It's Too Late

When my dad, Charles, was on a business trip, I slept in the master bedroom with my mother. She cries when she tells me about an earlier time when she was in love with a man named Paul.

She met Paul when she was twenty-two and working at American Can Company. Every day she drove an hour-and-a-half in her yellow Plymouth Duster, from Wappinger Falls to Greenwich, Connecticut, where she worked as the executive secretary. Paul was a lawyer.

He asked her to help put together an office party. She says she wasn’t attracted to him at first, but from the way she's painted, I picture him as a young George Peppard—handsome, always dressed up in business suits, his light-brown hair parted to one side. She tells me he was quiet-natured, French-Canadian, a vegetarian, and spoke through a cracked tooth—a mark from playing football at Brandice University. My mother says he had a gorgeous body, and she could kiss him for hours. I told her I thought that was disgusting. Aly, when you love someone..., she says.

I'd never seen her kiss my dad.

I have a black-and-white photograph of my mother at age twenty-two; I hang and re-hang it each time I switch college apartments. It was taken of her before she met my dad. I think I like it because it proves that she once had a time when her future was untouched and happy. In it, she has black-brown hair past her waist and is carrying a breakfast tray. Her high cheekbones synch in her thin face; she tells me that she’d cure her hunger with cigarettes and an occasional PB&J on an unsalted Matzo cracker.

From listening to her stories, I've developed this image of my mother in a red, 1960's Volkswagen with her bare feet on the dashboard of the passenger seat. Paul is in the driver's seat, and the car is parked at the beach. The Moody Blues—their favorite group—is singing everyone is looking for the answer/well look again/come on my friend/love will find them in the end. Her hair falls from both sides of her head in long braids, and she's wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt, Daisy Dukes, large circle-framed sunglasses, and a straw hat that she keeps from blowing away by holding it to the top of her head. It's a hot day and all of the windows of the car are rolled down. Paul has said something, and my mother has the same smile and look on her face as she does in that old black-and-white photo.

I imagine her at lunch with Paul. My mother hovers over her half-eaten turkey sandwich. “What age group should we keep the party in?” She holds her pen between her then smooth and un-aged fingers, scribbling on a white, rectangle napkin.
“How about ages twenty to thirty-two?” Paul’s body is angled over the table, towards her.
“Are you crazy?” She looks up from her napkin and raises her eyebrows. “That’s so old.”
“You think thirty-two is old?” He smiles, “I’m thirty-two.”
I imagine her looking back down at her napkin.

When my mother was a child—somewhere between five and eight—she would walk through the halls of her house in Yorktown Heights, with a black veil draped over her head, singing Catholic hymns. She would say her Hail Mary, her Our Father, and The Act of Contrition nights and mornings, and I suspect many times in between. I wanted to be a nun from the time I was a little girl, she says. She tells me that she pratically has lived like a nun since she married my dad; he hasn’t touched her in twenty-three years. Her pale-pink rosary beads still hang in her Tiffany jewelry box, and she lets me take them out to try them on, because she knows I honor them. Bury me with those beads, Aly, she says, even though she has been a pious Mormon for thirty-something years. And I will bury her with them; they are a part of her.

I imagine the lunch conversation somehow transitioning.
“You’ve been married?” Paul was surprised; she was only twenty-two. I imagine him leaning in closer to the lunch table, his eyes fastened to her.
“Yeah, but it was annulled by the Catholic Church after two-and-a-half years.” My mother married a man named Bob when she was eighteen.
“Have you ever been married?” She asked Paul.
“Never,” he leaned back, “I don’t believe in marriage.”

She and Paul shopped for the party together; she had never shopped with a man—not even her father or Bob. Paul juggled oranges for her in the produce section, and they laughed when she said she had been “fishing for fish.” He made fun of her for being from Wappinger Falls—a funny name, he said—for smoking, and for eating meat. I stayed a vegetarian for two years because of Paul, she tells me. I told her once, around age fifteen, while shuffling through a salad bar line, that I liked banana chips. "Paul loved banana chips," she said. Even after thirty-something years, she's remembered.

At Paul’s beach house in Stamford, Connecticut, during the party, he asked her to dance. When we moved together, Aly, it felt like we were one. I get chills when my mother tells me this. I feel something for her and Paul—maybe anxiety, maybe pain, maybe frustration.

