Эд Макбейн - Love, Dad

In her mind, the whole damn fiasco was inextricably linked, an opera in five acts: if Miss Larkin hadn’t walked in on a party where Lissie hadn’t even been smoking, if Horseface Holtzer hadn’t taken such a hard-line stand, if her father had more strenuously argued on her behalf and gotten Holtzer to revoke the Intermediate Discipline and then expunge that damning letter from the record, and, finally, if he’d allowed her to go to Colorado like the mature and responsible young lady she was, why then Vassar would have accepted her for registration in the fall, and she’d be going to Poughkeepsie instead of to Brenner, which she supposed was okay but only because it was in Boston.

She wasn’t quite able to explain to herself how the Colorado trip had anything at all to do with the inexorable chain of events that had led to her sitting here in the sun, somewhat disconsolate and totally unexcited in cap and gown, “on the brink of life’s great adventure,” as Holtzer was now putting it, bound for a school that truly didn’t interest her. But the Colorado trip was somehow a part of it, the culminating example of her father’s inability to come to her defense when his strength was most needed.

“It is,” Holtzer said, “perhaps the greatest adventure you will ever undertake. I wish you godspeed and fare thee well, I wish you a safe voyage over life’s perilous waters, and a snug harbor on the opposite shore. To this graduating class of June, 1969, I extend my heartiest congratulations, my sincere good wishes, and my hopes for a bountiful future.”

She waited till her name was called; “Miss Melissa Abigail Croft” — she detested her middle name — and rose from the folding chair, and walked in the sunshine to the platform where Holtzer was handing out the graduation certificates and shaking hands. She could feel the eyes of her family upon her — her mother, her father, her grandparents. She walked with her head erect, somewhat fearful she would lose the precariously perched mortarboard, her shoulders back, wondering if the strong sunlight would stream through the gown to outline her legs as she climbed the steps; she was wearing only panties under the gown, no bra or slip. As she approached Holtzer, she thought only I hate you, you bastard. The headmaster was smiling. He said her name softly, “Melissa,” and handed her the rolled and ribboned certificate. She did not return the smile. She crossed the platform, came down the steps on the opposite side, and quickly returned to her chair.

The graduating boys and girls were seated alphabetically to facilitate an orderly march to and from the platform. Jenny was sitting some two rows behind her; she turned briefly to look at her before taking her seat again. With her hands folded in her lap over her precious certificate, she listened to the graduates’ names being called, grinning when she heard “Jennifer Eileen Groat,” watching her as she walked to the platform and accepted her certificate — unsmilingly — from old Horseface; Jenny had ended up at Miami U. In the hot sunshine, Lissie sat inside her black gown, sweltering, until the last name was called, the last certificate dispensed. She got up at once then, and ran to meet Jenny, who was rushing down the aisle toward her. The two girls embraced. “Hey, roomie, how about that?” Lissie said, and Jenny whispered, “Paroled at last,” and the two girls giggled.

Her parents and grandparents were crossing the lawn toward her now, beaming proudly, her father in his “blue confirmation suit” as he called it, but which she knew had been hand-tailored for him at Chipp in New York, camera around his neck, hands extended. Her mother was just beside him, wearing a white dress and white French-heeled pumps, looking more like a bride than the mother of a June graduate, smiling, even white teeth gleaming against her tanned face, all those spring days of sitting on the deck above the river with a reflector under her chin. Behind them were Grandmother and Grandfather Harding, flanking Grandmother Croft, who clung to their arms for support; Grandmother Croft had arthritis, she walked slowly and painfully. Of all her grandparents, Lissie liked her best, but somehow, today, they all looked strange to her. Those faces approaching, those extended hands. Strange somehow.

Her father was the first to reach her.

“Lissie,” he said softly, and took her in his arms.

“Well, I guess I made it,” Lissie said, grinning.

“Congratulations,” he said, and stepped back to take her picture.

Nodding, beaming, she looked into his face while he focused and set, expecting more, waiting for something more. Something clever perhaps, he was always so clever, even something like Jenny’s “Paroled at last,” not just an embrace and a brief “Congratulations,” as if he were shaking hands with Scarlett Kreuger instead of... instead of... well, shit, she was his daughter, there should have been something more. She didn’t know what, just... something more. Something more intimate. She was his daughter, damn it! The camera shutter clicked. He lowered the camera from his face and stood there looking somewhat embarrassed, she couldn’t fathom why, and entirely awkward, his eyes squinted against the sun, his head tilted, nodding. She broke away from him to greet her mother.

Her mother was still smiling, but there was something contradictory in her eyes. Censure? Disappointment? Annoyance over the fact that her only daughter would be going to Brenner in the fall, and not to Vassar where she could learn to talk like Mommy? Something. The eyes and mouth in conflict, the eyes winning. Her mother hugged her close. “Congratulations, darling,” she said. “I’m so very proud of you.” Her V.S. and D.M. voice. That and the eyes, Lissie thought. Her voice and her eyes are telling me, never mind the words, I’m so very proud of you, bullshit! I’m graduating with a straight-B average from a tough school like Henderson, isn’t that enough for you? What did I have to do, Mom? Become president of the senior class? Deliver the valedictory? What, Mom? Straight-A’s? Would you have let me use your goddamn station wagon then?

“Thanks, Mom,” she said, and broke away from her.

Grandmother Croft was crying.

“Oh, Melissa,” she said, and released her grip on the Hardings’ supporting arms, and opened her own arms wide to Lissie. She was the only one of the grandparents who still called her Melissa, and Lissie found this touching somehow, as though to Grandmother Croft she was still a little blond baby with identifying beads on her chubby wrist, MELISSA CROFT in blue letters, all caps, she still had the beads in her jewelry box, one of her gifts when she’d turned sixteen. Grandmother Croft was a frail, tiny woman but she clasped Lissie surprisingly tightly, almost squeezing the breath out of her, and whispered in her ear almost the identical words her mother had spoken a few moments before, but with a slight difference. “You make me so damn proud,” she said, and the word “proud” was itself bursting with pride. For the first time that day, Lissie felt something she knew she was supposed to be feeling: a sense of accomplishment and reward, a sense of familial approval and acceptance, and now — from this dear old woman who used to babysit her when she was little and her parents couldn’t afford to pay anyone, cooing to her as she changed her diapers and wiped her little behind, now from dear sweet Grandmother Croft — love.

Grandfather Harding took her hand, pompously formal as always, never any kisses from him, oh, no, not from this staid pillar of the community, chairman of the board of directors, president of the Chamber of Commerce, wearing his gray flannel suit even on a day when the temperature was in the eighties, white hair combed sideways to hide his baldness, even more suntanned than mother was, just home from a Caribbean cruise.