It's You (8 page)

By late Saturday afternoon I’m exhausted, though. We finish all the bridal bouquets and I deliver those to the church while Diana puts the finishing touches to the reception centerpieces. I return to the shop to help load up the truck she’s rented for the occasion. Together we head to the winery, and place each arrangement on the twenty-five rounds, and the lush pink, cream, and coral arrangements look stunning against the cream and gold embroidered tablecloths.

It’s going to be a beautiful wedding.

I return home to the house on Poppy Lane, and I’m exhausted but also very wound up. Too wound up to relax.

I was going to be an April bride. It was to be such a beautiful wedding with the reception at the Phoenician. A black-tie wedding with a big band for dancing. The Morrises had invited everybody from Arizona’s high society. It was important to them that everyone got an invitation for their only son’s wedding. They wanted everyone to celebrate how handsome and successful and happy Andrew was.

And yet, as it turned out, Andrew wasn’t successful and happy.

He wasn’t happy at all.

I suddenly feel trapped in the house. I feel trapped with my thoughts. I can’t handle the emptiness and anger and pain.

I change into shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes and go out for a late-afternoon run now, heading down Poppy Lane. I know that eventually the road dead-ends, but there’s a dirt path that cuts behind one of the old farmhouses and leads to an old orchard with gnarled and dying fruit trees, and then past a farm with a handful of horses with swishing tails, before the flat farmland rises up turning into a hill of grapes.

I found the dirt path by accident and I love the soft thud of my feet and the poofs and clouds of dirt. The ground feels good as my feet pound it and I don’t even need music. I just need my feet
slapping the dirt and my heart pounding in my ears and the sweat burning my eyes so no one knows I cry.

I want my life back.

I want my life back.

Dear God, give me my life.

I charge to the top of the hill, running fast, faster until I’m at the top, doubled over, gasping for air.

I do this every time—run so hard that at the end, as I crest the hill, I’ve run myself ragged, run myself to drain the pain and longing out.

When there are no more tears left, I jog down and the white horse that always looks at me, lifts his head and I look back at him.

My jog turns to a walk as I reach Poppy Lane. I walk even more slowly as I pass my favorite farmhouse, the one with the white picket fence. The fence is bordered with early blooming pink climbing roses that tumble in wild abandon across the white pickets. Dark blue, almost purple salvia has been planted between the rosebushes with low mounds of golden creeping Jenny for ground cover. I can bend forward and smell one of the elegant pink blossoms, wondering if this climber rose is an heirloom rose, since it is unabashedly fragrant. Once I would have asked my mother. Now I make a note to ask Diana.

• • •

I
t’s Sunday morning brunch with Dad. And eight of his closest friends.

When I first arrived here, I didn’t understand why Dad would prefer to live at Napa Estates rather than moving to Scottsdale to be with me, but I’m beginning to understand.

Dad has friends here. They joke, they talk, they argue, they laugh.

Dad
laughs. And even with the splint on his wrist, he looks healthy.

Happy.

Mom would be happy for him, too. This is what she’d want. This is why they chose this place.

So if Dad is happy, and Mom would be happy for Dad, then I just need to be happy for him, too.

I need to let go of the idea of needing him . . . even though he is all I have left.

Conversation is easy until someone says something about “today’s kids” that sets the men off. Before I know it, everyone has something negative to say about the younger generation and I glance at Dad, wishing he’d defend my generation, or at the very least, defend me, but he doesn’t. He just lets them talk, and criticize.

“Kids nowadays, they don’t know,” Walter says grimly. “They have no idea what life is really like. They’re entitled. They think they deserve it all. They think they know it all. But truthfully, they know nothing—”

“Now that’s a little bit harsh,” George interrupts.

“But true,” Walter retorts. “They’ve never lived through war. Not a real war. Not like us.”

“But did the war make you a better person?” Jerry asks quietly. “I’m not sure it made me a better person.”

“Taught me to work hard,” Walter said. “Taught me the value of a buck.”

