I’m watching her gesticulations, a born saleswoman. How well do I know her? Dad and Mom’s split was as complex to fathom as their relationship. I’d always thought that Mom, flirty in the company of men, was the original infidel. It wasn’t a big surprise in my teen years when she ran off with Lieb, a Datafax TM salesman. One of Lieb’s last big jobs had been to sell the executive time-management system to senior and middle management at the insurance company in Boston where Mom then worked, and subsequently train them in its usage.
But Lieb’s salesmanship skills were good; not only did he sell himself to her, but he also packaged the Florida real-estate explosion. — Real estate is the next big thing. I missed out on the dot.com boom because I hesitated, he’d trumpet. — Never again. I’m jumping on this train.
So was Mom.
When they got together, he confided to my mother that Datafax TM was a great system, but that electronic PC and Mac software programs would soon replace it. Before long, people would get used to keeping their diaries on their computers, laptops, and phones. The psychological cord tying them to a paper system would fray and Datafax would become a niche product, with some aging valued customers, but not the essential yuppie business accessory it then was. So real estate would be his, and my mother’s, golden future.
After the split, Jocelyn and I stayed in Weymouth with Dad. The reason Mom gave for us not joining her in Miami was to avoid disruption to our schoolwork. Not that I did much of that; all I wanted to do was train and fight. I was fifteen and hated the world. The previous summer I’d fallen out with Mom and Dad, especially Dad, after a shattering incident in the park, Abbie Adams Green, that my family read wrong, and which had estranged us. I was plenty surprised when he supported my decision to quit track and field to take up martial arts. Mom was horrified. — But why, pickle?
Jocelyn said nothing (as usual) other than regard me with her customary look of highbrow disdain.
— I want to kick ass, I said, and I could see a silent pride blaze in my father’s eyes.
And I did. I enrolled in tae kwon do classes at a local sports center, graduating to Muay Thai. This was a great liberation for me; I could give vent to all my pent-up energy and aggression. Right from the start it was evident that very few other girls would be fucking with me. I’d look an opponent in the eye, and watch them crumble. I loved the no-holds-barred aspects of the discipline, and I’d hit my rivals with the fucking kitchen sink — elbows, knees, kicks, fists — and I could tussle and dig like a hellcat. I was the local Thai Boxing Association’s golden girl, training with demented purpose, and fighting ferociously.
I did well at their junior events, first at state, then national level. I was successful in three Muay Thai classics at my weight class. My best title was my first, when I deposed the reigning champion, an Asian bitch, who could grapple like a pervert priest, but couldn’t handle my speed and my knees pummeling into her snatch. Like so many of the others I fought, I saw her running tears, all the time looking beyond them, trying to get another target in my sights.
I won more belts. Studied different fighting disciplines, karate and ju-jitsu mainly. I fought off all my rage, while Jocelyn buried herself in her books. When pushed, she’d refer to the split as “it sucks” but without conviction. Her personal withdrawal was to read, and she’d mentally left the household before anyone — if she was ever really present in it.
In the meantime Dad took me to all my events. He drove miles with me, paid for hotels, driving back in the early morning and heading uncomplainingly into his job — by then he was back doing PE teacher work at a junior high — while I went to school or bed. We grew close, although the park incident, which we never talked about, always hung over us. But I often think that he got absorbed in my early fighting career to avoid dealing with the breakup of his marriage. On the few occasions he did talk about Mom leaving, he seemed hurt and bewildered, like a small boy.
I’d always thought of Dad as having the bark, and Mom the bite. It was two summers later that I learned otherwise. I was remanded to Miami, at Dad’s instigation, doing community-college bullshit in order to get onto the university’s undergraduate sports science program. Jocelyn went to stay with Dad’s sister, Aunt Emer, in New York, and undertook her own prep course, to gain admission to Princeton. I moved south and in with Mom and Lieb. At first it was tough. I missed Dad. I was still learning to drive, while trying to get hooked up with a gym in the local martial arts scene. Through Mom’s indifference to them, I learned the significance of Dad’s support of my martial arts activities. One afternoon, Mom and I were sitting in the yard of her old rental that looked from SoBe over the Biscayne Bay to Miami proper. We weren’t drinking anything stronger than homemade lemonade when she suddenly locked me in her sights and said, — He wanted you down here, but you knew that, right? You know he sleeps with whores?
I turned away and looked out across the bay. Stared at the sunlight bouncing off the slick, blue-black waters. She seemed not to pick up on my discomfort, just carried on dissing him. I shut it out; couldn’t take any more of her bitterness against my father. She didn’t know how important it was for me to see him in a certain way. If I didn’t, it was all for nothing. After a while, she wound down. — I’ll say no more on the subject, Lucy, but you don’t know the half of it, and that’s probably just as well.
It was impossible to get a scholarship for martial arts, so I’d reluctantly switched back to track and field for the purposes of securing a general sports one, with a coaching bias, at Miami University. Some time later, in my freshman year, I decided to head back to Boston to pay Dad a surprise visit. He had long ago moved from Weymouth to a downtown city brownstone apartment, which was way cool. He’d started to have success as a writer, was living a little and seemed much less uptight. Could have done with being more fucking uptight; after opening the door with a flourish, he looked at me and clearly wasn’t comfortable. I soon saw why, as this twitchy young junkie chick showed up immediately behind me. Dad claimed that she was helping him research this novel he was planning. It was bullshit. So in that instant I went from believing that my mom had simply abandoned us, to accepting that he had a shitload to do with it.
— Wonderful, Lonnie, just wonderful. . Okay, I’ll keep in touch. . goodbye. . Mom hangs up, as a buffed-and-waxed skating fag sweeps down the street. Mom says something catty about the rollers being a “busboy’s convertible.” I decide lunch is my treat and signal for the check, waving Mom down when she protests. — Thanks, Lucy, she says sheepishly. Mom might be a snobbish breadhead but she’s no tightwad. — Listen, picks, I need a little favor.
— Name it, I say recklessly, instantly regretting it.
No going back now though, as we head to get her car, which she’s put in the multistory lot. On Collins, Mom suddenly locks my arm. We’ve strolled past the tourists, shoppers, diners, and drinkers, crossing to the cheapo strip between Collins and Washington, where Lincoln is all scuzzy low-rent electrical and luggage stores. Bums and mentally ill people try to outdo each other for the attentions of the bug-eyed, camera-wielding visitors who’ve strolled off the beaten track. A guy comes up to us. — I haven’t eaten for two days.
— Well done. Stick with it, but build in cardio. I hand him my card.
— He needed money for food, Mom ticks.
— Oh. . I kinda thought he was too well dressed to be a beggar. . I can get so myopic, I concede, ushering her down the street as the bum studies the card, and growls something incomprehensible. Thankfully, we cross over Washington and we’re instantly back in high-end SoBe.