Homecoming Queen, page 26
“I love the way she dresses. And your house isn’t messy. It’s lived in.”
“We think so. But my mother is of another opinion.” He laughed about his mother, so Llayne felt free to do so, too. Then he rose from his chair and Llayne left her perch on the window sill, suddenly feeling deflated that their appointed time had come to an end.
Standing together, facing one another, he said, “There’s a Yiddish blessing: got zol aykh shoymer un matzil zayn - may God protect and deliver you. That is my parting blessing to you and your child.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you for everything.”
Awkwardly, because she knew he would never breech professional etiquette and do so, she reached up and hugged her mentor’s neck. When she backed away, she saw a glint in his eye to match her own.
They went into the kitchen where Ruth, having put a white apron on herself and having tied a blue one around Kenyon’s neck, was feeding the little one chocolate cake. Kenyon was in bliss, with cake all over her face.
“Oh, there you are.” Ruth addressed Llayne and her husband with a bright pink smile. “Now, you two sit for some cake. If this is going to be a going away party, let’s party.”
After she stuffed herself with the best cake she’d ever eaten and they all stood out on the sidewalk, Llayne said to Ruth, “Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure, dear. Now you keep in touch, okay?” The vivacious woman hugged Llayne and then Kenyon one last time.
“I will,” Llayne promised, taking Kenyon by the hand. “And thank you,” she said for a final time to Dr. Leibowitz.
Kenyon broke from her grasp and ran to the psychotherapist, grabbed him around his knees and squeezed. He stooped down, quite wobbly with his legs in a vice grip, and she let go to thrust her arms around his neck. Gently, he put his arms around her and embraced her. Satisfied that she hugged everyone, Kenyon trotted back to her mother.
Dr. Leibowitz enthusiastically waved goodbye. Ruth blew kisses. And Kenyon, seeing that for the first time and thinking it great fun, blew kisses back to them all the way down the street until their car turned a corner and the Leibowitz’s disappeared from sight.
Llayne discovered more about her daughter every single day. The kid loved chocolate. She adored music, with James Brown seeming to be her favorite. She liked to dance, dragging the little veil with the sparkles that Kerina had given her around everywhere. She insisted on wearing her sequined shoes from Uncle Bob during every waking hour. She was extremely sociable. In other words, Llayne mused, she was her father’s child.
She was quickly picking up English. Llayne had to start watching her own language ever since the day she hung up the phone after talking to Priscilla and Kenyon had said, “Hell, mommy, hell.” Once in a while the little one would rattle off a sentence or two in Vietnamese, stop, wrinkle her nose in thought, then continue in broken English, instinctively understanding that people there couldn’t understand the words she already knew.
As they packed for their move to Lansing, Kenyon brought out the photographs of Soon Lee and Lex in their double frame, and said, “Mommy?” pointing to Soon Lee.
“Yes, honey. Mommy Soon Lee.”
“Mommy?” The child pointed at Llayne.
“Yes, you have two mommies.” She held up two fingers.
Kenyon nodded, then studied the photograph of Lex, a picture of him in his college baseball uniform. “Huh?” She questioned, pointing to him.
“He’s your daddy. Kenyon’s daddy.” Llayne put a finger on Kenyon’s belly.
“Oh. Daddy.” Kenyon kissed the photo, leaving a messy smudge on the glass, then did the same to Soon Lee’s picture.
Llayne decided never to clean that glass.
She laid on the floor in the dark, thinking about the move that was coming up in two days. Everything was done. In two days the lease was up on the apartment and a new lease started on a one-room efficiency in Lansing. Her last check from the community college had arrived, meaning they would be able to eat until her first check came from her new job. Llayne was thankful she’d had the foresight to get paid over twelve months, even though she had the summers off. Packed boxes were piled everywhere, turning the place into an obstacle course, and she and Kenyon were living with bare essentials. There was only one last visit to be made.
