The Orphans of Race Point: A Novel (34 page)

“We have some, but it’s tonight’s supply,” he admits, another sign that the code has crumbled. He stares at me a minute, obviously considering what to do, then goes into the kitchen. A few minutes later, he emerges with two juice glasses, and a bottle of white wine which he has already uncorked. “The wineglasses are dirty,” he explains, making a space on the coffee table.

“I’m not fussy.”

“This is her good stuff,” E says, pouring shakily. “When Lori buys this
,
it usually means she’s having a guy over. So hopefully, this secret talk involves something about running away to Mexico, ’cause my life isn’t going to be worth shit after I drink this.”

“We’ll just have to finish the bottle. Then she’ll think she forgot to put it in the fridge or something.”

E hands me a glass, looking dubious, then moves a pile of unfolded laundry so he can sit on the chair opposite me. He removes his glasses again as if to protect himself from seeing me too clearly, and runs his hands nervously through his dense black hair. Then he gulps his chardonnay. “If we’re going to finish the bottle, we’ve got no time to mess around.” He takes another swig, not appearing to enjoy it much. “A secret, huh? Sounds pretty dramatic.”

“It depends what you mean by drama,” I say. I drink my wine, which tastes vinegary to my inexperienced palate. It’s probably just psychological, but even that first sip makes me feel more relaxed. “The Bug’s dating a woman named Cheryl,” I blurt out.

E shrugs, obviously relieved. “That’s what parents do when they’re single, which most of them are. So?”

“Nothing—if you’re talking about normal parents. But if you’re talking about the Bug, well, it’s cataclysmic.”

E quaffs more wine. He looks so uncomfortable that for once in my life I actually wish I had a girl friend. Or even that I was talking to Hallie Costa. At least, she would know enough to ask sympathetic questions, and she wouldn’t sit there looking scared to death of the answers.

“Lori has lots of relationships, and she hardly fits the American Board of Psychiatry’s definition of normal,” he says. “I just try not to get personally involved. It’s not like when I was a kid and some asshole would take me out in the backyard and play catch with me in the hopes of getting my mom in bed. Now I just exit stage left whenever I hear a voice in the house with a lower register than Lori’s.”

“There’s two reasons my dad’s never home. You want to know what they are?”

E stares straight at me, his hair so black and shiny in the dusty light that it’s practically blue. “Shoot,” he says, and he looks like he means it literally.

“The first reason is because he hates me.”

“He can’t hate you, you’re his daughter.” Like I say, the kid’s a genius when it comes to geopolitical realities, but drag him into emotional terrain and he’s lost.

“Don’t you see? I’m the living embodiment of the woman who ruined his life. I’ve tried hard not to be her—with my hair color, my makeup, my whole Mexican thing. But I can’t help it. I turn my head, or walk into a room, and I can see it in his eyes:
I’m her.
”

But E’s not buying. “If he hated you, why didn’t he send you to live with your aunts in New York? Or that woman Cynthia? With his money, he has a lot of options. He could have sent you to boarding school or—”

But I’m already shaking my head. “He wouldn’t do any of those things. He couldn’t. And that leads to the second reason he avoids me: because he loves me. He loves me more than anything on earth. For one thing, I’m
his
, and the Bug is a very possessive insect. And also because I’m all he has left of her. Don’t you get it, E? I’ve become the receptacle for all his insane, obsessive feelings for my mother.”

“In that case, I would think your dad’s involvement with a third party would be beneficial to both of you. It would serve to mitigate—” he begins before the rage in my eyes stops him short.

“You want to see how fucking
beneficial
his last relationship was?” Then I stand up, turn around and remove the plate where my real front teeth used to be. I spin back and face E. No one on earth has ever seen me without my plate but Eileen and the Bug on the night it happened, and since then, only my dentist. I don’t even look in the mirror without the false teeth to lie to me and tell me I’m someone other than who I am: an
abused child
, a pathetic label I would never for one minute allow myself to inhabit.

