Look at You Now (4 page)

chapter
2

T
he morning was trying to trick me into believing a new day could make things better. As the bright sun filled the room, I closed my eyes hard, pulled my coat over my head, and tucked into a small piece of dark. My mind flooded with thoughts, memories, and images of everything I'd just left behind, until it stopped on the familiar face of my father. I remembered only the quiet steady comfort of his voice when I was little, waking me up in the morning at home.

“Get up, Diz, I'll meet you in the driveway in four minutes.” My father's gigantic six-foot frame crunched down into my bottom bunk bed in our house in Winnetka. As I opened my eyes I could smell the shaving cream on his clean-shaven face. He'd been calling me Diz my whole life. That was my name out of his mouth, always. He pulled back the blue-and-white-striped bedspread and put his finger to his lips, reminding me,
Don't wake your sisters
.

I grinned and whispered to him, “I'll be down in three.”

Over and over in my head I reminded myself,
Quiet as a mouse
,
as I put on my red tights and my big gray sweater. It was Sunday morning. I never knew where we'd be going, exactly, and I never cared. Sunday morning was always my time with my dad. I ran to the back stairs and then remembered something. I dashed back to my room to feed Bonnie and Clyde; they were my turtles and I fed them every morning. I sprinkled some flakes into the tank and blew them a kiss. I grabbed my shoes and raced to the driveway. I stopped quickly, looked down at the dirt on my shoes, and took them off. No eating, no drinking, and no putting your feet up on the dashboard in dad's car. My father was a stickler for things being in their place and staying tidy. The smell of the deep, tan leather seats in his car reminded me that everything in the world was going to be okay. I eyed the pack of Beeman's gum sitting on the shelf beneath the radio, where it always was. My dad leaned over with a smile and offered me a piece.

We drove with the windows down, my curly hair swirling all around my face as the wind blew in and out. I loved the windy driving; it made me laugh for no reason. My dad turned on the radio and asked, “How about the bakery?”

“Yes, the bakery!” I shouted over the noisy wind. We drove until I saw the red-and-white awning over the French bakery in a nearby town. He grabbed the paper from the rack on the wall, and we sat on silver metal ice-cream chairs, me with a warm jelly Bismarck, my dad with his plain croissant.

“Let me show you something, Diz. You see this? What does it say?” He gestured for me to look at the paper.

“The Wall Street Journal.”

“Right, now this is an amazing paper. You know why?”

“Because it has news?”

“Yes, but also because it has a great way of covering all the different news. They take the biggest stories and condense each of them into little paragraphs and put them all on the front page, you see? So you can find out just enough information to know what's going on all over the world right here on the front page.”

My dad was smart. He was the keeper of all the things I would need to know in order to make my life a place I'd want to be, and he had an incredible ability to make me feel that I was
something
in this world. Maybe because I fell in the middle of the millions of kids in our family, or maybe because he already knew how much I would need him. He was a man who didn't just believe his children would go out and tackle the world the right way; he
knew
they would. His standard for us was in place from the second we arrived on the planet, and his belief that we could meet that standard was so strong it worked. He didn't pressure, he simply expected—and we delivered. He was a composed, calculated kind of firm. Never lost it, just shot looks, lowered his voice, and commanded respect. The onus was on us to succeed. To disappoint our dad carried the kind of shame none of us ever wanted to feel.

He had the same name as his father and his grandfather: William Lee Pryor. He was William Lee Pryor III, but people called him Lee. We revered him, not just because he was our dad, but because it was clear how strongly he felt about the lessons he wanted to pass on to us. At our big nightly family dinners, Lee found his opportunity to hold court. Every night he checked in on our lives and shared the things he felt were so important in the world. None of us were overlooked. He made sure that every kid at the table would learn something. You had to be dressed, clean, and on your game before sitting down to eat in our dining room.

