Come Undone

by AJ Matthews

  While he’s gone, I need to make another call. I swipe my cell screen to unlock my phone and open my contacts. I hit “call” and hold my breath as I put the phone to me ear.

  “Gamma Gaming, Krista speaking. How may I assist you?”

  I can’t speak.

  “Hello? Hello?” I move the phone further away, and the voice grows quieter. I should hang up, pretend I never called.

  No. I quickly jerk the phone back to my ear. “Is Mr. Riddell in today?”

  “Yes, may I tell him who’s calling?”

  This time I hang up the phone. If he’s going to hear about having a daughter, the news should come from my mother, or in this case, from the daughter herself.

  Mac returns to the room and sets the food out on a table, meticulously arranging the plastic food containers, wrapped cutlery, and the ketchup, salt, and pepper packets.

  He may not be the neatest person in the world, but he does like things to be “just so” when he eats.

  I offer a warm smile.

  He smiles too, but his is fake.

  We sit and eat. I’m envious of the eggs and hash browns and bacon he savors in slow, deliberate bites.

  I pick at my layered fruit and yogurt cup, taking a swig of skim milk every so often to wash down the stale granola from the parfait.

  Check-out isn’t till noon, but I want to get going sooner. I leave Mac behind in the room and walk across the street to the Gas N Grub. It’s about ten o’clock now, so the part should be coming in.

  First, though, I need a snack. The yogurt didn’t hit the spot.

  All the emotions from last night stab at my brain, making my skin feel tight. Rejection sucks. I understand the reasoning. Still, I need something to numb the sting.

  I need sugar. Loads of the sweet stuff. My stomach shrinks at the idea of more junk, but my brain screams “yesssssssss!”

  The bells on the front door of the store tinkle a guilty tune as I walk inside.

  A surly young woman with lips so puckered she might have sucked a lemon through a straw sits behind the counter. She keeps her head down when I enter, thumbing through a magazine.

  It’s better if no one watches.

  Chocolate swirly-topped cupcakes beckon me from behind their cellophane wrapping.

  Cupcakes are my crack.

  I grab a few packs off the shelf.

  I carry the armful of empty calories to the register, and my skin crawls over my muscle and bone under the burden. With a huff, the cashier drops the magazine and rings up my stuff, not making eye contact when she gives me the total. I don’t need the cost. I swipe my card and tear the bag from her hands.

  She doesn’t want to talk. Neither do I. I don’t leave the store, and instead bolt to the bathroom. I lock the door and my hands claw at the cupcake wrapper. I close my eyes and shove a whole cupcake in my mouth. My entire body relaxes.

  I swallow a bite, and the sugar surges through my veins, straight to my brain.

  Heaven.

  Except heaven isn’t illuminated by the harsh light of overhead fluorescents, and I’m guessing the ever-after doesn’t stink of pine cleaner and day-old trash.

  I open my eyes slowly, and the girl staring back at me in the mirror doesn’t appear satisfied. She’s pathetic, with brown crumbs sticking to her chin and white cream filling outlining her lips.

  I spit out what’s left of the cupcake into the trash can, the bitter jolt of regret stronger than the sweetness of the chocolate. I stuff the rest of the junk in the trash too, and brush off my hands.

  Whatever the cost of the junk food, I paid dearly with something else.

  My dignity.

  I unlock the bathroom door, square my shoulders, and keep my head up as I exit the store with a shred of self-respect intact.

  I should check on the truck.

  Johnny’s in the garage, tinkering under the hood. He raises his hand to me. “Hey Miss—Trini. I was ‘bout to call you. Delivery got here a minute ago. Should be about an hour, but I need you to approve this estimate first.”

  He hands me a slip of paper in duplicate. My eyes skim the description of the work, and fall to the bottom of the page. “It’s one twenty-five?”

  Johnny scratches his cheek and drops his gaze to the ground. “Well, yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, but with overnight shipping of the part …”

  He totally misunderstood.

  “Oh, no, no. No problem. I’m thankful. The expense could have been much worse. That’s lower than I expected.”

