by Deb Caletti
Maybe, too, my father was right. And maybe I didn’t care that he was.
Money, see, it gives you the ability to say Fuck you. And that ability feels good. It feels swingy and wide and soaring. It feels large and strong and without borders. Borders? YOU make the borders, if you want them. And when you’ve got the ability to say Fuck you, you want to use it. Money is power, all right, but that in no way should indicate that those who have it will do the right thing by it. You feel different when you have money, set apart, and for most people, I’d guess that “set apart” is not even a half step from “better than.” You can meet everyone’s eyes, unlike the kids at school, the poor ones, who often look at their shoes when they speak. You’re in the mental box seat, and they’re in the last, upper rows. “Set apart” means you and them. It can get away from you. It can spin out of control and make you ugly. But hey, you’ve got a right to be ugly.
That’s my explanation for my shitty behavior, anyway. Why I ignore my phone ringing and ringing until I finally shut it off. How I manage to enjoy the literal first class on the plane, and disregard the spinning elf of guilt in my gut. How I’ve justified my no-plan plan. Maybe I’ll stay a week. Maybe I’ll stay forever. Maybe I’ll do whatever I damn well please.
“Put that thing away, Indigo, it’s giving me the creeps,” Melanie says. She flicks the laminated corner of the safety card. I didn’t realize I was still holding it. The cartoon people seem to be enjoying going down the poofy yellow slide. It makes me think of a birthday party Melanie had, where her parents rented one of those inflatable tents you jump in and the same sort of slide, minus the life jackets. “Remember that party your parents had for you with the slide?” I ask.
“Oh my God, don’t remind me. Given the fact that I was fourteen at the time…” Melanie’s chair is reclined all the way. The man behind her could almost clean her teeth, if he had one of those spiky tools and a paper bib. Melanie raises one finger to get the flight attendant’s attention. The woman has blond hair combed up in a tight twist. She seems familiar but I don’t know from where, and it’s driving me crazy. Then I realize she looks like the woman at the makeup counter. Same hair, same creamy tan powdery face, same outlined lips. “I’d like a sparkling water with no ice and a lime,” Melanie says. “Indigo, do you want anything?”
“No, thanks,” I say, and smile at the flight attendant/makeup counter woman. She smiles back at me, but it’s only a tight exercise of facial muscles merely posing as actual pleasantry. Maybe I know that because I’ve given that same smile myself sometimes.
The flight attendant returns a moment later with Melanie’s glass. In first class, you get real glasses, and real knives, too—apparently, the terrorists sit with the general public.
Melanie doesn’t acknowledge the flight attendant; she only takes the glass and sets it onto her tray and flips another page in one of the catalogues she’s brought along.
“Thank you,” I remind. People with no manners suck.
“No problem,” Melanie says. She focuses on the rectangular photos of leggy women in shorts, T-shirts, this skirt, that skirt. Melanie reads the catalogue like it has an engrossing plot. After a while, her chin pops up suddenly. “Feel that? We’re descending.”
It’s true—we’re not so much descending, which implies easing gradually downward, as seeming to drop down a staircase with very large steps. It makes me remember that we are in a hunk of metal in the sky, which is downright crazy when you think about it. It’s best not to think about it. My body knows the truth, though, and is protesting this situation to the best of its ability, with a fluttery panic in my chest, and ears that are balloons suddenly filling. I fight the urge to grab Melanie’s arm and sink my nails in, but she just sits there, folding down the top corner of a page of some pair of pants she likes.
This is the second flight I’ve been on in just a few short months, but I already have the necessary information to compare the skill and expertise of pilots. The wheels hit the ground with enough of a bump that my ass rises briefly into the air, and the wheels make this grinding metal-on-metal screech that reminds me of this semi truck I recently encountered, which tried to stop suddenly just because I changed lanes. I clutch my arm rests against the g-force, dig my heels against the floor to aid in the braking, same as Fred Flintstone in his foot-powered car.
“I like this sweater, but I’m not so hot on V-necks,” Melanie says.
