Do-Overs (8 page)

“You’ve lost me there.”

“You’re so lucky,” Olivia said with a little hiccup. I was beginning to realize she’d had more to drink than I had first thought.

“Everyone just sees the Beautiful Olivia Corazon. The Beautiful Olivia Corazon adored by every guy on the planet. They don’t know that she’s never had a guy that loved her. They only see the beauty on the outside. They don’t realize that inside is just a broken little girl.”

This conversation was going way deeper than I had expected. How could Olivia have anything tragic? She was perfect and every guy on campus would agree. Something bad was wrong. I thought seriously of going to find Rachel, but I didn’t want to leave Olivia alone.

“I was happy until I was seven. I don’t remember my dad. He left when I was so little. I don’t remember him at all. He left. Just left.” Again the silence entered the dark room. “My mom and I had each other. We were happy. Then
he
came along. My mom thought he was her knight in shinning armor. That lasted less than a year.”

Olivia gave a gut-wrenching sob. “Lasted until she came back unexpected from Christmas shopping and caught him molesting her eight year old daughter. Wasn’t the first time either. I was so scared. And he’d threatened me if I told. He didn’t just threaten me. He threatened that he’d hurt my mom. And he told me she wouldn’t believe me anyway. I was just a little girl. I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared.”

I was stunned, sickened, saddened. Nothing in my middle class, SUV, piano lessons world had prepared me for this. Sure I’d read stories about abused children. But they were other people. Not my friends. Not Olivia.

“My mom called my uncles and once they showed up, I never saw that perv again. I heard he was killed in a hit and run later that week. I know it was just a freak coincidence, but I still always wondered if my uncles had something to do with it. I never asked. They never told. All I knew was he could never come back.” We sat in silence for a few more minutes when a tiny little girl’s voice asked in whisper, “So why didn’t I ever feel safe again?”

I knew I needed to say something. To give some sort of support. Instead I did what I always do in a crisis situation. The wrong thing. I just stared at her like she was a freak show attraction.

“Why did I just tell you that? The only person besides my family I’ve ever told was Rachel. Crap, I always say too much when I’m drinking. Now you’ll be giving me those tragically sympathetic looks all the time. The walking on eggshells—oh so sorry for Olivia looks.”

It wasn’t what I was thinking. I was thinking how badly I wished I could fix things, go back to when she was eight and protect that sweet little innocent girl. But, she was already regretting baring her soul to me. Now every time she saw me she would know that I knew. Olivia had had enough hurt already in her life. At least I could fix that one thing.

“Olivia, your story is safe with me,” I said as I waved the eraser.

The basement study room was filled with the K’s. But, I had a much more important mission. I pulled out my cell phone and hit Rachel’s number. Fortunately, she picked up.

“Olivia is in the third floor study room and she looks upset. Maybe you had better go talk to her.”

“Thanks Lottie. I’ll go right now. I’m just down the hall. This time of the year is always hard on her,” Rachel said and hung up.

-18-

Perspective

“You never did tell me how your date went.”

It was after midnight in our dorm room. I thought Stina was asleep until I heard her voice in the darkness. “With all the drama with Olivia, I forgot to ask how your date went. Sometimes I just lose my patience with Olivia and all her theatrics.”

“Don’t be too hard on her,” I advised.

“Oh, come on Lottie. You’re just too nice. I love Olivia, but she does bring a lot of her problems on herself. She goes out and gets drunk and then wonders why bad things happen. She needs to grow up.”

I couldn’t be too hard on Stina. Until my earlier chat with Olivia in the dark study room I would have agreed in an instant. Olivia on the surface was what all of us wish we could be. Beautiful beyond comparison with the ability to attract any guy she wanted. But the surface is only that, the surface. In the layers below she was still that terrified eight-year-old little girl who had no control over the horrifying events in her life. Had that loss of control made Olivia into the totally-in-control-of-all-guys person she had become?

How did I get that across to Stina without betraying a confidence that actually never happened for anyone but me?

“I think things go deeper. My mom always taught me to love people as much like Jesus as possible. It isn’t optional. And the pricklier they are usually means the more hurting they are inside. The prickles stick both out and in. I used to get so frustrated with her when she said that. But the more I live, the more I know that everyone needs someone to give them unconditional love.”

“Lottie, you’re right. But can I just vent about it a little bit longer? I’ll be nicer tomorrow,” said Stina with a tiny bit of bubble coming back. “And by the way. Love that word prick-les.” Stina was laughing again and I joined in. Guess that was a word from my childhood that didn’t quite work anymore.

It was quiet again. Stina had distracted herself about Olivia and forgotten again about my not date. Good.

“So how was your date?” came a perky voice in the darkness.

“It didn’t happen.”

