...you don’t have to tell your entire life story. That would indeed be rather long. However, I don’t know anything about you – I don’t know where you came from, how you got here, what happened in the middle, anything. So, what’s your story? If you had to sum up everything that’s happened to you in your life so far, what would you say?”
Lydia looked into her nearly empty coffee mug. “Wow,” she said. “Thats – that’s a big request.”
“Yes.”
“I – “ she looked up and into his face. She had been going to complain that she knew nothing about him, either – but then from the very beginning he’d been willing to tell more. Their first conversation – had it been their first conversation? Had it been so soon before? – even then he had instantly and gladly told where he went to school, what he studied, where he was from – and somehow, Lydia felt that if she hasked Todd the same question he was now asking her, he would have no hesitance in answering.
She moved to set her mug down – but decided she needed soemthing for her hands to do, Lydia pulled it back up.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’m from Virginia.”
She paused. Todd looked at her, not questioningly or accusationally but just... looking. She breathed in and kept going. “I grew up in a fairly small town with my mom, my older sister, and a kid brother. Well, I didn’t actually grow up with a kid brother. He kinda came along towards the end. Anyway, we lived in – Jacobstown? You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s not actually all that small, it’s the county seat, it has a nine-screen movie theater and a decent-sized mall, it’s where all the country folk come in to shop, but we didn’t live in a big city. Not like this.” Lydia looked around her, at the gray landscape that culd be anywhere, USA, and realized that it wasn’t all that different from this, exactly. She moved to take a sip of cold latte, but didn’t actually drink any of it.
“So. That’s where I lived. I wasn’t born there, I was born somewhere in Washington – the state, you know, not the district – but apparently after my dad dumped her my mom moved across the country. Just packed up her bags and left, decided to start a new life somewhere where nobody knew her, somewhere she wasn’t – maybe she just wanted to leave, too. I mean, I don’t know. She’d travelled, but she’d lived in one place her entire life.”
“So yeah. She drove across the country, her, a six-year-old kid, and a squalling toddler. It must have been hell.”
Lydia paused. She didn’t look introspective or lost so much as ... stumped. What was it that came next in the story? What was I going to say? What was the name of that guy on tv, the one man – it was the kind of look that would be immediately followed by “Damn, I don’t remember.”
Todd moved in. “Was it hard for her, starting over?”
“I don’t know, I can’t remember,” Lydia said wryly. “Yes. Yes it was. Back in Washington – her family had been pretty well-off, her husband too. Not rich, you know, but a very comfortable middle class. Suddenly, all she had were the child support payments. Her family didn’t quite disown her after the divorce – actually, it wasn’t the divorce that they didn’t like, it was the fact that she was moving away. ‘Waltons should stick together,’ they thought. I think their theory was that if they just waited long enough, Mom would give in to the world and come crawling back to them.
“It didn’t work. My mom – she’s stubborn, stubborn as hell. Tell her not to do a thing and s she’ll go ahead and do it, damn the consequences. All her parents managed to do was make her more convinced that she just had to succeed, had to succeed on her own and with us kids.” Lydia paused and took a sip of her drink, now cold enough that the sweetness seemed overdone and the spice clashed rather than harmonizing.
“Did it work, then?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I suppose so. I mean, she kept us clothed and fed and schooled, gave us morals and work ethics, made sure to teach us lessons about the follies and evils of mankind. Particularly the men,” Lydia said with a twirk of her lips. Todd’s eyebrows climbed.
“Anyway. That was my childhood.”
“It was?” Todd sounded confused. “I thought that was your mother’s story.”
“Oh.” Lydia paused. “Well, it’s practically the same thing.”
‘No! No, it’s not. What was it like for you, growing up? What did you experience?”
“Oh. It’s hard to say.”
Todd waited. “Well, you were the one living it, weren’t you?” he asked, when he could be patient no longer.
“I – okay then. I went to elementary school, middle school, high school. The usual. I had some friends, I did some extracurricular activities. Um. Academic team, actually – God, that’s so geeky – a little bit of drama, civic service and volunteering type things. A/B student. Um, graduated, moved on, went to college at Virginia Tech. Premed program. Dropped out after two years, scampered off to Europe for a while – ran away, as my mothere says. Came back, wandered around a bit. Settled here. That’s all, really.”
“No,” todd said.
“What?”
“No, that’s not all.”
Lydia felt faintly annoyed. “Well, I should think I would know best. It is my life, after all.”
“But see, You didn’t tell me why. Or how. What was it like?”
“I don’t understand.” Lydia looked down, stubborn.
“Yes you do. For heaven’s sake, I – look, you don’t have to answer.” Todd turned away.
Lydia looked up quickly. “I want to! It’s just –“
”It’s simple. Just – who are you?”
“Right. Simple.”
Todd relaxed at that, letting out a light chuckle and a grin. “Okay, so maybe simple is the wrong word. Basic, then. It’s basic.”
“Right. Basic. Just who I am and why and how and what happened to make it that way.”
Todd rolled his eyes, slightly less relaxed again, but not qutie irritated. “Whatever. Not basic then. You know what –“
He was interrupted before he could finish the thought.
“Right, then. It was – my older sister was good at everything. Everything. She was smart, funny, popular, pretty, outgoing – she could make friendslike anybody’s business.”
“Isn’t the phrase nobody’s business?”
“Ah, but it was everybody’s business.”
“If you say so.”
“She was – she was perfect.” Lydia paused. Here was where Todd was supposed to jump in with a ‘no, no she wasn’t – nobody’s perfect!’ so that Lydia could sigh in annoyance. He didn’t, though – just looked at her with huge hazel eyes and waited.
Lydia shrugged. “I wasn’t,” she said.