All You Need Is Love (16 page)

Mable shakes her head. “Of course — of course it’s cool. But it’s not real. It’s not a substitute for commitment and I just hope you know that.”

“No — I get it. I that knowing people and having ‘it’ isn’t everything…I have a clear picture of her, now,” I say. “But it’s so bizarre.”

“No — here’s a clear picture of her.” Mable points to her closet and points me toward her blue suitcase in which there are extra clothes, a couple of books, and more papers and photos. She opens one of the books to its middle and hands me the photograph. “That’s me and Galadriel. Gala — she was mainly called Gala.”

“How old is she here?” I ask.

“That was freshman year of college so just a little older than you are right now.”

I’m staring at a picture of a woman who could be me, but with a more gleeful expression than I am prone to having plastered to my face. Same hair, same eyes, same wide cheeks, but somehow on her they manage to make her look sullen in a cool way rather than slightly moody. She is the kind of girl who looks pretty enough in a photo but can either be average when you meet her if she’s got a boring personality or incredibly attractive if she makes you laugh.

“I must be a huge reminder of her all the time for my dad. And for you,” I say.

“And this,” Mable pulls out another picture. “Is Gala right before you were born.”

“Maternity clothes are so much better now — she all but wearing a muumuu here.”

“She loved being pregnant. She ate eggplant all the time.”

“I hate eggplant,” I say like this means something. But everything’s feeling like it means something. “Is my dad going to freak out that I know this stuff?”

“Probably. No — I’m not sure. I figured that he knew I was dribbling bits in now and then but he’s got to know that you’re an adult — sort —of, and that you have a right to know your history, your familial past and present.”

I lick my lips and push my hair away from my face. “Speaking of the present…”

“No — I don’t speak with her. The chronology was this: she gave birth…no wait, before that — she met your dad over that spring break and they got together right away. Even though she was the Queen of Cool and he was this academic in button downs and boat shoes she just couldn’t get enough of him. And he thought she was so wild and fun but with this softer side, too. They spent that summer living at the Vineyard…”

“At the cottage?”

“Yeah — your mother bought it. Right then. She just plunked down cash she had from various movies and odd jobs and they were all but married.”

“Did they actually get married?”

“They did — not for a year or so, but then Gala dropped out of college and I kept going and I’d come back to Massachusetts or Rhode Island or wherever they were and each time she was just a little less wild, a little less funny, a tiny bit more unhappy.”

“So where do I fit into this?”

“So…suddenly it’s the late-eighties and the academic market is really tight and your dad’s taking whatever position he can, and Gala’s trying to do some business that was way ahead of its time — I can’t remember the name but she’d customize tape covers and albums and when cds hit, she somehow got linked back up with a couple of bands and helped produce a single that sold really well.”

“And Dad?”

“I was a pastry chef at this fancy place in Back Bay then and I would go to the flower market to get edible flowers for the desserts — it was very over the top cuisine. So your dad came with me at one point and he was upset, saying that he thought Galadriel was miserable and had sort of lost her light. That was the expression he used. Lost her light.”

“And then? Did he try to help her — or what made the light go off, did he say?”

“Sorry — I don’t know all the details. I hung out with them but not much — she was already pulling away by then and I think I was this symbol of what she’d lost or given up by marrying and leaving school.”

“So then what happened?” It’s riveting and yet bizarre because it’s hearing the story of pre-me but it feels like Mable’s relating the plot of a movie or an ongoing drama that is actually real.

“Gala came by to see me at the restaurant and ate this eggplant puree we had in the walk-in fridge and since she usually thought eggplants were the food equivalent of slugs she knew she was pregnant. Fast forward to nine months later and your dad’s arranged his cozy world — Gala staying at home with you, this newborn with tufts of bright red hair sprouting off only the sides of your head, not the top — you looked like a funny tiny bald man…”

“Nice. So, let me guess. She tried being home with me but after a couple years she just couldn’t do it anymore and left?”

Mable sighs and bites her cuticles. “Um, I’m torn here. The next part is…”

“The leaving part.”

“Right. Are you sure you want to know?”