  A smile, probably of relief, crosses his freckled face. “Ah. Well, if you’ll sign on the bottom, I’ll get ‘er done.”

  I take the offered pen and scrawl my name on the customer signature line.

  Johnny takes the pen back, stuffing it in his pocket. “I’ll give ya a call when she’s done. Won’t be long.”

  I get back to the room to find it empty. There’s a note on the bed in Mac’s large block print:

  CHEESE,

  WALKING TO THE BEACH. TEXT IF YOU NEED ANYTHING. OR WHEN YOU’RE READY TO GO. WHATEVER COMES FIRST.

  MAC

  Since it’s January, and we’re further north in Florida, the beach should be pretty deserted. A walk on the sand as the waves lap the shore is a more environmentally-friendly way to calm himself than flushing the toilet. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s made it so far with no more than the mini-meltdown he had last night.

  I don’t have anything to read, and I’m not in the mood for funny cat videos on YouTube.

  I send Mom a message. I didn’t tell her about the truck yesterday, because I was worried she’d insist on renting a car and coming to get us. Now I’m safe from that since it’s under control:

  Me: Hey, had a little car trouble. It’s fixed now. Really cheap.

  Mom: Are you hurt? Were you in an accident?

  Me: No. A minor breakdown. It’s all fixed, so no need to worry.

  Mom: You don’t need anything? FYI, I paid down the balance on the credit card, so there’s extra money if you need it.

  She could have done the opposite to stop my progress. Like report the card missing. Instead, she’s giving me more resources to finish this journey. She’s always been supportive. I’m not sure why I believed she’d be any different with this.

  She did keep a big secret to protect me. My heart swells with love for her. She’s a wonderful mom. She made a mistake, but we all do. This journey to meet Bio-Dad is vital, because it will help me find me.

  In the long run, it may also bring Mom and me closer together. I tell her, sort of.

  Me: Thanks. I appreciate your support. I love you.

  After an extended pause, she responds:

  Mom: Anything for you. Love you too.

  I put my phone away, but the ringer goes off. I just texted with Mom. Why is she calling now?

  I regret attaching photos to the names in my address book. Because Dean’s stupid face popping up on the screen makes me want to punch something.

  I hit “decline” and send him to voicemail.

  Please let him not leave a message.

  The beep of my phone thirty seconds later tells me my wish did not come true.

  Fuck him. I delete the message without listening.

  I decide to walk down to the beach, too, but will keep my distance from Mac for now. I want to make sure he’s okay. I pass by the Jukebox Saloon and grin, remembering Mac’s big breakthrough last night.

  Way to go, buddy.

  Except I don’t think of him as my buddy anymore. He’s so much more.

  A few more blocks and I’m at a crosswalk waiting for the signal. No cars are coming in either direction, but I wait, because with the luck I’m having, I’d get busted for jaywalking.

  When the hand on the signal changes to white, I scurry across the road, not because I’m afraid of oncoming traffic, but because I am anxious to find Mac. Blue-green waters capped with lacy white froth lap at a miles-long stretch of cinnamon-colored sand. A fishing pier stretches several hundr
ed feet from a visitor center. Mac is under the pier, circling the poles. After a minute, I realize he’s doing figure eights around a few sets of the posts. I root around in my purse and slip out my camera. I focus and zoom in on Mac. The image is degraded a bit, so I pull back on the zoom.

  It’s incredibly intimate, like watching his thought processes on the outside of his body. Walk, pause, finger-flap, leg-tap, pause, repeat. With every motion, it’s like he’s writing a line of music; every pause is like hitting record as he commits the ideas to memory. This scene might not be in the film, but it’s too fascinating not to capture.

  I’m not sure how long I stare before my phone rings, the shrill tone jarring me. It’s the shop.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Trini, it’s Johnny. We’re all done.”

  “Fantastic. Be there in a few.” I head back to the street and cross, walking toward the shop before texting Mac to conceal that I was filming him. He was out in the open, but he might view my filming him in a personal moment as an invasion of privacy.

