The Queen of Sleepy Eye (2 page)

Mom sighs.

What makes her think I would want to meet a man known for passing gas, a man who falls a billion miles short of the father I dreamed about, a man whose lasting contribution was DNA for a large nose and unruly hair?

I don't think so.

“Mom, I'm sorry, but I don't have time for a road trip down memory lane. Remember, I'm the faculty rep for new-student orientation this year. I have to be in Santa Barbara by Tuesday. Sam expects me back Sunday afternoon. Micole hasn't registered for classes. And Rocket—”

“We'll be back in plenty of time for student orientation. We fly out of Minneapolis on Sunday. I called Sam. He's quite capable of helping Micole with her classes. And the dog? Really, Amy, would you put your dog's well-being above your own flesh and blood?”

“You called Sam? He knows about this? Does this Carl Swenson person know we're coming?”

“Not exactly.”

By all rights, I should demand Mom return me to the airport where we rendezvoused only hours earlier. But I'm curious. More than that, seeing my father is a clarion call I must answer. Is this the same irresistible urge that pulls a female salmon from the Gulf of Alaska to hightail it back to her birthplace, a stream too shallow to cover her hump? Ravenous bears. Fishermen. Mutilating leaps up rocky waterfalls. She's doomed. At the end, her flayed flesh dances in the current as she gulps her last breaths of life. Who can explain such a drive toward self-annihilation?

Not me.

Back at Bob's Classic Cars & More, Mom charms Bob down two thousand dollars because of a crack in the slide-down Plexiglas sun visor. “You best write that check before I change my mind,” he says. “This baby was headed for Hot August Nights in Reno. Collectors pay top dollar for workmanship there.”

Mom uses the Pontiac's hood to write the check while I return to Bob's air-conditioned office to retrieve our suitcases. I'm tempted to call Sam to come get me. The telephone hangs on the wall behind a glass counter filled with trophies, all topped with facsimiles of classic cars. I work to untwist the telephone cord. The receiver spins wildly.

What good would come of calling Sam?

My husband is Mom's coconspirator, convinced, no doubt, the trip into my past will be good for me, a kind of slap to the face to break the cycle of hysteria Mom ignites in me. I hang the handset up hard, and the mouthpiece breaks free of the receiver to dangle by two slender wires. Out on the lot, Bob eyes Mom up and down while leaning against the Pontiac. I repair the broken receiver with two
Band-aids from my purse. I write a hasty note of apology on a gum wrapper and prop it on the telephone.

The glare from the Pontiac, resplendent with its chrome and garish exterior, makes me wince behind my sunglasses, and the muscle over my left eye cramps again. My migraine medication lies deep inside a suitcase. I don't remember which one. Mom helps me lift the suitcases into the trunk. Bob chews his lip, looking too much like a man rethinking a decision.

Mom loads her matching leopard-print valise and garment bag on top of my tattered suitcases. “Come on, Amy. We're burning daylight.”

“I need to use the restroom.”

She slides behind the wheel. “For goodness' sake, we'll stop at the McDonald's.”

I hesitate.

Mom starts the car and revs the engine.

I talk to Bob over the roof of the car. “You did a great job on the car. Thank you. I'm sure your craftsmanship will mean a great deal to the original owner.” But I'm not sure, not one bit. My heart races at the thought of meeting my father, then deflates at the thought of his possible indifference. This is going to be a long trip.

The McDonald's in Barstow is three railroad cars side by side like sardines in a can, a bit of architectural whimsy meant to coax people out of their air-conditioned vehicles and into the 107-degree heat. The restaurant is disappointingly warm. There's a line into the bathroom. With my bladder complaining, I take my place in line. Mom waits for me in the cool car. This is my last chance to bolt, but I wait my turn.

* * *

MOM PRESSES THE accelerator to merge with traffic traveling to Las Vegas and beyond. I wince when a semitruck and a black BMW
speed past us. Mom eases the Pontiac to 60 mph. Cars, delivery vans, and semitrucks pass us like we are parked on the shoulder.

