“No roe-sham-bo tonight, all right sweetie?” Sara said.
“Pipe down. It costs too much to order shitty food here,” he said. I didn’t like the way he barked at her. I made a mental note to mention it to Jacob when we got home.
Pete ordered grilled salmon for the birthday boy. “Because grilled salmon is something a thirty-year-old would order,” he said. He got me the grilled vegetable salad. He got Joanna and Jim pasta with vodka sauce. Kat ended up with a Cajun stew because Pete said she was spicy. Sara got lobster because it was an aphrodisiac, and Gopal got the mixed fish platter. I’m not sure why Pete ordered Gopal that, but I suspected it had something to do with the way Gopal pronounced the word platter. Pete got himself a T-bone. “Because that’s what Arnold’s eating,” he said.
For dessert, we ordered two of the famed banana splits to share. I pretended I had to go to the bathroom so I could ask our waiter to load them up with candles. Sara thought I really had to pee and she came with me—she did have to pee. Kat followed, so as not to miss anything.
On our way back to the table, I heard a strange, familiar voice.
“Beatrice?” he said.
When I turned around I almost hit the deck. He was sitting right there, had probably been sitting around the corner, about twenty feet away from me, all evening. A man with a face I hadn’t seen in almost a decade.
My father.
It was kind of funny, really, that I hadn’t run into him sooner. He only lived ten miles from my apartment. It was bound to happen eventually. But he didn’t exactly frequent the places I did so I never worried about it. The last time I’d seen him was the day he walked out on my mother. He’d been fucking around for eons, and I think we all figured he would just keep fucking around and she’d keep taking him back, and that’s the way life would continue to go, ’til death did them part. She would undoubtedly find divorce too embarrassing, and he wouldn’t want to hand over too much of his net-worth, at least that was my theory. Then one day he came home and dropped the bomb—he’d just purchased a house in Malibu, he wanted to marry a twenty-six-year-old real estate broker, and that was it. He was willing to give my mother half of everything, plus a nice chunk of change for each of the kids, just to get rid of her.
He looked older than I remembered, mainly because his thick black hair had grayed a bit, but he was still in decent shape. My father was a handsome man. He was tall—well over six feet—and he had a geometric face, made of nothing but severe lines and sharp angels.
He was with a woman I assumed to be the one he married. All I knew about her was what my mother told me: she wasn’t much older than I was and she had fake tits. That night was the first time I’d ever seen her. She reminded me of a Yorkshire Terrier.
“Beatrice? Honey, is that you?” my father said.
Please tell me he didn’t just call me honey, I thought. Tell me I made that up.
I figured if I didn’t respond, if I just kept walking, he’d think he was mistaken. Maybe I was just someone who resembled that girl called Beatrice. I think it would have worked too, had Kat not been there.
“Blanca, do you know that guy? He’s calling you,” she said.
I only vaguely remember the events that took place over the course of the next thirty minutes. Apparently I stared blank-faced at my father and walked back to our table, catatonic. When I sat down, Jacob told me I looked weird. He asked me if I was sick.
“You’re white as a sheet,” he said. I recall thinking that was a funny expression. Kind of cliché for a writer. And it didn’t really hold water for me. The sheets on our bed were a minty shade of green.
Jacob put his palm on my forehead like my mother used to do when she was taking my temperature. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I didn’t even enjoy the okay that time.
“She just ran into her father,” Kat said. Kat had stayed and chatted with the stranger long enough to find out who he was.
“Beatrice, your Dad’s here?” Pete yelled. “Hell, ask him to join us!”
Someone kicked Pete under the table.
“What? What’d I do?” Pete said. Sara yanked on his shirt and told him to shut up.
“Hey, Grace, here he comes,” Kat shouted. “The good-looking guy in the beige shirt. Blanca, your dad’s kind of hot.”
Why was she shouting? Why did she have to say he was hot? And why did she always call Jacob by his last name?
