My Soon-To-Be Sex Life (2 page)

“I'm going to kill myself.”

I stared down at the flattened shoebox. Cut to my awkward descent down Roach's front steps, a great flailing of limbs as I tried to protect my homework, only to smite the diorama with a full-frontal body slam. Cue mournful music. Tighten shot to focus on a now two-dimensional clay mound that was once Viola – the Shakespearean chick who pretended to be a dude. I'd read the Cliffs notes but still didn't get most of it. All I knew was Shakespeare wrote some racy stuff back in the day.

“What was that, Charlie?” Mom poked her head out from the laundry room.

“I said, ‘I'm going to
kill myself
'!”

“Oh, I thought you said you were going to build a shelf.”

“Why would I want to build a shelf?”

“I don't know.” Loaded basket tucked under her arm, Mom came into the kitchen. “That's why I asked.”

Covering my face with still frozen hands, I moaned into my fingers. “I'm doomed! I needed a pass on this to bring up my grade. No, I needed better than a pass. I needed a ninety-five at least. It's due tomorrow. There's no way Ro…I can make another one tonight.”

“You slid down a flight of stairs, you landed on your homework, your teacher will understand. You're lucky you weren't hurt.” Mom set the basket on the corner of the table and started folding dishcloths into tidy little squares like they were precious lace doilies.

“I should have broken a leg or something. How hard is it to break a leg? You're a nurse.” I flashed my mother an encouraging smile. “You could break one for me.”

She gave me a look and kept folding clothes. “Grace is on her way over.”

“And?” Grace, my mom's best friend since forever, had just married a guy she met on the internet, and things were not going well.

“
And
…” Mom drawled, “I asked her to be here tonight. There's something I need to tell you.”

“So you asked Grace here for moral support?” I plucked my bra from Mom's hands before she could try to do that thing where she aligns the cups and fusses over the straps. She has a special method for panties, too. Don't ask. “Mom, she's a nutbar. We're the ones supporting her drama queen meltdowns, remember?” I had a thought. A decent plot twist.

“Ah, Christ, are you two coming out? You're lesbos? Is that why Grace keeps a toothbrush here? I can picture the trailer.” I chortled. “Long pan of house on crescent. Then the voiceover…
when a small-town widow gets lonely, she starts experimenting…”
I paused. “You know, I might be able to use this to my advantage. This could be why I destroyed my diorama. In fact, I bet I could get out of a bunch of assignments if I play this right.”

“Charlotte Webb!” Mom yelled.

I cringed away from her like a vampire being sprayed with holy water. Mom knew I hated when she used my full name. Growing up being named after a kid's book was a stigma in itself. Being named after a gross little spider that ends up kicking the bucket was just plain mean.

“I should wash your mouth out with Windex.” Mom shoved the laundry basket across the table, knocking her folded dishcloth tower to the floor. “You just disrespected me, your father's memory, and my dearest friend. Not everything's fodder for one of your films, Charlie. This is real life.”

From Suzie Homemaker to the Antichrist in a heartbeat, such was life with my mother. “What's the crisis now? Go on, tell me already. I'm listening.” I picked up a plaid square that smelled vaguely of spaghetti sauce and lobbed it in her direction. “Tell me.'

She caught the cloth and tossed it into the basket. Her eyes were sad and angry all at the same time. “You're moving in with your grandfather.”

I'd heard this threat before, but the look on mom's face - her complete silence after the fact -- made this single utterance anything but idle. This was no usual, wink-wink-nudge-nudge,
I'll send you to your Grandfather's to live, how'd you like that?
Similar to the universal,
I'll let the [gypsies, boogieman, etc.] get you,
parents use with impunity.

Mom was beyond serious. My heart flopped around in my chest like a fish out of water. I struggled to maintain the nothing-you-do-can-break-me smirk I'd fixed on my lips, but suspected it had slipped into a pained grimace.

Basket in hand, Mom kicked the fallen dishcloths down the hall to the laundry room. I remained in the same spot when she returned to fill the kettle with water and plug it in. The coil heater hummed a perky ditty.

