Soul Catcher (8 page)

Dad and Lisa invited some of their friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. That was another thing:
their
friends. I knew that they’d had this apartment together for nearly five months before Dad left Mom, but still, it shocked me to realize they had cultivated their own social life. Dad had had a whole other, secret existence from ours. I felt betrayed.
Who were these friends? Why did I have to meet them? They were all the enemy, against me, against Mom, against the reality of our old life together. I no longer had a real place in Dad’s life; it was like he had flipped the channel mid-plot, and I was lost.

These friends were a couple from Manhattan — Vladimir, a Russian jewelry designer and Suzy, his American actress wife — and another man, a lawyer. His name was Jerry O’Haran and he was the only one I really liked.

Vladimir was big and tubby, with a scraggy beard that looked like pubic hair. Suzy was the opposite: small and neat with short black hair and perfectly ironed clothes. She was decked out in outrageous jewelry made by Vladimir. BIG stones set in BIG strips of gleaming gold or silver. It looked fancy and expensive and I hated all of it. Vladimir and Suzy were nice people, but I hated them too. They just didn’t belong. No one did. Neither did I.

Patrick and I sat next to each other in chairs facing the couch, where Vladimir and Suzy were spread out, especially Vladimir. Dad was in the kitchen cooking, while Lisa played hostess. When she handed around wine glasses, she included Patrick and me. We looked at each other and shrugged. Normally, adults didn’t serve alcohol to minors, especially kids like us who came from a place like Grove. She filled our glasses with wine, and we drank it. I liked the buzzy numb feeling I got before long; it took me out of my tension, into a zero-zone of not really caring.

No one noticed I was getting drunk, not Vladimir or Suzy or Dad or Lisa or even Patrick, no one but Jerry O’Haran. Maybe that was why I liked him. He was unaffected, silent and aware, sitting next to me without a young girlfriend in shining bracelets screaming stones. Jerry had thinning brown hair parted far over on the side, and wore wire-rimmed aviator glasses. He was dressed in brown pants, a tweed jacket and a white shirt, which struck me as dull but appropriate for his age — I guessed forty-five. It seemed to me he was the only normal adult in the room. He just leaned
back in his chair, with his wine glass balanced on his knee, looking all around. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. He had twinkly brown eyes topped with these incredibly bushy eyebrows. He winked at me, and one eyebrow angled up.

Then he really surprised me. He said, ‘I knew you when you were a baby.’

‘You did?’

‘Yup. You had red fuzz all over your head. You looked like a peach.’

‘Do you know my mother?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ve known Max and Molly for almost twenty years. We were in law school together.’

Apparently he was on Dad’s side, since he was here as a guest. Maybe I didn’t like this Jerry so much, after all, not if he was one of Dad’s conspirators in his secret life.

I was a little drunk, so it slipped right out, when I said, ‘Well I think all this sucks.’

Jerry nodded. I didn’t know if it was because he agreed with me, or wanted to shut me up. Suddenly I was angry. A storm was whirling up inside me and I wanted to run. But then Lisa marched in with a gigantic tray of hors d’oeuvres, and distracted us with explanations of what they were. The white roll was
chevre
rolled in fresh pepper, the sickly beige lump
was foiegras,
the wrinkled black things were oil-cured Greek olives, and the pruny red stuff was sun-dried tomatoes in virgin olive oil and fresh herbs.

‘I have potato chips for you,’ she said to Patrick and me. He looked relieved. I was insulted. Then she said, ‘But sorry, no dip.’

I hated her. I couldn’t help it. ‘I see one,’ I said under my breath as she walked away.

Jerry smiled. And I knew: he was on my side.

Vladimir dug right into the bowl of potato chips. I kept hoping Lisa would notice, but every time she floated in and out of the room, he was nowhere near the bowl. She thought I was eating them all. When she refilled the bowl from a
huge bag, she slid me a look that said
here you go, you nasty little glutton.

