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“I didn’t go to Stanford either.”
“You still went to college, which is more than she and I ever did.”
You could have gone.Except Danny went straight into the trades out of high school, where learning disabilities had held him back from great grades.Mom could have gone.Except she came from a low-income family where she was one of the only ones who spoke English, and nobody at her school thought to tell her how to apply for grants and scholarships. Sure, Rhea had leveraged these aspects of her parents’ backgrounds when applying to boarding school and later college, but she often wished she hadn’t had to.
“Guess what I’m saying is that some of your stuff lacks a personal touch,” Danny said.
Rhea’s head perked up. “That’s the most academic thing I’ve ever heard you say about literature, Dad.”
“Ah, don’t get me started. I’d love to see you put out a book about what it was like when you were young. Hardworking parents in a city full of rich celebrities and stuffy types. You know, when going to the beach was free, but it didn’t feel like it.”
“I like to think I put those things in my characters and their situations.”
“Yeah, but they don’t feel real. That’s my criticism.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Look, I’m no writer, but I know they ain’t only the stories or the settings. They’re how the characters feel, right? Do more of that. You gotta tell men like me how they actually feel. Don’t give this flowery show of ‘aw, my mom was mean and had me making lots of money, and now I do drugs.’”
“So you’re saying you’re an advocate fortellingovershowing?I’ll pass that along to my editor. She’ll love it.”
“You’ve gotta have balance, kid.” Danny wheeled himself closer to the remote on the coffee table. “Now, what’s your poison? I finally figured out how to get Netflix to work on this damn thing. It kept telling me something about my damn password.”
Rhea didn’t have the heart to tell him about recent policy changes. Namely, that he wasn’t supposed to share her and Paige’s password anymore. Danny barely understood how the TV worked outside of the satellite stuck to his roof.
Balance, huh?While her father rambled about the shows he had been watching, Rhea lay across his couch and studied the slightly stained curtains fluttering before the opened window.I’m always looking for a better balance. I don’t need more.It was a word that was bandied about in therapy. Paige had started saying “balance” more often, and it was always phrased as if it was supposed to be helpful or good for Rhea. Because everyone knew what was good for her better than the woman herself.
The sad thing? She didn’t know how to argue against that. She was a woman who went with the flow so much that sometimes the currents carried her to an unfamiliar place.
Like the present state of her marriage. Rhea had been excited that Paige wanted to try new things and commit to livening things up in the bedroom so she was more inclined to have sex with the woman she loved. Yet Rhea hadn’t been quite prepared for the quick,hardturn toward kink. Was that really living in Paige’s head this whole time? Had it been lurking beneath her subconscious for the past ten years? Had she dabbled before with other girlfriends, and simply wanted to forget it with someone so “vanilla” like Rhea?
Am I that vanilla, though?
These were things she couldn’t discuss with her father, and she already felt uncomfortable thinking about them in front of him. Yet Danny was none the wiser as he rolled into the kitchen and unearthed Chex Mix to snack on while watchingLethal Weapon 4on TV. Danny Kennewick was one of the last big Mel Gibson fans left in Rhea’s life, and she hated to admit that this movie was a particular nostalgia bomb from her childhood.
It was right at the part where Murtaugh cried“Riiiigggs!”into the rain as if such a trope had yet to be run into the ground. Danny munched on his snack while Rhea continued to contemplate the state of her life up until that point.What if everything is for naught?That was the fear playing in the back of her mind, even while Danny Glover’s panic was abated on the screen.What if this is it? What if we’re hurting each other so we have an excuse to move on?
That frightened Rhea more than anything. Paige wasn’t merely her wife… she was herlife.Their marriage wasn’t one of convenience and shared responsibilities, including the house neither of them could afford on their own. It was love. History. Memories.
It was everything keeping Rhea together. So often, she had told herself she could deal with anything in her marriage as long as Paige wasn’t actively hurting herself or others. So what if they had less sex? So what if Paige spent long hours at work to procure her future and their retirement? And so damn what if some people looked at them and wondered howtheywere a couple? Didn’t Paige know she could do so much better?
Maybe my dad is right.Maybe Rhea should write more about her own lived experiences instead of following the stories of others who may or may not exist. Already, she had been toying with the idea of a new pen name that explored the dirtiest thoughts inhabiting her head. Not all of them included Paige, although Rhea liked to think her wife was often center stage. Too bad she couldn’t stick with a name like Rhiannon Powell, which was too similar to another author on her publisher’s roster. But she liked the idea of using Powell. Even when they got married, Paige and Rhea never discussed changing their names to match. Rhea was still Mendez-Kennewick, after her parents. And Paige was still the lovely and alliterative Powell, which was like the feminized version of the word “power.”
I always kinda liked the name Rhea Powell.The only reason Rhea hadn’t changed her name after getting married – besides being lazy – was because she didn’t want to completely lose her connection to her mother. The Mendezes had never been a big constant in her life, but sometimes it was the only way Rhea remembered that there was another part of her that her father couldn’t teach her about.
She already knew so little about her mother, the woman who distanced herself from her family after marrying agringowho worked hard labor. All Lucinda ever really talked about was her parents coming from Mexico and struggling to have children in a world where that was all Rhea’s grandmother wanted.
There were a couple of aunts and uncles out there. Some cousins. Yet Rhea never really knew them, and they didn’t know her. Outside of Danny and his likewise disparate family members, Paige was all Rhea had.
“You okay over there, kid?”
Rhea looked up from the couch. “Yeah?”
Danny turned his chair back toward the TV. It was the end of the movie, when everyone was back to being a sergeant and the LAPD was once again insured against the sheer destructive power of Murtaugh and Riggs, two Vietnam War vets who were too old for this shit.
While Danny laughed and commented that “they don’t make movies like these anymore,” Rhea went into her father’s room where she hoped to find one of the only photos of him and Lucinda, taken a few years before she died.
She was happy.Hewas happy. If there was one thing Rhea took away from her parents’ marriage, it was that a couple who truly wanted to be together found a way to make it work. Even through financial hardship, a daughter, and a petty thing like lymphoma.
