If You Could See What I See (31 page)

21

I
put my hand on the maple tree inside my tree house that night. I love trees. I love maple trees in particular because their leaves tell their story. Green, yellow, gold, orange, brown, a blend and a mix, then all the leaves drop, the branches become bare, frozen, snowy, then back to buds and green again. The leaves were gone now, winter busting on in.

I grabbed a jacket and one of my mother’s hats and sat in a purple Adirondack chair with a wriggling Pop Pop on my lap. The maple tree that grew through the floor of my deck swayed above me, the branches continuing their whispered conversations.

I thought of my mother, my grandma, and The Irishman, who always made me feel so loved.

I thought of Sperm Donor One and Sperm Donor Two.

They didn’t even know they had daughters.

There was the blood tie between us, but there was nothing else.

There was a gap where fathers and daughters should have stood together.

I picked a leaf off the deck. It was yellow with brown spots.

Did our fathers love trees, too?

What would Blake be like as a father?

 

There were a multitude of mind-numbing problems coming up with the planning of our Fashion Story. I had, however, found a location, and it was a miracle location: the building across the street. I contacted the owner, Oscar, who was about eighty and had been friends with Grandma for decades. “Go ahead and use it, sweetheart. No charge. Can’t hurt it, that’s for sure. I’ll do it for your grandma and for all the pretty lingerie she gave my wife over the years. We sure enjoyed that lingerie. Now I have only the memory of my angel, Mabel. You tell your grandma I said greetings and good wishes.”

The building had been a shoe factory, but there was nothing in there now except a cement floor, open wood rafters, and concrete walls. It wasn’t that big, which was good, as then it wouldn’t feel cavernous. We would decorate and transform it with soft lighting, fabric, art, candles, and a focus on the runway and the people on it.

I had other worries, though.

I was worried we wouldn’t get enough people there.

I was worried about publicity. Currently I had only one reporter coming from a small newspaper. I needed more, as I needed the TV stations for free advertising.

I was worried about the runway and stage that Eric would build. I was worried about lighting, and finding an arc of something cool and catchy over the door to greet people as they walked in, something that would make a statement about our company. I was worried about the decor inside—what to hang from the ceiling, what to put on the walls. I had to get our company symbol, the strawberry, in there somehow, too. I had organizational worries and gargantuan program worries.

As Tory, Lacey, and I worked more and more on The Fashion Story, our time was crunched. I was working, often, until midnight. Tory and Lacey were, too. Grandma had stepped back in, at my request, and was doing some of my work running the company. My most pressing worry was our model issues. In fact, our models didn’t even know they would be modeling. There was a chance they would fully rebel against being models.

There were a hundred other details.

We were trying something highly risky.

We would either be laughed off the runway or be considered brilliant.

I knew it would work. I knew it.

It had to.

Hayden wore eyeliner, blush, and lipstick to school on Wednesday. He wore a jean skirt and a pink shirt and black knee-high boots. He did his nails. As he told me, “Might as well go in one hundred per cent girl. You know, like diving in a lake, instead of going in toe by toe. Plus, I’m doing this in the middle of the week, so there’s not many days before the weekend if I cause a riot or a demonstration or something.”

Lacey lay on the couch in her office all day, stressed to the gills about how the other kids would react. She kept patting the baby and saying, “HaydenwillbefineHaydenwillbefine.”

I had a hard time concentrating. I pictured Hayden, sensitive Hayden, being annihilated by teasing and harassment.

Tory said, “I’m worried about Hayden. He’s a Virgo, so he has strength and courage. Today’s horoscope for him says, ‘Be aware of new vacation plans and say yes when you want to say no. A lover is returning to your life.’ ”

“I don’t think he has a returning lover. Hopefully there’s a vacation. I don’t know what to think about the yes and the no,” I said.

“I feel sick,” Tory whispered. She lay down on my floor.

“Me too.” I lay down beside her.

“I was so worried about Hayden, I didn’t even drive by my house last night to spy on Scotty.”

“Now that’s something.” We held hands.

 

“We’re going skydiving tomorrow.”

“Let me think about that. No,” I said to Grandma. “An absolute no. Tomorrow’s Saturday, and I will be here, working as your slave.”

Tory said, “I am not jumping out of a plane. I sit first class. I drink champagne. I’m served by the flight attendants. I watch movies. There is no reason to leave a plane, and I won’t do it.”

Lacey smirked and patted her stomach. “Grandma, you are so smart. That’s a great idea. I’ll enjoy watching you three.”

We were in the conference room, and the four of us had had another conversation about The Fashion Story (scary, unpredictable result), our sales numbers (scary, unpredictable future result), our employees (not scary; I had fired the gossipy lady), and our catalog (boring in the past. We were making it quirkier, more colorful, and artistic for the next go-round. We would use photos and videos from The Fashion Story for both the catalogue and the website.).

“We are going skydiving. I’ve made the appointments already.” Grandma was wearing a light green dress and matching green heels, her hair up and twisted perfectly. Baubles: emeralds. She reached back and “patted the fairies,” squeezing the muscles in her back.

“I don’t think I want to leap from a plane, Grandma,” I said. “But gee, thanks so much for the invite.”

