Mom seemed hurt, so I added, “Everybody calls me Franky, y’know? Like it suits me. Who I am.”
I’d have liked to tell Mom about Freaky. But not today.
“Oh, we’ve been through this a thousand times!” Mom tried to laugh. “All right, ‘Franky.’ If that’s how you wish to be perceived.”
How I wished to be perceived? I’d never thought of it that way. Always I’d assumed that other people called you what they chose to call you, beginning with your parents, and you had no choice.
I said, “Even my teachers call me Franky, Mom. Except if they’re scolding.”
Mom tried to laugh. “Well. ‘Franky.’ I’ve been noticing that you’ve been unusually quiet lately. Since I went to Santa Barbara . . . you’ve been withdrawn. I hope there isn’t some connection?”
I squirmed in my seat. “Mom, no.”
“The other day, when I drove Twyla and Jenn home, I noticed you were so quiet, they did all the talking. . . .” Mom hesitated, knowing this was dangerous territory. “I hope you always feel that you can talk to me, Francesca. I mean, Franky. If . . .”
“Sure, Mom. Okay.”
Something very weird had happened at Santa Barbara, I think. Dad was gone that Saturday morning saying he had “emergency business” in L.A., but from things I overheard after Mom returned, I guess he’d gone to the arts-and-crafts fair to check on her; he hadn’t made contact with her, only just “spied” on her. Then he’d returned.
I guess this was what happened. There was nobody I could ask.
I’d overheard Dad say Your lezzie friends. Palling around with your lezzie friends. I saw you. What Mom replied I had not heard.
Mom was telling me blah blah blah. When she’d been my age blah blah. In St. Helens, Oregon. As if I didn’t know. Her small-town background she’d loved. I wanted to turn the CD volume up high to drown out her voice.
No. I wanted to squeeze over against her and nudge her. Like I’d done all the time when I was little. Nudging Mom, pushing against her so she’d pull me onto her lap. “My big girl,” she’d say, laughing. “My big beautiful girl.” This was fine for Samantha, still; she was only ten. But not for Franky, who wanted to smooth away the smile lines at the corners of Mom’s mouth and eyes, which looked as if they’d been made by tiny knife blades.
I wanted to grab her hands. Tell her her hands were beautiful. Even with the unglamorous short nails. Even if there were telltale ridges of clay or paint beneath them.
The Freaky impulse came to me, to pull away the turquoise scarf Mom had knotted so carefully around her throat.
At the same time I was wishing I could escape somewhere. At least that I was sixteen and had my driver’s license. (Dad had promised me my own car, if I was a “good girl.”) That way I wouldn’t be so damned dependent on Mom to drive me places. It was too intimate, this mother-daughter thing. Too much!
By the time Mom turned into our driveway, I had my hand on the door handle. By the time she braked to a stop, I was halfway out, dragging my backpack behind me. I called back over my shoulder in a perfectly innocent not-blaming Franky voice, “Mom, I’m fine. I’m great. I have my own life, okay? Like you have yours.”
The first time Twyla Lee came home with me to have dinner and stay the night at our house, she looked around, rolled her eyes, and whispered in my ear, “This is cool, Franky. But do you guys actually live here?”
Twyla was joking of course. The Lees’ own house was pretty special. But I knew what she meant.
When my father began to be really successful in his TV career, he wanted a new house custom built for him and his family. He purchased a lot in Yarrow Heights overlooking Lake Washington and the Evergreen Floating Bridge, a few miles from Seattle to the west. Dazzling lights after dark. When you could see through the mist.
The house was designed by a famous Japanese American Seattle architect. It’s what is called “postmodernist,” meaning it doesn’t look like a house exactly, more like a small high-tech building. Glass walls, skylights, poured concrete, some chilly glaring metal like pewter. There are tubular glass-walled “galleries”—not old-fashioned halls. There are module units, not rooms. There are sliding Japanese screens that “create” rooms, or “remove” rooms. The rooms are echo chambers with “minimalist” furnishings: metallic chairs, translucent tables, halogen lamps that give off a faint blue light. Neutral nothing colors like faded black, pebble gray, sickly white. Low, long sofas with scattered dwarf cushions. What seem like acres of bare gleaming tile, dull black, dead white, with only incidental rugs. Even the lighting fixtures are minimalist, recessed in the walls and ceilings, so they seem to cast shadows in all directions. My mother had hoped to furnish the house herself, but my father insisted upon the most fashionable Seattle interior decorator.
