Slightly Engaged (12 page)

“I bought my plane ticket back in July when JetBlue had that sale,” I point out, trying to sort through my inner turmoil.

“JetBlue is great. They’ll give you a credit if you don’t use it.”

JetBlue
is
great. But still…

“My parents would freak out.”

“I know. That’s why I never asked you in the first place. But my mother really wants you there since she’s doing the cooking this year. She wants it to be special.”

Last year, Thanksgiving was a nonissue, since Jack spent it with his newly separated father. His sisters were off with their in-laws or boyfriends and Wilma was on a cruise with some fellow soon-to-be divorcées. Jack and his dad went to a restaurant, I went home to Brookside, and alternatives were never discussed.

When I made my plans for this year, I
did
ask Jack to come along, but he said he couldn’t because his mother was having Thanksgiving at her new condo, and he’d promised her he’d come. It never occurred to me to offer to stay here with him…which I guess it wouldn’t, not having been invited.

Until now.

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t have to say yes,” Jack says, reaching over and squeezing my hand. He’s so cute. So sweet and earnest and worried because he’s met my family and knows how suffocating they can be. I love him so much.

Nothing matters, I realize with a warm gush of emotion, but that.

“Hey,” I say, “yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. I’d love to spend Thanksgiving with you.”

“You would?” He breaks out into a grin. “I’m so happy! My mother is going to be so happy!”

“I’m happy, too!” I say, and we hug.

We’re happy.

We’re happy, we’re peppy, we’re bursting with love, and it’s all so warm and fuzzy that I could just cry.

Wow. I mean, the best moments in life are warm and fuzzy. Nothing beats warm and fuzzy…

Mental note: mold is warm and fuzzy.

Which reminds me…

“Where’s the phone?” I ask Jack. “I have to call my mother and tell her.”

Why, you may ask, does mold remind me of my mother?

I have no idea.

Crocheted afghans, onions and garlic frying in olive oil, vinyl purses, Jean Naté…all those things remind me of my mother.

But mold?

Well, it isn’t personal. But a reminder is a reminder, and I tell Jack that I really should call her.

“Do you want me to wait to call my mother until after you call yours?” he asks, handing me the phone.

“Why?”

“Just in case…you know.”

“In case my mommy says no, Tracey isn’t allowed to have a Thanksgiving playdate at Jackie’s house?”

“Well…yeah.” He grins.

“I’m a big girl. I’m calling to
tell
her, remember? Not
ask
her.”

“Okay. Go for it.”

I realize he wants me to call with him sitting right here, listening.

Well, okay. I have nothing to hide.

I dial the number.

Maybe she’s not home, I think hopefully.

If she isn’t, then I can tell my father, who never hears a word I say because his hearing is going and because he says I talk like an auctioneer.

So, yeah, I’ll tell him, and he won’t hear, so they won’t realize I’m not coming until right before Thanksgiving, in which case I can put off the inevitable maternal explosive reaction for almost another month, by which time I’ll either be merrily smoking again or accustomed to L.W.C.

There’s only one problem with that plan.

My mother is one of those people who is always, always home. Usually cooking for a crowd, at that. I don’t think I’ve ever called and she’s not there. I mean ever.

It’s not like she’s a recluse or anything, but she’s hardly Sally Social Life, either. Not out of the house, anyway. In the house, she’s a regular domestic diva.

The only day she leaves for any length of time is Sunday, which is when she goes to morning mass and then on to various relatives’ houses for various meals. I know not to call her on Sundays.

I also know not to call on Wednesday mornings, because that’s when she goes grocery shopping and gets her hair “done”—she has that old-ladyish kind of hair that I guess you don’t “do” yourself with shampoo and a blow-dryer because she’s had a standing appointment at Shear Magique every week for as long as I can remember.

Speaking of which, you’d think the Shear Magique people would tactfully suggest that she get her lip “done” too, while they’re at it, but maybe they’re only about cutting, washing and teasing hair, not removing it with hot wax.

Anyway, I fully expect my mother to be home when I call on this blustery Beggars’ Night, and I’m not disappointed.

Rather, I
am
disappointed…because she’s home.

Not home would have been so much easier.