“Now you see who I really am,” I say. “Not Frida, after all. Just Mila, daughter of the Bug. Ugly, ugly Mila.”

E is naturally pale, so he has nowhere to go but to utter transparency. I can see a map of the veins beneath his skin as he stares at me. “He—
your dad—
did that to you?”

I turn around and reinsert my false smile, my Frida face. Then I sink back onto the couch. “That was the aftermath of Valerie, the final price of our happiness in Mexico.” I say. “When he stopped seeing her, it was the worst time ever.”

“Then one night he came home early and caught me smoking in the kitchen. I think he’d had a couple of drinks at work—or maybe he was just drunk on his own rage. He started off yelling about my smoking, what a dirty habit it was and everything. Then it got more personal: I was sneaky and lacked self-discipline. I could never be trusted. I was the curse she left behind. And finally, I disappeared altogether and he saw only her.
I was a whore
. Dirty. Destined to destroy whatever unlucky bastard I managed to ensnare. Imagine saying all this to a fourteen-year-old fucking
virgin
!

“Anyway, I was so freaked, I reached for the ashtray to put out my cigarette, but my eyes were on my dad, so I end up putting the unKool out right on his jade granite countertop. I guess he thought it was deliberate, whatever, but he really lost it. It was like I’d put the butt out on his face. The next thing I knew I was on my ass, my mouth a pool of blood with a couple of little hard candies floating in it. Hard candies that just so happened to be my front teeth.”

E’s navy-blue eyes look almost black; his voice is a hoarse whisper. “Was that the only time?”

I want to answer, I really do, but I’ve used all my strength telling the truth I’ve never allowed myself to tell before. All I can do is shake my head. Then, I totally betray myself by starting to cry. And really, I don’t know what I expect from E, but all he does is
sit there
, sinking lower and lower into the armchair, as if he wants to lose himself in the cushions with all the lint and coins.

“Maybe you should talk to a guidance counselor or something,” he finally says. He pauses to gulp the rest of his wine. “That Miss Arnoff at school—”

At that moment I know just a little bit about how the Bug felt before he socked me in the mouth. “Fuck you, Ethan,” I say. “Fuck you and your books and your head full of bullshit that’s no use to anybody.”

Then I march into the kitchen and pour the rest of my wine down the sink. I fling the door open noisily as I leave the house. Again, I don’t know what I want E to do—maybe to follow me, or to try to stop me. He could at least reach out and touch my arm or something. But he just sits there holding his empty glass, looking so small and sad that I actually feel sorry for him.

I’m a mile down the road, half crying, half spewing rage, as I reclaim every piece of Mexican jewelry I dropped, when I see him running toward me. I’ve never seen E actually run, and it’s so unnatural I almost stop right there in the middle of my nervous breakdown and laugh out loud.

“
Mila!
Mila, wait!” he yells, all out of breath and everything.

At first, I just turn back to my jewelry and ignore him, but then I realize that something monumental just happened: he didn’t call me Frida. It’s taken two whole years just to become Mila and Ethan to each other.

I don’t actually turn around, but I do stop. And then E is behind me.
Right behind me.
I know because I can feel him breathing. And finally, I know because he’s whispering to me.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Mila. And I’m sorry I didn’t know what to say about it. And especially because I have no clue what you should do now. All I know is that you can’t stay there anymore.”

Very slowly, I face him. He has removed his glasses and is staring at me with his unfocused navy-blue eyes. But even half blind, he’s seeing me more clearly than anyone ever has before.

“And one more thing?” he says, letting his fingers run through my hair. “Mila is not ugly. Mila could never be ugly. In fact, Mila is the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

Then he kisses me; and even though neither of us have much experience, it’s the kind of perfect, knock-your-bright-yellow-socks-off kiss that changes everything. And it happens right there in broad daylight.

