Precious Gifts (2 page)

Timmie sat down across the desk from her, to tell her the news. And as she did, she thought of her father, and how ridiculous, self-centered, and wasted his life had been compared to her clients. He had never done anything for anyone, except himself and, briefly, the women he went out with. His had been a life of total self-indulgence, which was part of why Timmie worked as hard as she did. The one thing she had always known growing up was that she never wanted to be anything like him. She wasn't, and now he was gone. She focused on her client then, and tried to forget her father, for an hour or two at least, until she had to call her mother and tell her that Paul had died. As the oldest of Véronique's three daughters, the hard jobs always fell to her. Juliette was never up to them. And Joy had abdicated with her very separate life in L.A.

When Arnold called Juliette at her tiny sandwich shop and bakery in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, she was right in the middle of the lunch rush that happened every day. Her shop, Juliette's Kitchen, had been a hit since she opened it three years before. At her mother's urging, she had majored in art history, and had gotten a master's degree at the Sorbonne, only to discover, when she took classes at the Cordon Bleu in Paris “just for fun” when she finished, that baking was her passion. She made sandwiches on the irresistible croissants she baked fresh every day, and she also sold cookies, cakes, and pastries from recipes she had found in France. And her plans to become a curator at a museum, or to teach, went out the window after the Cordon Bleu. She was never happier than in the kitchen, peering into an oven, serving a mug of steaming coffee to an elderly customer, or pouring a cup of hot chocolate smothered in whipped cream for a child. It satisfied all her needs to nurture people, and her little sandwich shop had done very well. After a lot of discussion and some serious thought, her mother had lent her the money to start it, although she'd been very disappointed at Juliette's abandoning her career in art. Véronique was still hoping Juliette would get over her baking passion one day. At twenty-eight, she was still young. Véronique wanted a more interesting and intellectual career for her than a sandwich shop, and Véronique had always loved the idea that Juliette had inherited her own passion for art, and Véronique's father's. It was in their blood. But Juliette had given up art for her croissants. And in the end, her mother helped her with the loan.

Juliette was the softer, smaller version of her older sister Timmie. They were only a year apart and had been like twins growing up. But they were as different in character as night and day. Timmie and Juliette were green-eyed like their father, and Juliette had always been slightly overweight, but pretty anyway. Timmie was taller and thinner, Juliette shorter and rounder, with a womanly figure that had gotten bigger as she sampled her baking to test the recipes, and she had a spectacular bosom that Timmie always teased her about. She had long blond hair like Timmie, but hers had hung in a mass of ringlets as a child and was wavy now. Her hair was fair and natural and she looked beautiful when she wore it down, which she couldn't do when she worked. She wore it in a braid down her back, with a haze of soft curls that always sprang loose around her face. Everything about Juliette was welcoming and warm, and she'd had a motherly quality even as a young girl. She wanted to take care of everyone. Timmie always said she collected all the lame ducks in the world, particularly if they were men.

All of Juliette's romances had begun because the men she got involved with needed a place to stay, money, or a job. They slept on her couch initially, wound up in her bedroom, and eventually wended their way into her bank account, where they indulged themselves for a while with Juliette's help, and then after she had spoiled them liberally, they dumped her for someone else. According to Timmie, it had happened too often by now to be an accident—it was a pattern, and a bad habit. Juliette always managed to find handsome men like their father, who took advantage of her. There hadn't been a good one in the lot so far, and they usually stuck around for about six months until they moved on. Juliette would cry for a while, take solace in her work, invent a few new recipes, and gain a few more pounds. Then some other guy in need with a broken wing would come along. She was a beautiful, appealing girl and never alone for very long, unlike Timmie, who had been alone by choice now for two years, angry at the mistakes she'd made. Juliette was willing to forgive everyone, including herself, and never seemed to learn. But the only one she ever hurt was herself. The strongest facet of her personality was how kind she was to everyone, her customers, her family, and her men.

