Authors: Kristina Shook
“I’m going downstairs. Don’t forget, table three,” he said, as he walked out and closed the door behind him.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,” I said, as I pinched my arms five times. Thank God for acting classes, I mean, if I hadn’t been a trained actress, I would have grabbed my LV suitcase and bags and the Prada heels and marched out. I would have gone to my father’s and just hidden myself.
There’s this powerful scene in the movie
All That Jazz
, during which director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells about his own life through the character Joe Gideon (played by actor Roy Scheider), it’s brilliant. God, I hope when I’m old, I’ve lived a life I want to make a movie from. Anyway, the character Joe Gideon stands looking at himself in a mirror, and says, “
It show time folks
.” And that’s what I decided to do.
I stripped off my clothes, spritzed myself with rose water and lathered my body with vanilla lotion and put on the new black Victoria Secret bra. Laurel’s first bra was from VS, whereas mine was from Sears. If I have kids and one is a girl, she will get her first bra from Victoria Secret, I swear. I rubbed more vanilla lotion on my thighs. Then I put on the sheer thigh-highs and my first Pradas. You can’t be depressed when you’re in Prada heels—I understand the hype now. I felt like Cinderella with an attitude. Okay, I can’t have Tristan, then who’s next? Give me the next good guy, please. I slipped on my RL dress. Pow! Shazzam! Wow, I looked better than great.
“Nothing bothers me, nothing makes me sad, I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said five times and then I walked out the door and down to the wedding. Okay, I won’t lie, the lump in my throat was still there, but I had picked up my spirits. I was ready to act ‘happy’. I saw Laurel’s mom and gave her a congratulations hug, and then walked outside into the backyard that looked like an enchanted wedding scene.
The white rose petals smelled fantastic as I walked along the red carpet. I went to the bar. A hunk was serving, but I saw his wedding ring and so I just smiled (surface only) and ordered water with a lime. I wanted to swallow the lump in my throat.
Deeda came up to me. She was in a tight peach colored dress; and her breasts popped out. Her heels were six inches and black.
“Looks beautiful, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“You did a superb job, it’s romantic and amazing,” I said.
“You’re at table three!”
Oh, God, if anyone else tells me table three, I’ll scream. Composure, act ‘as if’ nothing bothers me.
“Laurel’s always had a large international group of friends, looks like everyone has arrived,” I said.
The tables were almost filled. The afternoon ceremony was all going like clockwork.
“Go get your seat,” Deeda ordered.
I felt like giving her flat ass a kick, but I didn’t.
“Might as well,” I said, putting down my empty glass of water and heading away.
I saw Tristan seated next to a freckle faced, pretty blonde woman in a pale cream strapless dress. Okay, so maybe it’s true, blondes do have more fun and get whatever they want, too. As I headed there, I could feel Deeda following me. Oh, God, I don’t need to be watched. I turned around, but she was talking to a guest behind me. If I could have walked any slower, I would have. As I approached table three, Tristan glanced over at me, and the pretty blonde stared at me and the lump in my throat grew.
“Just a second,” Deeda said.
“Do you need my help?” I asked, hoping to be whisked away.
“The name settings are all wrong.”
She pulled up the name card of the pretty blonde woman and put it across the table and plunked down my name card next to Tristan.
“Mrs. Millar, have a seat next to your husband,” Deeda said.
The pretty blonde sprang up from the seat and went around the table and sat next to her husband.
“Sit down,” Deeda ordered me, and I did. I gave Tristan an apology shrug.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said.
I couldn’t speak; I was too busy looking around for his date.
“Don’t you know a Laurel gag when she plays one on you?” he asked.
“What?” I asked, even more confused.
“I told her I liked you, but I wasn’t sure if you liked me, and she said she’d prove it, one way or another,” he said proudly.
My mouth fell open. Laurel had staged it all.
“Kiss her,” Deeda said.
And Tristan did better than that. He pulled me close to him and whispered in my ear, “I’m into you, and you’re into me,” and then he kissed my ear. Not with his tongue, but a soft kiss. I grabbed his hand and then I leaned in and pressed my lips to his and we kissed—it was fast and fun.
