The Leftover Club Read online

“You think so?” I asked.

  She nodded with a smile. “Oo, with this skirt!” she exclaimed as she thumbed through the rack of clothing at the specialty store for fuller figures. By the time I made it to the fitting room, she had to help carry the bounty. She sat on the upholstered chair to inspect each new look. And she was honest without being overly critical. She shook her head immediately when I walked out in the taffeta formal. “Taffeta is not your friend, Mom,” she said as she fussed over the outfit.

  “Yeah, I learned that lesson a million years ago,” I muttered.

  “You had a taffeta dress?” she asked. “When?”

  I preened in front of the mirror, but even my daughter’s prowess wasn’t helping this outfit. I disappeared behind the slotted white wood door. “Just a dance. I was your age.”

  “I didn’t know you danced,” she said through the door.

  “I don’t,” I said, stepping into the new outfit. “It was for a grade.”

  I emerged in a cobalt blue chiffon number with a flowing skirt, empire waist and rhinestones sewn into the bodice. “That’s much better,” she said with a curt nod. She turned me around to face the mirror as she adjusted the top over my boring white bra. “You seriously need new underwear, Mom. Especially now that someone might actually see it.”

  I laughed. “Interesting conversation to be having with one’s daughter.”

  She shrugged. “I help Dad’s girlfriends pick out stuff all the time. He likes his women out shopping to get us out of his hair,” she added with a knowing smile. “And like he’s going to go with me to buy my own underwear, right?”

  I searched her face in the mirror. “I guess you are quite the young woman these days,” I said softly. “I’m sorry if I don’t always recognize that.”

  She shrugged and looked away. “I’m sorry I don’t give you the chance to.” She reached for the next set of clothes on the rack.

  Things were going so well that I allowed her to drag me through a lingerie store. “Nothing in here is going to fit me,” I warned but she just shook her head.

  “You’re not as big as you think you are,” she said. “In fact, you can be really pretty when you want to be.”

  The compliment was so unexpected I think I might have swallowed a bug. “You think?”

  She held up a pastel pink babydoll nightie in front of me. “You just need to care,” she said. “Ever since Dylan has come along, you care more. You fix your hair. You polish your nails. You wear makeup. It’s like… somewhere along the line between Dad and Dylan you forgot you were a woman.”

  “There didn’t seem to be a point,” I said as I slipped the silky fabric between my fingers. “It wasn’t like I planned to get married again. Been there, done that. I stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.”

  My beautiful daughter looked me right in the eye and said, “Bullshit.”

  I was too stunned to correct her.

  “You keep trying to convince everyone that you’re this cynical old maid, but I think you’re the most hopelessly romantic of all of us. You held out for the boy of your dreams and never settled. You still believe in that happy ending somewhere deep down. I can respect that,” she added softly.

  I nearly wept for joy. I had been waiting years to hear her say that.

  “You always say I can do anything I want and be anyone I want. But I never believed you until you decided to be your own person. With Bry and with Olive and Dylan… you’re finally you.”

  I smiled. It was the best compliment of my life. I reached for a hug and she was generous enough to indulge it, even in the middle of a crowded mall. We were both a little embarrassed and awkward as we pulled apart. This was an entirely new direction for our relationship.

  She picked up a nightie for herself. “In fact, I’m kind of going to miss everyone while I’m in Phoenix for the holiday.”

  “We’re going to miss you, too,” I assured. “But I know this time away with your dad will do you good.”

  She didn’t look convinced. She’d been resentful of Wade ever since he brushed her off on Halloween, and he only made it worse skipping two of their weekends together so far so that he could begin relocating to Arizona. “He already warned me that I won’t see him much. Like that’s new,” she added.

  I bit my tongue. Sure, I could rail against Wade and reaffirm all her complaints, but that wasn’t fair to either of them. While I didn’t particularly give a shit about being fair to Wade, I wasn’t going to further upset my child by attacking someone she loved. “I’m sorry, babe,” I said.