The phone rang and she almost didn’t answer it. It was such a peaceful evening. Kenyon slept in the bedroom and Llayne was stretched out with the sliding glass door open, the soft evening breeze billowing the long, white, sheer curtain into the room, causing it to look like a levitating angel. A cacophony of summer night sounds from the field behind the apartment complex, crickets and frogs, and a train in the distance, bathed over her body and relaxed her. But something - maybe that angel - caused her to pick up the pealing black thing. She said hello and the voice on the other end made her heart skip a beat.
“Hello, Llayne,” Mack O’Brien’s full-bodied voice resonated over the line. “It’s Mack. Mack O’Brien. How are you?”
His explanation was redundant. She’d known instantly who it was.
“Mack, what a surprise. I’m okay. How about you?”
“Oh, I’m doing good. I heard your good news through the grapevine. You have a daughter?”
He sounded nervous, which she found endearing.
“Yes! Isn’t that something? Her name is Kenyon. She’s two and a half and she’s amazing.”
“And now she has an amazing mother. I’m so happy for you. Listen, I’ve also heard that you’re moving here to Lansing. Is that right?”
“It is. In two days, in fact.” She explained the job and school. He congratulated her on her decision to follow a new career path.
“Wow. Studying television broadcasting, becoming a single mother. Your life has totally changed, hasn’t it?”
“To say the least.”
“Listen, Llayne, I want you to know that I’m here for you. Sonny, too. He’s nearby. You have friends here. Good friends. Don’t ever hesitate to call. And, if you don’t mind, I’ll keep in touch.”
It surprised her that she didn’t mind. She gave him her new phone number.
He started to wrap up the conversation by giving her his phone number, which she jotted down, but she didn’t want him to go. The mere sound of his masculine voice over a phone line somehow comforted her. So she asked what he’d been up to.
“I still work for the Congressman but I’m planning a political career of my own.” Sonny was involved, and the two men had become even closer friends than before. “I’ll tell you what - how about I take you and Kenyon to dinner after you get settled? I can’t wait to meet the tyke. I can tell you all about my plans over a nice meal.”
Her heart plumb stopped in her chest, turning off the switch that sent electricity to her brain. When it started up again, her noggin churned a few gears before gathering a coherent thought. She couldn’t do it. She just wasn’t ready to be with a man she’d once been attracted, very attracted, to. Her hesitation had already told him what he needed to know.
“Llayne, I don’t want to intrude. You’ve got a lot on your plate. I can wait until you call me when you’re ready. No expectations, mind you. Two friends having dinner with a little girl.”
Relief swept over her. She’d been incapable of making a spontaneous decision about eating some food together.
“Mack, are you married or anything?” she finally got up the nerve to ask.
“Nah. I was engaged but it didn’t work out.”
“Oh. I just wondered,” she rushed to say, embarrassed that she’d asked. “Well, thanks so much for calling. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sure. And if you need anything - anything - give me a call. I know just about everybody around here who could help with, you know, anything.” He was nervous again, like he’d been at the beginning of the conversation.
“Thanks. ’Bye.”
“Goodbye, Llayne.”
She hung up the phone and lay there on the floor, her mind a swirl of half-baked thoughts. No, she finally decided, she couldn’t handle seeing him right now, if ever. Her life was chaotic enough.
“Hurry, honey!” Llayne beckoned.
Kenyon pranced into the bedroom to get her veil. She had to have it with her in the car. They were scurrying out the door for their final visit before moving when the phone rang again. Llayne dashed to pick it up.
“Hello!” she said, short of breath.
“Hey, Llayne.”
“Sonny? Sonny Dagher. Is that you?”
“Right on. How are you?”
“I’m doing great. Things have changed a lot around here.”
“Yeah, Mack called and filled me in. You’re a mom! That’s so groovy. And moving to Lansing, going back to school. I want to reiterate what Mack said. We’re here for you, Llayne. Your life is gonna be hectic as hell and we’ll be pissed if we ever find out you needed something and didn’t let us know. Especially with a little girl now.”
