Gia considered it a small miracle that she made it out of the booze room without grabbing two glasses of champagne, tossing her head back, and pouring them simultaneously down her throat. Or, simply grabbing the entire bottle and draining.
She paused at the doorway between die Leiche versaufen and the space containing her father’s remains. She numbly stared at the open casket at the far end of the room.
Huge glass vases of pink and white lilies sat near his corpse. White candles in polished silver burned brightly. A memorial table, complete with a large gilded framed photo of her dad and Carol, smiling like zombies, stood on a stand in the center of the table. Smaller photos were placed nearby, but she couldn’t make them out.
Only a few people milled about in this hushed space. Everyone seemed to bee-line it for the booze room. No one lingered near her dad, artfully pickled in formaldehyde.
Gia turned her head toward the bar.
Marco, Dante, and Kennedy stood watching her. Keys and Heat were standing near a couple of women, oblivious of anything but their own needs.
Dante and Kennedy nodded their encouragement.
Marco gave her a thumbs up, his eyes bright and sincere.
He looked so serious in his encouragement of her, it made her chuckle. She returned the gesture, trying hard to resist the feelings stirring in her chest. I’m falling for you, Brutus. Falling hard. And, she continued, turning toward the task at hand, the sooner I get this over, the sooner I can show you how I feel in a full body, rock and roll encounter. Nearby rooms be damned. You’re coming to my room.
Her mouth grew dry as she stepped toward the casket. She paused at the memorial, before completing her quest. Lots of photos of Carol and Dr. Jake Swain, noted psychologist, lay on the white linen covered table. They looked like the socialites they aimed to be, grinning from her dad’s boat zipping along Lake Tahoe, and posing in front of a lodge at the Heavenly Mountain Ski resort, skies propped by their sides. Her lips did this rigid roll and press maneuver as judgment filled her mouth.
She picked up one of the Polaroid photos, hiding under a shot of Carol and dear, old dad. She stared at her ten-year-old baby sis, on all fours, with her head on the grass, a big, silly grin on her face. Barbie and Ken dolls lay on the grass near her head. It’s one of the pictures I took. I figured Dad threw all my photos in the fireplace. She and her sister used to play in the backyard all day. They built rivers with the hose, and castles and villages with dirt, sticks, and weeds. They raced around with their cocker spaniel, Mitzie.
They had a whole set of Barbie dolls, including two Kens, three Barbies, and a Midge. Gia made the two Kens a gay couple. She decided Midge was in a band and wanted to break up the two Kens and turn them straight. Living close to San Francisco left her with a heavy influence from the gay culture. Plus, they had a couple gay neighbors who told her funny stories all the time.
Her sister Shauna took one of the Kens and insisted he marry the Barbie, only she named the Barbie “Susy Golightly.”
“It sounds happier; don’t you think?” Shauna had said to Gia. “It sounds like someone who deserves happiness.” Shauna had a “happily ever after” kind of heart. Gia seemed to be born with rebellion and a silver spoon etched with the phrase “fuck this shit” on the handle shoved into her mouth.
She sifted through the photos and found another one she recognized, buried in the pile. She looked at the photo of her mom, her dad, Shauna, and her, at her high school graduation. Her mom gave her dad a grim side-eye. Her dad had pasted on his “I’m the man” smile. He and her mom stood next to one another as if they were strangers. Gia stood stiff and angry, dressed in a purple gown, clutching her diploma in one hand. Her other arm wrapped around her sister, pulling her protectively into her side. That was the last time I saw her until I killed her. I knew there would be no one left to look out for her, once I hit the road. She took the photo of her sister, and the family shot and shoved them in her pants pocket. You don’t deserve them, she said to her father’s corpse.
Someone stepped beside her.
Gia looked up to see an older woman, dressed in a black skirt and gray top. She looked to be in her fifties and appeared to be kind. Her gray hair hung in ringlets around her face, which was scored with time’s lines.
“You must be Jake’s oldest, Gia,” the woman said, smiling warmly.
“Yeah, how could you tell?” Gia said, all bluff and tough.
“Your father showed me photos of you. He had a collection of you on tour, playing drums, on the cover of Rolling Stones...things like that.” She smiled.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Gia’s stomach lurched. She resisted the urge to poke her finger into her ear in an attempt to clean out whatever blocked her hearing.
“No, I’m not. I think in the end he knew he’d wronged you and your sister.”
“What do you know about us?” Gia asked, arching an eyebrow. She crossed her arms over her chest, imaging herself to look like her bad-ass rocker chick persona.
“I was his therapist in the last few years of his life,” the woman stated. “He told me how he...” She paused, choosing her words. “How he mistreated you. There’s no other word for it. I’m Margaret Brown, by the way.” She held out her hand.
