by Tawni Waters
“Like what?”
He smiles. “‘Juliet is the sun.’”
Predictably, I burst into tears.
• • •
It takes me three hours, a box of fries, and two cheeseburgers to get over the fact that Dean said my mom’s line to me. Sure, it’s pretty well-known Shakespeare, right up there with, “To be, or not to be? That is the question.” Still, it feels like more than a coincidence.
After I recover from the shock of Dean quoting my mom quoting Shakespeare, it takes me a chocolate shake and another half hour to work up the courage to call the studio. I’ll save you the horror of watching me eat twice my weight in junk food. There are copious quantities of ketchup involved and several unseemly belches. Let’s fast-forward to when I’m finally feeling brave.
Dean and I are sitting at a rest stop haloed by horizons the color of peace, which is to say, the palest, most perfect blue. As I dial, the serene sky mocks me, standing in stark contrast to the terror riding the waves of my circulatory system. My blood pounds. I can barely breathe. The trash left over from our gluttony-fest is wadded up on the picnic table in front of us. Holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder, I poke at a leftover french fry, waiting for the call to connect.
Dean tosses a crust to the gaggle of pigeons that have gathered since we sat down. Apparently, Dean’s really into feeding birds. Consequently, he’s an avian rock star. They’re his groupies, hanging on his every move. Their iridescent feathers glint in the sun as they flap their wings, bobbing and pecking at the bread. The phone starts to ring. I hang up.
“No answer?” Dean asks.
I shake my head. “I can’t go through with it.”
“Yes, you can,” Dean says. “You can totally do this.”
“What are you? A life coach?” I ask. “You should get your own TED Talk.”
“I know you,” Dean says. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever seen.”
Why do people keep saying that? Maybe because it works. Momentarily, it’s like my spine is made of granite. I am woman, hear me roar, and all that shit. Who knew I could be so easily motivated by pep talks? Again, I dial, and this time, I don’t hang up. A woman answers. “Warphol Dreams,” she says.
“Um, hi,” I say.
Beaming, Dean nods encouragingly, as if I have given a particularly moving Oscar acceptance speech.
“Hello,” the woman says politely.
“Is this Warhpol Dreams Studio?” I ask, feeling like an idiot. She already told me that. I want to bludgeon myself in the face with my phone and say, “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
She pauses. “Yes, it is.”
“Is Andy Warphol there?”
Dean nods again, squeezing my knee. He’s so easily impressed.
“Can I tell him who’s calling?” the woman asks.
“Sure. Um, an old friend of…his family,” I say.
“Can I give him your name?” The woman asks this suspiciously, as if she’s not sure of my intentions. She must think I’m a salesperson or a con artist. Or maybe a prank caller. Do people still do that? Call and ask if the toilet is running, and then tell the unsuspecting victim to go catch it? I’ve seen it in movies, but I’ve never tried it myself. I guess that particular brand of petty cruelty probably went out of fashion when caller IDs became commonplace, but even in this day and age, a guy named Andy Warphol has to get his fair share of prank calls.
“I’m Harley,” I say. “I think he knew my mom.”
“One moment please.” The woman still sounds unconvinced, but she leaves to get him.
“Oh, shit. He’s coming,” I whisper. I almost hang up again, but Dean looks so elated, I can’t bear to disappoint him.
“This is Andy Warphol.” My heart leaps at the sound of his voice. It’s deep, pleasant, and comforting. I don’t know what I expected. Some depressed, washed-up drug addict in a trailer park, I guess.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hi,” he says. “How can I help you?”
“This is kinda awkward,” I say, “but did you know a Mary Young?”
He doesn’t answer for a long time. For a moment, I think he’s going to hang up. Finally, he says “yes” hesitantly. I strongly suspect the memories I’m dredging up are either really good—too good—or really bad. I look at Dean. He nods again and smiles.
Breathing deeply, I say, “Well, she was my mom, and she told me you’re my dad.”
