So I saddle up Cherie—that’s my Vespa, obviously—and I put my helmet on because my hair will look like a flailing mess if I drive bare-headed on the highway. In my favorite T-strap pumps and a white-collared blouse, I’m a vision, especially since I’m wearing the most beautiful skirt. It falls all the way to my calves—the kind of skirt that can twirl and twirl because the bottom of the hem makes a big circle. I sewed it myself with vintage fabric, which has a white background but is covered in red and peach and blue flowers. I have to press my legs tight to the Vespa to keep my skirt from flying all over the place, but even if it does, it’s like, who cares, you know? I have much bigger concerns floating all around me like the clouds in the sky down the coastline and we’re drifting, drifting.
I didn’t pack anything really because I won’t need anything once I get there. Either it’s not my dad, and I turn around and come home or it is my dad, and he’ll have everything else I’ll need. So I just take my cell phone and my lipstick and my emergency credit card and ID, which were already in my favorite little purse. I have the address of this Berkeley James Bukowski tucked on a scrap of paper. At least, this house has a mortgage out with his name on it, so it’s probably him. Still, I drive and drive until I find it, and I park my Vespa near the end of the driveway. I have arrived.
The house is so homey, so suburban. Brick and square and fancier than I expected. But no matter. This is it, my moment, and I could finally be meeting my dad. I know it’s probably not him, but if it is, he’ll be so thrilled. All these years he’s had to legally stay away from me because of that stupid custody agreement, but I found him, and now he can know me. Now we can fill those gaps in our souls—him from never knowing a child, me from never knowing a father. The front porch makes me feel small, like I’m peddling cookies or holiday gift wrap. But my knuckles find the door, and it’s only a moment before someone answers.
“Hi,” I say. My voice sounds like a little girl’s. “Are you James Bukowski?”
“Yes. Can I help you?” This can’t be my father. He’s older than my dad would be, older than my mother. He’s wearing a tie and a pressed shirt rolled up at the sleeves. His hair is starting to gray at the temples; he has a beard trimmed short to his face. But he has blue eyes, full eyebrows, like mine, exactly like mine. No.
“Are you . . . ?” I begin. “The musician James Bukowski?”
“No. I’m a professor.” He’s confused, perhaps imagining that I’m a groupie and stalker. “Of economics. Why?”
So it’s not him. I think I’m relieved; am I relieved? “Okay. Okay, thanks anyway. Never mind.”
I turn to walk away, and he’s still standing with the door half-open. But something spins me back around like a windup ballerina in a music box. “I’m Vivi. That doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?”
I’m sure it doesn’t, but his expression changes—it drops to the concrete porch below us and shatters. His eyes turn from confused to angry in a single flash, which I can’t comprehend. I’m finally here, his daughter—I finally found him so he can know me. He steps out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind him. But not before I see them. The pictures in the entryway of kids. His real kids.
“You can’t be here.”
I stand paralyzed, a lawn ornament frozen in horror.
His face pools with blood, red and pulsing. “You cannot be here.”
Oh my God, it is him. Oh my God, this man is my dad, and he hates me, and his family doesn’t know about me. I want to say no, YOU can’t be here. This can’t be happening. You can’t be this ridiculous person, this boring non-rock-star professor, with a life that is all neatly formed. He’s not a wild musician with a drifter’s heart. He’s a regular man. He’s a regular, responsible old man?!
“Carrie promised me this wouldn’t happen,” he said, like he can rationalize my presence away. “I’ve sent the check every month. Is that what this is about?”
My body makes a sob noise, the air forced from my stomach and out my mouth as if someone punched me in the gut. I’m not crying or maybe I am; I really have no idea what is happening except this angry man who has my eyes, and I can’t believe how poisonously I hate him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, but then hearing my own voice is proof. I am here. I am someone with an opinion and rights and, actually, I’m not sorry. At all. A deep breath fills my stomach and I think I’m yelling. “I’m a real person. I am not a promise someone made about me! And you—you know what? You’re pathetic. You may not want me, but now I don’t want you either!”
“Lower your voice this instant,” he hisses at me, and now I’m sure that I’m crying, I’m sobbing, making these gross, primal noises like a grief-stricken cow braying on his front porch.
Lower my voice? He doesn’t get to tell me what to do! Like a dad. I gather enough breath to retort. Oh, I will, oh yes, because my lungs are swirling like a windstorm, circling up the words like floating leaves, and I will carry them together with violent force. “LOWER YOUR FUCKING VOICE! YOU ARE THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF MY LIFE. So just KEEP your REAL FAMILY because I really don’t CARE. I’m just SO RELIEVED to know I was never missing anything. But you were, JAMES BUKOWSKI. Because I’m pretty FUCKING GREAT, and I’m SORRY FOR YOU that you don’t know it. Have a GREAT LIFE. I will NEVER think about you AGAIN.”