I assumed that if I ignored my father he’d vanish as fast as he appeared. I saw the shape of him, like an apparition, floating toward the back of the restaurant. He was levitating my way. He was coming to haunt me. I turned away from him and tried to start a conversation with whoever was on my right. I faintly identified Joanna as that person.
When my father reached our table, he looked straight at me. I didn’t see him looking—I never moved my head in his direction—but I felt him.
Jacob stood up from his chair and introduced himself as my boyfriend. My father was almost a head taller than Jacob. I saw it all through the corner of my eye. I saw them shake hands, as if they were shaking on me. Signed, sealed, delivered; she’s yours.
“Jacob Grace,” he said.
“Curtis Jordan,” said the stranger. “It’s good to meet you.”
I’d forgotten my father’s first name. I don’t think I would have even been able to think of it unless he’d said it. He seemed a little uncomfortable, but he still sounded like a lawyer when he talked.
“This is my wife, Tara,” he said.
Tara had followed him over. I bet she followed him everywhere. That’s what little Yorkies do, I said to myself. I think Jacob shook her paw too, but I’m not sure because I still wasn’t looking. My lips were moving and I was trying to say something to Joanna, only I didn’t hear the sound when it came out of my mouth. It was too noisy there, in my head, where Bono was singing a song to me–a song about wanting so much, but being left with nothing.
Thank heaven for the wisdom of the prophets of rock ‘n’ roll. They’re the ones who saved me back then, when my father ran off and my mother threatened to kill herself to make him stay, even though she never would have done it because my mother’s a big coward and there’s no way she would have died unless she’d given us explicit instructions regarding which designer we were to bury her in.
“Most likely Chanel,” she always says. But it depends on who’s at the helm, and during which season she croaks.
Jacob spoke to my father for a few more minutes. I didn’t hear what they said, even though Jacob was right next to me, and Curtis Jordan was diagonal from my fucking face. It was all a big blur until Curtis and Tara wafted away. I saw them go. I saw them exit the restaurant. I saw Curtis hand his ticket to the valet guy. He looked back at me through the window as if he were looking at someone he loved laying dead in an open casket. Then he helped Tara into their brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee. She had a wide ass. From the front she looked small but her backside was a different story. I couldn’t wait to tell my mother Tara was a yappy dog with a wide ass. I never had anything to talk to my mother about, but I knew she’d think that was the greatest thing since online shopping.
We all sang Happy Birthday and ate the banana splits. Jacob even opened a couple of gifts. Pete gave him some rare Miles Davis import record, Kat and Gopal gave him a bright yellow T-shirt that said Cheerios on it, and Joanna gave him a tattered, first edition copy of Tropic of Cancer. Jacob drooled all over that and told Joanna she shouldn’t have, but she gave him a loud smooch on the cheek and demanded that he give her a break.
“My only son doesn’t turn thirty every day, you know.”
I don’t remember any of this, mind you. It was all relayed back to me later, with the kind of intimate details only a writer could supply.
I didn’t become conscious again until we got in the car. Jacob was in the right lane, getting ready to turn down our st
reet, when I sprang back to life.
“Can we not go home right now?” I said.
Jacob floored it when the light turned green, and we zoomed past all the other cars. Then he swerved left, took the incline down to PCH, and drove north. When we got to Topanga Canyon, he made a right.
“Where are we going?”
“To the park,” he said.
There’s a state park in Topanga Canyon, right in the heart of the Santa Monica mountains. Getting there was like driving into another world—it didn’t look anything like you picture L.A. to look at all. It was dry, woodsy land, filled with trees, and brush, and sprinkled with granola. I guessed the people who lived there pretended they weren’t anywhere near Los Angeles. I was sure they played a lot of Crosby Stills and Nash records and let their kids walk around barefoot and acted like it was summertime in Woodstock every day of the year.
“Jacob, how much longer until you finish your book?”
“Soon,” he said. “I promise.”