For a moment, the call breaks up, and all I hear is garbled speech and static, as if my phone signal has been impacted by dropping a bomb on poor, unsuspecting Andy Warphol. So I don’t hear what he says in reply to my announcement. But he says something.
“What did you say?” I ask.
And he says, “She went ahead and had you?”
My stomach drops. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not thinking clearly. This is all so…shit.”
“Yeah, it is.” I pick a fry off the table and toss it to the pigeons. They go mad with joy. It feels good to be creating happiness. I bounce my leg up and down so hard, it might fall off. Dean puts his arm around my waist. I smell the salty sweetness of him, and my leg slows.
“What’s your name?” Andy Warphol asks.
“Harley,” I say.
“She named you after her motorcycle?”
“Well, no. I picked the nickname when I was in middle school. I hated my real name.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Juliet.”
There is a sound on the other end of the line. It takes me a minute to realize that Andy Warphol is crying. “She gave you the name I picked for you,” he says. “When we first found out about you, I touched her belly and said, ‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’”
My chest starts to hurt. A panic attack is coming on. “Wait,” I say. “I thought Mom picked my name.”
Andy Warphol must not know what to say because he doesn’t say anything.
I push for an answer. “You picked my name?”
“We both did,” he says. “When we met, Mary—your mom—was playing Juliet in the UCLA production of Romeo and Juliet. I was painting the sets. But, yeah. I was the one who said it first.”
I’m dizzy. On one hand, it sounds a hell of a lot like my dad loved me. On the other hand, it sounds a hell of a lot like my mom has been lying to me all my life. When no Mexican soap operas were playing, she and I used to watch reruns of I Love Lucy together. We’d laugh at Desi when he told Lucy she had some ’splainin’ to do. Mom would too, only she’s not here to do it.
I breathe deeply, the way I’m supposed to when I’m having a panic attack. It works, probably because the pain meds are muting my emotions. Thank god. My mom isn’t around anymore, but my dad is, so I ask, “Would you mind if I came to see you?”
And he says, “I would love that.”
Which is how that evening, I end up in Minneapolis.
• • •
The city is deep green and moist. The air smells like rain. I take my pain meds a half hour before we arrive at the studio so I won’t freak out. When we get there, a woman gives us peach tea—I don’t know what’s in that shit, but it’s good—and then, she goes in back to fetch Andy Warphol. Or my dad. I’m not sure what to call him.
“This is so cool,” Dean says, staring at a wall full of Andy’s art. He’s right. The paintings are mind-bending. Think Salvador Dalí meets The Walking Dead. Lots of weird, warped, zombie-looking creatures inhabiting otherworldly dreamscapes that are somehow disturbing and beautiful all at once.
Dean and I are staring at this picture of an emaciated woman, half skeleton, half human, tenderly holding a crying baby to her breast, when I hear a voice behind me. His voice. I’ve only heard it once, but I know it. It must be biology or something. “Hi, Juliet,” he says shyly.
I
turn. He’s tall, like me. I notice that first. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and his beard is mostly gray. He’s handsome though, angular and kind-looking, wearing a flannel shirt. His eyes are the same dark brown as mine. I immediately want to hug him. Which is weird. I don’t do it. Instead I say, “Hi.” Dean takes my hand.
“You’re as pretty as your mom,” he says, tearing up.
I revert to form and try to deflect emotional depth with humor. “Now I know where I got my propensity for crying in public.” It doesn’t work. I tear up too. I always tried to tell myself I didn’t care that I didn’t have a dad, but now, looking at him, I understand how much I wished I had one.
He laughs. “Yeah, I’m a wimp. Bad asses don’t become painters.”
“I like your work,” I say.
“Thanks.” He points to the one Dean and I were looking at. “That one is about your mom. I never really got over her. Or you.”
I don’t know what to say to that. If he never got over me, where the hell was he? I’m not sure I’m brave enough to ask him. Dean is.
“Why didn’t you see her then?” he asks, pulling me closer to him. Did I mention I love Dean?
