I met Priscilla at a party at my boss’ home in 1992. She was his nanny and cared for his five-year-old son. She was pretty in an unconventional way with gapped front teeth, a long face and stringy blonde hair. When she smiled she beamed like a distant star, magnetic and radiant. But she didn’t smile often. She was a shoegazer, eyes glued to the floor, aura tinged with leaden weight.
While partygoers gathered around the pool table, Priscilla leaned against a corner wall nursing a cocktail. I watched as guys approached her. They’d spend about a minute flirting and then walk away scowling. I asked my boss’ wife Candy to introduce me. Her response was memorable.
“Don’t think you want to do that.”
“Why?”
“Ever diffuse a bomb before?”
“I’m game,” I said.
“It’s a suicide mission.”
Candy led me past the DJ booth into the living room. Priscilla leaned against a sofa reading a novel. She appeared disinterested offering an upturned detached gaze like Lauren Bacall.
“I’d like you to meet my friend Loren,” Candy said. “He works in sales and marketing.”
Priscilla pursed her lips in haughty disregard.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Candy said before walking away.
“That’s the worst intro anyone’s ever given me,” I said. “I do work in sales and marketing but if it means anything, I despise every second.”
Priscilla crossed her arms over her chest, aloof.
“I’m an expert in body language,” I said. “That posture you’re holding. You know what it means?”
She eyed me warily.
“It means you’re having a great time and are completely open to talking with me.”
She placed her book on the sofa. It was Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love.
“I love that book,” I said.
“You’ve read it?”
“I have a thing for albino hunchback dwarfs. Have you seen the movie Freaks?”
“One of my favorites,” she said. “One of us, one of us.”
“Gooba, gobba, gooba, gobba,” I added. “There’s a poster of Schlitzie the Pinhead on my bedroom wall.”
“No way. That’s so romantic,” she said.
We both laughed. She was engaged now, smiling and energetic. She told me about her life as a nanny, how she loved kids but wasn’t ready to have her own. She said she was a struggling actress, and expressed frustration about casting directors hitting on her after auditions. She was writing a one-woman play called Love and Thorazine.
“Isn’t that what they use to treat psychosis?”
“How would you know that,” she asked.
“Don’t worry, I’m not psychotic. I’m more of a depressive. You should see my cockroach collection.”
“I collect butterflies,” she said. “I have a gorgeous blue morpho butterfly. Want to see it?”
“I’d love to,” I said.
She led me through the kitchen and out the back door. We walked up a precarious staircase to a cottage surrounded by maple trees. We entered. There were hardwood floors, a tiny living room, a fireplace. She gestured for me to sit beside the kitchenette and then disappeared into a back bedroom. She returned with a framed blue butterfly.
“I bought this in Ecuador.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“It represents transformation and healing.”
She poured us each a glass of Chianti.
“To blue morpho butterflies,” I said.
We clicked glasses.
“You don’t seem like a salesman,” she said.
“I left my polyester suit at home.”
“Is that what you want to do with your life?”
“I write screenplays,” I said. “But I always get stuck in the middle of act two.”
“What kind of stories do you write?”
“Thrillers and comedies. The thrillers aren’t thrilling enough and the comedies aren’t funny.”
“Too bad you don’t write family dramas,” she said.
“Why?”
She locked eyes with me trying to discern if I was safe. She walked to a book case and grabbed a hardcover copy of The Cider House Rules. A letter stuck out from inside the book. She handed it to me. It was from the Superior Court of California, Department of Adoptions. I read several passages highlighted in yellow.
The California Supreme Court recognizes a birth parent’s right to maintain privacy and remain anonymous regarding adoption records.
As an adoptee, you have a right to your original birth certificate but birth parents’ names will remain redacted.
Priscilla stared at me trying to gauge my reaction.
“You’re adopted,” I said. “How long have you been searching for your birth parents?”
“More than a year.”
“That must be hard.”
“I spoke with a private detective. He wants $2000 to find them. I don’t have the money.”
“Can’t you save up?”
“I get free rent but I only make minimum wage.”
“How about borrowing from a friend?”
“You have $2000 to lend me,” she asked.
“No.”
“Exactly.”
“Have you asked your adoptive parents for help?”
“I can’t tell them I’m searching for my birth parents. It’ll break their hearts.”
“If they love you, they’ll understand.”
“I don’t want to hurt them. But I have so many questions. Did my mom want to give me up or was she too young? Did my dad know she was pregnant? Do they ever think of me?”
“What does your intuition tell you?”
“It tells me my birth parents are still alive, nothing else. I feel like I can’t go on until I know who I really am. It gets in the way of my romantic relationships, my friendships, my mood. My last boyfriend was great but I broke up with him after only a month. My therapist thinks I did it to avoid getting hurt.”
