Gingerbread (8 page)

There is no need to invite Blank--he whose name hurts too much to even think so that it's good we don't have to speak it or picture him (seeing as how we're deaf and blind). Blank's brother Java would make an aromatic addition to our commune but we can't risk choking on tears by asking him or Delia and then potentially being tempted to ask about Blank. I have telepathically invited Lucinda, Wallace's former Australian-Indonesian love, and she messaged back: "Gerr-ate!" She knows what it is like to pine and hurt for and be dumped by a beautiful surfer punk-dude.

Ash and Josh, who always smell of chocolate-chip cookies and mischief, are charter members of the Helen Keller commune. Every day we wander around the Who

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Cares If It's a House Beautiful Cuz We Can't See It with blindfolds over our eyes and earplugs in our ears. Management unfortunately moved us to the basement after we broke too many vases, but in the basement commune of Helen Keller we can jump on trampolines and not care if we fall and hurt ourselves because we are together and that makes us happy.

Soon I am going to have to tell Ash and Josh about our prospective new members, Rhonda and Daniel, my other half-sibs. Just because Rhonda and Daniel are a little old for playing Helen Keller commune doesn't mean they won't. I am their sister, their blood, and even if they can't see me or hear me, they can feel me. I know it.

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Eighteen

Sometimes playing
Helen Keller when you are not actually blind or deaf is not an effective way to not think about being dumped by a Shrimp or the fact that you are dying of boredom and sadness and yearning for something, anything, to change, to make life interesting and exciting again, even when you are grounded into eternity.

I was wandering around the house after Ash and Josh had gone to "sleep" when I came outside the door to Sid-dad's study.

Nancy was saying, "I can't take Miss Moping anymore. She's driving me nuts."

Driving
you
nuts? Hell-oh! Try driving
me
nuts.

Sid said, "So, do you want to let her go? Because much as I missed the hell out of her when she was at boarding school, this grounding experiment is clearly not working. Everyone in the house is miserable. Maybe it's time the little hellion learned to appreciate the people who love and care for her in this family, and sending her you-know-where might be the best way to accomplish that."

I pulled the earplugs out so I could hear better. This was too much. I knew Nancy and I were not getting along, but I never thought she would want to kick me out over it! And wherever You-Know-Where was, I so was not

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going. But if I had to run away, then where would I go? Not to Shrimp. Maybe to Wallace. That would show Shrimp. I could have Wallace in a minute if I wanted.

But there are certain lines even I know better than to cross.

The only place I would really want to go is to New York. To Frank real-dad's. It is like the body of Cyd Charisse is one big jigsaw puzzle, with pieces picturing Shrimp (mean boy); Sugar Pie; Ash and Josh; Alcatraz-, Gingerbread, of course; Fernando and Leila; and Sid and Nancy. But the pieces are all scattered and can only be put together properly if I can find the pictures with the Empire State Building, Rhonda and Daniel, and my real father.

Still, it did not feel nice to know that Nancy wanted me gone. I would never want my baby to leave me.

Nancy said, "Maybe it's time. This family will not survive the summer with all this tension. And as much as I hate to throw her to wolves like that, maybe getting to know Frank--God help her--will be a good thing for her. Allow her to move on."

Yo! My mother wanted to send me to the one place where I wanted to go! The thought that my mother might be psychic made me practically nauseous.

"So we're settled then?" Sid-dad said. I could hear a faint tinge of sadness in his voice.

Nancy's voice wavered just a little. "I guess. You'll call Frank in the morning?"

"I will," Sid-dad said, then laughed. "Old Frankie boy doesn't know what he set himself up for when he asked to spend some time with the Little Hellion. The King of the

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New York Advertising World is about to get himself a little lesson in humility."

I think Sid-dad was paying me a compliment, but I'm not sure.

I raced back to Alcatraz to tell Gingerbread the news.

I jumped on the bed, excited about something for the first time since I got a job at Java the Hut, which was only like eight weeks ago but seemed like lifetimes ago. "We're going to New York, Gingerbread! Going to New Yorkie York, and we are going to see Frank and meet Rhonda and Daniel and we are going to ride the subway and feel the grunge and wear black every single day and we are not going to miss Shrimp AT ALL!"

Gingerbread smiled back. Sometimes she reminds me of Mrs. Butterworth and I can tell she is about to open up her arms to offer me a hug or some syrup.

I was still jumping when I heard a knock on the door so I fell onto the bed and shouted, "COME IN!" I attached a frown to my face so Nancy wouldn't be too weirded out by my sudden excitement.

"You don't need to yell," Nancy said. "The kids are sleeping."

As if. On my way back to my room I saw Ash and Josh playing War with a flashlight under his bed. But I decided to be nice and not point out that fact. Sometimes it's better to let Nancy live in the fantasy world where we're one big, happy, quiet family.

"Oh, sorry," I whispered.

"Why are you out of breath?" Nancy asked. She actually had color in her face, maybe because Sid had given Leila the night off and grilled steaks and veggies

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for dinner and Nancy had actually eaten.

