I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway (7 page)

It’s time to do something else, so we walk over to Amoeba Records, one of the world’s biggest (and noisiest) record stores. It’s much too loud for conversation, but we do wander around the store for a little while. I buy the new Cat Power record, and then he walks me back to my car. Absolutely nothing eventful happens—standing in the long line at the record store doesn’t count—but on the way back to the parking lot, I do notice that I kind of like the way he walks. There is a jauntiness and certainty to his gait—like he knows where he’s going and he’s determined to get there.

That said, the date is a disappointment, really. I mean, for a guy I fell in love with at first sight, online.

“Well, thank you for the coffee,” I say, a little relieved to be getting into my car. “I had fun.” I did have fun, I think. But I’m honestly not sure I want to see him again.

“You’re welcome,” he replies with a slight bow. “So, does that mean that I may have another date with you?” He slips into a purposeful formality (hello, Freddie? Is that you?), which I don’t think is a tad manipulative.

Something about me wants to say yes. (Maybe it’s just that he asked?) “Sure,” I say, hesitant to disappoint.

“Great,” he says, beaming. “I’ll call you.”

Later, after I put my kid to bed, I spend the evening on the phone with my various girlfriends, telling them that I’m not sure I want to date this guy. “He was kind of weird,” I reason.

“Oh, he was just nervous.”

“But he didn’t ask me about
me
at all!”

“Guys talk about themselves on first dates; that’s just what they do.”

“He wouldn’t stop talking about the presidential primary.”

“Then he was
definitely
nervous.”

“He made strange cartoon noises.”

“He’s quirky! Were you attracted to him?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Just see what happens.”

Okay, I’ll just see what happens. No rush, either. Now that my son is older, his dad has fifty-fifty custody. I have two days before it’s even possible for me to see Paul again. And knowing me, that’s a good thing.

JUNE HAS CALLED ME INTO
her room. She’s got a super-serious expression on her face, one I can’t quite figure out. “What is
it?” I ask as I follow her up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom. I’m a little worried that I’m in trouble.

“Honey, I need to talk to you.”

As a foster child, and a misbehavin’ foster child at that, I learned early on to distinguish between various tones of voice for their likelihood of leading to a punishment. And I’ve had lots of practice, since in the four years I’ve been living with June and Gene, I have wreaked all kinds of havoc.

Here is just a partial list of things I have done:

• dismantled an entire sewing machine during Saturday-morning cartoons
  
• unscrewed a water main, flooding the basement with several inches of water
  
• set a medium-size fire inside a cupboard
  
• picked up and smoked cigarettes left behind in public ashtrays
  
• deconstructed the arm on a brand-new console stereo
  
• broke the refrigerator
  
• tried to get hit by a car so I could ride in an ambulance
  
• picked every single baby apple off Pastor Ericson’s beloved apple tree
  

This is in addition to the normal juvenile-delinquent-in-training-type stuff, like playing doctor during naptime at my fundamentalist Christian kindergarten; compulsively shoplifting candy from the corner store; stealing ice cream bars in the middle of the night, eating one, and hoarding the rest under my bed, only for them to be discovered days, weeks, or months later; stashing my shoes in another kid’s lunch box—forcing me to go home on the bus stocking-footed, (in
Minnesota
); “secretly” unwrapping my Christmas gifts and putting them back under the tree; getting left behind at a truck stop in Arizona; and much, much more!

No wonder they called me Racy Tracy. And put me on Ritalin.

No wonder it worked.

June and Gene are stern traditionalists, and spankings are a normal consequence for misdeeds, but this voice is different. This isn’t a spanking voice. It’s not a Naughty Chair voice, either. This is something else entirely. At the same time, I’m picking up an energy that seems oddly, faintly familiar.

I trail June into the master suite, a place I only rarely visit. Lavender is June’s favorite color, and her bedroom is an homage to its dulcet coolness. Late afternoon light filters through the sheer curtains, giving everything a purply, shadowed glow. If it were a photograph it would be underexposed. In a beautiful way.

June sits down on her flowered bedspread. “Come here, Tracy,” she says, patting her lap. I plop into her, almost but not quite too lanky for June’s five-foot three-inch frame. Everything is incredibly still.

“Honey…” June’s lungs have been troubling her lately; when she draws a breath, they fill only halfway with air. It gives her speech a halting, labored quality. “Your daddy wants you to come live with him.” She leaves the sentence just dangling there, like it’s too painful to finish.

I know what this is about. And it’s something I am unwilling to experience. Again. So I’m casual. I retreat into my formidable little intellect.

“Why?” I ask. This is the only safe thing to say right now. Reasons are safe. Explanations are safe. They’re like watching news video of a terrible snowstorm when you live in California. You’re kind of like,
Huh
,
that doesn’t look too good.
You can see it, but you can’t feel it.

“I guess your daddy just can’t live without ya, sweetheart.” June says this in her customary wry yet upbeat manner. Her joyous Christian love is made better and more interesting by a fat dash of sardonic humor. Like Dr Pepper, a combination of two things, one sweet and the other unexpected. She says it again: “He just can’t live without ya.”

June doesn’t say how Gene, Faith, Sue Ann, Elin, my big brother, his new wife, Missy, and their almost-born baby are going to live without me. I already know how Connie’s going to do it—happily. She’s probably had just about enough of Pippi Longstocking in her bedroom.

“Where am I going to live?” I’m not really sure why it matters right now where I’m going to live. Maybe I’m just practicing for my future in journalism, where it’s all about the Five Ws.

“With your dad and his girlfriend Yvonne. She has a house in South Minneapolis. Near Lake Harriet.” Lake Harriet is a definite draw. It’s nice over there. “You remember Yvonne?”