T
hough I’m forced to go back
home that night, there is this secret happiness inside me. I’m in darkness, but I can feel the sunny yellow of the walls all around me. By four in the morning, I can’t wait any longer. I switch on the lights, and take all my books except the
Poemas
out of my backpack, and stuff as many essentials as I can fit in their place—makeup, hair products, a couple of outfits, and the expensive underwear I bought at the mall last week. When I’m finished packing I check to make sure my room is neat (a matter of pride, on my part). Then, just when I’m about to slip out the door, one final thing occurs to me. I take my credit card out of my wallet and toss it on the bed.

“Won’t be needing that anymore, Mr. Bug,” I say out loud. “No matter what I have to do to survive, I’ll never have to ask you for anything again.”

I’m walking down the hallway, about to make a clean escape, when her closed door stops me in my tracks. I’ve said goodbye to Frida, and in my own way to the Bug, but there still remains one final farewell I haven’t said. In her room, I stare into the mirror where she saw her own treacherous face the last time she was in this house. But this time I realize Ethan is right:
I’m not her.
No matter how much I resemble her—and scrub-faced, without make up, standing among her abandoned things, I am an eerie likeness—I am not Ava Cilento. Nor do I bear any culpability for her deceptions.

As for my own, I take almost joyful responsibility for them as I remove the wallet she left behind, still containing a small amount of cash, from her drawer. Beside it, the keys to the Beemer are right where I left them the last time I “borrowed” the car.

The keys sit beneath the pile of scarves she wore to cover her woundedness.

“You owe me this much, Ava,” I say, the keys safe in my pocket. Then I leave the castle, feeling like a princess freed from the darkest of fairy tales.

T
he car backs out rockily, completely
demolishing a bed of flowers the landscapers planted a few days ago, and I have a minor crisis when I stall in the ruin. Since the last time I drove the car, I’ve been too busy for driver’s ed, and my skills haven’t improved much. But at four a.m., there are hardly any other cars on the road. Once I get to Route 6, all I have to do is draw a long, straight line till I reach the ocean.

The Bug has kept the car registered and occasionally even uses it, but I know he never listens to music while he drives. When I crank the radio I feel like I’m communing with the dead. I’m surprised to hear the last station my mother tuned into when she drove this car was classic rock. (Ava, I never would have guessed.) I don’t possess anything remotely as melodious as Hallie Costa’s voice, but when a song I like comes on (and even a few I don’t like) I sing along anyway. I feel that good. After making it out of Qville, where I had torn up a few manicured lawns while taking the corners, driving on the empty highway is almost as easy as flying in a dream.

It’s not yet morning, but there’s a light on in the upstairs window, and when I gaze up, I see her bent over a desk like she’s studying something—maybe a patient’s file.

I knock boldly on the door, and a minute later, I hear her padding down the stairs.

“Just a minute, I’m coming,” she says, her voice full of trust despite the hour. I wonder how I will ever explain my trembling, exhausted appearance at her purple door. But just as I knew I could navigate my mother’s old car down the highway from Q-ville to Ptown, I know I will think of something. And I also know that no matter what happens, I’m never looking back.

PART SIX

THE PURPLE OYSTER

{ 2010 }

Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?

—
FRIDA KAHLO

Chapter 36

dear dad,

the other night i came into hyannis to see a movie with my boyfriend. (u remember ethan washburne?) after i dropped him off in q-ville, i drove by yr house. it’s hard to believe it’s been seven months since i last saw the place. i used to call it kafka’s castle, but now i see it’s just an ostentatious house that is too large for the lot it sits on, and much too small for the sorrow it contains.

sneaky as ever, i parked my car around the corner and waited. u rounded the corner in yr new red saab at the usual hour. watching from a “safe” distance, i actually cried—which is the last thing i expected to do. u hurt me a lot, dad, but i know u’ve saved yr deepest cuts for yrself & that knowing feels something like forgiveness.

