What a Girl Needs (21 page)

I
f I thought
dinner with my ex and the “Reasons” at Kay’s house was awkward, I had yet to experience family dining with my father, and a man named Fish and his wife, Clara. A fraction of the guests belong at an Atlanta all-white Country Club (granted, they don’t call it that, but they may as well) while the remainder belong in a duck blind throwing back a few brewskis.

Kehvin, as Emily likes to call him, and I belong in neither place. We’re from the alien planet called normalcy. And when I’m the normal one at the table? This is cause for worry.

My mom has set the dining room table with her everyday dishes. I haven’t figured out my mom’s equation for what constitutes a “china” dinner. When one’s friends own a vineyard the size of four football fields, and your daughter is home from Philly, I would think that would warrant the good dishes. But I’d be wrong.

The table looks like we’re having a regular family dinner, but with more people. There are paper napkins, Mom’s ancient scratched silverware, plastic tumblers and mismatched bowls for the side dishes. In the center is a silver platter where the roast takes the position of honor. It dawns on me that I could have learned quite a bit about being a housewife from my mother. She never seemed bored.

“Everyone take a seat,” Mom announces, and we all gather around the table. My father sits at one end of the table. Kevin takes the other end, and my mom will sit by me in the spot closest to the kitchen.

Fish and Clara flank Emily, and God bless them, try to engage her in conversation. “So, Emily, when’s the big event?” Fish asks, as my mom carries the roast around the table so everyone can help themselves partake. It’s like a medieval setting, and we should be gnawing on a turkey bone with complete ease. I’m suddenly feeling all Braveheart.

Emily blinks her salon-assisted lashes (like my own—I’m not judging) and shakes her head. “Event? I’m not getting married or anything.”

“The baby,” Clara clarifies. “When’s the baby due?”

“Oh,” Emily says, helping herself to two slices of roast beef. “In October. October 11
^t
th.”

“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“Yes.” She takes a dramatic pause. “It’s a boy or a girl.”

Fish laughs. “Well, we didn’t think you were giving birth to a trout, did we, Clara?”

“Trout lay eggs,” Clara says.

“I know they lay eggs, Clara. It was just the first animal on my mind after today. We didn’t think you were giving birth to a platypus,” Fish says, and looks to his wife. “Better?”

“At least it’s a mammal, but I would have gone with something indigenous to the south.”

Fish rolls his eyes.

“Emily, would you like some mashed potatoes?” My mom puts the bowl alongside my sister-in-law. Emily nods, scoops up a giant spoonful of spuds and plops them on her plate. I’ve never seen her attempt to eat that much in the entirety of our relationship.

“Is there gravy?” Emily asks.

My dad has started the side dishes around the table, in the opposite direction of my mother. “Of course there’s gravy. Who serves roast without gravy?”

“Kevin, could you pass your sister the gravy?” My mom points to the gravy boat with her free hand.

Emily floods her plate until there are a few wayward peas floating to the top. Then, she takes the salt and pepper and douses it heavily. My mother looks horrified—not at Emily’s lumberjack appetite, but that possibly, she hasn’t made enough gravy.

“Emily, can I get you anything else?” my mom asks.

“Uh-uh,” Emily says with a mouthful of food.

“Emily,” I say. “I’ve never seen you eat so much. Did you have anything to eat today?”

Emily stops her fork mid-bite and my mom snaps at me, “Ashley, don’t be rude.”

“I didn’t mean it rudely, Emily. I’ve just never seen you eat like that. That’s all.” I don’t want to say I’m worried that she’s going to head straight to the bathroom and purge everything from her system. Wouldn’t that be ruder? I thought I showed great restraint by not mentioning the propensity toward projectile vomiting.

Kevin intervenes. “I think what Ashley is trying to say is that my sister isn’t much of an eater.”

“Do you know, I never get a homemade meal. I mean, when we were younger, we had the cook, and she made nice meals and all. But fancy meals, you know? Like duck a l’orange, and stuffed quail. Weird food for a kid. I just wanted some mac ’n cheese. Maybe a hot dog, you know?”

“It must have been nice to have such meals prepared for you,” my mom, politically correct and optimistic to the point of annoyance, says.

And really, is anyone buying this? The poor little princess had to have duck whatever?
I look around the table, and clearly I’m the only one without a heart.

