"The only thing I was wishing for was for them to love me and go back to loving each other, but I said yes and he was relieved:'
I gazed at the others again. My eyes had a film of tears over them.
"We make everything so much easier for them when we tell them what they want to hear," I said, "but that doesn't stop it. It doesn't stop the static. Suddenly, there were more and more arguments. It was like some kind of disease infecting everything. Daddy never openly complained about the bills before. Now, he would toss them on the dinner table and question Mommy like some prosecutor, demanding to know why she needed this or that and always asking, when was it going to end?
"'It's never going to end, Jeffery. It's called living,' she told him and that would set him off ranting about other husbands and wives, mostly about how other wives were more economical and efficient.
"They both seemed to look for reasons to complain. It was as if . . . a pair of magnifying glasses was suddenly put in front of their faces and they saw the little mistakes and blemishes in each other. One of Daddy's favorite topics was Mommy's salon bills. She also has a masseuse twice a week, facial treatments every weekend and, of course, the personal trainer. I didn't understand the comments he muttered under his breath, but he would say things like, 'Why are you making yourself so beautiful for me? It's just a waste.'
"She would cry and they would stop arguing for a while, Daddy looking like he felt just as terrible.
"I knew they weren't fighting because Daddy was making less money. Shirley Kagan told me that was why her parents eventually got a divorce, but Daddy bought a new car that year, an expensive one, a Mercedes, and he bought an expensive new big screen television set. More and more it seemed to me they were looking for the arguments, lifting stones to see what they could find that was wrong about each other.
"They even fought over food. Daddy
complained about the choice of breakfast cereals. He hadn't cared much before. He only had juice, toast and coffee anyway, but there he was rifling through the food cupboards criticizing what Mommy had bought at the supermarket.
"Sometimes, they made me into a referee. They would both turn, to me and ask my opinion. I felt like I was being held over a raging fire and if I gave the wrong answer, one or the other would cut the string and I'd fall into his or her rage.
"My mother started to say things like 'Your father's a narrow-minded fool.'
"Daddy would say, 'I only hope you don't become like your mother.'
"I started doing badly in school. Often, in the middle of one of their arguments, they would both spin on me and complain about my work, my clothes, my friends. I think it made them both feel better to have me available. It was like I was a test target or something On more than one occasion, I told them I hated them both and ran upstairs, hysterical, tears streaming off my face.
"Then one would blame the other for failing me and that became a whole new round of battling.
"The gray had come seeping into our house. I hated coming home and hated to go down to dinner when Daddy was there. I could feel the lightning in the house, that damn static, crackling all around me.
"What I really remember is how quiet it suddenly became. I didn't hear music or even the television going. We had become a family of zombies, shadows of ourselves, gliding along the walls, avoiding each other.
"When Daddy came home, Mommy wouldn't even greet him He would say something like 'Hello to you too, Gloria, and she would mutter something under her breath.
"And then finally one day, on a weekend, Mommy and Daddy called me into the den and asked me to sit on the sofa. Mommy was seated in the cushioned, red leather chair and Daddy stood by the window. I remember every detail of that day. It had rained in the morning and the sun began to appear between thick, dirty looking clouds, puffs that looked bruised and stained. The whole world seemed to have turned angry. I had a little stomachache, some cramps that told me my period was getting ready to make its usual spectacular entrance. Lately, they had become more severe and less regular. The school nurse told me it might be due to stress I think she was fishing for good gossip.
"Anyway, I joined them in the den. Daddy was wearing a dark sports jacket, no tie, slacks and his light brown loafers. Mommy had her hair perfect as usual, her face made up as if she was going to an evening affair. She wore one of her pants suits and matching thick, high-heel shoes. On her wrists and fingers was her usual array of expensive jewelry. She also wore her gold leaf earrings with small diamonds on her lobes. I remember thinking how well dressed they both were.
