Film at Eleven Page 4

  For the next few months, my family is going to stay put in Oregon on my mother’s cousin’s farm, and I’m going to try to get my license. I want so desperately to see you again. As soon as I get my license, I can get a job out here and save up for a car. Then I’ll be able to see you whenever I want. I can’t wait.

  Until we can be together, please remember all the good times we had in just those few short days. And imagine how happy we would be if we could have that every day. That’s what I want, Flora. I want us to be together. Just you and me. Forever. You asked me once if I believed in fate, and I don’t think I did before I met you. But now I do. I know we were meant for each other. Please take care of yourself until I can hold you in my arms again. I love you more than words.

  Mick

  If you’ve ever received a letter like this—full of love, yet sprinkled with pain and despair—then you know how heart-wrenching it can be to re-read the thing like a million times. But I had to read it, because it was the strongest link I had to my sweet, sweet Mick. As my eyes skimmed the words, I could hear his rich velvet voice whispering in my ear, which, in the end, made all the pain worthwhile. Still, I couldn’t help longing for the day when the letter would be ancient history and my real, live boyfriend would be kissing my neck and stroking my hair.

  “Flor-a! Din-ner!” my dad called up the stairs.

  Chinese already? Boy, that hadn’t taken as long as usual. I carefully folded the sheet of worn notebook paper and tucked it back inside its beautiful home.

  “Coming!” I yelled, as I barreled down the steps.

  Looking back, I probably should have known better. I mean, with my level of klutziness, something bad was bound to happen. People like me should only walk on flat surfaces. Heavily-carpeted, flat surfaces. Case in point: About two-thirds of the way down the stairs, my foot caught on an imaginary obstacle and twisted around like a gnarled Slinky. The result: I fell down about three steps, banged my head on the wall, and barely saved myself from total destruction by grabbing one of the posts on the stair railing. And while I bounced around like a pinball, I guess my parents heard the commotion and came running. Because when I emerged from my trauma-induced daze, they were hovering over me like a pair of protective grizzly bears.

  “Oh my gosh! Are you okay?!” my father sputtered, with his hand clamped over his forehead and his eyes bugging out.

  My mother was already on top of me, poking this and checking that. I swear, she needs to get over the idea she’s some top notch Florence Nightingale or the reincarnation of Jesus. She’s a dental hygienist, for God’s sake.

  “I’m fine,” I declared, struggling to my feet to prove the point. “I just lost my balance, that’s all.”

  To be honest, both my head and my ankle were throbbing, but I didn’t want them to know that. They would’ve blown the whole thing out of proportion, as usual.

  The Mental Hygienist shot me a not-so-fast squint. “You’re going to need to ice that bump on your temple,” she said with authority. “And your ankle’s already starting to swell. We should probably take you in to see Dr. Ipcar tomorrow. I’ll take the day off from work.”

  Thank God I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, because I could tell it was going to come in handy. With the iron resolve of an injured Olympian, I pushed through the throbbing and, as normally as possible, stood up and walked my pitiful ass down to the landing.

  “See, I’m okay,” I said, putting my full weight on my sprained ankle to convince them. “I’ll just rest a little tonight, and then I’ll be totally back to normal tomorrow.”

  Two points for me, I guess. My parents seemed to be buying my all-better act. And it was a good thing, too, because I was morally opposed to a trip to the pediatrician’s office for anything short of a life-threatening emergency.

  “Let’s get some food in ya then,” my dad said, draping his arm around my shoulder and giving me a little squeeze. “I got your favorite. Crab Rangoon.”

  I was just about to turn into the kitchen when my father steered me by the shoulder to the dining room. “The dining room?” I asked, confused. I mean, the kitchen was for everyday food; the dining room was for special occasions, important milestones, album-worthy photos—unless, of course, we’d just been avoiding the place on Will’s account. Maybe now that he was away at college, the rest of us would be dining like royalty on a regular basis.

  “I told you that your father wanted to do something special for you,” my mother chimed in. “And that he has something to discuss with you. Remember?”

