Learning to Swim (7 page)

In any case, I was determined to take advantage of her expertise and forget (temporarily) my grievances with her so I could enjoy our rare mother-daughter outing. And I could tell that Barbie was equally determined because she gave me a kiss and a quick nod as if confirming the deal. The knowledge that my mom was going to be involved in the preparations for my potential big night provided enough comfort that I eventually fell asleep.

The next morning my mother and I awoke and began our journey with tight smiles and curt politeness. We both did our best to veer away from any subject that might cause trouble, which meant that we spent half the thirty-minute drive to St. Michaels saying things like “There sure is lots of traffic for a Saturday!” and “Wonder when this heat is supposed to break?” We arrived at this quaint little boutique called Zip, and Barbie whizzed through the sale rack as if she'd just downed twelve cans of Red Bull. We walked out of the store twenty minutes later with a microminiskirt and an asymmetrical off-the-shoulder top—both for Barbie.

About ten specialty shops later, we finally found an outfit that I could deal with—a fancy black tank with a little ruffle around the edges, and long lean white pants. My mother shelled out the money for the clothes and we walked to Barbie's favorite restaurant, called Lila's, a cozy little coffee shop in the center of town. I ordered the California chicken sandwich. (That's what I always ordered, except for the one time when I ordered the Mediterranean chicken salad. Big mistake.)

“So I wonder which boys will be at the party,” Barbie said, after she had placed her order for a Cobb salad (minus bacon, minus cheese, extra chicken, dressing on side) and we had settled into a table near the window. She and I loved watching passersby and making up stories about who they were and where they were going. Too bad Barbie was homed in on me instead of the tall guy at the parking meter out front. He was seriously H-O-T. “Who's hosting this again? A friend of Mora's?”

Uh-oh. This was bad news. As I said before, I'd never been much of a liar. And I didn't really want to mention Keith, because that would be a major red flag. “One of the lifeguards,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

“Oh—so that's why the Mora Cooper crowd will be there.”

My mom took a bite of her salad before dropping the bombshell. “She's dating that lifeguard who offered you the swimming lessons. Keith McKnight, right?”

I felt my stomach lurch. The server set my sandwich in front of me, but I wasn't hungry anymore.

Just then my mom's cell phone rang. She glanced at the number, and her face lit up. She looked at me and said quickly, “I'll be right back.”

After Barbie went in search of a private place with good reception to talk to her married man, I looked at her empty seat and felt the same horror any daughter would feel watching her mother purposely lie down in front of an oncoming train or stick her tongue on a frozen monkey bar at the school playground. Even though I wasn't one to wallow in self-pity, I figured I was due. In an effort to cheer myself up, I decided to take a tip from Alice and make a list. I grabbed a red crayon off a nearby table and wrote on my napkin:

Things that are crappy:

Great tank top, but no boobs
Barbie/love lunacy
Keith/Mora
Me/love lunacy?

But there was one thing missing. And so I added:

Dad

Even though he'd died before I was born, I still thought about him at times like this, times when I felt like everything just sucked. If he hadn't died, I think my life would have been extremely different. Not that I thought that Barbie would've actually married him and gotten a house in the suburbs and stuff, but I was pretty sure I would've had a much more normal life. He and Barbie would have been divorced and I would have been shuttled back and forth between the two of them. He never would have condoned Barbie's moving me across the state every year, nor would he have condoned her parading around with married boyfriends. If he had lived, I would have had a sane, stable person (besides Alice) that I could have talked to about all the important things in my life.

I glanced up just as Barbie came back into the dining room. I tossed the napkin with my list back onto my lap as she took her seat.

“You didn't have to wait for me,” she said, motioning toward my untouched food.

“Oh,” I said, realizing I had forgotten all about my lunch. I took a bite of my sandwich and set it back down on my plate. “Was my dad Hispanic?” I asked, between chews.

“What?” she said, visibly startled. “Why in the world would you ask a thing like that?”

