Family Storms (29 page)

M
rs. Duval will be happy,” Kiera said as we drove through the opened gate just before eleven-fifteen.

“How will she know what time we arrived?” I asked.

“You'll see.”

Sure enough, when we parked and went into the house, Mrs. Duval was there to greet us. Kiera glanced at me and smiled.

“As you can see, Mrs. Duval, you didn't have to worry. Both of us are still in one piece,” Kiera said.

Mrs. Duval said nothing. She watched us go up the stairs, Kiera giggling.

“Did you have a good time today?” she asked when we reached her suite.

“Yes, thank you.”

“No, thank
you,
Sasha,” she said, and then she surprised me even more by hugging me. “Sweet dreams,” she said, and went into her bedroom.

I hurried to mine. It was still difficult to think of it as
mine. There was so much of Alena in it, not haunting it as much as continuing to possess it. I slept in what had been her bed with her choice of headboard. Most of the clothes I wore every day had been her clothes. Her pictures were still on the dressers, tables, and walls. I wished it was different, wished that her things were gone and it was really my bedroom suite, but I felt guilty wishing that. I now knew as well as anyone that those you loved died gradually after their funerals. The blood of their immortality consists of the memories you have of them. As they are gradually forgotten or thought of less and less, they drift farther away, closing the lid on that darkness. Mrs. March, as would any mother, refused to close the lid.

Perhaps by embracing me, if that was really what she was doing, Kiera was avoiding the pain of losing her sister. Would I be doing the same thing in relation to Mama if I accepted Mrs. March even as a surrogate mother? Could you really slip people in and out of your family the way you slipped your feet in and out of different shoes? It seemed so mean and horrible to me right now, but I knew that people did it all the time. Husbands and wives remarried and slipped new spouses into the spaces beside them on their beds, into the chairs across from them at their dinner tables, and into their arms when they danced.

Maybe loneliness was worse than grief after all. The guilty feeling that followed and grew as you began to accept someone else and bury your loved one deeper could be overcome. In the beginning, you did that by using anger. How dare the one you loved so much die? How dare he or she not fight off death, defy fate or destiny, or drive away some
mysterious plan God supposedly had? There should have been some greater resistance so as not to leave you alone.

After that, you thought, if the person you loved was just as loving of you, he or she wouldn't want you to be lonely. When you found someone else, it was almost as if you were building a new relationship for your loved one who had passed away as much as for yourself. Why add grief to the soul already struggling in the afterlife?

Mama would want me to have someone fill the role of a mother—and a father, too. Mama would want me to have an older sister looking after me. Mama would want me to be happy and safe and healthy. After all, she drank whiskey and gin not only to escape who she had become but also to escape feeling guilty about not providing for me. I was like a can tied to the tail of a dog or a cat. No matter how fast she ran or what turn and twist she made, I was there, clanking behind her, reminding her of just how deep down she had fallen. Maybe that was why she refused my help carrying her suitcase and why she ran so blindly in the rain that night. Maybe she was only trying to escape.

Okay,
I thought as I sat on the bed while I was still dressed in the clothing Kiera had chosen for me and still wore the makeup.
I'll put on Alena's clothes. I'll accept Mrs. March's affection. More important, I'll accept Kiera and let her be my big sister, at least for now, at least until I can stand as alone as anyone can stand. I'll try not to forget Mama, but I won't use her as a reason to reject any of this anymore.

It was fun being with Kiera and her friends. It was exciting. I liked being a regular teenager, flirting, laughing, saying outrageous things. I wanted to have their dreams and
possess that same invulnerability that made them reckless, carefree, and rebellious. Up to now, since Mama's death, I had been in some sort of cloudy, vague place. Because of the fiction that had been created about me, I no longer had my name. At least, with Mama, even on the street, I knew who I was. Whatever space we found in the parks, on the beach, even in that deserted automobile, became ours, whether it was for a short time or not. There was nothing I could call mine in my new place. It was funny to think about it, but I was living in one of the biggest homes in Southern California, and I was still homeless.