Mistreated? Is that what we’re calling it? I can think of better words, like abused, destroyed... Gia gave Margaret’s hand a quick, perfunctory shake. “Guess you know my name already. So he...he...sorry, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. The great Jake Swain had a therapist?”
“Yes. He needed to sort through the mistakes he felt he’d made.”
“He felt he made? What about ‘made in spades?’“ Gia said, her gut tight from hearing all the PC therapy terminology.
The therapist lifted her eyebrows briefly and then continued. “After your sister died...well, he was crushed. It started his time of reckoning.”
Margaret’s eyes softened.
Reckoning?
“Wow,” Gia said, both for this new revelation and the therapist’s use of words to describe her father’s atrocities. “Just wow. Why the hell wouldn’t he share that with me? I’ve had the same phone number for years. It wouldn’t erase the scars but, damn...” Her mouth did that same roll and press thing. “He had so much time to apologize. I might not have been able to hear it but...damn,” she said again. She ran her hand through her short locks. “I used to dream of him apologizing to me, you know? We’d have this serious conversation, and he’d tell me how proud he was of me and how very sorry he was to have hurt Shauna and me, and...” Tears pooled in her eyes. She closed her mouth, realizing she’d spilled secrets to a stranger.
“I know,” Margaret said. “Those scars run deep. I urged him to share with you, I really did. I think he wanted to but...” Her shoulder rose and fell.
“Margaret!” a woman called.
Margaret turned to see who interrupted them. “Oh, hello, Joan. How are you? I need to talk to you. Hold on. Don’t go anywhere.” She faced Gia. “I’m sorry, but I really must excuse myself.”
“Sure thing,” Gia said, thinking, business as usual with the dead guy in the room. “Uh...thanks for telling me how he...wanted to apologize.” She could barely believe it.
“Any time,” Margaret said, the same warm smile crossing her face.
Gia figured it to be her therapy smile. She smiled wanly and turned to face the last deed she had to do until she could exit—deal with her father.
Slowly, she traipsed toward the casket, her footsteps sounding like bass drum beats. She stared down at the body: him in zombie-like repose; her face no doubt matching his. The funeral parlor had added touches of makeup to his face, to the point of making him look like a porcelain doll. She glared at the lifeless blob of flesh. No sign of her father rested within. This...this shell merely represented what he sort of looked like.
She chewed on her lower lip, considering Marco’s suggestion to speak from her heart. Her hands rested on the edge of the coffin. Several phrases rolled through her mind, begging to be selected. Finally, she chose a path of phrases.
She looked right and left to make sure no one else listened. Relief washed through her to see she stood alone like she’d been granted a private viewing. Her gaze rested on his face. She extended a fingertip and gingerly touched his cheek.
“Ew,” she whispered. “Lifeless and cool.” She clutched the rim of the casket again. “You’re an idiot, you know that? You could have told me you fucked up in the father department.” She glanced around the room again to make sure no one had entered. “You had a million chances. You could have told me six months ago when I flew out to see you. Instead, you talked about Carol and told me I needed to buy a car.” She let out a deep sigh. “I don’t forgive you. Not yet. Maybe not ever. If you say you tried to make amends, so be it. Better luck next time. On my end, I’m going to work really, really hard to not want to blow-torch your face when I think of you.” An unexpected chuckle flew from her lips. “Okay, okay, strike that. Let’s let bygones be bygones, what do you say. And may we never meet again. And if we do, by God the first thing out of your lips better be how sorry you are for everything you did—every blow, every lecture, every shouting match, every strike of the belt.”
A tremendous weight fell from her shoulders. She began to shake, as if her soul shook free long-held emotion “And...if there’s such a thing as reincarnation...let’s not be born into the same family unit, okay? If we do, I swear to God I’m going to be sober. If I’m sorry for anything, it’s that I couldn’t face you without numbing myself first.” Her eyes did another quick dart and scan. “And, uh...amen or whatever you’re supposed to say. Find peace somewhere. Make amends. Bah da dum,” she added, fingering a small drum riff.
She turned to see Dante and Kennedy, standing in the doorway. “Your turn,” she said to them.
“You okay?” Dante said as she stepped toward the pair.
“Never been better,” she said, her arms trembling. “As for you,” she said to Marco, hanging back behind Kennedy. “You’re coming with me, right now.” She seized the collar of his shirt and dragged him out of the Larkspur club, uttering, “I might have to fuck you hard in the limo before I have my way with you all night long in the hotel.”
He laughed.
“As long as you’re not the only one having their way. I’ve got some ideas, too.” As they exited the club, he said, “I take it you got closure?”
“More or less,” she said. “But enough talk about me and my mental state. Let’s get down to business in a physical kind of way.”
“What, exactly, do you have in mind?” Marco said, with a seductive grin on his face.
“Show and tell, baby. And it’s show time.”