I’m trying to like Duane. I really am, I think, as the three of us ride to Port Authority.
I even made a list of his positive points: He doesn’t smoke cigars . . . . He doesn’t pick his nose . . . . He loves his grandchild . . . . He’s not a mugger . . . . He really loves my mother.
He’s just not my kind of person. Nothing’s wrong with hunting as a sport, he says. Even my mother agrees with me about that. The cafeteria actions were wrong, he tells me. “Children should be seen, not heard.” Also he hates it when people show emotion.
It was hard waking up in the morning knowing that I was going to see Duane at the breakfast table.
It’s worse knowing it’s going to be a permanent situation.
They’re going to get married.
My mother and Grandpa Duane are “tying the knot.”
I hope they tie the knot around each other’s throats.
Doesn’t she care at all what I think, how I feel?
The man’s a real creep.
I hate him.
We arrive at Port Authority and go down to my bus. Rosie’s already there.
Duane’s trying to be so nice to me. “Let us know when you get your Christmas list made up. The things your father can’t afford, we’ll get for you.”
I’d like to put a hit man on that list, one that would do away with Duane . . . . The things that my father can’t afford. He makes it sound like my father’s a real failure. Well, I’d like to see Duane paint, or consider my feelings the way my father does. That would show him who the real failure is.
I hate Duane. I think I even hate my mother. Not totally. I mean, she is my mother and all that, but I really don’t like her much.
My mother looks so happy, I could throw up. How can she be so happy about something that’s going to make me so miserable?
When they told me last night that they were getting married next month, they also let me know that they’d be living in Duane’s apartment and selling ours after it goes co-op. She can make a good profit on it.
Selling our place, the apartment I’d lived in since I was born, where I come to now.
They’ll be living in a luxury building on Sutton Place. I guess lots of people would be happy about a move like that, but I’m not. I know our neighborhood, the doormen, a lot of the people. Even though I’m only in New York part-time, I don’t feel like it’s strange territory. Now I’m really going to feel like a visitor, not a real part of my mother’s life.
It’s going to be very strange. I’m going to have to go to an apartment that I won’t feel at home in to be with a stepfather I hate (Plastic Pop, I’ve started calling him in my head) and deal with a mother who thinks only of herself.
In the beginning I used to make lots of excuses for her because she was my mother. I guess the truth is that if she were just some person on the street, I wouldn’t want to know her, but she’s my mother. And the court’s given her joint custody.
I wonder what would happen if I refused to see her, whether I would have to go to jail?
My mother says, as I’m getting on the bus, “Next time you come down, we’ll pick out your dress for the wedding.”
I rush up the bus steps.
If I say anything to her, it will be to suggest that I wear black.
Rosie follows.
She arrived just in time to hear the end of our conversation.
I throw my bag in the overhead rack, sit in a seat, and start to cry. I hate that. I cry when I’m angry. At least that’s better than my mother, who cries when she wants something.
Rosie says, “Are they really getting married?”
She shakes her head. “At least I had a while to get used to my father and his wife. Wow, that’s a real shock for you. Do you think they have to get married, that your mother’s pregnant?”
My mother pregnant, having to get married, that would really be something. “She wouldn’t have any more kids. She told me that once.” I shake my head. “She said it’s because she and Duane are old-fashioned, that they don’t believe in living together without being married, that it wouldn’t look good for their businesses. What hypocrites. He can spend the night, but they can’t live together without marriage.”
Rosie says, “Look, maybe it won’t be so terrible.”
So terrible. I tell her about the mink coat . . . Duane junior . . . having to move out of my apartment . . . .
Rosie says, “I’ve got an idea. Since you’re stuck with the situation, why not make the best of it? Why don’t you give him a Christmas list of everything you’ve ever wanted?”
I think about that. It would be fun, except then I’d owe him, be indebted. No way.
Rosie continues. “Some people say divorce kids are lucky. We get chances to travel, different places to visit, more presents. I don’t think it’s always so easy for us. It’s rough sometimes.”
I agree. “You go to school in one place, but when there are special events like dances, parties, games, and events, you’ve got to miss them because you have to visit the other parent. There are always two places to live, to keep clean. I tried so hard for things to be nice and easy. When both parents needed me to keep them company, I was there.”
Both of us sit quietly, thinking about all this stuff.
I remember how awful it was for me when they first separated. Then when they got the divorce. Then there was the move to the country, but that turned out well. I have friends, especially Rosie. And Dave’s real special to me, my first real kind of grown-up caring about someone who isn’t in my family. So I have survived some rough stuff. I guess I’ll make it through this too.
Maybe Duane’s got so much money, he can have his computer company build a Robot Daughter, one who visits weekends and holidays and does everything they want, without being a “problem.”
It’s so rotten. That’s the only way it’s going to work out the way they want. I’m just never going to be the kind of daughter she wants, not if I’m going to be the kind of person I want to be.
Actually I think I’ve come up with a great idea. Rent A Robot Family. The slogan could be “We try hardest—the nuts and bolts of families.” People could rent whichever family member is the hardest to deal with, and the robots could be programmed to do exactly what you want. Then the real people could go on being exactly what they are and it wouldn’t make a difference.
It’s pretty sad when you think about it, wanting machines to be something people can’t be.