My Teenage Daughter

Andrew Graham Martin

Harry Styles is bagging groceries at the Trader Joe’s on 86th and Ditch. I’ve gone 11 times this week to try to speak with him. His line is always too long, and in the evenings, I must leave to pick up my teenage daughter from swim practice.

     I will be frank: Trader Joe’s is not my preferred grocery destination—that would be Kroger. But for now, I will keep going to the Trader Joe’s on Ditch. Perhaps this Saturday, when my daughter does not have swim practice, I will go and stand in Harry Styles’s line for as long as it takes to meet Harry Styles.

     And I will have Harry Styles sign a ripe apple.

***

Why have him sign a ripe apple, my teenage daughter asks? A ripe apple will rot within weeks. Why not have him sign something permanent, like a record or a poster?

     Because, I tell her. I do not have any Harry Styles records or Harry Styles posters.

     What’s he even doing in Indiana? she says sullenly, peering into the strange swirl of colorful stimulations and outrages visible on her phone. Doesn’t he live in England or something?

     You would know better than me, I say. You love him, don’t you?

     Pssh, she says. Maybe two years ago I did.

     Two years ago, I think?

     It seems only yesterday my teenage daughter was all, Harry Styles this, Harry Styles that.

***

On Saturday morning, I stand in Harry Styles’s line. He is bagging the lemons and kiwis and kumquats put forth by the trembling woman in front of me. He deposits them with a seductive grace. He licks his thumb before pulling each successive paper bag from its stack, as though turning the pages of a fragile novel.

     When he asks the woman if she’d like her milk in a bag, here is what she says:

     Heeba bleeba bleeba heeba.

     He grins understandingly.

     I realize only now my teenage daughter has made a good point about apples. They are pitifully impermanent vessels. Looking at this fruit, slick in my hand with sweat, I realize with sorrow that it will soon be pulp. Like all things, entropy will come for it and the matter that comprises it will decompose and its firm skin will get mushy and its core will disintegrate into the wet earth, taking with it any of the fond memories it may have absorbed during its brief time on this planet as a fruit, including, for instance, the time its skin perhaps was delicately scribbled on with the tip of a Sharpie by a soulful pop singer from Worcestershire.

     I get out of line, plunk the apple back on the shelf where I got it, and go sit in my car for exactly ninety minutes.

***

On a drive in the country, my teenage daughter turns up the radio. You would not believe how tall she’s gotten: she has to bend her legs to keep her knees from bumping the dash, like an enormous praying mantis.

     I remember when her legs were all rolls. I would jiggle her little baby feet and she would giggle and scream.

     Is this him? I ask, nodding at the radio.

     Who?

     Harry Styles?

     Ha ha. Dad. Are you kidding?

     I look at her and smile in a self-deprecating way that hopefully absolves me of having to admit whether I was kidding or not. She looks at me like she’s worried about me, like I’m my own father, in irreversible cognitive decline and lying in a hospital bed.

     This is Post, she says, and laughs. Then she leans back in her seat and sighs and gazes forlornly out the window. She’s got all kinds of piercings now. Silver studs, ruby encrusted rings, little black dangly ones that look like lava stones taken from illegally accessed beaches. I took her to get her first earrings at Claire’s when she turned 11. We ate floppy pizza from Sbarro, and afterward, I bought her a Cotton Candy Blizzard, which she held against her pink, throbbing ear. Her first earring was a simple golden stud.

     I do not know who she got her other earrings with.

     I call this a drive in the country, but that is just wishful thinking. It is an errand. We are picking up our dog’s ear medicine from the veterinarian, who is a defrocked priest.

***

Harry Styles is doing a little music show for the customers. As I walk through the sliding doors, he has already begun. He is sitting on a hay bale near the front of the store, strumming an ancient-looking guitar, one that I assume comes with a charming backstory. He is murmuring romantic lyrics into a microphone.

     A crowd has gathered. There are far more people than would normally be in a Trader Joe’s on a Monday evening. Especially with how hard it was raining earlier.

     Harry Styles is wearing an oversize flannel with the top three buttons undone, revealing tangled brown chest hair beneath. His heavy, wet-looking curls fall in front of his eyes. Stubble covers his chin and cheeks like sand clinging to wet skin. He looks at me like he loves me, but I know that is just because I am part of a crowd that is paying attention to him.

     What’s he doing this for? I ask an older gentleman who I’ve seen perusing frozen pizzas before.

     What do you mean what’s he doing this for?

     I mean, I figured he was done with this sort of thing. I thought he was a bag boy now. Him doing songs tonight makes me think possibly the bag boy stuff was just some sort of guerrilla marketing campaign to prepare for a resumed concert tour, beginning with this one.

     The older gentleman shrugs.

     You can’t expect people to just off and let go of everything they used to be, he says.

***

I’m making coffee in the break room when my coworker Natalia walks in. I do not like being the one to make coffee, because I’m afraid I will bungle it in some obvious way. But I vowed this morning when I awoke to try exactly one new thing today.

     The bottom of the carafe must be wet, because it is hissing and popping.

     Is this normal? I ask.

     Natalia laughs.

     So, how’s your little TMZ mission going? she asks.

     Huh? Oh. Not good. I’ve yet to approach him. And now he is doing concerts.

     She pulls a mug down from the shelf. It reads “STEAL ME.”

     Well, I think it’s very sweet that you’d go to all that trouble for your daughter, she says.

     Huh? I say. It is not for her. Why would you think that? It is just that it is very unusual to find a celebrity in Indiana.

     Ha! Natalia says. Right. Not for her. OK. You are just going to Trader Joe’s a dozen times a week to see a hunky singer-songwriter for the sole reason that it is very unusual to find a celebrity in Indiana.

