Up For Review:
Of Things No Longer There (Rom)
Patrick hesitated at the curb. Looked lost instead of left-and-right, as if he'd suddenly forgot his name or azimuth, as if a passing motorist had splashed him with senility.
"Come on. We're there." He'd need a prod, thought Mona. Her father wasn't old (Well, forty wasn't ancient!) just easily distracted, engaged sometimes in conflicts with inertia. "Dad?" She tried to take his hand while watching for a break in traffic; she missed and grabbed instead his stump, the remnant of an index finger. "Let's go." The phantom digit acquiesced.
When she was five, it scared her silly. If Patrick gestured with his stubby pointer, Mona 'd shriek in horror, flee into the kitchen where she'd hide between her mother's legs and stare. When Patrick teased her ("Mona? Come play finger puppets. Where'd you go?"), Mona 'd close her eyes to make it go away.
"Patrick! Jesus! Stop it! You've frightened her to death."
If he retreated to his work, she'd watch it twitch in misplaced memories: a signature, a home-row "j," a pinioned shoelace loop. In awe. An insect to its flame.
At ten, she frightened others. Mona bragged in secret how the chainsaw 'd growled that day, how shreds of flesh and pink had drawn an oval on the side of her garage. She led audiences into his study, interrupted lesson plans with pleas for extra cash or silly favours just so they could glimpse the absent finger. She even patted it with, "Thank you, Dad," knowing that her friends would wince and think her 'ever daring.'
When twelve, it was a fetish. Cat-like she snuggled on the couch while Daddy watched the news. She arched herself in ways that brought the wound against her chin or shoulder or her knee. Sparks of energy. Later, in her bed, she'd dream the scar against her thigh or drizzling down her budding chest. She'd close her eyes and suck the knuckle of her thumb the way they might on MTV, pretending wild, clandestine touches.
Now seventeen, Mona's grasp on Patrick's half-a-finger held no mystery at all. It was a part of Dad, no more or less than his unruly cowlick or heavy, black moustache, his gentle voice or awkward shyness with his students or his peers.
They'd started out the day in quest of fish at Pike's down by the harbour. Then crowds or fate or too much heat made Mona think how long since he had toured her though the waterfront aquarium. "Ten years. I was seven. It was summer, too. Please. We'll get the salmon after. It's like an anniversary." Then they'd clattered down the ranks of wooden steps toward the quay.
"Are we doing this or not?" She pulled him to the sidewalk from the street and let the finger go.
"I'm sorry, Mon. It's hot. I lost my train of thought."
"It's broiling. Cool in there. The seals, remember?"
Once inside, once past the ticket lines, Mona and her father wandered in the labyrinthine corridor lit only by the tanks of lionfish and crabs and octopi, the flash of neon, the zebra luminescence that danced through artificial night. They didn't need long sentences to share the marvels of the deep. A tap upon a shoulder and a nod rekindled memories and underscored the wonders of each window on the sea.
It happened at the seahorse tank, a massive aqua-column at the end of Building One. Refracted seaweed streamers swayed as if to music. Seadragons, in amongst them, ragged centaurs, danced in perfect time, a miracle of camouflage. The father and his nearly grown-up daughter stood transfixed in silence, spotting one and then another with a widened eye or parting of their lips, oblivious of others in the crowd that hovered near.
"Mr. Worthy!" A woman's voice. Young. Mona knew at once the speaker was some student, past or present. "'Member me?" The girl was tall. A piercing in her nostril caught a glimmer from the tank. Red gold tumbled to her shoulders, more stunning than the fish.
"Connie. How's it going?" Her father reached his damaged hand in greeting. The woman took it, warmly, covered it with both of hers and hugged it to her midriff like a puppy lost, now found.
"This must be Mona." She turned her flashing eyes to scrutinize the daughter. "It's so crowded here. I was just about to check the seals."
As they exited the alcove, her father introduced her. Constance Ewing. He smiled while adding, "Constant Irritation, I think, was closer to the truth. How was your first year at the U?"
"Hard. But not as interesting as English Twelve with you. I missed you, Mr. Worthy."
"Could you handle 'Pat'? You're making this too formal."
"Sure ..." Mona walked between them, suddenly less keen about the Murres and Puffins, suddenly aware of dramas at her side. " ...Pat. I handled that." Her father's name had been pronounced like Connie 'd freshly baked it, still warm, swaddled in a linen napkin, seductive as the smell of flour and yeast and cinnamon.
Patrick to his daughter: "Connie was a year ago. The best. The best at writing, I can honestly recall. The best at thinking, too."
O wow! The best! Her father wasn't one to flatter casually; he didn't say things that he didn't mean. The best? Mona eased herself along the rail alone to watch the otters glide upon their backs. She didn't really see them. Just her father and the girl, lost in reminiscence to her left. The best. She had to think, to put it all together, get it right, and do it fast. Come on, just think, she ordered. Laughter from the otters at her dad and Connie Ewing.
This wasn't simple. She used the formula that her father 'd made her practice, a channel for perspective, so he called it. It loosened up the mind, he said. Think of two positives, two upsides to whatever's got you down. Then put in words two ways to make things better. Not gripes; solutions. Don't pick the obvious, he'd said. Re-hashing doesn't help you toward the truth. She'd try to make it work.
The positives were easy. Number one: her mom.
She'd solved the pieces of that puzzle sometime well before her junior high. She'd put them carefully together without her father's help.
Cameos of lunch in second grade. Her mother's cotton blouse (No bra that day. How strange?) was buttoned crooked so the tails hung out of synch. Her "points" pushed out the cloth. The plumber's here for lunch today, sweetheart. He brought no lunch, it seems. Neither tools nor truck, the child observed with dread. Laid his hand on mother's knee as Mona eyed the patterns in her soup.