Thanksgiving dinner was no better. We had turkey with wild rice and walnut stuffing, fresh stewed cranberries, new potatoes with dill, escarole salad, and kiwi pie. It tasted good, but it wasn’t normal; it wasn’t a real Thanksgiving dinner like we’d always had them, with chestnut stuffing, sweet potatoes, boiled onions, cranberry sauce, peas in butter, and homemade apple pie. Lisa’s version had no history. I sat between Dad and Patrick. Every now and then Patrick would look at me and smile, with real love in his eyes, as if we were all alone. He could bolster me even with silence, his silences were so full. Dad kept looking at me, too, but with him it was different. Every time one of Lisa’s creations came my way, he would slip me an understanding look. It was as if he knew in his gut exactly how I felt about everything from his woman to her food, that I didn’t like them, that I couldn’t fit into his new life.

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

Patrick and I slept on the living room floor in sleeping bags. We lay them down next to each other and crawled into our separate sacks. The only parts of us that touched were our hands, clasped loosely between us.

‘Don’t you think you were a little extreme?’ he asked me.

‘No.’

He let go of my hand, and I felt abandoned and cold. He rolled over, leaned on his elbow, looked at me. It was dark, but there was enough moonlight coming through the unshaded turret windows to see him. He reached over and smoothed my hair back from my forehead. ‘You have to accept it,’ he said softly. ‘Your father made a choice. This is his home now.’

‘I hate her.’

‘You don’t hate her,’ he said. ‘You hate your father living with her. That’s different.’

‘Not much.’

‘It’s different.’

‘What am I supposed to do? She’s so weird. She’s nothing like Mom.’

‘Shh. They’ll hear you.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You’ll hurt his feelings. Couldn’t you see how sensitive he is about it? He’s so scared you won’t accept him now.’

I rolled my eyes. But I knew, inside, that Patrick was right.

‘I know how you feel,’ he said. ‘I’ve been through it, remember?’ His forehead was tense and his eyes were staring at me. I knew that look; he was worrying. I felt guilty for my selfishness in consuming his emotions like this, at stirring up tension and doubt. I had seen how fragile he was underneath all his calm. I had seen him shatter and fly away.

I rolled over so we were facing each other.

‘Tell me,’ I said.

‘What?’

“That you know I love you a lot.’

He smiled. ‘I know you love me a lot.’

‘Swear?’

‘Swear.’

He kissed me — a soft, luscious kiss — as his hand ran down along my back. My old flannel nightgown was thin enough for me to feel his fingers press into my skin. Chills danced up my back, and I shivered.

He hummed, ‘Ummm,’ and kissed me again.

‘Roll over,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you a back-rub.’

Maybe it was naive of me, but I was genuinely surprised when he raised my nightgown. I didn’t resist. This was Patrick, my Patrick, and I trusted him. He looked at my breasts before turning me over. His hands felt warm and dry as they kneaded my back. I could feel myself relaxing; muscles I never knew I had turned to goop. When his fingers grazed the sides of my breasts, a tingle ran through my body and I realized how wet I was between my legs, and what it meant.

‘How do you feel?’ he whispered.

Smart, nervous remarks flitted through my mind, but I rejected all of them. How
did
I feel? I felt good! I
felt greatl
I rolled over and stretched my arms above my head. He knelt over me, straddling my body, gazing watery-eyed at my bare moon breasts. I would give myself to him, in love, passion, adventure and trust. I would let him grow me up into a woman. Release me from my girl-self and my former life. Sex. I thought that was all it would take.

I closed my eyes and waited for him to do it, whatever it was; to begin me as a woman. He lowered himself over me, slowly, coming closer and closer, blanketing me with his shadow, until finally his lips touched my forehead.

Then he rolled back to his own sleeping bag, and whispered, ‘Goodnight.’

Brunch the next morning was homemade blueberry pancakes covered in hot Vermont maple syrup mixed with sweet butter. Lisa was really going all-out to hook Dad completely. I suppose she wanted to marry him. Hot buttery syrup! Patrick kept throwing me looks that told me to act as if I liked it. Well, I did like it, but I didn’t see why she should know. She had Dad. What else did she want from me?

Later, when Lisa went shopping and Patrick was blitzed out in front of the t.v., I stole some private time with Dad. He was reading in his bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed.

‘Dad,’ I said, ‘tell me about when you and Mom met.’

He looked up from his book. ‘You’ve heard that story a hundred times.’

‘I know, but I want to hear it again.
Please.’

