Emily Franklin - Principles Of Love 06 - Labor Of Love (17 page)

Chris watches me. "You know, you're not going to get everything out of this first meeting with her.You know that, right?"

I shrug. "I guess . . . I just keep thinking that we'll meet and then we'll just . . ."

Chris guesses, "Know each other?" I nod. "It doesn't work like that, I don't think. It's got to be more like piano lessons. . . ."

"Are you using music as the analogy here because I'm supposed to relate to it?" I grin.

"Yeah--also to remind you that you can't drop it com

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pletely from your life. . . ." He chews a gummy lobster."You know how you show up for that first lesson--piano, drums, art, whatever--and you think, when I leave here today, I'll be able to play the piano? But then you have a whole hour or thirty minutes and you get out of there with the sudden knowledge that you're just scratching the surface."

"So with Gala I'm apt to learn scales? The basics of sight- reading?" I slide my feet into well-worn flip-flops. They won't last another season. Mable got them for me and losing anything that's attached to her is still hard. Like throwing out the shoes only highlights that someday there will be an en tire wardrobe in my closet she never saw, books on my shelf she never read, journals I write that don't have her in them.

"I think, Love, that you have to just let the weekend hap pen, and not do your usual predictions.You might learn do re mi, or you might figure out how to play a whole song, but you might also see sheet music and think--what the hell kind of marks are those?"

"You're a good friend," I say to Chris as I get ready for my next shift and Chris gets ready to meet Haverford at the beach for swimming, surfing, or who knows what."Really."

My cell phone rings and I'm sure it'll be Dad or Gala, confirming our dinner plans for the night after next. The weekend ahead is jam-packed. Arabella arrives tonight; Gala arrives in about forty-eight hours--and I'm the one

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meeting her at the ferry in Vineyard Haven that morning. We have a day together (cue big nerves and silent scream from me) and then meet up with my dad at Homeport for an outside casual dinner with good sunset views to fill up the space in case it's totally awkward, then an open morn ing on Sunday, and the Silver and White event on Sunday night. After that, all I have to do is snap my fingers and school's in session. I report to Hadley Hall as a boarder on Tuesday.

But I have so much to get through--and hopefully enjoy before then. I grab my phone from the counter. Chris and I have been cleaning up, packing, generally getting ready to shut down for the season the surfer paradise that Arabella created.The end result is tidy but rather depressing.

"Hello?" I say without checking the number. I sit in my favorite spot--the tiki stool that affords a view of the street below. Couples hold hands (and I'm psyched that I'm one of those couples you kind of envy and loathe on Main Street), and best friends laugh aloud the last few days before return ing to the land of homework. My best friend is coming here, and I can't wait.

"Love!"

"Bels!" I'm so excited to hear her voice and about the thought of seeing her that I jump up from my stool, knock ing the whole thing over. "Wait till you see how clean this

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place is.All your stuff is folded, courtesy of Chris and his retail years, and I'm only semilosing it with Gala arriving. . . ."

"Love."

"What? Sorry, I'm blathering." I check my watch."Did you get in early? Where are you? I hear noise in the background."

"Uh," Arabella says, "I'm not at Logan." She was meant to fly to Logan and get on the bus that goes directly to Wood's Hole."Love . . ."

"Oh, Bel, you sound sad," I say."Was it Chase?" She tends to get close with guys kind of fast and then it ends abruptly, but she doesn't usually show much emotion about it.

"No, Chase is nothing.A fun time, maybe.That's all." She draws a long, deep breath."It's bad--it's . . ." She starts to cry, which is a rarity, and I get nervous.

"Tell me."

"I'm at O'Hare, in Chicago," she says, pronouncing Chi cago with a Ch rather than a shhh."It's the fastest flight back to London, and you'll have to ship my crap back. I'll pay for it."

"Arabella--come on, that's fine--just explain--" I pic ture her on a pay phone at a big loud airport and feel guilty that I'm not with her.

"Dad had a PE," she says.

"I don't know what that means," I say.

