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CHAPTER ONE
The first time I ever saw my father, I couldn’t believe we were related. We couldn’t be. He looked like some sort of macho military type—the kind you see in movies. What was Mom thinking? She must have been kidding to send for him like this.
She wasn’t kidding.
I wasn’t too worried, at first. I mean, I was fifteen years old—what was he going to do—spank me? Besides that, where had he been all my life? Laurence J. Cooper, United States Navy. Big deal.
He’d probably take me out somewhere for a hamburger and coke. Give me the great lecture about how I was ruining my life, driving Mom crazy, and let’s get serious here, straighten-it-up type lecture. He came three thousand miles to tell me so I was supposed to be impressed. Well, did I have a surprise for him.
I had it all planned out. And it was a fantastic plan considering I only had one day to think about it. That’s how long I knew he was coming. Can you believe that? Ten years go by and she barely tells me his name—much less anything about him—and all of a sudden he’s coming. Like I should be so elated.
But her sending for him told me something. It told me that Mom—the perfect, level-headed, corporate executive Mom—had finally given up on me. It would have been depressing if I hadn’t already suffered the shock, way back when I gave up on her. Only she had been too busy to notice.
“You know what it takes to make a living these days, Mary?” That was the famous line she was always giving me—her excuse for everything, that left absolutely no room for anything else. Including me.
Not that I was neglected, or child abused, or anything radical...I was just plain getting in the way. At least that’s how I felt for the last year or so. That’s why it was sort of surprising when she got so upset last summer when I ran away. It didn’t work out and I was back in a week. But ever since then we had been just awful to each other.
She said I needed help—like running away was some sort of a crime—and sent me to Grandpa’s for awhile. Then Aunt Jane’s (who has five kids and ought to know how to raise one). After that, there was an expensive boarding school that lasted less than a month, and finally she even bought me a shrink. But I think she needed the guy more than me because she spent a lot of time in therapy.
Now the father routine.
According to Aunt Jane, my dad was something of a runaway specialist himself. A no-good bum (her words, not mine) who ran away from home to join a band, and then Mom and me to join the Navy. I wouldn’t know. It all happened when I was too young to remember.
But I knew one thing. I wasn’t going to be traded back and forth between parents like some kids I know. No way. Especially when one of my parents was a perfect stranger. The trouble was I had this feeling that’s just what they might be leading up to. Anyway, whoever heard of coming three thousand miles for a hamburger and a coke? Nope. Something was definitely up.
So, even though I only had one day, I came up with a plan of my own. Mom’s no dummy. She knew something was up when she came into my room while I was getting ready, but she didn’t have the faintest idea what it was.
“You’re not going to wear that, are you?” she asked. “He’ll probably take you someplace nice, and you look like a—a gypsy in heat dressed like that. Where’s your sense of pride?”
“Never had one.” I put on the gold, hoop earrings I bought the week before. It needled her when I talked like that. Because if there was one single most important thing to my mother, it was having a sense of pride. I was still mad at her for sending for him, anyway.
“Comb your hair.”
“I did.”
“At least take the scarf off. Or put it on your head or neck where it belongs. It looks ridiculous wrapped around your ankle that way.”
“Everybody wears them like this now, Ma—it looks sexy.”
“Don’t call me, Ma, Mary Elizabeth. And for your information, there are other achievements in life besides looking sexy.”
Mary Elizabeth—she was still pretty ticked, too. I leaned closer to the mirror while I put on my mascara, and gave her the silent treatment. She hated that. Actually, I hoped she’d get mad enough to say I wasn’t going anywhere looking like this, and maybe I wouldn’t have to go with him at all. He could just say whatever it was he had to say right in the living room—get it over with—and I could go spend the night at Sarah’s.
She didn’t. Instead, she said, “Hurry up, he’s waiting,” and walked out.
He was sitting on one of the deck chairs out on the balcony with his legs propped up on the rail. Totally relaxed. If he was nervous about meeting me for the first time, he didn’t show it. He was smoking. Jeeze—hadn’t he ever heard the word cancer before? He looked at me for a few long moments—like he could see right through me, it was weird—then he smiled.
“Ready, kid?” He tossed his cigarette over the rail as he got up.
“Where we going?” I had to find out before we left, it was part of the plan.
“Like seafood?”
“You’ve always liked fried shrimp, haven’t you, Mary?” Mom answered for me—all butter and sweetness, now. As if we hadn’t been arguing just five minutes ago.
