Anywhere But Here (75 page)

I remember all those stinky mink sheds—I used to go there after school and talk with my dad. We’d stand and stick our arms in, real quiet and still, that was how you got the mink to know you. I’m the one who had my childhood there. And I wouldn’t go back if you paid me. I’d like to know where my furs are now, though, and my dresses. There’s one suit with a green velvet collar and the pinched waist, it’s exactly just what they’re wearing again now, I’d give anything to know where that is now. But Carol probably threw it out or kept it for herself. That’s what happens when you leave.

But it’s worth it. You have to just say, you lose a lot of things that should be yours, but it’s worth it. They’re the ones who are stuck there.

A man? I’d like to meet someone real, real special someday, a man I could really share with, but right now, I’m concentrating on my work. I’ve got the convalescent homes, my patient load is up again, thank God, and I’ve got a few other little things, I’m designing a line of clothes for the bedridden, I have a partner and we’ve hired a designer, this young Japanese boy who’s going out
with Betsy Swan, and I’m writing a book. I don’t go to a lot of parties, I live a very quiet life. I’m actually a very shy person. And before I really want to look for a man, I’m just going to get ME organized first, type up those damn reports, it’s the end of the month again.

And I read before bed every night. I’ve gotten very involved in the spirit, in giving and really feeling a oneness with the world. I read this Course of Miracles and I hope and pray, she’ll read them. I sent them all to her for Christmas, with a few other things of course, clothes and a little jewelry. She laughs. They may not be Pulitzer Prize–winners but they show you the fullness and the openness of life. They teach you to give. And let’s see, what else? I’m reading Zen, all these various philosophies.

Sure, she’s going to rebel.

What I try to tell her is you can be BOTH—you can have the high IQ and the real intellect, you can be the Female Doctor AND you can dress up a little and act a little feminine.

I’ve done it all these years without a man. Not many women have been father and mother both. And I’ve been through lots she doesn’t even know. There are many things she doesn’t know, the things I didn’t tell her, just so she wouldn’t worry, just so she could be a child. I was in jail once for those damn parking tickets, never again will I let them pile up, but for a while there, I was back in school, getting my new California certification and I just put them in the glove compartment when I got them. Well, it happened twice and the first time, Frank Swan drove right down and paid my bail. But the second time I was there till four in the morning, the Swans were in Mexico, they couldn’t reach the Kellers, the Kellers were at a party, four o’clock was when they came home. Well, I was raped by a woman in there. Yes, so there’s a lot she doesn’t know. I haven’t had it easy either.

But I’ve learned to be at one with the world and to forgive. And since I’ve let go of my fear, lots of good things have just flowed into my life—all this furniture, the Tiffany, the Seth Thomas—it’s all just meant to be.

And I even see her coming around. She visited and I got a place at the beach last year, for all her kids, so they could party.

And I watched her with them. I just had to say to myself, leave her be, even with the hair and the bitten nails and all, and the underarms and the legs, ugh, that I really can’t go for. But those boys all looked at her, so I guess that’s just how they wear it now. I don’t think you have to, I think the really great girls now still have the long, thick hair and they wear a little mod jewelry or mod dress, not the punk hair that’s going to be out of style in six months, but I just shut my mouth and smiled. And I hoped and prayed that like I did years ago, she’d find her own grace, with her eyes closed. And I think maybe she is. They all danced out on the sand, with their music, and can she ever dance! Well, I suppose with the ballet and the thises and the thats, the cotillions, all I gave her as a child. But I didn’t recognize her at first, I looked down from the balcony and thought, who’s that? And then I couldn’t believe that it was me, I made that beautiful girl.

But she thinks too much, she’s so nervous, she has that anxiety, she’s got to learn to just BE. And for so long all I heard was bitch bitch, whine whine, that now sometimes, no always. Always her happiness surprises me.

I wish I could have brought her here when she was even younger, so she wouldn’t have all these various feelings and yearnings for the midwest and her middle-class roots, but that was her father, not me. I never wanted to stay there. But he left. And now I’ve got my station wagon ready for my grandchildren. They’ll be all this—all Beverly Hills. They’ll be born into it—thanks to me.

When I was pregnant with her, we lived in Egypt. I didn’t know anything, I was so young. But her father wanted to have a baby and so I thought, okay, maybe that would help him, settle him down. His family was there. They thought it would be wonderful. He had backing. Of course, later he changed his mind about that, too. But I’m over him now too finally. I think I could meet him again now and it wouldn’t mean anything to me.

I lost so much weight, I was down to eighty-six pounds at seven months and I flew back. I wanted to be home with my mother. And so I could have her here in America with the very best equipment and hospitals in the world.

You carry a baby in the womb for nine months and then, when they’re grown up, they call you collect, when they remember. She has her own life. And that’s okay. I’ve learned to be patient. “Teach only love for that is what you are.” The ups and down; I live with it. And I’ve got a lot ahead of me and a lot to be proud of. I know: she is the reason I was born.

A REGULAR GUY

A Regular Guy
is the portrait of Tom Owens, a legendary, quintessentially American entrepreneur trapped by the age he helped to define. When his long-lost daughter reappears in his life, she helps transform his odd constellation of friends and lovers into a strangely cohesive family and helps him discover his true self.

“Stunning … Simpson takes on—and reinvents—many of America’s essential myths.”

—Michiko Kakutani,
The New York Times

Vintage Contemporaries
Fiction/0-679-73738-8

Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:
1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).