Zigzag (5 page)

“Well, that looks lovely,” she said. “I'll guess I'll wear a long skirt.”

Thank God she didn't have a big wardrobe because the woman tried on every last thing in her closet.

“I don't
have
any nice clothes!” she said.

That was pretty much true. She wore uniforms to work and jeans around the farm. The few times she went anywhere that required a dress she wore an old green one she'd had for several decades.

“Where's he taking you?”

“Some restaurant in Iowa City. I think it's fancy.” She was tossing clothing onto the floor. “Most of this should go straight to the Salvation Army. Why did I say I'd go out with this man? I'm too old and weird to be dating.”

“What about the skirt you bought for Allen's funeral?” I suggested.

“It's black! You don't wear black when it's this hot.” If she kept fuming around she'd have to take another shower and re-powder herself.

“People wear black all the time,” I said. “It's hip.”

She stared at me. “Is it? Anyway, I'm too old to be hip.”

“Mom, put on the black skirt.”

Between the two of us we managed to make her look presentable: the skirt, my cream-colored silk blouse, the turquoise earrings Chris gave me for my birthday last year, a silver necklace she'd had since college, my black sandals, a size too big for her but better than her eight-year-old Birkenstocks.

She was still cursing her hair when the doorbell rang. Seven on the dot—the guy was punctual. Mom's eyes grew huge and dark. “I'm going to throw up,” she said.

It was amazing to watch my calm, reasonable mother turn into a puddle of goo over one little date.

“Mom, you've been talking to the guy all week. All you're doing is eating in a restaurant with him, not running off to Mexico.”

I went downstairs to let him in. With the Hemingway image in mind, I was expecting a large man with a bushy beard, but
Michael Evans was even larger and bushier than I'd been led to believe. He was a Hemingway and a half.

“You must be Robin,” he said, extending a humungous hand. I hesitated, then put mine out to be engulfed and possibly smothered, but his handshake was very gentle. “I'm Michael Evans. Is your mother ready?”

“Come on in. She's almost ready,” I said. “Would you like to sit down?”

Michael Evans ducked his head to get through the doorway. Then he and I looked over at our ancient sofa and armchairs, left over from the days Grandma and Grandad lived here, and I think we both had the same thought: Mr. Evans could do a lot of damage to those old springs. It wasn't that he was fat exactly—that is, the fat wasn't all collected in his belly like it usually is with large men. He was just big all over. Even his beard, black with a few gray stripes, was longer and fuller than any I'd ever seen, except maybe in old pictures of Woodstock or something.

“I'll just wait here,” he said, then smiled at me. “Too nervous to sit down, anyway.”

I glanced up the stairs to see if my equally apprehensive mother was on her way. No sign. What do you say to a guy who's picking up your mother for a date?
Have her home by midnight.
I didn't think so.

“So, do you live in Iowa City?” I asked him.

“Yes, I do now,” he said. “I was offered a job in the English department at the university last year and since my sister lives here I decided to take it.”

“Oh, right. Your sister was in a car accident. I hope she's okay.”

“She will be. Her leg was badly broken and she'll need quite a bit of therapy. Your mother has been wonderful with her, though.” His eyes got shiny.

I looked back up the stairs. “Uh-huh. She's a good nurse.”
Hurry up!
Finally I saw her approaching, slowly, inching her way toward the stairs. “Here she comes!” I said, thinking she might disappear again if she wasn't announced.

It was the oddest feeling watching my mother come down those stairs, like she was the child and I was the parent. She looked prettier than I'd ever seen her look, and scared, too. Michael Evans thought she looked good, too—you could tell. They didn't say much to each other in front of me, just got very smiley. Mom gave me a big hug good-bye as if she thought it might be the last time she'd ever see me, and then they were gone.

When it was nine thirty in Iowa,
it was seven thirty in Phoenix, Arizona. I wasn't sure what my dad's work schedule was—he managed a small electronics store in a mall—but seven thirty seemed like a time a father should be at home. Not that I would know. He'd be surprised to hear from me; the last time we had talked was six weeks ago. Birthdays and Christmas he calls me—the obligatory days—but I almost never call him.

“Hello?” a female voice sang.

This was
why
I never called. It was awkward to talk to Dad's wife, Allison, who I hardly even knew. She seemed nice enough, but you could tell she was sort of thrown by the whole seventeen-year-old stepdaughter idea.

“Hi, Allison. It's Robin.” I knew to wait a moment while she remembered who Robin was.

“Oh,
Robin
! What a surprise! How are you?”

“I'm fine. I was just wondering if my dad was around.”

“He sure is. Let me go find him for you. One minute.” The phone clunked down on a counter and I could hear her hollering,
“Jerry! Get the phone! It's your
daughter
!” She made it sound like there was some emergency.

I wondered what their house looked like, whether it was one of those low-slung places you saw in magazines with rocks and cactus out front instead of grass. All I really knew about Arizona was what everybody knew: very hot, lots of golf.

“Robin! This is a nice surprise! Is everything okay back there?” Obviously phoning my father was such an unusual event that both these people assumed some tragedy must have befallen me.

“Everything's fine, Dad. I just called because . . . well, I'm thinking of taking a road trip with Aunt Dory and her kids this summer. And if I do, we'd probably go through Arizona on the way to California. So I was wondering . . . I mean, I don't know if you'll be on vacation or anything, but, you know, if I
do
go with her, we'd be so close. . . .”