  Shit. This didn’t sound good. Whatever this mystery topic was, it must be pretty important for them to spring it on me in the dining room. “Are you dying?” I blurted. After all, there was a fifty-fifty chance one of them had been stricken with some horrible disease they were trying to brace me for.

  “What? No. Of course not,” my mother said, shocked at the suggestion. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Well, of course it is,” she said. “Bite your tongue. But we’re both very healthy, thank you very much.”

  “Nothing to worry about, Flowbee,” my dad said with a wide smile. “We’re gonna be around for a long, long time.”

  “That’s good, I guess,” I said, taking my normal seat.

  Clustered together in the middle of the table were six or seven takeout containers, which my dad immediately dug into. “Don’t be shy,” he said. “Chow down.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. Practically before the words left his lips, I was stuffing my face with sweet deliciousness.

  My mother, on the other hand, hadn’t touched her food. “I’m going to get an icepack for your head,” she said, staring at me as I ate. “I don’t like the look of that egg you’ve got there.”

  “Suit yourself,” I mumbled between bites. “But don’t be surprised if something’s missing from your plate when you get back.” I winked at my dad, like he was in on my Rangoon-stealing scheme.

  “Very funny,” my mother mumbled, as she rounded the corner of the dining room.

  I seized the opportunity to corner my weaker parent. “So, Dad, Mom says you have something to talk to me about,” I pried.

  I mean, if there was something bad happening, like my parents were sending me off to boarding school, I wanted to get it over with ASAP. And if there was something good happening, like we’d won a bazillion dollars in the lottery, I wanted to know about it yesterday. God only knew I could use some good news.

  Instead of answering me, though, my dad just choked and gagged on his spring roll. Then, with a desperate, pleading look on his face, he glanced over his shoulder as if my mother should reappear to save him from the hell of dealing with me before he imploded. But since no such fortuitous thing happened, he finally broke down and answered my question with, well, a non-answer.

  “Yes, um, that’s true. Your mother and I do have something to talk to you about,” he admitted. “But we should discuss it as a family. It’s a family issue.”

  Okay…what the hell did that mean? Were my parents getting a divorce? Having another baby? Fleeing the country in the dark of night? I had absolutely no idea what family issue we needed to discuss. But I did know I’d rather discuss it—whatever it was—with just my Dad. He was the softie, the let-me-get-away-with-murder parent. My mother, on the other hand, was more the if-you-give-her-an-inch-she’ll-take-a-mile type—a mistake she generally tried to avoid making.

  “Oh, c’mon. I’m not gonna freak out or anything,” I promised. “Please.” I batted my eyes to reel him in.

  But he hesitated. “I don’t know…”

  “Is it about me?”

  Again, he looked over his shoulder. “Where on God’s green earth did your mother go for that ice? Antarctica?” he asked. Honestly, he looked like he was about to bawl.

  “It is about me, isn’t it?” I said in my best aha voice. But my dad didn’t respond. “Are you kicking me out of the house or something?”

  “
Of course not. Just calm down.”

  My mother waltzed back into the dining room carrying a washcloth in one hand and a little blue icepack in the other. And as soon as my dad saw her, he immediately turned to Jell-O.

  “Here. Hold this on you head,” my mother said, folding the cloth in half and tucking the ice inside. “It should bring down the swelling.”

  To be honest, my foot hurt a lot more than my head did. I mean, sure, I had a headache, but the actual lump had gone kind of numb. I could only hope the same thing would happen to my throbbing ankle—and soon. To humor her, though, I pressed the packet to my temple.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Uh…I was just asking Dad about…” What was I asking him about anyway? Adults are so frustrating. Can’t they just say what they mean already?

  “Flora wants to talk to us about…you know,” my father said.

  “After dinner,” my mother said. “Let’s just have a calm, peaceful meal, and then we’ll discuss it.”

  At this little detail, I went to work inhaling my food like a turbo-charged vacuum cleaner. And in about three minutes flat, my plate was spotless. “Done,” I declared, slamming my fork down like I’d just won the Tour de France.

