2008
Melrose District
Los Angeles, California
Kati
O
NCE AGAIN
I’
M AVOIDING GOING HOME
. I’m standing up, straddling my beach cruiser, browsing the magazines at the outdoor newsstand right here in the middle of the Melrose District.
Later, I can swing around to the street behind mine and hang out with Zara’s family this evening. Mutti would never dream of showing up there, and she simply can’t make me come home tonight if I don’t want to.
I’m a legal adult now and make plenty of money working for Zara’s uncle in his chain of convenience stores. This gives me some independence.
I’ve dodged Mutti’s attempts to get me to cut my hair for five years now, and she’s horrified at how it looks. I won’t even trim the ends. I like it wild and bushy and almost down to my waist—it makes me look bigger than my skinny self. Sometimes I braid it so it won’t get caught in things. But most of the time, I keep it under control and out of my face with a whole line of different-colored men’s fedoras that I pick up at swap meets. I still have all the big sunglasses. I look like a tall, skinny Karen O.
The chain of events leading from my DUI down to today has left me without access to a car, but who really needs that here in the district? It’s only three in the afternoon, and I’ve been thinking about drinking several times already today. When you’re as lean as I am, it doesn’t take much alcohol to push you all the way over the edge.
I’m still waiting for the first young man to pay any attention to me in “that way.” There are more of us than you think.
For prom night a few months ago, a bunch of us “left behinds” went shopping for retro formal gowns at a thrift store, did wild makeup, and had a slumber party at one of the girls’ homes, drinking way too much and dancing our brains out. Her parents seemed sad somehow about hosting the event but worked with us to help make it happen.
I’m convinced by now that many parents carry a chronic deep disappointment in their kids around with them for decades. You can see it in their eyes. I can see it in Mutti. With her, there is a flash of anger mixed in with the disappointment about me. I think she was mad at me before I was born. She’s angry at me because no one asked me to prom. Angry at
me
.
I woke up in the middle of the night at the prom party and stepped over bodies in sleeping bags to get to the bathroom. I turned the water and the fan on, sat on the toilet lid with my head in my hands, my wild, loose hair covering most of me like a big thicket, and sobbed so hard it was difficult to stop. Then I washed off my ruined makeup and went back to my sleeping bag....
I awaken from my not-so-pleasant memories when I drop the magazine I’m browsing through at the newsstand.
How can the whole zero-male-attention thing throw my self-esteem into a sticky, urban trash can? I try to ease up on myself, but underneath I wonder,
Am I really that ugly?
Opa’s been gone for a couple of years now, and for the longest time before his passing, he wasn’t able to interact much. It’s like he died a little bit at a time. I check my watch now, which makes me think of him. Tonight I’m going to do something that will push Mutti across the line, but I want to do it to remember Opa.
I look at my tattoo-free right wrist for one of the last times ever. I purposely am going to get ink that goes up high on the back of my hand, almost to my knuckles, so it will be hard to cover with a sleeve. It’s edgy and will go well with my untrimmed hair.
Seems like everything I do has mixed motives. Truth is, I’m doing this to spite Mutti
and
to remember a dear grandfather. Are there any motives in life that aren’t mixed? I doubt it. The more pressure I feel from the outside, the more broken my motives are. The demands of life are simply impossible…and I’m living proof.
I’ve been doodling versions of our Dornbusch family coat of arms for much of my life: the heart with the crown of thorns around it. I brought my best sketches to Mama Mahala at Kupina Tattoo on Melrose, and she re-did three options for me. Yesterday we agreed on one. Black thorns, letters, and a red heart. I’m putting the German Gothic letters
HWD
in the center heart for Opa’s full name: Harald Walter Dornbusch.
I’ve also decided I’m not going to USC this fall.
Like someone like me wants to go to a private school like USC anyway with perfect young people from prosperous families. It would be a dream come true for Mutti, of course. But organized education has never worked for me—at least socially. Except for meeting Zara at school, most of my friends grew up with me at church.