Nancy Drew: The Midnight Meetings. Committees kept Mom busy after hours. Weekends often, too. While Patrick did his marking, Mom would take the car. Her scent of lavender would linger at the door where Mona sat and dressed her Barbies late at night before they slept. Early in the mornings the scent was just as strong, now stained with wine and nicotine. Some mysteries are easier to solve than others.
Yo The Jerry Springer Show. Since she was small, the arguments, the drama, as if she wasn't there, played out in front of her. They'd hurled their bitterness without restraint, demeaned each other with abandon. The punches all were verbal; the blood was sometimes real. Real for Mona, huddled on the floor beside the toilet, her supper incognito.
Wasn't It a Party! Her mother 'd left for good on Mona's birthday number twelve, when she was old enough to help her dad with meals, old enough to fold a load of clothes. They'd made it work, the father-daughter duo, and things were easier without the tension and the fights - so much easier, it took her years to recognize the lapses that her father had were mostly missing Mom or missing something, missing someone, missing air.
Ancient History 101. He'd never said, but Mona wondered still about that Saturday when Dad was trimming limbs. Where had her mother been? What made his focus stray? What thoughts were Patrick's when the chainsaw coughed and made his finger disappear?
Posie one. Five years was long enough. He needed to get out. The babysitting thing was obsolete. He'd been there for her always. He ought to have some fun.
Posie two was harder. Well, really not that tough. Mona peered across the otter prison. Connie was a siren. Short shorts revealed a tan that longed to be caressed, begged to be pursued beneath the brilliant white sateen. Sexy. Her father thought so, too. That wasn't hard to scope. She was agog at him; no doubt, there was a fantasy that she'd suppressed while she was in his class. And Dad was yeessh. For sure. He didn't even have a pot. They - could be. And hey! Connie was her age. She'd know the dif between a 'rave' and a review, that 'techno' wasn't legos and rock and roll was dead.
Improvements. It didn't take a four-point to get improvements right. Mona smiled. Everything might turn out copacetic after all.
"Did you ever fantasize about my dad? When you were in his class?" Mona interceded on their memory of someone's cherry bomb in Math.
"Mona! Where did that come from?" Her father's hand was on her shoulder now, the missing digit at her neck. Be polite, it said. His cheeks turned crimson.
"Dad, duh. As if my friends have never done a T or D on you? You might have heard the giggles? Duh."
"It's true, Pat. You must've picked up on our little flirts. Some, anyway."
"You two! What a topic for a conversation! I'm old enough to be your fathers. I am your father. Geeze."
"Oh, yeah. Like, too old to have a fantasy. Right, Dad. Tell me more about the flirting, Connie. I think you'll be more real."
"I don't remember flirting," her father sputtered.
"Did he?" Mona asked.
"Did he what?"
"Flirt back?"
Connie smiled her answer. Mona ate it up. "Well ... He didn't seem to mind."
"This is a public place, you know." Mona recognized the hint of mirth along her father's eye. "What would a passing parent think to hear you two!"
"That maybe you were human, Dad?" Mona dropped her voice and verified the status of the crowd before appending several winks.
"Some of us were sluttier than others. Remember, Pat, Elaine? She'd drop a pen and pick it up on purpose just to show the teach her legs. Or lean across your desk to ask a question?"
Patrick blushed once more.
"What did you do to get my dad's attention?"
"Mon, that's really quite sufficient."
"Then you tell. What did she do?"
"Mon! I mean it. That's enough."
"Dad. Chill. Connie, please."
"I sometimes didn't wear a bra, if you want to know the truth. Well ... Took it off before his English class. Weird, I guess?"
"Romantic! I'll bet the farm he noticed. Right?"
"Mona. What's got into you?" He took her by the arm. "Could you excuse us just a sec, Miss Ewing?" He moved her further down the path and dropped into a whisper. "What's happening?"
"We're just talking, Dad."
"She's a student."
"She's a woman, Dad. Not your student anymore. Loosen up, okay."
"She's half my age."
"She's legal, Dad. You can't be blind enough to miss how hot she is, how much she wants your bod. Anyway, it was only just a small suggestion."
"You mean I still have choices?"
"I hope not. It seems tres obvious to me." She squeezed his finger.
"Mon ..."
Connie stopped them. "I'm sorry, guys. I didn't mean to interrupt your day."
"No, no," her father stammered. "I think we got things settled. Have we done enough sea mammals?"
"Enough for me. You're sure I'm not intruding?"
"No way. He's just shy. He said your tits were cool. The days you didn't wear a bra."
"I told her she should act her age in public."
"He says there's a quiet place to talk across from Pike's. If you were free, that is. He thinks I'm old enough to buy a fish alone and find my way back home."
Her father's smile was really just a question mark to Connie, his awkward invitation to a date. "I know she's old enough to buy a fish. Just pushy."
Connie raised her eyebrow in assent. Yeessh, for sure. Mona 'd got it right. Improvement number two? Why not. "Just one more thing. Kathy. We talked this morning on the phone. She invited me for supper and a show. I wasn't sure. I think I will. I'll leave a message on the fridge, okay? Probably I'll spend the night."
"Mon?"
"Be cool, you guys. I'm out o' here. I'm gone." The rest was up to them.
"Nice to meet you. You're sure you have to go?"
"Behave yourself, young lady." He touched her cheek with just three fingers. The fourth, a phantom, nodded in the air. Said, thank you. Said, love you. Said more than she had time to hear. Said, loudly, it was real, was more than air, as Mona disappeared into the crowded afternoon.