“I’ll meet you at three-thirty on the Santa Monica Pier,” I said.
“Three-thirty?”
“Is that all right?”
“I’ve got to cut a class, but that’s fine. I hate the class anyway,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
Another thought occurred to me. “Really, Buddy, was Elsa supposed to call you today?”
“Sometime soon,” he said. “Why?”
“
If she calls, please don’t mention I called you or that you’re seeing me.”
“No problem.”
“It’s very important. If you do mention it, I’ll never be able to see you again.”
“Okay. How’s this? Elsa who?”
I smiled to myself. That was the reaction from him that Ava had expected if my name was ever mentioned.
“Great. See you then,” I said, and hung up before I could change my mind.
What had I done? At least four times before the school day ended, I paused to step outside and call him again to cancel, but every time, I resisted. When the final bell rang, I hung back so that Ava and Marla would leave the parking lot before I appeared. I stood by the doorway and watched Marla get into Ava’s car. As soon as they pulled away, I hurried out to my car. Just as my fingers had trembled when I had gone to insert the keys to Daddy’s desk drawers, they trembled again. When the car started, I sat back for a moment and took deep breaths.
Every teenage girl in that school behind me surely had done something in defiance of her parents, whether it was drinking alcohol, smoking pot, going places that were forbidden with other girls or boys who were forbidden, or merely staying out too late. There was probably a list of defiant acts that would fill a few shelves in the school library. No matter what act she committed, the first thing she had to have felt was fear. I wasn’t thinking of those girls who were so bad, so defiant, that they couldn’t care less if they were caught. The girls I was thinking of were more like me, girls who had made promises, who had been obedient and responsible, girls who were always trusted. In their hearts, they dreaded being discovered and seeing that look of deep disappointment on their parents’ faces. After all, these were the only people in the world who loved them more than they loved their own lives.
What bound a family together, especially one like ours, if it wasn’t trust and promises? You could betray your teachers, your school, and your friends, even your country, and it wouldn’t come close to the depth of disappointment after you betrayed your own family. Every breath you took, every ounce of nourishment you consumed, was a family gift. Once you broke that tie, you truly drifted at the mercy of impish winds and capricious fate. Who cared if you were injured or hurt? Who suffered disappointments with you and helped you recover? Who was there to share your success with as much joy? Who was capable of being as proud of you?
Schoolgirls like myself would risk their parents’ anger and disappointment because deep in their hearts, they believed that no matter how deeply they had hurt their parents, there was always going to be a reservoir of forgiveness. I recalled a line in a poem we had read in English class last year, Robert Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man.” In it he wrote, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
Where else would such a thing be true?
For the girls like me who risked their parents’ wrath, there was always that thought, that hope to cushion the danger, and wasn’t it the danger itself, the excitement of defiance, that usually won out in the end and got them to light that joint, take that ride, be with that forbidden boy?
The great difference was that I had no cushion. For me, home was not someplace where I would have to be taken in. I was a trapeze artist without a net, a skydiver with no second parachute, a first-time swimmer with no nearby dock or shore, no lifeguard, no rope, nothing to save me from sinking into the dark depth awaiting with open arms and gleeful smile.
No, I thought as I drove out of the parking lot, I am not simply another defiant teenager. I wasn’t taking this risk to enjoy the accompanying rush of excitement and adrenaline. I wasn’t charging forward with a shield on which was inscribed “Life’s unfair. I resent all unreasonable restrictions and rules.”
And when I thought more deeply, questioned myself more closely, I also had to admit that I wasn’t doing this simply because I was attracted to a handsome, sincere young man. It was greater than him, greater than both of us. There was something in me that wasn’t in Brianna and Ava and Marla. It wasn’t something I could neatly wrap in the word conscience, either. Neither Daddy nor Mrs. Fennel ever had mentioned God in a positive way in our house. There was never any talk of prayer or its power. I couldn’t recall Daddy driving us past a church or a synagogue or even a mosque and not smiling disdainfully. If any of us mentioned anything whatsoever to do with any religion, Daddy would say, “Smoke and mirrors. More people are killed in the name of religion than anything else.”
“What do we believe in, then, Daddy?” I once asked. It was at holiday time, and all the other children were preparing for services and celebrations.
“Believe only in yourself,” Daddy replied. “Believe only in your own power.”
And although he didn’t come right out and say it, he clearly implied that we should believe in him because from him came our power.
No, neither conscience nor fear of punishments for doing something evil was what gave me the strength to make that phone call and drive off. Surely, my need to find another kind of love was part of it, but what I couldn’t understand or identify yet was that part of me that now didn’t fear being different from Brianna and Ava and Marla. In fact, it was drawing me in stronger ways. If anything, this was the most frightening thing of all, because if I wasn’t truly my daddy’s daughter, then who was I?
And what would happen to me?
Somewhere out there lay the answer, I thought as I looked west toward the Pacific, where I could see the clouds moving up from the horizon. As on most afternoons in Los Angeles, the marine layer had burned off, and a soft blue sky ceiling joined forces with warm breezes to put more energy into the legs of the joggers, more light in the smiles of the tourists who were already bright with the excitement that accompanied something special and new, and even more hope in the faces of the homeless I saw camped out along Ocean Boulevard. It helped me relax a little, too.
I found a place to park and walked out to the pier. There was already a good-size crowd enjoying the Ferris wheel and games. I overheard a variety of languages from Chinese to Russian being spoken. Young children were charging forward in all directions, only to be pulled back by a parent’s words. They were like human yo-yos, because they’d start in a new direction almost immediately. It brought a smile to my face and then memories of Daddy bringing us here and to other fun parks. We were always well behaved and proud to walk with him, to be seen beside him, to share some of the admiration we saw in the faces of other people.
“It’s important that you are out here,” he said. “It’s important that you feel the ebb and flow of human emotions and energy, that you, like me, draw your own essence from it. It’s like dipping a cup into a cool stream and then, after you drink, feeling revived and alive and immortal.”