My father said they couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. The “eyes of the world” would be on them, quick to mock and deride if they slipped up.
In one of the so-called galleries Dad’s football trophies and photographs with fellow athletes and celebrities were displayed. It was pretty spectacular: photos of Reid Pierson shaking hands with Seattle politicians, the governor, even then-president Bill Clinton at the White House. Both Reid Pierson and Bill Clinton were good-looking, confident men smiling with their earnest, boyish appeal into the camera. Dad marveled at Clinton’s charisma, which he said you had to experience first-hand to appreciate. Dad said, “You couldn’t help but love that man. You can see why, if people love you enough, they’ll forgive you anything.”
I was in eighth grade when The Pierson Home in Yarrow Heights, Washington, was featured in Seattle Life, a new student at the preppy Forrester Academy, with almost no friends; overnight, even older students took notice of me, singling me out to say they’d seen the article in the magazine and were impressed by it. I have to admit I was flattered. (“And your dad is Reid Pierson, what’s that like?”) I’d just started ninth grade when the house was featured in Architectural Digest, with dramatically posed shots of Reid Pierson (in a tuxedo) and his wife, Krista Pierson (in a skintight black silk dress, shoulder-length red hair glossy as fire), amid the minimalist furniture, with a glimpse of Lake Washington in the background; this time, even teachers I didn’t have sought me out, as well as the school headmaster, to tell me they’d seen the article and were impressed. Mr. Whitney, the headmaster, had already met my mother, of course, but not my father. Earnestly he said, “Tell your father I’ve always been a fan, Francesca. Going back to his Seahawks days. Tell him I hope he’ll drop by Forrester someday soon.”
That was about eighteen months ago. Dad hasn’t gotten to Forrester yet, but every time Mr. Whitney sees me, he says, “Francesca! Remember, the invitation is always open.”
Actually, the postmodernist look is mostly for show, on the first floor in what the architect called the “public space” of the house. On the lower floor, our “private space” rooms are more or less normal. Bedrooms, guest rooms, bathrooms, closets. (Though not enough closets.) Here things were built to a smaller scale, as if the architect hadn’t any interest in where his clients might actually live.
We’d been living in an older, smaller house closer to downtown Seattle, in what was called an ethnically diverse neighborhood. I had lots of friends there and hated to move. (And I hated the new house. I cried and sulked for days.) Mom kept saying, “It’s an adventure! It’s like a spaceship.” We were lucky Dad allowed Mom to furnish the lower-floor rooms herself.
Last year Mom converted a room in the guest wing into a small studio. She was taking classes in pottery, weaving, and painting. Her studio wasn’t large and didn’t have a spectacular view of the lake, but it had a skylight, and Samantha and I had fun helping Mom paint the walls a warm pale yellow so there was the feeling in Mom’s studio that the sun was shining, or almost, on even our gloomiest winter days.
In the Pacific Northwest rain forest, which is where we live, it can rain for weeks at a time. No sun. And if the sun appears, it can disappear wi
thin seconds.
Dad had allowed Mom to convert the room into a studio, but he’d never liked the idea. The more time Mom spent at home, in that studio, the less time she had for the kinds of socializing he thought a wife of his should be doing, like lunching with the well-to-do women who ran such organizations as the Friends of the Seattle Opera and United Charities. He complained that, far away at the other end of the house where their bedroom was, he could smell paint fumes. They gave him a sinus headache, damn it! When Mom showed him the first weavings and clay pots she’d made, which Samantha and I thought were very beautiful, Dad just smiled and shook his head like an indulgent father. “This is what you’ve been doing, Krista? They’re fine. Great.” That was all he said. Mom was hurt but tried not to show it.