So, don't blame yourself for accepting Kiera's friendship,
I told myself.
Don't go to sleep feeling guilty. If you need to justify it, justify it the way Jackie Knee, your nurse, proposed. Be selfish now. Take whatever you can get, even their affection. Embrace it. Turn something into yours.

I gazed at myself one more time before taking off the clothes and washing off the makeup. As recently as just days ago, I would never have imagined myself looking and feeling like this. A new kind of energy had entered my body. I could see it in my eyes and could feel it everywhere, tingling right down to the small of my stomach. I loved the new feeling.

I looked back at the bed as if I expected to see my old self lying there, looking as lethargic and lost as ever but angry at me for leaving her behind.

Go away,
I wanted to tell her.
Go your mousy way into the shadows, and drown yourself in self-pity. Dwell on your limp. Practice your “Yes, sir” and “No, sir,” and remain a beggar hoping for some handout of love. Do that while I seize the tail of the wind.

My old self disappeared like smoke. With a new bounce in my steps despite my limp, I prepared for bed, and when I went to sleep, I didn't think about Alena and my sleeping in her nightgown and in her bed with her favorites, the giraffes, above me. I thought about myself and about the way those UCLA college boys had been looking at me.

For the first time in a very long time, I couldn't wait for morning.

I was already dressed when Kiera came around. She was still in her robe and slippers. “Why did you get up so early?” she complained. “It's Sunday.”

“I couldn't sleep anymore,” I said. “I felt so awake and anxious to start the day.” She saw and heard the change in me and smiled. “I'm hungry, too.”

“Me, too. I know. We could have breakfast brought up to us. Let's have it in my suite. It's like room service in the best hotel, after all,” she said, going to the phone.

I was sure that when she picked up the receiver, Mrs. Duval thought I was calling.

“This is Kiera,” she said. Although Mrs. Duval would certainly recognize her voice, Kiera obviously liked to announce herself as if she were a princess. “Sasha and I will be taking breakfast in my suite this morning, Mrs. Duval. I'll have my usual Sunday breakfast, and Sasha will have … ” She listened and then shook her head. “I don't know if she wants that.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Do you want your usual cheese and egg omelet?” She grimaced and shook her head. “Or what I have?”

“I'll have what you have,” I said. I knew that on Sundays, she had a cup of fruit sorbet with a dab of whipped cream,
coffee, and glazed doughnuts. Mrs. March always complained about the way Kiera ate.

“She'll have exactly the same as me, Mrs. Duval. Thank you very much.” After she hung up the phone, she laughed. “She didn't sound pleased, but they're here to please us, and not vice versa. I'm going to go take a quick shower. Oh,” she added at the door, “I sorta agreed we'd go to Disneyland today. Ricky's getting his father's SUV. It will hold us all. They'll be here in about an hour.”

“Disneyland?”

“Yes. Have you ever been there?”

“No, but … When will we return?”

“I don't know. What's the difference?”

“Homework left to do,” I said.

“We'll get to it when we can. If we can,” she added with a smile. She paused and tilted her head a little as she looked at me. “What are you wearing? I think Alena wore that to someone's baptism. Don't worry. When you come into my suite, I'll have something better for you.”

“Okay,” I said, and she left.

I looked at the clothes I had put on. Mrs. March sort of suggested things for me to wear by organizing the front of the walk-in closet so I could go from outfit to outfit. I hadn't thought much of it, but I certainly didn't want to go to Disneyland dressed the way I would dress if I were going to a baptism.

I had always wanted to go to Disneyland, but for Mama and me, it was too expensive after Daddy deserted us, and when he was still there, he never wanted to take me or spend the money. I imagined it would be more fun
going with Kiera and her friends, anyway. I knew it was at least an hour away. It would certainly take up the whole day.

I gazed at the clarinet. Besides the homework I still had, I was also supposed to spend a good hour on the new music Mr. Denacio had given me to practice on the weekend. He was so good at detecting when you didn't practice. Somehow, I thought, I'd get it all done.

