Emily Franklin - Principles Of Love 06 - Labor Of Love (8 page)

"She's your full sister."

A moment passes. My words--usually so steadily streaming--are dried up.The only ones I can push out are, "Holy shit."

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Dad doesn't shake his head at my profanity. He doesn't scold me or tell me to watch it or that in a month I'll be under language guidance rules of Hadley Hall (aka no rhym ing or misspelling Fruckner House, my dorm-to-be)."Those were actually the words I used when Gala told me."

"You just found out?" I grab his arm. He nods.The ex citement creeps into the room and we begin fast-talking, overlapping.

"The math was too weird," I say. "I kept thinking about it on the plane and . . ."

"I'm not a man who pays all that much attention to menstrual flows . . . but when I found out about . . ."

"So you never knew. All this time. It's like a crappy Dis ney movie."

"Exactly." Dad paces while we talk. "What's the apt title--the daughter you never knew."

"No--something bigger--something punny, so the au dience knows it all works out in the end." I exhale audibly. "So, can you backtrack?"

"I'm on the phone with her and she tells me she's leav ing, etcetera. That there's this note for you. And there was something she needed to tell me."

"Did you know what it was?"

"I assumed it was about her getting a divorce."

"She is?"

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Dad nods."Yeah. I guess she and Sadie's dad . . ." He pauses. "Her father--well, you know what I mean, moved out.The house needs to sell for the divorce to go through. . . ."

"And Sadie?" I quickly do the math. "She must have gotten pregnant when she came back." Dad nods, slowly this time, maybe thinking back to that night. Or that day. Whenever it was he and Gala were together long enough to conceive another baby.

"It doesn't take long," Dad says and gives me that pointed look so I know I'm supposed to infer more than just the fact that he got Gala pregnant during only a short interlude after her initial leaving, but that I need to be careful, too.

"Oh my god, Dad, please don't mush this together with a safe-sex talk." The ground suddenly has huge appeal. I stare at the wide floorboards. "I'm not even--I'm not hav ing sex or anything. Okay?"

Dad clears his throat. "I'll admit this is a sidebar, but I know you used to tell Mable everything. Or not everything, but a lot. And I just--if you ever need to . . . or you want a . . ."

"Thanks." I cut him off to save him the words, or maybe to save us both from taking that giant leap forward into a world where I'm adult and grown and out of the house or at least not virginal any longer.Where I love a guy so much

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I sleep with him. Dad knows me well enough to understand I will take that step when I'm ready, and when I do it, it will mean Dad's not the only man in my life. It's one thing to deal with the awkwardness of your kids having their own sex lives (or your parents, for that matter), but it's another thing entirely to push past the love they set out for you, and into a world of your own.

"So she came back, you did . . . whatever it is you did together. . . ." I wave my hands in front of my face. "I don't need to know those details. But then--she never . . ."

Dad's voice gets quiet, soft, the hurt just scratching at the surface."She never told me. She says now that she didn't know what she'd end up doing--keeping it or not or . . . I don't know. But she stayed in LA."

"Remarried.And raised the kid as hers."

"With her husband, you mean. Sadie's dad."

Dad sticks his hands in his pockets. "Gregory. Gregory Eisenstein."

Again my mouth opens in wonder. "Wait. Gregory Eisenstein as in Martin Eisenstein?"

"Who? What?" Dad throws his hands up in confusion and then lets them retreat again to his pockets.

"Martin Eisenstein, Dad. The producer? You know, If This Is Life, Between Hours, Everyday Linen.That one set in India . . ." My dad is totally lame at remembering movies

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or actors. I have to describe entire plots and settings to him to gain a glimmer of recognition that he's seen the movie.

"Was that the one with the castle?"

"No--that was If This Is Life. Whatever. The point is-- if . . ." All the fragments of the past year come back to me: meeting Clementine Highstreet in London, how she knew Martin Eisenstein, and how Arabella's parents did, too. "I'm trying to sort this out. I think . . . Clementine knew Gala, didn't she?"

"She could have.Your mother spent time in London. Be fore me, with me, after me. She hung out with musicians, mainly."