  She shrugged before trudging along to the cosmetics counter.

  By the time we left the mall, I was about five hundred dollars poorer. I had buyer’s remorse all the way to the car, while Meghan was patting herself on the back for all the bargains we found.

  When my kid shopped, she meant business.

  Time inched by as Thanksgiving approached. Meghan got more distant and sullen as the weekend loomed. Her dad was supposed to pick her up on Wednesday, which was the same day Dylan was going to pick me up for our getaway at Big Bear.

  By Tuesday night, we got the call that Meghan had been subconsciously dreading. “Hi, Dad,” she said into her cell phone. I kept busy on my computer while I listened. “But I thought we were going to spend some time together,” she said. “No, actually, it’s not okay. Okay?” I looked up in time to see her eyes water with unshed tears. “I’ve needed to see you, to talk to you.” She paused again. “Fine,” she finally snapped. “Whatever. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  She disconnected the call and threw the phone on the sofa. I started to reach for her but she wasn’t ready. She shook her head before jumping up and racing off to the privacy of her bedroom to cry.

  I was incensed. I grabbed my purse and my keys, and I was in Costa Mesa within the hour. I dodged movers as they carried what used to be my furniture from the four-story house I had forfeited to live a life of my own. But I stalked inside like I still owned the joint. I found Wade in the downstairs study, where he packed up his personal files and papers.

  “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, Wade,” I snapped as I slammed the door behind me.

  He barely looked up. “I don’t have time for this, Roni. We’re leaving for Phoenix in the morning.”

  “I know,” I gritted. “You were supposed to take Meghan, remember?”

  He shook his head as he packed more files. “Impossible. I’ve got a major client coming into town to golf over the extended holiday weekend. I need to concentrate on landing this account. She’d just be stuck in the new house all alone. She’d be miserable.”

  “Or you could take her with you,” I suggested.

  “Golfing?” he chortled. “Roni, be serious.”

  “I am being serious. This is your child.”

  His eyes met mine. “This is my career.”

  I scoffed. “Isn’t it ironic how you can tear me apart for years on how mediocre I am, and how much of a dismal failure I am, but I’ve managed to work full time and raise our daughter without pawning her off on everyone else? What are the fucking odds?”

  “You don’t have a career,” he corrected. “You have a job. And a shitty one at that.”

  “No, I had a shitty marriage. My job is a piece of cake. And it pays every bill and gives me time with my kid, which is my real career, by the way. That’s what happens when you’re a parent. Everything else comes second.”

  “Spare me the melodrama,” he sneered. “We both know that your saintly motherhood comes second to your libido.”

  I started laughing, because I could react no other way. I was stunned that he still believed that after all these years. And he fully expected me to be stupid enough to agree. “Well, I tell you what, Wade. Take me to court and make that allegation stick. I’m not the one who keeps flaking out on visitation. You have a horrible track record with your end of the custody agreement, and you also have had more relationships than I could have had the energy to muster, just because I’ve
been the one raising our kid day in and day out. In fact, I’m the one who always has to change my plans and stop my world on a dime just to compensate for you.” His eyes narrowed as he glared at me. “No judge in the country would agree with this scarlet-letter bullshit you’ve been selling for a decade. You’ve poked holes in your own stupid story, pal. Repeatedly. And arrogantly. Best of all? Meghan knows it,” I said in a slow, evil voice. “You’re tarnishing your own armor, big man. You keep this up and she’ll never bother inconveniencing you again. And you’ll be the one who loses everything.”

  With that, I swung on my heel and stomped out of the study, slamming the door as hard as I could.

  I was still pumped with adrenaline by the time I got back to Torrance. I couldn’t wait to tell Bryan, who would shout to the rooftops how I finally stood up to that jerk and told him what was what, calling him on his bullshit and demanding he show his bluff at last.

  But first I had to call Dylan.