I nod. “It’s better for me to just deal with reality, isn’t that what you were saying a couple weeks ago? That I need to be involved in my life?”

“I didn’t really mean this — I meant more like take control of your day to day….but okay.” Mable reaches for a cup of water and takes a sip. “It wasn’t a couple of years after you were born.”

“Months?” I ask. “I’m trying to imagine the photo-image of Gala springing to life, cradling a baby, but I can’t.”

“Neither could she. She left before Thanksgiving of that year.”

I count on my fingers, feeling mathematically stunted at the moment. “So I was six weeks old?”

Mable nods. “She asked your dad to get up and give you a bottle — you can ask him about that — and when he came back to bed with it all warmed up, she was gone. They’d been to London that summer and she’d bought this huge brown suitcase and that was gone, so your dad knew right away. He also knew she was miserable but couldn’t help her — he smothered her, he just wouldn’t let her be, he was always trying to change her.”

“That’s interesting because one of the things I think he’s best at in terms of being a dad is that he doesn’t really ask for change, he pretty much accepts me for who I am and isn’t always pressuring me to conform.”

“To his credit, David Bukowski was and is —from the minute you arrived in this world — an amazing father. He was the one who changed you. He was the one who strolled you around the neighborhood and talked to you like you understood everything and encouraged you to have an opinion.”

“That was it? Never a word?”

“Your dad had some mental timeline. He left everything of hers as it was until exactly New Year’s — he figured if she’d be back it’d be to celebrate a new year together. And when she didn’t return he boxed everything up and shoved away the clothing, the music the pictures, all of it. And decided the bets thing for you — who knew nothing of all this — was to just be a team together.”

“With you on the side?”

“Yeah,” Mable sighs. “Oh dear I am so tired now.”

I look at my watch. “We’ve been talking for hours.”

“I know,” Mable says, her eyes closed. “But it was about time.”

Mable starts to drift off, I can tell by her breathing and her hands relaxing on the blanket. Outside, the rain has stopped and the sunshine is that really powerful bright kind you get in late spring. Is it late spring now or early summer? A small distinction. Did she leave me in good hands or desert me? Another distinction. I don’t feel altered, I don’t feel better or worse, just more informed.

I clean up the room a little so Mable won’t wake to a mess and fold the blanket up and put it on the foot of her bed and quietly walk to the door.

“Love,” Mable calls, her voice sleepy. “Ask your dad about your name.”

“Okay,” I say and then, with a sudden feeling of finality I go back in and touch Male’s hand. “I’ll see you soon?” What if Mable is telling me all this because she knows she’s not going to be here later?

“Go for a run or something to clear your mind.”

“I’m having dinner with my dad — again. I’m not sure he’ll let me go running without him.”

“He’ll ease up — he’s just scared.” Mable opens her eyes and looks at me then looks out the window. “Say hi to the world for me, okay?”

“I will — actually, I’ll run with Louisa. At least that gets dad off my back. She and I are big cardio buddies now…I’ll see you soon, right?” She nods and I kiss her cheek and let her sleep.

“Whatever the fastest way is,” I say to the post office worker and pay way too much to get my video project sent over in time for the deadline. It’s not perfect, it’s not even great, but it’s good. Or at least it feels that way to me. Dad and I watched a few nights ago and he cried and laughed along with Mable and gave a little cheer when he saw us walking all together. It was a nice break in the building tension between me and my father. Rather than little flare-ups that used to happen if I left my dishes in the sink or forgot to turn the heat down, the disagreements don’t fade. He seems annoyed that I went to London, annoyed that I came back, just frustrated in general. So watching the video was good distraction. Louisa came over for the last few minutes — I think she didn’t want to intrude — and brought us logs of chevre as if goat cheese had any relevance to the documentary whatsoever. But still, I’m not one to pass up cheese.

“Well, it’s out of your hands now,” Chris says, “Just like love is out of mine.”

“Oh will you stop being so dramatic. You’re going to see Alistair in less than a month,” I say and hold open the door for him.

“It feels like an eternity,” Chris says. We walk from the small Beacon Hill post office to the Charles/MGH T stop so Chris can head to Cambridge for his Harvard tour. “Am I bumming you out with all this talk of my boyfriend when you are broken-hearted and single?”

