All About Lulu (12 page)

Willow soon set our family geography in motion once more, migrating to Lulu’s vacant room. By that time, active aggression had ceased between Big Bill and Willow. They stayed for the most part in neutral corners. But it wasn’t exactly an armistice—more like Willow retreated, just walked off the battle
fi
eld and put it all behind her. With Lulu out of the house, there was nothing left to
fi
ght for.

Willow delivered no speeches,
fl
ew no white
fl
ag. She just turned her back and started walking, over craters and around cadavers, toward the wooded fringes.

The Pico house was growing conspicuously quiet. Even Lulu’s signature was beginning to fade. Ross was running all over the basin with that little ferret Regan, peddling half grams at a twenty-percent markup. Big Bill and Doug were at th
e gym most evenings. This left
Willow and me alone, though our paths rarely crossed as we stole from station to station, me with my notebooks and my dark little heart, she like a soldier getting over the war.

Family dinners were a rarity those days. It got to the point where I became a bit nostalgic for those gatherings: the grunting and evading, the rank-and-
fi
le procession, the mess hall ef
fi
ciency of it all.

And more than anything else, I missed the repetition of it. It seemed there were no more
fi
xed places in the universe, no reliable signposts to mark my way. All of this coming and going, all of these different directions. Where was convergence when I needed it most? The universe really was expanding. I could feel it for the
fi
rst time: heavenly bodies hurtling through space, drifting farther and farther apart.

The day before Thanksgiving I found Willow seated at the dining room table with two suitcases beside her.

“What’s this?” I said.

“I’m going to San Francisco.”

“Does anybody know?”

“You do.”

I looked again at the suitcases. They were big. “For how long?”

“For a while, anyway.”

“But, what about Thanksgiving?”

“You can still have it. The turkey is soaking. Cook it at three twenty-
fi
ve for about
fi
ve hours. Cover it with foil—”

“Why are you—?”

“Listen to me. Then take the foil off for the last forty-
fi
ve minutes or so. Are you getting this?”

“No.”

“Let it sit for a half hour before you carve it. The dressing’s in the casserole dish on the top—”

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s complex, William. It would be awfully hard to explain to you.”

“You could at least try.”

“Yes, I suppose I owe you that.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

She reached out and gave my hand a little squeeze. “You’re a good boy, William Miller. Don’t think I don’t see that. Sit down,” she said.

I sat down across from her.

Willow looked both younger and older at the same time as she piled her hands in her lap. “I only wish I could have been more for you,” she said. “Not a mother, of course, I don’t mean that. Just more. A resource, a friend. Oh, I don’t know, just more.”

“You tried,” I said.

“Maybe I should have forced the issue a little.”

“I always appreciated that you didn’t. But what’s this got to do with me, anyway? Why are you leaving? What is this about?”

“People change,” she said.

“I thought that was a good thing.”

“Some of the time,” she said.

“But Big Bill’s always been
…
”

“I’m not just talking about your father, I’m talking about me, too.

Some people change quicker than others. Sometimes people don’t change at all, but their context changes, and just by being the same they change.”

It occurred to me that I’d never honestly believed people could change, I mean really change, until Lulu went away to cheerleading camp. And after that everybody started changing, and never stopped.

“So you’ve grown apart, is that what you’re saying?”

“A great distance apart.” Willow left a silence long enough to
fi
ll the great distance, or at least ponder it. She massaged the joints of her
fi
ngers like an arthritic. “Oh, so much is different, William. I was in college when I met your father.”

“Big Bill went to college?”

“No. But he went to parties.” A distant smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Humph,” she said. “San Francisco. It seems like a lifetime ago.”

“So what happened? How did things get so different?”

“I guess what’s changed the most between your father and me over the years are the things that haven’t changed.”

“You mean like taking a backseat all the time?”

Willow shot me a searching look. “That’s part of it. But only part of it.”

She turned her attention back to her
fi
nger joints, which she continued to massage as she pondered the other parts. “You can’t resist change,” she observed. “You can effect change, I still honestly believe that. You can
fi
ght for it, you can even speed it up, but you can’t resist it, because it’s going to happen. It’s like gravity. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, or how stubborn you are, or how determined you are.

The best you can do is accept it. Things happen. Bad things, good things. You have to adapt, you
have
to. It’s
not
wrong to change your approach.”

“Sounds a little like a political speech,” I said.

That same distant smile returned to Willow’s face. “I suppose it does.”

I looked across the table at her, silently and unabashedly, and I felt pity for her. She’d given her best years to the Millers. She’d walked forever in the shadow of my mother,
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ghting for us, feeding us, trying desperately to draw us out of ourselves, to expand our horizons, and for what? What was she
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ghting for? The unattainable affections of her eldest stepson? A man who believed there was a necessary correlative between pain and gain? What was Willow’s stake in all of this? A father
fi
gure for Lulu? Ha! A breadwinner? That’s a laugh. Do you have any idea what second place in the Mr. Cal/Neva pays? A personal appearance at the Cerritos Athletic Club? Willow not only raised us, she paid more than her share of the bills. I’m guessing a lot more. And here she was, all these years later, two hundred hams and a thousand small rejections later, sitting across from me like a wilting
fl
ower. It was disgraceful.

“Willow,” I said. “I’ve never really told you thank you for anything. I mean, you know, for everything. I’m sorry I was a pain—I mean, I still am.”

