The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (31 page)

235

"My dad will meet us at baggage claim," she
says. "But tomorrow let's just rent our own car." She's told me this plan about
a thousand times now, which means she's excited enough about it that she's
anxious it won't actually happen. It must be the second part of this she's
worried about, though, because, sure enough, her dad's right there by the silver
carousel, his arms folded across his chest. He looks like a completely different
guy from the one who's always in the media room in the perfect house in Nine
Mile Falls. He's already tan, and has his sunglasses on his head. His black hair
is slicked back, as if he's permanently just gotten out of the pool.

"I see you two made it okay," he says, and I
swear to God, Allen has been replaced by his twin brother. I can't quite figure
out what's different. At home, he's quiet and sort of slinks around before he
disappears again. But here, even though he hasn't said anything yet, he's
louder. He's larger. And as if to prove my very thinking, his cell phone rings
and he's suddenly smiling hugely and performing into it.

"HEY!" he says in capital letters. "It's ALLEN!
Yeah, back in town!" His words backslap and shmooze.

"God, watch my bag not make it," Melanie says,
although right now the carousel just sits still and looks tired.

I take my cell phone out of my bag; turn it on.
I've gone from three messages to fourteen in a two-and-a-half-hour plane
ride.

Indigo, it's Mom. What have you done? Why
are you doing this? I called Jane and
... I erase the message.
Indigo.
I'm very worried about you. Call me, please. The least you could do is tell
...
Erase.
Goddamnit, Indigo. Call and tell us what's going on. I've
tried to reach Melanie's parents, and no one ...
Erase.
In? What the fuck
is going on? I'm assuming this is your way of saying we're through, but
Christ,

236

your mom is a wreck .
.. Erase.
Indigo, Trevor's been here and he's just heartbroken. Heartbroken. If you
want a little adventure, fine, but to treat us ...
Erase.
In?
Trevor.
Fuck. Never mind.
Click. Erase.
Indigo, shit.
Severin.
Would
you please call Mom? She's a mess.
Erase. Then Bex's voice.
A role model
doesn't just take off.
And then, finally:
Indigo? It's Dad. Your mom
phoned me. I'm just ... here if you need me.

I don't want to hear their voices. I don't want
to think about them. So, away they go.
No new messages,
the voice mail
chick reports.

"We'll get together for a drink!" Allen
says.

The carousel groans and lurches into motion.
Melanie stands at its edge, but I just wait there with my bag between my feet.
Some kid sits on the edge of her Winnie-the-Pooh suitcase and looks weary, and a
man in a golf shirt and slacks and silver hair waits beside her while Grandma,
I'm guessing, with her gold-white hair, jiggles a little boy with chubby legs
and saltwater sandals and a face rosy from sleep. The various pieces of luggage
start to bamp down the ramp, spin to place and ride slowly around. A black bag
falls. Another black bag. Another black bag. Golf clubs. Another black bag.
Luggage makers must be either extraordinarily lacking in creativity or
extraordinarily depressed. Down slides a car seat, which Grandpa snatches up. A
mystery box all taped up, more golf clubs. Another black bag, to which Melanie
says, "There it is," although I have no idea how she can tell.

Allen is still exclaiming away on his cell
phone, and we follow behind him. Melanie has put her sunglasses on, even though
we're inside.

"Is that so you won't be recognized?" I joke,
but then notice that all kinds of people have their sunglasses on. We follow
Allen

237

outside. There are two black limos waiting at
the curb, and a Hummer limo, which looks like a military command center on
wheels. I think my brother had one of those when he was a kid. It came with
little guys with guns that my mom told him he couldn't play with, so he was
forced to make the happy Fisher-Price people, with their molded plastic brown
and yellow hair, ride in there instead.

