It didn’t have to be Austria. It didn’t have to be my new step-mother. We were out in a field and we were groovy.

My father was crouched in the bowels of a gutted plane fixing his goggles into place, the roar of the engine filling his head. I was fantasizing about flight, a bird’s, a plane’s, not my father’s—I don’t know what thoughts were going through his head. Maybe no fantasies at all, maybe the reality of the sport was enough.

I had on my apple green stretchy pants and my new maroon clogs. My crinkly yellow wind-breaker had a hood furled into its zippered collar. A couple of blankets had been spread on the grass and overhead an orange windsock stood erect, jerking slightly in the steady breeze.

Rolf had been wearing a sweatshirt that said "Happiness is Relativ" with a group of cartoon sky-divers in a star-formation free fall. Everyone thought it was so funny, that since I didn’t know it was misspelled, I tried fruitlessly to imagine some dirty joke in connection with happiness or skydiving or relativity.

I just can’t see him falling. I can’t see the whip of the wind on him. I can’t hear the dull roar past his ears. I can’t feel his heart pumping, his stomach in his throat. Daddy falling. A backpack with threads and tangles and bits of fabric to keep him from smashing to the earth. I can’t see him falling.

During the preparation and the ascent of the plane I circled and dashed around the open field with my arms out spread. I threw my clogs into the sky and watched them fall one at a time. In landing, they tumbled and skittered across clumps of grass. Finally when the men’s descent didn’t come soon enough for me I released my hood. It whooshed and snapped at my ears. It covered my eyes and blinded me. It covered my nose and mouth and suffocated me. I twirled and smashed numbly to the earth.

Rolf’s girlfriend Katerine pulled me up off the ground and clamping one arm around my shoulders to steady me, pointed to the barely perceptible distance where one pointless dot (the plane, supposedly) disengaged from other pointless dots until those dots bloomed into bigger dots and the women and poor, injured Wolfgang clapped and cheered. By then I was feeling around in Juditka’s jacket for the rest of my white chocolate bar they’d told me I had to save for later.

A truck hurried out over the nubbled and rutted field to retrieve them, and as they pulled up the cheers and bravos renewed. Daddy, clinking and making zip noises, grabbed me in the same shoulder squishing grip Katerine had used and he kissed my new step-mother dramatically over my head.

The wedding had been just two days before. I had stood next to Daddy as the "best person" in my awkward and itchy wrap-around dress. The thing was too big for me and the v-neck leaned sadly over to one side.

That morning Daddy had made Juditka take me out and buy me the dress for the occasion. He may have thought that shopping would bring together the two women in his life. The store, a "hyper" market, was enormous and loud and bright. We made our way through a jungle of dress racks. She took me past the children’s section into the young women’s and I wasn’t about to pull her back into the smaller sizes that would have fit me. It felt like a challenge; could I fill this dress. So I yanked at the first dress I laid eyes on. It hung heavily on the hanger in a stretchy, shiny material that seemed to bounce when it moved. Little purple and pink abstracted flowers zoomed and lurched all over it. Juditka looked at the price tag, shook the dress out at arms length and examined it. Then she sighed and said "Naya."

Juditka, apparently, felt I was spoiled. She deplored American children, and was not happy with the fact that my father had been married before. I had heard Juditka’s opinion of me quite clearly from the next room, or the back seat of the car, or walking along a few feet behind them, and my father never said anything. Not a word. He just got, eventually, very charming and made her laugh or tickled me. She let the dress down by her side, and the bottom of it dragged along the ground as she walked off toward the cashier.

For his wedding, I wanted Daddy to see how badly the thing fit me, so I purposefully only wrapped one side around leaving the other bunched under my arm. But nobody noticed. I stood listening to the judge speak oaths and admonitions in German. It sounded like chanted gibberish to me and it made me feel sleepy. My arm pit itched.

That night I stayed with Rolf and Katerine in the apartment he and Daddy used to share. I went straight to my room and I didn’t cry.

Now it was two days later, we’d just been sky-diving and Daddy, Rolf and I were heading back to Rolf’s flat for dinner. The next morning, Sunday, Daddy would move the rest of his things over to Juditka’s, and Katerine would move her things into Rolf’s place. So this night the no-longer bachelors would celebrate their last bachelors’ dinner and the last sleep-over in their former bachelor pad. On the way there in Rolf’s tiny car, Daddy explained that even though Rolf wasn’t married to Katerine, now that they were going to be roommates, he wasn’t really a bachelor anymore either. Rolf laughed. "Spread out the misery," he said in his choppy, deep voice.

"Poor Rolf," I said.

"Yea, poor us," Rolf said. And they laughed. They said they needed me along because I was the only real bachelor left.

"Bachelorette," I corrected them.

I’m sure now that my presence at the party had been Juditka’s idea.

For dinner we would have the bachelor specials; oysters, scrambled eggs with special secret bachelor sauce, hunks of bread to tear at, not cut, and Wiener sausage with very hot mustard.

