“Bad choice, Herbert,” I drawled.
“Typical Dad behavior,” Polly said. “Tyrannical, titillating, tortuous, taboo.”
“You don’t even love her, do you, Dad?” Lance said. “You love you. It’s all about you.”
No Aunt Janet.
Jake leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms. I dare say his expression said, “You deserve this, asshole.”
Herbert was livid. Flushed, tight-lipped, about to blow. He knew the game was up. He had lost this tiny battle. Amidst the whispers and the turning heads, he stalked over to Mrs. Bunce and whispered something to her. She nodded, glowered at Herbert, and began another song. This one was cheerful and upbeat, from a Broadway show, the song that Aunt Janet had requested, one I remember my mother singing.
We waited halfway through that song.
Finally, Aunt Janet appeared at the end of the rows of white chairs.
She was roaringly unhappy.
Her off-white dress with its high collar, poofy sleeves, and thick flounce was hideous. She charged up the aisle, her face stormy, one hand holding her bouquet straight down. If I had thought she was mad in her makeup-throwing mood, that was nothing. Ten feet from Herbert, she threw her bouquet at his face. He was so shocked, he didn’t even put a hand up to protect himself.
“You asshole! I told you not to play ‘Here Comes the Bride’! We agreed on it!”
“Now, Janet, calm down. I thought it would bring you beautiful memories of our wedding day….” He did the pious lizard smile, but the smile wobbled.
“No, you didn’t. Our wedding day was a joke. I hated it. I told you I hated it. Your mother planned everything. I had no voice. I hated your mother, and I have hated being married to you.”
Herbert’s mouth opened and shut, opened and shut, a sea snake trying to catch a worm.
“You wanted this stupid ceremony. I didn’t. I told you that, and yet you still planned it. You wanted an event for the press, a launch against gay marriage, a PR hit for you and your stupid campaign. Hell, Herbert, even your own vow renewal ceremony has to be part of your political plan!”
“I’m sorry, friends,” Herbert intoned, trying to be magnanimous, the pitiful victim. “My wife has had too much to drink—”
I saw two more camera flashes. Flash, flash. Aunt Janet whirled around, furious, then turned back to Herbert.
“Nice try, Herbert. I haven’t had a thing to drink, not a thing.” She threw something else—it was blue, and it shattered against the steps. It was the blue drinking glass Herbert always made Aunt Janet drink from to remind her of her “weakness.”
Herbert jumped in shock, then sighed and said, “All marriages have challenges. This has been mine.”
“You idiot, Herbert!” she shrieked. “You and your anti-gay marriage initiative. As if our crappy marriage should be an example to others. Where the wife struggles against her own suffocation, is not even allowed to have an opinion, or to be a person in her own right. Where she’s supposed to be pretty and docile and smile nicely and all the while she has become no one, no one that she herself can respect or recognize. I don’t even know myself, because I allowed you to take me away from me.”
Finally, Herbert was stunned speechless under his virginal white roses.
“I like the new you,” I said.
“Way to go, Mom,” Polly cheered. “We have a decision!”
“Kickin’ ass,” Lance said. “Spike that football!”
“You think that two men defile traditional marriage?” Aunt Janet said, shaking with fury. “Or two women? What a joke. What defiles marriage is when one person doesn’t respect or love the other. It happens when one person forces another to live in a mausoleum, and pick up his shoes each night, and is expected to roll over for sex every Thursday night at ten o’clock and Saturday night at nine-thirty, on the dot, precisely. And she’s supposed to roll with joy for sex that takes approximately four minutes with no foreplay.” She took off a high heel and threw it at him.
“I’m leaving for Africa with Virginia. I’m calling an attorney before I go. And don’t you dare tell me, again, as you have a hundred times before, that I can’t divorce you, that you’ll take everything and leave me penniless. You used to tell me if I left you that you would take the kids from me because I’m an alcoholic, and because I fell in love with Victor. Well, they’re grown and beautiful people, despite what a lousy mother I was for not leaving you, and I know they won’t leave me, even though I deserve it for what I put them through with you! I’m going to travel, and write, and dance the mamba, and listen to jazz music, and read what I want to read, and I will never, ever wear the smothering clothes you buy me again.”