“Can this car go any faster?”

“People drive like idiots along here. How can they be in such a hurry to lose their money? Who do they think pays for all those bright lights and fake volcanoes?”

“It's safer to go with the flow of traffic, Mom.”

A sun-scorched Toyota full of boys wearing their caps backward pulls alongside us, and a passenger shakes his fist when the driver accelerates to pass.

“What did I tell you? They have to be going ninety.”

We pass the Zzyzx Road exit. Who or what would live in a place that is gray and beige and riddled with glass shards? My question goes unanswered because the road dips and disappears around a mound of rock.

I hate the desert.

Mom looks over her sunglasses at me. “You'll never guess how you're supposed to say that road name.”

And I hate Mom's guessing games. “How?”

“You have to guess.”

I sigh like she has given me a difficult task to ponder, but I'm making plans to call my husband from the next gas stop. Sam will rescue me. He's had tons of practice, but this is the craziest thing I've ever let Mom drag me into.

My desire to meet my biological father is waning. What's the point? I like my life. It's full. I have a family. My husband thinks I'm the sun, the moon, and the stars. He brings me coffee in bed every morning. I'm truly blessed. My second daughter, Micole, has emerged from the black tunnel where she cocooned during her teenage years. She's nice. She calls me from work to hear my voice and brings me
dainty pastries when she thinks I need a boost. I could die happy, only I wouldn't see my granddaughter—the most brilliant and beautiful child on earth—grow up to be a woman. Her mother, my oldest daughter Steph, expands my heart like a balloon. She made me the woman I am today—in a good way. And then there's Graham, our youngest, born an old man and way too much like me. One of us must loosen up, or the tension will truly break us. When I talk about him like this, most assume he's a Goth with enough metal in his head to recreate the Eiffel Tower. Far from it. He's earnest and analytical, a people pleaser. But I can crush him with a single word or a sideways glance, although that has never been my intention. As the baby, he is the child whose milky breath I can still feel on my neck. I'm crazy about him. And as alike as we are, he dresses like his father, thank goodness. A good life with good people, that's what I'm living.

Who needs to add a complication to their life? Not me.

Whatever vignette Mom has imagined about meeting Carl Swenson won't come close to reality. I don't need a father. I have one. In fact, I have two—a stepfather who demonstrated amazing tenderness during my greatest disappointment; and all those times I thought I was raising my mother, the Father of the fatherless, God, watched over me. You might think I'm arrogant or mentally challenged to say so, but I believe he moved heaven and earth to my advantage. Sometimes I appreciated his involvement, and sometimes I resented him bitterly. I know this sort of yin and yang between daughter and father is normal because I've watched Sam with Micole.

Until she turned thirteen, Micole was Sam's shadow. High school introduced angry and distrustful friends. Despite our warnings, Micole was determined to help them until, not surprisingly, she became one of them. When she disappeared for over a week, Sam slept in fits and spurts. He finally found her in a downtown hotel with her
much older, devil-in-a-blue-shirt boyfriend, Cody. Sam still won't tell me what he found her doing, but decay wafted from Sam's clothes.

The Pontiac grumbles up a long grade that crests only to draw us farther into the institutional beige of the desert valley. On the far horizon, gray mountains dance in the heat. Two stripes of black asphalt score the desert with nothing resembling a destination in sight. This is Nebraska, only someone has forgotten to turn the sprinklers on. I dig a pad of paper and a pen out of my purse to write the word
Zzyzx
.

“I think you'd pronounce it
Zay
-ziks.”

Mom honked the horn in the driveway. Lauren and I leaned over the toilet bowl, heads pressed together, as I pushed the birth control pill through the foil backing. We watched the pill sink to the bottom of its porcelain grave, and I flushed the pill out of sight.

