Mourning Glory (5 page)

"Turns me on, Mom," Jackie quipped. "Just
don't worry so much. I can handle him."

"Handle him? You shouldn't even go near him,"
Grace sighed, feeling suddenly nauseous. She did know about Jackie's sexual
proclivities but had never brought herself to picture her doing it, actually
having sex. Except for dire warnings, they had never discussed it in intimate
or graphic terms. She supposed it was a form of denial. Or acceptance. She
wasn't sure which. What made it even more terrible was that it was being done
in her bed, her own private place. It added to her sense of violation.

"He's a low-life slob, Jackie. White trash," she
managed to say.

"That's Darryl's biker image, Mom. Macho man. So he's
a skinhead, but don't let his macho talk fool you. He's smart."

"I forbid you to see him," Grace said.

"Forbid? Now you're my jailer."

Grace sighed in despair.

"This isn't fair, Jackie," Grace said. "It's
a worry we don't need. Why can't you size up this situation...?"

"Worry about yourself, Mom. I'm perfectly capable of
watching out for myself. Haven't you always taught me the value of
self-reliance? Hell, last year you got me the
Book of Virtues,
remember?"

On a whim, Grace had picked it up at a secondhand
bookstand. She thought the title apt but hadn't read it herself.

"I thought you might learn something." She
shrugged.

Jackie harrumphed with mocking humor, unwrapping the turban
and starting to towel dry her hair.

"This is serious, Jackie."

"That's the problem." Jackie moved the towel
vigorously.

"I don't want to see this ever again," Grace
said, recognizing the weakness and futility of her warning, deliberately
shifting the focus of the argument. She knew in her heart that Jackie would
defy her admonition. "And I don't want to come home to this. Do you read
me? In my bed, no less?"

"You know what it means to open the studio couch, Mom.
It's a hassle." She smiled ruefully. "Okay. I didn't know you would
come home. I mean, I do see your point. It must have shocked the shit out of
you. Believe me, I understand. I mean, seeing your daughter balling a guy. Mom,
I may be sixteen, but I'm a woman, and I have needs and emotions."

"What about self-control? Morals?"

"Morals? Really, Mom. What's wrong with getting laid?
It's a normal thing. And it feels good. I mean, do you really believe I don't
know about that dildo in your drawer? I never asked. But why don't you look for
the real thing? Believe me, I'll respect your privacy."

"It's ... it's dangerous..." Grace cried, her
face flushing, hating the idea of her little secret revealed. She felt she was
floundering somewhere in a time warp. "He wasn't wearing a condom. Haven't
you heard about AIDS?"

"Mom, he's not diseased. He's very clean. Don't you
think I look first?"

The image that statement summoned up was the last straw.

"Are you totally ignorant, Jackie?" Grace
shouted. "You can't see a virus. It's terminal."

"He's not gay, Mom. And I never let him..."

"Enough," Grace said, standing up. She felt
herself on the other side of anger, something akin to disbelief. She was not a
prude or a fool. Yes, she had known that an older boy had deflowered Jackie at
a beachside party. She had cried then, more out of her sense of powerlessness
over her daughter's life and the realization that her child's girlhood had
ended. She was, by biological definition, a woman, or so the act seemed to
herald. But the fact was, it was a false positive. It was obvious that Jackie's
emotional maturity hadn't yet caught up with her hormonal development. Would it
ever? Grace wondered, dreading her daughter's future.

Jackie hadn't mourned the end of her virgin state. She
reveled in it. She had been positively celebratory, just as she had been when
she had her first period. Grace, being an enlightened mother, not like her own,
had whisked her to a gynecologist. The doctor prescribed birth control pills,
along with dire warnings about the dangers of promiscuity, all of which Jackie
had apparently ignored.

"You just can't bed down with anyone who asks,"
Grace said, searching for some common ground.

"I don't, Mom. What do you think I am? I told you. The
reason I ball Darryl is he's good at it."

"Jesus, Jackie," Grace sighed. "Will
pregnancy be next?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm very religious about taking
my pills."

