Learning to Swim(17)

Things that are crappy:

Great tank top, but no boobs

Barbie/love lunacy

Keith/Mora

Me/love lunacy?

But there was one thing missing. And so I added:

Dad

Even though he'd died before I was born, I still thought about him at times like this, times when I felt like everything just sucked. If he hadn't died, I think my life would have been extremely different. Not that I thought that Barbie would've actually married him and gotten a house in the suburbs and stuff, but I was pretty sure I would've had a much more normal life. He and Barbie would have been divorced and I would have been shuttled back and forth between the two of them. He never would have condoned Barbie's moving me across the state every year, nor would he have condoned her parading around with married boyfriends. If he had lived, I would have had a sane, stable person (besides Alice) that I could have talked to about all the important things in my life.

I glanced up just as Barbie came back into the dining room. I tossed the napkin with my list back onto my lap as she took her seat.

“You didn't have to wait for me,” she said, motioning toward my untouched food.

“Oh,” I said, realizing I had forgotten all about my lunch. I took a bite of my sandwich and set it back down on my plate. “Was my dad Hispanic?” I asked, between chews.

“What?” she said, visibly startled. “Why in the world would you ask a thing like that?”

“Just wondering,” I said with a shrug. I swallowed. “Mora's mother thought I looked Hispanic or Spanish or something.”

“I, well, no. He wasn't.”

“What was he?”

Barbie started to gaze around the room. “He was… American.”

“I mean, what was his background? You know, his ethnicity.”

“I honestly don't know,” she said with a huff. “We never discussed it.”

I focused back on my sandwich, annoyed. Not that I had expected Barbie to suddenly be a wealth of information, but I hadn't thought she would be this evasive. She couldn't throw me a little bone and give me some background info on my heritage?

As if reading my reaction, Barbie said, “I told you, Steffie, we were only together for about three months when I found out I was pregnant. He died shortly thereafter.” She shrugged. “He wasn't in my life that long.”

“Was he rich?” I asked.

“What's going on?” Barbie asked. “Why all the questions?”

“I'm just curious, that's all. You never talk about him.”

She sighed long and deep as if pondering my request. Finally she said, “He was very… well off, yes.”

“How rich? Like, Jones Island rich? Or movie-star rich?”

“Steffie, what's the point of this?”

“I'm just curious as to what kind of house we'd have if he was alive.”

“Who knows?” she replied. “Maybe we'd be living right where we are.” But I could tell from the look on her face that she didn't really believe what she'd said.

“Maybe your store would've taken off and we'd be millionaires,” I muttered.

She forced a smile. “You know what I just decided? I'm going to rearrange my schedule so I can be home tonight and help you get ready. That way I can drive you to the party.”

This was Barbie's way of distracting me. “Okay,” I said.

There was an awkward silence as we both focused on our food.

“I like spending time together,” Barbie said suddenly, as if half trying to convince herself. “In no time at all, you'll be graduating from high school. And then you'll be leaving me.”

Then she got really quiet and she said, “I can't imagine my life without you, Steffie.”

And her saying that, I decided, was the most annoying thing that had happened to me all day.





7


One of the things I adored about Alice was her unforgettable words of wisdom: “Even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked.” This was another one of her jewels: “Promises, like piecrusts, are easily broken.”

Translation: even though I did kind of believe that Barbie loved me, the only reason she'd said that thing about not being able to imagine life without me was because she was feeling guilty. Because she knew that even though she had promised to stay home on Saturday night and help me get ready for my party, she would dump me in a flash if her boyfriend called. Which was where the piecrust proverb fit in.

This was precisely why I found the whole sentiment thing annoying. If that made me mean, so be it. According to Alice, if you run with wolves, you have to howl. And like it or not, living with Barbie was like being chained to a wolf. But still, still, I was surprised at about three o'clock that afternoon, when Barbie and I were lying out in the sun (I usually didn't do this, but I wanted to get tan before my party) and her phone rang. I knew it was her boyfriend because after the Ludwig ring, she took it into the house.

When she came back out, she said, “Steffie, I'm sorry. But I need to go.”

“Go where?”

“Out with a friend.”

“Who?”

“Look, Steffie. I'm sorry, I am. But I'll make it up to you. Okay?”