Page 29 of Good Days Bad Days
“Nothing important, honey.”
“I showed Mom her ID from WQRX last week and she said you worked there, too. You never told me that.”
“It was a long time ago—before the shop—before you were born.” He tugs on my ponytail and walks away to another sorting area. I follow him.
“I didn’t know you were both in television. So, what did you do there? What about Mom?”
“I was a camera operator and your mom was kind of a Renaissance woman, you could say.” He releases another pile of belongings into the garbage pile and then moves back toward the house.
“Like, in what way? In front of the camera, crew, or more like production?” It’s a link to my parents I didn’t expect, like those identical twins separated at birth who each had become nurses, had three children, and married a man named Bob.
“You make it sound so official. It was a tiny local station,” he says, heading up the front steps, not answering the question. I had already Googled WQRX and learned everything Wikipedia could tell me about it, which was one paragraph and a link to the parent network Epistle Broadcasting Network that ended up rebranding in the mid-seventies and moving to Texas, leaving WQRX to a small public access station. The Wikipedia page had a few names and dates, and so I found as many people as I could, former producers mostly, and sent them emails, but they all bounced back.
I think I could ask my dad a million questions and they’d get me nowhere. He doesn’t want to tell me about his past, my mom’s past, the roots of my nearly rotted-out family tree. Why??
I let him leave without asking more questions, not willing to have an all-out confrontation with my dad in front of my professionalcolleagues, who I’m sure see me more as Charlie McFadden than Lottie Laramie, daughter of a hoarder. He’s off the hook for now but not forever, that’s for sure.
My phone buzzes. I step away from the sorting area and glance at the screen. It’s a text from Cam. We’ve exchanged a few messages every day since we ran into each other at Thumbs. He asks if he can buy me dinner at least once in each conversation, and every time I nearly say yes. As I peel off my gloves to open my phone, Tina calls me back for one last query, pointing to the sealed boxes I’d been questioning my father about.
“So, these boxes. Toss ’em for sure?”
“Probably. Let me look.” Out of curiosity and a little stubbornness, I rip off the decaying tape in one tug and the flaps gape open. Lifting one side with the tip of my ungloved finger, a familiar set of eyes meet mine. They’re my mother’s eyes—my eyes. I spread the beleaguered flaps wide, and now four sets of eyes look back at me. My mother’s headshots. Hundreds of them. There’s only one reason someone would have this many headshots—the same reason I’ve had stacks of similar shots in front of me with a black Sharpie in my right hand. She had fans, and those fans wanted her autograph.
“I’ll throw these out,” I say, balancing the stack of boxes in my arms. As I pass Dino, I tell him there’s a new exception to the auto-toss rule—anything with the name Betty Laramie or the call letters WQRX needs to come to me immediately. Not my dad, not the garbage, not a pile to be sorted—me.
“Yes ma’am,” he says, touching the tip of his baseball cap before digging another armful of clothing from the laundry trolly. I say my goodbyes and rush away from the chaos of my parents’ front yard.
However, I don’t stop at the industrial-sized garbage bin as I’d promised Tina. Instead, after making sure no one is watching and seeing that the coast is clear, I use my knee to prop the boxes open and pop the trunk of my car by pressing a button. I cringe at the beeping sound, but thankfully, no one is close enough to hear it. I shove aside two othercardboard boxes containing my mother’s belongings and drop in the new boxes. My mother’s stiff smile and sparkling eyes seem to peek back at me through the unfastened flaps of the box.
I know where I can get answers without reaching into my father’s throat and forcing them out. I can’t put it off anymore. I have to go see my mother.
Chapter 12
Greg
November 7, 1969
Playboy Club-Hotel, VIP Room
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Mark and I are escorted to the table by a curvaceous woman in a black satin corset, a white collar with a black tie, wrists encased in shirt cuffs, a grapefruit-sized white poof on her perky rear end, and a pair of drooping bunny ears on her head. Mark raises his eyebrows and whispers something untoward, which I pretend not to hear. The petite brunette wears a ribbon name tag pinned at her hip at the top curve of her high-cut leotard that reads “Jessica.” A warmth floods through me that makes me keep my eyes to the floor.
“Where are you from, sweetheart?” Mark asks her as we dodge between tables filled with mostly middle-aged men and a few younger guys who likely think the Bunnies will ignore the strict rules and hand over their number if they show up enough or tip well.
“You know, around,” she says, and I can tell it’s a question she answers often.
“Well, that’s fun. I’m from around, too.”
Jessica giggles demurely, and I think he actually caught her off guard with his humor. “Maybe I’ll see you there next time I’m in town,” she teases.
“Sure hope so,” Mark says, approaching the table of seven men and one woman.
“You two get settled and I’ll send Tammy over to get your drink order, OK, hon?” she asks as she wiggles her Bunny tail back to her hostess station.
“My God, I love my job right now,” Mark says, eyes locked on Jessica until she disappears into the dim, crowded room.
“Behave yourself,” I say, pulling out the chair next to Martha where she’d saved me a seat.