She had just finished serving one of her regular customers when Arnold called. Unlike Timmie, who was unfailingly practical and seemed to take everything in stride, he knew Juliette would be deeply upset and he hated telling her. And predictably, as soon as he told her that her father had died the night before, she burst into sobs. The last customer of the rush at lunch had just left, and she was alone for a few minutes, as she dissolved in tears.

She had considered herself the closest to her father, because she was willing to do anything to win his love. According to Juliette, he could do no wrong. Even before he got sick, she called him every day to tell him what she was doing and ask how he was. He had been to her sandwich shop/bakery only once, and she acted as though he came all the time. It never dawned on her that her daily phone calls with her father were always placed by her. He never called any of his daughters and stayed out of contact with them for weeks or months until they called him. Every relationship he had was one-sided, with the effort being made by the other person. Neither Timmie nor Joy expended much energy on it, but Juliette did. She even dropped off her best baked goods at his house, so he could taste her new recipes. She was desperate for him to approve of her.

Paul Parker didn't disapprove of any of them and was proud of his beautiful daughters. He just didn't want to play the role of a father and all it entailed. And as they grew older, he preferred to be their friend. They never had that confusion of roles with their mother, who always made it clear that she was their mother, not their friend, although she loved spending time with them. It was Véronique who had had full responsibility for them growing up, but Juliette still insisted that she was close to her father. As Arnold had expected, she took the news of her father's death hard, almost as though she hadn't realized for the past year that he was going to die. For the others, it came as no surprise. For Juliette, it did.

“I thought he'd pull out of it,” she said as she wiped her eyes on her apron, and Arnold sighed. There had been no hope of it for the past many months, while Paul went steadily downhill. And even in the last weeks, when he had been so seldom awake, she had talked to him when she visited him, convinced that he could hear her and would rally again. He never did, and Arnold thought it was a mercy that he had died. The Paul he knew and had been friends with for thirty years wouldn't have wanted to live in the condition he was in. Paul had been so vital and alive that to see him that way saddened Arnold as his friend. It was better for Paul this way, and in their many conversations over the past year, Arnold knew that Paul was ready to die and had no regrets about his life. But Juliette was clearly not ready to let go of her father, or her illusions about him. She was still crying after twenty minutes when he tried to get off the phone.

“Timmie said she'd call your mother in a couple of hours, so don't call her yet,” Arnold warned her.

“I won't,” Juliette said obediently, and after she hung up, she went to the door of the shop and turned the “open” sign around to “closed.” She went to make a sign then, and taped it to the door: “Closed due to death in the family.” And then she walked home to her one-bedroom apartment four blocks away. She never paid much attention to decorating it—all she did was sleep there, and the rest of the time she was at work. She arrived at the bakery at four o'clock every morning, to bake all her breakfast goods for her first customers, who arrived at six, and she was usually there until seven p.m., when she went home and fell asleep in front of the television for several hours, exhausted from the long day. Like Timmie's, her life centered entirely on work.

By the time Juliette got home that afternoon, Arnold was calling Joy, the youngest sister. She was harder to reach, as he had expected her to be, and had a very different life. Joy lived in L.A., where she had been pursuing an acting career. She had a real musical talent, and her mother had wanted her to go to Juilliard to develop it. Instead, Joy had dropped out of college at the first opportunity and headed for L.A. She took voice lessons that she paid for herself, worked as a waitress, and after six months of singing with bands that were going nowhere, she switched to acting lessons, and had been struggling to make it ever since. She had done a few minor commercials and bit parts on TV. She was hoping to get a part in a series, and had a knack for comedy. At twenty-six, she was still working as a waitress and had been in L.A. for five years. Her big break hadn't come yet, but she still believed it would. And her father had believed it, too, and always encouraged her.