  The Mental Hygienist shook her head. I guess she wasn’t impressed with my speed eating. As far as I could tell by my dad’s expression, though, he was just plain scared. Or maybe he had a bad stomachache. It was kind of hard to tell the difference.

  Of course, once my mother realized I was in a god-awful hurry to hear the news, she began eating her rice one grain at a time. I swear, I don’t remember her being so damn frustrating before our summer vacation. Maybe she was mad at me for starting to get a life. Or maybe she was just feeling old and cranky because my brother had deserted her for college. Whatever her problem was, though, it was really no excuse for being such a pain in my ass.

  Out of boredom (and in an effort to annoy my mother as much as she was annoying me), I picked up my fork and clanged it against the edge of my plate in rhythm to We Will Rock You. Then I began a one-sided staring contest: me gawking at the Mental Hygienist while she steadfastly pretended I didn’t exist.

  Not wanting to get in the middle of whatever was about to happen, my father finished his dinner and rushed out of the dining room like he was trying to escape a firing squad.

  “Will you stop that, please?” my mother finally said, deigning to acknowledge my presence on the planet.

  “Why should I?” I shot back. Then I tossed the icepack in her direction. “You won’t stop torturing me with secrets. How do you expect me to act?”

  My mother glanced at my father’s empty chair and rolled her eyes. “Vic!” she shouted. “What are you doing? Get back here!”

  My father sheepishly slunk just inside the dining room and leaned against the doorframe.

  “Would you like to tell her, or should I?” my mother asked.

  My stomach started doing somersaults.

  “Go ahead,” my dad mumbled.

  “Well, Flora, the thing is…” my mother started, then paused for what seemed like a month. “The thing is, we don’t want you to have any more contact with this Mick Donovan. Your father and I have decided that your fixation with him is unhealthy. You’re far too young to be so involved.”

  “What?!” I squeaked. “What...? What...?”

  Honestly, they’d just about shocked me speechless. I had no idea what had brought on such a freakish request. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to get a chance to see Mick any time soon, so what did they care? Were they so evil they literally couldn’t stand the thought of me being happy—even if it was only in my mind?

  “It’s for the best,” my mother said, all sugary sweet. “Really, it is.”

  I didn’t much care what my parents thought was best for my love life. My personal life—especially the romantic stuff—was none of their damn business. “Do I tell you who to love?” I spat. “Do I?”

  My mother’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not the point, and you know it.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s exactly the point. I don’t tell you who to love, because that would be wrong. And it’s just as wrong for you to tell me who to love—not that I know why you’d care. I haven’t even heard from Mick in weeks, so maybe you already got your wish.”

  I’d only said the last part to make my mother feel bad, but it just ended up making me feel sad instead. The truth was, Mick was a pretty hard guy to get in touch with. He had no cell phone—or even a landline, as far as I knew. He didn’t seem to own a computer, probably due to all the traveling. And he hadn’t given me the address of his mother’s cousin’s farm, where he was supposedly staying for the time being. Any normal person would conclude Mick Donovan had more in common with a ghost than a real, live sex-god sweetie pie.

  While the doom and gloom of reality flashed through my mind, my mother went quiet. Curiously quiet. Something else was up. Something more than just my parents forbidding me from contacting Mick, which I had absolutely no intention of agreeing to anyway.

  Maybe…

  I took a shot in the dark. “Did Mick send me a package?” I asked. Maybe that had triggered the ban.

  “Package?” my father asked, surprised. “No. I don’t think so.” He stared at my mother as if she’d withheld something from him. “Lu-Lu?”

  “No, Vic, there were no packages,” my mother said, exasperated. “Just the phone calls we discussed.”

  “Phone calls?!” I squealed. I could hardly believe my ears. Mick had been trying to call me?

  “Calm down, squirt,” my dad said. “There’s nothing to…”

  “Don’t call me that! I’m not a kid anymore! And don’t tell me how to feel either. You have no right to… No idea how…” My brain was shutting down.

