Gingerbread

  Not like waiting with Luis (or "Loo-eese" as he says it ... sigh) was such trauma city. Luis and I clicked like buds right away, starting from the moment when I ignored the back door to the Town Car he held open for me and I hopped into the front seat.

  "You're a frontie, eh?" Luis said, smiling.

  "Nah," I said. "I am just from Cali, where we are more laid-back."

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  "It's like that?" said Luis dream-driver (Fernando, take notes).

  My deductive reasoning instinct kicked in and I said, "Suppose you had to pick me up in the middle of the night for something, okay, and--"

  "Uh-oh, you're in trouble already?"

  "I most certainly am not. You didn't let me finish. Suppose you had to pick me up in the middle of the night. Would you stop for donuts if I asked?"

  Luis thought on it a second and said, "Krispy Kremes or Dunkin' Donuts?"

  "Either," I said, even though the correct answer was Dunkin' Donuts.

  "Krispy Kremes, yes. Dunkin' Donuts, no."

  There's no accounting for taste, as Nancy says.

  I still loved Luis anyway. I was trying to figure out if his sweat-clinged T-shirt muscle mania biceps could possibly be any sexier.

  "How come it is so hot here?" I asked, leaning in to blast the a/c.

  "It's August! Whadja expect?"

  "I did not expect to be sweltering," I said. "In San Francisco in the summer you have to wear a winter coat."

  "Get out!" Luis said.

  "It's true." I nodded.

  When we drove into the city, I was surprised that I did not remember it at all. I was born in New York, but it did not feel like a homecoming when I saw those massive skyscrapers. The skyline looked like a sci-fi madness kingdom.

  "Did Frank tell you about me?" I asked Luis.

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  "No," Luis said. "He just gave me your flight information."

  I had the feeling Luis was used to not asking Frank for personal details.

  "Well, I am not his niece," I said.

  "No kidding." Luis laughed.

  I guess I had always imagined Frank living in a big mansion in the country somewhere with, like, a huge dog who slobbered onto ancient carpets and framed photographs of Rhonda and Daniel on tables and walls everywhere, pictures chronicling from the time they were buck-teethed babes to their high school graduations, with bad hair and big grins. Maybe there would be a wall in the family room marked with crayon lines to show how much Rhonda and Daniel grew every year, like the kind Ash, Josh, and I made in a closet in the basement because Nancy would freak if we touched her upstairs interior decorated walls. So I was surprised to arrive at a condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that was totally the bachelor dude kind of pad. There were two bedrooms in the apartment, with big dining and living rooms overlooking Central Park, but the furniture was all leather and corporate-y: new. I had hoped I would get to sleep in Rhonda's old room and I could go through her old yearbooks and read her diary or something, but instead Luis showed me to a guest bedroom that had as much character as a glass of milk. And what good is plain milk without a shot of espresso? The hotel-looking furniture needed a serious splash of leopard print. Suddenly Alcatraz seemed like a resort in comparison to The Real Dad Corporate Suites.

  "There's a big TV in the living room," Luis offered. I think he could tell how disappointed I was by the bland

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  twenty-seventh-floor condo shimmering in the sky. "I don't like TV," I said.

  "Did you say you're sixteen?" Luis asked, to which I wanted to respond, "Not too young for you!" but I just nodded my head.

  "You don't like any of them TV shows about girl witches and such?" Luis continued.

  "What shows?" I said.

  Luis look at me suspiciously and said, "What are they feeding you in San Francisco?"

  "Food," I answered. Dim sum with Blank, chocolate with Sugar Pie, black coffee for Fernando, Twinkies for Ash and gummi bears for Josh, martinis and steaks for Sid-dad, and for Nancy, ye olde LifeSavers.

  In my Helen Keller commune, I had imagined that from the second I arrived in New York, my life would be different. Changed. Instead, I felt uncomfortable and scared, a stranger in a strange land. I clutched Gingerbread for support.