He set the book on his lap. ‘Mom was standing online to register for an English Lit class. I was on the next line, for a Philosophy class.’ He stopped as if that was all, but I knew there was more to it.

‘You couldn’t stop looking at her.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And she smiled.’

‘Why do you need to hear all this again?’

‘Because I like it. If you hadn’t stood on those lines, I wouldn’t exist.’ The thought had always intrigued me.

‘I can hardly believe you’re almost sixteen years old.’

‘When you asked Mom out, did she think about it, or did she say yes right away?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘She said yes, and you went to the cafeteria and had coffee.’

‘Are you happy at school?’

‘You and Mom got married three months after you met. You eloped.’

His eyes went dreamy, cloudy, wet. ‘Our parents were furious,’ he said. ‘We were still in college. They thought we were ruining our lives. But we both finished college and we both went to law school. It wasn’t easy, but we were happy and that made all the difference.’

‘What do you see in
her?’

The muscles in his face tensed instantly upon abandoning the memory. ‘That’s inappropriate,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘Patrick’s a nice boy.’

I felt a sudden urge to beat down any image he had of me as a know-nothing- good-little-girl. I said, ‘He’s a drug addict, Dad.’

He smiled and shook his head. He didn’t believe me. Finally I left the room.

Patrick told me that the first year of divorce is the hardest, but that eventually you get so used to it, you can’t even picture your parents together. I had completed the first month and could still barely picture them apart. Dad’s new life was a determination against our old life. He was pulling himself out of the mental picture I tried to sustain of Mom and Dad together. He was putting himself in another picture, one that for me was impossible. So instead of granting him that, I would obliterate him. I would not succumb to the picture of my parents apart, but would allow
him to fade out of the single picture of them together. I would abandon him to my past, stash him away in my memory.

I had to. My childhood had betrayed me. Now, growing up was the only thing left.

That night, I practiced wearing Gwen’s black negligee, posing in front of the bathroom mirror, studying myself. I liked the sexy redheaded girl staring back at me. She was pretty. Her breasts were small and so were her hips and waist. The negligee had thin straps that flowed into lace and then silk. It came down to just above her knees, which looked a little knobby. Her hair sizzled over her pale freckled shoulders. The deep black of the silk accentuated her natural colors: the dark green of her eyes, the pink of her lips, the vivid orange of her hair, the white of her skin. She was the first image of a young woman I ever saw in myself. She looked at me straight in the eye, and smiled.

Dad and Lisa had gone to bed. I moved around the apartment nonchalantly, turning off lights. When I came into the living room, I deliberately didn’t look at Patrick, who was half in his sleeping bag, staring at the t.v. I lay on top of my sleeping bag, crossed my ankles, and waited for him to notice.

He ignored me.

I giggled and rolled over, and finally he looked. His eyes were smiling, but his forehead was bunched with tension.

‘Where did you get that thing?’

‘It’s Gwen’s.’

He slid all the way into his sleeping bag and rolled over, away from me. A second later, he rolled back to face me.

‘Would you marry me?’ he asked. ‘Theoretically, I mean.’

‘Sure!’

‘Good.’ He rolled back over. ‘As long as we understand each other.’

After a while, he started to snore in long, sawing breaths. I wasn’t insulted. I knew he was doing this for me, that refusing the sex I offered him was his way of loving me. He
had been through his own parents’ divorce. He was older than me. He knew what highs were real, and when, and he knew enough to spot a quick escape. He was a master at quick escapes; just look at his arms. He loved me and didn’t want me to learn to use escapes, too. Like sex. I really wasn’t ready. And he knew.

I
was still a virgin when we got back from Thanksgiving vacation. I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I was relieved, since virginity was all I knew and so it was comforting. But on the other hand, I was curious and wanted to know what waited on the other side, you know, the
inside
part of my body where sex would change me into a woman. I was still a girl. Which turned out to be just fine, since when the big scandal happened, no one could rightfully say that Silvera’s accusations against me were true.

We all found out about it indirectly, through random comments and observations that surfaced like pieces of a puzzle bobbing up for air. Grove was a small place, and you couldn’t hide anything, especially not the juicy stuff — and this was juicy.