“You were never a pain, William. Just distant.”

“I’m sorry for that.”

“It’s not your fault.”

There came a honk from the driveway.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ll miss my
fl
ight.”

Then I knew I had to say it. I had to tell somebody before it ate me alive. “I love Lulu,” I said. “And I can’t imagine that ever changing.”

“Of course you can’t.” Willow stood up and took a few steps to the window, and turned her back to me. “William, I’m going to tell you something. But
fi
rst I’m going to tell you that sometimes you’ve just got to know when enough is enough and walk away without asking questions. And for you, this is one of those times. I may not have the right to dispense that advice, but I hope you’ll take it. For Louisa’s sake and your own.”

“What are you going to tell me?”

“Only that your sister loves you dearly and truly, and that she is proud of you, and she looks up to you. More than you may ever know.”

“She’s not my sister.”

Willow turned from the window. “Walk away, William.”

There came another honk from the driveway.

She picked up her bags. “I’ve got to go.” She leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “Good-bye, William. I’ll call.”

December 27, 1987

Dear Will,

Merry x-mas (a little late), sorry I didn’t come home, and sorry I didn’t send gifts. Sorry I’ve taken so long to write. Sorry you’re disillusioned, and sorry about my mom. In short, I’m sorry about a lot of things. On the bright side, congratulations on quitting Fatburger!

And yes, yes, yes, I think you’d make a wonderfully stupendous radio announcer, you have a beautiful voice, and the world needs to hear it, whether or not they deserve it. I dropped out of the U, but don’t tell anybody. I’m going to register again in spring, maybe.

I just don’t have it in me right now. I might register at SCC instead.

I don’t know. There are so many things I’m unsure of. I’m not even sure if life is a comedy or a trage
dy, but I wish I laughed more,
because I probably would make better decisions, and I probably wouldn’t mind the rain so much. I quit Starbucks. I may get a job at a bookstore, or maybe not. I left the dorm (don’t tell anybody that either!), and I’m renting a studio on First and Bell for $300 a month. I’ve still got student loan money, but it’s sort of dwindling. I may get a warehouse space with my friend Dan in Georgetown.

Troy keeps writing and calling me, and I’m sorry to be cruel, but please tell him I met a boy. I know that’s awful, and I know it’s immature, and I know I should tell him myself, but I just don’t have it in me right now, and I don’t want him to suffer. Troy deserves better than me. I really did meet a boy, Will. His name is Dan and he plays the bass and works at the Comet Tavern. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know why anybody would ever want to be with me in the
fi
rst place. I’ve been painting a little bit. Dan says they’re good, but really they’re ugly. Please don’t hate me or be disappointed in me, Will. You’re a better person than me. I’m sorry about all the trouble I’ve caused everybody with all of my drama.

I’m working on it, I really am.

Probably the reason Ross is calling himself Alistair is because of Alistair Crowley, who people think was a devil worshipper, but really he was just some kind of mystic. I wouldn’t worry about him being weird. It’s just a phase. If you ask me, Doug is the one who could use a phase. Usually the people trying to be weird aren’t the weird ones, and I have a feeling Ross is trying.

I hope that Dad is holding up okay since my mom left. Before you resent him too much, remember that he’s been through a lot, and I’m not just talking about your mom. Don’t forget his dad died when he was four years old, and I’m not making excuses, I just know what it’s like not to have a dad, even if I call Dad Dad. I know that you’re probably thinking that you didn’t have a mother, and that’s even worse, but some people (like you) are naturally well- adjusted, I think. I think Dad and I are young souls, and I think that you’re an old soul. Dan is an old soul too. Or maybe not. Maybe he’s just lazy.

So now I’ve come to the question that is on both of our minds.

You have to believe me, William Miller Jr., that I haven’t stopped thinking it. Sometimes I feel like it’s thinking me. Of course I’m talking about the night in Westwood in the garage. I’ve been over it and over it, Will, and probably it’s why it’s taken me so long to write.

Trust and forgive that I’m not being careful with my words here.

What I mean is, I’m saying everything just as I thought it and felt it.

You have to promise me you won’t hate me. You just have to, Will.

That night of the blowout when I came undone, you were the only person in the world I wanted to talk to. And if it happened again tomorrow, probably you’d still be the only person. And it wasn’t because you are my brother, but probably that was part of it. If you weren’t my brother, I couldn’t possibly see you as I do, because I probably wouldn’t ever have gotten close to you at all (don’t take that the wrong way). I know you think it makes a difference not really being related. But the bottom line is, to me there is no difference. I can’t be any more honest than that. You said things that night that nobody else in the world will ever say to me again, ever. I know that. I’ll live the rest of my life knowing that. Troy could never say those things to me. Dan will never be able to say those things to me, I can see that already. I will always settle for less than you, I’m sure of it. If you mean all the things you said in your notebook, and all the things you said to me the night in Morgan’s brother’s garage, then you have no choice but to not hate me for feeling the way I do about this, and especially not hate me for meeting Dan, because Dan and every other boy in the world is just to try to make up for you. You have to believe that, Will. It’s not fair if you don’t. If I don’t hear back from you in a month, I will assume you can’t forgive me, and if that’s the case, I guess I can’t blame you, but I still think it’s unfair. Or maybe not. Maybe I’m just being sel
fi
sh again.