She was a spectacularly beautiful girl with long, dark hair, huge violet eyes, an incredible figure, and a great singing voice she rarely used. She took every acting job she could get. She went to every audition and was willing to endure all the hardships of a budding acting career. She still insisted she would make it one day. She had told her sisters that if nothing major happened in L.A. by the time she was thirty, she would try Off Broadway in New York instead. But she wasn't willing to give up on landing a part in a hit series in L.A. yet. She was determined to make it in Hollywood. She'd been on several daytime soaps, but never as a regular. Véronique watched her on TV, but lamented the small parts she got.

Joy had a boyfriend who was an actor, too. He was in the road company of second-rate shows, and rarely at home in L.A. They hardly ever saw each other, which was typical of the men in Joy's life. She always seemed to pick someone emotionally unavailable or physically far away. And in the past five years, she had drifted away from her family, while pursuing her career in L.A. Their lives were so different from hers, she had less and less in common with her sisters, and didn't even look like them. Sometimes she felt as though she had been switched at birth and wasn't even related to them. And although her father had always made a fuss over her, mostly because of how beautiful she was even as a child, she had even less in common with him. Her looks had fed his narcissism, but she always felt that he didn't really know her, and had never tried.

And she and her mother had had problems for years. Véronique was still upset at her for dropping out of college, and the life she lived, working as a waitress more than she got acting jobs. It wasn't the life her mother wanted for her. She was capable of so much more, and it seemed like a dead end to her, and she hoped she'd get over it and come back to New York. It was a subject Joy's parents never agreed on, and always argued about. Her father's conclusion was always “oh, let her have her fun,” unconcerned about her. Her mother worried about her, and her sisters never took Joy seriously either. Making it as an actress in Hollywood seemed like a long shot to them, and they acted like it was a hobby, not a career.

But whatever their arguments about it, Joy had been doing what she wanted, with no help from them, and eking enough of a living out of the bit parts and waitressing to get by. She wanted to find a decent manager and a better agent, but hadn't found the right ones yet. It all took time. She loved what she was doing, and the years she had spent on it didn't seem long to her. The time had flown by. She had an apartment in West Hollywood that she loved and could afford. She was at a casting call for a commercial when Arnold phoned. She knew how sick her father had been, and that the end would come one day. She just hadn't expected it then. She went out into the hallway to talk to him, while she waited her turn.

“Oh,” she said after Arnold told her, and there was silence on the line. She didn't know what else to say. Like the others, she had a long history of disappointment with her father, although she'd had no arguments with him. It had always made her feel strange when he said she was his favorite, openly in front of her sisters, since she'd never had a real conversation with him. Her father didn't have real conversations with anyone. So her being his favorite never felt genuine to her, but just something he said. But she was still sad to hear the news from Arnold. He was her father, after all, and the only one she had, however inadequate he had been.

“Are you all right?” Arnold asked her when she didn't say anything.

“Yeah, just surprised, I guess. I didn't think it would happen so soon.” She hadn't seen him in two months, and hadn't seen him deteriorating rapidly, as the others had. “Do you know when the funeral is?”

“Timmie's taking care of it. She's going to call your mother in a couple of hours. I'm sure they'll get in touch with you,” Arnold said simply. “I'm sorry, Joy. We all know how crazy he was about you. You were always his baby, right up to the end.”

She nodded, with tears in her eyes. “I know,” she said, in a choked voice, suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that her father was dead. If nothing else, he had always approved of her acting career and dreams of becoming a star, which was more than the rest of the family did. They all acted like it was something she'd get over, and had to get out of her system. He had been her biggest fan. She had sent him DVDs of all her performances. And whether it was true or not, he had said he watched them all and loved what she did. He was the only one who praised her work.

“I'll see you at the funeral,” Arnold said in a sympathetic tone, and she went back to the casting call after talking to him. She didn't get the part, and returned to her apartment afterward, feeling numb and thinking about her father. Suddenly it seemed like a huge loss. She hadn't expected it to hit her so hard.