"I didn't either until a few hours ago. I would have called

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sooner, but Mum booked my flights and it's all a bit crazy. It's a pulmonary embolism. Not good."

I know her so well; I can envision her mouth pulled down, sad at the corners, her posture flagging, her eyes brim ming. "I love you. I'm sorry." I don't want to ask if Angus Piece's prognosis is good or bad or somewhere in between, because it doesn't matter and won't help.When Mable was sick, people asked that all the time--like knowing informa tion would make it all okay."What can I do?"

"I don't know . . . ," she sighs."And I feel really horrible. I was meant to be there for you.This is such a big weekend and here I am deserting . . ."

"You're not--don't for a second think that.You're doing exactly the right thing. I'll be okay," I say, sounding con fident, though inside I'm wavering. "Promise. I'll tell you everything and you'll know I'm thinking of you--"

"And that I'll be doing the same," she says."So--just . . ." She pauses.We're both stuck on the fact that we were sup posed to have not just one weekend where she supports me through meeting Gala, but one more chance to be together before our years of being side-by-side are stopped.

"I already miss you," I say.

"Me, too." She sniffs."Are you crying?"

"No," I say."But I could. I just keep thinking that I'll see you--you know? Like on that first day of school."

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"Your first last day," she says."God, I hope he's okay."

We sit there, not saying anything, just breathing and thinking our own thoughts until an announcement comes on in the background. "I think that's my flight. I have to go."

"Give my love to your family," I say, meaning Monti, her mother,Angus, her dad, and her brothers--Clive and of course Asher, my ex.

"I will," she says, not mentioning anything about Asher specifically, and then she hangs up.

Maybe she, too, is getting a slam course in change--how fast it hits you, even if its toll is gradual.

"You know what I think?" Chris asks, rolling his head to the side so we can talk better. He slept on the couch last night and I slept on the floor on a red air mattress that isn't so much holding in air as it is slowly expressing it. I wound up with my head nearly on the hardwood.

"That it's silly to sleep on the ground when there's a perfectly good bed--correction--beds--right here?" I ask, pointing to the bedrooms in the apartment. We both fell asleep while watching another round of rentals to try and make me forget about Arabella's dad (who is still in the hos pital in critical care) and my upcoming onslaught of events, and my own familial wanderings. How is it that we come

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into the world fairly simply and the longer we stay here the more complicated everything gets? How could I go from being a simple girl with a dad to having one of those mod ern families documented in magazines under headlines such as,"Half Siblings and Sudden Mothers--How It Works."

"Anyway," I say, twisting my back so it cracks into place, "my body's not pleased with my choice of sleeping locales."

"Well, that's not what I was going to say, though it is a good point." Chris sits up and swings his legs over the side of the couch. His hair sprouts from the back in raised fronds, giving him the appearance of a messy-on-purpose rock star.

"Your hair's out of whack," I say and touch it.

He grabs a chunk of mine, studies it, then lets it go."You know what I think? Seriously?"

"What?" I lean back onto the couch while Chris goes and pads around the kitchen. Humming to himself, he re turns with coffee, which I gratefully accept, and something cold and metallic, which I feel on my neck. "What're you doing?"

"Trust me?" he asks and displays a pair of shears.

"Oh, no, no way . . ." I paw at my hair, protectively clumping it together. It's really long now, longer than it has been due to my lack of salon visits and the way I've been ignoring the state of my physical self.

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"You yourself said we all need to change, right?" Chris points the shears at me, then realizes he looks slightly men acing, so he points with his eyes instead.

"I meant inside, not superficially."

"But don't you agree that often physical change is a good predictor of other change? That, say, a haircut could precipi tate the new regime of love, family, college--senior year?"

I think of my summer, of the labor of it all, the fun and romance and heartache, and give the smallest of nods. Part of change, of not just letting it wash over you, but rolling it up and making it a part of you, is giving in, becoming one with it so you don't feel split inside.

I tip my head forward, creating a hair curtain in front of my face, looking at the shades of red--some lighter from the sun, the underside still winter-auburn. Then I flip it all back, shampoo-commercial style. "I'm closing my eyes, just so you know."

