Outside the Lines (4 page)

“You okay, boss lady?” Juan inquired as he sidled up next to me and reached for a three-cheese onion roll. He was the only employee I let call me anything other than “Chef.”

I swallowed before speaking. “Yeah, fine. Just tired, I think. I had a late night.”

“More private detective work?” I’d told Juan the basics of my trying to find my father. How I’d started by simply putting the name “David West” into an online search engine, then checking every major city’s online white pages for his name. David West was an incredibly common moniker—over three hundred in the greater Seattle area alone.

“What are you going to say?” Georgia asked me when I informed her of my plan to call each one of the Seattle numbers. “‘Excuse me, but do you happen to be the David West who abandoned his daughter and spent much of his adult life in the nuthouse?’”

“No,” I had laughed. “I’ll just ask to speak with David West. I’ll know his voice.”

“You think?” Georgia appeared doubtful.

“Yes.”

I made the calls. None of them were my father, of course. I had an old address—the Seattle return address on the letters he sent ten years ago—but I soon discovered the last officially known record of his whereabouts was the state mental hospital out past Monroe. They hadn’t seen him in three years and wouldn’t give me any more information other than that he had left against medical advice. So after my failed phone calls, the next natural place to look for him was the streets, the only other place I knew for sure he had been.

Juan’s voice brought me back to the kitchen. “Yoo-hoo? Eden?” He waved a hand in front of my face. “You in there?”

I blinked and smiled at him. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry.”

“So, more detective work?” he asked, prodding.

“Sort of, I guess.” I didn’t feel like describing my trip to the morgue. “I’m going to a new homeless shelter tonight. The one down on Pine?”

Juan picked up a piece of pineapple and popped it in his mouth. “You want company?” I shook my head and took another bite of my sandwich. “Awright,” he said. “But if you ask me, a pretty lady like yourself shouldn’t be wandering the streets at night on her own.”

“I appreciate your concern,” I said, tossing the remainder of my sandwich in the trash. My appetite had left me. Juan meant well, I knew. But I’d made it this far without a man to look out for me. No reason to start needing one now.

“Eden West,
come on down
!” my father shouted from the base of the stairs. We were playing
The Price Is Right
and he was Bob Barker. It was a cold and clear Sunday morning and my mom was in the kitchen making breakfast. The smoky scent of bacon wafted through the hallway where we played. The sun shot a kaleidoscope of color through the beveled stained glass of our front door onto the floor. I sometimes liked to lie in that spot, pretending the patterned hues decorating my skin were a tattoo. At ten years old I fancied myself a rebel.

I raced down the stairs in my nightgown and bare feet, skipping over the last three steps to land with a decided thump next to my father. The wide wooden planks beneath me creaked in protest and the crystal chandelier above the dining room table tinkled.

“Eden!” my mother yelled from the kitchen. “This house is
not
your personal jungle gym. Settle down!”

“Sorry, Mother!” my dad yelled back in a girlish, mocking voice. “Won’t happen again!”

I giggled and my father winked at me. My father’s winks were our silent language.
It’s you and me, kid,
they said.
We’re the only ones who get it.

“Now, tell me, Miss West, just how excited are you to be here?” He held a wooden spoon like a microphone and moved it toward my chin.

“Very excited, Bob.” I lowered my voice to what I thought was a very grown-up, womanly tone. In that moment, the love I felt for my father was a vibrant, sparkling heat. It lifted me out of my fears, carried me above any of the pain I might have had. It made me feel like I could do anything, be anyone. It felt like magic.

“Which door would you like to choose?” He gestured toward the front door.

“Hmm,” I said, tapping my index finger against the corner of my mouth. “I think I’ll go with door number one, Bob.”

“Excellent choice, Miss West. Excellent choice.” He made a two-foot jump over to the door and the chandelier tinkled again.

“Eden!” my mother shouted. “Knock! It! Off!”

“Sorry, Mother!” I yelled, and winked at my dad, who laughed.

“That’s my girl,” he said. He placed his hand on the doorknob and wiggled his thick black eyebrows suggestively. “What could it be? What . . . could . . . it . . .
be
?” He flung the door wide open.

