Almost Royalty: A Romantic Comedy...of Sorts (7 page)

“Honey, I don’t want to wear a jacket. Right at this University, at Sproul Plaza, the Free Speech Movement was invented.”

“Julia,” I said. “You’re going to get arrested.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m exercising my First Amendment right.”

“To do what?” I said. “Ruin everyone’s graduation?”

We fought right up to the moment of graduation.

“God, you’re a square,” she screamed at me.

“You promised,” I yelled at her.

“I already told you, I’ll be good,” she said.

We found a compromise—jacket for the ceremony, bra at the dinner, daisy-shaped nude pasties at the party. But to Julia, good meant, “Umm Courtney, Julia, is dancing in the living room and uh, well… everyone, I mean well, ahh those pasties have moved, and well, I can clearly see her breasts, and how old is she?” said Jennifer.

Age 7.

There is this guy hanging around the house who is not my dad. His name is Big Mike. I’m not sure, but I think that Big Mike starts coming to our house when my daddy is still in the hospital. My mom tells me that Big Mike is a doctor. I think he is a doctor in the hospital where my dad was.

Big Mike doesn’t like to wear a lot of clothes. He likes to walk around our house wearing a little swimsuit—he calls it “a Speedo”—and a knit fisherman’s cap. Big Mike comes over a lot when I am asleep.

My mommy is laughing. She is writing down lots of things and making lots of phone calls. She has been like this for days. I ask her, “What are you doing, Mom?”

She giggles. “I’m sooo good at this,” she says. She whispers, “I’m a divorce engineer. I engineer divorces.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, I’m getting you a new daddy.”

Not long after that, we have one of those “Jobs Our Daddies Do” assignments where we stand in front of class and tell a little story about what our daddy does. I tell my first grade teacher, Mrs. Emerson, that I don’t have a daddy anymore. Mrs. Emerson tells me, “OK, Courtney, why don’t you tell us what your mommy does?” She gives me a few minutes to think about it.

Five minutes later I raise my hand and tell Mrs. Emerson that I am ready.

“Go ahead, Courtney,” said Mrs. Emerson.

“My mommy is a dee-vorce engineer.”

“She’s a divorce attorney?” said Mrs. Emerson.

“My mommy says that Big Mike, her boyfriend, is married. She says she’s helping Big Mike get this dee-vorce. My mommy and Big Mike work on that dee-vorce all the time, so even though he’s not my daddy, he sleeps at our house a lot. My mommy said that when the dee-vorce is over, Big Mike will be my new daddy.”

There is complete silence in the room. I don’t understand.

“Oh… The End,” I said.

“Thank you, Courtney,” said Mrs. Emerson. “Please be seated.”

Big Julia is summoned to Mrs. Emerson’s office, pronto.

Julia glosses over it by telling Mrs. Emerson that I have a good imagination.

One night, I hear Big Mike and Mommy talking when they think I’m asleep. Big Mike is talking very loudly.

It sounds like Mommy is crying.

Big Mike does not become my new daddy.

Big Mike stops coming over.

Age 10.

My mom is sad. She has a lot of boyfriends, but they don’t stay around for long. I don’t think that they like me. My mom starts going to church to meet people. I go to Sunday school. Sometimes, she goes away with a boyfriend from Friday evening to Sunday night. I ask my mom, “What about church?” My mom tells me to go to church on my own. On Sunday, I walk to Sunday school on my own.

On Easter, I put on my pink dress and walk to Sunday school. I hunt for Easter eggs at the church with the other kids and their parents. My mother is away with the new boyfriend. When she gets home that night, I tell her that I miss her. She is angry. She tells me, “Can’t you leave me alone? I need my own social life.”

The new boyfriend does not last long. She is sad again.

Age 12.

I am five foot four and weigh 89 pounds. My breasts appear and I try to pretend that nothing has changed by slouching.

One night after I’m in bed, I hear Julia talking on the phone. She’s on the phone for a long time. I keep hearing her say, “I won’t pressure you, I promise.” The next day, Big Mike appears. Julia is happy.

He is older. He wears frayed jeans and T-shirts with holes in them. He sees me and says, “Jesus, look at you.” He gives me a big hug, and moves his body around while hugging me, holding on way too long. He sticks his hands up my shirt and pretends to tickle me.

