Why moms are weird, p.14
Why Moms Are Weird, page 14
“You haven’t done nearly as much staring at my ass.” He gives his rump a little shake, like an apathetic hula dancer.
“You need a haircut,” I tell him.
“Did you learn that one from your mother?”
“I did, as a matter of fact. Now let me call you a redneck.”
Zack isn’t finished. “You’re a smart girl. I bet you already know what’s going on here.” He drops to a pile of wood, elbows on knees, and proceeds to diagnose. “You like being needed,” he says.
“Brilliant conclusion, Zack. Next you’ll tell me I enjoy breathing and sleep.”
I feel like he’s trying to trap me into some kind of confession. “I am not the problem here,” I say.
“Neither am I, Sugar Hips.”
“When was this conversation even about you? And that’s a lousy nickname. Give me a different one.”
“I can go back to calling you Ugly.”
“Keep trying.”
Then Zack says, “I want you to know that I’ve decided I’m cool with us flirting, because it’s not going to go anywhere. Plus, I know you can’t help it.”
“Really.”
“Look at me, Benny. I’m a fucking Abercrombie & Fitch model over here.”
He’s right. But still. “I’m managing.”
“For now.”
I want to go over there, slap him, kiss him, and fuck him. I can’t explain this. I just know it’s what I’d like to happen right now. It’s a weird way to feel lust, but there’s something about our banter combined with the boredom of menial labor that makes the little voice in my head play “What if?” We’d fool around on these wooden boards full of rusty nails until we’re exhausted and covered in tetanus. In the silence of this minute, I can tell we’re both thinking it. We’re living it in our heads—naked and sweaty and breathless. It’s perfect up here, in the fantasy. There are no weird body parts, or limbs getting tangled up in each other. Our mouths open just right and our tongues touch in that way they’re supposed to. It’s not spit or drool, or spastic dry humping without an ounce of dignity; it’s the movie version of bodies combining.
Zack snaps his fingers. “Earth to Benny. Quit fucking me with your eyes.”
I jump, having been caught. “I wasn’t.” The skin on my face betrays me.
Zack crosses his arms in front of his chest, demurely. “Then why do I feel so violated?” he asks, in a girlish voice.
“Shut up,” I say.
“Man, you are one messed up little girl.” He clucks his tongue. “The things I’d do to you.”
“To my head?”
“That, too.”
Our semi-inappropriate banter continues through the afternoon, as we lug large panels of wood out to a nearby Dumpster.
It’s late and getting dark when he asks, “Does it make you sad that we’ll never have sex?”
“Not as sad as it should make you.”
He suddenly gets incredibly serious. “No, really, Benny,” he says. “It is much sadder for you.”
I bite. “How so?”
“I’m so good at fucking that if I fucked you, I’d ruin fucking for you for the rest of your life.”
I hope he didn’t see that my left foot just tripped over my right. I concentrate on rooting my feet to the ground.
“Quit looking at me like that,” he says. “You’re giving yourself way too much credit.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“You’re thinking for someone who’s in a relationship, I’ve been pretty inappropriate.”
“You just said you’d fuck me so good I wouldn’t want to fuck anymore.”
“I was joking, Ugly. Pay attention.”
My head’s all mixed up and I feel like everything I say he turns into either something dirty or incriminating. So I tell him, “You’re an asshole,” and storm back into the house, his laughter echoing behind me.
Just before I slam the back door I hear him shout, “Was it something I said?”
Making Up.
I don’t hear Mom enter my room, which must mean I’ve become accustomed to the rhythmic clonking of her cast, like a little pirate hobbling around.
She touches my shoulder. “Are you awake?”
It’s dark, and I could easily pretend I’m not. This could be her way of continuing the Benihana argument, waiting until I’m dazed and twilight-y from near sleep so she could close in for the kill. But there’s something about having Mom check on me in bed, just like when I was little, that sets me at ease.