He drove up to the park entrance. The sign said it was closed from sundown to sunrise, but there was no ranger around to stop us from going in. Instead of parking in the lot, Jacob hammered right onto the fire trail. We went up a mile or so and stopped on an overlook where we could see the Palisades to our left and the entire canyon on our right. We hopped into the backseat and huddled together to keep warm. The car smelled musty, like damp newspapers and stale cola. Jacob’s car always smelled like it needed a good cleaning.
We said and heard nothing for a good five minutes, until a couple of coyotes started howling. They sang back and forth, then together at the same time, like they were performing a tragic duet. I couldn’t decide if it was a soothing sound, or if it reminded me of a horror movie, the moment right before the ax falls.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Jacob said.
I was thinking about a family vacation we took when I was in high school. The coyote cries made me remember it. The Honolulu Nightmare, that’s what I called this particular holiday. The travelers included, in alphabetical order, me, Cole, my father, my mother, and some other woman my dad thought I was too stupid to notice because he got her a room on a different floor. Chip was already off at college so he was spared the torture.
For a week straight, I had the daily choice of sunbathing by the pool with my mother, golfing with my brother, or tailing my father. He claimed he had meetings, and he usually did, but not at seven o’clock in the morning in another woman’s hotel room. Following him around was usually the most interesting option. It was also the most depressing. I blew it off after the second day and signed up for a scuba certification class instead.
The first time the instructor took me down, I’d been underwater for maybe ten minutes when the ocean started to echo with a blaring, high-pitched squeal. An aqua-opera. It sounded like the most beautiful music I’d ever heard, like a hundred babies with three-octave ranges. I had no idea what it was, but I prayed that it was a choir of sea nymphs coming to drag me to Atlantis.
When I surfaced, my instructor told me the sounds I’d heard were Humpback whales. It was mating season, and they were singing to attract their lovers. I asked him why we could hear them but not see them.
“They’re a thousand miles away,” the instructor said.
The coyotes went silent, and I wondered if they were screwing.
“Jacob, what did my father say to you?”
He explained the whole night to me, all the stuff I’d blacked out. My father asked him where we were living, and if I was still making jewelry, and how business was going. All the usual stuff a father would ask his daughter’s boyfriend if he hadn’t seen her in nine years. He noticed that I’d cut my hair and said he liked it. Before he walked away, he gave Jacob his business card. He told Jacob he wanted to have us up for Thanksgiving dinner the following week. They lived right on the beach. They always had a nice breeze. He said we’d love it.
“Has my father gone blind in the last decade? Did I look to him like I’d want to come over for a breezy little Thanksgiving beach party?”
I wondered if he remembered my birthday was coming up. He always remembered my birthday. He sent me a card every year. Happy Birthday, Sweetheart. That’s what it always said. I Miss You. Love, Dad.
“He thought maybe I’d be able to convince you to come,” Jacob said.
“He thought wrong. Why were you so nice to him?”
“Would you be mean to my father if you met him?”
The coyotes started up again. They must fuck fast.
“Jacob, Pete drinks too much.”
“Your father wants you to call him.”
“Oh, really? He has a phone. I’m listed. He can call me if he wants to talk. Didn’t you think Pete was being rude to Sara at dinner?”
“Yeah, I noticed that. He can get a little belligerent. I’ll talk to him. But what about your father?”
“My father can kiss my ass. Why are you taking his side?”
“I’m not taking anyone’s side. But he seemed like a decent guy to me. If he wants to maybe, you know, patch things up, I don’t think it would hurt to try.”
“There’s nothing to patch up. And by the way, you’re one to talk.”
“My situation is entirely different.”
“No it isn’t. I bet you cry every time you hear ‘Cat’s in the Cradle.’”
Jacob thought that was the funniest thing I’d ever said.
“I’ll make you a deal, Jacob, when you call your father, I’ll call mine. Stop laughing.”
“Actually, ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ does make me cry,” he said. “But only if it’s dark out. And I like it. I like the suffering.”
“You would,” I said. Jacob was weird that way. He thought suffering was cool. He thought it made him a better writer.