Hope Lutheran Church on Melrose is one of the few places I feel totally at home, even without Opa. We had a long talk the first time he wasn’t physically able to go with me on a Sunday morning. When I offered to stay home with him, he pulled me down to his chair. I remembered sadly when he was always able to stand out of respect for me. Not anymore. Placing his old but aristocratic hands on both sides of my head, Opa kissed me on the forehead and made me promise I’d take my grandkids to church someday.
“If you go every Sunday after I’m gone,” Opa said, “it’s a way for us to spend time together. Someday you’ll understand. But for now, you have the special-needs kids who are counting on you this morning. Bless you, darling princess.” He kissed my forehead for a second time, and off I went on my bike.
His last gift to me was a large Asian teakwood winder case with padded wrists inside that silently rotate with electric engines and thereby wind all of the automatic mechanical watches from the sea chest, which keeps them in better condition. They are worth a fortune to collectors. But they are worth much more than that to me. Mutti hates it when I wear them, and I always suspect she is going to try to hide them from me—or worse. The Ziffer alone is worth almost a million dollars to collectors.
I miss Opa’s constant encouragement. He would have been proud, seeing me the day I graduated from high school. I was just glad to be done and out of there. The only reason I go back to Fairfax High School now is for the Melrose Trading Post held there every Sunday afternoon. Hippest swap meet in the universe. I swing by on my bike every week on the way home from church.
It’s the best afternoon of my week. My heart usually sings all the way to the Trading Post because of the magic that happens in my class at church on Sunday mornings. I’ve been working with three of the four children in my special-needs Sunday school class for several years now. The fourth one is new to the group. Their families come to the church because of my work there. They often invite me to their homes for birthdays and holidays. We are starting to work out plans for my permanent work with the kids, and I’m
really
excited about it. I can’t think of a job I’d ever love more.
My four students never expect anything from me. They take me just the way I am. With Opa passing slowly, the hopeless situation with Mutti, and tensions with Zara building over our diverging lives, I’ve been taking every opportunity to work with my kids and their families.
I find myself, for the first time today, here at the newsstand, avoiding going to Zara’s house.
Why am I hesitating?
It all started at Yosemite National Park a few weeks ago at the beginning of summer after our graduation from Fairfax High School. Zara’s parents invited me to go with them. They had reservations in the Ahwahnhee Hotel.
They have “made it” in America and are starting to enjoy showing it. Nice cars. Always a little overdressed. Her dad wears shirts that are a bit too tight, an Asian way of showing you have plenty to eat. At Yosemite, her mother wore traditional Pakistani clothing with American designer shoes. It’s hard to figure out exactly what the rules are for Zara’s clothing, especially since she started to blossom as a young woman. It seems like they are so proud of her looking and dressing American but have her go traditional at family events at home.
In any case, Zara looked stunning that day in Yosemite. It was probably the most beautiful day of her life. We all have one of those. God forbid mine has already passed. She wore shorts, flip-flops, and a bright orange top. Her skin was perfect. Her almost-black hair, unlike my massive frizz, was shiny and lying perfectly.
But it was her eyes and teeth that shone out from her royally shaped face with dark skin that made her nearly too beautiful to look at. Her luminous, big brown eyes were outlined with heavily emphasized eyeliner. My smile is good, but nothing like Zara’s was on that day. It would be impossible for any man to walk past her without sneaking a look. Just strolling along in the pine-scented sunshine with her promenading family, she was like a weightless dancer in perfect balance.
We all (Zara’s uncle had brought his family too) walked up the paved path to Yosemite Falls. We were quite a sight with a dozen people, including me. Suddenly having trouble breathing because of all the compound jealousy and anxiety, I figured that if I could get out ahead of them, I wouldn’t have to look at Zara. I was feeling choked up in the throat as I walked forward, looking down, even though the Yosemite Falls—one of the most spectacular sights in all of nature—was right ahead of me and up high. Even more, it’s hard to walk with my head down, because my big mop of hair falls forward and I can’t see much, even with my fedora. So I tossed my head back and kept walking, looking up at the falls.
