Jade Page 6

  "'You don't have all that much longer to go before you're an independent person, Jade. Think about what would be best for you in finishing out your dependence on your parents. Most importantly, don't think of this as if you're choosing one over the other. No one's asking you to love your father less or your mother more. You might just help make a decision that's better for them, too.

  "'You don't want to end up being a burden to your father,' he interjected. 'He's a very busy and creative man. He needs his mind free of worry.'

  "I felt like two snakes had come alive in my stomach, the snakes that had replaced my parents in the house, and they were slithering over each other and under each other until they had tied their bodies tightly around one another and formed a painfully poisonous knot in my stomach, a knot so tight neither could unravel it. Instead, they panicked and pulled and tugged on each other, tearing each other apart and it was all happening inside me.

  "Mt Fishman must have seen something of this in my face. He very astutely looked at my mother and then smiled and said, 'Fine. This is a good start. We'll talk again.'

  "He and my mother stood up, but my legs felt like they had turned to rubber. I actually wobbled.

  "Mr. Fishman came around the desk and took my arm.

  "'Are you all right?' he asked me. His voice sounded far away, down at the bottom of a well, echoing.

  "'I feel a little nauseated,' I said. The bubbles were building in my stomach.

  "They took me out to the bathroom quickly. I went into the stall and threw up in the toilet while my mother ran the sink to cover up the sound of my heaving and kept asking if I was all right.

  "Finally, I came out.

  "'I'll take you to the doctor,' she said. 'You probably caught a bug.'

  "'I'll be all, right,' I told her. 'I just want to go home and lie down.'

  "'Damn him to hell for doing this,' she muttered. 'Damn him.'

  "I kept my eyes closed most of the time in the car and wished I could shut my ears as she rambled on about what my father was doing to us. I couldn't wait to get upstairs and into my room. I got undressed and into bed quickly and when she looked in on me later, I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep.

  "Mrs. Caron came up with a bowl of chicken soup. I ate a little, and the nausea subsided and a headache took its place. I began to wonder if my mother had been right and I had caught a bug. Maybe I should have gone to the doctor.

  "Later, when my father came home and learned I had missed dinner and was in bed, he stopped by.

  "He wanted to know what was wrong and I told him I had stomach trouble and a headache.

  "'Why didn't she take you to a doctor? Did she have some meeting that she had to go to instead?' he demanded. My headache got worse. 'Just come knocking on my door tonight if you don't feel any better, Jade. I'll call Harry Weinstein and he'll see you no matter what time it is. She was probably worried she'd have to spend time in a waiting room.'

  "'No,' I said. 'I didn't want to go.'

  "'When you're sick, you don't know what's best for you. That's what parents are for,' he declared.

  'Where was he when I had the measles? I wondered He was in Toronto at an architects' convention. And where was he when I had the flu so bad I lost nearly ten pounds? He was in Boston building an office complex. My mother was in Atlanta at a major corporate meeting.

  "Lots of times, I thought, I had to be the one who knew what was best for me, sick or not.

  "You were right before, Star," I said. "I want to run away. That night it was all I could think about.

  "And later, I did:'

  "You did?" Misty asked. I remembered she had tried to do that, too.

  'What happened?" Cat asked.

  I stared at her for a moment. I was almost ashamed to tell them.

  I gathered up my courage and told them the truth. "No one noticed?'

  4

  "It took me a while to decide I was really going to run away. First, I didn't know where I would go. I would never want to go to any of my relatives. I never got along with my cousins on my father's side, and I had no relationship whatsoever with my uncles and aunts. My grandparents would just send me back, special delivery, in fact," I said.

  Misty laughed.

  "Whether or not I ran off wasn't going to be determined by having enough money. After the filing of divorce papers, my parents fell over themselves to set up a checking account for me, supposedly so I could learn how to be independent. There was also some psychological mumbo-jumbo about giving me a sense of security at a critical time in my emotional and psychological development?' I added with a side glance at Dr. Marlowe.

  "Years ago, they had decided that there might be occasions when I would need money and they would both be away on business. It had happened a few times. So they set up an arrangement at their bank to be sure I could get up to five hundred dollars out of their accounts anytime I needed it. I never did, but the opportunity was always there.

  "Now, they both contributed a thousand dollars to a checking account of my own, and, in almost a ceremonial manner, presented me with the checkbook and ATM card after dinner one night. Dinners had become like wakes, with their marriage lying in a casket right beside the dining room table. At this point it was rare to hear either of them say, 'We agree,' on anything, but my father reached into his inside jacket pocket after dessert had been served, cleared his throat, glanced at my mother and began as if he were the master of ceremonies on a dais at a banquet. I imagined him tapping his spoon against the glass to get my mother's and my attention.

  "'Jade,' he said, 'your mother and I have decided that you are old enough now to have control of your own finances. You have to learn how to manage money. Someday you'll have a great deal of it. Hopefully, most of it will come from your own efforts and not only from what you inherit,' he added with a smile.

  "My mother just pressed her lips together and stared down at the table, making little circles in the tablecloth with her forefingers.