“Does that ring true?”
“Yes. Why would anyone else want me if my birth parents didn’t want me? It kind of sets the tone, right?”
She lit a fire in the fireplace. We moved to a brown leather couch and watched the flames. There was a knock at the door.
“Who is it,” Priscilla asked.
“It’s me,” a male voice answered.
She opened the door. Richard, my boss, stood in the doorway holding a bottle of wine.
“There you are,” he said. “Why’d you leave the party?”
“I’m not feeling very social,” she said.
“Hey Rich,” I said.
He squinted, noticing me for the first time. I caught a hint of a scowl.
“I see, you’re having your own party in here.”
“We’re just talking,” I said.
“Sure,” he said. He turned his gaze to Priscilla. “Once you’ve had your little soiree, come back downstairs. I want you to meet my friends.”
She closed the door and returned to the couch.
“I think he has a crush on you,” I said.
“That’s my curse. Every guy I meet wants to fuck me.”
That included me. She had a damsel-in-distress quality that tapped into my dysfunctional notions of manhood. I knew she wasn’t emotionally available. I decided to offer friendship instead. We became late-night phone buddies and took weekend hikes in the Santa Monica Mountains. I griped about my sales job while she told me about her auditions.
“I got a one-line role on Melrose Place,” she said.
“What’s the line?”
“Get out now.”
I knew this was a warning from the universe for me.
On Wednesday nights, we watched The Larry Sanders Show together at her place. One night, I entered Priscilla’s cabin to find her crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“These are happy tears,” she said.
She gave me a big hug. I was confused.
“I took your advice,” she said. “I told my mom I want to find my birth parents. She understood. Not only that, she gave me money to hire a detective. She just wants me to be happy.”
“That’s awesome.”
She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. A shudder ran through me. I was falling hard for her even though I knew it would never work. One night she called around two a.m.
“They found him,” she said.
“Who?”
“My dad.”
“Where?”
“He lives in Minnesota. His name is Gene. He works in construction. He’s divorced with two kids. Boy and a girl. You know what that means?”
“You have step siblings.”
“Half siblings. I have a half-brother and half-sister.”
“Unbelievable,” I said. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You have his address?”
“Yes. And his phone number.”
“You should write him a letter.”
“I thought about it but what if he doesn’t respond? Then I won’t know if he’s ignoring me or just didn’t get the letter.”
“Are you going to call him?”
“What if he hangs up on me?”
“You’re not thinking about going to see him?”
“I am.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“My therapist thinks it’s a terrible idea. But I need to look him in the eyes and ask why he abandoned me.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“That’s sweet. But I need to do this alone. I need to know.”
Her birth father lived in a small town called Lindstrom. It was about a half-hour drive from Minneapolis. It had a large Swedish community.
“That makes sense,” Priscilla said. “People always tell me I look Swedish.”
I asked if she’d learned anything about her birth mother.
“Not yet.”
She made arrangements for a friend to cover her nanny job while she was gone. I convinced her to give the man’s contact information to her adoptive parents in case something happened. I took her to the airport and walked her to the terminal. She hugged me goodbye and then boarded the plane. I drove home concerned for her but also myself. I was smitten. She didn’t feel the same way. This wouldn’t end well. Two days later she called from Minnesota. She was crying.
“Are those happy tears?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
She told me the story. She drove her rental car to her father’s address. He lived in a trailer park. There was a pickup truck beside a trailer and beer cans scattered over a scraggly lawn. She parked across the street and waited for someone to come outside. No one appeared. She wanted to knock on the door but was too scared. She drove back to the hotel berating herself for her lack of courage.
On the second day, she woke with new resolve. She returned to the trailer park and saw a stout man in his underwear and a torn t-shirt watering plants in the front yard. He held a hose in one hand, a beer in the other. She watched as the man finished watering then rolled up the hose. She felt paralyzed, unable to move. That’s when the man noticed her. He yelled out, “Can I help you?”
She knew it was now or never. She took a deep breath and exited the car. She approached the man, her legs wobbly as if she might pass out. She stopped about six feet away. He smelled rank, unwashed. She gazed into his face trying to discern a likeness. She couldn’t see one.
“Is your name Gene Neilson?”
“Yes,” he said. “What do you want?”
She reached into her purse and gave the man a letter from the detective agency. He read it.
“What’s this all about,” he asked.
“I hired a private detective to find my biological father. He said it was you.”
“That’s impossible.”
“There’s a copy of my birth certificate on the next page. Your name is on it.”
“You got wrong information, girl,” he said. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
She watched him calculate the math in his head.
“I didn’t father no child when I was 20.”
“Maybe you did and don’t know it. You know like a one-night stand or something.”
“Who’s your mom?”
“I don’t know.”