  Suddenly a bunch of trivial details from the past few weeks made perfect sense. Like the strange number I didn’t recognize that kept showing up on the Caller ID. And the weird way my mother would jump up to answer the phone before anyone else could get it. And how she’d disappear upstairs when she got one of the mysterious calls and come down looking all red in the face. And how once I even heard her getting pretty nasty, telling the poor sap on the other end of the line to leave us alone and stop calling. Naively, I’d assumed some ingenious telemarketer had gotten our number—despite my father’s efforts to keep it private—and was driving my mother batty trying to hook her on some useless crap. Little did I know, she’d already lost her mind and was taking her mental problems out on my sweet, innocent boyfriend.

  “Flora Moon Fontain!” my mother shouted. “If you can’t act like a civilized human being, you can go to your room. Your father and I don’t have to put up with your disrespectful behavior.”

  That was it. I’d had it. “Gladly,” I fumed. “My pleasure.”

  In a fit of immaturity, a twisted impulse possessed me. A twisted impulse I couldn’t control. With the forcefulness of a professional linebacker, I thrust my seat backward, gouging the hardwood floor. Then I stood up and tipped the whole damn chair over with a crashing thud—at which point my parents froze solid in shocked horror and, in full meltdown mode, I hauled my limping ass to my room.

  Six

  I SWEAR, I’m usually not any more prone to hissy fits or psycho meltdowns than the next person. But what my parents had done was a violation of the highest order. Not only were they trying to break up my relationship with the man of my dreams, but they’d already done the deed behind my back. For all I knew, Mick already hated me. Or thought I hated him. Either way, the latest chapter in the Ruin Flora’s Life saga was turning out to be a first-rate tragedy.

  Given the circumstances, what I really needed were 1) a pile of Twinkies 2) the movie Sixteen Candles and 3) my cell phone. That way I could drown my sorrows in sugar, put my problems in perspective (compared to Molly Ringwald’s, at least) and dump my troubles in Jessie’s lap.

  I eased open my underwear drawer and wriggled out my secret stash. During my mopey, disenchanted phase—a.k
.a. the Mick-less summer of my discontent—the Mental Hygienist had indulged me with endless supplies of junk food. Half a box of Twinkies was all I had left.

  With the semi-crushed box firmly in my grasp, I got comfy on my bed and flipped open my DVD player. And the sad thing was, the Molly Ringwald flick was already in the DVD drive. I’d been that depressed lately in general. As the disc fluttered to life, I ripped through a flimsy Twinkie wrapper and smushed the first of potentially five cakes into my face. Then I patted down my bed in search of my phone. Last I’d seen it, it was floating around somewhere in the rumpled mess of blankets, sheets, and stuffed animals. Of course, when I finally uncovered the thing, I made the dumbest move on earth: I checked my messages. I guess I half expected to hear Mick’s velvet voice assuring me everything was going to be okay, saying we’d get through the problems with my parents together. But predictably, such a wild expectation was nothing more than pure fantasy.

  Still…

  I allowed myself to wonder whose phone Mick had called me from and how he’d gotten my number in the first place, since it was so well-protected by Mr. Tightwad’s Fortress of Solitude. Unfortunately, though, I couldn’t answer these questions, because I was totally out of the loop on everything Mick-related. It sucked.

  Jessie’s phone just rang and rang, and eventually I got her answering machine. How last century. If I hadn’t needed to talk to her so badly, I would have hung up for sure.

  “Hey, Jess. It’s me,” I said, pausing to think of something non-dorky to say. “Um, can you call me as soon as you get this—on my cell, not the home phone? We’re having, uh, phone problems,” I said. “I’ll explain later.”

  Before I’d even hung up, Jessie beeped in. I answered on the first ring—or beep, as it was. “Hello?”

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Oh, not much. I just had a total freak-out fit in front of my parents, that’s all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I screamed and wrecked the floor and tipped over a chair,” I said, like these things happened every day in my universe.