Emily Franklin - Principles Of Love 06 - Labor Of Love (3 page)

I nod. "We do." I don't insert the "even though you're making me board in the fall" because I don't want to inter rupt any info he might tell me about my mom. He's been so secretive about her--or, not secretive, just dismissive--and I want to suck up everything he has to say before I meet her in person.

"Gala went off to have her own life, and we picked up the pieces. It's not like our lives were put on hold and nei ther was hers. Even though I knew she'd leave--or at least part of me did--I also knew she wouldn't be back."

"But Mable said you waited. For a couple of months."

"Sure--a grace period of sorts. I didn't throw out her papers or move her clothing. It was like a museum to the way things had been.And then--I just admitted it."

"Admitted what?"

"That the past, the life I'd known, was gone.You can try to recreate it--or make a memorial to it--but the truth is that what you once had--once it's gone--you can't ever get it back the same way."

I hear this and what I think is--he's absolutely correct.

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That's what I kept thinking I'd do with Jacob, what I tried to do with Asher after I left London, what I assumed I'd do with my mother--if I ever met her."So then, what do I do now?"

Dad stands up and raises his voice, putting on his head master tone that's usually reserved for assemblies and faculty meetings."Folks, we have a banner moment! Love Bukowski has asked her father for advice. She wants to know what she should do and--yes, that's right--she wants me to tell her!"

I laugh and flick more condensation water at him."Come on, Dad. I ask you for your opinion . . . sometimes." I look at him."So?"

"So--now you proceed knowing you're not trying to keep everything calm and orderly, you're not trying to hold on to the past. You're making a new future. You'll meet Gala--you'll see what happens.The reality is I saw her very briefly, long enough for her to tell me she wants to see you, and I don't know her any longer. I guess I'll always know parts of her, but I don't know the details of why she's here, other than to meet you."

"That sounds so weird. I have to meet my mother." I want to ask for the detail-oriented version of the "brief meeting" my dad had with her.What they said, how he felt when he first laid eyes on her, if she looked the same. But I know from telling my own stories, from sharing details with

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Chris and Arabella, that those items, the concrete of what actually happened, makes it so real it sometimes hurts. And I suspect my dad isn't quite ready to relive that."And then? After I meet her?"

Dad shrugs."It becomes part of your life. Part of change. You're still you.You still sing and laugh and notice every thing and have Chris and Arabella.You're still going to be a senior with--ahem--college applications and a future ahead of you."

"I know, I know." I nod my head. "But that's what's so bizarre. . . . These things happen, right? Huge things-- finding a long-lost relative, or losing Mable, or even getting a boyfriend--which granted is not quite so huge but it's still a big deal. . . ."

"And?" Dad reaches out a hand and pulls me from the rock and toward the car.

"And then you think, well, if such and such would hap pen, my life would be totally different."

"But it's not."

"No," I say and look out at the ocean. Staring at the waves, I remember Charlie telling me to count them if I ever needed to calm myself down. I've used the technique many times but right now I don't feel the need for it. Instead, buried in the center of the nausea, of the fear of not know ing what's going to happen with Gala, with my romantic

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ruins or revelations, with college, I feel just a small nugget of something else: excitement."Dad?"

"Yeah?" He shakes his shoes free of sand and looks at me. He checks his watch."Louisa's at the farmers' market in Tisbury. I have to pick her up, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind at all," I say, thinking that the market is right near Charlie's beach cabin. "You can drop me off nearby--I'll make my own way back. No doubt Slave to the Grind misses my finesse with the milk frother."

"You don't want to head right to the cottage?" He pauses, clears his throat, and clarifies."Her cottage?"

"I know whose cottage it is, Dad.And no, I mean, it's fine that Gala chose to come all this way to meet me. Even if it was at a totally inconvenient time. But I think if I jump 'cause she says jump--if I just show up because she's ready--that I'm not going feel very good about it. I think I need to take care of a couple of other things first. I can see her tonight." I pause, wondering what else I'll do tonight--work, or see Charlie. If I'll bump into Jacob. If Chili Pomroy--the cool soon-to-be sophomore I've become friends with--is around. If Chris is torturing himself by being near Chili's brother, Haverford, his longtime crush who is otherwise attached.