  "'Anyway, recognizing this need, your mother and I have agreed to open this account for you. You have only to go to the bank at your convenience and finish this signature card to be able to write checks and use the ATM card. It's an interest-bearing account. We both thought that would be economically wise since we don't anticipate you'll be writing very many checks. Anyway,' he said, 'without any more talk, here's your checkbook and your ATM card.'

  "He rose and brought it to me. I looked at the checkbook, saw the two thousand dollar balance and looked up at him and then my mother, surprised at the amount. Everything I needed was paid for: clothes, food, transportation. On what would I spend my two thousand dollars? New CD's, magazines?"

  "I would have loved to have had that problem," Star grumbled.

  "'We each put in a thousand dollars,' my mother wanted me to know and then she added, 'but since he makes more than I do, proportionately, I've obviously put in more than my share.'

  "'Now that's not a fair statement,' my father countered. 'You never asked that I contribute any more than you--proportionately or otherwise.'

  "'It's just common sense, Michael. With all your business sense, you should know that without anyone having to point it out to you.'

  "My father's stiff, regal posture softened as if he had been punched in the stomach.

  "'Do you want me to put in more?' he asked.

  " `Do what you think is right, Michael,' she said, shifting her eyes toward me with that

  conspiratorial look. I knew she wanted me to remember all the things she had said about my father's family and their tendency to be frugal.

  "My father looked very uncomfortable, as if he had been trapped. It was like every sentence, every move each of them made was a well-thought-out strategy to make the other look bad in my eyes. I felt as if they were already in court, jousting with lances dipped in venom.

  "'Why didn't you bring this up before you had me present her with the checkbook and card, Maureen?'

  "'Why should I have to?' sh
e threw back.

  "He glanced at me. I could see he was absolutely raging inside. I could see his face turning more and more crimson as if there were a fire under his cheeks.

  "'I'll have the accountant work out what is proportionately accurate and add whatever has to be added immediately,' my father promised me.

  "'I don't care,' I said. 'I don't want anyone's money,' I added. I wanted to say more. I wanted to say I want my life to go back to what it was. I want you to act like you love each other again and stop all this bickering. I want the war to end. I had all that on the tip of my tongue, but I felt my throat close up and a lump like a small lead ball settle on my heart. I was glad that dinner was over. 'I've got homework to do,' I said. 'May I be excused?'

  "'Of course,' my mother said.

  "I rose and started away. My father called to me.

  "'You might as well hold on to all of this until it's proportionately corrected,' he said as snidely as he could. He held out the checkbook and ATM card and I snatched it out of his hand and practically ran up to my room.

  "When I got there, I threw the checkbook across the room. I retrieved it before I went to sleep and when I decided to run off, it came in handy. By then, my father had added an additional seven hundred and fifty dollars and I had gone to the bank and registered the signature card."

  Star whistled.

  "That's a lot of pocket money, girl."

  I thought for a moment, sipped some lemonade, and then sat back. The miniature grandfather clock ticked. For a moment the numbers looked blurry to me. You really get to hate time when the world around you is crumbling, I thought. You just want the days to go by and you want to sleep and forget. Clocks and watches just remind you of upcoming dates with lawyers, judges, and therapists. You long for a world without clocks, a world in which, when you have a happy moment, you can stop the hands on the clock's face from moving and just remain forever and ever imprisoned in that good time.

  Dr. Marlowe cleared her throat to remind me I wasn't alone and they were waiting. I sat up again.

  "My father," I said, "was a great deal more subtle when it came to my meeting with his attorney. Instead of bringing me to his office for an interview similar to the one I had had with my mother's attorney, he told me he was taking me to lunch the following Saturday.

  "My father and my mother belonged to an exclusive country club and often played golf on Saturdays. The entry fee to become a member was very high and that became a contested asset, of course. I thought the whole thing was getting so stupid that it wouldn't surprise me to hear them argue over how many golf balls each owned.

  "Anyway, my mother went to play golf with one of her girlfriends and my father took me to lunch at a nice restaurant in Santa Monica where you could sit by a window and look out at the ocean. It wasn't until we were almost there that he informed me his attorney would be joining us.

  "'I just thought this would be a more relaxed setting,' he explained, 'and easier for all of us, not that you should feel uncomfortable with Arnold.'

  "Here, I was thinking that at least something good was coming out of all this madness: my father was spending some quality time with me and instead it was another deception. I was sure I could count on the fingers of one hand all the times before when he and I were together alone, doing something that was pure fun.

  "I felt this great disappointment, this huge letdown that resembled a kite just falling out of the wind and drifting to earth.

  "However, I didn't say anything. There were enough complaints circling my head like moths all day and night. I didn't need to add any.

  "We valet parked and went into the restaurant. Arnold was already there waiting at the booth.

  "'My goodness,' he exclaimed as we

  approached the table, 'look at how tall and beautiful she's become, Michael. I almost didn't recognize her. Hi, Jade.'

