It was during Dad’s interrogation we learned that Dash lost an older brother during a police shooting near their home in Chicago. It was an event that changed the course of life for the entire Green family. Dash informed Fitzroy that she had spent her childhood practicing her clarinet while riding the ‘L’ train with her parents, traveling to and from protests and rallies all over the city of Chicago. Once Dash was nearing high school and pushing back on her parents for independence, they made the decision to send her to boarding school.
After Dash left the room to meet up with her jazz trio, Dad informed me it was obvious that Dash had packed up and carried her parents’ grief and anger with her to school, where it was taking up space in Xandra’s dorm room. For Xandra’s roommate, Dad would have preferred a nice pianist from Beverly Hills with a strong GPA, impeccable manners, and less generational trauma.
“It turns out, possibly with the support of Dash, that Xandra has become worked up and has been speaking out, I guess you could say. She claims there’s a biased culture at Pemberley,” I finally share, blowing out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “Graham didn’t have specific details yet, but he went to campus yesterday to take Xandra to dinner, and he overheard some of the girls in her dorm talking about Xandra and her recent rants.” I could not bring myself to admit out loud that Xandra’s anger may have something more to do with me than with Pemberley.
“I told you,” Dad says, shaking his head. “Anybody fool enough to name their child Sha-Dash-A has no common sense. Their child probably doesn’t have good common sense, and YOU don’t have good common sense letting Xandra room with this girl again. When we saw her name printed on their door last year, we should have grabbed Xandra and flew out of there like a dog was chasing us.”
“Dad, really, not this again,” I begin, only to be cut off.
“Why any two people would name their child some ridiculous mash-up of letters and punctuation is beyond me.” With Dad fussing like this, I could tiptoe out of the room without him noticing.
“I remember back in the day folks gave their children good solid Christian names like Ruth, David, or John. Ohhhhh noooo . . . now everybody’s got an apostrophe, or their name is spelled backward, or there’s a La at the beginning. I don’t know why they keep bringing all these funny-sounding babies into the world.” Dad’s working himself up, throwing his arms in the air. “You got a name like that, you get all sorts of ridiculous ideas about how you can behave. And I tell you what, no one’s gonna hire somebody named Sha-Dash-A. I don’t care how smart she is, she’s not running some big-time important company with that kinda name. I certainly wouldn’t hire her.”
“Dad!” I admonish loudly, but it doesn’t matter, his soapbox is too tall for me to yank him down. I plop onto the couch and reach for the remote. This conversation has added a headache to my malaise, and I want thirty minutes to catch up on the news.
“What? You think you’re going to find the answer to what to do about Xandra from Don Lemon?” Fitzroy snatches the remote out of my hand. I tip over onto the couch and cover my face with a decorative pillow.
“I’m not sure there’s anything to be done right at this moment, Dad. This may be more of a wait-and-see-how-things-play-out scenario,” I muffle into the pillow.
“I can’t think of one thing good that’s come from waiting and seeing. Can you imagine where you and Clive would be if your mother had decided to wait and see on your education? Not here in this beautiful house in California with the job you’ve wanted since you were a little girl. So, I’m gonna give you a day or two to figure this one out, and I hope your solution involves packing boxes and finding a new living situation for my granddaughter.”
It’s futile to tell my dad that finding Xandra a new living situation when the school year has already started is all but impossible. Instead, I choose to placate the old man in the name of dinner.
“I’ll see what I can do, Dad,” I say, and give my father a kiss on the cheek. “But for now, I’m going to go change. I’ll get on making dinner in a minute.”
“I just got out of a meeting and have another one in ten; just enough time to call my mother or FaceTime you.” Ahhhh it sounds so good to finally hear Leo’s voice before I drift off to sleep after this crappy day. My father barely spoke two words to me at dinner, but he managed to muster up a cheery attitude and forward Clive a couple of funny emails while I did the dishes. I snuggle all of my body into my comforter cocoon, making my world just me and Leo.
“Tell me all about your day and then say something sexy that’ll perk me up and keep me awake through my deposition,” Leo requests, breathing heavily into a jiggling phone. It’s 1:00 p.m. in Singapore, so he’s either racing between work commitments or hunkering down in a bathroom stall. I really hope it’s the first.
“You sound winded. Are you out of breath thinking about me?”
“It’s hot as hell, and I’m soaked through my shirt in this humidity. Monsoon season in Singapore is no joke.” Leo didn’t pick up on my fishing for a compliment. “It’s easy to spot the Americans, we all look like we just got out of the shower the minute we step outside. Sloan’s my saving grace, though, she keeps me in clean, pressed shirts.” Who’s Sloan, I want to ask, but bite down on my lip. Our long-distance journey so far has been a few scenic pictures and brief texts promising future video calls. I don’t want to spend one of Leo’s ten precious minutes in a huff of schoolgirl jealousy.
“Enough about me, how’s the start of school?” Leo still sounds rushed, but at least his jiggling phone has settled.
“No fiascos to report yet. On the home front, though, red alert. Xandra saw us sucking face in the driveway the night you met her.” Talking about Xandra is good neutral territory.
“Really? I don’t remember that.”
“Meeting Xandra or that toe-curling kiss?” Leo’s hearty laugh relaxes us both. “It was right before you met her. You had me pushed up against the driver’s side of your car, and I’m afraid she caught more than the PG moments. My skirt may have been hiked up to where no child wants to see on their mother.”
“HA! Seriously? That’s kind of funny, but I believe it. She’s just now getting around to telling you? Why didn’t she call us out on it that night?” I see a leggy young woman in a pencil skirt walk behind Leo, pausing to rest her hand on his shoulder. Is that Sloan?
I’ve been wondering why Xandra didn’t mention the kiss since Graham brought it up, but I don’t want to deconstruct my mothering angst on our first real phone call since Leo left. “Teenage girls prefer for their mothers to suffer endlessly and without a clue. Xandra didn’t tell me, but she sure didn’t hold back telling her father. Apparently now she’s acting out at school, and I don’t know if her ranting around campus is for a real reason or because she saw us and feels like she can’t talk to me about it.” As it’s coming out of my mouth, I’m wondering if this would have been a conversation better saved for Marisol, but now I’m in it with Leo, and I hope to hell he’s not going to judge me for it. So much for keeping it light and loose while he’s overseas.