“Oh, sorry. What happened? Did you change your mind? Did Olivia’s drama mess this up for you? I’m going to be mad all over again. This was so important to you. Does she ever think about how her problems screw-up everyone else’s lives?”

“Simmer down missy. It wasn’t Olivia’s fault. I didn’t see her until after the not date. He just didn’t show up.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Bummer.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe he got hung up at his meeting?”

“I waited eighteen minutes. I would have waited longer, but that Taylor with the black hair and long legs came in talking about how he had invited her to go with him and a friend and she had turned him down.”

“Maybe you were the friend?”

“No. Butch.”

“Oh.” In the dark room a light was dawning in Stina’s head. I knew it was coming now. “Well, it’s good that you learned he was undependable before you got involved. He just wasn’t the guy for you.”

“No, you’re right. Al Dansby was just a passing fantasy—not the guy for me.” So why did not-the-guy from our not-date give me so much real hurt.

-19-

VIP Turkey Missing

Thanksgiving. A time of traditions. There were certain foods we only ever ate on that day, some sort of orange Jello with maraschino cherries, green bean casserole and sweet potatoes with pecans. Usually the pecan topping got eaten off and the sweet potatoes left behind. The irony about the menu was that everyone complimented the dishes, yet we never served them any other day except on Thanksgiving Day.

Then there was family. My brother Jason and three teammates were home only for the day before returning back to Norman and practice. Jennifer and Jessica, a.k.a the twins, had been thrilled for ten minutes when I got home late Tuesday evening, but I hadn’t seen them for more than fifteen minutes at a time as their social schedules were packed. Their past two hours had been consumed with finding inventive ways to attract the attention of our brother’s friends. The rest of the usual suspects began arriving by 10:30 in the morning.

Uncle Harold was there. He’s the one never to stand too close to, as he spits when he talks. On the other side of the living room was his ex-wife, Aunt Maude. They were divorced over fifteen years before, but in our family once you’re family you’re always family. So at every family function they both would come and pretend the other wasn’t there. And we all pretended that everything was fine. Hey, it’s awkward but it worked.

Next to Uncle Harold was his new wife, Vanessa. Okay they had been married fifteen years—do the math and understand the situation—but in family vocabulary she would always be the new wife. And she wouldn’t ever be
Aunt Vanessa
, just Vanessa, “new wife.”

People kept arriving: cousins, second cousins, cousins twice removed on Fridays with a full moon, friends and sometimes I suspected complete strangers who heard that the Lamberts put out a great spread on holidays. Hey, if the Obamas can have gatecrashers at their parties, the Lamberts could too. But none were the notorious relative I desperately needed to see. In all my years, she had never missed a family occasion, yet that was the Thanksgiving Crazy (or maybe not so Crazy) Aunt Charlotte decided to go AWOL.

By noon there were around twenty relatives gathered in the den watching the football game and too many cooks helping to spoil the broth in the kitchen. My mother was in a panic because the turkey wouldn’t get done and was receiving every imaginable sort of unwanted advice on remedies for the situation.

“Maybe we could stick it in the microwave,” was Vanessa’s suggestion. Obviously Uncle Harold hadn’t married her for her cooking skills. One look at her cleavage and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

“Humph,” was Aunt Maude’s thought on Vanessa’s culinary input and most anything else about Vanessa to be truthful. “Just turn the heat up to four-fifty. It’ll get done sometime. What time did you put it in?”

To escape that brewing discussion I decided to wander to the front door once more and check for my crazy aunt’s arrival. She still wasn’t there. On into the den. There were plates of
hor d’oevoures
everywhere. I didn’t understand why my mom was stressed about getting dinner on the table. Nobody was going to starve in the Lambert household that day.

My dad scooted over to make room for me on the couch. “Lottie, have a seat and enjoy the game with us. I’ve barely talked with you since you got home. How do you like your new school?”

“There are parts of it I love and others . . .” at which point I was interrupted with shouts of “TOUCHDOWN!!!!”

“Sure didn’t see that coming so quick,” my dad said.

“That boy can just fly down the field,” added Uncle Harold. Soon everyone was giving his own play-by-play and color commentary. I decided to wander on to another spot.

It was like my family knew at birth that I would be the odd-man-out. My parents, Julie and Julius, named my brother Jason and the twins Jennifer and Jessica. I’m Lottie. What, were there no “J” names left on the planet? My mother always tried to placate me with, “But, honey, Lottie was always my favorite name.” That doesn’t work when you’re ten and being constantly reminded by the other J. Lamberts, and equally observant people in the community, that you are an L. I felt like I should have had a big scarlet “L” on my forehead for Loser Lambert.