“That’s true.” Harold sighed. “It teaches a war ethic, an ethic kids today don’t have. Kids today don’t think they should have to work. They think it should all be handed to them,
just because
. My grandson, for example. He got an offer last year after graduating from college. He didn’t like the offer. He said it wasn’t good enough. That he deserved better. So what did he do? Turned it down and has spent the past year living at home, living off his parents. Easier to sponge off your folks then stand on your own two feet.”

Walter pounds his fist onto the table. “Exactly. But why do they deserve a red carpet? What makes them so special? What makes them deserve more than we did?”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Harold says, looking around the table. “Can you imagine any of us saying to our parents during the war, I shouldn’t have to go, I’m better than this? I shouldn’t have to work, so you go do it for me?”

Harold’s gaze locks with mine. “Alison, explain your generation to me. What makes a twenty-two-year-old feel entitled to stay home while his mother and father work forty-, fifty-hour weeks? How can a twenty-two-year-old man justify allowing his mother to do his laundry and clean his room while he lays around playing video games and reading Japanese comics?”

All eyes are now on me and I don’t have an answer. I’m not the twenty-two-year-old doing that. I’ve been making my own school lunch since sixth grade and doing my own laundry since my freshman year of high school when I needed a clean PE uniform and Mom had back-to-school night and couldn’t do it.

I started helping grocery shop as soon as I got my driver’s license and I’d even make dinners once or twice a week if Mom worked late, so Dad wouldn’t go hungry.

I’m not the lazy boy or the entitled girl. My friends aren’t, either. In fact, I don’t really know those young adults he’s talking about. Maybe there is something else wrong. Maybe his grandson has a mood disorder or a learning quirk. Maybe there is more to the story. But right now everyone is waiting for me to say something and I just know I can’t throw his grandson—who I’ve never met, nor will probably ever meet—under the bus.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But if your daughter, his mother, doesn’t have a problem with it, maybe it’s okay?”

“It’s never okay to shirk one’s duty,” Harold says fiercely.

George gestures broadly. “We understood duty. We understood
responsibility, because we all went through it. We all lost someone. We all struggled. We went hungry. We’re different, and we know we’re different.”

The men nod and murmur agreement. The tension dissipates, the anger, too, leaving them quiet and reflective.

A few return to their meals, others begin to rise and walk away. Dad and I remain even after the others are gone. Dad is still silent, though, and I’m silent, waiting for him to say something. But he doesn’t.

“You all right?” I ask him as seconds stretch into minutes.

“Just brings back a lot of memories,” he says.

“But you didn’t serve in that war.”

“No, but I was a kid during the war and I remember how hard it was on my mom and brothers. Dad was away, you know, serving in the navy. Mom had to raise us three kids on her own.”

“Grandpa was in the navy?”

“I’ve told you that.”

“I didn’t remember.”

“Your grandfather never talked about it, but then, most men came home from the war and never said a word about what they saw or did. Dad didn’t want to know how Mom got by. It was better to not ask questions. Better to not hear the details. Now my older brothers, they talked about the war. They were teenagers during the war and they both had to get jobs in addition to going to school. Johnny worked in orchards, picking fruit and strawberries, and my older brother Ed did construction work for a local company, since there was a huge housing shortage. Johnny would come home, and then Mom would leave for work. From the time I was a year old, she worked nights at the Southern California Telephone Company. Do I remember that? No. But do I remember my mother always carefully counting her change, and cutting coupons the rest of her life.”

“That’s why Grandma always used coupons.”

“She’d lived through the Great Depression. She’d lived with rations. She’d raised children with rations. Instead of being embarrassed that she used coupons, you should have been proud of her. Those coupons allowed her to support her family.”

“I was young,” I say. “I didn’t know better.”

“But Harold and Walter are right when they say your generation has different expectations. You were raised comfortably. Your mom and I took pride in being able to provide you with a certain quality of life. If we wanted to take a vacation, we took it. If you wanted to go to dance or cheer camp, we could send you. There is a comfort and affluence now that didn’t exist in the thirties and forties. Being forced to do without is unpleasant, but it won’t kill you—”

He breaks off as Kathleen Burdick, the Estate’s activities director stops at our table.