"I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with sneakers and no socks. My mother hated it when I didn't wear socks.
"I sat and waited. Finally, she looked at Daddy and said, 'Well, are you going to tell her or am I?'
"Daddy turned, threw a look at her that would have shattered her face if it was a fist, and then turned to me and softened his expression.
"'Misty,' he began, 'you probably have noticed that this ship we're all on has been in some stormy waters lately. The old boat has been rocked and rocked and frankly, it's taking in too much water.'
"'Oh God,' my mother said, 'just tell her and skip all these stupid comparisons. She's not a baby, Jeffery.'
"'If you don't like the way I'm telling her, then you tell her,' he said and I realized they were even fighting over this.
"I knew what they were going to tell me. I felt it, sensed it, practically heard the words before they were spoken. I just dreaded hearing them from their lips because I would then know that it was really happening, that this wasn't all just some passing bad dream.
"'What your father is attempting to tell you in his clumsy fashion is we have decided it would be better for all of us if he and I got a divorce,' Mommy stated firmly.
"I looked up at him and he looked down. Then I turned to her and said, 'Better for all of us? This is supposed to be good for me?'
"'It can't be good for you to be in the middle of all this every day, every minute,' Mommy said. 'It's affecting your schoolwork, too. We've already spoken to a counselor and he's assured us that your dramatic downturn is due to our marital problems,' she said.
"I remember being shocked by that. They had spoken to a counselor, told him about their personal problems, our personal problems? This had been started and had been going on for some time without my knowledge. Never before in my life did I feel more like a stranger in my own home than I did at that moment. Who were these two people? I wondered.
"I looked at Daddy and then at Mommy and thought how they had both changed. They were both trying to be younger, but suddenly they both looked so old and decrepit to me. What happened to my parents, to my beautiful parents who used to attract so many compliments?"
I paused.
"Where do people go when they change?" I asked the others. They saw I was really looking for an answer.
"What?" Jade asked. "Go? I don't understand."
I looked at Doctor Marlowe. This was something she and I had discussed before: my theory that people die many times before they're buried.
"The two people that were my parents were gone," I told Jade. "Those two people somehow died:'
"I don't understand," Star said, her head tilted a little to one side. "You're parents are still alive, aren't they?" "Not the way they were to me," I said.
Jade's eyes narrowed as she thought about what I was saying. Then, she nodded gently.
"I get it," she said. "She's right. My parents are different people now, too."
"Well, I'm still not sure what you mean. Maybe because my parents are really gone," Star insisted. She looked at Cathy, who pressed her lips together as if she was afraid she might comment.
"You will," Jade told Star.
"Oh, you know what I'll get and what I won't get? What are you, the therapist now?"
"Don't direct your hostility toward me," Jade said in a firm, take charge demeanor.
"Direct what? What's that supposed to mean?" Star cried, her eyes flashing
.
"Girls, take a breath," Doctor Marlowe interceded. "Come on, everyone relax. Just sit back and think about what Misty has said. Just digest it all for a moment and later we can talk about it."
"I don't know what there is to talk about. It's dumb. Dead, not dead, gone;' Star muttered but sat back with her arms folded. Her large dark brown eyes looked from Jade to me and-then to Doctor Marlowe.
"Do you want to continue, Misty?" Doctor Marlowe asked.
"Okay," I said. I took a breath and continued.
"My parents were both looking at me, staring at me, waiting for my response to their announcement, I guess. 'What do you want from me?' I asked.
"'We don't want anything from you,' my father said. What a laugh that was. They would never want more from me than they were about to want.
"'We just want this to go forward with the least amount of pain for you. Your mother and I have agreed that you will continue to live here with her. I'm moving out. You won't lack for anything. We'll both see to that,' he said and then I did smile with disgust.
"'I won't lack for anything? Is that so, Mommy?'
"'Now Misty, you're old enough to understand all this,' she said.
