Like It Never Happened (14 page)

“D
o I look too eclectic?
”
asked Mom
.

My parents and I were driving to Lake Oswego to meet Mary's fiancé and future in-laws. Mom was applying another layer of skin-colored makeup to her face, dressed in wool slacks and a beige sweater.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“You know,” she sighed. “Do I look like a hippie?”

I was so shocked as to be rendered temporarily speechless. “Mom,” I said, after a second, “I can't imagine anybody looking less like a hippie than you do right now.”

“Well, I'm worried the Clines will think differently. Mary told them we live in southeast.” My mother said
southeast
like it was a dirty word.

“We do live in southeast,” I said. “In a house that would sell for about a million dollars.”

“Two hundred thousand in 1995,” boasted my father. The appreciation of our house was a great source of pride for him.

“I just wish she hadn't called it that. Saying Ladd's Addition gives a better impression, I think.”

“You'll have to find a way to mention our exact address,” I said.

My mother heaved another gigantic sigh and squirmed in her seat. Her anxiety was bottomless sometimes. I worried about inheriting it.

“Mary has certainly grown up,” remarked my father.

“Yes.” Mom brightened. “She looks very respectable now. The Clines probably don't even associate her with . . .”

“With what?” I asked.

“Oh, she used to come across so—”

“Abrasive?” asked Dad.

“Alternative. She was very alternative.”

I wanted to ask if either of them remembered the night before Mary's high school graduation ceremony, when she decided to experiment with homemade dreadlocks. But then I thought better of it.

The Cline residence turned out to be a suburban mansion, the mailbox a diminutive replica of the house itself. We parked behind a pair of twin cars with personalized license plates that actually said
HISBMW
and
HERBMW.
My father blinked at these cars, as fathers do when they can't choose between disdain and envy.

As we climbed the steep driveway, I silently thanked my parents for raising me in the city. For one thing, there were no artsy alternative schools in the suburbs. And for another, being from one of those anonymous towns was like being from nowhere at all.

We rang the doorbell. My mother hung back, like she wanted the Clines to see my father and me before they saw her. Not a good plan, as my father's pants had a tendency to get stuck inside his socks, and I was not feeling charming.

A tiny woman threw open the door. “Good evening!” she cried theatrically. The woman introduced herself as Darlene Cline and kissed each of us on both cheeks, which seemed excessive. She was wearing high heels and pearls and a black dress. Her face had a kind of stretched look—not exactly like plastic surgery, but like she hadn't stopped smiling in years.

Suddenly I understood why my mother was worried about looking like a hippie.

Darlene whisked us through the foyer, past a fountain with spitting turtles. My mother looked at the fountain longingly—realizing, I guess, that our own foyer was sorely lacking in water features.

“Mary and Jeff are running a bit late, I'm afraid,” said Mrs. Cline, urging us to sit on an antique couch. “Traffic on I5.”

“Isn't there always,” said my father. He coughed.

Mrs. Cline lingered at the bar cart, making sure each drink had the correct number of ice cubes. I accepted a Coke, prompting Dad to frown at me like I had demanded her finest cabernet.

“Bradley!” Mrs. Cline lifted her chin and shouted into oblivion. I expected a child to come running. But instead a tall, glassy-eyed man shuffled into the room.

“My husband,” explained Mrs. Cline.

He was wearing a gray suit. He looked like the kind of man who always wore a suit—the kind everyone describes as stoic and hardworking until the Christmas morning he unexpectedly murders the entire family. He sank into an armchair and requested a whiskey sour.

I was kind of nervous about clutching the Coke while I sat on the couch. It was easy to imagine dumping it all over the floral upholstery. Even more troubling was the soft rug beneath my feet, which appeared to have once been a polar bear. I banished the glass to an end table and my father frowned again.

Now everyone focused on me, like I was a baby, or a dog with an impressive repertoire of tricks.

“What grade are you in?” Mrs. Cline leaned forward, like she had been longing to ask.

“Eleventh,” I said.

“And what are your favorite subjects?”

“Well.” I reached for my Coke and took a sip. “I'm a thespian.”

Holding an ice cube in her cheek, Mrs. Cline looked at me like I was utterly insane. “You're a what?”

“She's an actress!” interjected my mother. “A very good actress! She stars in all the plays!”

“Well!” Mrs. Cline sucked her ice and looked smug. “That's an excellent skill for a young woman to have. You must be very confident.”

“Um,” I said confidently.

The front door banged open and I felt the cold draft on my legs. My sister and her mysterious fiancé took their time hanging up their coats, giggling about something. Probably about having forced their relations into so many minutes of painful small talk. As they entered the room, their laughter died.