“How are we doing today?” she asks, smiling at Dad and me.

“Good,” Dad answers, before introducing me.

“We’ve met,” Kathleen replies. “And she’s actually the reason I’m here now. We’re in a bit of a bind, and I’m hoping she can fill in as our guest speaker this afternoon. The speaker we had booked, a photographer who has just returned from a trip to the Middle East, has cancelled at the last minute, and Edie suggested that perhaps Dr. McAdams would like to speak on dentistry today.”

“Dentistry?” I repeat, wondering why Edie would suggest me, and the topic, when I know she’s not particularly fond of me.

“We were thinking perhaps you could prepare a short program on dentistry for seniors . . . something useful, educational, that they could relate to.”

The last thing I want to do is stand in front of a room and talk about dental hygiene for seniors, but Kathleen, the epitome of a pretty and cheerful camp counselor, is very persuasive and I can’t tell her no.

I agree to speak for twenty to twenty-five minutes and then
take questions for another fifteen to twenty minutes, or as long as there is sufficient interest.

• • •

I
don’t have any handouts or a computer for a PowerPoint. I’ve no visuals or even dental models. Nothing to show. It’s just me, at the front of the room, with a microphone (necessary when half the room is hard of hearing) talking for the next thirty-something minutes.

I hope no one comes. And then I can scoot out at two, if no one is here by then.

My hopes are dashed moments later when the first ladies enter the room. There are three of them, and they take seats in the middle of the theater, reminding me how empty the room is.

They face me expectantly, their gazes following every little thing I do from scribbling fresh notes, to organizing my index cards.

If they are the only three, then I could invite them to come to the front row, or I could even stand in the row in front of them—

Two ladies arrive, both with walkers. They slowly find seats on the outside aisles.

And then a woman is pushed through the doors. She’s in a wheelchair and she has an attendant with her. The attendant parks the chair in the back row, the designated wheelchair section, and then grabs a folding chair from the back to sit down beside her. They, too, look at me, anticipating.

Seven. There is no getting out of the dental care for seniors speech now.

I skim my opening.
I’m Dr. Alison McAdams and I’m here to talk to you about your teeth.

Boring. Yawn.

I scratch out the opening and scribble a new one.
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Dr. Alison McAdams and I’m curious. When was the last time you saw your dentist?

Another couple has come in. An older man and woman, arm in arm. I recognize them from my first day here. Dad was playing bridge with them.

The woman—Rose?—lifts a hand, waves to me. I wave back.

They’re the first to come sit in the front row. That’s nine.

I feel a wave of anxiety. I don’t understand why I’m nervous. What do I think is going to happen? This is a no-brainer. I’m talking about basic dental hygiene. Brushing, flossing, scheduling regular checkups.

I fold the notecard and write a new opening.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dr. Alison McAdams. I’m a dentist in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the daughter of Bill McAdams—

I lift my pen, reread the words, unsure of myself all over again.

Voices echo from the doorway. A group of women have just arrived, talking loudly. And behind the group comes three more: two ladies and a young man.

The ladies hold each other up, tiny and tall, dark and fair, one so frail and delicate, the other thin and slightly hunchbacked.

Ruth and Edie, accompanied by Craig.

I exhale with a sharp rush.

I wish he weren’t here.

He’s handsome. He is. The kind of face and frame that reality TV loves. I’m not surprised the Food Network made a show centered around the Hallahan brothers, but I’m already nervous about speaking this afternoon and I’m even more unsettled now with Craig Hallahan in the audience.

I try to focus on my notecards but the words blur.

I don’t see words. I see Scottsdale. Dr. Morris. Andrew.

Andrew wasn’t classically handsome. He was tall and lean, with a lean face and laughing eyes. His eyes were hazel green and they crinkled at the corners when he looked at me. I remember seeing him for the first time in dental school, his mask on, hiding
his mouth and smile but his eyes were so alive in his face, so bright and full of good humor.