“A brand-new car!” I screamed. Forgetting my mother entirely, I jumped up and down, screaming and clapping my hands, pretending to be excited about an invisible vehicle. My father threw down the spoon and grabbed me. He hugged me tight, lifting me up and twirling me around the room. My legs spun out behind me. He held me so tightly I couldn’t breathe.

“Dad, you’re squishing me!” I gasped. I felt my ribs clicking against one another beneath the pressure of his embrace.

“David, please!” my mother said as she rushed into the hallway to see what the excitement was all about. She wore a nightgown the same sky blue as her eyes and her thick blond hair was braided down the center of her back. “Put her down! You’re going to break something!”

“Never!” said my dad. “She just won a brand-new car, Lydia! We have to celebrate!”

“It’s January,” said my mother. She inched around us to shut the front door, her braid swinging like a rope. “Our heating bill is already atrocious.”

“Then we’ll live in her car!” my dad proclaimed. “Right, Eden?”

“Right!” I gasped again, and he finally set me down. My mother gave me one of her pinched, disapproving looks and I dropped my gaze to the floor, gingerly rubbing my sides and breathing hard. My father sidled up to my mother and grabbed her, spinning her around to kiss her soundly on the lips.

“You know you love me, Lydia West,” he said with his face less than an inch from hers.

I held my breath, waiting to see how my mother would respond. It was up to her, I thought. She held the power over which direction he’d go, whether or not he’d spin out of control. She could talk him down, touch his face and soothe and distract him like I’d seen her do countless times before. “Let’s go to a museum,” she would say. “Let’s go find a park we’ve never been to before and you can sketch the trees for me.” She could help channel the energy I saw whirling behind my father’s eyes. She could push it onto a path where no one would get hurt.

Instead, she stared at him and put her hands on his chest, pushing him away. He stumbled backward, catching himself from falling by throwing his hand against the wall behind him.

“Have you been taking your medication?” she asked. Her voice was flat.

My insides went cold. I hated it when she asked him that question. Especially when I knew the answer was no. I’d watched him flush the entire contents of his prescription down the toilet a week ago.

“Our secret, right, Bug?” he whispered, and I’d nodded. My father’s secrets were a dark and heavy burden in my chest. Sometimes I worried I carried so many of them they might rise up and blossom as a bruise beneath my skin. Then there would be no doubt—I’d be exposed for the liar I was.

“Yes, I’ve been taking my medication,
Dr. Lydia,
” said my father. His smile melted into a sneer. “Would you like me to take a fucking blood test? Or would you just like to have me locked up again?”

No,
I silently pled.
No. Please don’t send him away.
A jittery panic rose within me. The last time he’d been at the hospital for a month. Our house was quiet as death.

“Don’t swear in front of your daughter,” my mother said quietly. “Breakfast is ready.”

“I’m not hungry,” my father said as he grabbed his coat from the rack by the door. “I need to go. I have places to be, people to see. People who
appreciate
me.”

“Daddy—” I started to say. But it was too late. He was already gone.

That bitch,
David thought as he got into his car and revved the engine.
That sanctimonious, self-serving, judgmental, boring
bitch. He noticed he wasn’t wearing any shoes. Or pants. His Sunday morning outfit consisted of cutoff black sweats and a bright yellow V-neck sweater. He looked like an anorexic bee. “Bzzzz . . .” he murmured as he jammed the gearshift into drive and pulled away from the curb, tires screeching. He was sure Lydia was watching from the living room window. He threw a halfhearted middle finger in her general direction, just in case.

The radio blared AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” The thrumming vibrations soothed him as he thought about where he could go. Cuba? Mexico? Hawaii? They’d love him in Hawaii. They were laid-back there. They wouldn’t care if he wanted to run naked in the surf at dawn or howl at the autumn moon.
Hang loose, man,
they’d say.
Mahalo
. He could learn to carve. He could sell his wares to the tourists—men in checkered swim trunks and fat women in bikinis. Or maybe he should head north, to Bellingham. Close to the Canadian border. There were hippies there, he thought.
I could give up painting and weave shit instead. Blankets. Or those things you put hot pans on . . . what are they called? Oh yeah, trivets.
He’d be a trivet maker. He’d bond with the pot-smoking liberals and set up camp with them in the woods.

