All I Ever Wanted(6)
For a second, the expression on my father’s eternally smiling face flickered. “If I could do it all again,” he said quietly, looking at his drink, “things would be so different, Callie. We were happy once, and I…well.” His eyes went dark, like a light was turned off.
“Oh, Daddy,” I whispered, unable to stanch the sympathy that swelled in my heart. I was eight when my parents divorced, aware only that my world was falling apart. Years later, when Hester illuminated me as to the why, I was shocked and dismayed with my father…but he’d already been punished for so long. Hester had barely spoken to him for years, and my mother kept the emotional knives sharpened, as was her right. But for whatever reason, it wasn’t in me to hate my father. His infidelity was a mystery best left unexplored. To the best of my knowledge, and despite his Cary Grant charm and crinkly eyes, Dad had been alone ever since he left my mother. Certainly, I had never met a girlfriend or heard a tale of even a dinner companion. Indeed, it seemed as if Dad had been atoning since before Freddie was even born.
“She loved me once,” Dad said quietly, almost to himself. “I can make her remember why.”
Yes. Squirreled away, separated from the memories of Mom sobbing on the couch or spewing curses at my father as my infant brother screamed his way through five months of colic, were a few little gems. Mom sitting on Dad’s lap. The two of them dancing in the living room without benefit of music when Dad returned from a long business trip. The sound of their laughter drifting out from behind their bedroom door, as comforting as the smell of vanilla cake, fresh from the oven.
“Will you help me, Poodle?” Dad asked. “Please, baby?”
I took a deep breath. “You know what? Sure. It’ll be an uphill battle, but sure.”
Dad’s expression changed, and he once again became a sparkly George Clooney. “That’s my girl! You’ll see. I’ll get her back.” He smooched my cheek, and I couldn’t help smiling. Twenty-two years should be enough time served, right? Dad deserved another chance at love.
And so did I. Dammit, so did I! Betty Boop stopped crying and seemed to look up at me. Really? Honest and true?
“Want another drink?” my father asked, and without waiting for an answer, trotted to the makeshift bar in the back.
Suddenly, I felt better. My father was going to try again to reclaim the love of his life. I should try, too. Mark had chosen me once…maybe I’d been too…sappy or clingy or whatever during those five weeks. I’d been mooning after him ever since Santa Fe. Maybe, just by going back to myself, that cheerful, smart, likable person I was, Mark would see that I was the one for him, not Muriel. And if he saw me with someone else, maybe that would be the kick in the butt he needed.
The—what had the man at the DMV called it?—ah, yes, the emotional diarrhea had been purifying. Life was good, as the T-shirts said. Or it could become good, right? I could find someone else. Even if Mark didn’t want me—I winced, but kept going—if that was true, then I’d find someone else who did. I would! No more Debbie Downer, no more Bitter Betty. I was Callie Grey, after all. Former prom queen, I’ll have you know. Everyone liked me. They really did.
“Doesn’t it look so pretty, Auntie?” asked Josephine grabbing my hand. Today, my five-year-old niece was dressed like a tiny, trashy pop star, fishnet vest over leopard leotard, ruffled pink skirt and flip-flops.
“So pretty,” I answered, smiling down at her. “Almost as pretty as you.” She beamed up at me, showing me her adorable, tiny teeth, and I touched her button nose.
The Serenity Room was strewn with pink and yellow streamers. Matching balloons drifted lazily past the stained-glass window depicting Lazarus coming forth from the tomb, and a table holding my birthday cake sat up in front, where the casket usually went. Bronte had made a big sign that said, “Happy 30th, Callie!”
The room was filled with an array of friends and relatives, as well as a couple of rather confused-looking people who were probably here for the wake in the Tranquility Room. There was Freddie, my brother, who was taking a year off from Tufts University, where he seemed to be majoring in skipping classes and drinking. He raised a glass to me and I waved fondly. My sister, built like a strong rhino, towered over him in full lecture mode, judging from the glazed look in his eyes. Pete and Leila, my fused-at-the-hip coworkers, surveyed the cheese tray (thank God for Cabot’s!).
“Happy birthday, Calliope,” came a low and very silken voice behind me. My uterus seemed to shrivel as my blood ran icy cold. “You look very beautiful today. Perfect, in fact.”
“Thanks, Louis,” I murmured, immediately glancing around desperately for a sibling or parent or friend (or priest, just in case it was true and that Louis was a ghoul who needed to be exorcised by an agent of Christ).
Louis Pinser was my mother’s mortuarial assistant, and quite beloved by Mom and Mom alone. Since her children had all refused to go into the family business, she’d had to look elsewhere. Elsewhere (somewhere damp and underground, I imagined) yielded Louis, a tall, chubby man with a receding hairline, slightly bulging green eyes and the requisite deep and soothing (and terrifying) voice of a funeral director. Once I’d overheard him in the bathroom reciting, “I’m so sorry for your loss, I’m so sorry for your loss.” Needless to say, he found me very attractive. All the weird ones did.