. “Get lost!” I shouted. They scuffled away.
“I wanted to tell you, sweetie, but understand that he was so proud of you, going to college and studyin’ things an’ all. He didn’t want you to feel pressure, like you had to be here instead of there. Like you were missin’ out on somethin’ or had to take care of me or Stacie. And then, gradually, it just became easier to say nothin’ rather than come clean. I figured it was somethin’ we’d get to one day.”
“Well, lucky me! Today’s that day!”
Lydia fussed with her fingers as though she was twisting an imaginary handkerchief. “Maybe he was right. Maybe comin’ here was a bad idea. I should go.”
“No! Not telling me was the bad idea.”
“Well, there was another reason, too,” Lydia went on.
No, I thought. I don’t think I want to hear this.
“While your father was a big part of Stacie’s life, I don’t think either of us were ready to be responsible for a child. Not on his catch-as-catch-can salary augmented by a deli worker’s wages. He was separated, and I was twice divorced, no alimony, and workin’ in a shoe store as a clerk.”
That explains the fingertips, I thought. Slipping feet into shoes day after day.
“As it was, Stacie spent most of her time living at Auntie Thomasina’s. I don’t know what we would have done without her.”
What? That was bombshell number . . . I didn’t even know. I’d lost count.
“Thomasina?” I blurted. “Thom, Thomasina?”
“Yes, God bless her.”
“She knew?”
“She was our savior.”
Well, wrap and bow tie me, as Thom herself was known to say. That would explain why my dear friend had told me she didn’t know my dad well. That was a safer play. If she didn’t talk about him, she couldn’t slip up. That would also explain why Thom had gone out the back door as Lydia had come in the front. Newt was the one who usually took garbage to the Dumpster. Besides, Thom hadn’t been carrying anything except herself.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Not only did my father have an illegitimate daughter, but my closest friend raised her! And neither told me about it! Better yet, both decided not to tell me about it! The ripples of deceit were too great to comprehend at that moment. I just had to keep twisting the napkin in my hands and tumble to the bottom of this chilling, mind-numbing chasm.
“Hey, Lydia . . . a question.”
“Of course, darlin’.”
“Did you happen to know a man named Joe Silvio?”
“Why, why do you ask?”
“Why-why is because Nashville is apparently like one of those charts on The L Word about who slept with who.”
“Dear, what are you talkin’ about?”
“Just . . . humor me. Did you know him?”
Lydia sat a little more upright, as though bracing for a fight. “I did, yes.”
“Of course you did.”
“A lot of folks down here knew him,” she said. “Churchgoin’ folks.”
Was that a dig at my not being among those? Who cared? This woman’s opinion didn’t matter.
“Explain,” I said.
“He was a highly visible member of the Belmondo Church on Music Square East,” she said. “He ran an equipping class.”
“A what?”
“A gathering at the church that helps people cope with life using Bible lessons and prayer. I went from time to time as the stress of life wore me to a nub. I saw one of your customers there.”
“Who?”
“A woman who was on TV with you,” she said. “A plus-size woman with hair not quite the color your own was when I first saw you.”
“Big Red?”
“She was with two other women.”
“Big Red,” I said.
“And that reporter,” Lydia went on. “She knew him, too.”
“Which one? Candy?”
“That’s right. Candy Sommerton,” Lydia replied. “She did a report about the group . . . oh, about two weeks ago. I saw that on the television.”
I was taking all this in, though I still had the biggest problem wrapping my tired brain around the idea of a house of worship on Music Square East. In New York we had churches on Trinity Place and John Street. Though I guess St. Patrick’s on fashionista Fifth Avenue would seem strange to some people. But I digress.
“Getting back to your father . . .”
Must we? I thought.
“I wish things had gone differently,” Lydia said. “I sincerely do. But I’m no mother. And your father, God rest his soul, is lucky he got you to turn out so good.”
“That was my mother’s doing,” I said, standing up for someone who had no say in this tawdry matter.
“I’m sure it was partly that,” Lydia said.
“No, it was all that,” I replied. “I loved my dad, but like you say, he was no father. He was pretty MIA for most of my life, and he never once came to see me in college.”