Grace shook her head, feeling the total loss of all
parental authority. She supposed it was partially her fault, acknowledging that
concerned parenting had taken a backseat to sheer economic survival. Surely
Jackie could not doubt that her mother loved her. That was a given. As a single
mother, she had tried her best to shelter her daughter from the dangers of
living on the edge of economic disaster. Hadn't she been dutiful, concerned and
protective during the early years, before the hormonal rush had diluted her
control over her daughter's life?

It was all coping now, dealing with issues of parenting
only when they arrived on her doorstep. It was almost impossible to make the
right decisions every time one was required. The best she could do was to live
in hope that mother and daughter could surmount the problems of the teen years
and look forward to a better future for both of them. The shock of observing
her daughter in this shameless exhibition had exposed Grace's failure as a role
model and a mother.

All right, she conceded, she did have sex with Jason before
they were married. It felt normal, just as long as it was exclusive and
private. Her mother, the papal groupie, would never believe such a thing could
happen. She would be the last person on earth for her to confide in. The woman
would have spent overtime in the confessional and doubled her prayers for her
daughter's soul. Her father, the barber, would have been oblivious,
disbelieving and indifferent. The act of sex, after years of deprivation, would
not be in his frame of reference.

The image of the little man with the thick Italian accent
appeared in her mind. A decent, compassionate man, he had endured the woman who
was her mother until her death. More fanatical than a nun, Mama Sorentino's
life revolved around the Church and the confessional. She had believed that
somehow Grace, her only child, had been responsible for killing the fertility
of her womb. Such an attitude did not make for a particularly joyous maternal
relationship.

Yet she did love her father, the long-suffering,
inarticulate Carmine, who had been liberated at last when his wife had gone to
her great reward. Could anyone have known that Grace had shed tears of joy at
her graveside, celebrating the little man's freedom? He still cut hair, played
checkers with his cronies, smoked ropy Italian cigars and lived above his
little shop in Baltimore.

She called him once a week. The conversation was always
stilted, the communication sparse. But somehow she sensed that he took comfort
in just hearing her voice. The words hardly mattered.

"Maybe we should confide more in each other,"
Grace said to Jackie, choosing the path of placation rather than confrontation.

"Mom, we do confide."

"Not enough."

"Mom, I can't tell you everything. Not
everything."

Grace sucked in a deep breath. What more could she be
hiding?

"You don't tell me everything, Mom," Jackie said,
planting a kiss on her mother's check. Grace felt suddenly grateful that her
daughter had not accused her of being jealous of her pleasure. Such an
accusation would be unnerving, hateful, although it was a real possibility. It
had to be in Jackie's thoughts, Grace was certain, grateful for the repression.
Perhaps, after all, she had raised a daughter with some character. Or were such
thoughts on her part merely a form of denial?

"I better get dressed, Mom. Phys Ed I can miss, not
math. Lose one day and it's worse the next."

"I'll drive you," Grace said, welcoming this
chance at repairing her relationship with her daughter.

"Great, Mom. Just great."

Again she kissed her on the cheek, then bounced into the
bathroom.

In a few minutes, Jackie was dressed, looking every bit the
prim high school junior. It was hard to reconcile this image of the wide-eyed
teenager with the girl wrapped around the naked form of the young man.

They got into Grace's Volkswagen.

"It's not—what did he call it?— an Evo something, but
it will have to do," she said, suddenly remembering Jason's motorcycle,
which he had taught Grace to operate. It wasn't a Harley-Davidson, but it had
its share of bells and whistles and, for a while, it was Jason's pride and joy.
Perhaps there was some truth in Jackie's remark. Maybe she had forgotten what
it was to be young. But that didn't negate her dark feelings about Darryl and
the danger he posed for Jackie.

"Darryl doesn't ask everyone, Mom. He says it's a
privilege."

"I wish you wouldn't," Grace said, starting the
car and backing it out of the parking space.

"Wish I wouldn't what?"

"Go near him."

Jackie shook her head, falling into silence.

"We're like two ships passing in the night,"
Grace said when they were heading toward Jackie's school.