"I'm sure of it, then. She knew Clementine--and Clem entine always said I looked familiar." My hand flies to my face. I must look like her. I look like Sadie, or we resemble one another and we must look like our mother. "I'm not ignoring the fact that you found out you have another kid, Dad, I'm just puzzling through. . . ."

"I know."

"That makes so much more sense. All along I was like, why is this guy being so nice--and no, not in a casting couch sort of way. But, like, there's no reason for an indie film guy to want me to do voice-overs for him unless . . ."

Dad starts to do pre-athletic stretches. He always does

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them when he's thinking things through--before a faculty meeting or when he's writing the opening day remarks. He lunges forward."Unless . . . it were a favor for Gala?"

"Right. For his . . . sister-in-law." I mentally transport back to Sadie's house."Sadie didn't think that going to Mar tin's party out there was that big a deal. I thought it was because she was a JAB. . . ."

"JAB?"

"Jaded and bitter. Except she's not at all. Maybe she's a little jaded, but she's not bitter. Not what I met, anyway. She's all surfer and mellow and . . ." I look at Dad, realizing I'm describing not only my sibling but his child. "It's crazy, isn't it?"

"To be on this small island, in this tiny cottage, with such huge concepts." Dad pulls one arm over his head with the other, stretching and resembling a malformed gingerbread man."Are you okay?" Dad looks at me.

Despite the vastness of this idea, that I have a full sister, that my dad isn't just my dad, that the mother I wanted to meet disappeared again, I answer, "Yeah. You know what? If she had Martin find me--or if Clementine knew who I was? It means that she . . . that Gala wanted to find me months ago. Not just that I went looking for someone who didn't want to be found."

"That she had interest first, you mean?"

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I nod."Yeah. It means something, you know?"

"In a roundabout way, yes. She could have found you directly. . . ."

I stare out the window. If I squint, if I try hard, I can just make out the water. I imagine things floating there--big thing like boats, yachts, and smaller items--crabs and algae, seaweed rocking in the current by the docks. How all of those things are buoyed by water, which really has no color at all."She couldn't." I bite my lip."I don't think she could-- it was too hard.After you do something like that . . ." I think more, imagining writing the story, the night when she left. I settle on her wearing a nightshirt. Flannel. Plaid. How much she must have struggled. "She did irreparable damage. So looking for me . . . wouldn't really have been fair, from her perspective. Like, why now?"

"But indirectly . . ."

I nod."She checked up on me.The Hadley Web site has all the info she needed. Hell, all she had to do was google you. She finds out you're at Hadley.Then she waits. I wind up in London--a fact conveniently listed on the `Who/ Where' section of Hadley news online."

"You've tried this?" Dad looks amused.

"Dad--everyone's googled themselves. Haven't you?"

"It's never occurred to me." He smiles. "Now I feel silly."

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"You're not silly. Just a luddite."

"You did well on your verbal. . . ."

"Okay--we covered sex--let's not venture into SAT land." I stick out my tongue and give one dog pant. "I'm zonked. But so . . . she found me. She calls in a favor from her brother-in-law, and when it doesn't work . . ." I do an aside to remind my dad. "Remember, I didn't get to the movie? Anyway, then she has Martin email me an invite to his elite Fourth of July festivities. . . ."

"You think she was planning on meeting you there?"

"Why would she have come here, then?"

Dad shrugs."Maybe she thought you weren't coming."

"I wasn't. Or, I wasn't supposed to. I was here. . . ." As I say this, I smile."I'm right, aren't I?"

"It seems that way," Dad agrees."She came here for you. She looked for you for a long time. Maybe years. Or fol lowed your path until it was okay in her mind."

"I guess after failing to have other people lead me to her--Clementine and Martin--she did it herself."

I feel good about all this until I look around and re member she's not here. That I was semi�stood up. Dad knows me too well to let my expression of disappoint ment slide by unnoticed."She didn't forget you. She didn't intend on leaving. And I'm guessing she didn't want to pressure you into seeing her so much that you'd be scared

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off. So she stayed in the cottage, hoping you'd make your way here."

"And I did."

"And you will again. You have the keys. That means something. She does own it."

"And she'll be back. Labor Day, right?"