“I am, Ma,” I say. “You okay?”
“Do you want to cuddle?”
She snuggles into my bed headfirst, wriggling her way into the covers like a puppy.
Her cast is noticeably heavy on top of the comforter, but the rest of Mom is under the covers, her curly hair in my face. She’s wearing a jogging suit that still smells like the lemon chicken we had for dinner. She rests her head next to mine and sighs. I reach out my hand and rub her shoulder. Mom takes this as a signal, and moves closer to me. She rests her head on my shoulder. We are cuddling, but I’m the one holding my mom.
It’s very, very weird.
I don’t want it to be. I’m sure all kinds of moms and daughters spoon, right? Normal families get together and cuddle, right? We used to share a bed all the time. This is exactly what happens in every other home in America at this hour, I’m sure.
I’m spooning my mother. Maybe I should Google that, find out how many other women find themselves in bed with their moms.
“I can’t find your ring, Ma.”
“You will.”
“I hope so.”
While I know this can’t be what most people do, and it’s probably illegal in at least three states, it’s still kind of nice. It’s Mom and me, sharing a blanket, in a rare quiet moment when all we’re doing is enjoying each other. This woman made me. She should get to cuddle me whenever she wants. She spent years with me attached to her side. Why should it be weirder now that I’m more than a couple of decades old?
“I’m sorry we fought,” Mom says. Her face is turned away from mine, so it’s hard to hear her mumbles at first. I realize what she’s said a few seconds later.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. And I’m really glad you’ve come home.”
I know what she means. She means her home. But I also know what she means. She means this can be my home, the second I declare it.
“Are you still mad at Gregory?” she asks.
I can’t hesitate too long here. I stall with words, choosing them like we’re playing three-card monte, because I know no matter which one I pick, no matter how sure I am I made the right choice, it’ll end up being the wrong one. “I wasn’t mad. I don’t know him very well.”
“He’s my favorite, of all of them,” she says, rotating to face me. “He’s worried he insulted you. He’s not a racist. He’s had a really difficult life. His father killed his mother, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
How the fuck would I?
“Ax,” Mom says. Like it’s so common to ax another human being that one word is sufficient enough to explain the entire homicide. I let it go because now is not the time to hear that story. Not before I go to sleep, for God’s sake.
Mom runs her fingers through my hair, sliding her hand along my forehead. It’s incredibly soothing. “I worry about you over there,” she says. “My baby out in California.”
“I’m fine.”
“So far away. Getting as far away from me as you can.”
“That’s not why I’m out there.”
Mom’s voice drops to a whisper. “Then why?”
It makes my heart hurt. To even insinuate I’m trying to harm her by living in another time zone, my mother is making me feel like the worst daughter ever. She must know that I’d live here if I could.
If I wanted to.
See? She’s still right, even when she’s wrong.
“I like it out there, Ma.”
“Here’s nice, too, Boobs. We have travel agencies.”
“I have a boy out there.”
Forgive me, Mickey, for using you as an excuse.
“The one who calls you all the time?”
“He doesn’t call all the time.”
“You’re always on the phone with him.”
This isn’t true. Jami is always on the phone with Charles. I talk to Zack way more often than I have ever chatted with Mickey. I could let this escalate into a bicker, but I choose not to. “His name’s Mickey.”
“Like the mouse?” She sounds disgusted.
“Like the baseball player. Mickey Mantle?”
Okay, one little lie. You’d totally do the same thing. Don’t even look at me like that.
“When do I meet this baseball player?”
“He works at a music store.”
Mom’s quiet here, which is her way of saying eighteen thousand things, all of which have to do with the fact that someone who works in a music store probably isn’t making any money, which means I’m probably going to pay for his living expenses, which was her only problem with Brian, whom she’s probably still hoping I’ll get back together with because his family lives in Maryland, which means she’d see me more often.
Mom’s quiet for so long, in fact, that she falls asleep.