“You're doing the right thing,” Lauren said.

“Gross. I can't believe Mom thinks I'll need these wretched pills.”

Mom honked the horn again and yelled, “Amy! Lauren! Say good-bye already! We're burning daylight.”

We embraced, wet cheeks together. Lauren squeezed me hard. “Promise you'll write.”

“Every day. I will. I promise.”

“Tell me everything. I'm going to miss you so much.”

“At least you'll have Debbie.”

“Deb's a spaz.”

“And I'm not?”

“Yes. Maybe. Just a little.”

She was right. I was a spaz. An egghead. A shapeless spear of a girl. I released Lauren to splash water on my face. The towels had been packed away, so I dried my face on my T-shirt.

“I got you a present,” she said.

My stomach roiled. “I wish you hadn't.”

“No, really, I paid for it and everything.”

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean, am I sure? I used the money I made baby-sitting the Weston twins. What brats.” Lauren dug something small out of her pocket. She held my hand and released the weightless gift into my palm. “Do you like it?” she asked.

In my palm lay a delicate cross tangled in its chain. No matter how bratty the twins had been, the Westons weren't known for their generosity. “Lauren, you're going to get caught.”

“This was the last time, I promise. I didn't want you to go away empty-handed. Honest, thanks to you, I'm completely rehabilitated. Let me help you with the clasp.”

I worried about the kind of hell that awaited a person who wore a stolen cross, but honestly, I hated the idea of hurting Lauren's feelings more. Who knew when I would see her again, if ever.

Mom pressed the car's horn.

“I better go.” I looked around the bathroom. Vacant window sills. Clear counter. Towel bars empty. My eyes burned with tears for the hundredth time since I'd accepted the scholarship to Westmont College, my ticket away from Mom that I'd prayed for day and night. How crazy was that? I turned off the light for the last time. One more
hug with Lauren, and she walked away from me and out the door, her head down, her hands to her face.

Outside, Mr. Cochran, our landlord, his forehead corrugated with determination, strode toward Mom. They had clashed before over leaky faucets and utility bills and loud parties. Poor Mr. Cochran, he always lost. Her biggest victory allowed Mom to paint her bedroom lavender and mine yellow, a color she'd hoped would rid me of melancholy, which was completely unnecessary. I was plenty positive. I just wasn't my mother, the bloomin' bluebird of happiness.

Mom slid out of the car, and with one swipe of her hand slipped her sweater off her bare shoulders to reveal the low cut of her blouse. “Good morning to you, Henry,” Mom said with a friendly wave. “I think summer has finally arrived, don't you?”

“Going somewhere?”

“Amy and I are moving to California. I hope you saw her picture in the paper. Not her best picture by far, but the story was real nice, even mentioned that I raised her by myself. She was the only one in her class to get a full-ride scholarship. I'm so proud of her.” With a nod of her head, she directed me toward the car.

Mr. Cochran folded his arms over his paunch, like Mom would ever be intimidated by Mr. Clean. “I gave you two extra weeks to come up with this month's rent, Mrs. Monteiro. I hope you weren't thinking of leaving without paying what you owe.”

Mom tossed the sweater onto the boxes in the backseat and leaned through the open window to dig through her purse. My stomach tightened watching Mr. Cochran ogle her rear end, but more than likely she'd planned on him doing just that. She handed him her tip envelope. “That's what I love about you, Henry. I've never known a man with a more generous heart. Go ahead, count the money. Make sure it's all there, minus the rest of this month's rent, of course.”

Mr. Cochran shoved the envelope into his pocket and whistled, this time admiring the Pontiac. “Is this
your
car? My younger brother bought one of these babies off the showroom floor when he landed his high-and-mighty job in New York City. How long have you had it?”

“Forever. I don't drive much. Walking keeps me in shape, Henry.” She said his name like butter melting on a hot biscuit.

My face warmed. I opened
Pride and Prejudice
and pretended to read.