"Dunno," I said, trying to contain the smile that was ready to burst out of my lips.

Nancy sat next to me on the puke princess bed. Then she did a shocker. She picked up Gingerbread and placed my doll on her lap. Gingerbread was good; she didn't squirm.

"I think it's pretty obvious that neither you nor I is happy with the current situation in this house," Nancy said.

One thing I like about Nancy is that she doesn't mess around getting to her point. None of that "we need to talk" business.

I wanted to be extra nice because Nancy was holding her sometimes-nemesis, Gingerbread, so I said, "I could try harder."

Nancy actually laughed! Then she leaned over a little and played with my hair.

"I know you could, sweetie. I guess I could too." Nancy paused and then she said, 'Are we actually having a conversation that doesn't involve yelling or cursing?"

"Let's not push it," I said.

"Right," Nancy said. "You've always wanted to meet your biological father. Well, I have a lot of misgivings about this, but if you are ready, then I am willing. His wife passed away last year and he has been in touch with Sid and me and would like to have you visit, to get to know you. What do you think about that?"

"Sure," I mumbled. To Gingerbread, I telepathed, "YEAH!"

My real-dad was a widower. Tragedy about to be

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remedied by the arrival of one Cyd Charisse, hellion daughter extraordinaire.

Nancy said, "Maybe some time in New York will help you not think about
that boy
, the surf stalker."

"It's slacker, Mom, not stalker," I said.

"Right," Nancy said.
"That boy."
She waited, I guess thinking I might give her information as to whether
that
boy
and I had managed to communicate during my Alcatraz incarceration. She waited.

"Well, do you want to go?" Nancy said. "I could come with you if you want."

My adventure in New York with Frank real-dad, and did I want Nancy trotting along? Hell, no!

"No, thank you," I said.

Even prisoners know how to be polite.

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Nineteen

I was so nervous
to meet Frank real-dad again that I actually broke out into a sweat when the plane landed in New York. Even Gingerbread was nervous. I could practically feel her bouncing on my lap.

'Aren't you a little old for dolls?" this creepmeister executive man sitting next to me in first class said. The whole flight he had been pretending not to stare at Gingerbread, who had been sitting on my black tights, right below my short skirt, during the flight.

"Aren't
you?"
I said back.

Creepmeister executive man did not try to help me with my luggage in the overhead bin.

Since I didn't have a star student report card or Homecoming Queen tiara to impress Frank real-dad, I had brought him real gingerbread that I had baked myself, without Leila's help. It was kind of crumbly but it smelled ginger 'n' cloves yumster under the red bowtie-wrapped tinfoil. Gingerbread-doll was not upset by my baking efforts; it wasn't like when you go to a farm for the day and make friends with cows that you know will be steak one day. She understood the difference between namesake and food chain.

So there I was, strolling into the arrival area at the airport, carrying Gingerbread-doll and hoping gingerbread-cake would stay together until I could present it to Frank real-dad, but of course I tripped on the strings which had

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come loose on my four-inch platform combat boots, and
splat
I went.
Smoosh
went gingerbread-cake, flying went Gingerbread-doll,
mortificado
went Cyd Charisse's Pieces. I saw my usually chalk-white face in a mirror as I stood up, and it was the color of a tomato.

"You Cyd?" said this guy who sounded like John Travolta. He extended his hand to my shoulder to steady me. His other hand was carrying a sign with my name on it. He was like New York Knicks tall with Puerto Rican honey eyes and luscious cinnamon skin. A certain boy whose name rhymes with chimp, limp, and gimp was the farthest Blank from my mind. Let me just say, even if my name hadn't been Cyd, I'd have been like, "You betcha!"

"How did you know that?" I asked as I scrambled to pick up Gingerbread.

He had this insane-sexy New York accent. You could practically hear him saying, "yo!" and "youz guys" every other beat. He said, "You look just like Frank. No way you could be anyone besides his niece. He sent me here to pick you up. I'm Luis. I work for Frank. We'll be seeing a lot of each other these next couple weeks."

"His
niece?"
I said. I picked up gingerbread-cake and tossed it in the trash.

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Twenty

Maybe Frank suspected
our weird resemblance, and that's why he didn't come pick me up at the airport himself. Maybe he was scared to see me, scared that he would fall totally in love with his new daughter and never be able to send me back to my family in San Francisco, and that's why he made me wait with Luis at his apartment for hours and hours until he came home from work. I couldn't help but compare: Sid-dad had taken the day off work to personally drive me to the airport (he said it was because Fernando was still mad at me but we both knew it was because he was going to miss his little hellion) and to lecture me in the car about, like, always wearing a hat in the sun, and trying to find a place in my heart to get along with Nancy, and how I shouldn't let anyone make a Yankees fan out of me when he'd spent years making me a Red Sox fan, and yet Frank-dad couldn't even be bothered to pick me up at the airport, much less hang with me my first hours in Nuevo York.

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.