Sometimes, when people continually look on the bright side of slop? It gets annoying. Let the girl whine. Her mother was too busy with the country club to microwave her a hot dog. That’s the stuff of a Dr. Phil episode—sometimes, you only want validation. In this case, I’ll let the rest of them give it to her – my heartfelt thoughts for Emily are stretched.

“If I lived in your house, Mrs. Stockingdale, I’d be like four
hunddered
pounds. No wonder Ashley is bigger. I suppose I never gave you
propah
credit, Ashley…that you don’t weigh more than you do,” she says in her southern drawl, which is always more pronounced when she’s issuing an insult. And there it is. My
real
sister-in-law. The one I’d been waiting to show up.

Kevin exhales. “Emily.”

“It’s a compliment! She knows I meant it as a compliment. Don’t you, Ashley?”

I smile. “Of course I do.”
One of your backhanded niceties that sting for a while.

“It was impossible to gain weight eating my mother’s food. I was merely pointing out that Mrs. Stockingdale can cook well, and such glorious meals provide temptations that I did not ha-ive. That’s all, dear brothah. Is thay-it a crime?”

“Not in my book,” Fish says. “I wouldn’t waste a second look on a woman who couldn’t cook. Helps if she can clean and skin a deer, too. I wouldn’t want a twig either. Real men want women with curves.”

“Well,” Emily says. “That’s terribly honest, isn’t it?”

The phone rings. “Don’t answer it,” my mother says. “It’s dinnertime. They’ll call back.”

But my father can’t help himself. He rises and picks the living room phone off the side table. “Hello.” He pauses. “Yeah, she’s here. You want to talk to her?” More silence and my dad grabs the TV remote. “Channel 4?”

The living room TV, in all its sixty-inch glory, looms large, and soon I, with my flaming red hair appear on the screen. In HD. If I thought my hair was heinous in clown orange, I had yet to see the fullness of it’s ugly glory on high definition.

“Well, I’ll be. Yeah,” my dad continues. “She’s sitting right here, Dave. She’s fine.”

My brother, Dave. I should have known he’d rat me out.

So far, my dad has yet to recognize me in living color. There I am diving for my life, then instantaneously, I’m underneath Matt Callaway. It all happens so suddenly—just like the first time. Our Medieval soiree has just gone digital. Everyone is watching the screen, their mouths dangling like melting icicles.

“That’s your sister? She’s sitting right here,” my dad says again. “With her normal colored hair. At least I think that’s her normal-colored hair, she’s been messing with it for so long, I suppose I don’t know what her real color is…No, I have no idea who that guy is,” I hear my dad say into the phone. “You’re sure that’s your sister? The one with the clown hair? Well, I’ll be. She’s wearing the same clothes. Yeah, I’ll call you back.” My dad hangs up the phone, but continues to stare at the TV.

Just when I think it can’t get any worse, the black-and-white footage of Brea and me fishing Miles out of the aquarium follows the mall footage. Incidentally, the clip doesn’t show how Miles got up there, and it’s still a mystery to me. Everyone has ceased eating, and is staring at me.

“Really? There’s no bigger news story? It’s my luck that I have to screw up royally on a slow news day.”

“I think it’s that the story is visual, dear,” my mom says in her upbeat tone. “People love to be shown a story. It brings it to life for them.”

Thank you, Barbara Walters.

Kevin’s mouth is still open. I start to tell him that I can explain, but really, can I? Or is it just better to let him imagine the rest for himself. This is me we’re talking about. He knows if something can happen to me, it will. I am clearly God’s sitcom—the lighthearted part of His day.

I look at him as if to say,
Seriously? You want me to fix your sister’s life? You trust me with this? I am unemployed and that’s the least of my issues.

“Ashley, it appears you’ve had quite a traumatic day,” Clara finally says. “What on earth happened? I’m shocked to see you sitting here so calmly. Why didn’t you say something?” Clara gets up and comes to rub my back. “You poor dear.”

“The jewelry store got robbed.” I gaze directly at Kevin and feel my eyes swimming in tears. “Matt asked me to help him pick Kay an engagement ring. Everything happened so fast after that. I reached for a package. It was an explosive. Matt threw me out of the way.”

Kevin doesn’t miss a beat. “Matt Callaway saved your life? You didn’t think to mention that to me?”