“Did you ask that just so you could refer to Alistair as your boyfriend?”

Chris nods and smiles. “Pretty much, yeah. But are you okay or are you wallowing?”

“It varies per day — one minute I feel like I want to fly over and see him and rekindle or kindle since we hardly had the time together to justify a rekindling.” We lean on the concrete pillar near the stairs that lead to the train. “But other days it’s all just so far removed from my life here, that is doesn’t really matter. Does that make sense?”

“It does, actually. But you’re allowed to feel bad about it — I mean you did almost love the guy and you did almost…”

“But I didn’t. So…”

“So,” Chris says, his voice changing tones completely. “Are you sure you won’t come with me?”

“I have no desire to parade around Harvard with you asking questions about their course requirements and the ratio of teachers to students and so on.” Then I remember what Mable said. “But tell me what the cereal selection’s like.”

“You’re twisted,” Chris shakes his head. “How do I look? Collegial?” He fixes the collar on his shirt and I pick a fleck of lint from his shoulder.

“You look stunning, dahling,” I say affecting old time Cary Grant. “They’d be silly fools not to let you in this instant.”

“Slow down there, Mum, I don’t even know if I’ll get in — it is in the category of reach on my SIBOF sheet.”

“SIBOF can bite my ass, I swear,” I say.

“That sounds like an album name,” Chris says and checks out some guy who walks by with a Harvard backpack.

“Oh, you’re so in love you just have to ogle the other men…” I taunt.

Chris defends himself with, “Hey — I’m allowed to look and who knows — that kid could be in my class at Haaahhvard.”

“Good luck,” I say and reach for my cell phone because I have that phantom ringing thing where you think it’s going to bleep at you but then it doesn’t and you double-check just to make sure you didn’t miss something.

Chris walks off and I dawdle along Charles Street, looking in the shop windows and the hardware shop that is set up so nicely it leaves me wishing I had a reason to purchase a shiny red wheelbarrow. But I don’t. My hands feel empty after carrying the package of my final essays and video that we had to have converted to play in England. The only thing left hanging over me aside from my college tour and applications (of course, I can’t apply without knowing where I want to go, so right now I’m stuck) is my “writing of the self”. In my mind I go over the most recent email from Poppy Massa-Tonclair in which she stated
while I am sure your arrival back to the states hasn’t been entirely smooth, please know that I am capable of extending the project only so far.
She didn’t specify how far, like until forever, or just until the LADAM year ends which is around now or if I can work on this thing over the summer.

I’m in front of one of the posh baby stores where they sell expensive booties and cashmere blankets when my cell phone really beeps. Chris programmed in the most obnoxious ring he could find so the sound of a human voice saying
Get Off Yer Ass and Pick up the Phone
comes from my back pocket causing two old ladies walking by to give me a look that suggests I should not be allowed out in public with my ass blaring.

“Hey!” Arabella says.

“Hey — listen my phone bill was terrible — the international calls aren’t included in my minutes. Let me call you when I get home?” I say and walk back down Charles Street toward Mass General.

“Oh, well, um I’m not actually…”

“Bels, I want to talk but I can seriously hear the dollars flying out the window and I don’t want to start the summer entirely without cash.”

“I know it’s just…”

“Talk later?” I say and hurry her off the phone. Maybe she had news of Toby and his non-cheating on Nevis. Or maybe she saw Asher again and he confessed his love — she did say he told her he “made a mistake” so maybe he’s ready to try again. Would I be? Not sure. I don’t want a relationship to be just a series of visits and emails. So maybe he’s right. Or maybe I’m just justifying.

My phone rings again.

“I really can’t talk right now,” I say assuming it’s Arabella.

“Oh, sorry, Love,” says a woman. “It’s Louisa.”

“No, I’m sorry…I didn’t know it would be you — I was…never mind.” I haven’t spoken with her enough on the phone to recognize her voice right away. “Listen, your dad asked me to call. He’s with your aunt right now and didn’t want to tie up her room phone, but I think you should go over there now if you can.”