"'Am I?' I looked at Daddy and he suddenly seemed like a bad little boy to me. His eyes dropped and he lowered his head.
"I felt the tears building in mine, but I didn't want to cry in front of them," I wanted them both to think I didn't care about either of them at that moment."
Jade nodded, her eyes welling with tears. Cathy looked like she was chewing the inside of her cheek and Star stared at me with a look of pure terror on her face as if she was looking back at herself, I thought. I could just begin to imagine what her memories were like.
"'Where are you going to live, Daddy?' I asked with barely a hint of emotion. I could easily have been asking him where his next business trip would be,
"'Oh, I'll be nearby. I've found an apartment in Westwood,' he said with a smile as if that was it. That would make everything all right. 'You'll come stay with me on weekends,' he promised.
"'When he's here,' Mommy quickly pointed out.
" make sure I see you often,' he insisted over her infuriating eyes.
"I remember I felt like I couldn't breathe, like the air in my chest was so hot, it was better not to bring it up through my throat and nose, but it was so heavy, I had to take a deep new breath.
"'When is all this going to happen?' I asked them.
"'It's already happening,' Daddy replied. 'Our attorneys are in touch and I' m leaving this afternoon.'
"Where had I been while all this was going on? I wondered. They had spoken to counselors, lawyers.
Daddy was leaving the very same day they told me. He was already packed!
"One day, they woke up in the morning, looked at each other and decided they were never again to be man and wife? Was that the way it worked?
"All the cards and all the promises, all the beautiful gifts and happy laughter, all the kisses and the hugs that each rained down upon the other were tossed into the wastebasket. I imagined every nice word they had spoken to each other, every pledge of love was sucked back into their mouths and swallowed,
"Only I was left remembering my happy heart beating at the sight of the two of them holding hands, walking on beaches and on streets together, kissing at dinner tables, embracing each other with me sometimes in between.
"Only I was left to recall the music and the singing, all the happy birthdays, the Christmas mornings, the New Year's wishes, the sound of laughter.
"I was alone, on an island of remember when's, looking out across an ocean where waves tossed and turned under cloudy skies.
"So that's it,' Mommy said. 'I'm sorry, honey, but we promise not to put you through any pain, if we can help it.'
"'That's right,' Daddy said.
"I laughed."
Jade, Star and Cathy's eyes widened with surprise.
"That's right, I laughed. I laughed so hard my stomach began to hurt. The two of them, Mommy especially, looked at me with such surprise and confusion, I had to laugh harder. I actually folded up and fell to the floor.
"'I don't understand what's so funny,' Daddy said to Mommy.
"She shrugged.
"'Neither do I,' she replied.
"Look at them, I thought. They're finally in agreement again.
"'What's so funny about this, Misty?' Daddy demanded with his gruff, Daddy face.
"'Yes, tell us what you think is so funny,' Mommy said, her face in a frown, something she hated to do because it encouraged the birth of wrinkles.
"'The promise,' I said.
" 'What?'
"They looked at each other and then back at me. "'The two of you,' I said, 'making promises to me now.'
"I dragged myself to my feet and wiped the hot tears from my cheeks. Then I gazed at both of them, both sitting there with disturbed faces.
"'You know what a promise is for me in this house, Daddy,' I said. 'It's a lie in disguise.'
"Then I ran out of the den and up to my room and dove onto my bed.
"A little while later, I heard Daddy carrying his things down the stairs. Before he left, he came to my door and knocked, but I wouldn't respond.
"'I'll call you in a day or two, princess,' he said.
"And you know what," I said to my three new friends, "I don't remember him calling me princess since."
4
At first I tried to hide the fact that my parents were getting divorced. None of my friends, not even Darlene, ever thought anything was wrong in my home. It was actually quite the .opposite. They all believed I still had the perfect little family. If they came over and didn't see my father, they just assumed he was on another one of his business trips.
