Jade

  "I thought of that question, too," Misty said. "I just haven't asked it."

  I looked at Cat and she looked away quickly. What was her story?

  "My father didn't even seem to recognize my anger. He had his own to express first," I said, getting back to my story.

  "'We were supposed to do this together,' he said, 'but it's just like her to do what she did. Just in character for her to take control. Don't you worry. It's been duly noted,' he assured me. He was already keeping a legal diary for his lawyer to use in court."

  I sighed, crossed my legs and sat back.

  "So from the very beginning, the divorce was to be bitter and I was the battleground. Suddenly, I, who had been nothing but an inconvenience, became important, but believe me, I wasn't flattered. On occasion, I've told both my parents they shouldn't love me so much. They both looked confused, but I think deep down in their hearts, they knew what I meant, they knew what they'd buried.

  "Dinner that evening was under a cloud, but neither of them would give the other the satisfaction of knowing he or she was terribly upset. They ate like there was no tomorrow just to demonstrate that nothing had damaged their appetites. Neither noticed I hardly ate at all.

  "Their conversation was limited to the most essential things and there was a new formal tone to both of their voices, but before the dinner ended, both directed themselves to me, asking me questions about school, about the band, about an upcoming dance I was sure they had forgotten until now. One would ask a question and the other would try to top it by asking for more detail.

  "Suddenly, they were both trying to impress me with their concern and interest in my life and my affairs. I should have realized then that they were going to fight over custody, but as I said, I just assumed that if they really went through with the divorce, my mother and I would remain at the house and my father would live someplace else.

  "The friends I had in school whose parents had divorced all lived with their mothers and had regular visits with their fathers, and like you guys, none of them talked much about the actual divorce

  proceedings. They were far more protected from the unpleasant parts than I would be.

  "What was supposed to happen next was the lawyers were to get together and work things out. They did work out almost everything else but me and that affected all the other compromises. When it came to the question of custody, the war began. I think that took my mother by surprise, which my father enjoyed. I didn't know about that aspect yet. I just heard bits and pieces about their financial issues, the battle over what assets were joint and what were separate. Since my mother wasn't claiming any physical or emotional abuse, my father was permitted to remain in the house. At least they didn't have to work out any kind of visitation schedule for the time being.

  "But a regular trial would have to take place for the judge to decide who should get custody of me. I realized pretty quickly that my opinions, my answers to the judge's questions, would all play a big role and that was why my parents were suddenly .

  "What?" Misty asked.

  I stared at her for a moment as the words played in my head, waiting for the right one. It seemed so obvious. "Parents," I replied.

  "Huh?"

  "She means a momma and daddy and not two business partners," Star explained.

  "Exactly," I said, smiling I looked at Dr. Marlowe. She seemed very pleased.

  "That should have made you happy," Misty said.

  Once again I glanced at Dr. Marlowe because I knew she would be interested in my reply.

  "It does and it doesn't," I said. "I mean I like the attention and all, but I hate feeling that I'm getting it only so that they can each feel that they're outdoing the other. It's like having something nice that's also bad, like, like eating your favorite ice cream but it's so cold, it hurts your teeth."

  They all looked confused.

  "I guess I'm not making any sense," I said, sitting back. "That's why I didn't even want to start this."

  "You're making sense," Misty said. She looked at Star.

  "Yeah, you're making sense," Star agreed.

  Cat nodded.

  "A lot of sense," she said in a voice just a shade above a whisper, "even though it's confusing."

  "Huh?"

  "That's why we're here, to find a way to live with it," Cat continued and for the first time in three days, all of us looked at her as someone who could bring something to this beside shyness, fear and silence.

  Before anyone could speak however, we heard the rattle of glasses and heavy footsteps in the hallway outside the office door.

  "Lemonade!" Dr. Marlowe's sister Emma cried and came walking in, carrying a silver tray on which she had a jug of freshly made lemonade and four glasses with a plate of cookies.

  "I hope I'm not too early, Dr. Marlowe," Emma said, looking afraid she had interrupted. We all thought it was amusing that she called her sister Dr. Marlowe. Misty suggested she might be a client of her own sister, but I thought that was some sort of a conflict of interest or something.

  "No, you're right on schedule, Emma. Thank you."

  Emma's plump cheeks rose as her lips formed a rosebud smile. She placed the tray on the table and stepped back.

  "Everyone looks so bright and cheery today. It is a pretty day. I hope you'll give them time to enjoy some of it, Doctor. Young girls need sunshine," she recited as if it was some ancient truth.

  "I will, Emma. Thank you."

  She nodded, flashed another smile at us and left. I think all of us were wondering for a moment if that might be the way we would be years from now. How deep were Emma's wounds in comparison to ours and what happens if you can't mend, really and truly mend?

  Will we always be this angry and afraid of forever failing at relationships and therefore always be terrified of being forever lonely? You didn't have to be a psychiatrist to see that loneliness was Emma's problem. It was like some disease affecting her smile, her laugh, her very movement.

  "Help yourselves, girls," Dr. Marlowe said and we did. "I'll be right back. I have to check on lunch," she said and left.

