Donorboy (21 page)

Rosalind90: FREAKING OUT, CAN'T DEAL. REGULAR DAYS R OK, BUT XMAS IS NOT OK AT ALL.

Redchordfan03: WANNA LEAVE, GO C UR MOM ON TV?

Rosalind90:?

Redchordfan03: GOOGLED HER SHOW, THEY HAVE 4 EPISODES AT SOME TV MUSEUM IN NYC.

Rosalind90: IVE NEVER SEEN IT. IT MIGHT MAKE ME SAD. BUT THEN I AM SAD ALREADY.

Redchordfan03: ILL BOOST MOMS CREDIT CARD, BRING MY ID SO WE CAN STAY IN A HOTEL.

Rosalind90: IT SOUNDS COMPLETELY INSANE BUT I DAMN SURE CANT STAY HERE.

Redchordfan03: THERES A BUS FROM CHINATOWN AT 6 A.M. IT COSTS 15 BUCKS. MEET ME THERE.

Rosalind90: UM …

Rosalind90: OK. MEET U AT THE CHINATOWN T STOP AT 5:45.

Redchordfan03: THIS WILL ROCK! BEST XMAS EVER!

Rosalind90: YEAH. C U IN 4 HOURS!

Dear Sean
,

Good morning. I am sorry, I mean I actually am sorry because I know that I am going to tell you not to worry and you are going to worry anyway, but really you shouldn't
.

Basically I can't deal with Christmas, so I am running away. From Christmas. Not from you. I appreciate everything you have done with school and the food and with everything, I mean, you are doing a good job really, it's just that you are not my moms, and Christmas without them feels wrong, and I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to sit in my room and cry, I don't want to sit there eating Tofurky and pretending that I am happy because I am really sad
.

This kind of freaks me out because I thought I was done being sad, but whatever. So, anyway, I am leaving town for two days. I do not have suicidal ideation and I am not going to hurt myself or any hockey players. That is a “Rosalind almost got expelled” Joke. I just can't be here, I just can't do Christmas
.

I will be back, and probably you will be mad and ground me, and Karen will yell at me and cry about how could I do this to her, but I'm really not doing this
to
anybody. I just have to do it
for
myself. I am with Kate and we have money and a place to stay and I will not end up like some girl in a Lifetime movie or something. I'm just kind of taking an unexpected vacation
.

Like I said, I am sorry, but I guess not sorry enough not to do it, but anyway, please don't worry because I am fine. Say hi to Niall for me and tell him I am sorry I missed him
.

Hee Haw and Merry Christmas
,

Rosalind

Dear Fluffy,

I am on the Lucky Wah bus and we are somewhere in Connecticut. Kate is asleep which I can't believe because she had that gigantic coffee from Dunkin Donuts, and also I am here clackity clack clacking on the keyboard because I brought you along Fluffy so that Sean would not read you and try to figure out where I am which you know he would do.

I am wicked smart except that I did actually forget to turn my phone off, so I had to just not answer when he called because I am afraid I'd feel guilty and go back or tell him where I am or something, so I turned it off and put it in my bag. So apparently we are going to New York to watch
Single Dads Club
, which is completely stupid but what the hell. Kate said she is sure that the museum is open on December 24th, which if it isn't I am going to beat her like a hockey player, no I will just maybe order room service or something. I don't know, Fluffy, this is a crazy thing to do, like a totally crazy thing, but whatever, maybe I am totally crazy. Anyway I felt totally crazy at two in the morning, and now I just feel kind of crazy and I want to just have fun and not worry about who is worrying, but I am finding that hard while Kate snoozes and everybody else talks in Chinese and occasionally looks over here like they have never seen a girl with red hair before which maybe they haven't.

Anyway I am tired too because I totally didn't sleep last night and so maybe I will try to nap before we get to NYC because what the hell else can I do.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Hee Haw and Merry Christmas

Ros,

Are you checking e-mail? Will you check my text messages? My voice mails? Will my wireless modem card work so I can send this? I am plagued with questions.

First and foremost, of course, is this: Where are you?