"Good."

Chris opens the scissors and the next thing I hear is a long snip that culminates with my red hair--my signature sunset-hued locks--in my lap. "Sit still," he cautions. "The big chop is easy--it's the smaller changes that take more time."

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L ith my newly cropped hair, I bring my packet of mail onto the apartment's small roof deck. Actually, calling it a roof deck is perhaps an overstatement both of the function and regality of the space. Set between two eaves, there's just a small flat area big enough for me and my mail, but it's all I need to enter a bubble of privacy so missing from the rest of my life right now.

I touch my hair--for the millionth time--and flip through the mail that Dad sent in one large white, Hadley Hall�crested envelope. Chris did a decent job--not perfect, but it's not the panic-inducing nightmare I anticipated. In fact, I'm liking the feel of wind on my shoulders, not having to twist my hair every two seconds to keep it from getting in my eyes, and his main point about my mane--it's a change. Longer in the front, with the most forward pieces just below

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my chin, the rest is shorter, neck-revealing, and blunt. I may regret my first big haircut in years by the time fall rolls in, but for the next few days--what's left of summer--I like it fine.

Plus, having something superficial gives me a perfect ex cuse not to obsess over Gala's arrival.What do people nor mally do the night before they meet the parent who has never existed? Bake cookies? Watch bad television? Flit rest lessly into a broken sleep? Maybe I will do all of those things, or perhaps none of them. But one thing is certain: She is coming, we are meeting, and I will hear my mother say my name for the first time.

Correspondence included in my dad's packet in no par ticular order:

--A bill from the bookstore, which my dad says I have to pay--good-bye to more of my summer earnings, even though I'm fairly sure the items I purchased fall under his jurisdiction of school things.

--A postcard from Sadie, whose writing looks noth ing like mine--not that I thought it would, but then again maybe I did. It's all of three sentences:

Love--Coming to the East Coast (October? Thanks

giving? Not sure) and hoping to crash chez vous. Is

that legal in dormland? If you're looking at schools

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here, let me know--otherwise, I'll see you sans surf

board.--x Sadie

It's short, but then again how much more can you fit on a postcard? Maybe I can convince her to wait until Thanks giving. Momentarily, I snap forward to a bizarre family feast--with Gala, Sadie, me, Dad, and Louisa.Then I shake it off and move on to:

--A letter from Lindsay Parrish, the kind that would nor mally be Xeroxed with names inserted in pen, but because nothing the girl does is normal, it's handwritten on her per sonal stationery.The card is thick, cream-colored, outlined in red, which seems to highlight her viciousness, and set with a script LP in the center, which makes me think of those names Chili and I came up with. Lame Piranha. Lustful Predator. Then I remember she hooked up with Jacob and feel queasy for a minute. It's not so much that she's mean to me, but that he'd be swayed into being physical with such a clich�. I sigh, reading her note, taking solace in the fact that they didn't do much. By all accounts, he was drunk, she was easy, and it was one heavy petting session that unfortunately took place on the quad in full view of the student body. But I digress.

Dear Love Bukowski, [as if there's another Love?]

Hello from the Hamptons! [Leave it to Lindsay to

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be friendly yet announce to everyone her elite

location] As you know, I've been lucky enough [or

scheming enough] to have been named co�head moni

tor for the upcoming year. Along with fun, exciting

plans--fall carnival, college crash courses, winter formal

[read: I look pretty in an icy way and let people

fawn over me] and so on--I'm also initiating some

more serious events.

She mentions social initiatives, which sound good and charitable, but which reek of college apps, and then a very worrying "new regime" in the dorms. Specifically what this entails, she doesn't say. She slips one final sentence into the letter and I wonder if it's everyone's note or just mine.

As autumn approaches and we head back to Hadley,

it's important that we understand how everything works

there and remind ourselves that once that first bell rings,

that carefree time of summer is over.

Thanks for the reminder, LP. Of course, my dad has stuck a Post-it onto Lindsay's card:

Sweet note! Hope you're as jazzed up about dorm life