“You mean like they serve at the Sea Lion downtown?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said, “like that.”
“I gotta get my purse.”
Back in my room I went to the phone and dialed Sarah (my cell phone was a thing of the past on account of my behavior). She must have been waiting for my call because she picked it up on the first ring.
“Sea Lion downtown,” I whispered quickly. “Meet me in the parking lot in half an hour.”
At the door when we were leaving, Mom said, “Bye, Mary,” and got sort of misty-eyed. That wasn’t like her. She’s the type that’s always in control. Even during some of our worst arguments, she never yells. She can deliver some pretty cutting remarks, though. The kind that stay with you for a long time afterward. I only know when she’s really upset because I can feel it.
On the outside, she looks perfectly calm, not a hair out of place—and she always matches no matter what sort of crises we’re in. Sometimes I think her worst nightmare would be not being color- coordinated. Or if terrorists blew up the local mall. Anyway, when her eyes started to water at the door, it gave me a funny feeling.
I even had second thoughts about dressing like this. Until it hit me she was probably emotional because she hadn’t seen him for so long. Neither one of them were really thinking about me.
Not really.
Oh, they were going through the right motions...but it was all hollow. They’d be thinking different in an hour, though. That’s about how long it would take for them to realize I was gone. For good.
Then we could stop all this pretending.
The car was a rental. It was some small, white foreign thing that had a lot of zip to it. Nice, but it didn’t tell me much about him...maybe it was the only thing available. He didn’t say a word until we were on the freeway. Then he reached into his pocket for another cigarette. Great. I was going to smell like smoke for the rest of the night.
“Don’t you know that stuff’s bad for you?” I was hoping he’d change his mind and try to impress me by doing the right thing.
Instead he said, “There’s worse,” and lit up anyway.
I opened my window a little and glanced behind us, wondering if I’d spot Sarah’s little blue and white bug on the road before we got there. Not a sign. She’d be there, though. Sarah and I had been friends since junior high and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind whether or not I could count on her. It was a real break for me that she had her license for six months, already, too.
“Hey—” I said when he missed the turn, “you passed it.”
“Passed what?”
“The downtown turnoff. Aren’t we going to the Sea Lion?”
“Nope.”
“But I thought you said—”
“I said we were going for seafood, and we are. We’re going to the coast.”
“The coast—but—that’s two hours away!”
“Is that a problem?”
She wasn’t kidding.
I wasn’t too worried, at first. I mean, I was fifteen years old—what was he going to do—spank me? Besides that, where had he been all my life? Laurence J. Cooper, United States Navy. Big deal.
He’d probably take me out somewhere for a hamburger and coke. Give me the great lecture about how I was ruining my life, driving Mom crazy, and let’s get serious here, straighten-it-up type lecture. He came three thousand miles to tell me so I was supposed to be impressed. Well, did I have a surprise for him.
I had it all planned out. And it was a fantastic plan considering I only had one day to think about it. That’s how long I knew he was coming. Can you believe that? Ten years go by and she barely tells me his name—much less anything about him—and all of a sudden he’s coming. Like I should be so elated.
But her sending for him told me something. It told me that Mom—the perfect, level-headed, corporate executive Mom—had finally given up on me. It would have been depressing if I hadn’t already suffered the shock, way back when I gave up on her. Only she had been too busy to notice.
“You know what it takes to make a living these days, Mary?” That was the famous line she was always giving me—her excuse for everything, that left absolutely no room for anything else. Including me.
Not that I was neglected, or child abused, or anything radical...I was just plain getting in the way. At least that’s how I felt for the last year or so. That’s why it was sort of surprising when she got so upset last summer when I ran away. It didn’t work out and I was back in a week. But ever since then we had been just awful to each other.
She said I needed help—like running away was some sort of a crime—and sent me to Grandpa’s for awhile. Then Aunt Jane’s (who has five kids and ought to know how to raise one). After that, there was an expensive boarding school that lasted less than a month, and finally she even bought me a shrink. But I think she needed the guy more than me because she spent a lot of time in therapy.
Now the father routine.
According to Aunt Jane, my dad was something of a runaway specialist himself. A no-good bum (her words, not mine) who ran away from home to join a band, and then Mom and me to join the Navy. I wouldn’t know. It all happened when I was too young to remember.
But I knew one thing. I wasn’t going to be traded back and forth between parents like some kids I know. No way. Especially when one of my parents was a perfect stranger. The trouble was I had this feeling that’s just what they might be leading up to. Anyway, whoever heard of coming three thousand miles for a hamburger and a coke? Nope. Something was definitely up.