“Mom!” I say, as if I’m pleasantly surprised to hear her voice. “How are you? What’s new?”

She blows her nose loudly in reply, probably on a tissue she had tucked up her sweater sleeve, then says unnecessarily, “I’ve got your father’s lousy cold.”

“Dad’s sick?”

“So ab I.” She coughs, lest I doubt her.

“That’s too bad,” I say, and it really is.

For her and for me, because my mother in perfect health isn’t going to react well to the news I’ve got to tell her. My mother with a nasty cold finding out that her youngest child—her “baby”—won’t be home for the third most important holiday of the year (after Saint Joseph’s Day and Christmas)…well, just imagining her reaction is enough to send clammy chills down my spine.

You know what? I don’t think I feel like telling her tonight.

She coughs again.

“Okay,” I say cheerfully, “so, I’ll let you go…”

Jack looks at me like I’m crazy.

Through her overflowing adenoids, my mother says to me like I’m crazy, “What? You’re goig to let be go? You just called be!”

“I know, but…shouldn’t you be resting or something?”

“Be?”

“Be resting,” I repeat slowly, thinking her ear canals must be clogged, too.

“Be rest?”

“Be rest
ing
,” I enunciate, as one might with a person who is practically deaf. Or a clueless moron.

Okay, that was mean.

I know it isn’t my mother’s fault she can’t hear, or that she took so much cold medicine it’s left her mentally impaired for perhaps the rest of her life, or at least the rest of this conversation.

I’m just so not equipped to deal with mother-daughter tension at the moment. Necessary equipment being cigs, of course. A cigarette would make all this pesky frustration evaporate. I just know it.

“Doe!” my mother says cryptically, sounding as impatient as I.

I don’t think we’re talking about a deer, a female deer, here.

“Mom, I’m sorry, I’m having trouble hearing you. Can you just…speak up or something?”

She shouts, “I
said,
doe, I heard that part. I beadt, be, rest? Sidce whed do I have tibe to rest?”

Welcome to the UN and my own personal mental interpreter, who after a few moments manages to translate the gibberish into:
I said, ‘no, I heard that part. I meant, me, rest? Since when do I have time to rest?’

Silly me. I forgot. How can one rest when there are undoubtedly endless sheets to be ironed and abundant bric-a-brac to be dusted; countless pots to be stirred and dozens upon dozens of cannoli to be stuffed?

“Ma,” I say, shaking my head, “the world won’t come to an end if you take a break and lie down for a while. You have to take better care of yourself.”

“Sabe to you, skiddy middy.”

Translation: same to you, skinny minny.

She’s been calling me that for months, ever since she saw me in a bathing suit at a family picnic and was horrified.

Get this: she thinks I’m wasting away, all skin and bones.

That’s because she dwells in a utopic oblivion where anyone under a size fourteen is force-fed fettucine. A size eight—which I have been for two years now—practically warrants an Alfredo I.V.

“I do take care of myself. And anyway, I’m not the one who’s got a lousy cold, Ma,” I point out.

She sneezes as if to punctuate that remark.

“God bless you,” I say sympathetically. “God, you’re so sick.”

“No, Daddy’s the wud who’s really sick. He’s already id bed.”

Yeah, well, that isn’t unusual. My father turns in about nine every night, at which point he’s already been snoring in front of the television, on and off, for a couple of hours.

Why is it that middle-aged people either need excessive sleep, or none at all?

I look at Jack and try to picture him with gray hair and corduroy slippers.

No can do.

Grow old along with me…the best is yet to be…

Yeah, I used to think that was true.

At least, to a certain extent.

But I’m starting to think that it might be all downhill after, say, thirty.

Look at my parents. I’ve known them since they were about thirty, and I can’t ever remember them being happy and peppy and bursting with love.

I mean, they’re still married, but they’re so boring and tired and sick…not all the time, but they’re sick now, and I’m finding all of this infinitely depressing.

If Jack doesn’t propose to me soon, we’re going to miss all the good stuff and go straight to old and tired and sick. Because as far as I’m concerned, the only time
the best is yet to be
is…well, now.

Which means I should probably be enjoying every minute of it, ring or no ring, instead of wishing my life away.