With that statement, she whipped off this lace veil thing Herbert insisted she wear because it had been his mother’s, whom she hated, and threw it at him. Then she took off the other heel and threw that at him, too, before charging off. “Fuck, fuck you, Herbert!”
No one moved for long, tense seconds, then Polly grabbed a microphone, smiled like an ultrachic gypsy, and said, “Isn’t this pleasant? Welcome to the Barrett family. We’ve tried so stinkin’ hard to appear perfect, but we’re rotting from the inside out. So many secrets, so many problems, so much energy expended trying to pretend. Hello, everyone. I’m Polly. I’m anorexic.” She smile angelically, waved.
About ten people, clearly those who had been in twelve-step programs, automatically answered, “Hi, Polly,” then slunk down in their seats.
Lance, so handsome in his suit, recovered quickly and said, “Hello, everyone, I think you know me. I’m Lance, and I want to take a moment to introduce Lance’s Lucky Ladies, blow-up dolls that all can enjoy. If you all would care to turn around, there are several in the back there, under the first white tent. I have brochures on the tables, and I’m happy to answer any questions…and, oh, I knit. I love knitting. And I cry easily. Whew! That felt good to get that out in the open. Right there.” He pounded his chest. “Honesty feels right.”
And then it was me. What to say? I used to be obese because I ate my grief? I’ve had some ruckus in my childhood? This whole family has been living a lie about how and why I came to live with them and here’s the truth? I think my uncle is hiding something from me in Ashville?
Nah. I thought I’d skip that part.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I announced, smiling angelically, proud of my red dress with the ruffle, delighted that Jake was there, even though he had a close-up shot of the Barrett family insanity, “dinner will now be served. We’ll be having salmon with a light covering of pesto, marinated chicken with teriyaki sauce, salad with no nuts, and pasta salad with tomatoes cut in long strips, as per Herbert’s instructions, followed by wedding cake. It’s all delicious and there’s plenty, so please stay, have a wonderful time—”
I stopped midsentence as a drumroll echoed across the lawn, followed by another drumroll. Electric guitars screeched, then a keyboard, something else that was clangy and loud, and then they all smashed together at one time. Next there was a throat-tingling scream, you know the scream that rockers scream before they launch into some head-banging hard rock tune?
That was the one.
Our musical entertainment had arrived. Only it wasn’t the quartet from the symphony who had crashed into an Adults Only store and knocked over the sex toys.
No, there were no tuxedos and well-groomed men and women, with proper and polite smiles plastered on their faces. There were no violins, violas, or cellos. There were no music stands, no musical notes floating through the air adding peace and tranquility to this hellacious day.
None of that.
Lance had taken care of the problem, as he said he would.
These “musicians,” who were dressed in leather and torn clothes, with long, stringy hair, dark glasses, an assortment of tattoos, various piercings, and makeup, were from the band that was playing tomorrow night for Lance’s Lucky Ladies hard rock party. Black liner and black lipstick were de rigueur.
 
; Another head-banging scream pierced the evening, followed by a roll of the drums and the thrum of the guitars. “Hey! You guys wanna party?” Rock star cackling. “You guys wanna rock? You guys wanna jam it out and shake your titties?” More rock star cackling. “Let’s see you guys showin’ some skin! Get down, everybody, get down!”
Drums. Bass. Screeching. Those guys rocked out.
Oh, how they rocked.
Herbert gaped at them, then at his stunned audience, and at us, eyes wide open. He was more stunned than if I’d hit him with a Taser. The man was gobsmacked.
Humiliated under his virginal white roses.
“Happy anniversary,” I told him.
“Congratulations,” Polly said.
We smiled angelically.
“I think you need one of my dolls, Dad,” Lance said. “You can try out Thunder Thighs and Patrice. I think they’ll fit your needs.”
“Shake your titties!”
