Chapter 20
20
The next day, we rounded the streets of my old neighborhood in the rental car, a gray Nissan Versa. We headed down Woodspring, past the public pool where I’d learned to swim. We continued through the intersection where I’d crashed my bike in a pothole when I was eight; I’d landed chin first, acquiring a gash that needed stitches. On Winterbranch sat the duplex where my friend Abigail had lived. I’d gone there after school most days, to play computer games in her dad’s study, until her family moved to Toronto when we were in fifth grade.
My mom’s house was located on Beechwood, across the street from a field where Al and his friends played soccer, and where my dad liked to set off fireworks on the Fourth of July. The facade had a triangular roof, under which lay the garage. I told Dave to park around the corner, where a stone path led to the front door. I was surprised, as always, to find the house painted beige, as in my mind’s eye it remained the mint green it had been in my youth.
“Nice house,” Dave said, as we got out of the car. “What do you think it’s worth these days?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I was increasingly annoyed by Dave’s presence. I no longer cared about using him to impress my family, but it seemed easier to go through with the performance, since we were already here.
“A house like this would sell for two point five, easy, in the South Bay.”
“We’re not in the South Bay, though, are we?” I said.
We rang the bell, and a moment later, my mom opened the door. Her dogs, a Pomeranian named Stella and a corgi mix named Arnold, slipped around her to greet us. My mother was a thin woman with watery eyes and a head of wavy hair dyed a shade of red too vibrant for nature. She wore a knit tunic over a pair of the accursed leggings, black with a pattern of white fish. In one hand, she held a tumbler of white wine. She’d started early today.
“Hi there, sweetie!” she said, wrapping her arms around me. “So glad you could make it. And you must be Dave.”
“Happy birthday, Deb!” Dave said.
“You’re so tall!” she said, as I’d known she would.
I handed her the dog socks, which I’d forgotten to wrap.
“Oh, they’re adorable,” she said. “Thank you, honey.” Her gratitude seemed perfunctory, and I wondered if I should have brought a bottle of wine instead.
The living room looked the same as it had over Christmas, when I’d spent two nights on the overstuffed leather couch, its cushions perforated by the dogs’ claws. The walls retained their wood paneling from the seventies, though some updates had been attempted—new carpet, photos of Ron’s sons on the wall alongside photos of me and Al as kids, and some macramé wall hangings from that phase of my mom’s life. From the kitchen there wafted a meaty smell that turned my stomach. I made an effort to breathe through my mouth.
“They’re all in the back,” my mom said, crouching to pick up Stella.
A card table set with drinks had been installed in the yard, and the party’s attendees milled around it: Ron and his adult sons, and two women I assumed were involved with the leggings scheme. One of them introduced herself as Trish, the other, Suzanne. They were petite women in their sixties. Suzanne was prettier, while Trish had had more cosmetic work, her cheeks and lips plump and shiny, like hamburger buns.
“We’re so happy you could make it down to celebrate Deb!” Trish said. “I hear you’re living in San Fran?”
I nodded. “This is Dave. My boyfriend.” It was difficult to force these words from my mouth. A plane roared overhead, as if objecting to my betrayal, and I looked up to watch him pass, his fine shape etched against the cloudless sky.
“Love your necklace,” Dave said, referencing a gaudy geometric thing Trish was wearing. She explained the provenance of the necklace, something about a friend who’d just launched a jewelry line, and soon she was pushing her phone in his face to show him the friend’s Instagram store, insisting he buy something for me. I wandered over to Ron, a stepdad of sorts, though he and my mom weren’t married. He was a tall, broad man around seventy years old. His lumpy chin brought to mind the classic Douglas DC-8, whose engine inlets carved dimples in the same region.
“Glad you could make it down, Linda,” he said, shaking my hand. After five years, we hadn’t progressed to hugging. His two sons, large and interchangeable, resembling two 747s standing abreast, regarded me with shy smiles.
“So what are you two doing these days?” I asked them. They looked at each other before answering, like coconspirators who hadn’t gotten their story straight.
“Electricians’ union,” Teddy or Ron Jr. said.
“I’m working for our dad,” the other son said.
“Teddy’s great with computers,” Ron said, revealing that the second son who’d spoken, the one with a creased forehead and a mole on his neck, was Teddy.
Al and Denise emerged from the house, Al holding a cake box, Denise carrying Claudette on her hip. I drifted over to them, eager to escape further conversation with the eerie sons.
