Life's a Beach (7 page)

Geri put her hands on her hips. “As if you could afford my rates.”

“Okay, listen. For the very last time, not that it’s any of your business, let me say that I absolutely do not want children. Basically, I just want to still
be
one.”

Geri got up and turned the burner on under the teakettle. “It’s quite possible that you’re beyond help,” she said. She turned around to face me and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Why exactly would you like to return to your childhood?”

I’d thought this through before. “So that when Mom sat down beside me like she did a couple of times a week practically from the moment I was born and said, ‘Ginger, never forget, you can be anything you want to be,’ I could turn to her and say, ‘Mom, knock it off. It’s not true. It’s too much choice. It’s too much pressure. And if you don’t stop it right now, you’re going to mess me up for life.’ ”

“She said the same thing to me and look how I turned out.”

“Oh, puh-lease.”

“Well, look at Mom. She’s exactly who she wants to be. And I think she and Dad are happier than they’ve ever been.”

“Are you crazy? Dad’s flipping out because he doesn’t want to move. He’s hiding stuff in my apartment.”

Geri shook her head. “That’s just how they do things. Mom gets the big ideas and Dad freaks out, but Mom pulls him along anyway, and when he gets there he acts like it was his idea in the first place.”

“That’s so twisted.”

“No wonder you’re single.”

It was time for a quick subject change followed by an even quicker getaway. I clapped my hands together. “I know. Let’s talk about your birthday.”

“Really?” Geri made us each a cup of tea without asking me and placed mine on the counter in front of me. She picked up her overstuffed folder and held it to her chest as she sat down at the kitchen island.

I held out my hand, and she handed over the folder so I could flip through it. “Where do you find all this stuff?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Magazines. Newspapers. And I go online at work and print things out.”

I gave her a shocked look. “You? On company time? Aren’t you too perfect for that?”

“Everybody does it. I mean, we’re a nonprofit.” Geri took a sip of her tea. “Well, do you see anything?”

I closed the folder. “Boring,” I said. “Why don’t you get a Brazilian bikini wax to celebrate? I saw an ad for a place called Hot Cheeks that just opened in the mall. You could invite all your friends and put aftershave and painkillers in the party bags.”

“Have you ever had one?”

“Not that I can remember. But I bet it would hurt enough to make you forget about fifty.”

“Good point. Okay, I’ll add it to the list.”

I stood up to leave. I wasn’t planning to say it, but it just slipped out. “So you really don’t think there’s any hope for Noah and me?”

Geri reached out, and I handed her the folder. “Well, maybe,” she said, “but I think one of you would have to hire a dating coach first.”

WHEN I FINALLY GOT HOME,
my father and my cat were seated on the floor of my apartment. Boyfriend gave me a disdainful look that clearly said,
Don’t look at me, I didn’t let him in.

“Hiya, Toots,” my father said without looking up.

I bent down to scratch Boyfriend behind his ears. “Hi, Dad,” I said. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Anytime,” my father said. “Champ and I have been having a fine time for ourselves.”

“Whatcha got there, Dad?” I asked as casually as I could manage.

My father finally looked up at me. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Keep it under your hat, but I think we have at least one original here.”

“Dad, is that more stuff?”

“Toots, you would not believe what people give away at the Take It or Leave It.”

“Dad, did you bring those back from the dump?”

My father shrugged. “Don’t look at me. Your mother’s the one who keeps loading up the car and sending me over there.”

Marshbury still had a landfill, and “going to the dump” was a big part of the town’s social life. Politicians campaigned there, Girl Scouts sold cookies there, and hordes of seagulls dined there on a daily basis. It was pretty disgusting if you stopped to think about it.

Take It or Leave It was just what it sounded like, a section of the dump where you could drop off the junk you no longer needed, and help yourself to other people’s junk. Which, of course, you didn’t really need either. It was the most popular part of the Marshbury landfill, and there were people who seemed to hang around all day, and would even come over to help you unload your car when you pulled up. It was possible that my father was turning into one of these people.

I took a few steps over to my bathroom and pushed the door open. There were so many garbage bags jammed into my little square shower that it looked like some new style of Dumpster. I wished it were an oversize trash compactor instead, since at least then I’d stand a better chance of taking a shower in the foreseeable future.

I turned back to my father. “Dad,” I began.

“Listen, Dollface, this is no time to be a party pooper.”

I sat down on the floor between my father and my cat. At least my father was wearing two white socks today, though one had two bands of hunter green near the top, and the other sock was circled twice in brown. In front of him were several old toys and what appeared to be a hose from a vacuum cleaner. “Dad,” I began again.

He leaned forward and picked up one of the toys. It looked like an earless plastic cat collapsed on a wooden guitar. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that what we’ve got here is an authentic Tailspin Tabby.” He pointed to a string. “Here, pull this.”

I did, and the earless cat stood up. “Amazing,” I said. Boyfriend ignored the imitation feline and started licking his paw.

“I know,” my father said. “It’s one of the original Fisher-Price toys. Early 1930s, I’d say. It drives me bananas to think this could have fallen into the wrong hands. It’s a piece of history, for crissakes.”

“Well, it is a little bit broken.” I picked up the hose. “What’s this for, Dad?”

“A vacuum cleaner. The rest of it’s still in the car. Just the ticket if yours goes on the fritz.”

It was highly unlikely my vacuum would ever be overworked enough to do any fritzing. I nodded at the jack-in-the-box and the rusty red scooter leaning up against my couch. “Dad, what’s Mom going to say when she sees all this stuff?”

“Your mother,” my father said, “is nothing but an old fart. She wants to move me into a place with a julienne balcony. What the heck am I going to do with a julienne balcony?”