"Darlene has two younger sisters and an older brother. She thinks I'm lucky because I'm an only child. Her brother is always criticizing her. She says he's afraid she'll embarrass him somehow, and her mother is always after her to set a good example for her younger sisters. She complains about her parents and her brother and sisters every time she calls me or I call her. Once, she even said she hated her family and she would rather be an orphan.
"People never know how lucky they are. I've been over at her house on holidays when they're all together, even her grandparents on her mother's side, and they have a great dinner and exchange gifts. Last Christmas Eve, Mommy and I went to a restaurant in Beverly Hills with my mother's two other divorced friends and throughout the dinner, all they did was congratulate themselves for no longer being under their husbands' thumbs. I took one look at them and thought, like these women ever were under anyone's thumb.
"For a while I hoped that my parents would get back together. I used to daydream about Daddy showing up one afternoon with his suitcases in hand and a big smile on his face. I even imagined the conversation.
"'Hi Misty,' he would say. 'I guess the divorce didn't work out. We decided we really were too much in love after all and we would work out our problems because we realize what we're doing to you.'
"What was so wrong with that dream? People are always telling me I have to work out my problems. Teachers, counselors, coaches are always saying don't give up. Whatever happened to that idea?
"Anyway, Daddy didn't come home and after a while, it settled in like a lump of lead in my stomach that he would never come home again, at least to my home.
"Then, one day in school, Clara Weincoup, whose mother sometimes joins my mother and her clan for lunch, stepped up to my table in the cafeteria and turned her mouth into a foghorn, blaring out the news with, 'I heard your parents are getting a divorce.'
"It was like someone's mother or father had died. Everyone shut up and looked at me.
"'Oh, are they?' I asked. 'I was wondering why Daddy packed all his things and left.'
"No one knew whether to laugh or not. Someone did giggle, but the others looked at me as if I had just broken out in gobs of pimples.
"'I just wondered why, that's all,'
Clara said in her singsong voice. 'I always thought your parents got along.' She wore these thick braces on her teeth with the rubber bands and had a nose with nostrils big enough to serve as tunnels of horror at some fun park. She was so immature. Samantha Peters told us she heard Clara still slept with her Ken doll."
"You're kidding," Jade said.
"So what did you say?" Star asked.
"I said, 'You don't have to worry about divorces, Clara, you'll never get married. Not with your personality.'
"Then the table roared. Clara turned the shade of thy blood and walked away. I got rid of her, but the news was out and I could feel the eyes of my so-called friends all over me, looking for differences." "Differences?" Star asked.
"Don't you feel people look at you differently when they first learn-your parents are getting or have gotten divorced?" I asked the three of them.
"I know what you mean," Jade said after a beat of silence.
I looked at Cathy. She shook her head.
"You can talk, can't you?" I asked her.
She looked at Doctor Marlowe for rescuing, but Doctor Marlowe didn't say a word.
"Yes, I can talk," she said in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Good, because I was beginning to wonder if you would be telling your tale in sign language."
Jade laughed again. We were beginning to look at each other more and more like two people do when they think similar thoughts, and I was thinking we might even become friends.
"I know divorce is no big thing these days. My school counselor actually said that to me! But I couldn't help feeling that I somehow looked different to everyone, now that it was being broadcasted on Gossip F.M. I know I walked differently with my head down, avoiding the looks other kids gave me. What I hated the most, I guess, were the looks of pity. I snapped so hard and viciously at my friend Darlene when she offered me sympathy that she practically ran away.
"I really felt miserable. My grades, which were getting pretty bad as it was, took another dive, so my counselor called my mother who decided she had better do something.
"Most of the serious conversations about my schoolwork that I had in my house, I had had with my father. Daddy would call me into his office and ask me to sit and then he would get up and walk around his desk and begin with something like, 'I was young once and I wasn't any poster child for the best behaved by any means, but sometime along the way, I realized I had better get serious about myself or I would end up in Nowheresville.'