“Just wondering,” I said with a shrug. I swallowed.
“Mora's mother thought I looked Hispanic or Spanish or something.”

“I, well, no. He wasn't.”

“What was he?”

Barbie started to gaze around the room. “He was… American.”

“I mean, what was his background? You know, his ethnicity.”

“I honestly don't know,” she said with a huff. “We never discussed it.”

I focused back on my sandwich, annoyed. Not that I had expected Barbie to suddenly be a wealth of information, but I hadn't thought she would be this evasive. She couldn't throw me a little bone and give me some background info on my heritage?

As if reading my reaction, Barbie said, “I told you, Steffie, we were only together for about three months when I found out I was pregnant. He died shortly thereafter.” She shrugged. “He wasn't in my life that long.”

“Was he rich?” I asked.

“What's going on?” Barbie asked. “Why all the questions?”

“I'm just curious, that's all. You never talk about him.”

She sighed long and deep as if pondering my request. Finally she said, “He was very… well off, yes.”

“How rich? Like, Jones Island rich? Or movie-star rich?”

“Steffie, what's the point of this?”

“I'm just curious as to what kind of house we'd have if he was alive.”

“Who knows?” she replied. “Maybe we'd be living right where we are.” But I could tell from the look on her face that she didn't really believe what she'd said.

“Maybe your store would've taken off and we'd be millionaires,” I muttered.

She forced a smile. “You know what I just decided? I'm going to rearrange my schedule so I can be home tonight and help you get ready. That way I can drive you to the party.”

This was Barbie's way of distracting me. “Okay,” I said.

There was an awkward silence as we both focused on our food.

“I like spending time together,” Barbie said suddenly, as if half trying to convince herself. “In no time at all, you'll be graduating from high school. And then you'll be leaving me.”

Then she got really quiet and she said, “I can't imagine my life without you, Steffie.”

And her saying that, I decided, was the most annoying thing that had happened to me all day.

One of the things I adored about Alice was her unforgettable words of wisdom: “Even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked.” This was another one of her jewels: “Promises, like piecrusts, are easily broken.”

Translation: even though I did kind of believe that Barbie loved me, the only reason she'd said that thing about not being able to imagine life without me was because she was feeling guilty. Because she knew that even though she had promised to stay home on Saturday night and help me get ready for my party, she would dump me in a flash if her boyfriend called. Which was where the piecrust proverb fit in.

This was precisely why I found the whole sentiment thing annoying. If that made me mean, so be it. According to Alice, if you run with wolves, you have to howl. And like it or not, living with Barbie was like
being chained to a wolf. But still,
still
, I was surprised at about three o'clock that afternoon, when Barbie and I were lying out in the sun (I usually didn't do this, but I wanted to get tan before my party) and her phone rang. I knew it was her boyfriend because after the Ludwig ring, she took it into the house.

When she came back out, she said, “Steffie, I'm sorry. But I need to go.”

“Go where?”

“Out with a friend.”

“Who?”

“Look, Steffie. I'm sorry, I am. But I'll make it up to you. Okay?”

But I didn't want her to make it up to me. I wanted her to do what she had promised.

“Maybe Alice can take you to the party,” my mom said, which just made the whole thing even worse. I stormed into the house, went into my room, and began slamming my dresser drawers. I pulled out a T-shirt and tossed it over my head.

Barbie followed me like a heat-seeking missile. “Look,” she said angrily. “It's not like I haven't done anything for you. I bought you new clothes and took you out to lunch. And this is the thanks I get? A temper tantrum? Grow up, Steffie.”

Now she had gone too far.
Grow up?
And then I said it. “Emily Mills is a hundred and one years old.”

My mom glanced at me.

“You lied right to my face.” I waited for a response. At the very least, I thought I was owed an apology.

“What do you want me to say?” Barbie asked. Then she shook her head and sat down on my bed as if defeated.

Her surrender took me off guard. It wasn't like Barbie to throw in the towel so soon. “I want you to apologize,” I replied.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I know what you're thinking, Stef, and maybe this is unfair of me to ask of you, but you need to give me a chance here.”