i also know i have a lot of reasons to be grateful to u. above all, i’m thankful that u let me go. when i showed up at hallie’s door, i wasn’t planning to ask her to take me in. all i wanted was to talk to someone who was wise & kind. someone who would tell me what to do next. i didn’t know hallie very well yet. in fact, i wasn’t even sure i liked her, but i knew she was capable of the kind of love that simply didn’t exist in our world.

i had given her no reason to help me, but it didn’t matter. that morning, she made tea for me, and listened to everything i said, and heard everything i wasn’t ready to say. then she hugged me & took me up to the guest room where she pulled down the covers. the sun was coming up & just before i fell asleep, i remember thinking i’m home, i’m finally home. i don’t know how i knew. i just did.

i wonder if u would even recognize me now. i have cut my hair short & bleached it paler than pale blond with a streak of kelly green that really makes my eyes pop. ptown is the kind of place where u can dress however u want and be whoever you are so i feel right at home. i also got a job at a mexican restaurant as a bus girl 4 nites a wk, which gives me enuf cash to put gas in the beemer. thanks for letting me keep ava’s car & for paying my tuition at the academy until i graduate. even tho the commute adds hours to my day, i would have really missed my teachers (& even a few of the kids, not to mention ethan!) there’s also no way i would get such an advanced spanish class at ptown high. since spanish will probably be my major when i go to college, that’s important to me.

education is practically the house religion here. hallie went to school for more than half her life. then there’s julia, who stays with us in the summer. julia’s mom died of aids when she was a kid, and the only “fathers” she ever had in her life were a couple of priests she met when she was about twelve. (yes, those priests.) she just started her medical residency.

thank u, too, for the checks u send hallie every month to cover my expenses—even tho she never cashes them. all she can see are the things u did to me—& of course hallie blames u for what happened to gus. but when i see yr ripped up checks in the trash, it makes me kind of sad. i know u are trying to be my dad the only way u can.

& finally thanks for the birthday card & flowers u sent & for the offer to come down & take me out to dinner. as much as i appreciate the invitation, i’m just not ready yet. maybe someday.

yr daughter,

mila

After I finish my letter, I jump on my bike and ride to the post office to mail it. I’m so happy I’m singing one of Hallie’s favorite songs, “Friday I’m in Love,” like I really think it’s possible to put a stamp on the past and disown it. But when I peel out of the post office, my empty backpack is the heaviest item on earth. I feel like every inch of my skin is tattooed with the words of my letter. In particular, I can’t stop thinking about one line:

of course Hallie blames u for what happened to gus . . .

But what about my part in it? How would she react if she knew my secret? Would she still stand at the sink beside me, singing Billie Holiday or old songs from the eighties while I wash and she dries? Would she bring me
malasadas
or pore over stacks of college catalogues, leaping up in excitement when she talked about visiting the campuses? Would she go down to the Tamale and yell at a thirty-year-old waiter for making a move on me till he blushed fifty-two shades of scarlet and swore I was like a little sister to him. (That just got Hallie more incensed.
Excuse me? Don’t you mean a daughter?
she railed before she sputtered on.
You’re lucky I don’t . . . And if I ever hear . . . )
In the end, it wasn’t embarrassment that made me run out of there, like Hallie and the waiter thought. It was just that no one ever stood up for me like that before, and if I didn’t get out of there immediately, I was probably going to do something entirely stupid—like bust out crying. In the alleyway, I pulled myself together enough to tell Hallie that I appreciated her concern, but it wasn’t like she was my mother or anything. I could take care of myself.

Deep down, I really wanted her to say that she was in every way that mattered, but she just looked kind of crestfallen. Like maybe I hadn’t said what she wanted to hear, either.

Now, halfway home from the PO, the words from my letter still burning my skin, I think about the huge achy lump that formed in my throat that night and I can no longer keep it back. Not any of it. Abruptly, I skid to a stop and sob like a little kid. I left home to stop living a lie, and though I’m happier than I’ve ever been, I still have the word LIAR tattooed on my soul.