Finally he rescued me. “Do you want to stop and see us? Wow, that would be . . .
great
!” There was a silence while we both considered just how great it would be, then he said, “You know, our place is kind of small to handle that whole crew, but . . .”

“We can stay in a motel or something. Dory has money,” I said, which I realized made it sound like Dad
didn't
have money.

“You could stay here if you wanted to, if you don't mind the fold-out couch.”

“Whatever. I just wanted to see you and your . . . my . . . David.”

“Well, I know he'd like to meet you, too. He's right here—I was reading to him when you called. Maybe he'll talk. . . . David! Can you say hi to your big sister? Come on, Davy, say, ‘Hi Robin!'”

Davy was silent as a stone. “He doesn't like telephones much,” Dad explained.

“That's okay. I don't either.”

“Well, you must be related then,” he said, forcing a laugh.

“So, it's okay with you if I come? If it's okay with Dory?”

“Sure, sure. We're not going anywhere with a two-year-old except maybe the zoo. When do you think you'd come?”

“It's really up to Dory—she wants to sort of wander across the country. Maybe late July or early August. I'd have to call you, say, a week ahead of time. Is that okay?”

“Of course it is, Robin. We'll look forward to seeing you.”

When I hung up the phone I was shaky and out of breath. Why did it take so much energy to have a simple conversation? He was my dad, and yet he wasn't. Other kids, even when their parents are divorced, hang out with their fathers more than I ever did with mine. Even when he still lived in Iowa it was mostly birthdays and Christmas. He'd bring me a couple of presents that were too young for my current age, and then we'd go out to a kid-friendly restaurant for lunch where we'd concentrate on our French fries as though they'd been prepared by Emeril. The older I got, the harder those lunches were. By then I knew he wasn't really interested in the fact that my soccer team was second in the region, or that I was a blueberry in the school play. Not that he didn't pretend twice a year to be a real dad. He did. It's just that you can't
be
a real dad twice a year.

Mom always said not to blame him. He'd been young and scared when I was born. He hadn't known what to do with a child, so she'd “released him from his obligation.” That's how she put it. Sometimes he gave us money, but Mom never asked for it—it was a point of pride with her that she raised me by herself.

Usually I don't mind at all. Mom and I have always been a pretty good team. Then twice a year I remember I'm missing something. I mean, he was
reading
to David when I called. That's what a real father does.

The thing is,
I
didn't release him from his obligation.

T
he next week was a disaster. Even though I told myself not to screw up our last bit of time together, I was still angry with Chris. He'd started carrying an Italian phrase book around with him, and when he thought I wasn't listening, he'd greet people by saying, “
Buon giorno
!” and “
Ciao
!”

Tuesday we were at the lake. I went for a long swim and when I came back he was sitting on our blanket talking to himself. “
Mi chiamo
Chris.
E tu? Come sta? Bene. Che ore sono
?”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

He jumped. “Jeez, sneak up on a person, why don't you?”

“I wasn't sneaking—I was walking on sand. What were you saying?”

He sighed. “I said, ‘My name is Chris. And you? How are you? Good. Do you know the time?'”

“What if the person says, ‘None of your business—I feel crappy—who cares what time it is?'”

Chris stuck the phrase book back in his pack. “I don't think Italians are that nasty.”

He had a point. Who could blame him for wanting to run away from a grouch like me? But it seemed as if the Chris I loved and couldn't bear to part with was a different person from the one
who was memorizing foreign phrases for his exotic summer vacation.
That
Chris was aggravating the hell out of me.

Everywhere we went people kept asking him questions about his trip. He was so excited, I couldn't stand listening to him. Over the top of everything he said, I kept hearing a background voice singing, “And I'll be going without
her
!”

When I called to tell Franny the news, she was less than compassionate.

“I knew something like this would happen,” she said. “Chris is one of the lucky ones: lots of money, no divorce, all the breaks. What's the chance he's gonna end up with somebody like you?”

“God, Franny, say what you think!”

“I don't mean because he's better or anything. I just mean, that's how it works. Face facts: Love is doomed if you're too different from each other.”

“I thought you didn't know what love was,” I said.

“I've observed some so-called love,” she said. “You should be glad he's leaving now so you can start getting over him as soon as possible.”

“Maybe I'll never get over him.”

“That's just what I mean. You're
way
too attached to him. Roll with the punches a little, Robin. Chris is not actually necessary to your long-term survival.”

I was pretty sure he
was,
but I didn't argue. After all, Franny knew more about long-term survival than I did.

Since I'd decided not to accompany Chris and his parents to the airport in Cedar Rapids the next day—I did not intend to descend into hell with the Melvilles
watching
—we were having dinner at our favorite place, the Fish Shack down by the lake. I kept thinking about how it was the last time I'd see him until August 20, and the catfish bones kept getting caught in my throat. Neither of us was able to look the other in the eye or come up with anything more to say than, “Good fish.”

Then, when I did look up, who should be headed for our table but my mother and her giant boyfriend.

“I didn't know you two were coming here,” she said. Then she got a good look at our faces and probably wished
she
hadn't come.

“Your mother says the catfish from Thunder Lake is the best I'll ever eat,” Michael Evans said, beaming at her as if picking a restaurant showcased her brilliance.

“Hi, Mom. Um, Michael, this is Chris,” I said, keeping the presentations brief. Chris stood up immediately and shook hands with Michael.