Allen points a key fob at a slick black
Mercedes, and the car makes a series of chirps that sound like Chico when his
claw gets stuck in his cage. The trunk pops open, and we put our bags in. It's
early evening but it's hot. Allen sits in the driver's seat while we put our
stuff in, and then Melanie sits in front with him. The car is arctic freezing
inside--Allen has the air conditioner blasting, I guess, but it's so quiet, you
don't hear a sound now that he's hung up his phone. We wind our way out of the
airport, and join the long stretch of traffic.

"You should have a convertible, Dad," Melanie
says.

"And suck exhaust every time I get on the road?
No thanks," Allen says. He keeps taking peeks in the rearview mirror, and at
first I think he's making sure I'm not putting gum in his ashtrays. But then I
realize he's not looking at me at all. He leans back a bit so that he can see
his own reflection in the side mirror too.
Hey there, Hot Stuff,
I can
hear him say to himself.
Hey, Good Lookin'.
I wonder what Lisa would say
if she could see this routine. I wonder if he's available later that night for a
date with himself.

"Doesn't your mom like to come on these trips?"
I ask.

"She doesn't like to fly," Allen says. I get a
flash of an image-- Allen opening the newspaper every morning to some plane
crash article, placing it right next to Lisa's cereal bowl.

238

Driving in this car is like driving in some
padded, soundproof chamber, protected from every discomfort, glitch, or minor
annoyance. The windows are tinted to soften every visual harshness of life (even
the strip mall we pass, with its teriyaki place, Laundromat, and Spanish video
store, looks muted and calm), and you can control the climate from every seat.
But the car is creepy, somehow--airtight and squishy like some Travel Casket
made by Sharper Image.

We edge forward in bursts, then brake.
Eventually the landscape changes and there are hills of large homes and the dots
of palm trees. It was not long ago that I was in a sunny, unfamiliar place with
palm trees and a dad driving a car, and yet this is a completely different
experience. I'm apart here, not a part.

I feel some twisty sadness, something that's
edging toward regret.
Shit, Indigo,
I tell myself.
You only just got
here. You wanted a bigger world. Enjoy the experience! This is an adventure!
Maybe this is a NEW LIFE.

I give myself a talking to. Nothing new is
comfortable at first. If I am intent on expanding out of my narrow existence, I
need to give it time. Six months. A month. Me and myself compromise. The summer,
at least. I try to change my attitude. I play Count the BMWs, which gets
unchallenging quickly. The sun is beginning to set, though, and the sky through
the tinted windows looks pink-and-blue beautiful. I want to see the real thing
for a moment, and I crack my window, breaking the suction of the car and causing
Allen to whip his head around and exclaim "Hey!" in protest.

I roll it back up. Maybe he was right about the
exhaust. When the window is down, I see that the colors are not pink and blue,
but a hazy, muddy gray-brown. "I just wanted to see the sunset," I
say.

239

"It's just smog," he says.

"A smogset," Melanie says. This cracks them
both up. "Just look at it with the window up. It looks better that way," Allen
says.

It takes us a long time to get to the house
Allen rents in Malibu. It's on the beach, with lots of angles and large glass
windows and an entryway with a marble floor the color of Travertino Navona,
Trina's table. Trina would love this place. There's a white carpet in a living
room no one goes in (the carpets still look springy and the vacuum tracks are
linear and undisturbed) and shiny wood floors in the kitchen. The furniture is
sleek--trim leather sofas and geometric pillows. It smells like new paint and
new leather, and there are books about art and architecture posing at angles on
the end tables, and dimmed lights and some ooh-ah New Agey chime-and-water type
music that's playing in every room. "I guess I'm not going to be drinking tomato
juice in there," I say, and nod toward the living room.

"He's got a housekeeper, so don't worry if you
make a mess," Melanie says. She drops her bags where she stands. "Let me show
you your room."

My room is white too, with black accents--a
black headboard and black end tables. There's a painting of something splotchy
and orange over the bed. The music has followed us in here.

"It's great, Mel," I say. "But the music's
freaking me out a little. I feel like I should meditate at the altar of
Citibank, or something."