The Italian singer Biagio Antonacci began singing,
Vivimi
. As Laurel and Anthony made their gallant, romantic entrance, everyone stood up and Tristan held me, and I glanced over to see Deeda giving me the thumbs up. It was magical watching them walk down the steps, passing all of us and entering the canopy. They had ‘In Love’ vows that they wanted to exchange in front of all of us, while an interdominational minister presided over the ceremony. Minutes later Nigerian-German hip-hop-soul singer, Nneka sang
Do You Love Me.
The lump in my throat was gone and I was crying; it was so unbelievable seeing Laurel and Anthony married. All of sudden I remembered back to when she had once asked me (in a very loud voice), “What is life, if you’re not in love? What is it?
I woke at 7:00 in the morning from a kissing dream, it was so wonderful and yes, it was Tristan who I was smooching with. He had gone off to bunk with Gabriel at the Harvard Inn. He wanted us to date awhile, which was okay with me, because if Paloma was still waiting to have sex and Laurel had waited seven days—then I was going to copy them. I loved staying in the guest bed, staring at the sunflowers in the large, white, Italian-style vase.
The night had flown by because of the dancing, the picnic meals, and the endless toasts. Everyone had wanted to give a toast, mainly because not everyone was going to fly to Italy for the ‘official’ traditional wedding. I was with Tristan the whole time—my left hand in his right. He had to learn pretty quickly how to use his left hand to eat and drink with. I had floated into the house and up to the guestroom, and he had followed. We made out for twenty-five minutes. Oh, wow, I could have torn his Italian grey suit off with my teeth, but I didn’t.
“Vivien, telephone,” Laurel’s mother hollered. I jumped up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and threw on one of Laurel’s sexy mini Victoria Secret bathrobes and raced out into the hallway.
“Be here by nine; we’ve got an appointment to see the lawyer right away,” my bookish father said with no enthusiasm in his voice. I didn’t bother asking why he hadn’t called me on my cell phone.
“Okey dokey artichokey,” I said, playfully.
I playfully stomped back into the guest room and pondered over what to wear. God, I just wanted to make out with Tristan again. How could my dear father go on so long without love? No more, I’m not going to allow him to live a passionless life, a single unattached life, with no hugs, and no kissing. No more! I looped my finger around the Tiffany love necklace Paloma had bought for me, because it had worked. So why couldn’t I help my father? I sat there and then I decided to say a prayer. It went like this: “Please God, and the powers of the universe, let my father find the right woman, let him have profound love or just simple sweet love,” I got goosebumps on my arms after I said it.
After that, I got dressed and dashed to his place. There he was, a handsome man, with a mouthful of bookish, overeducated words and two rescue dogs. Shadow barked when he saw me. I knelt down and let him give me a warm tongue lick on my hands.
“How was last night?” he asked, which was odd, because he never asks those kind of questions.
“She wore a Vera Wang wedding dress, and Anthony wore a dark, dark blue suit with a silk white scarf around his neck and expensive shoes without socks. He looked ultra-European. It was beautifully romantic,” I said.
My father chuckled.
“I’ve met someone who’s probably the one, the real one,” I said. I couldn’t help it; I was in the babble of ‘truth’ mode.
“Better be the British woodworker,” he said.
My mouth dropped open, I couldn’t believe it.
“Tristan?” he asked. I nodded as I tried to close my mouth, because it was so strange. My father is never in the loop. Never.
“I can agree to that. Now let’s walk the dogs,” he said.
“I thought we were in a rush?” I asked, wondering if my father had tricked me into rushing over, just to walk the dogs with him.
“Come on,” he said, as he leashed them both and out we went. He wanted to walk along the Charles River because my father never tires of its tranquility.
“Whatever she’s left, it won’t be much,” he warned.
I told him that I didn’t care, because I suddenly felt as if I had everything I needed in my life.
“I’m happy you gave me Twist, even if he wasn’t injured,” he said with a serious grin.
“Me too,” I said.
“But I wish you had told me how important having a dog was before, I might have done it sooner,” he said.
Ugh. I wasn’t about to remind him how I had called from Los Angeles a dozen times telling him to get a dog, but he had just balked at the idea. Besides, he always brought up the loss of Bridge, our family mutt-dog, whom we had all loved.
“Right,” I said, and then we didn’t talk during the rest of the walk, we just watched Twist and Shadow. How could anything be better?