“Say hi to your aunt Linda,” Denise told Claudette. I looked into the baby’s moist, inquisitive eyes. Claudette had just turned a year old, and though I loved her in an abstract way, I was nervous around her, wary of leaving too deep an impression on her psyche. Since she was born, I’d always thought of her in relation to my fated demise. She would know me, for the rest of her long and happy life, as her aunt Linda who’d died in a plane crash. I’d become a legend in her mind, and in the meantime, I didn’t want to give her too much fodder with which to grieve the real me. She was probably still too young to form conscious memories, but I knew babies absorbed all stimuli, and so I took care not to hold her or speak to her excessively.
Al set down the cake box and hugged me. He had a gap between his front teeth that lent his face a mischievous look, at odds with his Lacoste polo shirt and khaki shorts. “We weren’t sure you’d make it down,” he said.
“Of course I made it,” I said. Al gave me a sardonic look, and I felt embarrassed, remembering the day, four years ago, when I’d called him from the Seattle airport and begged for his help. I didn’t tell Al about my flight binge, instead alluding to a stint of “partying” that involved drugs and the company of an unscrupulous man who’d made off with the last of my money. Al bought me a ticket to Bakersfield, and on the drive to his house, he’d lectured me about financial responsibility, reluctantly donning the costume of a father figure, now that our father was dead.
“Mom said you were bringing a date?” he said.
I gestured across the yard to Dave, who remained trapped in a conversation with Trish and Suzanne. Al squinted at him. Dave saw us looking and waved. “How old is he?” Al said, waving back.
“Forty-seven.”
Al whistled. “Practically Mom’s age.”
“Oh, stop,” Denise said, slapping his arm. “Good for you, Linda. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of you having a boyfriend before.”
“I never have until now,” I said.
“How did you meet?” Denise asked.
“We work together.”
“Is he your boss or something?” Al said.
Dave, no doubt aware we were talking about him, came over and introduced himself. I watched him and Al shake hands as though they were at a business convention. Denise set Claudette down and coaxed her to pet the dogs. I went into the house, hoping to talk to my mom alone.
I found her in the kitchen, slicing an onion for the salad.
“Dave seems like a catch,” she said. “Has he been married before?”
“Yeah. He’s divorced.”
“Well, sometimes those men are the best bets. They’ve already worked out their quirks with the first wife.” I imagined she was thinking of Ron, whose ex-wife lived in Anaheim. They’d been divorced for twenty years but remained close friends, a situation my mom accepted, though she’d sometimes gripe about it after a few drinks.
“I’m not planning on marrying him, or anything like that,” I said.
She gave me a familiar weary look. “Why not?”
I wished I could tell her I was already engaged, in my heart, to N92823. “I’m trying not to worry about the future,” I said.
“Just be open to the idea, sweetie. None of us are getting any younger.”
I knew this was true, and it urged me to proceed with my agenda. “Do you remember that trip we took to Chicago when I was thirteen?” I said.
“Chicago? I can’t imagine why we’d go there.”
“Dad had a conference.”
She nodded, drying her hands on a dish towel. “That must have been right before he left us.”
“He didn’t leave,” I said. “Well, he did for two weeks, but he tried to come back, and you wouldn’t let him.”
“I think I remember that trip,” she said. “It must have been the weekend you got food poisoning. I stayed with you in the hotel room while Al and your dad went to a museum.”
I hadn’t had food poisoning, of course. I’d needed an excuse to lock myself in the bathroom, where I’d navigated the contours of my sexual awakening. “Do you remember the plane we flew on? It was a 737-800 with a tail number of N92823.”
“You always were interested in those details, weren’t you?” My mom poured more wine into her glass. She offered me some, but I shook my head, refusing to be diverted.
“There was severe turbulence midway through,” I said. “A flight attendant broke her nose on the edge of the beverage cart. Coffee and wine were splattered on the walls. Everyone was screaming and praying. We all thought we were going to die.”
“That sounds unpleasant.” My mom took the macaroni out of the oven. “Can you help me bring this stuff out, hon? It’s time to eat.”
Though I assumed she was evading the subject so as not to encourage me, I was disturbed by the possibility that she truly didn’t remember our flight on N92823. Had I exaggerated its drama in my memory? I felt troubled as I carried out the macaroni, gripping the dish’s handles with potholders. While I’d been inside, the other guests had assembled a long folding table in the yard and covered it with a plastic tablecloth. Ron brought burgers over from the grill. Claudette sat in a high chair, squeezing a chunk of beef in her fist. I was quiet, biding my time while I ate my macaroni and a salad of romaine lettuce, shredded carrot, onion, and overly sweet dressing. Dave was telling the story of starting his company ten years ago.
“It was a good idea, but we were too early,” he said. “Clean tech was a bubble, and it burst.”
