The Girl On The Half Shell (2 page)

I look down at the ground to hide my face, wondering how Father Morris got me to open up to him. I never talk about my issues to anyone, but somehow Father Morris got into my lockboxes. Maybe it’s a guy thing that makes it possible for him to break through my wall of protection. Or maybe it’s a priest thing. I don’t know. He just wormed right through my wall.

Father Morris is young and attractive, and when I find myself comfortable in the company of someone other than Rene they are usually male. A strange contradiction in my personality, but I feel more comfortable with guys than girls, though that isn’t saying much, and honestly Father Morris is a poor example of that theory because I know he can’t talk about what I tell him.

I never intended to talk to him, and the next thing I knew, I was telling him all kind of things. It was comfortable to tell him some of the things in my “lockboxes,” those compartments inside where I bury things about my family members that I don’t want to deal with. Father Morris was genuinely reassuring and didn’t look at me as though the things I told him were really messed up.

“Now I’ve seen everything.” Rene gives me a fleeting angry look. “You wouldn’t have gone with them, would you have, Chrissie?”

I flush and my heart rate inexplicably increases. I bite my lip, feeling guilty that, for a moment, I wanted to ditch Rene and go with Eliza’s group.

“I’m sorry.”

Rene looks at me startled in that way that makes me worry that she is pissed at me. But I can see that she isn’t and that she’s completely unruffled by her confrontation with Eliza—one of the things that I so admire about Rene. She is immune to the meanness of others. Rene is Rene, and she is completely comfortable in that.

Rene looks away first.

“I can’t believe that Brad used Eliza as a go-between,” she says in disgust. “Only a moron would think sending Eliza would get you to Peppers. Do you think he dumped you because you don’t party? You know a lot of guys won’t date a girl who won’t party.”

I shrug as if the issue of Brad doesn’t matter to me. “I don’t put out. That’s why he dumped me.”

“I know that.”

“Then why did you ask?”

Rene frowns at me.

“I don’t know why you let the wretched talk to you that way. They’d put up with anything to be your friend. And really, Chrissie, I think we should re-evaluate our rule pact before college. It was a good idea to create a list of rules our freshman year, but we’ve almost graduated and the rules are silly, especially since I broke all of them the first year of high school. Now I understand why you put no drugs on your part of the list. But don’t you think it’s time you take sex off the list? Really, I don’t understand why you have such a hang-up about sex. It’s just sex. It’s better to do it the first time in high school when the guys last about a half of second. It really does hurt the first time, Chrissie. I understand all your hang-ups, but not the sex. Can you please explain the sex to me…?”

I tune out Rene’s voice and focus on how pleasant it is to be out of the stuffy auditorium. It is my favorite kind of Santa Barbara night, fogless with a full moon, slightly cool but not enough for a sweater. There is certain predictability to the world here, constant temperature approximately seventy-four degrees and the only deviation a month of fog and occasional days of light rain. Time moves slowly here and it feels as though the world beyond can’t intrude through the natural protective barrier of mountains and ocean and affluence.

What does Rene’s father call our hometown? A transplanted New Yorker, he calls it fantasyland.
You don’t live in the real world girls. You girls live in fantasyland. Happy people. Happy traffic. Even happy palm trees too stupid to know they don’t belong here.
The world and its problems seem so far from here, or so Mr. Thompson always says, but they seem very real and very close to me.

One of my problems Rene is dissecting: my difficulty with intimacy that has evolved into almost a phobia about sex.

My other major life problem I find in my dorm room when I enter. I see my father standing in front of the far wall, studying the pictures I have pinned up. The second I close the door, he whirls to give me that much famous smile that has seen more glossy than a Milan runway model.

“You were spectacular, Chrissie. Your mother would be so proud of you.”

Why does he always do that? Why can’t he just tell me what he thinks? I set down the cello case and begin to pull the pins from my hair. I start to gather a change of clothes: a pair of jeans, my UGG boots and a t-shirt. “I just need to change then we can go.”

I dart into the bathroom and quickly shut the door. I should have been able to manage a better response to Jack. I didn’t even say hello or give him a hug. Just a fast retreat. Why are our connects so rough and abrupt? Why did Jack let them be? I can hear Jack conversing with Rene and their flow is easy and friendly and it hurts me.