Taking a deep breath, Andy shuffles his feet and puts his hands in his jean pockets. “Look, I’m not sure what your mom told you, but I didn’t even know you existed until you called. I mean, I knew she was pregnant, but the last I heard, she was going to…”
I stare at him. He doesn’t say it, but I know what he means. She was going to abort me. The one time I should cry, I don’t. I can only stare. “No, she wasn’t,” I say, getting mad. Who is this asshole anyway? How dare he talk about Mom like this? “She loved me from the moment I was inside her.” I know the story of my birth the way preachers know verses from the Bible.
He takes a step forward, reaching for me. I step back.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he says. “Your mom was an awesome woman. She did love you, but she was scared. You can’t imagine how terrifying it all was.”
I can’t?
“Fuck you,” I say.
“Please, Juliet. If I had known you were out there, I would have given anything to be in your life. I knew I wanted you. Your mom wasn’t sure. She didn’t think we had what it took to be parents. And then, there was that fight. I don’t even remember what it was over anymore. Soap, I think. I didn’t like the brand of soap she bought. I was an asshole back then. An asshole and an alcoholic. I’ve been sober for eighteen years. That day changed me.”
I want to run, get the hell out of here and never look back. Instead, I ask, “What happened?”
“I fucked up. I hit her. She packed up her stuff and left. I mean, of course she did. She should have. She said she was getting an abortion. Those were the last words she said to me. ‘I’m getting an abortion.’ I never heard from her again.” He looks at me beseechingly, silently begging me to forgive him. Suddenly, I hate that my eyes look like his.
I imagine Mom taking this loser’s fist to her face, and I want to kill him. I see her running off alone, a little older than I am, trying to come to terms with all the shit I’ve been trying to come to terms with. I look at Dean, standing beside me, breathing hard like he’s mad too, and I know how lucky I am. No matter what I choose, Dean will stay with me. He told me that. I’m not alone. And he would never hurt me. I can’t say I forgive Mom for wanting to abort me. I haven’t even had time to absorb what this douchebag is saying. But the one thing I do understand is that he punched my mom.
“Please, Juliet,” he says. “Don’t hate me. I’ve missed you all my life, the dream of you. And your mom? Man, Mary was the great love of my life.”
And finally, finally, I have it, the weapon I need to hurt this piece of shit as badly as he just hurt me. “Yeah?” I say. “Well, the great love of your life died screaming.”
I turn around and run.
• • •
We stay at a nice hotel that night. Screw money. I need something pretty. The room is gorgeous. Impressionist landscapes hang on the walls, and a picture window overlooks the sleeping city. I stand by it for hours, watching colored lights twinkle below me and white lights twinkle above, trying to process all that’s happened. I’ve taken more pain meds. The doctor said it wouldn’t hurt the baby, but Dean isn’t so sure. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. But everything hurts. My head. My arm. My heart.
Behind me, Dean snores softly. He kept asking me to come to bed, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to lie down. Being still was torture, even with his arms around me. My thoughts were racing, making me feel like if I didn’t do something, I might lose my mind. What I did was walk to the window and open the curtains. What I did was stare and stare and stare.
Mom almost aborted me. Or maybe she didn’t. What if she just said that to Andy Asshole so he would never look for her, never come near her, near us, again? What if she thought he would hurt me, so she lied to him? That’s a possibility, right? But the curandera said she was going to put me up for adoption. So she was confused, like I am. That much is certainly true.
I lift Mom’s necklace and stare at the sun pendant, hearing Mom in the white light saying, “‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’” Whatever she was going to do with me in the beginning, one thing is undeniable. She fucking loved me. I know it. I know it because every day, every night, she was there beside me, telling me so. I know because that time a dog bit me, she wanted to kill it. I know because she read me bedtime stories and played Monopoly with me and taught me to drive. I know because even after she died, she somehow managed to show me she was still there. She loved me so much, death wasn’t strong enough to keep her from me. Andy Asshole said Mom was the great love of his life, but he was wrong. Mom was the great love of mine. That’s the one thing I am sure of.