That is to say, I have deduced that you are in New York City, which, as near as I can determine, narrows my search area down to a few square miles and a few million people.

You didn't really think I was going to sit home and have Christmas with Dad and not worry about you, did you? Do you understand that this is just not how families operate?

Actually, I shouldn't say that, because this does appear to be how Kate's family operates, to some degree. By now I hope you have discovered that Kate's mom has canceled her credit cards. She definitely appeared to be more concerned with their disappearance than Kate's. We spoke only briefly (I got the number from the metal bassist himself, who said, “Geez, I hope they're okay. That was a dumb thing to do.”), but she told me twice of “the light Emma and Madison have brought to our lives,” which simultaneously annoyed the hell out of me and explained a great deal about Kate's willingness to bug out for Christmas.

Yours, though, remains a mystery to me. Am I like that in some way? I suppose I must be not giving you something you need. You said in your note that you couldn't do Christmas. Did it occur to you to mention this to me? Do you think I don't understand how hard Christmas is?

I'm sorry—I appear to be berating you. Perhaps I won't send this at all. Well, I suppose there isn't any harm in writing it, since even if I did decide to send it, the likelihood that I could get my phone and modem to work together at the same time is even smaller than the likelihood that you are eagerly checking e-mail wherever you are.

But I don't know what else to do. I miss you, I am worried about you, I am so angry at you I could scream. I suppose ultimately I feel betrayed—that I have tried in every way I know how to show love and care for you, and you just spit in my face with this kind of behavior.

Well, that is petulant. In that case, I am definitely not sending this. In which case, can I tell you that if anything has happened to you, I am going to throw myself under this train. I suppose this is next to impossible to understand at age fourteen, but I can't imagine that my life would be worth living if you came to harm while you were under my care. Somehow the fact that I have been this worried twice before and everything ended up coming out fine is not consoling me.

Well. Indulging my petulance isn't helping me. Where are you? How on earth can I find you? Dad promised to scour the lowlife hot spots (you've scotched his Christmas plans too, by the way), but even now I believe you have more sense than that. What is in New York that you want to see? Surely if you just wanted to hole up in a Red Roof Inn, you could have done that somewhere that was within reach of the commuter rail, and your Lucky Wah adventure would not have been necessary. (If I may digress, I am very proud of the way we figured that out—got the ATM address where Kate used the purloined card—and yes, I did feel a twinge of affection for your friend because her pain-in-the-ass mother had no idea how Kate might have gotten the PIN) and, with the help of Karen's incredibly rusty Cantonese from her ESL days in Hong Kong (interesting story, actually—do you know it?), we found that you went to New York.

I will digress, since you're never going to read this anyway, and say that a positive side effect of this, assuming we find you alive and unharmed, is that Karen and I have had some time on the train to talk, reconcile, whatever. Anyway, I am feeling a great deal less antagonism toward her than I used to. She is also worried to death about you, though you probably know that and selfishly choose to disregard that. Ah, there's my anger peeking through again.

Karen, by the way, postulates that this little adventure may be some sort of you getting in touch with your sexuality romantic getaway. Did I do anything to make you believe that it would be necessary to run away for that?

Well, I suppose that's immaterial, as I don't believe that explanation, because I do actually believe that you told me the truth in your note. Which I believe because I believe that we have built trust between us. Which is why I can't understand why you did this. Well, I appear to be going around in circles. And you are going … where? Forty minutes to Penn Station. Hopefully I'll figure it out.

Love,

Sean Cassidy

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: It's an interesting life

Dave,

Guess where I am?

You, as I write this, are out there having fun in the warm California sun, while I am in New York. Why, you might ask, am I not enjoying, or at least tolerating, the neo-family Christmas I had planned?

Well, this is because Rosalind ran away to New York. I got up on Christmas Eve day and found this note from Rosalind saying that she was safe, she was fine, and I was not to interpret this as a rejection of me, but she was running away from Christmas for a few days. She assured me that she would not end up like a girl “in a Lifetime movie,” but naturally that is what I feared.

