Stranger in Dadland (7 page)

“No,” I said.

“None?”

“None. He left me sitting around having to pee all day.”

“Harsh,” Beau said, shaking his head sympathetically.

“Arsh!” Claude copied.

I asked Beau what his dad did.

“Paints,” Beau said.

“Houses?” I asked.

“Murals. For banks and stuff, sometimes on the walls of freeways. Ever see the one on the four-oh-five? Dancers?”

I didn’t know the 405 from the 134, but we
had
whisked by a huge mural of dancers with wild costumes. My mouth popped open. “Your dad painted that?” I asked. “For real?”

Beau nodded as if it were no big deal. Claude threw his head back, dipping into the water, and Beau spun him around.

“Your
dad?
” I asked again. “He painted that giant thing on the freeway?”

Beau nodded again and looked surprised that I was so impressed. “Yeah, that’s what he does.”

“Wow!” I said. “That’s
amazing!
” I tried to imagine having a dad like that instead of one who scurries underground between office buildings. “
Wow!
” I said again.

Beau smiled in a puzzled way, as if he didn’t get what I was so excited about. He and Claude kept playing.

“Mine sells computer support systems, ya know,” I explained.

“And that’s bad?” Beau asked.

“Well, not
bad
,” I said. “Actually, who knows if it’s bad? I’m not even sure what the heck it
means.
But painting gigantic murals on freeways—now,
that’s
the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of in my
life!
”

I added, “I’d like to meet your dad. I’ve never met a real artist.”

“Well, maybe you’ll meet him sometime,” Beau said. “But probably not. He’s not around all that much.” Then he let loose a brilliant belch—loud and long. I can almost never get one out like that.

My dad came out of his apartment and leaned over the
balcony. “Hey, Big Guy,” he called down, “time to get dressed for dinner.”

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“Cora’s picking us up in half an hour,” he answered.

I guess I made a face, because Beau said, “At least he takes you with him.”

“Yeah, terrific,” I scoffed.

Beau shrugged and bounced Claude, making huge waves.

I dragged myself slowly out of the pool, up the stairs, and into the apartment. Maybe my slowness or my silence tipped Dad off to my lack of enthusiasm, because he said, “Cora was trying to be nice last night, ya know—telling you about her cat.”

I didn’t answer.

“You could have been a little more receptive. Polite at least,” Dad said.

“I didn’t do anything rude,” I blurted. “It’s not like I told her to shut up.” I felt my voice raise to a yell. “I didn’t even tell her to mind her own business and
leave me alone
!”

Dad’s mouth opened and closed like a trout. Meanness surged through my body. I felt it in my arms and fingertips. It felt
great
, so I added, “I didn’t say a word about her weird eyebrows, or her stupid gum chewing, or the fact that she owes me two dollars, or even that she’s
always here!
In fact, I think I’ve shown
incredible
self-control!”

Dad didn’t move. I glared at him for a second, then darted into the guest room and slammed the door behind me. I’d never yelled at Dad before. Mom, sure, all the time, but Dad?
Never.

My heart was pounding. I stood just inside the door, listening. No sound out there except the television. Maybe I’d shocked him into a heart attack and he’d keeled over dead. No, I would’ve heard him hit the floor.

After a bit, I realized I was shivering in my damp suit. I started dressing, still listening as hard as I could and hearing nothing.

What would he do? Scenes raced through my head. Dad, apologetic, saying, “Gee, I’m sorry, John. If I’d known you-didn’t like Cora, I never would’ve let her through the door!” Or him begging, “Let me make it up to you, son! Just name it.” Dad furious: “How dare you insult the woman I love? Get out of my house and never come back!”

Or would he give me the silent treatment? Maybe he’d keep me here the rest of the week but not say a word to me.

Minutes and minutes passed.

Then I heard one knock on my door. “I trust you’ll show more common courtesy tonight,” he said in no particular voice—not barking, not apologetic, obviously not ignoring me. A calm voice, as if I weren’t worth reacting to. As if nothing of importance had just happened.

“Don’t count on it,” I muttered. But I’m sure he didn’t hear me, because the buzzer sounded just then and I heard Cora’s voice.