I wish I could’ve seen her with him. I wish Paul could have been my father. Sunday night dinners might’ve been different; we might have had family vacations or family reunions. My mother would have wanted to grocery shop with him, and they would’ve decided on what style couches to buy together, without a fight. Paul would have hung the mirrors and pictures up on the walls for my mother without her asking. He would have known that she wouldn’t like a five-dollar Poncho from the Mexican border for Christmas. He would have set up a good retirement fund for her; he would have taken her to Italy like she’s always wished. He would have taken her to the hospital when she was hemorrhaging during her pregnancy with the twins. Paul never would have locked her up in her room for a day to discipline her; he wouldn’t have told her to just cool it Honey and drag her by her arm. He wouldn’t have ignored me as a child or said that my paintings were just interesting. Paul would have been different. I love Paul. I love my dreams about Paul being my father. I love him for giving my mother what he did.

My mother dated Paul for two years. They were both members of the 1970’s Servants of Awareness cult, and smoked pot to channel their Christ consciousness in love, mercy, gratitude, and satisfaction. I was constantly in search of truth, she tells me. And to me, it feels like she was free back then.

“If I moved in with you, Paul, Dad would be down here with a shotgun.” My mother wanted to marry Paul after their two years of dating. She wanted purity and family with the man she loved.
“I just don’t believe in marriage, Barbara.” Paul wrote away to the Servants of Awareness leaders, asking if they thought marriage was necessary. The leaders replied with a no.
“You’re going to let me go?” My mother cried. Paul cried. “You’re so stupid, Paul. You’re so stupid.” And they broke up in an underground garage parking lot at American Can Company.

The next day, my mother met my dad in an elevator, and he invited her to have dinner with him at a Steak ‘N Stein in Wappinger Falls. She ate two bites of steak—her first time in two years—and she says it made her sick.

Four months later, two hours before my parents were married, Paul called my mother. "I'm coming to get you, Barbara. Are you married yet? Are you married?” My mother said it's too late, got drunk on tequila shots, and married my dad.

The idea of Paul follows both my mother and me. I wonder if he regrets what happened, or if he knows that her smile has changed. I wonder if he would have saved her from her life. I wonder if Paul tells his children about a time when he was in love with a woman named Barbara.

My mother cries when she tells me these things, and I touch her shoulder. The next morning my dad, Charles, will pull into the driveway.

I Write Too

He knows where I work, where I spend all of my time between classes. I am always available, always accessible, and that's not fair. I envision him walking in, like he could not waste another day or minute. He places his hands on the front desk and, in rapid breaths, asks if I am here. He sees me before the receptionist can answer. I am sitting alone at one of the tables, copying quotes into my notebook--the ones that endear me, from Tammy Williams' "I Write" essay.

His neck is straight; his light blue eyes are serious. He's sure this time; this is deliberate. I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. He walks over slowly; his face is hot from running in the cold, outside air. I write to quell the pain. His dark-brown hair is stiff and swooshed like I remember. I write to remember. He is wearing his blue robot shirt with grey jeans. I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. Did he even have grey jeans? I write to forget. I don't remember.

He reaches the table where I am writing--alone. I haven't noticed him yet, I haven't seen who it is, but I hear his breath. I recognize his breath. I feel the cold air on his clothes, and I sense someone tall standing beside the table. I write to forget. I write to forget. I write to forget. I look up. My heart pounds in my throat. But...I thought you were done with me, my face says. Blood creeps up to my cheeks; it is pounding in my head and in my ears and in my throat. I feel stinging, prickling blood in my arms and legs. Is this real? No. His expression is real; he means this. "I made a mistake," he'll say, and I will cry, because he is damn right he made a mistake.

I write as though I am whispering into the ear of someone I love. I will jump to him. I will hold his face in my hands. I will whisper into his ear: you have a good heart. And I will wait for something different to find me.

I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams.

Yes

One night when my dad was on a business trip, I slept in the master bedroom with my mother. We were both excited to be alone--just the two of us. Pillow to pillow, she told me about a time when she was in love with a man named Paul.

She met him when she was twenty-two and working at American Can Company in Connecticut. From the way she's painted, I picture him as a young George Peppard, always dressed up in business suits, his hair parted to one side. He was built, and she could kiss him for hours. I told her I thought that was disgusting. "Aly, when you love someone..." I'd never seen her kiss my dad.

I told her once that I liked banana chips. "Paul liked banana chips," she said. Even after thirty-something years, she's remembered.

I have a black and white photograph of her at age twenty-two; I hang and re-hang it each time I switch college apartments. I think because it proves that she once had a happy time. In it, she has black-brown hair past her waist and is carrying a breakfast tray. Her face is smooth and white, and her high cheekbones synch in her thin cheeks. Her body looks flawless—she tells me that she'd cure her hunger with cigarettes and an occasional PB&J on an unsalted Matzo cracker.