“How old is the car? Fifteen? Twenty years?” he asked.

“Only seventeen. Amy helps me keep it looking nice.”

Every Sunday after church, Mom packed a picnic and we drove the car to a shady place along the Kaskaskia River where we turned the radio up to sing along with the Captain and Tennille and the Eagles and all things Motown. Mom changed the station if they dared to play disco. When I paste-waxed the car, I used toothpicks to remove excess wax between the chrome and the car's body. Mom made popcorn for dinner those nights as a special treat, or she let me use her Tabu foaming bath lotion. Otherwise, the car stayed in the garage no matter how much I complained about walking everywhere. Blizzards. Rain. Wind. Sleet. I threatened to join the Foreign Legion where they treated their soldiers with respect. Mom never explained why we only drove on Sundays. That was our normal.

Two-stepping, Mr. Cochran said, “I wouldn't have hurried over here. It's just that when Edith Zolatel called …”

Across the street, Mrs. Zolatel's drapes snapped closed.

“Don't worry, Henry,” Mom said. “Edith has a habit of thinking the worst of people. She's very lonely.”

And she has breath like rotting fish,
I thought.

Mr. Cochran took a long look at Mom, the way you would before walking away from, say, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
knowing you would never be back to St. Peter's Basilica in your lifetime. My mother, María Francisca Santos Monteiro, born of Portuguese immigrants in Chicago, had creamed-coffee skin with black, aqueous eyes full of innuendo. When she wanted a man to see things her way, she parted her pouty lips to reveal her white teeth. The men faltered and acquiesced immediately, and when they did, she bestowed a Sophia Loren smile on them. I'd seen the display many times.

Mr. Cochran counted bills out of the envelope and pressed the cash into Mom's hand. “Here you go. Consider this a graduation gift for Amy. Gas is expensive, and you'll be eating in restaurants. California is a long ways from Gilbert County, Illinois.”

“Henry, you're the sweetest thing,” she said and kissed his cheek, leaving a smudge of Midnight Passion lipstick.

He'll have a hard time explaining
that
to Mrs. Cochran.

* * *

I LEANED MY forehead against the window and watched the rows of knee-high corn and black earth rush by. All that I'd ever hated about Illinois now pulled at me to stay. Biting cold winters morphed into Currier and Ives scenes. The severe flatness of the land reassured me. The pungency of hog farms tendered memories of shadow tag and firefly ballets. Even with Lauren's assurances that California was perfect for me, I struggled to picture myself walking among bronzed coeds with my fuzzy hair and large schnoz. Instead, I saw my hair bouncing with every step along a palm tree-lined path, and students parting to let me and my hair pass. That was why I kept my mass of curls in a bun, à la Lizzy Bennet, the heroine of Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice.
Doing so enhanced my literary mystique.

And Lauren. We'd been friends since first grade and suffered through first pimples and first periods together. She taught me how to use tampons. You can't replace a friend like that.

Mom lit a cigarette.

I lowered the window.

“Amy, close the window. I have the air conditioner going.”

“I can't breathe when you're sucking on those things.”

The Pontiac skidded to a stop on the highway's graveled shoulder. Mom shifted toward me in her seat and extended her little finger. “Pinkie pledge.”

“Pinkie pledge? I haven't pinkie pledged since …”

She took a long drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke in my direction. I hooked my pinkie with hers. “California is a long way,” she said. “I won't have you sassing me about smoking the whole way. Repeat after me: I pinkie pledge I will not make hateful smoking comments until we find an apartment.”

“Fine. I'm living in the dorms.”

She squeezed harder.

I matched her grip. “I pinkie pledge I won't make anti-smoking comments until Mom finds an apartment to live in …
alone.”

She relaxed her grip, but I held tight. “A pledge for a pledge. Remember? Repeat after me. I pinkie pledge to have nothing to do with men until I dip my toes in the Pacific Ocean.”