“I ain’t got money if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said.
She told him she didn’t want money. She was just trying to fill the holes from her past. She said she traveled 2000 miles to meet him.
“If you’ve come that far you might as well come inside.”
Everything told her not to enter the trailer. She couldn’t help herself. She followed the man inside. The interior was dimly lit with the curtains closed. She sat on a plastic-covered couch in a small living room. He retrieved two cans of beer then disappeared into a back room. When he returned, he wore khaki pants and a fresh t-shirt. He held a shoe box in his hands. Inside was a stack of ancient Polaroids. He said they were photos of old girlfriends. Then he said something that creeped her out.
“Ain’t none of ’em as sexy as you.”
She knew she should leave. But one of those photos might be her mom.
“Some of the pictures were faded and I could barely make out a face,” she told me. “Most of the women looked kind of skanky with lots of cleavage. There were a few topless shots, some full body nudes. I sensed Gene leering at me. It gave me the heebie jeebies.”
Priscilla returned the photos to the shoe box. She was certain none of the pics were her mom. Gene opened a beer and asked Priscilla if she’d like to watch a movie with him. He pointed to a shelf of X-Rated VHS tapes next to the television. He put a hand on her leg. She said she had to leave. He wanted to give her a tour of his place. She summoned all her strength and ran out the door. She returned to the hotel and called me.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
“At least now I know.”
“When are you coming back home?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good,” I said. “I’ll come get you.”
The next morning I picked up Priscilla at LAX. She looked sad but beautiful. I took her to Izzy’s Deli in Santa Monica. She pecked at her food and didn’t feel like talking. I dropped her off at my boss’ house. She promised to call me.
I heard from her several weeks later. She was euphoric. Three days after she returned to LA, the detective agency called. They found her birth mom. She lived in West Hollywood.
“Just five minutes away,” Priscilla said. “Can you believe it? All these years and she’s just down the street.”
“Incredible,” I said.
“I called her. We totally hit it off. Her name is Jasmine. She’s a nurse at Cedars-Sinai. In pediatrics. She said she wanted to find me as well but didn’t want to disrupt my life.”
“Are you going to meet her in person?”
“We met for coffee at Farmer’s Market. I knew she was my mom the moment I saw her. We hugged and kissed like old friends. We look just like each other.”
“You told her about meeting your dad?”
“She gave me the whole story. She met Gene when she was 18. He was a bartender in Minneapolis. One night, she and a friend went for drinks. She was under age but they let her in anyway. Gene was handsome and a real charmer. He gave her free margaritas until she was drunk. Her friend left and she went back to his apartment. They slept together. She returned to the bar a few nights later but Gene ignored her as if they’d never met. Six weeks later she learned she was pregnant. She was terrified but never considered an abortion. She didn’t tell Gene. Her parents convinced to give the child up for adoption. She said this was the hardest thing she’s ever had to do and she’s regretted it every day. But she knew one day she’d find me again.”
“Does she have her own family?”
“She’s divorced and has a 21-year-old daughter who lives in New York. She’s coming to LA next month. The three of us are going to dinner.”
“Have you told your adoptive parents?”
“They’ve been incredible. They want to meet her too.”
I didn’t hear much from Priscilla over the coming weeks. She said she was trying to make sense of her “new reality.” I understood. A few months later, Richard called me into his office at work. He was upset.
“Tell me about Priscilla.”
“What do you mean,” I said playing dumb.
“She quit. Ever since the two of you started dating, she’s different.”
“We’re just friends, Rich. I swear.”
“Yeah, well I’m not happy about it.”
“So she’s no longer your nanny?”
“That’s right.”
“Where’s she living?”
“She moved to West Hollywood. With a roommate.”
“Is the roommate’s name Jasmine?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn’t know how to contact Priscilla but I knew she’d call when she was ready. I went through the requisite breakup blues even though we were never a couple. When I next heard from her, she called from Chicago. She’d landed a role in a Bruce Willis movie.
“I feel like I have a new life,” she said. “I’m excited about acting again. I’m going on tons of auditions. I even met a guy. Guess where he’s from?”
“Minnesota,” I said.
“How’d you know?”
“Stab in the dark.”
She moved in with a girl from her acting class a few blocks from her birth mom’s apartment. She and Jasmine took long walks in the hills catching up on each other’s lives.
“We have so much in common,” Priscilla said. “We both love rum raisin ice cream, we hate thousand island dressing and guess what else.”
“What?”
“She collects butterflies. She has a blue morpho on her bedroom wall just like me.”
I last saw Priscilla at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. She was sixty feet tall and talking to Bruce Willis on a film screen. Her dialogue was cheesy though one line stood out. “I’ll never forget you,” her character told Willis. I wondered if the line was meant for me.