  "A sixteen-year-old girl with a doll?" Luis said.

  "Yes."

  There was a pause like Luis was waiting for me to explain. Finally he said, "Hey, I'm cool with that," and I could tell, Gingerbread was feeling the crush power, too.

  The sun had gone down and there was a red twilight glow over Central Park while Luis and I played Scrabble. I was just about to slay him with a triple word score "LOLLI" to add to his "POP" when Frank arrived home.

  He put his briefcase down and said, "How do, kiddo?"

  He did not open his arms to me and anyway that would have been weird if he did. I was still sitting at the

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  table as I looked at him. There was a frog in my throat. Suddenly I understood why the sight of me pains Nancy. If my baby was a 24/7 physical reminder of Justin, that would break my heart over and over again. Luis had not been kidding about me looking just like my "uncle."

  Frank had slick, ink black hair with specks of gray; wide eyes; big red lips; and a long, straight nose just like mine. The only difference between us was that he was orange-tan from what looked like a tanning booth and not some Caribbean paradise, and I am fog-dweller pale. Plus from the lines around his eyes, I suspected his face produced smiles much more than mine. When I stood up to shake his hand, he was one of the first men I have ever met who was significantly taller than me.

  Frank was also ridiculously handsome. Does that make me a skank for noticing that? Because he totally had the older man retired movie star thing going on. My heart dropped for Nancy again; if I had been twenty years old and not known better (even though I do, and I am only sixteen), I could understand how some dancer girl with stars in her eyes straight from the Minnesota cornfields could have fallen for his white teeth, sparkling eyes, and smooth lies.

  I think even Frank was tweaked by our resemblance. He kept staring at me like he was thinking, Oh .. my...god. Finally he said, "You must be tired from your flight."

  Huh? Here I am your new long-lost all-grown-up daughter, and the best you have to say is, "You must be tired from your flight"? Como se dice?

  "Not really," I said. I was so not tired after the pre-Scrabble venti Starbucks run (Java be damned) with Luis

  so

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  that I wouldn't have minded snaring Luis to go salsa dancing all night but for my big reunion with my biological father and all. No biggie, right?

  Because it seemed to me that Frank real-dad had a lot of explaining to do, and now was as good a time as any to get started.

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  Twenty-one

  What better way to get started, I thought, than by announcing to Frank: "I am not your niece, you know."

  Before Frank could so much as reply, Luis jumped up, knocking over the Scrabble game. He grabbed his phone and said to Frank, "I'm outta here. Call me you need anything." And poof! like that Loo-eese was gone. I gave Gingerbread a look so she wouldn't pout.

  Once the door had closed behind him, Frank paused for a moment, as if he didn't know how to respond. Then he said, "Whoa there, pardner! Give a person a chance to settle in."

  '"Whoa there, pardner'?" I asked.

  "It's a saying," he said.

  "On what planet?"

  Frank sighed. Only two minutes into my reunion with Frank real-dad, and already I had exasperated him. I suspected this time was a new personal best for me.

  'Are you hungry?" he finally said.

  Since I figured maybe after a good meal he would be more likely to tell me the important details about, like, everything--my family history on his side, how he came to know my mom, where had he been all my life, who was he, really?--I figured it was easier to let him off the hook for the time be
ing.

  "I am so always hungry," I told him. Which is true. If I'm not hungry for food, then I'm hungry for something

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  bigger: answers to the secrets of the universe, true love, a more substantial bustline.

  Frank real-dad's shoulders seemed to relax a little, like me being hungry was something he could actually deal with, part of the known universe that was Cyd Charisse, progeny.

  "Well, all right then." He placed his briefcase on the Scrabble table and walked past me toward the kitchen. He was careful not to stare at me like I was staring at him. He smelled like cigars and martinis, like Sid-dad. I wanted to shout at him: HALT! Stand before me and let me look at you. Let me understand who you are. Let's make this connection NOW Even though I was supposed to spend three weeks with him, I still wanted time to freeze, so I could soak in everything about him, before he disappeared again like he had when I was five, at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, when he gave me Gingerbread.