“Okay, okay. I so appreciate the offer. You’re both so generous. Hey, I heard you’re mayor of your hometown now. Congratulations. Youngest one in the state, eh?”
She could hear the grin in his voice. “Yeah. You know me. Can never do anything the conventional way. Although, I do have a very conventional job now in the family business. And seeing that you’re moving, what do you need? A couch? Some chairs?”
“Oh, no, we don’t need anything. Really, we’re okay.”
“Hey, I’m not asking you to pay or anything. That’s the perk of being the boss. Now, what do you need? Does Kenyon have her own bed?”
She confessed that Kenyon did not have a bed and thought of how much those little legs thrashed around in their shared bed every night. He insisted on sending a bed to her apartment in Lansing.
Flummoxed over his generosity, she promised to call him when they got there. He gave her his phone number.
As an afterthought, like she’d done with Mack, she popped the one question that niggled at her mind. “Sonny, how have things worked out with your hometown girlfriend?”
“Not so great. I came home to find out she married the town plumber. They just had a twins.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Aw, I’m not. Not really. There’s more love out there. Right?”
“Right. Well, ’bye Sonny. Thanks for calling.”
He said goodbye, and she hung up and squeezed her eyes shut, vowing not to give a moment’s thought to how attracted she’d been to him so long ago. She didn’t have time to even think about that. Besides, they’d claimed no more than friendship at the end, and that was enough. She valued that friendship.
“Mommy!”
Her eyes flew open and there was Kenyon standing at the door looking cute as a button in her red jumpsuit, a gift from the homecoming party, her red sequined tennis shoes, and her veil trailing from her hand. Mommy had told her to hurry and then she had to wait. She was ready to go.
Llayne scooped her up and off they went on their last visit.
CHAPTER 36
When the Cutlass peaked over the hill on Highway 30 and Llayne looked down into the valley below at the old-fashioned, gray barrel water tower with “West Branch” painted in cursive lettering on the side, her stomach did a nervous rumba. That small town laid out before her, her hometown, seemed removed from her life now. It was remote, so far up in the boonies in the middle of a vast, dense forest that ambled up and down gentle hills.
It appeared to be benign, a quintessential small American town. Yet it had been the source of her sorrow and her joy as she grew up. Memories flooded her mind as she drove into the valley and turned right onto the side street at the old train station.
When they reached her parents’ house, a white clapboard house that was over a hundred years old, as were all of the houses on the street, her mom ran out to greet them, wiping her hands on the hem of her apron. Used to the routine of being greeting by strangers, Kenyon threw her arms into the air to be picked up and fawned over. Llayne’s mom was ecstatic over meeting her new granddaughter.
“Honey, this is your grandma,” Llayne said. “But in our family we call grandmas Mo Mo. Can you say Mo Mo?”
Kenyon understood the question of being asked to repeat a word because she’d been asked it so many times lately. “Mo Mo,” she said dutifully, ready to go into the house to see what kind of food was inside. There was always food for them when they went to see people.
Chocolate chip cookies, just out of the oven and still warm, awaited. Kenyon dug in.
They snacked at the kitchen table while the grownups chatted. Llayne’s mom wanted to know every detail about the child.
Then, half an hour earlier than usual, Llayne’s dad walked through the door in the same kind of blue workman’s uniform he always wore, dusty from the day’s work as a tree trimmer for the county, with his lunch bucket in his hand. He appeared thinner and even younger than before, even though his thick red hair was tinged with gray.
He grinned hesitantly and nodded hello at his daughter but had no choice other than to drop the lunch pail and sweep Kenyon into his arms. She’d stood up in her chair and practically threw herself at him. She gave him a huge, chocolate-covered kiss on the cheek while he got dust all over her clothes.
“Well look at you!” He chuckled. “Aren’t you the most beautiful little girl I’ve ever seen? Oh, along with your mother when she was little, of course.”
