Nine #2
be against the wall and I would slide down to sitting position, where I would stay, sometimes for hours, as we talked about
nothing, and everything.
There were three phone numbers I had memorized: Lucy’s, Nasreen’s, and my father’s. I pressed my knuckles into my eyes to
get rid of the tears, and stood, facing the wall, as I phoned my father. I needed the comfort of his voice; I needed to know
I wasn’t alone and prayed he would pick up. I didn’t call him often, but when I did, I was used to being sent straight to
voice mail, or talking to an assistant who promised he’d call me back. He didn’t always call me back. In fact, it was rare,
and my heart leaped when he picked up the phone.
“Hey, Peanut! What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I lied, my voice breaking in the middle of the word, and then I was crying, and I didn’t know how to stop.
“I’m coming to get you,” he said, and my crying stopped.
“No! I’m fine. Please don’t.” I wanted nothing more than my father to come and get me. I wanted to climb into his Porsche
and watch him drive. I loved looking at his profile, his patrician nose, the way he sat back in the car seat with his arms
out straight, like a racing driver. I wanted to sit at his kitchen counter while he poured yogurt, berries and spinach into
the blender, whizzing it up into a delicious smoothie, the most exotic drink I’d ever heard of.
I wanted to be tucked up in my bedroom at my father’s house, even though it was almost bare. At my mother’s house there were
old wooden bookshelves filled with the detritus of my childhood: books, toys, china tea sets. At my father’s house, I had
a white iron bed and an old wooden dresser with rickety drawers that thumped from side to side every time I tried to maneuver
them open. The walls were bare, other than a poster of Britney Spears that Lucy had torn from a magazine. I tacked it to the
wall with pushpins I had taken from school. I didn’t care that there was nothing else in my room. It was in my father’s house.
That was all that mattered.
“Are you sure?” My father’s voice, deep and comforting, made me want to cry again. I was sure that I wanted to be with him,
but also sure that something terrible would happen to my mother if I left. She never talked about suicide, but there was a
boy in my class whose father had died by suicide. I was sure it wouldn’t take much for my mother to do the same.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” I lied.
“Okay. But you’re coming to me this weekend, right?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s only one sleep away! It’s practically the weekend now. What are you doing after school tomorrow?”
I would be doing what I always did after school. Hanging out with Lucy until dinner, hoping Noah and Caden might hang out
with us too, although it was unlikely.
“Nothing.”
“Why don’t I pick you up from school and we’ll go for ice cream?”
A genuine smile spread on my face, as I forgot about my mother, raging silently in her bedroom. I was willing to pick up whatever
crumbs he was willing to throw me, didn’t think about how he neglected my mother as punishment, withheld money as a means
of controlling her, hurting her, never once thinking about me. I deified him, idolized him. Nothing he did was wrong, and
an offer of an impromptu ice cream was the cherry on the ice cream on the top of the cake.
This was what my father did for me: he always gave me something to look forward to.
He picked me up the next day, but instead of heading to our favorite ice cream place, we headed to San Jose International
Airport.
“What are we doing?” I was confused, and excited. We had no travel plans that I knew of. I didn’t even own a passport, had
only been on a plane once, when my mother and I went to visit her aunt in Wisconsin.
My father didn’t go to the main airport, but drove around to a building on the side, leaving the Porsche in the parking lot
as he strode into the building, beckoning me to follow.
“Where are we going?” I kept asking, but all he said was, “For ice cream.”
The blonde woman at the desk knew my father, welcoming him and ushering us into a luxurious lounge. I still had no idea what was happening, but I had learned to keep quiet, to wait and see. The beating of my heart, the exhilaration I often felt around my father told me it would be worth the wait.
The blonde woman brought me a tall glass of iced lemonade, and a plate of giant chewy cookies. My father was handed a beer,
and just as he finished it, a man walked over in a pilot’s uniform.
“Missy, this is Wolfgang.”
I held my hand out to shake hands, making sure I looked him in the eye in the way my father had taught me.
“Are you excited?” Wolfgang asked. I nodded, even though I was still in the dark.
“Preflight check all done. We’re ready.”
I followed my father out to the tarmac, thinking how different this was to when I flew with my mother. On that occasion, there
were people everywhere, shuffling through lines looking bored, and irritated, hauling their suitcases onto conveyor belts.
All the seats were taken at our gate, so my mother perched on our suitcase, and I sat on the floor.
Here, there was no one on the tarmac, other than people in uniform, all of whom greeted my father. We walked over to a plane
that was just like a normal plane, only smaller.
My father ducked his head as we boarded, and I followed him, gasping out loud. It wasn’t a plane with rows of seats, but a
living room, with black suede sofas and armchairs, and what looked like a bedroom behind.
“What is this?” I whispered in amazement.
“This is my new toy.” He grinned. I noticed then that all the pillows were monogrammed with an embroidered ivory MC.
“For real?” I breathed.
He laughed. “For real.”
“I thought we were going for ice cream?” I said.
“We are. Buckle up. We’re going to Catalina for ice cream.
Don’t worry. You’ll be back in time for school tomorrow.
I’m thinking of building a house there so we’re going to look at a couple of plots of land.
But ice cream first.” He winked at me as he buckled up, and I nestled into my seat, my head exploding with monogrammed suede pillows, thoughts of sandy beaches and islands, and ice cream, as if I had woken up in a movie of someone else’s life.