"Right." Dad stops stretching and coughs."With Sadie."

He and I stare at one another for a few seconds. Then we both start to crack up. "You couldn't predict this, huh?" he asks.

"No way." I redo my ponytail and feel my stomach start to digest the fried food from lunch now that my nerves have stopped sucking up all my bodily attention. "And now?"

Dad holds the front door open."Now I get Louisa from the Hob Knob Inn and catch the ferry back. Our reserva tion's at six." He sighs and then hugs me."I'll come back for Labor Day."

"Not for Illumination Night?" I do calendar math.Three weeks and Oak Bluffs will be filled with lantern lights and music.

"I don't think so, Love. With my sudden trip here . . . even with nixing the vacation to Sardinia, I have too much work to do before the year starts." He gets his work face on, all serious mouth and pensive expression.

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"I'll drive you guys to the ferry, if you want." I follow him down the stairs. From there I figure it's a quick drive to Chili's house. I can unload with her, and then maybe go for a run with Chris. Or maybe Chris and Haverford, so I can make allusions to Chris's crush and have him blush, and Chris can shoot me looks of warning.

"That'd be great." Dad stares at me as though offering to give him and Louisa a lift is the most mature thing I've ever done."You're handling all this really well."

"I hope so." Once we're down the stairs, I stare back at the cottage. It feels tiny now. As though it's just a box of ideas waiting to swirl up the chimney and out into the ocean air.

"I have another kid." Dad shakes his head, amazed.

"It's really incredible . . . all this.You know what Disney would call it?" Dad waits. I pat my pocket where the note from my mother lies waiting."Family Ties."

"That was already a TV show."

I nod, acquiescing."I know. But really."

"How about Long Distance Carriers? As in cell phone plans."

"How about . . . no." I laugh and Dad does, too. He puts his arm around my shoulder as we walk toward the inn and my car."How about a title that seems totally irrelevant until the last scene when you suddenly go, oh, apples! That's why

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they called it Orchard. Then you think back and remember all that carefully placed fruit in every scene."

Dad squeezes my shoulder."I have no doubt you'll come up with the perfect title one day."

I let myself lean into him and then walk forward, know ing he's right.

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8 hili and Haverford's house is a vibrant mix of colors, typical of the cottage community of Oak Bluffs. Ornate woodwork, carved railings, spires, and oddly shaped win dows trimmed in bright pinks, blues, and greens make the whole area feel otherworldy.

I park my car at an angle, hopefully legally, and walk a few streets over to their place, trying to keep the issues, problems, and information of the past weeks and hours a part of me, not the whole me.

Sitting on the narrow porch, rocking like a trio of grandparents, Chili, Haverford, and Chris nod when I approach.

"Say, isn't that the Bukowski girl?" Chili says, affecting an old woman's voice and squinting at me like she needs bifocals.

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"You might just be right, dear," Haverford says."My, she's grown."

"Yes, she's filling out her shirt quite nicely," Chris adds and cracks himself up. I laugh, too. "Too bad the sight of tight T-shirts does nothing for me."

"Unless the T-shirt's on me," Haverford says, overtly flirting with Chris. Chris takes it well--as well as you can when the person you like is otherwise involved but still your friend.

"That's right, folks--I'm a sucker for washed-out gray T- shirts with faux logos on them." He fake-glares at Haverford.

"Listen, before these guys start a gay rumble here, can we formulate a plan for this weekend that doesn't suck?"

I look at Chris, who looks at Haverford, who looks at Chili, who then sighs and looks back at me. Leaning back on the railing while the three of them rock in the late- afternoon heat, I try to think of something fun. "This is so pathetic," I say. "We have, what, weeks left--not months, weeks left--before school starts and we'll be clawing at the doors, wishing we were right here on this porch."

"So let's appreciate it," Chili says.

"Good idea." Chris rocks harder in his chair.

A few minutes pass."Well, that was effective." Haverford's sarcasm coats us all.

"What's wrong with us?" Chili moans. "Aren't we sup posed to be young and crazy and full of spontaneity?"

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I shake my head. "Y'all . . . ," I say, even though I am in no way southern. "My life is so full of change and excite ment right now, I'm not sure I need anything else."