“I remember reading about that,” Al said. “Sounds like you hung in there longer than most of those startups.”
Dave shrugged. “To be honest, I wasn’t cut out to run a company. I’d rather collect a paycheck and let someone else deal with the headaches.”
“You’ve got to have a healthy work-life balance,” Denise said. “Otherwise, what’s it all for?”
“Totally,” Dave said. I was bored by this conversation and looked at my phone under the table. I’d re-downloaded my flight-tracking app. N92823 had just landed in Houston.
“So you and Linda work together now?” Denise said. “At a content moderation center, right?”
“Not exactly,” Dave said. “Linda works for a contractor, and I work for the parent company.” I gathered he didn’t want them to think he was a lowly moderator like me.
“What do you do for them?” Al asked Dave.
“He’s a site inspector,” I said.
“That’s one of my roles,” Dave said, a bit testily.
“He came to inspect our site after a disgruntled employee vandalized it,” I said.
“Oh my,” my mom said, sipping her wine.
“Linda’s the best mod in her vertical,” Dave said. “I’m sure she didn’t tell you, since she’s so modest.”
“That’s wonderful,” my mom said. “We always knew Linda was special. She knew so many facts about historical events—”
“Plane crashes, you mean,” Al said. He’d always teased me about what he viewed as a quirky interest in aviation, the way some girls loved horses or boy bands.
“What’s a vertical?” Teddy asked.
“Sort of a subcategory of moderating,” Dave said. “Linda’s in H&H.”
“Hate & Harassment,” I said.
“Remember when you wanted to be a flight attendant?” Al said.
“You never told me that,” Dave said. I glanced at him, and he winked. Across the table, my mom was watching us, her eyes misty.
“We’re so glad you two found each other,” she said, her voice sodden from the wine. My cheeks flushed.
“So am I, Deb,” Dave said. He cleared his throat, and I realized he was uncomfortable, too.
“I’ve always worried about Linda making her way in the world,” my mom continued. “I feel better knowing she has you. We’re so happy to welcome you to our family.”
I wanted to melt into my plastic chair. Al stood and proposed a toast, intervening, as usual, to smooth over an awkward moment. “To the best mom in the world,” he said. “Here’s to sixty more years, Ma.” We clinked glasses, and then other people chimed in with their own toasts. I cast Al a grateful look, and he nodded over his glass. In spite of his teasing, I knew that Al loved me and wanted to protect me, though he was baffled by my life choices. For years, I’d allowed him to think I was simply irresponsible, perhaps addicted to drugs.
Denise brought out the cake, lit with a candle in the shape of the number 60, and we sang “Happy Birthday.” As the cake was being cut, I asked Al if he remembered our trip to Chicago. My mom’s denial still gnawed at me, and I wanted someone to at least acknowledge it had happened.
“I think so,” Al said. He had a toothpick in his mouth, probably one of those cinnamon-flavored ones he always carried in his shirt pocket. “Dad had a conference, right?”
“Yes,” I said with a rush of excitement. “Do you remember the flight there? We hit a patch of clear-air turbulence.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, jiggling the toothpick. “That was terrifying. The worst flight I’ve ever been on, by a long shot.”
I felt vindicated. Finally, someone else admitted to remembering. “I saw the plane last night, at the airport,” I said. “N92823. He’d been in storage for years, and now he’s back.”
“?‘He’?” Suzanne said.
“Yes, planes are male,” I said irritably.
“How do they reproduce, then?” Suzanne said, smiling. “Where do plane babies come from?”
I ignored her disrespect. “I just want you all to know that this year, I started making vision boards, and they’ve been helping me manifest my goals. That’s how Dave and I got together.”
Dave put his hand on my thigh. “Linda,” he said, warning me to stop.
“I placed Dave’s image on my vision board, along with images of planes, and the universe found a way to unite us,” I said.
An awkward silence fell over the table. “Linda, don’t be silly,” my mom said. “You told us you met at work.”
“It’s true, those boards are powerful,” Trish said. “I’ve been making one at the start of each year, and so far, I’ve gotten everything I asked for.”
“Yes!” I said, grateful for Trish.
“I’ve been telling you, Deb,” Trish said. “Manifestation is a very powerful tool. My downlines have had record sales this year thanks to my vision board.”
“Why would you put planes on your board?” Ron Jr. asked me. He rarely spoke, and his question caught me off guard.
“Because planes are my destiny,” I said. “I’m glad to have known you all, and whatever guilt you might feel in relation to me, I absolve you from it. Whatever happens, I want you to know that it was meant to be.” I took a breath, adrenaline surging through me. Now that N92823 was back, I felt my fate was drawing near, and I wanted to seed in my family an awareness of my death as a joyful event.