“Jesus, I think this plane should have had a ‘Student Driver’ sign on the back,” I say.
Melanie gives me her usual Melanie look of scrunched, quizzical eyebrows. These are usually released a moment later with a barely discernable shoulder shrug, a physical demonstration of Whatever.
“My dad will meet us at baggage claim,” she says. “But tomorrow let’s just rent our own car.” She’s told me this plan about a thousand times now, which means she’s excited enough about it that she’s anxious it won’t actually happen. It must be the second part of this she’s worried about, though, because, sure enough, her dad’s right there by the silver carousel, his arms folded across his chest. He looks like a completely different guy from the one who’s always in the media room in the perfect house in Nine Mile Falls. He’s already tan, and has his sunglasses on his head. His black hair is slicked back, as if he’s permanently just gotten out of the pool.
“I see you two made it okay,” he says, and I swear to God, Allen has been replaced by his twin brother. I can’t quite figure out what’s different. At home, he’s quiet and sort of slinks around before he disappears again. But here, even though he hasn’t said anything yet, he’s louder. He’s larger. And as if to prove my very thinking, his cell phone rings and he’s suddenly smiling hugely and performing into it.
“HEY!” he says in capital letters. “It’s ALLEN! Yeah, back in town!” His words backslap and shmooze.
“God, watch my bag not make it,” Melanie says, although right now the carousel just sits still and looks tired.
I take my cell phone out of my bag; turn it on. I’ve gone from three messages to fourteen in a two-and-a-half-hour plane ride.
Indigo, it’s Mom. What have you done? Why are you doing this? I called Jane and… I erase the message. Indigo. I’m very worried about you. Call me, please. The least you could do is tell… Erase. Goddamnit, Indigo. Call and tell us what’s going on. I’ve tried to reach Melanie’s parents, and no one… Erase. In? What the fuck is going on? I’m assuming this is your way of saying we’re through, but Christ, your mom is a wreck… Erase. Indigo, Trevor’s been here and he’s just heartbroken. Heartbroken. If you want a little adventure, fine, but to treat us… Erase. In? Trevor. Fuck. Never mind. Click. Erase. Indigo, shit. Severin. Would you please call Mom? She’s a mess. Erase. Then Bex’s voice. A role model doesn’t just take off. And then, finally: Indigo? It’s Dad. Your mom phoned me. I’m just…here if you need me.
I don’t want to hear their voices. I don’t want to think about them. So, away they go. No new messages, the voice mail chick reports.
“We’ll get together for a drink!” Allen says.
The carousel groans and lurches into motion. Melanie stands at its edge, but I just wait there with my bag between my feet. Some kid sits on the edge of her Winnie-the-Pooh suitcase and looks weary, and a man in a golf shirt and slacks and silver hair waits beside her while Grandma, I’m guessing, with her gold-white hair, jiggles a little boy with chubby legs and saltwater sandals and a face rosy from sleep. The various pieces of luggage start to bamp down the ramp, spin to place and ride slowly around. A black bag falls. Another black bag. Another black bag. Golf clubs. Another black bag. Luggage makers must be either extraordinarily lacking in creativity or extraordinarily depressed. Down slides a car seat, which Grandpa snatches up. A mystery box all taped up, more golf clubs. Another black bag, to which Melanie says, “There it is,” although I have no idea how she can tell.
Allen is still exclaiming away on his cell phone, and we follow behind him. Melanie has put
her sunglasses on, even though we’re inside.
“Is that so you won’t be recognized?” I joke, but then notice that all kinds of people have their sunglasses on. We follow Allen outside. There are two black limos waiting at the curb, and a Hummer limo, which looks like a military command center on wheels. I think my brother had one of those when he was a kid. It came with little guys with guns that my mom told him he couldn’t play with, so he was forced to make the happy Fisher-Price people, with their molded plastic brown and yellow hair, ride in there instead.