  I followed him into the kitchen and he handed me a stack of delivery menus for a rainbow coalition of foods: Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, soul food, pizza, Vietnamese, Texas BBO, Mexican, Irish pub, Jewish deli, Greek diner. Each menu offered food Nancy would never let into her fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free House Beautiful, and bonus, most of the restaurants delivered until about three in the morning. I thought of the C-spots Sid-dad had snuck into my handbag at the airport in San Francisco and was psyched that if I woke up starving in the middle of the night (which, since Blank dumped me, happened a LOT), that I could order yum food and not have to ask Frank for money and not have to worry about Leila complaining in the morning about how I messed up her kitchen.

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  "What'U it be, kiddo?" Frank said after I had salivated over the menus for probably ten whole minutes, during which time Frank had turned on the stereo and was now blasting Frank Sinatra, that good lookin', smooth soundin' "Chairman of the Board," as Sid-dad says. Sid-dad thinks Francis Albert Sinatra, born December 12,1915, in Hoboken, New Jersey, and died May 15, 1998, whose birthday our household is forced to celebrate and whose death we mourn every year, is the sun around which we mere earthlings revolve.

  "What's with the 'kiddo' thing?" I asked. "My name is Cyd Charisse."

  "Your mother chose that name," Frank grumbled, like he was embarrassed by the name.

  "I think it's a nice name," I said. Who ever thought I would enter a zone where I would defend a choice of Nancy's? I'm actually impartial to my name. It is what it is: mine, and that dancer movie star's. "Even if I am not a dancer person and even if when I say my name people say back, 'Oh, and I'm Greta Garbo,' or 'Oh, and I'm Grace Kelly."

  "Grace Kelly," Frank real-dad said, "now she was a looker."

  What-ever, dawg!

  I made my dinner choice and handed Frank the menu for Miss Loretta's House of Great Eats. Frank laughed.

  "Why is that funny?" I asked.

  "Because you chose the one restaurant from over a dozen menus that is run by our friend Loretta Jones. She used to be our housekeeper. My son and I helped her start this business."

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  I instantly made the connection. "She made the gingerbread!" I exclaimed.

  "Well, yes, gingerbread is her specialty ..."

  "... no, she made the gingerbread that time ..."

  ... what time?"

  "The time at the airport in Dallas-Fort Worth. She made the gingerbread!" This was like the most exciting thing ever but Frank cast his eyes down, ashamed.

  "Well, yes," he stammered, "if I was carrying gingerbread she had probably made it. Loretta's an amazing cook." Frank was clearly embarrassed and I could feel Gingerbread's annoyance vibes psychically floating back from the living room where she was presiding over the knocked-over Scrabble board. "What would you like to eat?"

  "Can we go eat there? At Miss Loretta's restaurant?"

  "No," Frank said hurriedly. When he saw how disappointed my face was, he added, "Well, maybe sometime soon. Not tonight."

  Gingerbread and I had had it. 1 crossed my arms across my chest and said, "You mean not until you've told Miss Loretta that I'm not your niece and that I'm really your biological daughter from when you were cheating on your wife?"

  "You don't mince words, do you, Cyd Charisse?" Frank asked. He was uncomfortable but I think he was a little impressed, too.

  I jumped up to sit on the bar ledge. "Let's be real, Frank," I said, knocking my boots against the backboard. In the Alcatraz days before I left for New York, I had imagined that Frank and I would form an instant father-daughter connection that I would call him "Daddy" and he would call

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  me "Princess" or some such, but that was obviously not going to happen and anyway, now that I was seeing what he was like, I didn't think he was the type of person I would feel comfortable calling "Dad."

  "Frank, I am not your niece. I am your biological daughter. Deal with it. If you are embarrassed by me, say so right now and I will go somewhere else." I don't know what I was thinking because really I had nowhere else to go and I wanted more than anything in the whole stupid world to get to know this strange person standing in front of me, but at the same time, I didn't want to be in a place where I was not welcome.