Nineteen
We order room service for breakfast. Dean gets an omelet. I order waffles. We sit on the unmade bed with trays in front of us, feeling like royalty. Dean gets my coffee ready for me, three creams, two sugars, the way I like it. He cuts up the waffle because he knows it will be hard for me to do with the cast. Then he switches on the TV. “What do you want to watch?” he asks.
“Go to the Spanish channel,” I say.
He does. One of the soap operas Mom and I used to love is on. Two scantily clad women are fighting in a kitchen, screaming at each other.
“You bitch!” I put English words in their mouths, like Mom and I would have done. “You ate my Wheat Thins.”
Without missing a beat, Dean jumps in. “I was hungry, you whore. And last week, you ate all of my flan. So now we’re even.”
One of the women picks up a knife. “You will pay!” I say. “With your life.”
The other woman grabs the knifer by the arm.
Dean says, “Wait. Let’s make up. Hold my hand.”
The woman swings her knife.
“No,” I say. “I will never forgive you for what you have done. Some debts can only be repaid in blood.”
We laugh, and then Dean asks, “Do you know where you want to go today?”
I nod. I thought about it all night. “New York.” As soon as I say it, I’m scared. Because it’s real. There was a reason Mom’s ashes sat on that countertop for so long. I couldn’t let them go. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her. But Mom’s not in her ashes. I know that now. She’s out there somewhere, floating in white light.
• • •
We drive all day, then sleep one more night in a shitty motel, this time in Ohio. Dean wants to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Normally, I’d be down with it, but now that I’ve made up my mind that I’m ready to go home, I don’t want to waste any more time. So we spend another day driving, lost in our thoughts, barely talking, just liking the idea of being together, touching each other’s skin, feeling the wind on our faces. It’s midnight when we get to New York. The sensation of coming home is pa
lpable. Everything smells gritty and alive, dirty, the way the world is supposed to smell. The blazing lights of the city throb in time to the pounding of my blood. The honking taxis sound like music. The drunk, homeless men huddled on the street corners look like fallen gods.
We drive over the Brooklyn Bridge. For a moment, I watch moonlight glitter on the surface of the water, and then, I close my eyes and make a wish, like Mom and I used to do when we drove over bridges or through tunnels. I wish for Mom to be okay, wherever she is. I wish for her to know I love her. I wish for her to understand how sorry I am for leaving that candle burning. I wish that I would have sat up as she walked out of my room and said, “I love you too, Mom.”
Dean rolls down his window, and warm air whooshes over my skin. My phone’s GPS guides us toward the beach where Mom and I used to play, and I listen to its voice, pronouncing the names of familiar streets in its mechanized cadence. This whole city feels like Mom. We pass the vegan place where she told me about fat eyes. We pass the school where she kissed me goodbye every day when I was little. We pass the funeral home where her friends and family gathered to say goodbye to her. I didn’t say goodbye that day though. I barely remember it. It’s nothing but a black blur.
Memories of Mom roll over me like waves. Every one hurts. Every one is precious. I want the pain to go. I don’t want to be eviscerated anymore. At the same time, I never want it to stop because this pain is my proof she existed. It’s my proof that I loved her so much, she became a physical part of my being. The vacant place she left inside me is proof she was there.
As Dean pulls into the parking lot by the beach where Mom and I used to go, I put my hand out the window and reach toward the light of the moon, wondering if that’s where she is now, swimming in its glow. It’s redundant for me to tell you I’m crying. Of course I am. I always cry now. Before she died, never. Now? Always.
We take off our shoes when we hit the sand, and Dean puts his arm around my waist. My saddlebag weighs me down. I have removed everything but Mom’s ashes, and still, it’s heavy. Ahead, the waves roll in, crashing, calling my name. I see the place where Mom and I built a sand mermaid once, remembering her seashell eyes and seaweed hair. I picture Mom sitting on that jagged rock, calling me the sun. When I reach the water’s edge, I kneel, never mind my clothes. Let them get wet. Let them be stained. Let them be wrecked. Let them drink in the salt of the ocean and be forever changed by this moment.