  “Cheese!”

  I turn and find Mac ten feet behind me. I fiddle with my purse strap. “Oh, hey. I was coming to find you.”

  “No, you weren’t. You were walking away from the beach. I saw you from under the pier.”

  Crap. Busted.

  “Oh. So you saw— ”

  His gaze turns up to the blue awning over the entrance to the gift shop we’re standing in front of, the shade casting a Smurf-like glow on his face and arms. “Saw you with your camera out? Filming me? Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.” I tip my head down while my toes dig at weeds peeping through a crack in the sidewalk.

  His eyes go up, mine go down.

  Will we ever see eye-to-eye again?

  “No need to apologize.” The telling flap of skin against skin, fingers flicking, punctuates his words, which he delivers in a monotone. “It’s cool. I don’t care. I was working on a song, figuring out the rhythm.”

  As I suspected.

  The flapping ceases when he stuffs his hands in his pockets. I risk a sideways glance. Like his tone, his expression is flat. He’s prone to extremes in behavior, but during the in-between moments he can appear indifferent. Now that the stimming is done, Mac’s body language doesn’t convey his mood at all.

  “Okay.” I shuffle my feet. “Okay. The truck is ready, so we should go.”

  He points at his lip and brushes it with his fingers. “You have something …”

  My face burns. Cupcake crumbs. I hastily brush at my mouth and pick up the pace of my steps. I lick at my teeth, hoping I have nothing stuck there.

  We trek back to the shop, and I go inside the store to get cash from the ATM while Mac paces the sidewalk. The greasy-food scent lingers, like my shame from the earlier cupcake incident.

  I hand Johnny the cash. “Thanks for the quick turnaround.”

  “Not a problem. Easy fix, like I …”

  I hold out my hand. He pulls the key from his pocket and hands it to me. “Okay.”

  His face falls when he gets I don’t want to talk. I don’t need details about the repair. The information is on the estimate he gave me earlier, and on the receipt he’s printing now. “Nice doing business with ya. She’s parked right out on the side.”

  I extend my hand to him. “I sure appreciate your help, Johnny. You have a great day.”

  I exit the garage and call out to Mac, who follows me back over to the motel. We pack quickly, neither of us lingering for too long near the beds or the bathroom. Yeah, I can’t say we made any pleasant memories here. At least not in this room. But the image of Mac singing at the restaurant last night will stick for a long time.

  He takes my bag wordlessly. I give him the key, and he crosses the street to take our stuff to the truck while I check out.

  A different clerk checks me out, again informing me the hold on the credit card will be released on inspection of the room. I grunt, then laugh, thinking how much my monosyllabic response reminds me of conversations with Mac. After all these years, he’s rubbing off on me.

  I stuff the printed receipt from the clerk into my purse and exit the lobby. Mac sits in the truck, ear buds in and pen scrawling out something on a notepad lifted from the hotel. I slide into the driver’s seat, and he turns his head in my direction. Since he’s wearing sunglasses, I can’t tell what he’s thinking, or if he’s letting any of his thoughts show on his face.

  He’s listening to music and writing—most likely song lyrics, since I don’t think he writes much else—so I crank the engine and tune the radio. He obviously doesn’t want to talk.

  It’s about half past eleven. I estimate, with stops for lunch, gas, and bathroom breaks, we should hit Savannah around four o’clock.

  The moment seems so close, yet so far in the future. I block the panic by humming along to the Lifehouse ballad crackling through the speakers. Mac would laugh at the sappy song if he wasn’t listening to his own music, but I adore their stuff. Their songs make me all silly-emotional and gooey inside.

  “What are you going to say?” Mac’s voice breaks through the sliver of space between songs on the radio.

  “What? Say about what?”

  Mac flicks his fingers, not quite snapping them. “To your dad. The one we’re going to meet.”

  “I, um, wow. How about, ‘Hey, you remember Elena Díáz? Apparently you two hooked up about twenty years ago? Surprise, I’m your kid!’ What do you think?” In my peripheral vision, Mac’s finger flick in the air again.