Putting space between myself and the group, I turned and glanced back at them. A very average family with a physically stunning daughter in the very peak hour of her life.
Turning back to face front, I stumbled through a group of about six boys my age, tanned and muscular, walking the opposite way. Two of them were carrying skateboards. Frat types. Confident. Wealthy.
I’ll never forget the words of the obvious team captain as he stopped right next to me, as if I didn’t exist, and stared at Zara: “Guys! Look…at…her.”
I started to run. Faster and faster.
Turning right at the base of the lower falls, the trail goes over a stone bridge. I climbed over the stone rail and clambered down onto the boulders that led to the base of the falls and started working toward the spray.
No one is ever going to notice me.
The thought hit hard. Panic, frustration, and anger spurred me on. One boulder at a time, I kept climbing. At last I had to stop. I was out of breath.
Suddenly, there was a hand on my left shoulder.
Saahir. The son of Zara’s uncle. We’d worked a few shifts together in the chain of convenience stores. He looks like a chubby forty-five-year-old, even though he’s my age. He always dresses too old. But he’s steady as the day is long. And bright. And kind.
“I thought I would run on ahead and see the falls with you, Kati,” he said quietly that day.…
Completing my mental walk down Memory Lane, I realize I’m just stalling. Finally I leave the magazine racks of the convenience store and hop back on my bike to head for Zara’s house. Riding up the narrow driveway leading to the garage behind the stucco house, I park my bike, inhale the aroma of curry, and go in through the back door. I’ve had a key for years but don’t need it today. The men are sitting on the back patio.
The older men in the extended family are observant Muslims. No alcohol and no foolishness. Shrewd businessmen, they see the opportunities of buying up gas stations in sketchier neighborhoods where others are reticent to do business, converting them to upgraded convenience stores, and creating cash flow. Something tells me that their projects are going to be a part of my life for a long time.
Zara’s aunt—Saahir’s mother—and I have developed a special relationship. She’s at Zara’s house almost every day. She seems to love me almost as much as Opa did. We spend hours together in the kitchen. Her English is atrocious, and she appreciates any help I can give tutoring her. Because I speak several languages, I know how to talk in such a way as to be easily understood.
Strange, but these days I come here more to see her than to be with Zara.
Zara will be off to school at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the fall. I’ll have to go see her on the train if I can’t get my driver’s license back.
I stop daydreaming and find myself in the kitchen, preparing dinner with my “aunt,” looking out the window onto the narrow residential street while chopping food. Zara drives up in a convertible with two guys, all of them laughing a little too loud. Unlike me, most Anglos are a little nervous about coming into a Pakistani house, so Zara comes in alone.
Just realized that I haven’t told Mutti where I am. I start to smile because I know that will bother her. When was the last time I thought of my father? He takes up almost no space in my head, even though he lives in the house with us.
Saahir is out on the back porch with the men, explaining how the new accounting software works. They have started to depend on his judgment. He’s a funny little man, and I think he arranges his days so he can see more of me....
After dinner, Zara and I glance at each other, smile, and realize it’s time. We do the ritual good-bye greetings with the whole houseful, put on our hoodie sweatshirts, and head out for Kupina Tattoo, a few blocks away.
I am so excited; there are huge butterflies in my stomach.
On the way we chat, and I forgive her in my heart for the Yosemite incident, even though she has no idea it even happened or how it devastated me. Zara is a nondisposable friend. A sister. And you can’t divorce a sister.
We were junior high friends who liked art. She blossomed and I didn’t. Will I ever? Would we still have become friends if we met now? We started at the same starting line, but she is now lapping me—over and over. Who knows?
Soon we’re standing in front of Mama Mahala at Kupina Tattoo. Mama looks me straight in the eyes and asks, pointing down at the final design on paper, “Are you sure, young lady? How about farther up the arm so a long sleeve will cover it for formal occasions?”
I pull out Opa’s Pelikan fountain pen and sign the release. I slap a pile of cash down on the counter with authority.
“No,” I say. “All the way up to the base of my knuckles. It’s my money. It’s my right hand. It was my grandfather. Do it. Now.”