Surviving Valencia (6 page)

“Are you ready?” Adrian asked me.

“I don’t have anything green to wear,” I said.

“You don’t
have
to wear green.”

“Well, I sort of do. Isn’t it like going out on Halloween and not wearing a costume?”

“No. Halloween is a much bigger deal.”

“
You’re
wearing green.”

Sometimes I think anyone could marry anyone and it would be the same. Probably everyone was having a similar conversation. Pick a house. Any house. Same conversation.

“Borrow something of Alexa’s.”

“Adrian, she’s three inches taller than me. Plus, that would be annoying. I wouldn’t want her borrowing my clothes.”

“You’ll look cute in anything. What about that really dark green pair of pants you have with that top you made. That flowy thing with that thing on it? Did you bring it?”

“Oh! The poncho with the wooden button. Good idea!” I dumped out one of the suitcases I had yet to unpack and found the outfit that Adrian was talking about. I hoped we would run into someone I used to know when we were out. Just to show off how much better I had turned out than anyone might have expected. But it was bound to not happen. I only ran into old acquaintances when I was wearing warm-up pants and souvenir t-shirts.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said, kissing my neck as I put on my earrings.

“Ooh, lucky me. What is it?”

“Close your eyes.”

So I did, and I felt him fastening a necklace behind my neck. We’re just like a jewelry commercial, I thought.

“Open them.”

“Adrian, it’s beautiful,” I said. And it was. Three varying lengths of delicate gold chain, the bottom one holding a tiny diamond pendant. I took off my earrings, which now did not match.

“Thank you,” I said, and gave him a hug. For some inexplicable reason, this made me think of the photos. Was this the behavior of a guilty man? Because it felt like it. So haphazard, so out of the blue. “What’s the occasion?” I asked.

“
You’re
the occasion.”

“Oh, that’s sweet.” I hate lines like that. Hate them. Has a line so corny ever evoked a genuine reaction? Only from someone stupid. I felt a tense anger rising within me and I fought to control it. I
am
my mother’s daughter, though I try to deny it. It is a constant battle to not become her.

I hugged him again, and kissed his lips, determined to stay the couple in the commercial. Adrian helped me along by holding up my hair. We faced one another in the mirror.

“You look very pretty,” his reflection said to my reflection.

“Thank you,” said my reflection.

We stared at each other for another few seconds and it began to feel very awkward. I turned away and shook out my hair.

“So you like it?” he asked.

I nodded, touching the delicate chains. It was mall jewelry, but probably expensive. Shouldn’t an artist have artsier taste? Shouldn’t I be receiving something edgier that cut my skin and made my neck ache? But if he had better taste then I would worry he was gay. “I do,” I said.

This is your fault, I told myself. You are unable to be satisfied.

“Do you really like it?” he asked. “We could exchange it if you don’t.”

“I love it,” I said. “Really, I do. You’re too good to me.”

When Adrian and I arrived at my parents’ house the next day, they were sitting outside in lawn chairs facing the street, as if they were watching a ballgame. It was cold and they were both bundled up in winter coats, hats, gloves. I was embarrassed both by them and for them.

“Was there a parade on this cul de sac this morning?” Adrian joked.

“Ugh,” I rolled my eyes and he put his hand on mine.

“It’s just one day. I’ll help you through it.” He parked in front of their house and opened the trunk. “I’ll get our bags, don’t worry about it,” he said. This way he could avoid some of the greeting process. I couldn’t blame him.

“Hi Honey,” said my mom, giving me a kiss. Then my dad approached, drink in one hand and cigar in the other, and gave me a big bear hug. “Whiskey or a brandy old fashioned?” he asked.

“Brandy old fashioned,” I said.

“What about you?” my dad yelled to Adrian. He avoids saying his name. Adrian is the first Adrian he’s ever heard of, and I think some part of him cannot really believe it’s a name. A man’s name anyhow. Perhaps he is afraid he will mispronounce it.

Adrian hesitated. “Whiskey,” he decided.

My dad disappeared inside, returning a minute later with an icy old-fashioned glass for me, complete with a plastic swizzle stick of maraschino cherries, and a double shot glass of Old Kentucky Chicken for Adrian.

“Tastes just like Jack Daniel’s. I dare you to tell them apart,” my dad said.

Adrian smiled his isn’t-this-quaint smile and downed the shot. In his family they are eccentric in a refined, clever way. Their handmade lawn ornaments go on to become priceless folk art. Their family gatherings might include a sword fight, or the reemergence of some far off relative who had been living in a tent in Greece for seven years. All members of the family will at some point write a book. They did not take family trips in RVs or ever personally know someone who sold insurance.

My dad refilled Adrian’s shot glass and handed him the bottle so he could keep up with it himself.