  Frank hopped up onto the bar next to me. "Ouch," he said. "That hurt." I didn't know whether he meant the pain from heaving his old guy body up onto the bar or from what I had said. He paused and then turned sideways to look at me. "You're right, kiddo--I mean, Cyd. This whole situation is very awkward and new to me. I'm a sixty-year-old man with two adult children and now a new sixteen-year-old daughter. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and not always comported myself in a manner I'm proud of. I'm new to all this--will you help me out here?"

  I was still mad and for sure had never heard the word "comported" before but I said, "Okay," because what if he was a sixty-year-old man who had made a lot of mistakes but then all of a sudden dropped dead from a heart attack after the smothered chicken with cornbread, mashed potatoes, and apple pie dinner I was intending to order, and I hadn't said I would try? I don't think I could have lived with that.

  "You're pretty together, you know that, Cyd Charisse?"

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  Frank said. "To hear your mother and Sid tell it, you're hell on wheels."

  Like that made sense.

  "I think it's time to order, Frank. I'm not letting you off about meeting Miss Loretta, but let's just order in tonight. Anyways, I think there are some girl witch shows we need to watch on TV tonight."

  Frank real-dad smiled. If I ever smiled, I'd say my smile looks just like his.

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  Twenty-two

  So maybe Frank and I had near-bonded over a girl witch show and Miss Loretta's amazing chicken dinner, but when I woke up at noon the next day (which Nancy would never have let happen, even if I had been kept awake all night by Chinese water torture or something), Frank was gone. There was a note on the fridge that said, "Luis will be by after lunchtime to show you around. I'll be home by ten tonight-- business dinner. The doorman downstairs has the apartment keys for you. Have fun, Cyd Charisse. --F." There was a $50 bill attached to the note which I ripped off the fridge, stuffed down the garbage disposal, and obliterated to shreds.

  Then I remembered how Sugar Pie said I have a rich person's conceit and I felt guilty for wasting money like that. Even if I was mad and didn't want Frank's money, I could have at least given it back to him or given it to a poor person who really needed it. I decided to call Sugar Pie and confess. Guess who answered her telephone? Fernando! I looked down at the Mickey Mouse watch on my wrist that Blank had given me for Valentine's Day. He had painted the straps in this psychedelic tie-dye pattern that made Mickey look like a freak. According to the Mickey Freak, who was still on Cali time, it was just past Sugar's breakfast hour.

  "Huevos rancheros for two?" I asked Fernando, forgetting all about my confession. There was a silence and I knew Fernando was trying for
me not to know he was happy to hear my voice. I also knew Fernando was mortified so I

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  decided to be discreet. "May I please speak with Sugar?"

  There was a pause and then Sugs' voice replied, "Good morning, baby. How was your trip?"

  "It was okay. Gingerbread and I think New York is too hot. My hair is all curly and wild here. So are you and Fernando a couple now because that would be the coolest if you were and don't you know that younger guys are totally hip." Blank is six months younger than me, but a full grade behind.

  Sugar Pie said, 'A lady never tells."

  "Don't be a lady," I said. Sugar Pie didn't say anything back. She wasn't giving up the dope. I continued, "Fernando is kind of cool but don't tell him I said that, 'kay? I am still mad at him for dragging me away from you-know-where in the middle of the night and starting all this trouble."

  "You know that wasn't his fault. You know whose fault that was. You know he was just doing his job."

  "Mmmm," I said. I wanted so much to ask if she had seen Blank and if he was hurting for me or even asking about me. Did he know I'd gone to New York to meet Frank real-dad? Did he know Loo-eese was a threat to him?

  "Yes, your boy has poked around a few times the last week, if that's what you really want to know." Sugar Pie would be psychic even without her tarot cards.

  "Was there some lame chick called Autumn with him?" I asked.