“You’re after me? Kevin, I haven’t been able to reach you since I left, and now you’re simply here unannounced!”

“You didn’t think it would interest me that you made the evening news and I might have lost my wife?” He pulls me into a hug and grasps me tightly before pulling away and looking straight into my eyes. “That’s how you fell on your wrist? You left a pertinent part out.”

I nod. Now I feel badly for snapping at him.
Bad Ashley.

“Matt’s getting married?” Emily asks, as she drops her fork for the first time since she sat down. “To Kay?” The fork clinks on the plate, and all eyes are still on me.

As I stare at my husband, I see the light in his eyes. The sparkle, and I know what he’s conveying. That he’s thrilled I’m alive and that even though I may be God’s sitcom, he’s relieved that God keeps me safe in the midst of His cosmic entertainment. I feel the warm embrace that I know he wants to give me right now.

“I think Ashley would rather talk about something else,” Clara interjects. “What’s Davey doing these days?”

My dad grunts. “Dave lives in Merced now. He’s driving the campus bus at UC Merced. Good job. Less stress. They’ve got a house down there.”

Merced is about three hours away, and Mei Ling, my brother’s wife, appreciates that she can be at home with their son. It’s much cheaper to live there than in the Bay Area without a Masters’ Degree, but obviously, my brother still has plenty of time on his hands to remind my father why he will always be the chosen child. Davey’s room is still put together like a shrine—while mine has become the den, complete with a deer that met its untimely death, hanging on a Pepto Pink wall of shame.

Emily’s eyes fill with liquid, which dries mine up like a Merced Riverbed. She has legitimate, watery tears, and suddenly, talking about my fiasco at Tiffany’s seems like the proper channel to reroute her emotions. It dawns on me that Matt getting married must bother her on some level. She is running from the supposed baby daddy, and when Matt Callaway appears to be the “one that got away” you know you’re tackling deep, emotional issues.

“Emily?” Clara’s voice is gentle. She places her hand on my sister-in-law’s wrist. “What is it, Sweetheart?”

“It’s not a big deal, really. I’m just emotional,” Emily says, patting her tummy. “Hearing what Ashley endured today has me choked up.”

No. What was it really? Did the attention veer off of her for a second?

My dad sets the phone down and sits at the head of the table. He looks at me and shakes his head. “Forty-something years I been watching the evening news. Never did I see anything like that, and my own daughter has to be in the middle of it.”

I swallow hard. “Dad, I—”

“Ashley, your brother lives his life. He goes to work and he comes home and has dinner. Why is that simple life something that eludes you? You always had to be different.”

“If only I had the answer to that question, Dad…the clouds would part and heaven would open.”

Kevin gazes at me intensely and the outside world disappears between us. “If she had the answer to that question, she wouldn’t be my Ashley.” He offers a slight smile, and I lap it up like a quenched dog.

“Nor mine,” my mom says.

I see a flash of something cross Emily’s brow, and it’s clear to me that I have everything a girl could ever want. So why does my life feel so empty?

“Well, I’ve seen enough of that.” Clara rises and takes the remote control from my father. “I assume if your daughter wanted us to know about her day, she would have told us. Besides, she probably can’t talk about it.” She looks straight at me. “Isn’t that right, Ashley?”

I smile back at her. “It’s probably best until the investigation is over.”

Kevin’s eyes embrace me.
I feel his love. But he looks away just as quickly and I wonder where my husband is – how could he find the time to traipse across the country for Emily, but he can’t return a simple phone call for the woman he promised to love, honor and cherish?

“So Emily,” Fish says to break the silence. “Did Clara tell you that we have another pregnant lady staying with us? She’s due in November, so that’s why my wife feels as if she knows you already. Isn’t that right, hon?”

Emily puts down her fork. “Is this woman related to you? Is her husband staying with you, too?”

Clara purses her lips. There’s no judgment in the action, but it’s clear she doesn’t want to give away anyone’s secrets. Clara sees something in Emily that she clearly wants to capture and rescue. Clara has that way about her. She rescues things. They lost a son when he was a teenager to drunk driving. He was their only child, and after he died, they took in his best friend. I’ve never known their house to be empty since. She picks up strays like a highway worker in orange picks up trash.

“Where’d you pick up this one?” my dad quips.