"All in all, I think we do okay for a mother and
daughter," Jackie said. "I know girls who tell their parents nothing.
And I mean, there's lots to tell."

"I worry about you, Jackie."

"And I worry about you, Mom. Really I do. I would love
it if you found a guy." Jackie turned to Grace and smiled, showing her
glistening white teeth. "Like today. Maybe if we could devise a kind of
signal that the apartment was in use, we could avoid the ... you know ...
anyway, you wouldn't have been that upset."

"On top of everything, your stud socked me in the
stomach," Grace blurted.

"That's because he was frustrated. Don't you know
about men, Mom? Because of your interruption, he didn't get off. That's a sure
road to male hostility. They get real nasty when they get to a certain point
and don't get it off."

"I appreciate the insight," Grace muttered,
astonished, wondering how her child had acquired such knowledge.

Up to then, Grace thought she had heard everything.

"It happens to women, too. I already came two or three
times. I was just about to finish him."

"Jesus, Jackie. Where do you get all this?"

"From life's experiences, Mom. But this I can tell you
honestly: I don't drink and I don't do drugs. There, doesn't that put your mind
at ease?"

Did it really? She wasn't sure. But she did wonder who was
the mother and who was the daughter in this relationship. The fact was that she
felt inept and an abysmal failure as a parent.

"Maybe I'm naive," Grace sighed, half to herself.

The school loomed into view, and Jackie checked her makeup
in the visor mirror. But as the car slowed, Jackie turned to her suddenly.

"Why were you home so early?"

"I was fired," Grace said, actually enjoying the
revelation. She watched her daughter frown and shake her head.

"Are you serious?" Jackie asked, studying her
face.

"I was rude to one of their best customers."

"You were? That wasn't smart."

"I know. It was dumb."

"So what will we do now?"

Grace shrugged.

"I'm entitled to unemployment. That will give me some
breathing room."

"Breathing room? We've never had that."

"Don't worry, darling. I have plans."

"I guess that means the Donna Karan is out,"
Jackie said, pouting.

"Afraid so," Grace said.

"Not to mention the possibility of a car."

"It was never a possibility, Jackie."

"Shit, Mom. How could you be so stupid?"

"It's inherited."

"From who?"

"From you, Jackie. I inherited it from you."

It was supposed to elicit a laugh from Jackie. It didn't.
She had stopped the car in front of the school entrance. Jackie started to get
out, then scrutinized her mother's face.

"Sometimes I worry about you, Mom," Jackie said,
shaking her head. She kissed her mother on the cheek and bounced out of the
car. Grace watched her until her eyes filled with tears and Jackie became a
blur in the distance.

She drove west on the Tamiami Trail, in the opposite
direction of her apartment. That was the last place she wanted to be. Her sense
of failure was acute. The events of the morning had been a massive blow to her
self-esteem.

Her eyes surveyed the ugly clutter of stores, fast-food
franchises, furniture and car dealers, TV shops and shopping centers that
serviced the army of what was euphemistically referred to as the middle class.
Lower, she muttered, knowing exactly where she stood on the income continuum,
despite the forty-two-hundred-dollar check in her pocketbook, feeling the full
and stifling weight of her despair.

Her thoughts, though depressing, managed to trigger her
instinct for survival. She would have to remember to register at the state
unemployment office and go through the usual processing to obtain her check.
She had done that before, and it never failed to fill her with a massive sense
of humiliation. Just standing in line with the rest of the losers was a
horrifying prospect.

The midday traffic crawled slowly as she squinted into the
bright sunlight. Then she noticed an enterprise that her mind either had rejected
or ignored in the past. brodsky's memorial chapel. On either side of the name
was a Star of David.

Mrs. Burns's advice suddenly replayed in her mind, bringing
a smile to her lips. She felt a kind of hysterical giggle build in her chest.
The advice, even the ethnic specificity, was one of the more enduring and
amusing spoken clichés of the mating game. Under ordinary circumstances it
would be taken as a joke. But Mrs. Burns did not have a shred of humor in her
bones. Her advice was neither satire nor trivia. She meant it with all the
force of her convictions.