Daddy had lived with Rolf in his little apartment in Vienna from the time he arrived almost three years before, until he started to see Juditka, my new step-mother. Then sometimes he stayed with her. His job with the importers had fallen through only a few months after he’d gotten there, but Rolf said he’d been needed out at the field. Rolf and some friends owned a few planes and the equipment and gave lessons on weekends. Daddy was thinking of becoming a partner.

Their bachelor’s apartment was in a highrise that had a far view of the Danube from a narrow balcony. The summer was wet and misty and the apartment was a little bit dingy. Somehow it was always messy even when everything was put away. There were a few skydiving posters in the kitchen. Otherwise the walls were empty. Rolf had a little cat that only said "ow." It left out the other part entirely. It would open its mouth in a grimace, its puffed out cheeks rising in a clear attempt to say that part, and then it would just croak out "ow." Her name was Babe and she didn’t like to be pet that much. She ran out of the room when Daddy put on his Stevie Wonder album and cranked up "Superstition" as loud as it would go. It was the last we saw of her all night.

I boogied around the nearly empty living room. "When you believe in things" and I nodded and pressed my hands to my chest, "you don’t understand" and I shook my head and jabbed at it with my fingers "then you su-u-u-uffer!" and I pressed the back of my hand to my upturned brow, my knees buckling.

My daddy stood in the doorway to the kitchen, clapping and sending encouraging "groovy!"s in after me. "Psychedelic!" he said and knitting his fingers under his chin with his elbows out flat, he rolled his eyes and ran his head back and forth on the surface his arms made. I squatted and, prayerful hands above my head, twisted and tilted my neck so that my head went of its own path straight back and forth over my level shoulders, in a real swami sort of way. "Hey Rolf, you’ve gotta see this!" Daddy shouted proudly.

The music was loud. I could feel it pumping through my ribs. When the song finally ended, Daddy was at the record player. His hair was slick from his shower and he was wearing his white turtleneck and his natural-look white bell-bottoms. He lifted the needle, and set it gently to one side. Taking the record expertly by the edges, he flipped it over in one motion as he lifted it from the player. "Aren’tcha going to change into your jump-suit for the party?" he asked me, grinning.

"Yeah!" I shouted and I ran into the guest room. My jumpsuit was an orange green and yellow swirly-patterned zip-up one-piece with cap sleeves and a low turtle neck, the legs long and belled all the way down. It was my party outfit and I loved it.

I heard the first notes of Blood Sweat and Tears’ "You Make Me So Very Happy," and made my entrance into the kitchen dramatic with the trumpets. "Groova-mundo!" said my father, "Groove-ita." And he flourishingly proffered a board with slices of bell pepper and tomato wedges sprinkled with seasoned salt. Rolf was preparing the sauce. He turned toward the doorway and smiled as I took a pepper wedge and holding it above my head, lowered it slowly into my mouth.

"Yeah, yeah! Hey," Daddy said. "We’re gonna have to have a limbo contest later."

"Right on!" I said and I shimmied into a chair at the kitchen table.

"No, not here," said my Dad. He steered me out onto the balcony where the white wine was chilling, the red wine was breathing, the plates and forks were piled, and the bar was stocked with the blender and shakers and bottles and glasses.

"European children drink wine from the time they’re old enough to sit at the table," he said pouring a little red wine and then water into a tall stemmed glass.

"I love wine," I said, maturely.

Daddy explained what made this wine special and very expensive. First I swirled it in the glass, spilling very little. Then I took a sip and said, "Mmm hmmm," in a slow and considered way. Daddy asked me if it would do. I told him it would and then looked back over at the plates. "Hey," I said, "you put out too many plates."

That was when the doorbell rang. "They’re here," Daddy said, heading back into the kitchen where the front door was. I stood still on the balcony. The Danube and the hills in the distance and the texture of roof tops and spires and the threads of streets seemed to retreat from the railing. I heard the odd "doo-da, doo-da," of their sirens. They didn’t even sound like real sirens. They were foreign-sounding. It didn’t even sound like a proper emergency.

Juditka and Katerine were supposed to be at a concert. I hadn’t had Daddy to myself since I got there. I heard the jingling of feminine jewelry, smelled the waft of strange perfume and heard the giggling and kissing of giddy hellos as I walked into the kitchen.

It wasn’t them. Before my father saw me, the first woman leaned down, her fingernailed hands spread on each knee and said "This must be your little girl!" in a high and only lightly accented voice. A wide scarf hung down from her neck. Two necklaces swung one against the other and pushed her scarf back and forth with an odd hitched rhythm.

My father turned and the second woman came around from behind him. She put her hand on top of my head. "Can this really be YOUR daughter?" she said. I shrugged her hand off and walked over to the counter to check the sauce. I picked up a spoon authoritatively and stirred.