A chance?
“What are you talking about?”

“This situation may seem familiar, but it's not.”

I rolled my eyes. “But he's married.”

“Not happily. He's going to leave his wife. He hasn't been happy for a long time.”

Information overload. I couldn't take it anymore, so I turned on my stereo, grabbed a copy of
Us Weekly
, and began looking for the “Stars: They're Just Like Us” section.

And then she said the words I had been waiting for: “This guy is different, Steffie. He's not like the rest. He really loves me. He's even talking about giving me the money to open that store I've been talking about. Today we're going to look at potential sites for it.”

I turned up the volume, ignoring her. Eventually my mom got the message and went into her room to get
ready. When she came back out, she was decked out in full mistress gear: high heels along with the tight miniskirt and the asymmetrical boob-revealing shirt she'd bought today. She kissed my forehead and said, “Have fun at your party, okay?”

“Spending the night?” I nodded toward the Adidas duffel in her hand.

“No.”

“What's in the bag, then?”

She paused for a moment. “Don't wear those old flip-flops of yours tonight. Wear those cute pink ones of mine instead.”

“No thanks,” I barked. I flipped another page in the magazine so hard I gave myself a paper cut.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her bite her lip. She looked like she was about to speak, and then she shook her head and walked out without saying goodbye. After she left, I turned off my stereo and started to get dressed.

I did everything I could to not think about my mother. She had her life. If she was determined to ruin it, then so be it. What could I do?

I only had control over
me.
Wasn't that what all the headshrinks said? I put on the sexpot outfit Barbie had so carefully chosen and brushed my hair. Then I flicked on some of Barbie's mascara and some sparkly strawberry lip gloss, and reluctantly put on her cute pink
shoes. And then I went into the living room and turned on the TV. As I watched a preview for a show about circus animals that was airing that night, I felt a little sad. As in, I kind of wished I hadn't had anything going on that night so I could just stay home in my oversize clothes and watch the show.

What was wrong with me?

I should have been bouncing off the walls! I had been in love with Keith McKnight for forty-seven days! He was the coolest guy around and he had
personally
invited me to his party at
his
house. His girlfriend was out of town! And he had brushed the hair out of my eyes like he was into me or something. All of that mattered way more than Barbie's new case of love lunacy. Right?

I willed myself off the couch and forced myself to turn off the TV. Then I stepped outside into the blistering ninety-five-degree heat and began walking. A half hour later, I was covered in sweat and my mascara was dripping down my face. But it didn't matter. Because I had reached my destination, and it wasn't Keith's house.

Although Keith's house was only about a hundred yards away.

“What are you doing here?” Alice asked as she sat in her gliding rocking chair, drinking a Mountain Dew and doing a Sudoko puzzle. Her black hair was wet and set in tiny rollers. She was wearing a pink sleeveless
terry-cloth “housecoat” (which was just another term for bathrobe) and the fuzzy purple slippers I'd given her for her birthday.

This was another drawback to having a best friend who was old enough to be my grandma. She couldn't go to Keith's party. If she'd been my age, I would've made her go with me. And then I would've gone. Really.

One of the great things about Alice was that she kept her kitchen stocked with the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. As she said, you just never knew when there might be an emergency. And me showing up on her doorstep in my new party outfit, ranting about my mother when I was supposed to be at Keith's party, was an emergency. So Alice responded accordingly, immediately turning on the silly circus TV show and whipping up a batch of raw cookie dough. We then grabbed the binoculars and planted ourselves on her lopsided sofa in front of the window so that we could have the best of both worlds: we could watch TV while experiencing Keith's party (without actually having to attend). As we took turns using the binoculars, I carefully explained to Alice why I hadn't gone. In a nutshell: I had no earthly idea.

“You were just nervous,” Alice said, eating a
spoonful of dough. “And having your mom leave you high and dry like that, well, it threw you for a loop. But it's okay. There'll be other parties.”