My mother led us inside. “What do you think about pork chops on the grill?” she asked.

“Okay. Whatever’s easiest. A salad is fine, too.” I had not eaten meat in six months and couldn’t believe this was how I would be breaking back into the carnivorous world. With pork chops. Second only to meatballs in disgustingness.

“What about Swedish meatballs?” asked my dad, on cue.

“Really, it’s all the same to me,” I said.

“Passive aggressive,” my husband sang into my ear, disguising it as a kiss. His breath smelled of alcohol.

“Well, the pork chops are thawed out. That’s what we were planning on.”

I cleared my throat, trying to gather some nerve. I imagined myself saying aloud, Do you know, I actually am not a fan of pork chops. Or Swedish meatballs. Those were things your other, dead children liked. I imagined my mother’s disinterested response: Since when? she would say. She wouldn’t look up. She would be multi-tasking or munching on a carrot with her mouth half full.

I remained silent. This was no longer my home. I was a guest now, and I would eat what they served me.

“She’s always been that way: Picky,” my dad said to Adrian. “Once, when we were on a trip to Glacier National Park, she ordered a big plate of fish sticks and French fries. Only, you see, they weren’t the kind of French fries she was used to, so let me tell you, she starts crying and carrying on, and before you know it she’s thrown the whole plate on the floor.”

“I’m ready for another drink,” I said. I remembered the story he was telling, only he had a key detail wrong: It had not been me. There had been a little girl who was about three years old sitting at the table next to ours all those years ago. She had been upset that the fries were not crinkle cut. Furthermore, she had not thrown a plate of them onto the floor, she had thrown a small fistful onto the floor, and then had been backhanded by her father.

I looked at my mother but she was busying herself with the pork chops and a bag of Shake and Bake.

“Do you remember that, Mom?” I asked.

“Hmmm?” She shook, shook, shook the bag without looking up.

Adrian put his arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze. “Is that the truth? Would you actually throw your fish sticks on the floor?”

“French fries,” I corrected.

Adrian turned back to my father, “She still throws her food on the floor when I take her out, Roger. It’s why we can never go anywhere fancy.”

“All right, gang. We’ve got half with Shake and Bake and half without,” said my mom. She had arranged the pork chops on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil that was molded into separate trough-like compartments to keep the Shake and Baked pork chops from contaminating the plain ones.

“Love this Reynolds Wrap,” she continued, licking her fingers. “Makes clean up a snap.” Her hair looked big and she looked old. I began to feel queasy. Being here always made me sick.

“Patricia, goddammit, put barbeque sauce on the ones without the Shake and Bake,” said my dad. He looked at Adrian and shook his head in exasperation. Adrian gave me another squeeze.

“We’re going to look at your yard,” I said, taking Adrian’s hand and leading him outside to their spinning windmills and pint-sized wishing wells. It was the only excuse I could think of to get a minute away from them without causing offense. It was no use. My father followed closely behind us in his cloud of cigar smoke, coughing and spitting big slimy wads of yellow phlegm on the grass and melting snow piles.

“There’s not much coming up yet. Few things popping through. I wouldn’t be surprised if it snows again. Don’t let a warm couple of days fool you.”

“I know, Dad.”

My father thinks that moving to Savannah completely wiped out my understanding of how Midwest weather works.

“Do you have a garden in Savannah?” My parents have only visited us once, when they were on the way down to my aunt’s house in Florida.

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?” he repeated. It was the kind of answer that made my father mad.

“Roger, are you going to grill these or do I have to do it?” called my mother. She had an oven mitt on each hand, holding the cookie sheet of pork chops, her elbows sticking straight out. She looked like a bird.

Judging by the reactions of my childhood classmates and teachers, she used to be pretty. At parent-teacher conferences, the male teachers, who often had not noticed I was even in their class, would devote a full hour to chatting it up with her. The mousy, frumpy moms would wait in line just outside the door, glaring in at us through big 1980’s tinted lenses. Little popular girls who had nothing to do with me normally would shyly say, “Your mommy is pretty” and, for a day or two until it wore off, I would be worth remembering. I was used to this treatment over Valencia, and I accepted it. I had a harder time when it happened because of my mom.

I looked back at her standing there on the patio, holding that cookie sheet like it was so, so terribly heavy. Her head cocked to one side, an expression of exasperation on her face as my dad shuffled back to her, taking his time on the stepping stone path. This was their thing, their dance, the way they lived. Doling out and accepting a lifetime of disappointments. How much of their relationship and anger was because my mother had been pretty and now was not? Despite losing Van and Valencia, I believe that was her greatest loss of all.