When one of Hallie’s patients pulls over to ask what’s wrong, it just makes me cry harder. I mean why do these people care about me? Don’t they know who I am? Then I point to the perfectly intact skin of my knee and tell her I fell off my bike. She looks a little confused, but accepts it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my parents, it’s that if you speak convincingly, people will buy just about anything. “Don’t worry, hon. Hallie will fix you up,” she says and drives away.

If I wasn’t determined to pull myself together, that one comment could have pushed me over the edge. Instead, it makes me realize that this time Hallie can’t fix me up; this time only I can do that. So instead of going home, I turn around and pedal to the Hot Tamale, where I slip in the back door, scrub my face, and try to make myself semi-presentable. Then I pick up a couple of tostadas, one extra hot, the other with double sour cream. Somehow I manage to persuade my favorite bartender to slip dos Dos Equis and a bottle opener into my backpack when no one’s looking.

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you look kind of nervous,” he teases. “Hot date?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

T
here are still places on the
beach where you can go to be alone no matter how many people fill up the town. Just you, the frigid purple ocean, and the dunes that can both shelter and trap you. Hallie finds a comfort I don’t understand in the graveyard out by the highway, but the beach is where she goes to commune with the living and the dead. Though she doesn’t say so, I know the “living” means Gus. As for the dead, I think Hallie mostly talks to her dad, who died in a shack overlooking the ocean, and some guy named Wolf.

A couple of years ago, the shack was burned down by an artist who was staying there. Once when I caught Hallie staring at the blackened spot where the shack had stood, I asked her if she missed the place much. But she just laughed. Only the beach mattered, she said. And besides, she claims she can still see her father sitting out on his steps, his wild hair loose in the wind, as he watched a sunset. Nothing can take that away from her.

On the way to Race Point, the sky turns this incredible cobalt blue, and on my bike I feel like I’m flying right into it, my pale hair sleek to my head, dinner bobbing on my back. Despite everything, the moment is so perfect that I want to frame it and keep it forever. I leave my bike in the parking area and trudge through the sand for what seems like miles with no sign of Hallie. I get so tired I almost sit down and drink both beers myself. Then I remind myself why I came out here, and I keep going.

It seems like every day, Hallie’s walks take her farther out. The tostadas are cold by the time I spot her. When I come close, she looks annoyed. “Mila, what are you doing here? You know that this is my personal time.”

“Is that any way to talk to someone who’s just walked ten miles through the sand to bring you dinner?”

“
Dinner?
Well, in that case you can stay. Whatcha got?”

“Guess,” I say, opening my backpack and pulling out my foil-wrapped packets.

“Some form of burrito, I’m sure. All I can say is you better not have forgotten the sour cream.”

I make myself at home on the blanket Hallie carries in her car year round so she’ll be ready when the urge to go to the beach hits. “Actually, I’m much less predictable than you think. It’s happens to be a
tostada
.”

“Bean, I hope,” Hallie says. Then she spots the beer. “Where’d you get
that
?”

“You know that kid who tends bar on Wednesday nights? Seamus?”

“The one who stares at you like you’re a supermodel and the Dalai Lama all rolled into one?”

“That’s him.” I pop the bottles.

She looks skeptical. “Number one,” she says. “You really shouldn’t be drinking that. And, number two, I hope you don’t get in the habit of using your looks to get what you want.”

I take a quick slug of beer since I’m not sure if she’s about to take it away from me. “Pleeeze,” I say, addressing number one, with appropriate exasperation. “Every Friday night kids come out to the Point and drink themselves into oblivion while I hang out with Ethan and a couple of homeless guys at Dunky’s. You really think it’s an issue if I sip half a warm beer with my guardian?” (As for number two, I don’t respond, because it sounds kind of like she’s warning me not to become my mother, a subject I avoid whenever possible.)

