Rusty Summer (9 page)

“Yeah; Riley wrote it and Mandeprah is going to play the purple Teletubby, which is why it might not fit.” Mandeprah is tall and big.

I start to laugh. Randomness abides! They expound and I laugh harder.

Eric goes on to tell me that it's about a dude who goes to sleep and dreams about the purple Teletubby. As they start to tell me the insanely nutty plot I feel my eyes squinching up in delight. It's so hilarious and friendly and anti-homophobic that I screech with glee. I love these guys.

I was so prejudiced and dim to pre-dismiss them because they're my age and straight.

You got to give people a chance!!!

“Dudes,” I say, “post it when it's done. Does it have a name?”

“Yeah,” says Riley, “it's called ‘Dreamer, of Stuff.'” He grins. “It's random.”

“We have to get it done before Mandeprah leaves,” Elroy adds, a little sadly.

“Oh, yeah? When is that? Where are you going?”

“Back to India, to visit family. Not for long—I'm afraid to fall sleep there, else my mom will drug me and I'll wake up married.” Mandeprah grins. He's kidding—sort of. His parents' marriage was arranged.

It's so weird to even think of Mandeprah as foreign. He has a typical Seattle accent and an American haircut. Even when he speaks Punjabi to his mom he says they think he sounds American. We forget because he was born here, but his family doesn't. His parents (mostly his mom) want him to have a traditional Sikh marriage. She's set her heart on it. Poor moms.

Mandeprah shakes his head regretfully. He doesn't wear a turban and he likes blondes. He's grown up here. So his mom's dream is probably not happening.

And, though we think of him as our regular old American bud, we do know about when he was an outcast and harassed. He and I weren't friends yet, so I didn't know how bad it was until a party once, when he told me that pretty much starting on September 12, 2001, when we were like really little, kids started calling him a “sand-wog” and trying to beat him up. They threw rocks. They threw his lunch in the toilet. They told him to go “home” . . . daily.

Luckily Mandeprah is big, so good luck trying to pound him, even back then, but it made his life miserable. He was being bullied over his appearance, just like me.

The sad and lamest part, he confides, with bitter humor, was that besides being racist and shitty, they were also so freaking ignorant they didn't even realize there
isn't
any sand where his people come from—India—a country he doesn't know, where his family hasn't lived for over twenty years.

“But he's not leaving for a while. We have time,” Riley cuts in.

I find the weight of oil I need and pay for the gas. I pick up the bag, and as I start to leave they all look up to say bye. Everyone's moved to the counter where Mandeprah stands and have turned to see me off, clowning and waving.

Jokingly, I pretend to take a photo. I mime taking their picture as I stand at the door in the hazy afternoon light, and they pose.

You never know in this world when it's the last time you might see someone, not to be too grim or anything, it just makes sense to appreciate them while you can.

And I do.

I love you, guys.

 

When I get back to my house I go inside before I start the oil change. Leonie is awake and sitting at the kitchen table.

No Kurtis in sight (yay!). No Beau either (boo).

“Hey, take me to your mom's, 'kay?” Leo's up and at 'em. She's looking pretty good, for a skeleton.

“Dude, you already missed church.”

“No, I got up and called her and said I could go to evening Mass with her, so she said she would wait to go with me, so I need you to drive me so I can bring my church clothes and just change there, 'kay?”

When we get to my mom's house Leo grabs her monster bag of makeup and duds and runs upstairs to the bathroom. I go inside more slowly to see what my mom's doing, but she's also upstairs getting ready.

The Bomb, our lil' husky, is glad to see me, as always. She makes this high-pitched song instead of barking, and waggles her tail and tries to climb on my lap when I sit down in the kitchen. I help her up and hold her as I tell her she is the pwet-tiest woggie in a wurld, and a weally good singer, and she actually is able to briefly balance on my lap and snuffle-kiss me before sliding off.

We wait for the church ladies.

