“No,” I say and I look in the mirror and I want to die. But I can’t die, because you need me. Your father is dragging you to the Charles Fucking Dickens Festival across the sound in Port Jefferson. You don’t want to go, but he rented you a costume and after the two of you finished arguing this morning, you agreed to go spend time with his family.
While you and your dad were getting ready for the festival, I hunkered down in my motel room and read up on this fucking festival. When you stepped out for a cigarette, I looked out at you and I knew I had no choice. You were a vision in your costume, drowning in red velour as your hair poured out from under a little red bonnet. You were smoking and pouting in the parking lot of the Silver Seahorse Motel. You are the only girl in the world who could look so serious and so silly at the same. Your dad stepped outside to join you, in a top hat and tails. He gave you a white furry muff.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” you asked.
“Put your hands in, keep warm.”
“But, I have gloves.”
“Beck, can you just give me a break here?”
You sighed and put your hands in that lucky muff and I want to put my hands in you. I’m taking too long to get dressed and the Irish shopkeeper taps her knuckles on the door. She wants a sneak peek, of course. “It’s so nice to see young people like you getting into the spirit,” she calls. “If you don’t mind my saying so, I think those pantaloons are going to suit you quite well, you know.”
“Yep, in a second.”
“And I’m not sure if I mentioned,” she says for the third time. “Rentals must be returned within one week of rental date. Otherwise you might have an old Irish slag knocking at your door in the wee hours. Are you ready?”
“In a second,” I say and maybe Irish women don’t speak English. Celine Dion is still screaming about her goddamned heart and I’m choking on mothballs and self-loathing and if you would have told your dad about me, he could have rented costumes for both of us. Then you’d be in here with me and I wouldn’t even notice the mothballs or the schmaltzy Canadian crap. But, you lied to me. And now I have to walk out of the dressing room and tell the Irish lady that I’m attending the festival on my own.
“Handsome chap like you won’t go very long without finding a nice lass, I’m sure.” She chortles. And there’s a mirror behind her and fuck. This costume certainly does look good on me—my top hat is taller than your father’s top hat—but this costume is not a disguise.
“Do you have any beards?”
She objects jokingly, “Are you quite serious, young man?”
“It’s cold out there.”
“We have beards but they’re not at all Dickensian.”
“I don’t care,” I say and she grips my twenties and fumes. Small towns are scarier to me than cities. This woman, who seems all kindly and obsequious a minute ago, is melting down because I want a beard.
“I’m in kind of a rush,” I say, the slightest bit of an Irish affect.
She lowers the volume on the ancient tape player. Celine Dion on cassette isn’t very Dickensian either, but she concedes and points me toward the non-Dickensian, nonrefundable beards, which are in a box in the back marked JOHNNY DEPP/DUCK DYNASTY.
Fucking America, Beck. I just don’t know sometimes.
LIFE is aggravating when you’re alone in a costume on a party boat with people who are all together, in costumes, on a party boat. We’re not even close to docking at Port Jeff yet and I shouldn’t have boarded the ferry. I didn’t think it through. What if you recognize me? You’re not gonna want to introduce me to your father while I’m in pantafuckingloons.
I should have gone back to New York but there’s no turning this festive boat around so I’m trying to focus on the good: You haven’t tweeted once since you’ve been here or sent one e-mail. But bad thoughts creep in. Your father is back in the picture. What if this means that you tell your mother to shut off your phone? Calm down, Joe. I know your passwords and I will always find a way into you, but I like having your phone. I like thinking of your mother paying for me to protect you. It’s hard to be rational in a costume and I try again to think good thoughts. You are capable of going offline and you’re lying to everyone, not just me. And in a way, I’m having an easier go of it than you. You and your old man sit on bucket seats in the main cabin. You look gorgeous, of course, the Rose on our Titanic vessel to my crafty, upbeat Jack, and if we were in this together, oh Beck, I’d find my way under that skirt of yours.
But neither you nor your father appears very excited for the Festival and I gather that he drives this boat. Deckhands give him shit for being in costume and the Captain of this particular trip steps out of the wheelhouse and insists on getting a picture of you and your old man. You don’t want a picture but your old man insists and I’m tempted to storm across the deck and start a mutiny. But I have to let you and your dad work this out on your own. I know when you need your space. That’s why I got the beard.
Your dad asks you if you want a drink and you shrug.
“You want to make this as hard as can be?”
“I just said, I don’t know.” You sulk and you turn into a teenage girl around your father, which makes a lot of sense.
“Well, Guinevere, do you or do you not want something to drink?”
“Coffee,” you snap. “Fine.”
He called you Guinevere and a group of semidrunk Chuck Dickens fans are starting to sing Christmas carols and some fat guy in a Ben Franklin getup (oh, America) is trying to pass by and loses half of his beer on me. And the air is thick with mothballs and salt water and Coors and I do not like it here one bit. Because you ran away to see your dad who is alive (alive!), and because I want to be there in case you need me, I am gonna have to sell a fucking Dickens on eBay to cover the expenses of the motel, the costume, and the psychotherapy I’ll no doubt need when I realize I am permanently fucked up from that day I froze my ass off in pantaloons and stood on a deck with a bunch of quarter-wits. The half-wits are at home watching Great Expectations, the movie.
THE only thing worse than the boat trip to the festival is the festival itself. The Public Rape of Charles Dickens is an atrocity, Beck. Who knew such crap existed? You knew. You stay away from your half brother and your half sister, both of them kids, little ones, six and eight I’d guess, in costume, everyone in costume, and Charles Dickens would be disgusted that his entire life’s work is celebrated by rich old retirees who have nothing better to do than blow money on rented knickers and petticoats and wigs and cross Long Island Sound only to gather with other like-minded nitwits and stroll about the village of Port Jeff, where they compliment one another on their fucking costumes and gorge on candied apples and act like it’s fun to tour old homes and listen to eighteenth-century guitar and gorge again on caramel popcorn and get their faces painted (as if painted faces have anything to do with Dickens) and listen to chamber music. Honestly, Beck, of all these white motherfuckers on this boat right now (seriously, no black person would ever do this), how many do you think could pass a test on Oliver Twist? How many do you think read his lesser-known works?
But there was no way for me to not follow you into this town. And it’s a good thing I’m always here, the Kevin Costner to your Whitney Houston, because people get weird in costumes, even old white dullards from Connecticut. They’re slightly soused on beers (day drinking is allowed when you’re celebrating Dickens), and more than a couple of dudes have gotten a little too cheerful with you and I’ve got a list in my head of everyone who needs a beatdown. I’d never hit a woman, but your stepmother doesn’t like you and she’s jealous of the attention you get and her kids aren’t all that and our kids will be cuter and how does my anger with you always soften into love?
“Guinevere,” your stepmother says. Your dad calls her Ronnie and she’s fighting forty with Botox and bronzing powder and Spanx. You’ll embrace your age and you’ll be beautiful unlike Ronnie, who barks, “Did you give me change from that vendor with the candy apples?”