"Just as long as you don't put it off forever," Dad says.

"Are you talking about meeting Gala or doing my col lege applications?"

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"Both." Dad slurps the dregs of his drink."I take it you're planning on interviewing this fall instead of summer?"

"Nice segue, Dad. But yeah, that's sort of how it worked out. Lest you think I'm procrastinating, I have been thinking about those essay questions. And about schools. And other ideas." Dad waits for me to say more, but I give him my look to signal that the subject is--at least temporarily--closed.

We get in the car and I don't complain about the fact that my dad is driving my car. For once, I enjoy being passen gered around the island, looking at the land and sea swishing by, at the families and couples enjoying the sun.

"What were you going to say?" Dad looks at me. "Before--when I interrupted you about getting Louisa."

I slink my arm out the window, feeling the hot metal of the car door, and stick my head into the breeze like a dog might. "Oh, then? Just . . . thanks." I turn around, the wind pushing all my hair forward so part gets into my mouth, part in my eyes, part free-flowing."I'm glad you're here." I watch him drive my car--the car that's already taken me so many different places. Where will I be when the odometer reads 120,000? I'm tempted to ponder the possibilities, but I stop myself."I'm glad I'm here, too."

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I here's nothing that compares to being kissed by the right boy at the right time.This is the thought that keeps overlap ping in my mind after Dad drops me at Charlie's cabin.The red pickup truck is in the driveway, fishing poles and lobster traps in the back, and I assume that at any moment his Love sense will kick in, the front door will open, and he'll rush over (not so much that he looks overly eager, but enough so it's clear he missed me), and plant a kiss directly on my mouth (forgoing the confusing cheek kiss after an absence that makes you question if something happened during the time apart to make the kiss migrate from lips to face). But all of this is under the assumption that Charlie--my Charlie-- is in there. I stare at the pickup truck and shake my head at all of my assumptions--that he was a poor fisherman, that he was a local, that he was a typical love 'em and leave kind

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of guy. I curl my hand into a fist and knock on the door, my heart speeding up as I picture him in his blue T-shirt. For some reason, I often associate a person with one specific article of clothing--my dad and his worn-in Harvard shirt, Arabella and a certain strappy, flowy moss-colored dress-- even if I'm picturing her in winter, Aunt Mable--even though she exists only in memory now--is always clad in a plain white tank top, and with Charlie it's his blue T-shirt. So not only have I crafted how he'll greet me, I realize now, but what he's wearing, too. Of course, once I'm alone on the steps and knocking for the third time, I wonder if perhaps getting dropped off here was a hasty decision and if, yet again, my assumptions are all wrong.

I reach for my cell phone to call him, but as I do, I think back to being here with Charlie for the first time, how we'd walked on the beach and talked, made out on his porch and by the fireplace. If he were outside now, he wouldn't hear me.This revelation makes me slip the cell phone back into its nest and get all giddy. He's here, he's just outside!

I take off my flip-flops and leave them lined up (pet peeve=leaving my shoes scattered). The wind picks up as I run from the back of the cabin where the driveway and door are around to the front of the building where the porch is, where the beach is, and where Charlie is, blue T-shirt and all, sitting perched on the railing with his back to me. Even

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from this view, he's gorgeous. Before I can stop myself from standing statue still and admiring him from afar, my instincts take over and I realize I don't have to admire from afar any longer. He's mine--or, he is in that way that people feel like they're yours and you can run up to them and show them how much you missed them or how much you like them (or maybe love them?) without editing yourself. All of which I do, first putting my palms flat on Charlie's back, then gripping him around the waist. He flinches with sur prise, which makes me--ten points for having a too-high startle response--yelp, which then makes him tense up and turn around.At this point, I completely freak out again--it's surprising when someone moves suddenly--but mainly because . . .

"You're not Charlie!" I yell this with true shock while not-Charlie falls on his butt from the railing.