I pick up the Sunday newspaper sitting on another chair and scan it. My mom still has a paper newspaper delivered because she says paper “feels” better and creates jobs. She's also into paper books and snail-mail letters. She still writes actual letters to people. Like my great-uncle who is eighty-five, and to my grandma in Alaska (who isn't even her mom).

She always hit it off with her mother-in-law, she told me once. She said she thought my grandma was funny. I think Mom misses my grandma more than she ever missed my dad, which is sad—and yet another wonderful by-product of divorce, right?

Not.

I don't know my dad's mom too well now. I remember I totally thought she was great when I was little. I visited up there once. She lives in Alaska, where my dad returned to when my parents split up. She used to fly down here every year before the divorce, but we don't see her anymore. I never really called her on the phone much because the reception is lame, but I used to make her little cards when I was a kid. She's not online, and neither is my dad, so I always picture them icily battling the elements up by Russia and the Arctic Circle, which is geographically correct, just probably not so
Scott of the Antarctic.
In my mind's eye I see them, trudging, fur-clad, through frozen blowing powder, with a dogsled and frosted white eyebrows, trying to find their tarpaper shack before the whale blubber lamp gives out and they have to eat all the sled dogs.

It's ridiculous. I've been up there and seen it for myself, but it doesn't help. I still think of Alaska like that.

I hear voices and thumping upstairs, and then voices again. I hear my mom giggle. She sounds nervous. Leo sounds like she's being persuasive about something—and then down they come.

My jaw is dropped open. My eyes are boinging out of my head like in cartoons.

Omg, my mom's a freaking babe!

“Mama!” I whisper. It's all I can manage. She looks incredible.

Leonie looks great too. She has this turquoise sundress on that's too big now, but makes her eyes like neon. Her hair is molten gold at dawn. She's got a silky white hoody over the sundress because it's too cold. Wooly white tights and strappy heels. Pearls. Super cute.

But my mom . . .

My mom is wearing makeup.
She is working the glam! She has on dangly earrings!

She smiles at me and ducks her shoulders up bashfully, like “whadaya think?”

I nod emphatically. I almost well up.

For years I've been telling my mom if she'd fix up she'd be sooooo pretty, but she's always just made a scornful face and said, “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee!” (seriously, she talks like that) and that was the end of it. She says, “Looks aren't important.” This, as we all know, is blithe fantasy and a complete reality fail but if it's your mom, what can you say?

But now she's wearing this dress I've never seen before. It's a tranquil brown-and-green print, princess seamed with vertical black side sections so it's super slenderizing, and she has this little black shrug on over it. And low-heeled pumps! My mom is in black tights and
heels!

“No, no, Bommy, stay back,” Leo says to our doggy, pushing her away from them gently with her foot. “Oh, yeah, one last thing . . .”

Leo runs upstairs and comes back down with an old battered hatbox. She gets out a little black velvet cap, sort of the same shape and size as the ones Jewish guys wear, only with this little vintage net veil and a black velvet rose. It's got a comb sewn in it and she settles it in my mom's up-swept hair.

I can't help grinning in delight. It's perfect.

“Are you wearing one, Lee?” I ask. I hope she's got another hat I haven't seen. But no.

“Nope. Same as always.” She gets it from her overcoat in the hall closet, from last week.

You always hear how when people convert to something they are really committed. You know, how if you stop smoking, you got to preach the evils of cigs?

Well, that's how Leo gets up for church—like full tilt.

She wears this long white mantilla that my mom has had for years. A mantilla is a veil like Spanish women wear, white (or black) lace, in an approximate triangle shape that you wear with the short point on your head and the long points over your shoulders. I wore it for my First Communion. It's pretty old. It's beaded with crystal sparkles and real pearls and it was blessed by JP2 (Pope John Paul II).

It makes Leo look like the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary). As drawn by Leonardo.

It's supposed to be mine, but I said it was fine when Mom asked if it was okay if Leonie wore it to Mass sometimes, since I don't. I said she could have it, but my mom said, “Let's just say
borrow,
in case you change your mind.” Whatever.