Before I went to Kiera's suite to have breakfast, my phone rang. It was Mrs. March, and from the tone of her voice, I suspected that Mrs. Duval had called her as soon as she had hung up from Kiera's call.

“How are you this morning?” she asked.

“I'm fine, Mrs. March.”

“Where did she take you last night?”

I told her about the restaurant and the movie and added that we had come right home after the movie. I also said that Kiera had driven carefully. Mrs. March was quiet a moment and then asked if any of Kiera's friends had tried to get me to smoke something or take something.

“No,” I said. “Nothing like that happened. They were all very nice.”

“Nice?” she said, as if I had said something good about Nazis. “Just be very, very careful with them and with Kiera,” she reiterated. “Okay, we'll be flying into L.A. about five. I look forward to seeing you at dinner and hearing more about your day and night.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her we were going to Disneyland, but I hesitated, and she said good-bye.
Oh, well,
I thought. Surely Kiera knew we had to be back
by dinner. She knew when her parents were returning. It would be all right.

She was still in her robe but drying her hair when I entered her suite.

“Ricky called,” she said after she turned off the hair dryer. “He wanted to be sure you were coming along.”

“Really?”

“He says there's something fresh about you.”

“Fresh?”

“I explained that you were a virgin,” she said, making it sound as if I had come from another country, maybe another planet.

“Oh. What did he say?”

“What do you think?” she asked. I waited. “He said too bad.”

She laughed hard just as Mrs. Duval brought in our breakfast.

“Perfect. Thank you, Mrs. Duval,” Kiera sang.

Mrs. Duval looked at me as she put the tray on the table. “Be sure to take your vitamin,” she said. “Mrs. March was concerned.”

“Oh, brother,” Kiera muttered loudly. “You've already told my mother what we're eating for breakfast?”

Mrs. Duval turned to her. “You should be taking your vitamins, too, Kiera, especially the way you eat.”

“I don't think I look so bad for it, Mrs. Duval.”

“I'm not talking about the outside of you,” she replied.

Kiera groaned.

Mrs. Duval shook her head, looked at me with a warning in her eyes, and left.

“I hope she didn't make the coffee as weak as she has been making it,” Kiera said, coming to the table. “Oh, your clothes are laid out on my bed there. You can change after we enjoy our nutritionally worthless breakfast.”

Now that I started to eat what she ate, I wondered why I had not asked for my special eggs. It was too much sugar, and just looking at it actually made me feel a little nauseated. She finished her sorbet almost before I had started.

She grimaced when she sipped her coffee. “It's more like tea. My mother tells her to make it like this for me.”

“Your mother called me,” I said as I nibbled at the doughnut.

“This morning?”

“Yes.”

She stopped sipping her coffee and put her doughnut down. “Probably after Mrs. Duval let her know what you were having for breakfast. What does my mother expect you to be, her little spy now?”

“No,” I said.

“What did you tell her about our day together?”

“Nothing bad. I told her we had a very nice time.”

She thought a moment and then shrugged. “Whatever,” she said, and went at her doughnut.

After we ate, I put on the outfit she had chosen. It was a pair of slightly destroyed denim shorts with raw cuffs and a tank top that read “Fresh Air Turns Me On.” I was surprised at how tightly the shorts fit. There was something uncomfortable in the rear, and I reached in and discovered a tag.

“You never wore these?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said. “I probably never noticed.” She grabbed some scissors and cut it off. “They look perfect on you.”

“I think they're too tight.”

“That's perfect, silly. You don't want to look like some old lady.”

The top hung loose, however—too loose, I thought. My bra was half out. “I'm swimming in this.”

“I'll give you a shell to wear instead of your bra,” she said. “It'll look great.”

When she put on what she was going to wear, I thought she looked more conservative. Her jeans weren't tight, and she layered a shirt and a top but wore her bra.

“I'm not sure I look good,” I said, gazing at myself in her full-length mirror.