Ten
My bedroom at my father’s house was bare. “Minimalist” he called it, until the day he walked in and looked around.
“This looks terrible,” he said. “We’ve got to get you more stuff. Let’s go shopping this afternoon.”
I pulled out the catalog from Pottery Barn I had been keeping in a drawer, buzzing with excitement. My mother couldn’t afford
anything like the furniture in the catalog, but my father could! The furry chairs! The pink-and-white rug! The white beadboard
loft bed with built-in steps! I was fourteen, but I had missed out on the little girl bedroom during my childhood, my mother
never having an extra cent, and even though I should have wanted something cool, the only thing I had ever wanted was a bedroom
fit for a princess.
I sat on my bed with the catalog on my lap, poring over each picture as I imagined what I would choose, wishing we could leave
right then and there. I watched the hands on my watch, which seemed to be moving in slow motion. Each time I looked, convinced
that at least twenty minutes would have gone by, it had only been two minutes.
The doorbell rang. Voices rose from the hallway, footsteps moving into the kitchen. I crept out of my room and down the corridor, my heart sinking as I heard what I thought of as business talk.
“ipryy. . . . in touch with the investors . . . securing the chip . . .”
“Missy!” My father glimpsed me poking my head round the door. “Come in and say hi. Everyone, you know my daughter, Missy.”
The faces were all vaguely familiar from my father’s office. Clara came over, putting her arms around me in a big hug as she
kissed my head. She was twenty-four, and I wanted nothing more than for her to adopt me as her younger sister.
“What time will you be done?” I asked my dad tentatively when Clara released me.
He frowned. “We have a very important meeting. It will take a while.”
My face fell.
“What’s the problem?” His voice was sharp. I shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
“It’s just that . . . I thought we were going to buy stuff for my room, but that’s okay.” I knew my shoulders had fallen in
dismay.
“It’ll have to wait.” My father sounded impatient.
“What’s this?” Clara was watching us. “Shopping? What shopping?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable. I didn’t want my longing to be so obvious.
“It’s nothing,” said my father. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You were gonna go shopping?” Clara persisted. “Why don’t I take you shopping? I’m not really needed here and there’s nothing I love more than shopping!”
My father looked relieved. “That would be great, Clara. Thank you.”
I rearranged my features so I wouldn’t look upset.
I adored Clara, but this was something I was looking forward to doing with my father.
I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, nor did I want to create a scene.
My father was talking to the assembled crowd again, and didn’t notice when I slipped out to get my shoes.
When I came downstairs, Clara was waiting for me in the hallway.
“Don’t worry, Missy.” She put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me close to her. “Your dad gets distracted, particularly
where work is concerned. Let’s go and have some fun spending his money.”
We spent his money.
I got the loft bed, with a pink desk that sat underneath, a furry beanbag, and the rug. I got a Disneyesque white wooden dressing
table with an oval mirror that was the most beautiful piece of furniture I had ever seen. I got pink-and-white sheets, and
a matching quilt. It was as if I had died and woken up in a princess castle.
The furniture was supposed to have arrived four weeks later, but Clara somehow negotiated delivery for that afternoon. A huge
van pulled up, and two men brought the boxes inside, stopping to gape, openmouthed, at the view. In my bedroom, they unpacked
the boxes and brought out their tools, expertly putting the furniture together.
I made up my bed myself. I had been doing my own laundry at my mom’s for years, and it was easy to get the mattress cover
on and stretch the sheets over. I had never seen a bed as pretty. Clara insisted on buying the whole installation in the store—bed,
sheets, pillows, and a diaphanous white gauzy mosquito net that hung from a hook in the ceiling.
I don’t know if the men had anticipated doing everything, but I think they took pity on me.
They offered to put up the curtain rod, and hang the curtains, and when they had finished I went to the drawer in my father’s kitchen where he kept cash, and gave them fifty dollars each.
I had no idea if that was too little, or too much, but I knew I had to tip them, and the grins on their faces told me this had made their day.
I phoned Lucy and described my bedroom.
“Can you come over and hang out?” I asked, but she couldn’t that day.
“Tell me again about the loft bed,” she said, because I had described it many times, and it was her favorite part of the whole
setup.
By the time my father came home, I was in my bedroom, sunk into the furry beanbag, admiring how soft and feminine the room
was, how luxurious.
I heard the door slam, then the crunch of his footsteps on the gravel.
“Marty?” I called, leaping up. “Come and see my room!”
He pushed open the door and stood in the doorway, his mouth dropping open.
“Jesus.” He whistled through his teeth. “It’s like walking into a giant cupcake.”
I frowned. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s so goddamned . . . pink.”
My heart sank. I looked around the room, at everything I had adored only seconds before, seeing it suddenly through his eyes.
It looked childish, and over-the-top. I thought of my father’s bedroom, his sleek black bed, the cowhide rug. I wished I’d
chosen a black bed, and a gray rug. I wished I’d chosen something he would have loved. In an instant, I hated everything,
but I was stuck with it.
“Wanna get some ice cream?” he said.
“Sure.” My voice was flat. I shut my bedroom door, wishing I never had to look at it again.