It looks amazing with Leo's hair, and she and Mom both look very pretty and happy as they get ready to leave. My mom even walks differently. Usually she kind of scurries, like she has to get someplace and help someone, but this Sunday she walks very carefully, like she has a book on her head and is proud of her good balance. And she's so happy Leo wants to go with.

This time I really do take a picture with my phone.

“Why don't you come too, Rylee?” My mom asks—good ol' “never say die.”

“No, thank you, sweetheart,” I tell her politely. Pointedly. I help her with her coat.

“Do, Rye, it'd be fun!” Leo weighs in, as if she didn't know my feelings about church.

I sigh. “No, Leo, it wouldn't.” I eyeball her like, “shut up.”

“Oh, Rylee, why are you so stubborn?” sighs my mom. This from old Ironsides herself! Where does she think I got it? Then we both sigh, in stereo.

“Mama, we've been over this. Why are you even asking me again? Wait—are you about to go hear a woman priest say Mass?”

My mom rolls her eyes like, “here we go.” Leo looks at her like, “Are we?” I continue. “If not, then no thanks, and tell your homeboy Francis that I'm
very disappointed
in him,” I tell her with grim satisfaction. That I disappointed her was the most devastating thing my mom could tell me when I was little.

“Oh, Rylee—”

“Because I was really starting to like him!” I scowl. I feel my temperature starting to rise as I climb atop my soapbox. “I'm serious! Tell him good job for yelling at the rich, but he has totally
re
-alienated me with that same inane bullshit about women! I don't know how
you
can go.”

“Rylee! Would you just relax? Why do you care so much? What those old coots say isn't the point and you know it!” my mom blurts out. “Why take it personally? They're always getting something wrong! And no matter what, it's still a place to go and be quiet and do good!”

“So is anywhere else.” I fold my arms in front of me.

“Rylee, did you ever think that maybe Pope Francis is treating it like an SAT test? Maybe he has to solve all the other problems and then come back to women priests.” Nodding, my mom eyeballs me earnestly.

I snort-laugh angrily.

“That doesn't make any sense! Why should that be the hardest question? Women weren't excluded originally, and the Church knows it. They're being willfully blind. It's just infighting and tribal politics and a bunch of Iron Age horseshit. Women are neither broken nor irrelevant, and I'm done self-hating. Or endorsing their misogyny!”

My poor ma. My words and tone make her sigh sadly. But her reply is withering.

“Well, Miss High-'n'-Mighty, for someone who knows everything, your language sure has taken a turn for the worse since you stopped coming to Mass!” she snipes, snippily.

I turn away my eyes and turn to stone, going to the safety of the settled. I know there are many things that I don't know, but one thing I do know: No more
pour moi.

I frown and shiver as I walk with them onto the porch. I hug my arms around me.

“I better go,” I say as I feel the heaviness of heaven descend. I sigh.

Mama's face falls. I'm such an ax murderer. She was so happy a second ago. I try to think up something to say to lighten us up, but apparently I'm not only losing my religion, but my sense of humor as well.

Guilt blows.

“I'll go with you on your birthday, okay? I promise.” Her birthday is next month. She nods quickly, with a brave smile, and I beat it back into the house.

Jeez.

I feel blue as I watch them walk to the car. I wonder if I will always feel this way, this agro-exasperation, pissed off at my mom and God, in equal proportions. Though sometimes I envy her attitude. Must be nice. I wish I had any kind of certainty about anything.

But I believe belief is binary. You either can or you can't.

And I remember I have a different path, which I've only just begun—I'm a big ol' caravan!

And I feel better.

I calm down because I realize again it's scary, but okay; I would rather face the fear and own the uncertainty; I would rather pine for the childish, comforting promise of cosmic justice and eternity spent in glowing approval reflected in my mom's eyes—I would rather try to make every moment
here
noteworthy and kind, more like the heaven they long for—than to sit zoning out, way past listening to what I can't agree with, silently cursing the obvious and the oblivious, and then crying when it is too late, and my little time is over. Crying my eyes out for what could have been—what I could have taken responsibility for and
changed
. . .