So, even though I only had one day, I came up with a plan of my own. Mom’s no dummy. She knew something was up when she came into my room while I was getting ready, but she didn’t have the faintest idea what it was.
“You’re not going to wear that, are you?” she asked. “He’ll probably take you someplace nice, and you look like a—a gypsy in heat dressed like that. Where’s your sense of pride?”
“Never had one.” I put on the gold, hoop earrings I bought the week before. It needled her when I talked like that. Because if there was one single most important thing to my mother, it was having a sense of pride. I was still mad at her for sending for him, anyway.
“Comb your hair.”
“I did.”
“At least take the scarf off. Or put it on your head or neck where it belongs. It looks ridiculous wrapped around your ankle that way.”
“Everybody wears them like this now, Ma—it looks sexy.”
“Don’t call me, Ma, Mary Elizabeth. And for your information, there are other achievements in life besides looking sexy.”
Mary Elizabeth—she was still pretty ticked, too. I leaned closer to the mirror while I put on my mascara, and gave her the silent treatment. She hated that. Actually, I hoped she’d get mad enough to say I wasn’t going anywhere looking like this, and maybe I wouldn’t have to go with him at all. He could just say whatever it was he had to say right in the living room—get it over with—and I could go spend the night at Sarah’s.
She didn’t. Instead, she said, “Hurry up, he’s waiting,” and walked out.
He was sitting on one of the deck chairs out on the balcony with his legs propped up on the rail. Totally relaxed. If he was nervous about meeting me for the first time, he didn’t show it. He was smoking. Jeeze—hadn’t he ever heard the word cancer before? He looked at me for a few long moments—like he could see right through me, it was weird—then he smiled.
“Ready, kid?” He tossed his cigarette over the rail as he got up.
“Where we going?” I had to find out before we left, it was part of the plan.
“Like seafood?”
“You’ve always liked fried shrimp, haven’t you, Mary?” Mom answered for me—all butter and sweetness, now. As if we hadn’t been arguing just five minutes ago.
“You mean like they serve at the Sea Lion downtown?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said, “like that.”
“I gotta get my purse.”
Back in my room I went to the phone and dialed Sarah (my cell phone was a thing of the past on account of my behavior). She must have been waiting for my call because she picked it up on the first ring.
“Sea Lion downtown,” I whispered quickly. “Meet me in the parking lot in half an hour.”
At the door when we were leaving, Mom said, “Bye, Mary,” and got sort of misty-eyed. That wasn’t like her. She’s the type that’s always in control. Even during some of our worst arguments, she never yells. She can deliver some pretty cutting remarks, though. The kind that stay with you for a long time afterward. I only know when she’s really upset because I can feel it.
On the outside, she looks perfectly calm, not a hair out of place—and she always matches no matter what sort of crises we’re in. Sometimes I think her worst nightmare would be not being color- coordinated. Or if terrorists blew up the local mall. Anyway, when her eyes started to water at the door, it gave me a funny feeling.
I even had second thoughts about dressing like this. Until it hit me she was probably emotional because she hadn’t seen him for so long. Neither one of them were really thinking about me.
Not really.
Oh, they were going through the right motions...but it was all hollow. They’d be thinking different in an hour, though. That’s about how long it would take for them to realize I was gone. For good.
Then we could stop all this pretending.
The car was a rental. It was some small, white foreign thing that had a lot of zip to it. Nice, but it didn’t tell me much about him...maybe it was the only thing available. He didn’t say a word until we were on the freeway. Then he reached into his pocket for another cigarette. Great. I was going to smell like smoke for the rest of the night.
“Don’t you know that stuff’s bad for you?” I was hoping he’d change his mind and try to impress me by doing the right thing.
Instead he said, “There’s worse,” and lit up anyway.
I opened my window a little and glanced behind us, wondering if I’d spot Sarah’s little blue and white bug on the road before we got there. Not a sign. She’d be there, though. Sarah and I had been friends since junior high and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind whether or not I could count on her. It was a real break for me that she had her license for six months, already, too.
“Hey—” I said when he missed the turn, “you passed it.”
“Passed what?”
“The downtown turnoff. Aren’t we going to the Sea Lion?”
“Nope.”
“But I thought you said—”
“I said we were going for seafood, and we are. We’re going to the coast.”
“The coast—but—that’s two hours away!”
“Is that a problem?”