I couldn't look at her. I couldn't look up from the floor. Move in with the old fart who had ignored us for years? What the hell was going on? There was always drama in our lives but this…was Mom finally giving up on us? Admitting we'd never be the epic game of Let's Play House we were before Dad died?

What a joke. What were we back then but one epic game of “Let's Play House” that none of us could ever hope to win? Because it was all pretend. They say the truth will set you free, they don't tell you it burns like an open wound.

Many a tense minute of uncomfortable silence had passed by the time Grace entered the kitchen via the back door. A steady growth of gritty snow clumps formed on the area rug wherever she moved her boots.

“I'd say you guys went overkill with the cat litter.” Amber eyes sparkled over wind-burned cheeks as she spoke in the middle of our muted war. “You're supposed to sprinkle it around for traction, not bury each step two inches deep.”

“Charlie nearly died on Rachel's stairs today,” Mom said. I thought I detected disappointment in her voice when she said ‘nearly'. If this was one of Shakespeare's tragedies, that'd be foreshadowing. “She came home and emptied two of poor Shadow's litter bags out there in about three seconds.”

Grace ditched her winterized gear - jacket, boots, gloves, while mom and I avoided eye contact.

“Way to recycle, Charlie. Shadow won't need it anymore.” Grace pursed her lips. “I'm sorry, I know he was the feline love of your lives, but I don't miss him sitting on top of the fridge and dive bombing my head.”

“I almost had him trained for cat stardom,” I said, taking credit, and breaking my silence for Grace because it was difficult to stay sullen around her. God knows I've tried. “One more level and he'd have been at full Ninja Kitty status. Think of the roles we could have snagged with a cat like that.”

Grace reached out to mess up my bangs. “Very droll. How's it going, Brat?”

I fussed with my flat-ironed-into-submission hair, re-established the swoop and walked to the pantry, saying over my shoulder, “I'm still not allowed to see my boyfriend, I killed my all important diorama on the way home from school, I think I might need to start shaving my toe hair because I saw Roach's toes today and she doesn't have any, and now Mom tells me I'm going to move in with the rat-bastard who made her childhood a living hell.” I grabbed a handful of Ritz crackers from a box on the shelf and shoved them in my mouth. “How's your day, Sunshine?” I spit bits of Ritz as I spoke.

“Can't complain.” Grace shot Mom a glance. “This is breaking it to her gently?”

“She thinks we're lesbians.” Mom poured herself a cup of tea, her fingers white on the teaspoon as she stirred in too much sugar.

“What?” Grace laughed. “Wouldn't Ian love that? He's always hinting he'd be up for a little three-way action.”

This was the main reason Grace had always blended so well in our dysfunctional household. She was just as twisted as the rest of us. Even Dad had laughed more when Grace was around. “Although I'm not sure I needed to hear the sexual fantasies of her eBay-groom, at least
she
,”
I jerked my chin toward Grace, “can handle a joke.”

Grace ran a hand through her attractively disarrayed short blonde locks. “It's the do, isn't it? You get a pixie cut and suddenly everyone thinks you're trading camps.”

“You're as bad as she is,” Mom said. “Charlie, set the table, please. Supper's almost ready.”

I sniffed the air, suspicious. “What are you talking about? Nothing's cooking.” Now was not the time for one of Mom's experimental meals. I could still feel the lumpy, cold tomato soup dish she made last week as it had slithered down my throat. I shuddered against an instant dry heave. Mom had an inability to resist those health-food magazines at the grocery store checkout counter, but they did more harm than good.

Thankfully, the front doorbell rang.

“Pizza guy's here.” Mom grabbed a few bills from her purse and handed them to me. “Give him this, tip's included.”

Seconds later, I offered the money with a benevolent smile. “My mother says, keep the change.”

Mr. Pizza Guy did a quick count. “Whole seventy-five cents extra,” he grumbled around a toothpick. “I gotta get a new gig.”

I tried to make the most of the situation for him. “You think that's bad, you should see the socks she crochets for the paperboy at Christmas.”