  Dr. Marlowe is very smart giving us these breaks, I thought. It's too exhausting otherwise.

  "Where do you live?" I asked Cat as I reached for a cookie and lemonade.

  "Pacific Palisades," she replied. She nibbled on her cookie.

  "Where do you go to school?"

  "I go to a parochial school," she said. She brushed back her hair.

  "I see you cut your hair," I told her and she nodded. "I did it myself."

  "It's an improvement," I said, "but you should try to get your mother to take you over to Patty's on Rodeo."

  She stared at me as if I spoke a foreign language.

  "That's Rodeo as in Rodeo Drive," I said. "You know if you have a good stylist work on it, your face won't look as chubby."

  "Maybe she doesn't think she looks chubby. Maybe she's happy with how she looks," Star said.

  "I'm just trying to be helpful."

  "Sometimes people can be too helpful."

  "That's ridiculous. No one can be too helpful," I said. "People who are always sticking their noses into other people's business are too helpful," she countered. "I don't agree. I'm not sticking my nose into anyone's business. I'm giving her the benefit of my experience and my knowledge."

  "Maybe she doesn't want it. You ever think of that?" "Of course she wants it. Don't you, Cathy?" I asked her, practically pleading for her to agree.

  She looked like she would cry.

  "Don't you see that you're doing the same thing to her that your parents are doing to you?" Misty asked. "What?"

  "Trying to get her to take sides," she said.

  I stared at her for a moment and then sat back. Star glared at me, and Cathy quietly ate her cookie, her eyes fixed on her lemonade.

  Actually, Misty wasn't wrong. There had been something in my voice that reminded me of how my parents spoke to me now, that pleading to get me to agree with one or the other.

&n
bsp; "She's right. I'm sorry," I said. "I was really trying to be helpful. I guess I should learn when to keep my mouth shut."

  "Amen," Star said.

  "You're not perfect," I charged.

  "I'm not? Why bless my soul. I thought considering my wonderful home life and upbringing, I was a thing to behold," she said.

  Misty laughed.

  So did I.

  Just as Dr. Marlowe returned.

  "Well, I'm glad everyone's getting along so well," she said, and that made us all laugh, even Cat.

  3

  "Once my parents decided to do battle over custody, the beautifully carved figures on the civilized chessboard of divorce changed to tiny knives they tried to stick into each other," I said. "In other words, things got nastier and nastier until today they rarely speak directly to each other. Civility hangs by a thin thread. What will become of me?" I declared in the voice of a Southern belle, like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Misty laughed.

  "Sometimes, if I'm in the same room with the both of them, my mother will say, 'Jade, please tell your father we're having trouble with the garbage disposal,' and my father will respond gruffly with, 'Tell her I already know about it and I'm taking care of it.' "

  "So you really don't tell either of them what the other said, right?" Misty asked.

  "Right. I'm like a filter through which the words they direct toward each other now have to go. I don't think I've ever had to actually repeat anything. As long as the words are directed toward me, it's all right."

  "I couldn't stand that for very long," Star said. "I know it's miserable when they're spitting hate at each other, but I don't like being in the middle."

  "Me neither. One day last week when they were having a conversation through me, I put my hands over my ears and I started to scream 'Leave me alone! Stop filling me up with all this garbage!'

  "I thought I might tear the hair right out of my head. I know I was so red in the face I felt like I had a fever, but instead of worrying about what I was going through, they just began attacking each other.

  "'Look what you're doing to her,' my father accused.

  "'Me? It's you. You're the one who's putting us all through this ridiculous legal charade. Do you really think for one moment any judge in his right mind is going to grant you custody?'

  "'If he's in his right mind, that's all he can do,' my father responded:

  "I turned and ran out of the room. I could hear them shouting at each other for a few more minutes. It was like the winding down of a storm, the slow rolling of thunder farther and farther toward the horizon until there was nothing but the drip, drip, drip of my own tears."

  "I don't know how they continue to live in the same house," Misty said, shaking her head.

  "Where does your father sleep now?" Star asked.

  "In one of the guest rooms. That was something else that caused problems. He asked me to help move his clothing into the guest room. I didn't want to see that happening, but I didn't think it was any big deal for me to help him Of course, as I did, he complained about my mother more and more and then she came home and saw me helping him and went ballistic.

  "'How can you help that man? Are you taking his side in this?' she screamed at me.

  "'I'm just carrying in some clothes and personal things for him,' I told her.

  "That night, perhaps feeling threatened, she suddenly decided she and I had to go out to dinner. It was the first of the poisonings:' I said.

  "Poisonings?" Cat asked, jumping on my word, but then she looked guiltily at Star and Misty as if she had taken their assigned lines or something.

  "I don't think she means she and her mother actually poisoned her father's food or anything:' Misty said. Before I could respond she thought for a moment, the doubt shading her eyes, and asked, "Right?"

  "Right," I said, "although I often wonder if that could be far behind. No, the kind of poisoning I mean is one planting unpleasant things about the other in my head. They're both treating my head like a garden of hate these days.