I’m going to enjoy Thanksgiving. With Jack. Ring or no ring.

“Ma,” I say, determined not to let her distract me again from the business at hand, “I need to talk to you about Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, Thadksgiving. Cad you pick up a couple of cads of those chi chi beads Joey likes? Because I cad’t fide theb adywhere.”

Chi chi beans?

I can’t be sure about some of what she said, but I know that I definitely heard chi chi beans.

I know I said I wasn’t going to let her distract me, but…

What the hell is she talking about?

“Ma…what chi chi beans? And…pick them up where?”

“The wuds that cub id the cad with the red ad greed label. They bust have theb id Little Italy.”

“You want me to go to Little Italy, buy cans of chi chi beans with red and green labels, and then fly them to Buffalo on the plane?” I ask, just to be sure I have this straight.

I really think somebody put crack in her Comtrex.

Jack is snickering.

I would be, too, if she wasn’t
my
mother.

She affirms my question with a resolute “Yes,” as though her request is the most logical thing in the world.

“Ma,” I say with remarkable patience for one who is in the throes of nicotine withdrawal, “the thing is…I can’t do that.”

“Why dot?”

Why dot?

Oh, so many reasons why dot, starting with the one about canned chi chi beans not being allowed in carry-on luggage due to post 9–11 airline-safety regulations.

Okay, I made that up.

For all I know, canned chi chi beans are indeed allowed on commercial aircraft.

Or would be, if anybody in their right mind ever found it necessary to officially establish that particular rule.

FAA guy: Okay, George, we’ve covered your basic guns and knives, your box cutters, your cigarette lighters, your chi chi beans…yup, I’d say we’re good to go.

“Ma,” I say, deciding to cite only the most important reason I will not be toting chi chi beans to Buffalo on JetBlue, “I can’t get the beans for you because I’m not going to be able to come home this year for Thanksgiving.”

I know. I can’t help it. I wimped out. I stuck in “able to” at the last minute to make the whole thing seem more…I don’t know, involuntary.

Why did I do that?

I look at Jack to see if he caught it.

He’s frowning a little.

I guess he caught it.

“What? Why? Tracey!” My mother is freaking out in my ear.

Give me a break,
I think ferociously at Jack.
I don’t see you on the phone telling your mother you’ll have to dash her holiday hopes this year.

Yeah.

Why don’t I insist Jack come with me to Brookside for Thanksgiving? Huh?

Because I don’t want to go to Brookside for Thanksgiving, that’s why.

I didn’t before, and I especially don’t now that I know it would involve smuggling legume contraband through JFK.

God, I need a cigarette.

If I can get through this without one, I swear I can get through anything.

“Is it work?” my mother asks. “Is that why you cad’t cub hobe?”

“No, it’s not work, Ma. It’s…”

“You’re pregdadt.”

It takes me a second to decipher that one.

When I do, I’m incredulous. “I am not pregnant.”

Jack shoots me a look.

I shrug at him—then clench my teeth when he clears his throat and whispers something to himself—or maybe to me—about that tickle.

I ask my mother, “But if I
were
pregnant, which, again,
I am not
—what would that have to do with my not coming home for Thanksgiving?”

“You dough…to hide it frub us.”

“Do you think I’d actually go sneaking around hiding a pregnancy from you guys?” I ask needlessly, because yes, she clearly does think that. “If I were pregnant—which
I am not
—I would tell you.”

To which she says, “Well, I woudd’t wadt to dough.”

See what I mean about my mother? She’s impossible.

“Well, I’m not pregnant, and I don’t have to work, and the reason I can’t come home—” I glance at Jack and amend, “The reason I’m not coming home, is that I’m spending Thanksgiving here this year.”

There. How hard was that?

Excruciating, actually. And it isn’t over yet.

“Alode?” my mother wants to know, and her voice is on the verge of breaking.

“No, not alone. With Jack.”

“Two people? What kide of holiday is that?”

In the Spadolini family, you see, holidays are all about the head count.

I swear my grandmother approaches Christmas Eve as though her eat-in kitchen were a tiny car and the rest of us are clowns she’s determined to cram into it. The more—well, not the merrier, but the more people you serve, the more you get to cook in advance, and complain about it afterward for extra credit.