Even now as an adult, I am barely able to follow how it works. Why would one girl care if another girl she hates has a pretty mother or sister? Why was that enough to sometimes afford me a fleeting glimpse of kindness and respect? I did not understand it then and I do not understand it now. If Adrian and I have a baby someday, I will do my best to teach her all I know, but I will not be able to teach her this.

After dinner the four of us sat huddled around the patio table, pork chop bones anchoring the Styrofoam plates from blowing away, an endless train of mixed drinks prepared by my father coming our way. We were all shivering a little but no one made a move to go inside. After months of winter, these not-quite-frigid nights were cherished. Adrian was trying to make conversation, not understanding that my parents have no interest in anything except landscaping and bowling. During a lapse in the conversation, I took the opportunity to reveal my true motivation.

“I’m going to visit Valencia and Van’s graves while I’m here,” I said. This was met with silence. My mother picked up her drink and finished it, then waved it at my father to show she needed a refill.

“I haven’t been there for a long time,” I continued. “I think I might go tonight.”

“The cemetery is going to be soggy tonight. You might as well wait until tomorrow or the next time you’re here,” said my mother.

“Can I have the keys?” I asked Adrian, holding out my hand, “I’m going to go there now.”

“You’ve been drinking quite a bit, Sweetie. I don’t think you should go anywhere,” he said.

“Give me the keys.”

“Who needs another one?” asked my dad, rising from the table.

“Adrian, give me the keys,” I said.

“I’ll take one more, easy on the ice,” said Adrian.

“She’s had too much to drink,” said my mom to Adrian, shaking her head.

“No, Mom. I have not. Adrian, quit ignoring me. Give me the keys.”

“But you’ve been drinking,” he whined.

“Actually, I haven’t had nearly as much as the rest of you.”

“Roger, where did you get this glass? I swear, we used to have a set like this. Tall ones, short ones,” Adrian called to my father, holding up a glass available at any garage sale.

“That’s the only one we have left anymore, so don’t break it,” joked my father through the screen door.

“Put some extra maraschino cherries in mine, Roger,” called my mother.

Was I invisible? I pulled my sweater tightly around me, shivering. Adrian fit in so well, I realized. Perhaps not intellectually, but he was every bit as disloyal to me as my parents were. I wondered what was next. I pictured the three of them signing a document and a paddywagon arriving to take me to an insane asylum.

“I came here to visit their graves and that is what I intend to do,” I said. No one even looked at me. I reached for the keys in Adrian’s pocket and he grabbed my wrist. It didn’t hurt so much as anger and surprise me.

“I love those little cherries,” sang my mother. Then she burst into a giggle fit.

“Adrian!”

Finally he turned to me and made eye contact. “If you’re going, I’m coming with you and I’m driving. I haven’t had as much as you.”

“You’ve had
much
more than I have. Let me go. Let me do this alone.”

He stood up. “Roger, Patricia. We’ll be back shortly. It’s going to be too dark to find our way tonight, but your daughter, God love her, gets these ideas…”

“No. I really need to do this by myself,” I said.

“I’m not losing another child!” said my mother, sounding shrill and wasted. This surprised me. I often felt that she thought of me as some kind of relative, but not her child. A younger sister, perhaps.

“Adrian, please,” I whispered.

My dad was back with a bucket of ice cubes. “Try these cubes. Tell me what they taste like.”

“I like this game,” said my drunk mother, popping one into her drink. “Well Roger, let me think. Don’t tell us. These taste like ginger.”

“Noooo. Guess again.”

“Figs? Fig Newtons?”

“Closer.”

“Are these made of prunes?”

“You’re getting warmer.”

And then, miracle of miracles, Adrian handed me the keys.

“Thank you,” I whispered, feeling genuinely grateful. The cemetery was only a mile away. I ran to the car and got in, immediately locking my door as if I were in a scary neighborhood. I adjusted the seat and took a second to catch my breath. It was such a relief to be alone. I felt the pressure in my head instantly begin to dissipate.

Start the car.

Hurry hurry.

Get away before someone stops you.

I decided I might never come back. The best thing to do, the only solid option, was to drive forever.

Adrian tapped on the window then and I had no choice but to open it.

I lowered the window and he leaned in. “I just wanted to give you a kiss. Be careful.” He kissed my temple. “Don’t stay away too long.”

“I won’t.”

“Too many more of these are going to make me sick,” he said, holding up a fresh drink with a plastic sword of cherries bobbing in it.

“Well, you can always just stop drinking them, you know.”

“Can I?”

“Can’t you?”

“The ice cubes are frozen prune juice.”

“That’s gross.”

He leaned in for a kiss on the lips.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I rolled the window back up. It was starting to get much colder out.

He stood there, seeming less like the enemy than a sad and trustworthy dog.

You have to be married to understand how quickly it can change like that. And change back.

He waved as I pulled away. I was glad he wasn’t with me.