He does this a lot.

I don’t like it.

I start to push him when he wants to “just give me a hug.”

Julia catches me pushing him away.

She drags me into her bedroom. “If you push him away, he might go and leave us. If he leaves, I’m going to be sad again. You don’t want that, do you? Good. Then don’t push him away, damn it. He’s just showing you that he likes you.”

Julia and Big Mike decide to take a trip. Alone. For one week.

Age 15.

It’s January. I’ve gone back East to look at colleges because I am graduating early from high school. My mom convinces me to visit her sister and brother-in-law, Ruth and Ben Stern, in Marblehead, a town outside of Boston. She gives me their phone number. I’ve never met my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ben.

I have never met any member of my mother’s family.

I call them. They’re surprised to hear from me, but they invite me over. I take a bus from Boston to Marblehead.

“Oh my goodness, you look so much like Wendy,” says my Aunt Ruth when she sees me. “But blonde.”

Wendy, my mom’s little sister.

“Your mom and Wendy didn’t always get along,” said Aunt Ruth.

“Why?” I ask.

Aunt Fran looks at me. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Well, Wendy was the baby of the family, closest to your mom in age. But she always stole your mom’s boyfriends.”

Aunt Ruth serves leftovers for dinner. After dinner, she asks me if I would like to see a picture of my grandfather.

She shows me a picture of an old man with a long beard, wearing a small cap over his head. I have seen this kind of cap before.

“Aunt Ruth,” I ask, “why is my grandfather wearing a Yarmulke?”

“You don’t know?”

I think for a moment. “Oh. My mom… you’re not… the Fighting Irish Cohans of Boston?

“Cohen, not Cohan.”

“What happened?”

“Your mom wanted to marry a Goy—your dad. She didn’t want any problems.”

Aunt Fran hands me the phone.

“Call your mother.”

I call home. Julia picks up.

“Golda,” I say, “when were you going to tell me?”

But now it’s Megan’s baby shower, which happens after the baby is born because Megan has an emergency C-section and the baby is born early. It’s a boy. Aunt Katy has tried to put a good spin on things by inviting every member of the family.

Aunt Katy is the only member of my father’s family who tries to include Julia in all family events. When I was a child, we were never invited to any Hamilton celebrations.

Three years ago, I was invited to Aunt Katy’s annual Christmas party for the first time. There were a lot of whispers, sighs, and long looks from the Hamilton clan. While exchanging presents, I learned that my father was previously married.

I now have an uneasy feeling that Julia may have been a dee-vorce engineer for my father, and not just Big Mike.

“Your mother has always been so stylish,” says my Uncle Jack.

Julia is wearing my cherry red cocktail dress with the cleavage that goes to her navel. About three weeks after our incident, I went looking for it. I couldn’t find it, and tried to remember whether I had taken it to be cleaned. But when I went to deliver my rent check, the manager of my apartment house couldn’t look me in the eye and seemed very sheepish.

“Rick,” I said, “what’s going on?”

She had told him that she had left her glasses in my apartment. He let her in. “I saw her stuff something into her bag,” he said.

It’s not too pretty; especially because she picks up the baby and holds him against her chest and he thinks it’s time to nurse. So the baby tries to latch on to one of her breasts.

“Isn’t that sweet,” said Julia, as she hands the baby back to Megan as quickly as humanly possible without dropping him.

I sit down and eat some cake. Julia plops down at my table.

“You’re looking well,” Julia says, “but your hair doesn’t have enough blond in it.”

“It’s my natural color,” I say.

“Maybe you should change that,” said Julia.

“So Julia,” I said sipping punch, “now that you’ve been kinda a member of the Hamilton clan for over 30 years, do they know that you’re Jewish yet?”

“Lower your voice, damn it,” said Julia, “these people are highly anti-Semitic.”

“Really… what are they, Bay Area Liberals?” I said.

“Very funny,” said Julia. “Katy’s husband—Charlie, your Uncle Jack, and Grandpa Hamilton—they’re members of the Los Angeles Country Club. I’m pretty sure that they still don’t let Jews into the Los Angeles Country Club.”