“This is your Po Po,” Llayne told Kenyon.
“Po Po!” the child repeated with glee.
Her father, now Po Po, ran a thumb over Kenyon’s forehead as he studied her sweet face. It struck Llayne that her Amerasian child had pulled up memories of the children’s pictures he’d told her about, the ones he found in dead Japanese soldiers’ pockets during World War II.
Kenyon might be healing for him. The thought stunned Llayne. That hadn’t so much as crossed her mind.
“Listen,” Llayne’s mom said, interrupting Llayne’s thoughts, “why don’t the three of you walk down to the IGA and get some ice cream to go with our cookies after supper? That’ll give me time to finish what I have to do here to get everything ready so we can eat.”
Her dad excused himself to spend ten minutes cleaning up while Llayne washed Kenyon’s face, and then they left for the store. As soon as they were outside, Llayne’s dad picked up Kenyon and set her on his shoulders. She seemed totally at home with him and loved the view from so high.
No one spoke as they walked the block and a half to the store. Po Po and Kenyan were a good match. He’d never been much of a talker, except for that one fateful day of drunken rambling so many years ago, and Kenyon was probably sick of being asked to repeat everything. All three of them enjoyed the silence as they moseyed down the sidewalk under giant, mature, hardwood trees. They walked past the few houses that completed their block, across the street, past the veterinarian’s ramshackle barn, over the railroad tracks, and by the Victorian-era train station, which now housed Hazel’s Barbershop.
They reached Houghton Avenue, the main street, and Llayne paused to survey the entire whistle-stop, then turned her attention back to her dad and Kenyon. She was struck by the image of him carrying the black-haired child with the big, almond-shaped eyes, the very kind of child who haunted him for so many years in his war nightmares. She could surely see it now. Kenyon brought him peace.
Robert, “Red,” Robertson turned and smiled his most glorious smile at his daughter, then turned to walk the few steps into the IGA. She held back, savoring the startling moment.
On the way back to the house, he said, “Llayne, I want you to know something. It may not make a difference to you, and I would understand if it doesn’t, but I know I’m an alcoholic. I’m in AA now and I don’t drink anymore.”
She didn’t know what to say. One big smile hadn’t made her trust him. She believed he’d stopped drinking for good like she believed the Titanic hadn’t taken on water, or the Russians had quit spying, or Giacomo Casanova hadn’t lied to women.
He went on. “I know this doesn’t excuse anything, but I just thought you should know. You can trust me and your mom with Kenyon.”
“How long have you been in AA?”
“Fourteen months. I haven’t had a drink in fourteen months.”
Llayne was shocked. Her dad had been sober for over a year and she hadn’t known. It made her realize that she didn’t really know him any more than he knew her. The question on her mind was whether she wanted to know him. She couldn’t, in all honesty, answer that one yet.
But for Kenyon there was no question. She adored the people called Mo Mo and Po Po. When supper was over and it was time to take the hour-and-a-half drive back to Mt. Pleasant, she wailed and grabbed for her grandparents.
It was inconceivable to Llayne that, after so many years of trying to separate herself from her parents and their negative influence, they might become a part of her life again because of her daughter. And they might be a positive influence. The difference now for Llayne was that she knew how to be her own person, no matter what they did.
During the drive home, she turned on the radio. She hoped it would distract Kenyon from her agony over having to leave Mo Mo and Po Po and, eventually, it did. After about ten miles, they hummed along, as best they could manage with Kenyon’s off-key warbling, to hit songs like Candy Man, Too Late to Turn Back Now, and Alone Again, Naturally.
No kidding, Llayne thought. So many people in my life, and yet I’m so alone again in one regard. She missed Lex. Every time she thought of him it was as if the devil thrust his thorny hand into her chest to wrench her heart, squeezing and twisting it with all his beastly mite. In the widow’s support group, she learned to expect it to get worse before it got better and it had. She missed him so much she physically ached for him.