It was Mrs. Bunce who had the last word, though. She played what she wanted, which was the death march. Nice and gloomy. Three times.
The party did make the paper the next day, but not in the way that Herbert had planned. The decorations, the food, the cake, even the hard rock band made the news. All of that, however, was dwarfed by Herbert’s rant against gay marriage before the ceremony and Aunt Janet’s screeching diatribe against Herbert and his anti-gay initiative, complete with the heel-and-bouquet-tossing incidents, the blue glass flying through the air, the African safari, the mamba, scheduled sex, and jazz music.
Herbert’s support plummeted. Soon after that, his political party asked him to step down. He did.
Me, Jake, Lance, and Polly had an amazing time, along with the three hundred other proper, uptight guests who decided to let it all hang out. It’s amazing how people will talk to you when you are honest about your own problems. By the end of the night, we learned of a shoplifting habit, a drunken mother, a father who was jailed for being a serial killer, a husband who had a cheating wife on his hands, and another one who was addicted to painkillers.
For the first time, I actually enjoyed a few of Herbert’s stuffy friends. Herbert hid out in his home, but the rest of us danced, laughed, ate, and drank champagne. The guests loved the mermaid with the enlarged nipples, Lance got a lot of orders, and it did rain, as if buckets were being poured down from above, but the tents held.
At the end of the night, when all the guests were gone, me, Jake, Lance, and Polly each danced with Lance’s Ladies, in the rain, while drinking champagne, until we were soaked through.
Lance told me later, “Stevie, I talked to Jake.”
“And?” I bit down soft on my lower lip. He liked him, didn’t he?
“My left ankle twitched. Three times.” Lance sighed, so relieved. “I trust my left ankle. You’re good to go, Stevie.”
Polly told me later, “Stevie, I talked to Jake.”
“And?” I wrung my hands together. Polly liked him, didn’t she?
“I think he’s like Grandpa.”
I nodded. Definite similarities.
“But he’s Jake, too, and I like him a lot.” She grinned at me. “I’d wrap that man up pretty quick if I were you.”
27
Portland, Oregon
It was time. I would plant the corn. I would do it. I could do it. I had gone to the nursery the previous week. I told them I wanted to plant corn. I bought the kernels and there they sat, waiting for me.
That morning I ran the dirt in the upraised bed through my fingers and didn’t bother wiping the tears that fell into that dirt as I dropped the kernels in.
As I smoothed the dirt over each kernel, I saw my grandparents’ cornfields, the green leaves, the yellow and white kernels, the stalks swaying in the wind, the pathways they’d plow through it for corn mazes at Halloween for me and my cousins and friends before we carved pumpkins.
I was back in my grandma’s kitchen, bringing the corn to the table on the white platter. I was sitting with Sunshine and Helen, painting on the deck, the corn tall and straight in the fields. I was running through the corn, chasing a cat, and driving along the edge of our property, knowing we were home when I saw those green stalks. I was smiling at Grandpa as the butter on the corn slipped down our chins, The Family talking and laughing around us.
My tears watered the kernels and my hands shook with lost memories, but it wasn’t too bad, and remembering all the happy memories, well, it reminded me that I had let the hard memories suffocate all the joyful memories that had come before it. I vowed not to let the suffocation go on anymore. I had had enough suffocation in my life.
I gardened until I had to get ready for Lance’s Lucky Ladies Hard Rock Party. By the time I was done, I felt so much better, cleaner, my thoughts less jumpy and chaotic. At the end I was thinking of the earth and, my, isn’t that a slinky worm and, oh, there’s a red-feathered bird at my bird feeder, and I think I’ll pull some zucchini for zucchini bread and pick blueberries for breakfast.
I stared out at the raised bed where I’d dropped the corn kernels in. They would grow, green and strong, with floppy leaves, and those leaves would turn to yellow and white corn cobs.
I would eat them with a light coating of butter and salt. And maybe I would think of Helen and remember her in the garden, the floppy yellow hat on her head, without the rage and sadness that had followed me my whole life.
Maybe I could.
Maybe I would.
“We rock,” Lance said in wonderment.