“But do they—Aunt Katy, Uncle Charlie, Aunt Betsy, Uncle Jack, Grandma and Grandpa—know that you’re Jewish, or are you still pushing that line of crap about your maiden name, Cohen—the fighting Irish Co-hans of Boston?”

“You don’t know how hard it was to be accepted by this damn family,” said Julia.

“It doesn’t look like you’re trying too hard to fit in,” I said.

“It’s been more than 30 years. They have to accept me.”

“So why not tell them.”

“Does it make any difference to anyone at this point?”

To have the long looks, the knowing silences, the frequent whispers, the turned away faces, the strange questions, the quick glances, the pauses in conversations, the big sighs and the mysterious innuendos explained.

“It would make a difference to me,” I said.

And then Julia looked at me. Really looked at me.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“And the dress. Am I getting it back?”

Julia just looked at me. And smiled.

Therapy

“Just hold my hand. Tighter. There… doesn’t that feel good?” said Roberta.

Roberta was holding my right hand and lightly massaging it. We were having a therapy session. Her face was two inches from mine and she was staring into my eyes.

I looked away so that I couldn’t see the scars in her eyelids from her last eye-lift.

Were those new Sally Mann photographs on the walls?

Her hand was flabby, without texture or a discernible trace of a bone in it, greasy from fifteen years of moisturizing with Vaseline Intensive Care.

It felt like I was holding a banana slug.

“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” I asked.

I wanted her to let go so that I could take a sip of my Washington Green Apple Tea, which had oozed to the consistency of a 7–Eleven Slurpee.

“You should know by now,” said Roberta.

“Well,” I said. “I guess I’ve forgotten.”

“You know… well… explaining things… it’s not the way I work,” said Roberta for the millionth time.

I turned my head away so Roberta wouldn’t see me roll my eyes.

I sighed. “Well, maybe today you should because I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I said.

Roberta gave me a look. I was pretty sure that I had just broken some unwritten rule of therapy such as the Implied Therapist-Patient agreement.

Somewhere during my fifteen years with Roberta, therapy had become a bad habit like Gap Khakis, Starbucks Coffee, and friends who always made you feel depressed. At some point I actually forgot why I was doing therapy.

I think I first entered therapy because I wanted to speak with a sober adult, someone who wasn’t trying to rationalize a parenting style that equaled criminal negligence. What I got was Volvo-driving, pot-smoking, vegetarian women, the kind that lived in Santa Monica, Venice, Topanga, or Haight-Ashbury, went to Berkeley instead of Barnard and became Unitarian after being raised Jewish or Episcopalian. They could always be found supporting Save the Whales, Habitat for Humanity and Ralph Nader.

But more to the point, they were a stark contrast with my mother, Julia, something I craved.

In the fall my senior year of high school—actually September—I finished all of my applications for college. I sent out 17 applications, to every conservatory, school of fine arts, or university that I thought had promising violin teachers. I was hoping for at least one early admission.

In December, I got a call from one of the fine art schools. They had a shortage of violinists and “Did I want to come to college early?” They offered me a fairly substantial scholarship.

The school had been started with a radical faculty who thought that they would change the world with their artistic vision—30 years later all they wanted to do was make as much money as possible.

I started the arts school in the winter semester, three months before my seventeenth birthday. Due to all of the acceleration and extra credits from music summer schools, I was graduating early.

As I received my dorm room assignment, a hunk of metal which looked like a fatal car crash in red, yellow, and blue was wheeled to me on a dolly.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“This is your furniture,” said the dorm registrar.

The dorm registrar gave me a screwdriver, which was to be used to construct the hunk of metal into a bed, a desk, and a chair. I was also given two bright yellow trash baskets that looked like yellow traffic cones.

I wheeled the dolly with the red, yellow, and blue metal hunk and two yellow trash baskets down a long dark hallway and found my room. The metal was surprisingly heavy.

My room was made out of cinder blocks. It looked like an outdoor carport. The floor was covered with green indoor-outdoor carpeting that was mostly stained. There was one light switch for the panel of fluorescent lights that covered the ceiling. The lights hummed when turned on. The bathroom was shared and connected to another dorm room, the occupant of which was an albino lesbian dancer named Kimmy who was studying modern dance. My room overlooked the swimming pool.

No one—other than me—ever bothered to wear a bathing suit to that pool.