There were a lot of ways I never fit with my family. I didn’t like football. That could be termed blasphemous in Oklahoma. Nothing against sports, I just didn’t get the point. Why was so much time and effort, not to mention money, put into moving a ball past another person to get it to a pre-specified location, while normal everyday people morphed into raving lunatics in the stands as if their shouts could change the outcome of the game? Needless to say, a significant portion of my childhood was spent with me whining as my family was packing off to see my siblings in yet another of their ballgames or gymnastic meets always in search of the next competition.

Maybe that was the problem. I wasn’t competitive. My brother’s room was filled with trophies and plaques. The twins also had their share of medals, certificates and newspaper photos and clippings. Me—nada, never. In my entire life I had never won anything.

To be completely honest I hardly ever entered anything that could be won. I contemplated so many times entering the writing contests at our library or my school, but was terrified the judges would laugh at my work. As long as I kept it too myself, I could always believe that I was a fabulous author.

I guess I was competitive after all. It slowly dawned on me that I needed to give my family a break about their sports obsessions. We all had things that we felt passionately about. They just weren’t the same. That didn’t make the other person’s passion any less justified. Sadly it had taken me twenty years to start to understand that concept.

I wasn’t having the most thankful attitude that Thanksgiving and decided it was time to make a mental adjustment. My life was good. My family loved me, even if I didn’t fit in perfectly. I had my health. I had my new friends at school. I had shiny manageable hair, and if I listened to commercials that was crucial for a happy life.

“Turkey’s done,” came the shout from the kitchen. Wow, I must have been at my private pity party for an extended length of time or Aunt Maude had turned the oven up to the nuclear blast setting.

“Can we wait for half-time to eat?” asked my dad.

Oh no, here it came. “Julius Andrew Lambert,” my mother said. Including the middle name. “I have cooked for three days to get this feast together! You can TiVo that game! It’s not OU playing! It’s not that important!”

“I was just giving you a hard time dear. We’re coming,” said my father. Would he never learn that there are just some things that were not joking material? My mother’s Thanksgiving dinner was top of that list.

***

We all ate more than we should have and then had seconds. Pig fest. It was great.

With the men folk back at the TV, the womenfolk began the cleanup ritual. Equal rights would never exist on Thanksgiving Day.

Mom was digging in her stash of old Cool-Whip containers to find enough to store all the leftovers, while Aunt Maude was filling the sink with hot, sudsy water. Every year she and Mom would have an argument about the dishes. Aunt Maude was a rinser. One of those who practically washed the dishes before she put them in the dishwasher. Mom believed that was why you bought a dishwasher—to wash the dishes. Mom was a scraper. Just scrape them and put them in. Let the machine do the work. Rinsers and Scrapers do not work well with each other. We needed a distraction before the confrontation began.

“Where was Aunt Charlotte this year?” I asked.

“Now, that’s strange,” said my mom, head still submerged in the bottom storage cabinet searching for containers. “She never misses a holiday. Did anyone hear from her?”

“She’s so spacey, maybe she’s doing the holidays on the moon this year?” giggled Jennifer.

“Or with some tribe in Africa?” added Jessica. “Oh, mom that’s my phone ringing. Can I please have it back now? Please. Dinner is over.” My mom had confiscated the Double J’s cell phones before the meal in order to have a call/text free meal. She reluctantly gave the girls back their lifelines to civilization.

Suddenly the kitchen seemed claustrophobic. Jason and friends had entered. “Mom, just wanted to tell you goodbye,” said Jason putting on his coat.

“It was a great meal Mrs. Lambert. Thanks for including us,” said one of the teammates while the others nodded in agreement.

“Do you have to go already?” Mom asked, knowing that they did.

“We have a team meeting first thing tomorrow to view some films.”

“Mom, that was Jeremy on my phone. He was wanting me to come over to his house later for dessert,” said Jessica.

“Well, you better go. There’s not much food here,” said my mom. I doubt she meant the sarcasm to show as much as it did.

With that all my siblings were out the door. The room filled with aunts, friends and Vanessa suddenly felt empty—lonely. And for a second I saw a sadness in my mother’s eyes I’d never noticed before. It gave me a Rachelesque insight. We were all leaving her. Even on holidays there was no time for mom. Jason couldn’t even come home for more than the time it took to inhale a meal and the twins couldn’t stay in place much longer. Life moved on too fast. For a brief second I saw through my mom’s eyes—toddlers and tweens and teenagers going through her life. Then we were all but grown-up. And gone.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Mom,” I told her as I gave her a spontaneous hug.

“Thanks baby,” she said, almost in tears. “You know you always were my favorite.” Once again the kitchen was full of laughter. That was a Lambert tradition. We all were my mother’s favorites.

“And you were always my favorite too,” I replied.