  "Anyway, I couldn't remember a time before when my mother wanted to just be with me, to take me to lunch or to dinner and have a real motherdaughter conversation. Oh, I went shopping with her lots of times and we ended up having lunch at the mall or something, but most of the time, one of her girlfriends was with us or she talked about herself and her career. There wasn't anything really motherdaughter about it.

  "It was funny, but when she asked me to go to dinner with her that first night, I felt bad for my father. I knew, of course, that it was a deliberate effort to exclude him, but all I could do is imagine him home alone at that big dining room table looking at all the empty chairs while Mrs. Caron served one of her gourmet meals.

  "My mother made reservations for us in one of the more expensive Beverly Hills restaurants. She told me to get dressed up because we were going to an elegant place.

  "'I was after your father to take me to this restaurant for months before we started the divorce proceedings,' she explained as soon as we left the house.

  "'Why didn't he take you?' I asked.

  "'Why? You'd have to ask him and I'm sure he'll come up with some lame excuse like I was the one who was too busy or something.'

  "She turned to me and smiled.

  "'You look very pretty,' she said. 'I'm glad you're wearing your hair that way, and I'm happy I bought that Vivienne Tam. It complements your figure.'

  "I didn't know what to say. My mother didn't spend all that much time talking about style of clothes and hair with me very much before this. The truth was I picked out most of my clothes when I went shopping with my friends. When I went shopping with my mother she didn't give me enough time to try things on. She always wanted to get it over with quickly. She dresses stylishly herself, but she doesn't hide the fact that she thinks shopping is a waste of time She did help me with my makeup because that was her area of expertise, being a sales manager for the cosmetics company, but she always spoke to me as if I was some client or customer in a department store.

  "'Of course,' my mother said still harping on my dress, 'your father didn't want me to buy that even though you wanted it so much. He thought it was way too expensive for a girl your age.'

  "'I don't remember that,' I said.

  "'Oh, yes. It's true. I had to pay for it myself out of my own money. I'll show you the canceled check if you like,' she told me. 'Don't be surprised,' she continued. 'Most of the nice things you have, you have because of me. I'm not the penny pincher in this family. He inherited that. . . that frugal way from his parents. You know what it's like to get a nickel out of Grandfather and Grandmother Lester. Look at the things they buy you for your birthdays. Most grandparents would have set aside some trust money for their granddaughter in a good interest-bearing account by now,' she said.

  "'But they have other grandchildren,' I said.

  " `So? They're not any more generous with your cousins. What are they going to do, take it with them and spend it in the grave? You know what they gave us for a wedding present? A five-hundred-dollar savings bond. That's right,' she said laughing, 'a savings bond I think it's still in the safety deposit box. I get half of that and don't worry, I'll be sure I get it. If he so much as takes out one nickel from that safety deposit box . . . ,' she muttered, her lips nearly whitening in rage. She suddenly turned back to me with a smile.

  "'Oh, but I don't want you to worry about money, Jade. We're not going to end up like so many poor women and children,' she assured me. 'The fact is I have a better lawyer than he has. I should know. Arnold was my lawyer once. He doesn't have as much courtroom experience as my attorney. The fact is, I was surprised your father didn't look for a more experienced divorce attorney, a specialist like I have to get what I want and protect what you have.'

  "'I don't think Daddy wants to see me have less,' I made the mistake of saying.

  "Her eyes looked like they were going to explode in her head My mother is a very attractive woman. Her hair is just a little darke
r than mine and she wears it with a little sweep over her forehead like those actresses from the forties, the Veronica Lake look. She has blue-green eyes. They're more green when she gets angry. I know she's beautiful because every time I've gone places with her, I've noticed the way men turn their heads and even women look up at her with that Why can't that be me? expression on their faces.

  "She doesn't do anything special to keep her figure either. Once a week she might go to the fitness center, but she claims hard work, being constantly on the go, and watching her diet is all she needs to do.

  "She's about an inch shorter than I am. If she was two or three inches taller, I bet she could have been a model, not that she would have wanted to be," I quickly added.

  "Why not?'! Star asked.

  "She thinks they're just meat on the hoof, that men treat them with less respect, regardless of how much they get paid. And they have a short

  professional life. If you're a career woman in business, your looks don't determine how long you'll be working or how fast you will be promoted."

  "Don't believe it," Star muttered.

  "Don't believe what?"

  "That looks don't matter. They always matter."

  I glanced at Cat. She kept her eyes down the whole time Star and I argued.

  "If you have skills and talent, you will get to where you want to go, to where you deserve to go," I told Star.

  "Men are always going to promote women who are prettier first," she insisted.

  "What would you know about it? You've never had a job or been in the business world."

  "I know what men want," she said dryly.

  "Oh please." I looked at Misty, who just shrugged. From what she had told us, I knew her mother had never done a day's work. She wouldn't know either, I realized.

  "You watch too many soap operas," I snapped.

  "Soap operas?" Star laughed. "Half the time the television doesn't work or if it does, Rodney's glued to it, watching cartoons. We only have one set in our house," she pointed out. "I bet you have five."