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Nov 10
She answered
the door in this really crummy chenille bathrobe. She had mascara remnants
under her eyes and she was wearing a pair of men's grey work socks.
She looked slatternly
to me--why didn't I see it before? My mother is a hussy. All this time the
person hiding behind chintz slipcovers and Precious Moments is a wanton tramp.
Mr. Van Heusan--I'm
supposed to call him Robert now but I just can't cough out the syllables--appeared
behind her wearing a robe and slippers. He invited me in. HE invited me into
MY MOTHER'S HOUSE.
I stepped past
him without even greeting him. I told him very coldly that this was a family
matter and could he please excuse us.
That harlot of
course said Robert is family now. I could have choked.
I told her about
my little visitor at the Flea Market, the fellow who just casually dropped
by to tip my world on it's ear.
I asked her who
exactly she buried five years ago, because it certainly wasn't my father.
My father is cruising Flea Markets looking for his lost children.
I was expecting
her to burst into tears, maybe she would even faint. I saw her clearly putting
her head in her hands and as an added bonus, she would tear her hair out all
the while peppering me liberally with apologies.
She didn't have
the decency to fall apart. She just exchanged a look with Rob... Mr. Van Heusan
and sighed.
I was enraged!!!!!
What is this, my new "Daddy" knows all about the old "Daddies'?
I wanted to yell,
to scream, cry but I was struck completely dumb.
She then adds
insult to injury by looking at the clock on the mantle and remarking that
the Flea Market opens in 15 minutes.
To his credit
Mr. Van Heusan quickly jumped up and told me not to worry that he would go
in and open up.
It certainly
saved me the trouble of having to kill her.
Nov 12
This has answered
a lot of questions I've had over the years like for example how two brown-eyed
parents had a blue eyed child. Why I am a full six inches shorter than every
adult relative on both sides of my "family" and why I have a complete
aversion to any physical activity.
It doesn't completely
explain the last one but looking at my new father's pot belly and sloped shoulder's
compared to my old father's slim physique it does put some credence to the
theory.
It did turn my
stomach to have my mother explain the seventies to me. All that disco and
sleeping around crap, made her past sound like a scene from "Boogie Nights".
This is my mother--the
same mother who every Friday for the past twenty years has gone to the same
hairstylist to get the same helmet-textured cauliflower hairdo.
She met David
at a revue cinema that was showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show. He
was dressed as Brad Majors and she was dressed as ugh, Magenta.
Someone had a
wine cask filled with Purple Jesus--I thought it was like ecstasy but it was
really grape juice and grain alcohol. They did the Time Warp and things just
went on from there.
It didn't work
out between them and she had already started dating James when she realized
that she was pregnant.
David wanted
them to get married, but my mother married James and presto! Problem solved.
I admit I wasn't
all that close to the man I thought was my father. I just remember that he
liked to read the cereal box in the morning and the paper at night. He wore
socks with sandals at the beach, pronounced the Z's in pizza and loved licorice
Allsorts
That's about
it.
Quality time
wasn't as popular then as it is now.
Nov 14
I keep looking
around the Flea Market to see if my father is going to pop out unexpectedly
from behind the fake dog poo or something.
I got up the
nerve last night to call him. I am really, really curious, but a young girl
answered and I hung up.
I do want to
see him because I really want to know who I am but I just need some time to
rehearse.
Nov 15
Michael is an
idiot. I tell him possibly the most traumatic thing that has ever happened
to me and he just nodded and said, "yeah, that's pretty tough."
My mother's pork
chops are tough. Marines are tough--this is earth shattering! Then he blah,
blahs about how lucky I was to at least have a father figure that his mother
raised him on his own.
What the hell
went on in the seventies!
Nov 16
I phoned him
today. I didn't know what to call him. I can't even call Mr. Van Heusan Robert
I'm certainly not going to call this stranger Dad.
I'm really nervous.
When he first came to the Flea Market we only spent about five minutes together.
He told me who he was and I just tried to ignore it by turning up my Walkman.
He left me his business card. I took it, closed up, got a falafel and went
home.
I didn't know
how to deal with it then, and I don't know how to deal with it now.
I'm meeting him
tomorrow. What do you wear to something like this?
New to Jenna's Diary?
You are probably thinking"Say, I'll never catch up, so there's no point starting now."
Well that's not true, Jenna can't follow a thought for more than a second so you won't be missing a thing. (And quite frankly that attitude is the reason you are not a neurosurgeon.)
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