"No shit." He stands up, giving me a full view of similar gorgeousness--and identical T-shirt--but no, not Charlie. He watches me watch him and I feel asinine.

"Sorry." I don't bother explaining that I thought he was Charlie, because this would be redundant and only add to my humiliation. "Sorry to surprise you and sorry to . . ." I stop short of saying "sorry about touching you"--which sounds like Bad Lyrics 101.

"Yeah."

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Unlike Charlie, this guy's got one- or two-word answers for everything. Okay. Humiliation begins to fade to annoy ance as I wait for him to offer up some explanation.Then I realize that maybe I'm the one who needs to give a reason for showing up here. For all I know, in the couple of days I've been gone, Charlie could have rented his cabin out to a stranger.

"I'm Love--I'm a friend of Charlie's. Charlie Addison?" I end with a question mark, despising how teenage girl I sound, but seriously--what's the deal?

"I figured as much." He shakes out his hand, breaking the conversational ice and stretching out his vocabulary.

"And you are . . ." I do a quick study. He's older--older than I am, older than Charlie, but not by much. I blush, thinking that I had my arms around him--that my boobs brushed against his back.

"I'm Parker."

"Parker Addison?" Cue nod from him and glimmer of clue from me."Wait--are you the same Parker Addison who went to Hadley Hall? Who changed the color of the assembly room from white to purple overnight and then played `Deep Purple' while everyone filed in?" Really, how many Parker Addisons could there be--but having myth meet reality is bizarre enough to make me question the guy's identity.

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"Among other rumors," he says and reclaims his perch on the railing.

"So, are you?"

"I could be."

I consider telling him about his legendary status among Hadley students and alums--and all the stories that go with him (catapulting from one girls' dorm to another, creating a zip line from his dorm window to the dining hall, tak ing the entire junior class of girls to the prom, that sort of thing--and all while getting straight A's), but I don't. Something in his demeanor--his ruffled hair, the tone of his voice--suggests a disconnect, maybe from the past, or maybe from everything.

We stand there for a few minutes with only the sound of surf slopping onto the beach to break the silence."You're not going to say anything unless I ask, are you?"

"Pretty much," he says. He lifts a beer from the deck with his feet and brings it to his hands, then sips. He offers it to me without any words, just a tilted bottle as the gesture, and for some weird reason, I accept it.

"I'm not really a drinker," I say after swallowing and handing the bottle back."Okay? I don't even get why peo ple do it, really. It's fake freedom, an excuse to act without editing, breaking rules, rah-rah and everything, but it's not really for me." Did I just say rah-rah? Did I leave my mind

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and vocabulary back in California? Parker hands the bottle back to me and I swig."So, not really much of a drinker--I did, before, and I wound up puking all over this guy I really liked, but then he turned out to be a raging jerk, so while I was totally embarrassed--I mean, shattered--at the time, I'm kind of glad I puked on him now."

"You might not be much of a drinker, but you're one hell of a talker." Parker takes another sip, then hands the rest back to me. I recall another campus legend involving him: Supposedly one hot Sunday evening at dinner, he filled the overly sweet punch pitchers with rum, causing faculty members and students alike to show up soused for the non denominational chapel service.

I overlook this warning sign as thirst and carelessness in the moment take over and I slide the rest of the beer down my throat. In my belly my body realizes I haven't had much to eat all day and sends messages to my limbs that alcohol has been ingested. "I do like my words," I say, putting on a southern accent for no good reason.Well, maybe one good reason: beer.

"Want another?"

I shrug and follow Parker inside, realizing I haven't yet discerned where Charlie is. I don't even have true confirma tion that Parker is Parker. But in the rush of getting back to the Vineyard, in the haze of maternal mysteries and roman

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tic entanglements, it feels decent to suddenly go with the flow. Even if the flow is illegal and off the subject. Inside, my eyes begin to adjust to the dimness. I watch Parker in the kitchen and sit on the left side of the window seat.The entire downstairs of the cabin is one room--kitchen at the far end, enormous stone fireplace at the other, and around the whole curve of the main room is a window seat padded with long cushions.