I remember being about ten years old, standing in our kitchen just before a family dinner, staring at the nine pork chops sizzling on our Viking range. I watched the juices ooze out of the fatty parts and run off to the side. The smell was making our dog Toby howl insanely. There was a gigantic bowl of mashed potatoes sitting next to the stove; I wanted to stick my finger in and sample it, but didn't dare. I waited for my mom to tell me to start carrying the food into the dining room. Finally she grabbed the big old cowbell with the round wooden handle and rang it, the sound echoing loudly through the house. I grabbed the mashed potatoes
and the bread and headed into the dining room. Everyone was filing in. I noticed my older brother John come in at the last second, wearing a baseball hat. Then I saw “the look” on my father's face—the look none of us ever wanted to be on the other end of. John didn't flinch. He just sat down, rolled his eyes, and put his napkin in his lap.

John was the bravest person I knew. He was the second child, born about a year and a half after my older brother Bill, and he happened to be the kid who was causing the most friction at the moment. As in, he and my mother couldn't share the same air without having an argument, and I'm not talking just a regular argument. She'd chase him through the house with frying pans; he'd use the top-of-the-top worst swearwords right to her face. John was consistently able to dissolve the small amount of glue that held Dorothy together on a daily basis. But when our dad was around, things were different. And he was home every night around six-thirty unless he was traveling. As we settled at the table, my father cleared his throat and addressed us.

“Who can tell me what is most obviously wrong with this table?”

Several of us chimed in.

“John is wearing a hat.”

“A baseball hat on John's head.”

“Correct.” My dad went on. “John, remove the hat, wash your hands, and return with respect to this table. Apologize to your mother for holding things up. And you will begin the discussion when you return.” No one ever wanted to begin the discussion. My brother quickly removed his hat, got up from the table, and responded with a quiet “Yes, sir.” When he came back he gave a tired apology to our mom, and my dad continued.

“Bill, remove your knife from the butter dish; it belongs on your own plate. And, Kiley, do not begin without your mother having taken her first bite. And now go ahead and share with the family, John, something you learned today that you feel might be of interest and could teach your sisters something.”

John, with zero enthusiasm, offered: “I learned today that pigs are actually pretty clean animals. They have a bad rap for being dirty because they like to play in the mud and cover their coats with dirt because it cools them off. But really, they are one of the cleanest animals of all.”

My dad paused for a moment and went on.

“Thank you, John. Jennifer, your napkin goes in your lap nicely, not crumpled, and, Diz, get your elbows off the table. Does anyone know what kind of meat comes from a pig?”

We all chimed in at the same time.

“Bacon.”

“Ham.”

“Pig's feet.”

“Pickled pig's feet.”

“Bologna.”

“Headcheese.”

“Sausage.”

“Pig's tongue.”

“Spam.”

My dad quietly said to our mom, who was still fussing around the room, “Dorothy, can you please do us the favor of sitting down? These kids cannot eat until you've taken your first bite, for Christ's sake.”

My mother quickly sat, put her napkin in her lap, and apologized. “Sorry, sorry, kids. Please eat.” She always looked a little defeated, even before we started eating.

Bill was the oldest child, and our mother saw him as the Second Coming. My sisters and I followed suit and treated him like royalty. Bill was the fourth William Lee Pryor; he had a IV after his name. I thought it was pure fancy and wished I could have a number after my name. He hovered under the radar in the family, more reserved than the rest, and appeared humbly oblivious to the position he held as oldest. He was as tall as my dad and was the only other one in the family with curly hair like mine. What Bill did best was take unabashed advantage of having five little sisters;
he referred to us as his own personal servants. He snapped his fingers and we did whatever he asked.

But that night, Bill cleared
his
throat at the table and addressed our dad.

“Dad, why do you think it's so important for us to know all of these rules surrounding the dinner table and manners? Which forks to use, knives to save, soupspoon out of the bowl, serve from the left, take from the right—seriously, what does it really matter? Who the heck is going to even know all this stuff you pay so much attention to?”