I’m twenty-seven years old and sleeping in a twin daybed with my mother.
You know what this means? My mom finally got her wish. Both of her daughters are living with her. We’re lost and lonely, unemployed and running out of money. We now actually need each other to survive.
I wonder if it’s too late to call Child Protective Services on her.
Get Away.
Jami needs to pick something up from crappy Charles, and I’m the only one of the three of us who currently has a car. Why Gregory chose me to entrust with his vehicle says a lot about the kind of drivers my mother and sister are.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Mom’s in the passenger side, and Jami’s straddling the middle of the backseat, leaning in between us. Seat belts are for pussies, she informed us—this coming from a woman who has been in no fewer than five car accidents.
“The bank,” Jami answers.
“I didn’t know Charles worked at a bank.” Mom sounds so pleased with this new tidbit of information, as if this suddenly gave him a high school diploma. Jami’s careful not to have this boy anywhere near the house, so we feed off new facts about Charles like guppies to fish food.
“He does security for them,” Jami says, rolling her eyes. “It’s one of his part-time jobs.”
“Is it hard for him to find full-time?” Mom’s trying to make this question sound casual but it’s failing. We all know, but won’t discuss, how Charles recently spent some time in prison. Not jail—prison. And Jami finally admitted that recently means he got out six months ago. And recently means that it’s not the only time he’s been there, just the most recent one. She was vague, promising he never hurt anybody, which makes me think he must have stolen some serious shit. Mom’s hoping it was drugs.
Yes, you’re understanding that correctly. In the board game of my sister’s love life, I’m rooting for grand theft, while Mom’s got her money on crack dealing.
Jami tells us about the car she’s going to buy herself when she gets a job.
“You don’t need a Hummer,” Mom says.
“Ma,” Jami argues, cool like she’s had this line of defense prepared for weeks. “We live very close to our nation’s capital. You never know when we’re going to be living in a war zone.”
“Then please spend the money to build us a bomb shelter. I could use the storage.”
Jami snorts in disgust and sits back for the first time since we left the house. We are nearing Charles’s bank. “Let me out in front,” she says. “I’ll just be a minute.” I get out of the car and help her climb out of the backseat.
I idle in front of the bank while Jami runs in. Once she’s past the glass doors, I turn to my mother. “It’s weird we’ve never met Charles, right?” I ask. “I mean, not nearly as weird as the fact that he’s been to prison. He’s a felon. We act like Jami said he’s a Gemini, but she said he went to prison. That’s where bad people go. How can they let him do security when he went to prison? What piece of shit security company does this bank use?”
With a sudden intensity, Mom grabs my knee, hard enough that there’s going to be a bruise. “What if they’re robbing the bank right now?”
It’s crazy, and I know it’s crazy, but as she says it, I know she’s right. Charles and Jami are robbing the bank right now. The revelation makes my mouth dry instantly.
“We’re the getaway car,” I whisper.
“Drive away,” Mom says.
“But Jami!”
“Don’t leave,” Mom corrects herself as she lowers her passenger side mirror to get a glance behind us. “But drive away from the door.”
I slowly put the car into gear and inch it.
“You’re driving too slowly!” Mom shouts.
“I don’t know how to do this!” I shout back. “I’ve never driven a getaway car before!”
“You have to drive faster. Like you know where you’re going.”
“Where am I going? And how do you know how to drive a getaway car?”
Mom puts her hand on the wheel and urges it to the left. “Go to the other end of the parking lot.”
I drive away from the bank, circling the rows of parked cars, until we’re hiding behind a Dumpster. I shift the car into an idling gear. “Don’t we look even more suspicious now?”
“You’re right.” Mom sounds all business. She’s tucked her casted leg up on the seat. She’s got one hand over her face, like she needs to hide herself from her thoughts. “You’re going to have to go get your sister.”
“Ma!”
She grabs my arm. “She won’t know where we are. She’ll think we left her.”