“And your argument isn’t fair, Trixie. Thomas Doorley left me without a trace. No support, no birthday cards, nothing. It was like my mother and I never existed. At least in Curtis’s case,” Jacob said, “he stuck around until you were old enough to choose to hate him. And really, you severed the ties, right?”
“He might as well have been dead for as much as I saw of him.”
“Did you see him on Christmas morning?” Jacob said.
“Yes. But he related more to my brothers. He liked their toys better.”
“Did he take you to the movies once in a while?”
“They were always movies his clients were in. He had to go.”
“Did he ever go on a bike ride with you?”
“Maybe once or twice. Probably out of guilt.”
“Did he have a picture of you on his desk at work?”
I remember the exact one he kept there. It was my fourth grade class picture. I’d insisted that my mother let me do my own hair that day. I tried to curl it with a curling iron, but I didn’t know how to use one. I wrapped the hair around the wand in the wrong direction. Instead of curls, I got lumps. My mother was appalled.
“Beatrice, you can’t leave the house like that. You look like you live in a trailer.”
The picture was in a red plastic frame. I gave it to him for Father’s Day.
“I’ve never celebrated Father’s Day,” Jacob said. “And Thomas Doorley doesn’t know anything about me. He doesn’t even know what I look like. I could walk up to him on the street tomorrow, ask him to spare some change, and he’d think I was just some no-good bum.”
“Okay, you win,” I said. “Your father is more pathetic than mine. But I’m still not calling him. When are you going to read that book anyhow?”
Jacob ignored my question.
What a couple of rueful souls we are, I thought. Whining in the middle of the night, just like a couple of horny coyotes.
Before we left the park, I gave Jacob his birthday present. I told him all about the toilet fiasco that accompani
ed its pick-up. He thought that was second only to my “Cat’s in the Cradle” comment as the funniest thing he’d heard all week. He loved his watch.
“I promise I’ll never lose it.”
“I have one more present for you.”
I wasn’t in the mood for sex, per se. Seeing my father had zapped all that energy right out of me, but I thought Jacob deserved a little something on his birthday. I sucked him and let him come in my mouth. It warmed me from the inside out.
When we got home, we shared a glass of wine and fell asleep watching an infomercial touting the healing benefits of juicing.
NINETEEN
The day after I ran into my father, Joanna dropped by unexpectedly.
“Beatrice, you and I are going to lunch,” she said. “Just the girls. Jacob’s not invited.”
She took me to an organic vegetarian restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard that smelled like fresh-squeezed wheatgrass, and had sesame seed shakers on the tables instead of salt. Over tea made from Japanese twigs, and wheat protein with mushroom gravy that they called Salisbury Steak, Joanna said she was worried about me. She asked me if I wanted to talk about my father. She said she could tell I was angry with him—not that anyone with an I.Q. equal to my shoe size couldn’t have figured that out. I proceeded to tell Joanna all about my fortunate young life growing up a child of privilege in the Hollywood Hills. I told her more than I would normally tell a person, actually, but something about the lines around her eyes inspired trust. She tried to persuade me not to hold a grudge against my father. She said it wasn’t worth the trouble.
“People have reasons for what they do, Beatrice. And even if those reasons can’t be justified, that doesn’t make them bad people, just flawed. You have to remember,” she said, “someone or something has hurt them, too.”
Joanna sounded like my eighth grade religion teacher, Mrs. Chilton. That’s exactly what she used to say when one kid would beat up another kid on the playground.
“That child must really be hurting inside.”
Mrs. Chilton thought the kid with the bloody nose was supposed to feel sorry for the bully instead of hating him. She also said the weak and the poor would inherit the earth some day, while the rich and prosperous would suffer in hell. Even at thirteen, I found this an ironic morsel of insight to feed the class, being that we were all a bunch of bratty trust-fund kids. That’s about the time I started giving up on God. I knew I wasn’t going to sail down the river Styx just because I had a substantial bank account. Besides, I was suffering enough on earth. All the cash in the world wasn’t going to make my pain go away.