Soon she stopped showing Dad her new work, even when she was able to place it in a local gallery and began selling it. And Dad never asked about it, or visited Mom’s cozy studio.
Lots of things I’d always told my mom I’d never have told my dad. But lately I wasn’t telling Mom things, either. Since Freaky entered my heart, last July on Puget Sound. I wondered if Freaky would have come to me if it hadn’t been for Cameron; if I hadn’t almost made a terrible mistake and become desperate. You should see your eyes! Freaky green eyes! You’re crazy! But I wasn’t crazy, I knew that. I was stronger, I was empowered. I liked myself better than I ever had before, since I was a small child. Weird thoughts came to me, like You belong in this world, just like everyone else. Except you’re Freaky Green Eyes, so you know it.
Since starting my period, I’d been kind of disgusted with myself, or ashamed of myself, I don’t know. But since Freaky, I didn’t feel that way. I remembered how I’d escaped from Cameron, how I’d jogged back home in the rain, so happy. I stood in front of my bedroom mirror naked, as I’d never done before, liking my hard little breasts with the dimple-nipples, and the pale-flamy swath of silky hairs at my crotch, and my lean muscled swimmer’s legs, even my long, narrow, toadstool-white feet. I didn’t stare or ogle, I just looked at myself like you’d look at a flower, or a tree, or an animal, anything natural, unclothed. Especially, though, I did admire my carroty-red hair, which I was letting grow long, frizzy and static with electricity, past my shoulders. Most of the time I fastened it into a ponytail to keep it out of my face. (Mom gave me a silver clasp for the ponytail, inlaid with turquoise stones.) Like my eyes, it was Freaky’s special sign. But I felt good about it, not secretive.
Was I sad that I no longer told my mother the things that mattered most to me? Twyla said it was the same with her. “Suddenly, one day, I heard myself lying to my mother. Not for any special reason—just I didn’t want her to know my heart.”
I said to Twyla, “I don’t think I’d ever want anybody to know my heart. Who could you trust?”
We thought about that. You were supposed to be able to trust people you fell in love with, but that could be risky: people fall out of love all the time. Twyla said, wryly, “Your girl friend.”
It was true. Maybe. If there was anybody I could trust, it would be a close girl friend like Twyla. But that was risky, too.
“Francesca?”
I was in my room, at my computer but daydreaming. Staring out the window at the lead-colored lake and thinking of Twyla, and my other friends I didn’t seem to have much to say to lately. Maybe it was what Mom said: I was “withdrawn.”
Is “withdrawn” the same as “depressed”? Or just a mood?
Mom pushed my door open a few inches, hesitantly. She pushed her head inside. “Hon? Are you busy? Can you talk?”
A huge sigh ballooned in my chest.
“Sure, Mom. Come in.”
I hated being invaded like this. Though I’d known Mom would come looking for me. She wasn’t one to let things go.
Still wearing the turquoise scarf. And a long-sleeved shirt, buttoned to the cuffs. Her eyes were lightly threaded with blood; the rims looked reddened. “Can I sit down? You’re not doing homework, are you?”
“Sort of,” I lied. “But I can talk, sure.”
This was when Mom first spoke of Skagit Harbor. Her “cabin” there: did I remember it?
Skagit Harbor is an old fishing village on Skagit Bay, about an hour’s drive north of Yarrow Heights. My mother’s grandfather had a small, single-room house there, known in the Connor family as “the cabin.” A few years ago, Mom took Samantha and me up for a weekend, while Dad was covering the World Series in New York. I had a good memory of Skagit Harbor and wondered why we’d never gone back.
Dad hadn’t liked it, I guess. He thought Skagit Harbor was funky and boring. The kinds of people who lived there tended to be pretty ordinary, with what Dad called a “hippie infiltration.” He meant artists who made their living doing carpentry or waiting on tables in restaurants, marginal people in his opinion.
I was taken by surprise. “The cabin? What about it?”
“Well. I’ve gone up a few times this spring. I’ve been repainting it, fixing things up. Clearing away the underbrush. It’s like a jungle.” Mom paused, smiling faintly. There was some meaning here I wasn’t getting, not quite yet. “I’m going to be taking some of my studio things up this weekend. Your father will be away, and . . . I’m wondering if you’d like to come with me. I’ll be driving back Sunday night.”