“So you’re going to New York with Chrissie?”

“Yes, she’s stuck with me for spring break. Dad is doing a trial in DC, but he wants to have dinner one night while we’re there, if that’s OK with you.”

“Whatever Chrissie wants.”

Whatever Chrissie wants. OK, Jack, stop with the nonparenting for parents crap.

I pull my long hair into a ponytail, grab the gown from the performance and go back into the dorm room. Jack is studying the wall again and Rene gives me that look, the be nice to your dad look, and darts into the bathroom to change. There is an uncomfortable stillness in the room now that Rene is gone. Well, uncomfortable for me, but Jack seems not to notice. I drop before my suitcase to finish my packing, watching as Jack goes from picture to picture before pausing at one.

He turns from the wall and I can feel his eyes on me. “I thought you were done with Brad.”

Direct hit. Vulnerable spot in under five minutes. “I am. We move out in a month. There didn’t seem a point to taking the wall apart since we have to do it in May anyway. I don’t think I can take down his picture without ruining the rest of the wall.”

Before I can move away, Jack laughs and ruffles my hair, the golden-brown wisps that are the exact same color as his. “Come on, Chrissie. Lighten up.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy. It’s not you. I’m just uptight about everything these days.”

I can feel Jack watching me and I stare at my bag, making awkward movements to close it. I finally look up at him and Jack smiles, the one he always does when he seems to silently take stock in the similarities between us: golden hair, deep blue eyes, and the ivory-tone skin, lightly tinted apricot from the sun. It pleases him to take note of our similarities. He does it often. It has the exact opposite effect on me; it confirms for me that while genes are passed on they don’t always work out with the same success from generation to generation. What is a spectacular combination on Jack is much less spectacular on me.

Nice as my features are, I know that I am no beauty. On a good day I am willing to concede that I have a nice body and a pert face. I can’t think of another adjective that more aptly applies than pert. At five foot three, I certainly didn’t get my father’s height. Jack is well over six feet. I didn’t get his charisma either.

Jack grins, his blue eyes twinkling. He’s done taking stock of me and he’s in a good mood. It’s a loving look. I can’t feel it. I know in his way my father loves me. I just wish he had more time for me, enough time in any one time to connect.

I stomp out that train of thought and drag my suitcase to the door. I want to have a good vacation in New York with my dad, three weeks. Next fall I’ll be in college. This could be my last chance to work through whatever is wrong between us.

“Do you want to stop for dinner on the way back to the house?” Jack asks.

My stomach knots. Jeez, I have three miserable weeks off in the spring. Couldn’t he keep those weeks free just for me? I try to contain my disquiet. “Who do you have at the house this time?”

Jack is unruffled by the question. “Just the same old gang.” He says it as though that explains everything and makes it all right. “I expected them to be long gone before this week, but here we are.” He gives me that famous smile. “Don’t be mad at me, Chrissie. Do you want to stop for dinner or not?”

“Let me ask Rene what she wants.”

Jack fixes his eyes on me. “What does Chrissie want?”

Like that really matters, mocks the pouting child inside of me. Jack could say a thousand times whatever Chrissie wants but that wouldn’t once make it real. When are things ever the way I want them? I stare at my dorm room. I never wanted this, but I’ve been here eight years.

“I don’t care. I’ll leave it up to Rene.”

I’m not hungry, so it was stupid to leave it up to Rene. Rene always wants to go out. She loves walking in to a crowded restaurant on a Friday night with Jack and getting a table without waiting. She loves how special it makes her feel to be in public with him. But then Rene doesn’t live with the awareness that perfect strangers know the most painful parts of her life.

That thought makes me angry at Rene and I don’t want to be angry with Rene. She is my best friend, and to be honest, my only friend. Rene can be irritating as hell, but Rene never lets me down and I can always depend on her. Rene is a good person no matter what people say about her. And Rene knows who she is and where she is going in life.