My parents jumped to their feet. Jeffrey made an overly enthusiastic noise. I knew he was thirty-six: ten years older than Mary. His giant mustache made him look a lot older.

“So glad to finally meet you!” exclaimed Jeffrey, squeezing my mother's hands. She raised her chin and squint-smiled at him in a way that kind of made me hate her, just for a second.

After giving my father's hand a rough shake, Jeffrey turned to me. I stood up from the couch and pulled at my dress. It was a little short, I was just now realizing.

“My future sister,” he said with exaggerated reverence. Like it was some great honor to meet a random sixteen-year-old girl. He hugged me, reeking of cologne. I wondered how Mary could stand riding in the car with him.

I also wondered how long this whole thing would last. I just wanted to go home and shed my itchy tights and too-short dress. I wanted to fall asleep with my ear pressed to the phone.

Mr. Cline cleared his throat to deliver his first line of the evening. “Dinner?” He twisted in his chair and looked hopefully toward the kitchen.

At dinner things took a dramatic turn for the worse. After serving Cornish game hens on beds of green stuff, Mrs. Cline picked up her fork and said, “Well, it certainly is good to meet the three of you. Mary has always been so mysterious about her family! We were beginning to think she was raised by wolves.”

She rewarded herself with a nasally chuckle. Mom and Dad looked embarrassed, and I wanted to come to their rescue, but I didn't know how to prove that Mary was, in fact, ours.

When nobody said anything, Mrs. Cline continued, “I don't know how you cope with seeing her so rarely! I would be beside myself if I didn't see Jeffrey at least four times a year. Luckily his career keeps him traveling back and forth.”

“Oh, we've always kept in touch,” said Mary lamely. She was running her finger along the lip of her wineglass.

“It's such a long drive to Santa Cruz,” added my mother. “We never wanted to pressure her into coming home.”

I had maybe never heard my mother tell such an outright lie.

“How did you end up in California, dear?” asked Mrs. Cline. “Of course I know all about how you met our Jeffrey, but it never occurred to me to wonder what drove you so far from home in the first place!”

Mary took a gulp of her wine. The question was so terrible and invasive, but that didn't stop me from leaning forward to learn the answer.

“Well, after high school I moved to New York. I wanted to try and get involved in the art scene there.”

“You moved to New York all by yourself?” Mrs. Cline turned to my parents with a look of excessive shock.

The whole table fell silent. I wondered why Mary didn't just say yes. Was it really so shocking? Obviously Jeffrey's mother had firm ideas about what girls did versus what boys did, and that kind of thing bothered me.

“She went with a friend.” My father spoke quietly.

I hadn't known that.

Mary dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “A close friend from high school. The two of us went out there together and shared an apartment. I got a waitressing job and tried to get my stuff into galleries. But it was such a battle.”

My mom was watching Mary very closely.

“New York was changing me. Everything about it was so competitive—even just getting on the subway, or buying a coffee. It was turning me into someone I didn't want to be.”

Mrs. Cline nodded knowingly.

Suddenly Mr. Cline squealed like he had been stung by a bee. Everyone looked to the head of the table, where we had almost forgotten he was sitting.

“What is this?” Speaking through a full mouth, he pointed his fork at his plate.

“It's kale,” Mrs. Cline answered calmly.

Disgusted, her husband winced and swallowed. The silence that followed was excruciating.

“Anyway . . .” Mary heroically resumed her story. “My friend and I weren't really getting along anymore, and I had heard about the art community in the bay. So I moved home, and I've lived in Santa Cruz ever since.”

My father couldn't help dipping his chin and muttering, “You didn't exactly move home.”

Mary looked trapped, like a cat crouched beneath a car. “Well, after New York, it felt like home.” Spearing her Cornish game hen, she avoided Dad's eyes.

My sister and I were seated diagonally, on opposite ends of the table. The distance forced me to raise my voice. “Who was your friend?”

Mom and Dad glared at me. I got the feeling that if I pulled at the right thread, Mary's entire history would unravel—a heap of sordid yarn on the dinner table. But I didn't particularly care what the Clines thought. I just wanted to know basic things about my sister, like the name of her first roommate.

“Nadine,” said Mary.

I thought of her e-mail.
Do you remember Nadine?
It kills me to think you might not
. In spite of myself, I had practically memorized that e-mail.

“I remember Nadine,” I said out loud.

A smile flickered across Mary's face. The reference was not lost on her. She met my eyes, and for a second it felt like I knew her better than I had ever known anyone. Jeffrey, who had been chewing methodically between chugs of wine, looked from Mary to me with curiosity.

“Well!” said Mrs. Cline, sawing at her hen rather violently, causing sausage and fennel seeds to fly. “Mary's paintings are just gorgeous. I'm sure you know. She's only allowed us to keep one, and I had to beg her for it.”