Pot. Now there was a good idea. He wondered if his friend Rick was up yet, if he’d slept off the buzz from the night before and was now open for business. Rick dealt the best weed on the coast. Gave David a discount, too, since they’d gone to high school together. Used to get stoned out of their minds in the enormous tangle of rhododendron bushes across the street from the school gym. He slammed on his brakes and flipped a U-turn in the middle of the road, ignoring the horns that blared around him. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, cowboys!” he yelled. “Go to hell. Go straight to hell. Do not pass go! Do not collect two hundred dollars!”

He was hungry. Starving, actually. A little bit dizzy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Friday, maybe? He’d been painting for days, locked in his studio. Lost in swirls of ocher and green, swept up by the glory of blue. This morning, when Eden got up, he promised he’d take her to Shakey’s Pizza for lunch. She loved the Laurel and Hardy black-and-white movies the restaurant played. Eden. His sweet Eden. Nothing like her mother. Eden loved him. Eden loved to play, to join in on any idea David conjured up. A lemon stand instead of a lemonade stand. A midnight frolic in the front-yard sprinkler. Waking up to make cookies at two o’clock in the morning. Mmm . . . cookies. Maybe he should stop at a bakery and pick some up. Or maybe he should make them himself. He doubted Rick had any baking supplies. David did his cooking with Eden. She loved it. Loved the mix of ingredients and creativity. She’d be an artist, like him, for sure. Or a lawyer. His little girl knew how to stand her ground in an argument.

God, he couldn’t focus. His thoughts pinballed around inside his head. It felt as though someone else was pulling back the plunger, sending random, rapid-fire thoughts shooting through his brain. He wasn’t the person playing the game.

Did Eden tell Lydia that he had flushed his meds again? Did his daughter rat him out? Was she a traitor, like all the rest? Like the nurses in the hospital who convinced the doctors to inject his meds when he got caught hiding the pills under his tongue? No, Eden wouldn’t do that. Eden understood him. Eden loved him exactly the way he was. He had to go back to her. He had to. But he didn’t want to calm down. He liked himself like this. He liked the rush, the energy, the thrill of moving from one moment to the next with nothing tethered to him. If he was going to go home, he’d have to find a way to settle himself, at least to a point where he could get Lydia to forgive him. Yet another reason spending the day at Rick’s was a good idea. Weed was the perfect downer. It settled the crazy, brought on the mellow. At least until it wore off.

The curtains were pulled at Rick’s house, but that didn’t mean his friend wasn’t awake. He never let the light in, too paranoid someone would see him dealing and turn him in. David raced up the ice-cold cement walkway. His bare feet screamed in protest as they came in contact with the ground. He pounded on the door. “Rick!” he shouted. “C’mon, buddy. It’s David! It’s fucking freezing out here!” He danced on the frosty front porch, jumping from foot to foot, his hands tucked into his armpits to keep warm.

Rick’s front door opened slowly. David pushed through the entry and a sleepy-eyed Rick stumbled back against the wall. He was in jeans and a torn white T-shirt. “Whoa, dude. Slow down. Where’s the fire?”

“I am the fire, man. Got anything that can put it out?”

“Sure, dude. Sure. Hang on.” Rick lumbered his thick, stubby frame over to the locked wall safe where he kept his inventory. It was covered over by one of David’s paintings—an abstract watercolor of blues and greens littered with splashes of vibrant orange. Rick gently removed the painting, then hunched in front of the safe, moving through the slow clicks of the combination lock. A naked woman came out of the bedroom, her hair a wild brown nest around her face. She scratched her ass.

“Is there coffee?” she asked, seemingly oblivious to her nudity. David felt a stirring in his groin. She wasn’t his type. She didn’t look anything like Lydia. Lydia was soft and blond; this woman was skinny and hard with a bad boob job. Her right nipple pointed off in the general direction of her bicep. He could see the puckered scars. He wanted to screw her anyway.