     That’s what I just said, I say.

     She laughs again and puts her densely freckled hand on my arm. It’s shockingly cold. If she wasn’t so mean to me all the time, I would think she was flirting with me. But then again, everyone I’ve ever known has been mean to me, especially the few who’ve loved me.

     Steve, she says. You are hilarious.

***

I’ve abandoned my plans for, quite certainly, the final time. I admit now the problem is I’m too nervous to approach Harry Styles. I could’ve waited in line. I could’ve done that. My teenage daughter’s friend Chloe could’ve driven her home from swim practice. She has a Hyundai Sonata that her wealthy consultant parents bought for her. I knew Chloe was an option all along, but the truth is I was making excuses because I was frightened. Every time I found myself in Harry Styles’s line, I simply thought of some reason why I could not go through with it, so that I could avoid the frightening prospect of for-once-achieving-a-goal-I’d-set-for-myself.

     What would there be to do next, then?

     So, I’m done. I will go home. I will use my remaining time on this earth more wisely, perhaps by planning a vacation for my teenage daughter and me to take together. We went to Disneyland once, when she was six. We rode the Goofy’s Sky School roller coaster exactly 36 times over the course of three magnificent, boiling Southern California days. The violent jiggling of Goofy’s poorly made aircraft made me carsick, but the experience made my daughter grin, so I promised her we would do it 1,500 times if that’s what she wanted.

     Maybe we will go back. Maybe the ride will still be there, will hold the same appeal.

     Excuse me? a voice says in the parking lot.

     I turn and find Harry Styles approaching. The setting sun is behind his hair, casting orange flashes that obscure my vision. His posture is incredible.

     Would you be so kind as to give me a jump, mate? He points to what I realize is his car: an old, lime-green station wagon with pink flowers stenciled on the sides. The hood is up.

     I swallow, but there’s nothing to swallow. I push my hair out of my eyes, but there’s no hair to push out of my eyes. The sun is setting so fast I can feel my skin getting colder as I stand here.

     I have jumper cables in my trunk, I tell him. But you will need to explain how to use them.

     Ha, he says, slapping me on the back.

     Good man, he calls me.

***

The front door creaks as I push it open.

     Madison? I call. My teenage daughter does not respond.

     There’s someone here who’d like to meet you.

     A chair scrapes against tile in the kitchen, and a moment later, my teenage daughter comes down the hallway, a look of trepidation on her face. This wariness transforms into horror as Harry Styles enters behind me, grinning.

     Your da’ said you were a fan, he says to her, apologetically. He did me a favor tonight, he says, so I wanted to repay him.

     My teenage daughter looks to him and looks to me. She does not look happy. I realize I’ve made a mistake. It occurs to me that she was being truthful when she told me she no longer loved Harry Styles. My stomach churns with concrete.

     Why is it so hard to believe your children when they tell you they no longer care for something they once loved?

     I’m about to turn and tell Harry Styles he should go when Madison puts her hand on my arm. She looks like she wants to pull me aside into the alcove and box my ears. But I also see the awareness on her face that she is being rude to a guest.

     It’s nice to meet you, she says to Harry, taking her hand off me and putting it out to him. He takes it and kisses it. I avert my eyes. She snorts.

     I was just about to put in a frozen pizza, she says.

***

Harry Styles and my teenage daughter are sitting on the love seat, laughing so loudly I worry we may get a complaint at any point from our neighbors. On the coffee table before us are two empty bottles of wine and a half-full thing of expensive whiskey my father left me in his will, which I’d been saving for a night when I wouldn’t be too sad to drink it.

     I’m incredibly warm, and the living room moves from side to side in gentle, unpredictable spasms. One of us got a fire going hours ago. When was the last time there was a fire in this house? When was the last time my daughter snorted with laughter?

     A dozen times? Harry Styles asks my teenage daughter, then looks to me for confirmation. A dozen times you came to see me?

     At least! shrieks my daughter.

     I grin and shrug. My ears are hot as tea kettles.

     Harry Styles sinks back into the couch, as though hit with a sudden wave of remorse.

     I can’t believe I never noticed you, mate, he says to me.

     I sometimes fear I’m invisible, I admit to him. He throws back his head like a werewolf and barks with laughter. My teenage daughter smacks him in the chest.

     Don’t laugh! she says. That invisible thing’s hereditary! I worry I got it too!

     She narrows her eyes and points at me accusatorially.

     You made me the way I am, she says.

     Then she notices that she’s unable to keep her finger trained on me. It drifts like a weather vane in a breeze. This prompts her to snort again, Harry Styles to howl at the moon, and my insides to flood with warmth, not good warmth, but not bad warmth.

***

In the morning, before I wake, I’m aware of something heavy against my chest, a scratchy material bristling against my neck and arms. I open my eyes to find laid over me the duck quilt that my teenage daughter knitted in eighth-grade home economics. I look over and see Harry Styles face down on the opposite couch, snoring into the cracked leather cushion. My brain feels engorged with moisture, pressing against the insides of my head.

     Where has my teenage daughter gone, I wonder? Upstairs to her bedroom? To a friend’s house? A boyfriend’s house? Has she gone to the beach, to dip her toes into the frothy water to calm her anxiety, like she used to do when she was young? Has she gone to McDonald’s to pick up egg McMuffins for us all?

     The quilt smells like her closet: Tide Downy detergent with a hint of nail polish remover. The ducks stitched into the cloth are awkward and misshapen. They frown up at me hopefully. The material they’re made of snags against my unshaven chin with little pinpricks.

     I bury my face in them, despite how they hurt me.

© Variant Literature Inc 2023