“I think it’s called a Juliet balcony, Dad.”

“And those devil friends of hers in those red hats of theirs. One of them tries to kiss me every time she comes over to see your mother. On the lips.”

A car backed out of the garage underneath us. My father reached for the scooter and used it to push himself back into a standing position. Then he climbed on and took a wobbly ride over to the window. “Looks like the coast is clear. Grab a flashlight, we’re digging it up.”

For what it was worth, I tried playing dumb. “Digging what up, Dad?”

My father parked his scooter over by my door. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s move.”

It was easy to tell where to dig, since a circle of grass sat on top of the hole like a hat. My father shoved it off to the side with the tip of his shovel while I held the flashlight and looked over my shoulder a few times like a good lookout should.

It was a lot easier digging a hole in the same place the second time around, I observed. “Just wondering,” I said, “but what are you going to do with whatever it is when you find it?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, Toots.”

I looked over my shoulder again. I considered whether I should let my father in on the whole St. Joseph story or not. I mean, what if he brought the statue to Take It or Leave It, and the dump sold it instead?

“Hey, Toots,” my father said, “can you wipe that grin off your face and give me a hand? I’m afraid somebody might have gotten here first.”

I took the shovel from my father and handed him the flashlight. First I sifted through the dirt pile, careful not to injure any hiding saints. Then I dug into the hole and scraped away at the hard-packed edges.

St. Joseph had disappeared.

8

I WAS CURLED UP ON THE COUCH WITH BOYFRIEND ON
my lap, not really watching something on TV, when I heard the first pebble on the window. Noah hated the phone. I had to admit I wasn’t too crazy about the pebble thing either.

“Hey,” Noah said when I opened the door. He was holding a pizza box in one hand and a gallon of milk in the other, and his hair was wet.

“Oh,” I said. “Did we have dinner plans?”

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. I probably should have stopped by first to ask. I guess I figured if you weren’t here, then I’d just catch up with you tomorrow or something.”

“And if I were here, you’d already have the pizza.”

He managed to shrug and nod at the same time. Boyfriend came over to eye the gallon of milk. Noah reached into his pocket and took out a little tin frog with a key sticking out of its side. He wound it up and reached across the threshold to place it on the floor. Boyfriend stalked it from a distance as the frog chugged its way into the room.

I stepped back and let Noah in, too. I mean, what else could I do? It’s not really that rude to just show up, if you bring a gallon of milk and a toy for somebody’s cat, is it? “Cute,” I said. “But aren’t frogs supposed to hop?”

Noah took the two steps required to reach my kitchenette and placed the pizza box and milk on the counter. “I guess it depends on the frog,” he said. “Maybe we could go out for an ice cream later? You know, dessert? Or we could just leave the pizza here for the cat and the frog, and go get dinner somewhere.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “But, I’m just curious. Do you remember the last time you were here, when we discussed the concept of advance planning?”

Noah turned around slowly. “Well,” he said, “I really meant to do that, but then somehow most of the week slipped by, and it just seemed to make more sense to come over.” He smiled. “Pizza?”

I took the slice he handed me. “Well,” I said, “at least this time you remembered I don’t like mushrooms.”

The first time I met Noah was about two years ago. I had quit my job at an all-inclusive resort in Panama and moved to North Carolina to sell furniture. It turned out that wasn’t my thing either, so I quit that job and moved home.

I was coming out of a Childfree by Choice meeting. Actually, I never made it all the way inside. I just lurked around in the back of musty old St. Mary’s Hall, listening for a while, staying safely behind the second set of double doors. Then I picked up a two-sided flyer and tiptoed back outside. I liked the idea that there might be some other people in the world my age whose lives didn’t revolve around either their kids or last-ditch efforts to get pregnant, but I wasn’t exactly the clubby type. Plus I’d just moved back to Marshbury and I was afraid of being recognized by someone I went to high school with.

It was a Friday night in the summer, so Marshbury’s Main Street was closed to all but pedestrian traffic. A couple of sawhorses at either end did the trick. Marshbury merchants set up long tables on the sidewalks in front of their shops, and a farmers’ market featuring local produce took up the center of the street. Craftspeople and a couple of mortgage brokers occupied the remaining space.

I sat down on a bench at the edge of the sidewalk and started reading the flyer. Wow, these people were serious—they even had T-shirts you could order.
CHILDFREE BY CHOICE. PARENT YOURSELF. FAMILY OF ONE. NO KIDDING. I COULD HAVE KIDS, BUT I JUST DON’T LIKE THEM
. Not only that, but there were
activities for married or single adults who have never had children
. I scanned the list. The Chocolate Trolley Tour sounded good, but it also seemed like something I’d bring one of the kids to so I didn’t have to go alone. Riley loved chocolate.

I looked up. A guy was staring straight at me from one of the booths. “AA?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” I said.

He nodded toward the hall. “Did you just come out of an AA meeting?”

I sat up a little straighter. “Nah, they make me too thirsty.”

He brushed some hair away from his face and smiled. “Not very PC,” he said.

“I have that tendency,” I said. I folded up the flyer and stuffed it into my pocket.

He watched me do it. “So,” he said. “What kind of meeting was it?”

“I can’t remember,” I said.

“Hmm,” he said. “Well, I guess I could go in there and find out. For both of us.”

I shrugged. “I guess you could. But then someone might steal your stuff.”

“Good point,” he said.

“Childfree by Choice,” I said. “I was just lurking.”

He tilted his head to one side. “Childfree by Choice in a Catholic church? Isn’t that philosophically inconsistent?”

“Church hall,” I said. “Maybe there’s an equal opportunity rental clause.”