The lawyer’s office was straight out of the film The Maltese Falcon (my father’s other vintage favorite). The lawyer, Mr. Urbansky, was in his seventies, and had on a 50s style suit with a bow tie; he was old school all the way. I swear it felt like I was on an old MGM movie set. We sat across from him, and he spent the first few minutes consoling us on our recent loss. We both missed her, but we also knew she’d lived a long, good life, and at the end of it, she was content. Then he withdrew her Will from a faded file folder. He sat back down and looked at us in a very grandfatherly manner. It was impossible not to think I wasn’t in a 1950s film. He spoke to me first.
“In her last Will and Testament, your Aunt Helen has left you the deed to a six bedroom, three bathroom house located in Rye, New York, just a twenty-five mile commute from New York City. The house is paid off; you’ll only ever have to pay property tax on it, and she left you twenty-thousand dollars to fix it up with.”
“A house? For me?” I asked, interrupting his very polished reading. It was a total, amazing, thrilling, unbelievable shock.
I stared at my father, who gave me a wink. Mr. Urbansky cleared his throat.
“It needs work. Now, I can only give you the house keys. The deed will be turned over once you have brought her ashes to Panama and spread them in a circle around your mother’s house,” he said.
“PANAMA? My mother?” I jumped out of my seat. Now I wasn’t happy.
“Are you crazy? My Dad and I want to put her ashes in the Charles River,” I shouted.
Then I glared at my father, wanting him to protest for once in his life.
“My dear, this is her last Will and Testament, and we must all follow the wishes of your Aunt Helen. After all, she is giving you a house,” he said, scolding me.
“Mr. Urbansky, you don’t understand, the point I’m trying to make is that I don’t know my mother anymore. She has her own life and it’s in Panama, which is not in America,” I said, hoping he’d finally get it.
“My dear, I’m well aware of where Panama is located, and if you don’t know your mother, than perhaps you will, after you have brought your aunt’s ashes there,” he said.
Then he picked up the Will and continued on. My father’s head was down, and he seemed suddenly small, (which for a tall man is not impossible, I saw it happen).
“When I receive proof of your flight there and back, then the deed will be given. As for you, your sister Helen left you a collection of first edition books, twelve in all, and they are very rare. She had plastic coverings designed for them,” he said, as he pointed to a stack of cardboard boxes that sat on the floor to the left of his mahogany desk. I looked at my father who nodded, but didn’t smile.
“Dad, rare books, how special is that.” I said, jumping into sounding positive and cheerful, something I always do.
My father just continued to nod. The phone rang. Mr. Urbansky took the call, and then he got up from his desk.
“Please excuse me for a moment,” he said, and he left us alone in his office.
The silence fell. My mother’s abandonment had left its mark on my father, and now I was being forced to go visit her, which was clearly my Aunt Helen’s last attempt to reunite us.
“I can buy you the ticket, and we can pretend you went,” my father said.
“Not with that lawyer. It’s all right, I’ll just go, but only for a weekend,” I answered.
He nodded. I eyed the cardboard boxes, thinking about lifting the first lid and flashing my father one of the rare books, just to cheer him up.
“A weekend’s not so long,” I said, hoping to make it less painful for him.
“She wanted to take you with her, but I told she couldn’t have it both ways, a new man and my daughter,” he said staring out of the lawyer’s window and away from me.
“I’m glad you kept me,” I said. I felt sad, as I always did.
My mother had followed the beat of her heart, but she had left a heart broken in doing so. Love can be like that. Go figure.
Mr. Urbansky returned. He had us look over the Will and Testament, and then he gave us papers we had to sign. After that, a young guy dressed like a bellhop appeared and strapped the card board boxes onto a small rolling dolly. He followed us out and down to my father’s parked car. Once the boxes were loaded in, we drove off.
My father told me how he had taken Aunt Helen on a drive through the city of Rye and how she loved how close it was to Manhattan, but he had never guessed that she would have bought a house there—but that was his sister, always doing something good for some member of the family.
I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of going to Panama, but having a house of my own was exciting, and I knew Tristan would be pleased. After all, it was an old house and it needed—carpentry work. We could make it ours. My heart started beating and I felt like screaming, “I’m happy! I’m truly happy,” but I didn’t, because my father had become somber.