He
is
Dr. Ray from Outer Space, I thought. He
looks
human but has no real feelings. No human reactions. A chill ran down my neck as I realized I’d
always
be a stranger in Dadland.

I took my time. When I came out, they were both all
smiles. Dinner was still a go. Cora drove, Muzak playing. We went to a Korean restaurant. Cora acted like it was the biggest deal. As if there were no such thing as Korean food in Kansas. I told her we ate it all the time back home.

First the waiter brought little bowls of stuff for us to share. One looked exactly like slugs. Another was a gob of weeds like something Ditz would hork up after eating grass in the yard. I tasted the one that looked the least weird, and it was so spicy, I knew my mouth was ruined for life.
After
I had a wad of it burning in my mouth, Cora casually said, “That kimchi’s a little hot.”

I could imagine her taking me for a walk through a minefield and not mentioning the land mines till my leg was blown off. But I did
not
give her, or my father, the satisfaction of watching me spit it out. I swallowed, I lived. From then on, I stuck to the beef.

They talked. I aged. I could
feel
myself growing old, wrinkled, withered, bald, dried out, stooped over.

If I’d been sure it would hurt their feelings, and not just make them laugh, I would’ve clicked my heels together and said, “There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!”

Then I realized that even
home
wasn’t going to be anyplace like home from now on, with no Ditz.

After the Korean restaurant we stopped for ice cream. I-could tell they thought it would be a huge treat for me, so I didn’t order any. I wasn’t rude, just said, “No, thank you. I detest ice cream.” Then I folded my arms and tried to ignore the sight of Cora and my father feeding each other
tastes of their cones. It was all I could do to keep from puking.

When we
all
got back to the apartment, Cora said, “Somebody looks mighty sleepy”—meaning me. Sheesh! As if I needed a
hint
that I wasn’t wanted, that I was in the way. As if I’d been planning to curl up with them on the couch!

I slunk off to the guest room without a word.

When I woke up the next morning, I thought about Ditz. It was like pressing a bruise to see if it still hurt. I imagined her coming into my room at home to sniff me awake with her wet nose. But still my tears didn’t come, which made me feel proud but kind of broken too. Wasn’t there something
wrong
with a person who didn’t cry about things like this? Maybe it was macho, but it was also sort of…what? Disrespectful?

Cora was there, in the living room. I couldn’t tell—and-didn’t want to know—whether she spent the night or left and came back. Cora said my dad was out running. She also told me that they thought it might be fun to go to the beach. “Does that sound good to you, John?” she asked.

I mumbled, “I guess.”

“We’re going to pick up my niece Iris on the way. You met her.”

That meant the plan was already set, so it wouldn’t have
mattered if I’d said, “I guess,” or, “I’d rather be eaten by warthogs.” But I
did
want to go to the beach. Plus, Iris was funny and now I’d get to see her in a bathing suit. I went back to my room—I mean the
guest
room—to get ready.

Iris was waiting in front of her house, wearing a huge hat. I mean
huge!
And a T-shirt that would have been big on a sumo wrestler. Didn’t she care what people at the beach would think?

As soon as she got in beside me, she said, “I heard about Toto. That’s so sad!”

How was I supposed to answer that? “Thank you”? Or “Oh, that’s okay”? Or what? I shrugged—which felt stupid too. But Iris didn’t seem to notice; she was still talking. “My mom says it probably won’t seem very real to you until you go home and he’s not there.”

“
She
, not
he.
Ditz is a girl…was a girl,” I said lamely. Then I looked out the window. I saw a man walking a dog that looked nothing like Ditz, but still.

Beau had been right: It was a long way to the beach.

Cora’s trunk was full of stuff that we had to haul across the hot sand: coolers, umbrellas, chairs, blankets, towels, bags. When Cora unpacked a camera, I hoped she’d take a picture of me with Iris and give me a copy that I could take home to show Brad and Theo.

It wasn’t that Iris was so incredibly beautiful or anything, but she
was
a girl and she didn’t go to our school, which counted for a lot. Plus, she was a
California
girl.

Cora pulled a radio out of her bag and I winced. I like music, all kinds of music—except the spit Cora listens to. Now everyone on the beach would hear her stupid Muzak and see
me
and think
I
liked it!

