Are You My Father? II

“Why don’t you tell everyone more about your plans,” Mickey says.  “Don’t you have some kind of competition in Tampa?”

“That’s right.  I’m going to Tampa,” I say.

“Really?  I’m going to Tampa too,” Bev says.  “Cheerleading.”  But she doesn’t ask me what I’ll be doing there. 

“I going to see my dad,” I say.  I look over towards Julio’s father, and he nods as if he understands everything about my life, the last place I saw my dad was in California and he knows what I meant.  I don't continue the lie, I hear him mumbling something about twenty dollars a plate to his wife who looks as if she could be our age.

“Is something wrong with the meat?” Julio's dad asks.  He seems to be counting the number of people that are picking at their meal of rice and beans and pig.

“I’ll go turn the music up,” Julio’s mom says.

“Why are we going out of town?” I ask.

“What makes you think you're going?” Adrianna asks.  “And you don’t understand.”   

Julio scans the restaurant as if there is something out there besides his mom and dad ready to destroy his plan to leave town.  And he has this amazing and great idea about the whole leaving, as if this will solve everything.  But it’s all in his head - the expectation of a better place than the one that he is in, this belief that a new place will mean a new life.  (And I think how Julio should talk with Grizzly for a while and ask her about the wonderful lives she’s lived all over the U.S.)

I climb on top of my chair and then I shout over the music.  “We’re going to be superstars.  Wish us well.”

Julio and Adrianna stare at me as if I’m on another planet and what I’ve just said hasn’t made it back to earth like I thought. 

“Get down, dumb ass,” Julio says.  My mind starts spinning and I don’t know how I landed on the carpet in the crush of people dancing, but I follow the movement of gold highlights in black hair and the way they swing with the music.  I feel as if I’m nine years old again.  “It’s getting late,” I say.

“Let’s go outside,” Mickey says.  “You need some air.”

I almost tell Mickey how pretty he is and that I can't believe we're at the same party together.  But the words I want to say don't come out right and instead I ask, "Are you my father?"    

I wave Mickey’s hands away and stumble towards the door.  It seems far away, almost as if it is in another place - back when I was nine and I could find it, but at sixteen that isn’t happening.  I’m no good at finding exits.

“You forgot your purse,” someone shouts.  It sounds like Mickey’s voice, but I do not turn around.  I keep moving in that way you do when you get sick and are searching for a soft spot in the snow, but there's no snow, there's only a parking lot here and it's a hard place to be sick.  

I hear Julio's dad ask,  "Maybe it was something she ate?" And then Don scoops me up and we ride with the windows rolled down.  The sounds of the night and the smells of blooming jasmine mixed with burnt pig take over.  I remember the frown on Julio’s dad’s face, the frowns on all the faces at my table, but most especially Mickey’s. 

I try to forget you, Mickey, all the people you are, the kiss I imagined you gave me at my door, how you said the pig tasted good, and how I didn’t eat any of it.