The toothpick bobbed sympathetically. “Bad tippers make the worst parents, I always say. Good luck, kid.” The guy saluted me. “Remember you don't have to wait till you're legal to make a break for it. When I was your age, I had a tent outside the public library. Now that was living.”

I watched him sputter away in his oil burner hatchback.

“Okay, can someone tell me what the hell's going on?” I tossed the zesty smelling pizza box on to the kitchen table, popping open the lid. I selected an overloaded wedge and started chomping.

Mom began to speak.

I held up a hand. “Eat first, kick me out later.”

“I'm not kicking you out.” Mom grabbed another slice, her hand trembling. “What I said earlier came out all wrong. I wanted to wait until Grace got here before I made it worse.”

Sure, you went ahead and dropped a bomb, only to leave me hanging. Great parenting skills.
Everything in me wanted to snark those words out loud, but seeing my mother's hand shake. That got to me.

I scarfed down another bite of pizza instead.

Grace picked off a mushroom, adding it to a pile of other rejects she had stacked inside the pizza box. “She's got a point. Did you explain
anything
?”

Around a mouthful, I brought Grace up to speed. “She told me I was moving in with the old man, and then she clammed up until you got here.” I sucked back a swig of pop. “Why would he want me at his place, anyway? Like he cares about me. Or us.”

“That's not true, Charlie.” Mom said. “Your Grandfather calls every Christmas to see how we're doing. He always asks about you.”

What? Since when? I couldn't let that go. “Christ, he lives five blocks from here You make it sound like he risks his life, stuck in Zimbabwe or Peru, and has to travel miles on a boney-backed donkey to get to the only phone available for seven villages. I pass his rotten house everyday. If I see him at the living room window, I wave and he shuts his blinds so I don't get the wrong idea and stop in.”

“He shuts the blinds?” Grace said. “Maybe he doesn't know it's you.”

“Oh, he knows it's me. I
know
he knows it's me. Roach said he's never shut the blinds when
she
walks by.”

Grace booted my foot under the table, a subtle warning to tone it down. “I'm sure there's a logical reason for his behavior. How ‘bout we let your mom fill you in on a few key details before you reject the idea.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Okay,” I told mom, “spill.”

“This isn't easy for me,” she said.

“And I'm having a picnic?” I shut it when Grace glared.

Mom traced the thin line of her eyebrow with a trembling finger, the way she does when she has a headache, or needs one of her happy pills. “I haven't asked him for anything. Not in all these years. But he owes me. He owes us.” She lowered her hand and stared at me for a long moment.

I squirmed in my seat, waiting for her to continue.

“I'm addicted to Valium,” she said finally. “You're well aware I started using when your father died. The doctor started me on a few pills a day, just to get over the bad times. I started to need more and more to function. Soon it was three little Vals to get out of bed in the morning, two before work, and a few at supper. Every time was a bad time. And last week was the worst.” Her voice shook. She lowered her head. I could barely see her lips moving. “I made a mistake, almost double dosed a patient. I'm lucky the hospital didn't fire me.”

“So then just stop.” I glared across the table. “Don't take anymore pills, as of right now. Let's flush them down the toilet.”

Mom shook her head. “I wish it was that easy. It won't be. I'm going to need help.”

“But you're not an addict.” I struggled to match my mom with the admittedly stereotypical images of a drug addict ripping through my mind: strung out, skeletal guys with mullets, women with rotting teeth living on the streets. But she was just sitting there. The picture of soccer mom health wearing a trendy sports hoodie and yoga pants.

“If I don't do something now, it could get a lot worse,” Mom countered. “I scared myself, Charlie. I could see exactly what was going to happen to me, to
you
, if I continued the way things were. I know what it's like to have a parent check out on you and I wasn't going to let history repeat itself.” She gave a sharp laugh.

I stared down at the near empty pizza box, digesting the situation as the food I'd consumed lined my stomach like layers of crumbling brick.

My mother, fighting an addiction.

Sure, I'd noticed she'd been spacing out a lot lately. I wasn't blind. I knew she'd been using her pills to check out now and then, but almost getting fired? The woman who'd wanted to be a nurse since elementary school? I gave Grace an accusing look.