“I pinkie pledge …” A station wagon hauling a trailer whizzed by, then a delivery van, and a stock truck.

“Go on,” I urged.

“I heard Frank Sinatra gases up his Ferrari in Las Vegas. You wouldn't want me to pass up such a—”

“Without a pinkie pledge from you, mine is null and void.”

I watched her consider the empty miles before us. Corn fields.
Plains. Mountains. Desert. And more desert. Concrete and glass. “Okay.” She squeezed tighter. “I pinkie pledge to have nothing to do with men until I dip my toes in the Specific Ocean.”

“Pa-cific Ocean.”

“That's what I said.” Her eyebrows lifted. “Another pledge. This time I want to hear you pinkie pledge no come-to-Jesus sermons.”

“For how long?”

Another cluster of cars and trucks sped by. “Until I'm on my death bed.”

“I can't promise—”

“All right, until we stand at the corner of Hollywood and Vine.”

That night we would be in eastern Kansas; the next day we would cross the Rockies. Las Vegas was our goal for the third day. If Mom saw Frank Sinatra at the gas station, we'd never make Hollywood and Vine, only a day's drive away from Las Vegas. I prayed Frank Sinatra would gas up early in the day, and we'd arrive in California without delay. The last thing I wanted on my conscience was Mom's eternal soul.

“Okay, but a pledge for a pledge.”

“Shoot.”

If I asked Mom to stop talking about being queen of Sleepy Eye, would she dissolve into a heap of ash? “No telling me to stop slouching.”

“No complaining about the time it takes to put on my makeup.”

“No complaining about how much I read.”

“No groaning when I sing along with Barry Manilow.”

“You can't tell me how to wear my hair.”

“But Amy, that bun makes you look like Grandma Moses.”

“I guess Barry will be singing alone.”

“All right! You win. You can wear your Elizabeth Barnetta—”

“Bennet, Mom, her name is Elizabeth Bennet,
the
most endearing character in English literature.”

She threw up her hands and checked traffic over her shoulder. “Fine. Wear the bun, but when we get to California, I'm taking you to a salon for the stars.”

Besides a minor slipup on Mom's part—she worked her wiles on an old geezer at a gas station for a map of Nebraska—the trip was peaceful. From Omaha, Nebraska, to Kennesburg, Colorado, I read
People
magazine out loud cover to cover, the story about Clint Eastwood twice. We skipped an article about dreams improving creativity.

“Your grandfather, God rest his soul,” Mom said, crossing herself, “told us about his dreams every morning at the breakfast table. We were not allowed to speak. He spoke of monsters chasing him, and claws scratching on the door, and people digging out of their graves. I still can't eat breakfast without thinking of dead people.”

We passed cars stalled along the highway that wound through the Rocky Mountains. “Vapor lock,” Mom said. “Say a prayer the Pontiac doesn't do the same.”

Typical. Fear knotted her daughter's stomach, but she wanted me to pray for the car. I slipped onto the floor to sit with my head on the seat and my eyes squeezed tight against the towering mountains. I prayed for the Pontiac. I prayed my mother could keep the car on the narrow road. I prayed my breakfast would stay in my stomach.

We sang every Barry Manilow song Mom knew and a few Frank Sinatra ballads. Still, my hands trembled and my stomach bounced.

Mom leaned over to stroke my hair.

“Are you watching the road?”

“The pill could be causing this,” she said. “I was sick for weeks. Let me tell you a story. Maybe you'll go to sleep.”

I swallowed hard against the bile that crept up my throat. “Please, Mom, keep both hands on the steering wheel.”

Her hand left my head. “I'll tell you about the summer my family moved to Sleepy Eye.”

“I know that story.”

“My father took a job at the Del Monte plant, processing corn and peas. We lived on the north side near the Catholic church. I was sixteen, and my brothers made my life a living hell.”

“Could we stop for some Dramamine?”