Allen points a key fob at a slick black Mercedes, and the car makes a series of chirps that sound like Chico when his claw gets stuck in his cage. The trunk pops open, and we put our bags in. It’s early evening but it’s hot. Allen sits in the driver’s seat while we put our stuff in, and then Melanie sits in front with him. The car is arctic freezing inside—Allen has the air conditioner blasting, I guess, but it’s so quiet, you don’t hear a sound now that he’s hung up his phone. We wind our way out of the airport, and join the long stretch of traffic.
“You should have a convertible, Dad,” Melanie says.
“And suck exhaust every time I get on the road? No thanks,” Allen says. He keeps taking peeks in the rearview mirror, and at first I think he’s making sure I’m not putting gum in his ashtrays. But then I realize he’s not looking at me at all. He leans back a bit so that he can see his own reflection in the side mirror too. Hey there, Hot Stuff, I can hear him say to himself. Hey, Good Lookin’. I wonder what Lisa would say if she could see this routine. I wonder if he’s available later that night for a date with himself.
“Doesn’t your mom like to come on these trips?” I ask.
“She doesn’t like to fly,” Allen says. I get a flash of an image—Allen opening the newspaper every morning to some plane crash article, placing it right next to Lisa’s cereal bowl.
Driving in this car is like driving in some padded, soundproof chamber, protected from every discomfort, glitch, or minor annoyance. The windows are tinted to soften every visual harshness of life (even the strip mall we pass, with its teriyaki place, Laundromat, and Spanish video store, looks muted and calm), and you can control the climate from every seat. But the car is creepy, somehow—airtight and squishy like some Travel Casket made by Sharper Image.
We edge forward in bursts, then brake. Eventually the landscape changes and there are hills of large homes and the dots of palm trees. It was not long ago that I was in a sunny, unfamiliar place with palm trees and a dad driving a car, and yet this is a completely different experience. I’m apart here, not a part.
I feel some twisty sadness, something that’s edging toward regret. Shit, Indigo, I tell myself. You only just got here. You wanted a bigger world. Enjoy the experience! This is an adventure! Maybe this is a NEW LIFE.
I give myself a talking to. Nothing new is comfortable at first. If I am intent on expanding out of my narrow existence, I need to give it time. Six months. A month. Me and myself compromise. The summer, at least. I try to change my attitude. I play Count the BMWs, which gets unchallenging quickly. The sun is beginning to set, though, and the sky through the tinted windows looks pink-and-blue beautiful. I want to see the real thing for a moment, and I crack my window, breaking the suction of the car and causing Allen to whip his head around and exclaim “Hey!” in protest.
I roll it back up. Maybe he was right about the exhaust. When the window is down, I see that the colors are not pink and blue, but a hazy, muddy gray-brown. “I just wanted to see the sunset,” I say.
“It’s just smog,” he says.
“A smogset,” Melanie says. This cracks them both up.
“Just look at it with the window up. It looks better that way,” Allen says.
It takes us a long time to get to the house Allen rents in Malibu. It’s on the beach, with lots of angles and large glass windows and an entryway with a marble floor the color of Travertino Navona, Trina’s table. Trina would love this place. There’s a white carpet in a living room no one goes in (the carpets still look springy and the vacuum tracks are linear and undisturbed) and shiny wood floors in the kitchen. The furniture is sleek—trim leather sofas and geometric pillows. It smells like new paint and new leather, and there are books about art and architecture posing at angles on the end tables, and dimmed lights and some ooh-ah New Agey chime-and-water type music that’s playing in every room. “I guess I’m not going to be drinking tomato juice in there,” I say, and nod toward the living room.
“He’s got a housekeeper, so don’t worry if you make a mess,” Melanie says. She drops her bags where she stands. “Let me show you your room.”
My room is white too, with black accents—a black headboard and black end tables. There’s a painting of something splotchy and orange over the bed. The music has followed us in here.
“It’s great, Mel,” I say. “But the music’s freaking me out a little. I feel like I should meditate at the altar of Citibank, or something.”
“He says it relaxes him,” Melanie says. “If you like this, wait’ll you see the pool.”
“Your dad is a different guy here,” I say.
