Read Online The Salt God's Daughter by Ilie Ruby - Free Book Online Page A

know Tiffany’s father better, given that we were all living under the same roof. She put on her paisley minidress and black
high-heeled boots, touched up her eyebrows with pencil, and painted her lips with frosted lipstick. We stood beside her as she knocked on the door of his study, where he liked to sit in a leather chair reading The Wall Street Journal . There were toy ships on the bookshelves and photographs of the ocean hanging on the walls. “Would you like to join us? We thought we’d play a little music,” my mother said, holding up her guitar.
    He laughed, rubbing his gray beard. My mother’s face turned red.
    â€œNo. No, thank you. The bosses threw a little party for us last night down at the beach. Big old mansion called Weathering Heights. I hope you don’t mind,” he said. Behind him, a woman in a wrinkled peasant top and bell-bottom jeans looked up from a chair, holding a half-filled wine glass. “Charlotte,” he said, motioning to the woman. Then he turned back to my mother. “It’s Dana, right?”
    My mother looked surprised. “Me? No, it’s Diana. Diana Gold. I apologize. I didn’t see a car, or I would never have—
    â€œThat’s okay,” he said.
    â€œWait, I know you,” said Charlotte, getting up. “I was admiring your beautiful house last night. It’s the yellow one on the corner, right? With all the rosebushes?”
    â€œNo, I live here. Why do you ask?” my mother said, somewhat flattered.
    â€œBecause you were standing in the lawn in your nightgown last night, cutting down all your roses.”
    She’d been drinking. “What? No, that wasn’t me,” my mother said. She smiled, wiping her eyes as we walked across the grass, her skirt swishing in the moonlight. Dolly and I kept a safe distance behind her, worried about the aftermath. Humiliation. Though we understood its source, we also knew it was the straightest path to fury.
    She set her guitar on the grass, waved us away, and got in the car. She shut the door. I knew she had a bottle of whiskey
in the glove compartment. She sat there all night, drinking and smoking Winston Lights. Smoke filled the windows to the point where I couldn’t see inside anymore. “She is trying to smoke herself to death,” said Dolly. “I’m going to check on her again. She wouldn’t leave us now. She needs us.”
    When Dolly went to check on her, she found an empty car. My mother was gone.
    Â 
    THERE HAD BEEN an incident once at the Santa Monica Pier. Dolly and I were little, no older than six and four. We were hot and tired from sitting in the heat, watching the seagulls crash into the waves. People were throwing money into a musician’s straw hat on the pavement. We were whining from stomachaches, corn dogs, and popcorn, which we had been living on. My mother picked up a tambourine and began singing. Every so often he passed her a brown bag. When the crowd thinned, we followed them down to the beach, where they continued to drink. My mother began to roll around in the sand, saying she was a mermaid. She pretended she could not walk, struggling with her tail as the breeze captured her hair. People laughed at her. Dolly and I fell asleep, curled against the guitar case. When we woke up, she was gone, had left us, swum out to sea. We ran across the parking lot in bare feet, broken glass biting into our soles.
    That is the only time I remember letting myself be furious at my mother.
    Â 
    SHE HADN’T COME home.
    Dolly found a bottle of whiskey in the coat closet and another underneath the bathroom sink. My mother had seemed upset, disappointed, and less interested in doing her job, as always happened eventually. What did we expect?
    â€œWhat do we do? She can’t get fired,” I said, pouring a bowl of corn flakes.

    â€œAct natural. Pretend nothing is going on.” We dressed ourselves and then went to sit outside on