The entire table went silent. I felt morbidly excited by Bill's confrontation. Really, what
was
the big deal about all of it?

After a long silence my dad responded. “You want to know, Bill. Do you all want to know?”

We looked at one another. Some of us shook our heads no, some whispered, but hell yes, we all wanted to know. It did seem so stupid, all of it. My dad continued.

“You don't just trust me that I am teaching you things you will value greatly when you're older? Then I'll tell you. What I'm teaching you, which you ignorantly claim to be so unnecessary, is the difference between knowing something and knowing nothing. It is my experience that knowledge is power, and it is my
job
to pass on to all of you the knowledge I have about how to make it in this world. Like it or not, we live in a society of rules, and etiquette and manners prominently exist. Manners are a sign of respect and being polite shows a person has thought and regard for others. This stuff you are questioning is the same stuff that delineates the men in this world from the gentlemen and the women from the ladies. What I am teaching you will enable you to eat dinner at the White House or marry royalty.”

It probably wasn't the time to laugh, but a few of us couldn't help it. He ignored the laughter and carried on.

“Whether you end up dancing at the White House or dining with royalty is not the point. The point is if you're invited you'll
know what to do. And knowing what to do gives you confidence, and confidence, kids, is the key to life.”

My dad had an incredible influence on how I saw myself growing up. He was my dad, and in my eyes he knew
everything
. As far back as I can remember, he'd talked to me in a way that made me feel I already knew whatever it was he was saying, in a way that made me feel worthy and respected. He never doubted the person I was, and in turn I rarely doubted myself. It was like a language, and I learned it very early.

• • • •

It was the first time in my life that the dark felt good to me. I wanted to stay under my coat forever. But I thought I heard something at the door. I pushed the coat off my face and sat up. I did hear something. The light was shining through the window, and there was a soft tapping. I held my breath to keep quiet, but the tapping turned into knocking, so I tiptoed in my socks over to the door and listened for a minute.

“Yes?” I said softly.

Through the door I heard, “You awake? It's Alice; I work on the floor. If you're hungry you can go to breakfast, but if you don't go in the next half hour you'll have to wait for lunch.” Alice was the resident supervisor, the lady who was there to help the girls, who Ms. Graham told me about yesterday. I put my hand on the door handle to make sure Alice didn't come in. There was no lock.

“Um, thank you. I'm not hungry.” I was starving and feeling faint.

“Up to you,” she said. And then I heard her footsteps walk back down the hall.

I looked around the sparse, empty room and felt the walls staring down at me, accusing me, as though they knew what a terrible, tarnished person I was. No one needed to remind me of how much I'd dishonored my parents, or what a disgrace I was to anyone who might have ever known me; I was breathing that shame
every second. It was like a suffocating black cloak wrapping itself around my body.

I trusted my parents completely. I always had, and I knew they weren't cruel people; they were kind and sound, but they'd left me hundreds of miles away from home, alone and scared to death. I knew I was as bad as it could get, or else I wouldn't be here. I was living with all the other soiled, damaged stray girls because that was the kind of girl
I
was. It was slowly sinking in: I was completely alone. For the first time in my life, I had no one, and nowhere to turn.

The tears dripped one after another onto my coat. It was like they were the last pieces of good left inside me, trying to remind me they were still there. I couldn't stand the sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, so I turned the light off and waited in the dark for the shower to get warm. I stepped onto the cold tile as the hot water poured over me. I let the awful noise of the showerhead drown out the sounds of my sobbing. I wailed and wept a long time before I finally sat down on the tile and let the water beat me for as long as I could take it.

• • • •

“Mom?”

“Hi, sweetheart. Lizzie, are you there? Is something wrong?”

Suddenly I couldn't talk. I'd made my way to the phone booth in the hall after finally venturing out of my room. But the second I heard my mom's voice, the ball in the back of my throat got the tears going. I shut the door of the phone booth as hard as I could. It was many minutes before I could get myself calm enough to speak.