Click. Radio on.
Glack!
I wished I had earplugs. I thought of grabbing the radio and hurling it into the water, or burying it ten feet in the sand. Better stomp on it first, though, I told myself.

I looked around. Luckily, the beach was pretty empty. A few old people were walking along the edge of the water. There was a family on a blanket, but they were too far away to hear Cora’s stupid music or notice Iris’s hat.

Iris took off her big T-shirt. Underneath she was wearing a baggy black one-piece suit—not the bikini I’d imagined.

No one was putting on sunblock, so I didn’t take mine out at first. I didn’t want to seem like a sissy. But then I remembered the blistering lobster burn I got last summer. I did
not
want to go through that again.

“Can I have some?” Iris asked. She carefully dabbed sunblock on her legs. “I’m gonna see if I tan with white polka dots,” she said. “An experiment!”

Then she and I left my dad and Cora, and went down to the water. “I think they make a cute couple, don’t you?” Iris asked me.

I wondered if I should tell her that my dad had a different girlfriend every summer. I just shrugged again instead.

We dove in and out of the waves. I’d forgotten how strong the ocean is. One wave knocked me over and tossed me around until I didn’t know which way was up. I was just
starting to panic when I was suddenly s-c-r-a-p-e-d along the sand and thrown up on the shore. My eyes, nose, ears, and mouth were packed with sand. I spit out a mouthful—
yecch!

There was Iris, just as ground-up and gritty as me, but she was laughing. She started digging near the water’s edge, and I went over to help. We worked together for a while and built what I thought was a pretty great sand castle. Iris said it looked like Oz, but it didn’t.

When we were finished, I jumped on it. Iris screamed, “
What are you doing?
”

I stopped jumping and said, “Huh?” I had no idea what she was mad about.

“What’d you go and do
that
for?” she yelled, red in the face. “You ruined it!”

“That’s the point of building it,” I said. “Right?”

“Wrong!” she huffed. “I can’t
believe
you did that!” And she stomped into the water.

There was still a tower standing and my feet were itching to kick it down, so I did, but not with much enthusiasm. What was wrong with her? The tide was going to wreck it later anyway.

Then Iris came charging toward me. I just stood there like a dolt until she got right up to me and spit a huge mouthful of water in my face! Then she shrieked away and I chased her into the waves. We splashed each other as hard as we-could until we were freezing and had to run back to our towels.

I lay there next to Dad, feeling the sun dry my skin in little itches and snacking on the food Cora had brought. Her
stupid radio completely drowned out the sound of the surf, but the food was okay and there was a lot of it. Seagulls came from everywhere.

When Iris and I headed back down to the water, she said, “What do you think happened?”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Between your father and my aunt.”

“Huh?” I repeated intelligently.

“They must’ve gotten in a fight! Didn’t you notice that-they’re not
speaking
to each other?”

How
could
they speak over the blare of that idiotic radio? I wanted to ask. But instead I made my usual response: I shrugged.

“Come on! You mean you didn’t notice all that ‘Please pass the/no thank you’ stuff? That’s how grown-ups fight! That’s
exactly
how my parents fight. Very polite,
intensely
phony.”

I shrugged again.

Iris rolled her eyes in exasperation and huffed, “
Men!
” Then she flounced off into the water.

Men? Me?
Cool!

A minute later Iris seemed to have forgiven me for being a
man
and we dove into the waves some more. I, for one,-didn’t go as far out this time, though. I did not want to repeat the sand-eating thing.

When we went back to the blanket, I made a point of noticing Dad and Cora. Iris was right; they were
very
quiet. Then Cora said it was time to leave. Already? She hadn’t taken a single picture of me and Iris. Cora and Dad hadn’t even gone
near the water, but I remembered Beau saying that Dad didn’t swim.

It was very quiet in the front seat all the way home—except for Cora’s breathing. She was doing a lot of huffing and sighing. Iris and I played twenty questions and ours were the only voices. I snuck peeks at her. It didn’t look like the polka-dot experiment had worked. Iris’s leg touched mine twice. I wondered if she noticed.