Rene knows exactly what she wants, having mapped out her life in microscopic detail since practically kindergarten. I pretend that I feel that way about Juilliard, but I don’t. And shouldn’t I know what I want to be by now? I bet a therapist would have a field day with me.

I tear up and stare out the car window trying to focus on the shops we’re passing. It’s nine o’clock, but even on a Friday night on State Street there isn’t much happening in Santa Barbara. Most days nothing much is happening and the streets usually roll up at eight.

I can feel Rene watching me as Jack chatters away. Does he even notice I’m nearly crying? Does he notice or does he ignore? Is it easier to pretend not to see that I am totally messed up than to ask me about it? Has he ever even noticed that the only friend I have is Rene?

Jack turns the car into a parking lot and I turn in my seat to look at him. “Really, Daddy, do we have to go here tonight? Can’t we just go through a drive thru or something? We never get fast food. That would be a treat after dorm food. Or we could just eat at home. I’m sure Maria has something for us to eat at home.”

Jack smiles. “You know how I am, Chrissie. Buy local. I’m not going to Burger King or a Taco Bell just to save a few minutes.”

“Burger King and Taco Bell are franchises privately owned so it would be buying local,” I insist.

Jack shakes his head. “It would still be feeding the corporate menace.”

“Record companies are corporations, why are they OK?” Rene asks innocently. “Don’t you own a label?”

A smile starts to tug on my lips. We’re not little girls any more, Jack. Rene isn’t the least bit intimidated by you.

Jack stares as if deeply offended. “For the same reason Dukakis is OK and Bush isn’t though they are both politicians.”

“I voted for Bush,” I inform my dad and the expression on his face goes through several rapid changes.

I bite my lip to keep from smiling. I’m not just messing with Jack. It is the truth. I turned eighteen before Election Day and my first vote was for a Republican. I felt an almost rebellious sense of glee when shoving the ballot into the box. I can’t say that I was enthusiastic about Bush. But I did like Reagan, the feeling of having everyone’s granddad in the White House watching out for us all, and he just seems like such a nice man. I don’t know if Reagan’s policies were good or bad. I’m not political and Jack is political enough for any one family. But I liked the quiet certainty the world seemed to hold when Reagan was President and Bush was his Vice President, so I voted for Bush.

“Enough.” Jack makes a comical gesture as though a dagger has just gone through his heart and I know he is only half joking. “Next you’re going to tell me that you don’t want Juilliard. You want law school.”

I make an exaggeratedly sheepish face and Jack freezes in mid-step. “Really?”

I climb from the car.

“It’s your fault, you know, that she is the way she is,” Rene says. “It’s every parent’s fault. We are all destined to be the opposite of our parents. So don’t blame Chrissie for voting for Bush. It’s your own fault.”

The look on Jack’s face is priceless. I laugh.

I loop my arm through my dad’s. “No, Daddy. I definitely don’t see law school in my future.”

A smile teases at the corner of Jack’s lips. “You can be anything that you want, baby girl. I was only teasing. Anything you want so long as you’re happy.”

He means it, but for some reason comments like that from Jack always piss me off. It makes me feel like there isn’t anyone guiding me through life. If I said I wanted to be a ditch digger, Jack would probably only say
The world needs ditch diggers too.
How are you supposed to make major life decisions with parenting like that?

Jack opens the heavy wood door, Rene darts ahead of me, and with a hand on the small of my back Jack guides me before him into the packed, dimly lit entrance. The restaurant Jack selected is a Santa Barbara landmark, dark with red carpet and red leather booths, dated in décor and known for its Italian food and generous drinks. The walls are lined with pictures, pictures of the famous, the political and the historic. There is a picture of Jack here with the owners, and one of my mother.

As I drop into our booth I notice in the center of a cluster of celebrity photos above Jack’s head there is a picture of President Reagan on his ranch in riding gear. I laugh. I stare at it until Jack turns to look. Jack frowns. I give him a smile. The frown lowers and he turns the photo so poor Reagan can no longer stare at the back of his head.

I laugh and I’m in a good mood again. Nothing in my life is certain, I’m still a mess, I don’t know why I feel the way I feel most of the time, and I don’t know where I’m going, but I do know that I am not my father’s daughter. And that’s OK.