  “I’m not sure, Cheese. I’m not an expert, but it doesn’t seem the most appropriate thing to say.”

  An honest laugh booms from my diaphragm. “You may be right, Goon. What do you say to a long-lost father who might be oblivious to your existence? Mom’s last text message said she tried to call him and left him a message, so he may still be unaware.”

  “Hmm.”

  Hmm. That’s all he’s got? I could use more help here. “What do you think I should say?”

  He’ll like that I’m asking for his help. He may have autism, but when his impulses are under control, he can be quite a thoughtful and logical person. Though he lacks long-term relationship experience, he’s close to his family. Despite the fucked-up situation with his birth mother, his step-mom and dad and brothers and uncle are tighter than any other family I know.

  I could use a similar support system. Mom’s always been there for me, but ever since I was seven and my “dad” left, my family felt incomplete. Now’s my chance to make my family whole again. If not physically, than emotionally complete—if my father accepts me.

  It won’t be pretty if he rejects me.

  Mac leans against the window, and his lips move, but no sound comes out. He’s trying to think of something to say, and I appreciate his effort.

  Despite not knowing what’s coming up the path for either of us, Mac will always be one of the most important people in my life.

  I’m happy he’s here with me on what may be one of the most momentous days of my life.

  “The prevalence of rejection doesn’t make it any less painful.”—Trini Díáz, Songs in the Key of Paradise

  HERE WE ARE. My father’s office.

  Though I take a deep breath, no oxygen goes to my brain. Lightheadedness captures me in a net, nearly forcing me to my knees on the semi-circular front porch of the historical building in downtown Savannah. Instead of collapsing, I lean into one of the painted white columns to steel my resolve.

  I can’t stop now. I made it this far. After two days and 650 miles, it’s time. I grab on to Mac’s wrist, and his fingers wrap around mine. I double-check the address. It looks more like a residence, but the Gamma Gaming logo is etched into the glass on the front door. I put my hand on the brass handle and push the door open. I step into a two-level open foyer, its pale green walls and dark, distressed hardwood floors welcoming.

  Well, welcoming to anyone not swimming in anxiety over meeting their father for the first time.<
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  The receptionist behind an L-shaped desk against the back wall of the entry hall waves and greets us like we’re long-lost friends. “Welcome! How may I help you?”

  She doesn’t seem to notice we’re in shorts and jeans and T-shirts. Her button-down shirt says “all business” and we’re more “road-weary beggars.”

  My tongue thickens in my dry mouth. “I-I’m here for Mr. Riddell.”

  I beat myself mentally for not being able to say a few words without stuttering. I’m lucky I got any of the words out at all. I may throw up again. I’m scared of what he’ll say. How he’ll react, or that he will reject me.

  “You’re not on his calendar. May I have your name, please?” Her perky tone is contradicted by her wrinkled forehead.

  I lean on the counter above her desk. I take a breath, and this one seems to transport oxygen to my brain cells. “I’m his daughter.”

  Her face scrunches up more as she picks up the phone at the front desk. “Mmmm, okay.”

  She pushes one of the dozens of buttons on the phone next to her computer. She speaks into the handset. “Yes Mr. Ridell, sir—I’m sorry, yes, you told me to call you Jake, but I’m not used to calling my boss by his first name. A visitor is in the lobby for you, sir. She says she’s your daughter, but … okay, okay, I’ll tell her.”

  Her blue eyes dart back and forth from the staircase to me. “He’s on his way. Why don’t you take a seat?” she asks warmly, trying to mask her nervousness.

  I sit down in one of the chairs across from the reception desk.

  Mac sits down with me, tapping his toes and strumming his fingers on his shorts. I wonder what song is playing in his head.

  A deep voice floats from the top of the double-wide stairs, and my head jerks back.

  A younger man, in his mid-twenties, walks next to a taller man, who pauses to sign off on something the other man thrusts at him. The older man turns his attention back to the phone in his hand as he makes his way down the stairs, holding on to the railing with his other hand.