Suddenly I was on my feet. I was furious, and frightened.
“Mom, why are you provoking him? Why are you doing this?”
Mom stared at me. She’d been touching the scarf, making sure it hadn’t slipped around. I could see the faint lines in her face, and the metallic-gray cobwebby streaks in her hair.
“P-provoke? What do you mean, Francesca?”
“Mother, you know exactly what I mean.”
“Your—father? You think I’m provoking your father?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Francesca, this is out of your depth. This isn’t a topic I care to discuss with you.”
Mom was on her feet now, too. I would remember how weird this was: there was actual fear in her face.
I said, on the verge of tears, “Look, you just asked me, Mother, didn’t you? ‘What’s wrong, Francesca?’ So I’m telling you what I think is wrong. You’re doing things to deliberately make Daddy angry. You know how he is, and you keep doing them.” My voice was choked. I could hardly breathe. It was like I’d dived into the water but couldn’t swim back to the surface—something was dragging at my ankles.
Mom said, stammering, “Francesca, you don’t understand. It’s—complicated.” She seemed confused. She had a new, nervous habit of turning a ring on her finger, a chunky silver ring in the shape of a dove she’d brought back from Santa Barbara, made by the same Navajo silversmith who’d made my ponytail clasp.
I said, “If you provoke Dad, he’ll react. That’s his personality.”
“But—don’t you think that I have a ‘personality,’ too?”
“No. I mean, not like Dad. He can’t help it, and you can.”
“Your father and I love each other, honey. Very much. And we love you. But our values are different now. I—I feel differently about things. I want to live, before it’s too late.”
“‘Live’? Why can’t you live here, like you always did? Why are things different now? Samantha is scared you and Daddy are going to get a divorce. Half the kids in her class have parents who are getting divorced.”
“Samantha thinks—that? Has she said so?”
“No. She hasn’t said so. Not in so many words.”
“Have you been talking about this with her? You haven’t been frightening her, have you, Francesca?” Mom’s voice was shaking.
“No. You’re the one who’s frightening her. You’re frightening me. You seem so—” My face was burning. I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. “—unconscious. Like you’re sleepwalking or something. You don’t know the effect you’re having on Daddy.”
Mom chose her words carefully. I would wonder later if they’d been rehearsed.
/> “Francesca, honey—I mean, Franky—you know nothing about this, really. I’m so sorry that you’ve been anxious, and that Samantha has been anxious, but”—she was trying to smile, but the staples had all come out, and the smile was like a fish’s grimace, and her eyes were bloodshot and scared as if Dad was standing just outside the room about to rush in—“your father and I have discussed it at length. He understands that I’d like a little more time alone—away from Seattle, mainly. Not away from my family, but—away from Seattle. Away from this house. He has said I can fix up the cabin in Skagit Harbor, and I can spend time there. Of course, not permanently. I’d always be coming back, every few days. Your father has said so.”
This was a surprise. I hadn’t expected this.
“He has? Dad has?”
“And there’s no talk of divorce, dear. If Samantha ever speaks of such a thing, Franky, please tell her: there is no talk of your father and me getting a divorce, now or ever.”
It was strange, how Mom uttered these words. Now or ever. Like they weren’t hers but someone else’s.
Mom turned, wiping at her eyes, and left my room. I wanted to call her back. I wanted to hug her, and feel her arms around me. At the same time, I wanted her gone; I couldn’t bear looking at that smile any longer, or the fading plum-colored bruise just visible beneath her jaw.
Hi Todd.
Sorry to bother you (again).
Did you know, Mom is fixing up the cabin in Skagit Harbor, & she’ll be going up there sometimes? She just told me.
But NO DIVORCE she says. NOW OR EVER.
I guess this is good news. (Isn’t it?)
I mean, the way they’ve been. Since last winter. Let me know what you think, or what you know.
(Are you in contact with Dad?)
Hope things are OK there at Pullman.
Franky
Todd never replied. Actually, I’d thought this time he would.