“I know you don’t drink,” she says. “That’s why I’m not wrestling the bottle out of your hand right now.”

She’s right. I don’t even like beer, and I was planning to drink only half of it. But I guzzle the whole bottle before I get the courage to say what I’ve come for. I promised myself that I’d keep my mom’s secret for the rest of my days. But ever since I looked into Gus Silva’s eyes, or saw his valentine-shaped tattoo, I knew I couldn’t do it. Whenever I think of what I’ve been hiding, I imagine him cutting Hallie’s name into his skin on some particularly desperate day.

“What if my mother turned out to be alive?” I blurt out in the middle of our silence. “Have you ever thought of that?”

“At the beginning, I thought of every possibility that might have exonerated Gus,” Hallie admits after she wipes a dollop of sour cream from her lip. “But it’s not possible. No one could have sustained that much blood loss and survived.” She reaches out and seizes my hand. “I’m sorry, Mila. Have you hoped—”

I pull away, not about to be distracted by cheap comfort—not yet. Then I plant my empty beer bottle in the sand. “I’ve seen her, Hallie.”

Hallie lets her hand drop and looks at me in an oddly unsurprised way, waiting for me to continue.

“She used to come back sometimes, and watch me outside my school.”

“Did you ever speak to her?” Hallie says. She pauses to light a cigarette. Then she passes me one—something she
never
does.

I light one of her Marlboros, which I hate, and suck hard like it will save my life—or at least obscure the taste of my guilt.

“Speak to her? Well, no. I followed her once, though.”

“And?”

“She got away.”

“When was this? Recently?”

“The last time it happened, I was thirteen.”

“So you saw a woman who reminded you of your mother a few times when you were younger, but she never spoke to you?”

“I know what you’re thinking—that it was just the wishful thinking of a lonely kid. I used to think so, too. But if you could have seen the way she looked at me—” Then, I reach into my backpack, pull out the envelope postmarked from California, and remove the card inside. “Read it,” I say. “Then tell me you still don’t believe me.”

Hallie studies the envelope in the weakening light, and turns the card over a couple of times, looking for something, anything to validate my claim. “You really think your mother sent this?”

“Well, did you read it?”

“Honey, it’s a drugstore card with no signature. Anyone could have sent it to you. And, unfortunately, people can be very cruel. Especially kids.”

“From
California
? I don’t know a single person in the whole state.”

“Maybe not, but I’m sure you know people who’ve traveled there. I’m sorry, Mila, but this looks like a particularly mean hoax to me.” Apologetically, Hallie hands my card back to me.

“But I wrote back. Lots of times,” I say, sounding pathetic in the face of all that blood. The blood that saturated the mattress, rug, floorboards. My mother’s blood.

“Did you include a return address?” she whispers.

“Well, no. I mean, I
would
have, but if it came back and the Bug saw it—”

“You’re a smart girl, Mila,” Hallie interrupts gently. “You could have gotten yourself a post-office box in town. That is, if you really believed there was a possibility your mother would write back.”

I put my cigarette out in the sand, and then wrap it in the deli paper from my dinner. Finally, I turn to look at Hallie. “I didn’t have to prove it to myself, okay?”

“Why not?”

“Because I
knew
she was there. I feel her reading my letters. I feel her opening the envelope nervously. She’s shaking so much she almost tears the letter inside. And she’s crying, too. She soaks my letters with her tears. The ink blurs when I tell her how much I hate her for what she did.”

But when I touch my face, I realize I’m the one who’s crying. Big splashy tears for a mother who doesn’t even know me. A mother no one believes in but me. And before I even know how it happened, Hallie is holding me. Holding me and rocking me and stroking my hair.
I’m sorry
, she whispers, as if it’s her fault for destroying my fantasy. Or maybe just because she can’t rewrite the story of my childhood.
I’m so, so sorry.