“We do,” Polly agreed, as we all admired each other in the mirror.
When I had agreed to dress up as a hard rocker for Lance’s party, I was actually scared to death. It’s a scant bit out of my comfort zone, but I had to say that with the costumes Lance rented for us, and the makeup artist he had hired to completely paint our faces in black and white and red, the three of us could go out there and bust a move and bang some music.
“There’s something awesome,” Lance breathed, “about being unrecognizable. Awesome.”
“There certainly is,” I breathed. “I love it.” Stevie was gone. Hard rocker was here. I mimicked playing an electric guitar, then I jumped in the air and thumped my head up and down. Ouch. But still. I tried.
Polly hit imaginary drums, Lance picked up a banana and started singing into it, and then each of us picked up a nearby blow-up girl, outfitted much like us, the sextuplets, and danced with her.
I got Canada Katie. My, wasn’t she so squishy soft.
The huge ballroom on the McMannis Brothers’ property had been transformed. A long white and black banner read, WELCOME TO LANCE’S LUCKY LADIES HARD ROCK PARTY! At the entrance there was a guitar wreath made of flowers sitting between two blow-up ladies outfitted in black leather. One had a whip in her hand.
There was a blow-up girl at each of the tables in the main room, which were covered with black tablecloths. In the center of each table was a three-foot-tall, white skull with a candle in it, surrounded by red and black flowers. Guitars hung from the ceiling. Outside, steaks were on the grills and the tables practically bent with potatoes, salads, and breads, Lance’s favorite foods.
Hundreds of people filed in, all decked out in rock’s finest. The band was as sizzling hot as they had been the night before at Herbert and Aunt Janet’s party.
It was, without question, the funnest party I have ever, ever been to.
I danced all night with Jake (the sexiest rocker I’ve ever seen), Lance, and Polly.
Me, Stevie, who had been afraid to dance, danced all night.
In the middle of the evening I noticed that Lance was hanging out exclusively with one person who was dressed up like the KISS band member with the silver star makeup and a black wig.
It was Zena. I could tell by her size and her strut.
Lance and Zena. They weren’t speaking, but they were standing next to each other, sort of gazing into each other’s eyes, and one time I saw them dancing, close, Zena chatting, Lance nodding. Even through the m
akeup I could tell that Lance had a stricken expression on his face.
Now, why hadn’t I thought of them together before?
Lance called me at three in the morning.
The phone woke me and Jake up. No, I had not used a sparkly condom. I hadn’t needed one, because I had been honest with Jake.
“I’m not ready.”
“I know, honey.” He smoothed my hair back.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t make love to you. I don’t know when I’ll be able to.”
“It’s okay. I don’t need a commitment from you on that.” He kissed me. “Stevie, you’re not going to be able to make love to me until you’re able to trust me. And I’ll know you’re able to trust me when you tell me about yourself, and your past, everything that’s happened, all of it, not bits and pieces. I want to know. I want to know you.”
“It’s a lot.”
“I had a feeling it was.”
I about drowned in those eyes. “Stevie, it’s gonna almost kill me to sleep next to you tonight and not make love to you, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this again, so enjoy it while it lasts,” he joked.
“I will,” I said, “I will.” I snuggled up to him, and went to sleep, and had no nightmares.
When Lance called, I fumbled for the phone. “Did you see me? I danced with a lady! I didn’t know what to say. She did most of the talking, which is good. I couldn’t even open my mouth. We ate together, but I was nervous, so nervous, I couldn’t even eat my steak. She invited me to her roller derby competition. You have a friend that does roller derby, don’t you?”
“Yep. I do.”
Lance groaned. “It’s Zena, isn’t it? This is a tragedy. A tragedy! She’s too much for me. I met her downtown that one time with you. She wears the beautiful clothes and her hair is so pretty—it’s liquid black gold—and her smile is friendly and she’s funny and smart…. This is a tragedy.”
I knew he was getting teary.
“Lance, you can do this.”
“No! I can’t. I don’t know what to say around her. I’m intimidated. I’m scared.”