  Once again I had to put him off before we could take the next step. I worried what it would mean for our relationship, but I also knew I had no choice. Romance and dating were fun, but my daughter needed me. She had, and would always, come first.

  “So bring her,” he said after I explained.

  It was the last thing I was expecting.

  “What?”

  “The cabins are big enough. She’d have her own space and we’d have a private bedroom. These are not big problems, Roni.”

  I shook my head. This would turn his romantic weekend into family time, and I figured nothing would scare him away faster. “You say that now but you’ve never spent time in close quarters with an emotional teenager. By Thursday night you’ll be searching for the door.”

  “I haven’t yet, have I?” he said softly.

  With that I was effectively shut up.

  As it turned out, Meghan was just as hard to convince. “I don’t want to get in the way,” she dismissed with a shake of her head.

  “Don’t be silly. We want you there. Besides, you really don’t want to stay here alone, do you?”

  More importantly, I didn’t want her left in the house alone. Kyle was still chasing her, and I knew she was vulnerable enough to make some impulsive choices.

  That night we changed her suitcase from summer wear appropriate for pool time in Arizona to winter wear for a ski trip in Big Bear.

  27: Somebody to Love

  November 25, 1977

  The year after my dad died, I experienced many sad ‘firsts.’ The contrast between what had been and what was no longer couldn’t have been starker. Generally I was content to hide away in my room, nose buried in a book or playing with my dolls, than face all the festive holidays that my dad’s presence made about a thousand times better.

  It wasn’t that my mom wasn’t enough, or didn’t try her best. God knows she did everything in her power to make things right for me, often putting aside her own grief to do so. But our family portrait had a big, glaring hole in it now, and it hurt like a bitch, no matter how many strangers that masqueraded as family opened their hearts, homes (and kitchen tables) to us in soften the blow.

  Thanksgiving ’76 was the worst. I had nothing whatsoever to be thankful for, and couldn’t put aside my own selfish childish thoughts to pretend otherwise. Christmas wasn’t much better. I was actually counting the days to go back to school, just to get away from my mom and her exaggerated enthusiasm that everything was just like it was, when nothing was like it had been, and would never be again.

  Moving in with the Fenns helped mitigate this pain in a lot of ways. It gave us both companionship when we had never felt lonelier. It filled the house with sounds of laughter and conversation, when the home we shared with my dad became a virtual tomb without his booming voice to fill it.

  We got to spread out in a four-bedroom home, with a huge backyard complete with a swing set that had been professionally installed so the pole didn’t come out of the ground every time someone swung too high. There was also an avocado tree and a lemon tree, along with a wall of towering bamboo. The selling point for any kid, however, was the tree house balanced securely in the huge, gnarled oak tree.

  That was Dylan’s hideaway, a total boy zone that I suspected had trucks, action figures and a horde of creepy crawlies he couldn’t keep in the house.

  I could see the tree house from my bedroom window, so I got to see him act out movies and play with imaginary friends when there weren’t any other kids around to entertain him. Later he would make this work for him as a creative artist, who had to pretend for a living. Back then it was all the magical, make-believe world of a child’s imagination.

  How I longed to join him. But it wouldn’t have been right. Not now. Not while I was one of “the others.”

  Bonnie and my mom decided to make a “thing” out of their first shared Thanksgiving. They knew some folks from their office who lived way across the country from their loved ones, so they wanted to open the house and make it a party. We weren’t a traditional family and our moms had no intention of pretending otherwise. They didn’t bother with a turkey. They abandoned cranberries and marshmallow-covered sweet potatoes. Instead they decided to do a baked potato bar, where everyone could create their own spud masterpiece to their liking. There were the traditional toppings like sour cream, chives, bacon or cheese. But there were also options like chili, taco meat, avocado and smothered beef tips with onions.

  I think that both moms thought if they could make Thanksgiving different enough, they could make it fun again. It wouldn’t remind us of all the things we were missing, things that we had all taken for granted just a year or two before.

