guy climbing a mountain.
"Be" means something you can write on a
business card. "Be" is a one-word phrase, like "lawyer" or "engineer" or
"accountant," a word big enough to make college debt worthwhile and to put a
sports car in the driveway. A word like "teacher"--nah, even that won't do; even
they're not business-card-worthy for some whacked reason. "Teacher" would get
you the clucks of sympathy disguised as admiration that people give do-gooders,
the way you get a cookie after you've given blood.
And I didn't have one of those big words to
use--I couldn't quite summon the largeness. I didn't know what I wanted to Be.
The not-knowing of that was giving me the restless pissed-offness that questions
without answers give. A sense that I had permanently botched things already,
embarked on the trip without the map. And maybe it scared me too, that I might
end up as a mother of three working in a psychiatrist's office, or renting
surfboards in a grass shack. I guess I saw their lives as failed somehow, absent
of the Big Win, two of the millions of runners-up in the Living the Good Life
sweepstakes. What if fate was an inherited trait? What if luck came through the
genetic line, and the ability to "succeed" at your chosen "direction" was handed
down, just like the family china? Maybe I was destined to be a weed
too.
Funny's question rolled around in my mind,
nagging. I mean, did I really want to be stuck here forever? Here, meaning
49
in this place, living this life, with these
people? Go to school here, get a job here, rot in my old age here? Here was not a place where TV cameras rolled, where a lifestyle was unfurled for all
to envy, same as an expensive oriental rug. Here was anywhere. And
anywhere was not somewhere. I put the guitar back into its case. I can't even
look at it anymore. Instead, I want to make brownies. I want an end result
there's a recipe for. I want to combine eggs and water and oil and chocolate and
flour and sugar and vanilla and get something fulfilling. Besides, I can lick
the bowl and feel satisfied. Thank God or Buddha or my mother for my good
metabolism. And thank Trevor for not minding my slightly wobbly ass.
After dinner I ask to borrow Mom's car to go
over to Melanie's. I still have this feeling, a sense of swirling water going
down the bathtub drain. Mom was having a premenopausal episode at dinner--she
was silent and snappish and stressed, and the vegetables turned out like someone
left them on the porch during a heavy rain, and you could have strapped the beef
onto the bottom of your feet and made your way across the desert. She'd devoured
the pie before dinner too, another bad sign. The fork with crumbs still attached
was in the sink along with a glass whitewashed from milk.
I hunt around for something slightly outrageous
to wear to Melanie's, because she expects it and because it gives her parents a
nervous should-we-be-worried thrill too. When landscape lighting is a priority
in your life, you need a good parenting crisis to stir up some excitement. I go
for a black lace tank top and my bike chain necklace. On my way out, I see Bex
sitting on her floor and at first I can't believe my eyes and have to look
again. She has this
50
thick layer of coins spread out around her,
some U.S. Treasury flying carpet.
"Holy shit, Bex, did you rob a bank?" I
say.
"Watch your mouth, Indigo," she says. "You're
supposed to be a role model." She doesn't look up. I can see only the straight
line of her hair part on her head, the top of her rounded cheeks.
"Seriously, where did you get this?" I see her
life flash before my eyes. Mom's premenopausal episode turning to full-fledged
menopausal meltdown. I see Bex grounded until she's thirty, getting a better
education than me, probably, from CNN and public television.
Bex holds up an empty coffee can, shakes it.
Oops, not quite empty, a coin rattles inside, and she dumps it to the floor. The
coffee can has a
"Be" means something you can write on a
business card. "Be" is a one-word phrase, like "lawyer" or "engineer" or
"accountant," a word big enough to make college debt worthwhile and to put a
sports car in the driveway. A word like "teacher"--nah, even that won't do; even
they're not business-card-worthy for some whacked reason. "Teacher" would get
you the clucks of sympathy disguised as admiration that people give do-gooders,
the way you get a cookie after you've given blood.
And I didn't have one of those big words to
use--I couldn't quite summon the largeness. I didn't know what I wanted to Be.
The not-knowing of that was giving me the restless pissed-offness that questions
without answers give. A sense that I had permanently botched things already,
embarked on the trip without the map. And maybe it scared me too, that I might
end up as a mother of three working in a psychiatrist's office, or renting
surfboards in a grass shack. I guess I saw their lives as failed somehow, absent
of the Big Win, two of the millions of runners-up in the Living the Good Life
sweepstakes. What if fate was an inherited trait? What if luck came through the
genetic line, and the ability to "succeed" at your chosen "direction" was handed
down, just like the family china? Maybe I was destined to be a weed
too.
Funny's question rolled around in my mind,
nagging. I mean, did I really want to be stuck here forever? Here, meaning
49
in this place, living this life, with these
people? Go to school here, get a job here, rot in my old age here? Here was not a place where TV cameras rolled, where a lifestyle was unfurled for all
to envy, same as an expensive oriental rug. Here was anywhere. And
anywhere was not somewhere. I put the guitar back into its case. I can't even
look at it anymore. Instead, I want to make brownies. I want an end result
there's a recipe for. I want to combine eggs and water and oil and chocolate and
flour and sugar and vanilla and get something fulfilling. Besides, I can lick
the bowl and feel satisfied. Thank God or Buddha or my mother for my good
metabolism. And thank Trevor for not minding my slightly wobbly ass.
After dinner I ask to borrow Mom's car to go
over to Melanie's. I still have this feeling, a sense of swirling water going
down the bathtub drain. Mom was having a premenopausal episode at dinner--she
was silent and snappish and stressed, and the vegetables turned out like someone
left them on the porch during a heavy rain, and you could have strapped the beef
onto the bottom of your feet and made your way across the desert. She'd devoured
the pie before dinner too, another bad sign. The fork with crumbs still attached
was in the sink along with a glass whitewashed from milk.
I hunt around for something slightly outrageous
to wear to Melanie's, because she expects it and because it gives her parents a
nervous should-we-be-worried thrill too. When landscape lighting is a priority
in your life, you need a good parenting crisis to stir up some excitement. I go
for a black lace tank top and my bike chain necklace. On my way out, I see Bex
sitting on her floor and at first I can't believe my eyes and have to look
again. She has this
50
thick layer of coins spread out around her,
some U.S. Treasury flying carpet.
"Holy shit, Bex, did you rob a bank?" I
say.
"Watch your mouth, Indigo," she says. "You're
supposed to be a role model." She doesn't look up. I can see only the straight
line of her hair part on her head, the top of her rounded cheeks.
"Seriously, where did you get this?" I see her
life flash before my eyes. Mom's premenopausal episode turning to full-fledged
menopausal meltdown. I see Bex grounded until she's thirty, getting a better
education than me, probably, from CNN and public television.
Bex holds up an empty coffee can, shakes it.
Oops, not quite empty, a coin rattles inside, and she dumps it to the floor. The
coffee can has a
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