"Pumpkin, this is Briggita and that’s Helena, old friends of ours," my father said. "Let’s get them some drinks, okay? Come on, babe," and he put his hand on my shoulder and led me back out to the balcony. "We’re going to make some Frozen Whiskey Sours, you love those, yeah?"

"Can I fumphalate it?" I said, looking up at him.

"You sure can," Daddy said, and he lifted me onto a foot stool by the bar. He poured in the sour mix and the whiskey and began cracking the ice cubes. I pressed the blender’s button and held the top on with my other hand.

"Fumphalator, fumphalator, fumphalate for me," we sang under the scream of the blender, "fumphalator, fumphalator, ready one two three," and I flicked the switch off and removed the top. Daddy put in some more ice cubes and we repeated the highly scientific process. By the time Rolf brought the others out to the balcony, Daddy and I were laughing and pouring out the whiskey sours into thick bubbly dark blue glasses. Mine consisted of a pile of maraschino cherries, with a little sour dribbled on top.

"Ladies?" my Dad said handing us our drinks. Rolf went back into the kitchen to finish the eggs. The record had ended by then, so Daddy went into the other room to change it. Briggita followed him. I followed her.

"Sweetheart?" Helena said. I stopped at the sliding glass door and glanced back over my shoulder at her. She was sitting on the wicker throne chair, patting the slinged canvas chair next to her. "Do you go to school here or in America?"

I turned back toward the living room and hitched a hand on the cold aluminum frame. "I live with my mother," I said. They were standing at the record player. I heard the other side of Blood Sweat and Tears go on.

"Sprechen-ze Deutsch?" she asked playfully. She lit a cigarette with a fist sized table lighter.

I took my cup of cherries and brought the plate of peppers over to her. "No I don’t," I said, sitting.

"Maltzite!" Rolf called from the kitchen. We all went into the kitchen to help carry out platters and dishes. Daddy carried the oysters and said something in German as he hoisted them up that made everyone laugh.

"What." He didn’t hear me. "What."

"Oh," he said, touching my head with a hand he’d just freed from Briggita’s back, "Oh I said, uhm, `here’s to the oysters; hope they don’t suffer too much on our account!’" and they laughed again. Lower this time. "Okay?" he said softly. And he guided me to the deck chair with the fringed pillows on it. "A throne for my princess," he said. As he arranged the pillows under my feet, I could see Helena lean toward Briggita and whisper to her, smiling and nodding at me. I looked at my father.

"Are they..." I started to ask.

"Okay, Baby," he said, putting the oysters on the low table next to me, "Ladies," he said, addressing them too. "A small demonstration—you people don’t get oysters around here too much. Just want to make sure no one gets hurt, okay?" He picked up a gnarled and puckered shell, dripping with juice. "Rolfie, you did a great job shucking these babies. An oyster genius," he said picking up a lemon. "When you eat an oyster, you have to be sure it’s healthy," he squeezed the lemon onto the wet grey thing. "There! Did you see it?"

"No," I protested.

He held it closer to me. "She wiggled there. She’s a healthy one. That means we can go ahead." They laughed. I laughed too. "Now the sauce, `muy picante’" and he winked at me. He spooned on the sauce, light orange with horse radish. "Maltzite!" he said and loudly slurped the thing in. Everybody applauded.

"Ah-h," he said, looking at the empty shell in his hand and shaking his head. "Thanks honey." The women were laughing so hard by now that they were wheezing and leaning into each other. Briggita’s face was red and Helena wiped at her eyes. Daddy fixed one for me next, and then helped Briggita and Helena, feeding the oysters to them with the little fork he used to free the squirming things from their shells. He let Rolf do his own.

After dinner Daddy ushered us all into the living room, reminding us we were to have a limbo dance. Rolf and I pushed the old sagging couch and mismatched ottoman to the wall while Daddy searched for a broom or mop for the pole. He came back with the toilet plunger and two ends. "Two games in one!" he said, and he stuck the rubber disks to either end of the stick. "Limbo and the wondrous Bellilator!" The women tittered. Rolf put on the Guess Who.

First we all danced around, Helena and Briggita taking turns on the bellilator with Rolf. One of them would press her belly into one of the plungers and he would press his into the other end. Then they would dance around, their arms high in the air, keeping their gyrating bodies in sync so as not to drop the stick. When they were done Rolf waved me over from on top of the couch where I was bouncing. "Come on!" he said. But I shook my head, so Daddy took his turn with them. Then Daddy announced the limbo contest would begin.

Rolf put American Woman back on since I was to go first. He turned it up even louder. The music pumped through my head and made me dizzy. If it hadn’t been so loud, we might have heard the keys and the clunk of the lock, we might have heard her come through the kitchen and stop in the threshold looking into the living room. I was bent back and shuffle-stepping under my father and his old girlfriend’s moving figures, and when I flipped up again, a smile of triumph on my face, I saw her. And then they saw her.

But Juditka looked at me, her lips pressed into a straight line. Before anyone could turn the music back down, I saw her mouth move.