“Rebel granddaughters, difficult granddaughters, I didn’t ask if you
wanted
to jump. I told you that we’re jumping. Obviously there was some confusion.” She stood up, ignoring our other arguments about how falling through the air had no appeal, how it might mess up our hormones and estrogen and, in Tory’s case, her “horoscopic spirituality.” We told her we would be happy to push her out of a plane, but not us.

“Chickens,” Lacey squawked.

“Stop arguing. Stop being frightened old women. I’m finding you irritating and spineless.” Grandma took a second to stare at the photo of the strawberry field on the wall, then spun on her heel and tapped on out.
Tap, tap, tap
.

Tory clutched her stomach. “Does she want all my hair to fall out in fear? Does she want my vagina to freeze up forever? Can vaginas freeze up in fear? Doesn’t matter. Scotty doesn’t want it. I hate him. I called him the other night and left a message on his cell and told him he was like a tick. A bad, blood-sucking tick.”

“I’m not going to do it,” I said. “We’ll push her out and watch her go. I am landing with that plane. No jumping for me.”

“You have to do it,” Lacey said, flapping her arms. “Just flap your arms on the way down. Like chickens.”

 

The drive was long and frightening because I knew where we were headed. Lacey drove Grandma’s flashy red Porsche. Grandma insisted that we all wear silk scarves, which she brought us, and those bug-eye glasses, which we put on.

“Girls, we’re ready for speed,” she told us. “Before I die I want to go fast, super fast. Step on it, Lacey.”

Lacey does not “step on it.” In fact, Lacey drives slowly, like a ninety-year-old man who can’t see, so Grandma’s request was actually quite funny.

“I’m sure we’ll get there by next Tuesday,” Grandma shouted over the noise of her Porsche.

“If we go any slower, I’m going to get out and walk,” Tory said, clutching her scarf.

“Slow down, Lacey,” I said, adjusting my bug glasses. “If it’s dark by the time we get there, we won’t have to jump.”

Eventually we arrived at a skydiving place for otherwise sane people who believe, for one insane moment in their lives, that it’s a splendid idea to hip-hop out of a perfectly good plane. I saw people dropping down through the sky in parachutes, a few screaming, probably with unbridled fear. I put my hands over my ears and tried to shut them out.

Lacey cackled, “Have fun, ladies!” She grabbed a lawn chair, a magazine on business and economics, and sat under a tree. She looked disgustingly happy.

After a jumping lesson, and the signing of a zillion-page legal contract that basically said if we were hurt; lost an arm, leg, intestine, brain, or liver; or died, we wouldn’t sue, we were boarding a tiny plane and going up, up, up into the wild blue yonder. I was strapped in front of my skydiving instructor, Jim Jim, a tall man with a wide smile who used to be in the army. I said to myself, “Don’t vomit.”

Tory was a puce color. She was blowing air into her cupped hands and chanting, “Be a strong Pisces, be a strong Pisces.”

Grandma was laughing, those iridescent green eyes shining. “Should have done this years ago! Years ago! Look how handsome my partner is!” She pointed at the huge African American man she was strapped to named Edward. “I’m coming back for him again.” Edward laughed and high-fived our grandma.

The plane made a ton of noise, and I closed my eyes.

I knew I was going to die. I knew I was going to die. I knew I was going to die.

“You ready?” Jim Jim said. He had a lot of teeth. Someone had broken his nose.

“No, no. No, I’m not. I changed my mind.”

“Too late! We’re jumping.”

“Like hell I am.”

He laughed.

He had to pry my fingers off the seat. He had to push me forward through the perfectly good plane. When we got to the open doorway, I clung to the door.

My efforts did nothing. He was muscly and ex-army. He peeled my fingers away, one at a time.

Soon I was flying through the air at a zillion miles per hour.

We spun. We zoomed. We zipped. Someone trained a video camera on me as we fell. Later I saw that my mouth was open wide enough to catch vultures. I screamed. My cheeks flapped.

Long, frightening, and then unbelievably thrilling minutes later, I was lying on the ground, panting, watching Tory come down.

She had not stopped screaming, swearing, and chanting, “Be a strong Pisces!” She sounded like a banshee being poked by a spear. Her instructor was laughing.

Next was Grandma. Impossibly, she and Edward landed gracefully. She did not even crash to the ground.

“I did it!” Grandma shouted, arms high in the air, Edward’s arm around her waist. “I did it! Now I’m a skydiver!”

 

We went straight to a bar in Portland called Fish and Beer.

“Girls, we have to talk about that road trip,” Grandma said as we hopped up onto stools. “We’ll bring Lacey’s baby daughter with us. We’re going to have a ladies week. We four and your mother.”

“Where are we going?” Lacey asked. “And why do you keep saying it’s a girl?”

“It’s a secret, and I know it’s a girl because she’s causing you so much trouble,” Grandma said. “Your hormonal mood swings are swingier when you’re pregnant with girls.”

I didn’t doubt Grandma. She had predicted that Lacey would have a girl, then a girl, then a boy. As Hayden believed himself to be a girl she was, technically, correct.

“I don’t have mood swings,” Lacey said, then dabbed at her eyes. “I just feel emotional all the time. I’m up, then I’m down. I’m happy, then I feel sad, then I’m laughing and I feel like crying. But it’s not mood swings.”