Al and Denise exchanged a worried glance.
“The cake is delicious,” Dave said.
“Red velvet. My favorite,” my mom said, and from there the conversation moved back into safe territory.
When Dave and I were leaving, my mom grabbed my wrist at the door and pulled me close. “Is everything okay, sweetie?” she said.
“Everything’s fine,” I told her. “I’m glad I got to see you.” I restrained myself from adding, “one last time.”
“Maybe you could talk to someone,” she said. “I met with a counselor after your dad left, and it helped me a lot.”
I squeezed her bony shoulders. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Dave stood by the Versa. “Nice meeting you,” my mom called to him. “Take care of my daughter, okay?”
I watched a shadow pass over Dave’s face. Then he grinned and came over to hug her again, showing off the meet-the-parents charm he’d boasted about.
—
As we drove away from the house, Dave seemed subdued. I asked if he’d had a good time.
“It was a nice party,” he said. “Your mom’s friends were a trip. And it was fun talking shop with your brother.”
We idled at a stoplight.
“Some of the stuff you said was pretty weird,” Dave said.
“What stuff?” I said, though I knew. I’d figured I would have to account for my conduct at dinner, but I was reluctant to go to the trouble. I didn’t want to be Dave’s fake girlfriend anymore. Now that I knew N92823 was back in service, it felt disloyal even to pretend.
“I wish you hadn’t told them about the vision board,” Dave said. “I thought you just put me on there to symbolize work stuff. But you made it sound like it was because you wanted to date me. Like you want us to get married, or something.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You made it sound like I’m a zombie you’ve tricked into a relationship. And what’s with your obsession with that plane? N-whatever. You mentioned it last night, too.”
He turned right onto Barranca Parkway, heading back toward the hotel. Our speed increased, and I rolled up my window. “I already told you,” I said.
“Tell me again.”
He didn’t know what he was asking for, and yet, I felt the time had come to tell him the truth. Dave deserved to know my heart belonged to someone else. I suggested we go to the beach to watch the sunset. Dave reversed course, driving through downtown, past the Rusty Pelican, where the waitress my dad had an affair with had worked. We entered the Balboa Peninsula. Two miles south lay the marina where my dad’s boat, Wendy, once dwelled. I felt a pang of guilt, remembering the grizzled man I’d sold her to, who’d probably scrapped her for parts.
Dave parked in the beach lot, and I led us onto the pier. Throngs of people had gathered to watch the sunset, but we found an empty patch, resting our elbows on the splintered railing. The sun was a scorching white dot above the ocean. I admired its clean outline before I had to look away, its afterimage burned onto my retinas.
I summoned the courage to reveal myself to Dave in my entirety. But before I could speak, Dave said quietly, “I think this was a mistake.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Coming here with you. I’m sorry, Linda. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.”
“What idea is that?”
Dave looked down at the surf. “I guess I didn’t think about how it would feel meeting your family. They were so happy you’d found someone. It felt a little too real for me.”
I recalled his embarrassment when my mom had gushed over our relationship. “Don’t worry about my mom,” I said. “She gets emotional when she drinks.”
I could tell Dave was working through something in his mind. “When’s the last time you had a boyfriend?” he asked.
“I’ve never had one,” I said.
He looked at me incredulously. “Never?”
I shook my head.
“Well, you’re still young,” Dave said, pushing back from the railing, as if having decided something. “You can have it all. A real partner. A family. I can’t offer that. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”
“I told you before,” I said. “I’m not attracted to people. Only to planes. The truth is—”
“Stop,” he said, raising his hand. “You don’t have to do that, Linda.”
“Do what?” I said, startled.
“I remember you saying that before. When we were about to fly to Houston, and I told you we couldn’t date. I get that it must be your way of dealing with rejection, but it’s not necessary.”
I was amazed, once again, by Dave’s obliviousness. He thought he had me figured out, when in fact, he couldn’t see the truth even when it was presented to him. He could only project aspects of his own personality onto me. His self-centeredness irritated me, but I also saw he’d given me the exit ramp I needed. I only had to swallow my pride and pretend I was hurt that he was ending our phony relationship.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said.
He put his arm around me, and we stood together in silence, watching the sun melt into the waves. Behind us, I heard the faint cry of a plane and thought of N92823, who was set to land at O’Hare in an hour. From now on, I’d live with a constant awareness of his position in the world, my heart tethered to him until the day he’d take me as his bride. I hoped I wouldn’t have to wait much longer.