“Maybe so, but he was proud of you always,” Lydia said.
“That’s great to hear,” I said. “Just great. Listen, Lydia. I’ve enjoyed this so much, but I really need to get some work done and sort things out in my brain.”
“Of course,” she said, rising. “I have to get home, too. I’m still at the shoe store, as manager.”
“Good for you.” It sounded cranky, not complimentary. As intended.
“I have to walk the dog and get to work.”
Now my shoulders went up. “You have a dog?”
“A wirehair fox terrier.” She smiled. “It’s really Stacie’s. I keep it for her. Lively thing, even though he’s ten. He gives me a brisk twice-daily walk.”
“How nice for you both.”
“It is,” she said, missing that sarcasm.
“They jump pretty high, don’t they?”
“Oh, yes.”
I smiled a big fake smile. A lot of people in Nashville had dogs, a lot of people apparently knew Joe, and a whole bunch of folks probably had both of those on their personal résumé. Still, looking at her little white teeth through her little red smile, I so wished that this vamp was also a vampire.
She took a pen and a piece of scrap paper from her purse. “My cell phone number,” she said, writing it down. “In case you wish to talk.”
I didn’t thank her. I had no intention of ever using it.
She laid a tender hand on the desk as she stood. Her fingers lingered there a little longer than they should have. I counted to three. And failed to stop myself. I looked sharp little knives into those dull gray eyes.
“Aren’t you ashamed by all this?” I demanded.
“Pardon?”
“Isn’t there some part of you that regrets all this subterfuge and web spinning and bullshit?”
My words did not draw blood. “Love makes us do the unexpected,” she said.
“Like getting pregnant.”
“A moment of passion,” she replied.
“Oh, please,” I moaned. “There was a morning after. Did you not think of the consequences? The responsibility?”
The woman’s face grew cloudy. “Do not lecture me, girl.”
“My office, my rules,” I shot back. I wasn’t in the mood for mouth. Not now and certainly not from her.
“Your office,” she said with the hint of a smirk. She recovered herself, once again becoming the wannabe Southern lady. “My only thought, dear—and perhaps you will experience that one day yourself. . . . I surely hope so—was to retain a piece of your father in case he ever went away. That I have done. Stacie is a living embodiment of us both, something our love created.”
“And your lifestyles abandoned,” I said.
“We were not perfect, girl.”
“S
top calling me that. I’m a woman.”
“Then behave like one,” she said. “You’re acting spoiled, like a child.”
Wow. Another lecture from someone else who knew what was best for me. That was okay by me. I was ready for a fight.
“How would you know what a spoiled child is like?” I asked. “Doesn’t sound like you spent a lot of time with your daughter.”
To paraphrase what Marv Albert used to say while covering the Knicks or the Rangers when Phil had them on, “She shoots. She scores!” All formality bled from the woman. Along with blood. Her face was even paler than before.
“You are correct,” she said. “I did not spend as much time with Stacie as I wished to. As perhaps I should have. But we wanted her. We loved her. Adoption? Abortion?” She practically spat the word. “It was never a thought.”
“So you’re a hero to the pro-lifers,” I said, unmoved and relentless. “Good for you. That’s something else we don’t have in common, though I do have to ask . . . Why tell me all this? Did you think we could all have a great big Thanksgiving dinner or maybe have a big Hanukkah-Christmas celebration, all the Katz spawn under one roof? Jeez, I meant the Katz spawn I know about. Maybe there are more. Maybe I have a black sister or brother, and we can add Kwanzaa to the mix—”
“Gwen, stop. Please.”
“Why? That would make news. The seasonal trifecta! We can invite Robert Reid and Candy Sommerton!”
“I said stop!” Lydia cried. “For God’s sake, enough.”
I stopped, but not for her. I did it for me. I was spewing now, like one of those pinwheel fireworks I used to get at Coney Island—which I missed very much just then. I wished I was back home, back in time, just starting out before I married, not making all the mistakes I did, which included Phil and working on Wall Street, but being too afraid to jump into some of the investments I recommended for others, and continued right up to last night, when I thought that Robert Reid was actually interested in me and wasn’t just a muckraking piece of journalistic garbage. . . .