Some detective work ensued, but, to make a long story short, I found that she and her friend Kate had gone to New York, and so I ended up taking the Acela to New York with Karen and meeting my dad at Penn Station so that the three of us could scour the city.

Dad felt the most comfortable and had the most contacts in the kinds of places where scared runaways end up getting evil pimps to buy them drinks, so he volunteered to scour those sections. I didn't really think he'd have any luck, because I was sure, in spite of the evidence, that Ros had more sense than that.

Karen was convinced that Ros and her friend Kate had run away for some kind of proto-lesbian romantic getaway, so she volunteered for the gay bookstores, bars, etc. I didn't really think that was what was going on either, so that left me to search … where?

Unlike Dad and Karen, I had no clues in my own biography as to where they might be. I did know, though, that Kate is an artist, so I decided to hit some museums. I went to the Met, where I paid a fortune, walked around not even noticing the stuff on the wall, had an interesting conversation with the head of security, and did not find them. The place was so huge, though, that I could have missed them.

Back down to MOMA, which also cost a fortune, and which also proved fruitless, though the head of security was very accommodating and allowed me to peer at all the monitors, thus saving me the trouble of tromping around and seeing masterpieces I would be unable to appreciate. I stood there for about twenty minutes, trying to follow the action on a bank of dozens of monitors. My eyes hurt, and I still hadn't found them.

By this point, I was getting discouraged and—well, I will leave it to you to imagine my anxiety level. You have certainly seen me at that level before, but the anxiety spiked with dread is a particularly heinous variation.

I began walking aimlessly around, and I spoke to Sandy and Eva—you know, something along the lines of, “Goddammit, if there is any way for you to do anything here, I really need some fucking help!”

I got nothing in response. But then I turned the corner, and I saw the Museum of Television and Radio, which I had never heard of and knew nothing about. And, now, you will mock me, and you probably should, but I knew immediately that that is where they were. I do not know whether Sandy and Eva's ghosts responded to my profane incantations or whether it was just the fact that I had just tried to contact them … well, to backtrack, Rosalind and I had bonded earlier over our inability to feel the presence of dead loved ones at their grave sites, and I thought, if there is any
Single Dads Club
memorabilia or anything in this place, that might be a way to at least get some kind of contact with Eva, if not Sandy, and I suppose one is better than zero.

I went in looking for the exhibit halls, only to find that there aren't any. A frustrating conversation with an intern led to a more productive conversation with the head of security (and may I say God bless these fine men and women who I have perhaps in the past derided as rent-a-cops, as they were uniformly sympathetic, patient, and helpful at all three museums) and a trip to the library, where you can order up old episodes of thousands of shows to watch in a little carrel in a very dim room.

And there, huddled in a carrel, watching
Single Dads Club
, faces lit blue from the TV, were Ros and Kate. Ros was crying, her shoulders heaving up and down, and Kate was rubbing her back. In view of your “birth of Max” sappiness, I will try to restrain what I commit to zeroes and ones here, but all my anger simply evaporated from my body as I saw this poor kid weeping at the sight of this incredibly terrible sitcom.

Of course I started to cry too, from relief, from love, from empathy, whatever. So I approach the sobbing teen with tears running down my own cheek, and I just sat down next to them and asked if I could watch too.

Kate was nice enough to volunteer her headphones, and Ros—I am getting all choked up as I write this, so I will do it quickly—leaned over and said, “I'm sorry Sean, I'm really sorry, I suck, I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” I said, and I put my arm around her shoulder, and she did not shrug away, tell me to get the fuck off, or anything.

And we watched the end of the episode. Which, as luck would have it, was the final episode, the one I had never seen, where Tracey decides to go to college instead of going off to Europe with her shady boyfriend.

It made me so sad to see Eva there, twenty-two or whatever she was, and everything just overwhelmed me: sadness for Eva and for Sandy, sadness for Ros, sadness for little me watching that show in the dark and missing my mom. I guess we made quite a picture there, both of our shoulders bobbing up and down as tears ran down our cheeks, which I suppose is especially ironic given that this was one of those “very special episodes” that I assume the writers hope will inspire that kind of emotion but that always end up just being stupid.