  "'Hello,' I said without much feeling and slid into the booth. Hooked out at the ocean wistfully, wishing I was outside on that beach, just watching the waves roll in with the wind blowing through my hair. Actually, I was glad we had come here because I could drift off so easily during the dreary

  conversation.

  "Arnold began almost in the same way Mr. Fishman had. He told me how hard he was going to work to make this whole unfortunate event as easy for me as possible. He knew about the custodial assessment, but he put a great deal more emphasis on it than Mr. Fishman had, or I should say, a great deal more pressure on me.

  "'The things you tell this Dr. Morton will have a great impact on the judge,' he said. 'Custodial decisions are usually based on what the judge comes to believe will be in your best interest, not in your mother's or even your father's. The way you describe your relationship with your dad is obviously going to be very important,' he emphasized.

  "Arnold's smile was quite different from Mr. Fishman's Fishman's had been so slick and cold, I could discount it, see through the insincerity instantly. Arnold was harder to read. He had a warmer-looking smile that almost made me think he had my best interests in mind. Almost, but not quite. I soon found out he was just as slimy and self-serving as Mr. Fishman. I suppose they were just two different sides of the same counterfeit coin. It didn't matter which side was up after you flipped it. I was in a phony world of lies.

  "'We don't want you to deal unfairly with your mother,' Arnold continued. 'I know your mother almost as well as I know your father, and I wouldn't want to do anything that wasn't right in regards to her, but what you need to do real soon is think about all the things your father does for you--things we would call day-to- day stuff, like getting you to important places, making sure you get the things you need, being there to talk, stuff like that. You're at the age when a father like yours can be very, very important,' he added with that deceivingly warm smile. 'Especially when you're considering colleges and traveling. Your father's been to an Ivy League school,' he reminded me. 'Your mother hasn't. As I recall, she went to some business school for a year, right Michael?'

  "'The Templeton School of Business. They don't even award an associate's degree,' my father said. I was shocked by the cruelty in his voice--I had never heard him belittle my mother's education like that.

  "'Precisely my point,' Mr. Kingman said. 'Your father's real college experience is what you need to rely on now. You've talked about possible colleges to attend, haven't you?' he asked.

  " 'No,' I said.

  "Our food had been served but Arnold refused to let me eat in peace.

  " 'No?'

  "'No,' I said. 'I had a meeting with my guidance counselor, but both my mother and father were out of town that day even though the meeting had been scheduled a week in advance. The day of the meeting, my mother got called on a company emergency and my father had a very serious problem with one of his big projects. I forget where,' I said dryly. 'My guidance counselor wouldn't cancel on such short notice. I had to have the meeting without my parents.'

  "Mr. Klugman turned to my father.

  "'But we went over what you discussed with your guidance counselor. We talked at dinner that night, remember?' my father said.

  "I shrugged. To be honest, I couldn't remember if we had or not.

  'I guess,' I said.

  "'See, that's the sort of thing I want you to try to recall,' Mr. Klugman jumped on. 'You know, it might not be a bad idea to write some of it down. If you have any questions about any of it, ask your dad.'

  " 'You make it sound like a final exam or something,' I said.

  "'Oh, it is,' he said. 'It's just like a final exam and much more important.'

  "He, too, talked about the other witnesses who would be called and he asked me questions about them.

  "I ate fast, more out of nervousness than from hunger. Afterward, I didn't throw up like I had at my mother's attorney's office, but my food felt like it had all gotten stuck in my throat. I wished I hadn't eaten anything. It actually hurt when I tried to swallow.

  "When we started out of the restaurant, I looked lon
gingly at the beach and my father stopped and looked too.

  "'Do you want to take a walk on the beach?' he offered.

  "Here he was dressed in a jacket and tie and wearing his expensive Bally shoes. How could we walk on the beach? I wondered.

  "'Yes,' I said and he led me onto the boardwalk.

  "'I'm really sorry about all this,' he began. 'Believe me when I tell you it was the furthest thing from my imagination.'

  " `The divorce or the custody battle?' I asked.

  "'Both,' he replied, 'but I have to admit, your mother surprised me with her decision to go to court about this. I never anticipated which one of us had primary custody was so important to her. I know the house is important, but her freedom to do what she wants to do is clearly what matters the most. At least, that's what I had assumed. Of course, there are other things involved here, more complicated things.'

  "I knew what he was saying, but I didn't respond. The hardest thing about all this is to have to deal with each of them when they try to get me to take sides. Why couldn't we just walk on the beach and talk about other things? What about what Mr. Klugman had brought up at lunch: my college future? Neither of my parents had come right out and asked me what I wanted to do with my life. They were both too caught up in what they were doing with their own lives.

  "'I'm not going to lose the house,' he continued. 'My soul is in that house. I created it. It was born right here,' he said pointing to his temple. 'I can claim it as intellectual, artistic property, you know. Arnold is investigating that argument.'

  "Here they both were vowing to me that neither would lose the house as if the house was more important than me.

  "'Don't worry,' he assured me. 'Your mother will have something quite upscale as an alternative. She knows that. She's just fighting that battle for spite. You know how much she hates anything that has to do with the house. Can you just imagine her being responsible for maintaining it?'