From listening to her stories, I've developed this image of my mother in a yellow, 1960's Volvo with her bare feet on the dashboard of the passenger seat. Paul is in the driver's seat, and the car is parked at the beach. Her hair falls from both sides of her head in long braids, and she's wearing a blue and white striped shirt, Daisy Dukes, large circle framed sunglasses, and a straw hat that she keeps from blowing away by holding it to the top of her head. It's a hot day and all of the windows of the car are rolled down. Paul has said something, and my mother has the same smile and look on her face as she does in that old black and white photo, before she met my dad.

Two hours before my parents were married, Paul called my mother. "Are you married yet? Are you married? I'm coming to get you." My mother said yes it's too late, got drunk on tequila shots, and married my dad.

She cries when she tells me this, as we lie pillow to pillow. I cry too.

Jamel

Jamel is a small man with rough, brown skin and a charcoaled five o'clock shadow. His long curly hair is dark at the roots, but graduates to a warm yellow at the tips. I'd guess he's in his late forties. I studied abroad in Italy two years ago. I told him once, and we compared the language and culture there to the language and culture of his home, Crete. You are a beautiful woman. He tells me in his thick mediterranean accent. You get it from your beautiful mather. He also cuts and styles my mother's hair once every three months.

I think if I saw Jamel on the street somewhere and he told me I was a beautiful woman, I'd probably walk a little faster and pretend to be on my cell phone with a very important person who could rescue me if needed. But in this setting--the Toni and Guy hair salon setting--Jamel is okay. Just below his white rolled up sleeves are a pair of poised and accurate hands. I watch as he angles his scissors at my hair to sculpt precise layers.

The last time Jamel cut my hair, I was at home for the summer--what is called home for me. Home is a place where the television mumbles in the background of every conversation, where people who once were friends to me are not anymore, where I have three brothers and three sisters-in-law that I see maybe once in those seven weeks out of the entire year, and where I feel as though I have no purpose. To me, this haircut was me making up for those things, taking care of myself.

Jamel sat me down and began to ask me the same questions as always, the answers to which he had been told each visit before since the time I was eighteen. I sold a painting yesterday. I said. Oh, you paint?! I didn't know that. He said. Yes, Jamel, I paint, and I've told you this before. It was okay though. Jamel is okay.

I remember most things Jamel tells me. I remember that Jamel is Greek. I remember that he has had the same exact hair style for the past four years. I remember that he is great friends with Adolf, the colorist, and they go boating on the weekends in the Texas summer heat. I remember that he drinks, he does not have a wife, and does not ever want one. I remember that he owns a house in the Mediterranean.

You know. He said, pausing from straightening some strands to look at me. God loves you. You do the right things, and he will bless you. I never knew Jamel knew God. For a small moment at Toni and Guy, I felt at home.

The New Cafeteria

This place reminds me of the Lakeline Mall food court back home in Texas. High ceilings, a cold metal decor, food trays, and a hum of echoing voices that could probably put me to sleep if I were a child. Strangers stand in line spewing out their rehearsed order to the workers behind the counters--one small turkey sandwich please, extra olives. Eye contact is optional, smiles are trite and often not entirely sincere. This is the new cafeteria.

For me, it's a factory--come in, get your work done, and leave as quickly as possible. I am suffocated by the eyes of a hundred others. She's here every day. They must think. She never eats anything but salads. They tell their friends. She's beautiful but alone. I hope some of the people that I see frequent the cafeteria consider coming over to talk.

Any time I think of hopes like these, I am reminded of the scene in Amelie toward the end when she is in the kitchen making dinner for herself. She imagines the man she loves coming up the stairs to her apartment, opening the door, and brushing his hand through the beads she has dangling from her door frame. In reality, she hears the ticking of the beads, but looks to find it is just her cat gliding by. Moments later, she hears the doorbell, and it is her love.

I am sitting towards the back of the cafeteria where a lesser percentage of the people can watch me stuff my face. I poke at a stubborn piece of lettuce that does not want to fold in half to a size more suitable for my mouth. I hear a group of 20-something-year-old men howl their Chewbaca impressions to see who could be most accurate. I am happy this is the caliber I have to choose from. Man, did you hear that burp. They say. That burger tasted like a cow pie. They must think. That girl's hot and I now will be as obnoxious as possible. They snort out some laughter and pat each other's backs.

I throw away my styrofoam plate at the big rectangle trash can, stack my tray on top with the rest, and exit the least populated route to avoid eye contact and smiles.

I hope. But its always just the cat.