“Thank God,” Melanie says. “I think he’s his more natural self. A place can bring out your more natural self, don’t you think? I feel more like the real me here. This is just…my place.”
I keep my mouth shut, which should earn me some karma points. I’m hoping Melanie is just showing off a little for me here, in this new place, like people do when they present their territory—lifting their metaphorical leg on the this’s and that’s that they’ve got and want to flaunt, demonstrating the superiority of possessions that are theirs, not yours. Bex does it whenever she has a friend over—she’ll show the little kid Chico’s cage and say, “Chico can learn words faster than you.” And then, “But he doesn’t like new people.” This latter part, of course, is an outright lie—Chico doesn’t like anyone, except maybe Mom.
Melanie opens the French doors to the deck, where the pool is. It’s like Vespa guy’s, but with little blue-and-white tiles inside in a design, and padded deck chairs. The house is smack on the beach itself, which stretches left and right for miles; the other houses in rows on either side are layered like expensive desserts, making this huge house seem small and shivering. It’s getting dark now, and the only light comes from the windows of the houses. The ocean itself, shh-shuuu-ing its whispered rhythms, is dark, dark. The sand is white fading into black where it meets the sea edge. We stand at the deck rail and listen and look at blackness, and my hair feels stringy and damp from sticky ocean air. I am here when I once was there. I am so different, I’m not sure who stands here.
“Maybe I should call home. Let them know I’m okay,” I say.
“You’re braver than I’d be,” Melanie says. “O-kay. You know where your room is.”
“Hey, Mel? Thanks. This is really amazing.”
“Isn’t it?” she says. “I told you.”
Mom picks up on the first ring. “My God, Indigo, how could you do this? How could you just go take off without telling me? I can’t believe you’d treat your own mother like this, let alone the rest of us. Trevor? He’s a wreck. I’ve never seen him without the most perfect and happy disposition, and he had tears in his eyes, Indigo. He had tears in his eyes after the way you treated him. Bex has been crying—she feels like she did something wrong…. Indigo? Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Just…” Mom’s voice breaks now. “Why?”
“I needed to,” I say, and realize that at least this much is true. “I had to get away. I felt all this pressure…” I hear her voice and I remember it all again, the all that seems a hundred years ago already. Jane and Trina and Leroy and the gang; Trevor and Severin and Mom and the bills and Bex in front of that damn television.
“When are you coming back?”
The two-and-a-half-million-dollar question. “I don’t know,” I say.
She’s quiet. Her voice is a whisper and I fo
rce myself to not let it twist my heart. “And that’s how you leave home? No plan, no good-bye?”
“It’s fine, Mom. Everything’s fine. Nothing has really changed, except that I’m not there.”
“Everything has changed, Indigo. You can do that, you know, with one action. You should know that. “
Silence. My stomach drops. “I’m sorry,” I say. I’m not sure how much I mean it. The words seem far away again. They just feel sort of available and convenient—the way you pluck your blue T-shirt from the floor because it’s on top of the pile and it’s clean.
“We deserve better,” Mom says.
“I’ve got to go.”
I’m expecting a rush of protest, pleading, maybe even tears. But Mom is silent. I feel the sadness in the silence. It is so large and heavy it feels as solid and permanent as marble.
“Bye,” I say.
“Good-bye, Indigo,” Mom says.
And then she hangs up. There is just emptiness on the other end of the phone, and I sit at the edge of that deck chair and listen to the endless shh-shuuu of the waves, the in-out rasp of them, water on sand, water off sand. The trees make a shimmery-paper sound. The house is so bright the bright is almost noisy behind me, but in front there is only the stretch of blackness.
I rub the canvas fabric of the deck chair cushion with my palm. Finally I go inside, to my own room, that’s all white and smells unopened. I prepare to sleep in the sixth place I have laid my head, and I feel lonelier than I ever have in my life.
15
“I told him, we are not waiting around all day for rides from him. I’m just not. So he’s having the car place send over a car. We can just give them your credit card number when they get here.”