“What if she robbed a bank?”
“She’s your sister!”
That’s somehow enough logic to get me out of the car, running wildly across the parking lot, trying to avoid the gunfire I imagine is seconds away from hitting me. I’m running like a panicked dork toward the bank doors, and all I can think is that I have no idea what I’m doing, or what my sister’s going to do when she emerges from the bank with bags of money and I don’t even have a gun. How did my sister get messed up in all of this? Why can’t she date normal guys? Why don’t we have a getaway plan?
I can hear my mother screaming my name from across the lot. “Benny!” she shouts. “Come back!”
Right. Yes, I should go back. Back to the car, where it’s safe. Good idea, Mom.
I serpentine my way back across the lot, a series of skips and jumps like I’m dodging lightning as I run toward the little sports car.
Please let me make it out of this parking lot alive. Please don’t let me get shot. Please don’t let me be on the evening news. Please don’t let my sister make us accessories to a felony. Please.
Mom’s in the driver’s seat itching to go. “We have to get your sister,” she says. “Even if what she did is wrong, we love her, and we have to protect her.”
It’s how I feel, too. I want to help Jami, no matter how bad her life might get, no matter how shitty the boyfriend. If she needs to rob a bank today, I need to help her ditch the cops until tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, until I drive her to Mexico with a suitcase filled with unmarked bills. I don’t care. She’s my blood, and she’s everything to me.
I can see Jami standing outside the bank doors. “There!” I shout, pointing.
Mom guns the gas.
We reach her in seconds flat. Jami is holding a two-liter of Dr Pepper and a pair of large, worn tennis shoes. “What the fuck is wrong with you guys?” she asks, her face scrunched into a furious frown. “You drove off!”
“Get in the car,” Mom shouts. “Get in!”
“I call shotgun, then.”
What if she has a shotgun?
We all get out of the car, changing positions. Mom crawls into the backseat. I take the wheel again. Jami takes her sweet time getting into the car. She opens up the two-liter and awkwardly takes a sip. “Charles knows I love Dr Pepper,” she says. “Isn’t he sweet, giving me this bottle for picking up his Nikes?”
“Why did you need his shoes?” I ask, wondering if they’re filled with cash, or made of explosives.
“We’re playing tennis when he gets off work and he didn’t want to have to carry his shoes on the bus. Mom, why are you all sweaty?”
Mom’s laughing a nervous laugh, and I’m still too amped to talk.
“What?” Jami asks.
“Nothing,” Mom and I say at the same time.
“Jesus Christ, you two are loony.”
Mom gives me the briefest of glances in the rearview mirror. We never tell Jami how close she was to getting away with the perfect crime.
Cheese.
I want a family photo. I want to be a normal family, and normal families have pictures hanging on their walls of everyone gathered together, hands resting on each other’s shoulders, smiles pasted awkwardly on their faces, hair captured at an unfortunate moment in time, and everybody looks just seconds away from a meltdown.
Since I found boxes of myself in storage exile, I started noticing just how many pictures of Jami were on display inside the house. There’s one of Jami from her softball years on the bookcase in the living room. A baby picture of Jami holding her favorite doll is in the kitchen, near the microwave. There’s one of Dad and Jami jumping on a trampoline. It hangs on the wall at the bottom of the staircase. I found one picture of myself—my high school graduation photo—in Mom’s bedroom. If a complete stranger walked into the house, he or she could conceivably guess that a three-person family unit lived there, and there was this cousin—or perhaps an inner-city child they sponsored—one who’s thought about, but rarely seen.
I’ve asked Zack to take the picture. His eyes can’t stop roaming around our house. Now that he can see Mom’s ceramic collection of miniature dogs, the stacks of random objects at the end of the hallway that I still haven’t sorted, the overflow of crap in every bedroom, I wonder if entering my mother’s house confirmed his suspicions that she is a crazy lady and the people she loves are even crazier.