"He says it relaxes him," Melanie says. "If you
like this, wait'll you see the pool."

"Your dad is a different guy here," I
say.

"Thank God," Melanie says. "I think he's his
more natural

240

self. A place can bring out your more natural
self, don't you think? I feel more like the real me here. This is just... my
place."

I keep my mouth shut, which should earn me some
karma points. I'm hoping Melanie is just showing off a little for me here, in
this new place, like people do when they present their territory-- lifting their
metaphorical leg on the this's and that's that they've got and want to flaunt,
demonstrating the superiority of possessions that are theirs, not yours. Bex
does it whenever she has a friend over--she'll show the little kid Chico's cage
and say, "Chico can learn words faster than you." And then, "But he doesn't like
new people." This latter part, of course, is an outright lie--Chico doesn't like
anyone, except maybe Mom.

Melanie opens the French doors to the deck,
where the pool is. It's like Vespa guy's, but with little blue-and-white tiles
inside in a design, and padded deck chairs. The house is smack on the beach
itself, which stretches left and right for miles; the other houses in rows on
either side are layered like expensive desserts, making this huge house seem
small and shivering. It's getting dark now, and the only light comes from the
windows of the houses. The ocean itself,
shh-shuuu-ing
its whispered
rhythms, is dark, dark. The sand is white fading into black where it meets the
sea edge. We stand at the deck rail and listen and look at blackness, and my
hair feels stringy and damp from sticky ocean air. I am here when I once was
there. I am so different, I'm not sure who stands here.

"Maybe I should call home. Let them know I'm
okay," I say.

"You're braver than I'd be," Melanie says.
"O-kay. You know where your room is."

"Hey, Mel? Thanks. This is really
amazing."

"Isn't it?" she says. "I
told
you."

241

***

Mom picks up on the first ring. "My God,
Indigo, how could you do this? How could you just go take off without telling
me? I can't believe you'd treat your own mother like this, let alone the rest of
us. Trevor? He's a wreck. I've never seen him without the most perfect and happy
disposition, and he had tears in his eyes, Indigo. He had tears in his eyes
after the way you treated him.

Bex has been crying--she feels like she did
something wrong....

Indigo? Are you there?"

"Yes."

"Just..." Mom's voice breaks now.
"Why?"

"I needed to," I say, and realize that at least
this much is true. "I had to get away. I felt all this pressure ..." I hear her
voice and I remember it all again, the
all
that seems a hundred years ago
already. Jane and Trina and Leroy and the gang; Trevor and Severin and Mom and
the bills and Bex in front of that damn television.

"When are you coming back?"

The two-and-a-half-million-dollar question. "I
don't know," I

say.

She's quiet. Her voice is a whisper and I force
myself to not let it twist my heart. "And that's how you leave home? No plan, no
good-bye?"

"It's fine, Mom. Everything's fine. Nothing has
really changed, except that I'm not there."

"Everything has changed, Indigo. You can do
that, you know, with one action. You should know that. "

Silence. My stomach drops. "I'm sorry," I say.
I'm not sure how much I mean it. The words seem far away again. They
just

242

feel sort of available and convenient--the way
you pluck your blue T-shirt from the floor because it's on top of the pile and
it's clean.

"We deserve better," Mom says. "I've got to
go."

I'm expecting a rush of protest, pleading,
maybe even tears. But Mom is silent. I feel the sadness in the silence. It is so
large and heavy it feels as solid and permanent as marble.

"Bye," I say.

"Good-bye, Indigo," Mom says.

And then she hangs up. There is just emptiness
on the other end of the phone, and I sit at the edge of that deck chair and
listen to the endless
shh-shuuu
of the waves, the in-out rasp of them,
water on sand, water off sand. The trees make a shimmery-paper sound. The house
is so bright the bright is almost noisy behind me, but in front there is only
the stretch of blackness.