  A Norman Rockwell painting, we weren’t.

  Only it didn’t work that way for me. The more different they made it, the more alien it seemed. My enthusiasm for such social gatherings had already been zapped. This left-turn delivered the fatal blow. I told my mom I’d rather read in my room and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  I didn’t know then, but I would carry the hurt look on her face on my conscience for the rest of my life.

  She immediately adopted her sunny smile, gave me a hug and said, “Whatever you want, dear.”

  Whatever I wanted?

  I wanted my Daddy back.

  But he was ‘gone,’ and had been for nearly a year and a half.

  So I sat in that room, an uneaten PB&J sandwich getting crusty and gross in the sunlight by the window I stared out of, watching all the kids play in the yard. Dylan impressed me again with his ability to keep a horde entertained. He was silly and creative and brilliant even then. While I clutched an inanimate doll to my chest, he was off killing dragons or running from dragons, or a variety of other scenarios usually reserved for Saturday morning TV.

  By mid-afternoon, I opened my window so I could hear them play.

  “You go over there! Pretend you’re like a super villain who just stole an ancient crown jewel that gives you magical powers,” Dylan instructed as he handed off a plain old rock. I smiled despite myself.

  I fought the impulse to join them all the way until the last child left for home. It was dark by the time I crept out of my room. The Moms were in the kitchen, listening to 60s be-bop music as they cleaned. I kept a low profile as I headed out the back door, through the garage and out into the backyard.

  The floodlights of the house tapered off around the large oak tree that housed Dylan’s secret sanctuary, but I could see a light burning inside. I took a deep breath for courage and headed up the rope ladder. I tapped two times before he opened the trap door. “Hey,” he said with a smile.

  I couldn’t help but return it. “Hey.”

  He moved aside so that I could climb through the door. “You missed it,” he said as he returned to his epic alien battle with his action figures. “Best. Thanksgiving. Ever.”

  I shrugged as I sat closer, my legs crossed over each other. Like every other kid in existence, Dylan was obsessed with Star Wars. He had seen it no fewer t
han twelve times in the theater, and owned every single toy they made. His whole tree house looked like the barren wasteland of Tatooine. He quickly handed me a figurine and began interacting with me in character, complete with sound effects.

  He didn’t expect anything more from me. We were free to escape into a galaxy far, far away and forget about anything that made us sad. I found myself acting out the part for my character, using weak sound effects of my own. He never laughed, though he could have. Instead he would roll with whatever I suggested, to make it even more fun.

  Our playtime was interrupted by my growling stomach. He laughed. “Didn’t you eat?”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t hungry.”

  He nodded. He understood. He grabbed his walkie-talkie. “Breaker, breaker. This is Tangled Yo-Yo. We have an emergency snack situation. Come back.”

  Within a few minutes, Bonnie replied. “That’s a big 10-4, good buddy.”

  After he put down the walkie-talkie, I gave him a raised eyebrow. “Tangled Yo-Yo?”

  He withdrew a shoe box full of inoperable toys that had been tangled and mangled beyond repair. I laughed as I grabbed the clear sparkly one. “Never could figure it out,” he said. “I can pop a wheelie, ride a skateboard and take my walkie-talkie apart and put it back together, but a string and a piece of plastic? No way.”

  I laughed as I worked on the tangle. “You’re still the smartest person I know.”

  “You think so?” he asked.

  “Remember the spelling bee?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “Last year?” he asked.

  I nodded. “That was where I first noticed you. I thought you were the smartest kid in our school.”

  “You should have said something. Then we could have been friends sooner.”

  “Are we friends now?” I asked, taken aback by the thought. I had felt so alone for so long, the concept was foreign to me.

  “Of course,” he said. “Best friends.”

  While I processed this new and puzzling information, Bonnie tapped out a code on the door. She passed a tray full of goodies through the trap door, including two pieces of traditional pumpkin pie covered in whipped cream.