What Brings Me to You (28 page)

              “And what do you see happening by not telling him?”

              “Dammit, Collette! Stop shrinking me! I’ll tell him eventually if this thing between us gets serious.”

              “I think it’s already pretty serious, Charley.”

              “What makes you say that?”

              “I heard him talking to my dad.” My face paled. “I don’t know all that was said and I don’t think he’s shopping for a ring or anything, but he’s serious about you.”

              “Whoa.”

              “You don’t want to be with him?”

              “I didn’t say that. I do. He did say he wanted to pursue this more aggressively it’s just…kind of…fast.”

              “I don’t think it’s fast, Charley. I think you think that because you want to stall telling him the truth about your family. You should meet with your mom. Soon. Meet with her and then talk to Jaime.”

              “Yes Doctor,” I said rolling my eyes.

              After speaking with Collette and Jaime separately, then receiving way too many annoyingly pleading calls and emails from my mother, I finally agreed to meet her. We decided to meet in the bookstore on campus which had a coffee shop attached. I told her to come at noon on a Wednesday when I didn’t have classes. I didn’t show up until 12:30 just to make her sweat. The bookstore was pretty dead, but there were a few students drinking chai and studying independently. I spotted mother right away wearing a cashmere, maroon colored sweater set and camel colored pants. She looked so out of place among the dressed down college students that I had to laugh to myself. She’d found a table near the window and she was absently staring out onto the bustling campus when I arrived and plopped into the seat across from her.

              “Charley,” she startled. “Thank you for meeting me.”

              “Don’t thank me yet,” I warned. I knew that I had the power in this situation and at any moment I could walk out of the shop and out of her life and she’d be incapable of stopping me.

              “You look…” She started but the last thing I wanted to hear was how fat I looked or how awful what I was wearing was. It was all I ever heard from her and I did not need it.

              “Don’t say it.”

              “I was going to say you look nice.”

              “That’s a first,” I muttered under my breath. Even though I had agreed to meet her, I couldn’t keep the hostility out of my demeanor. I just was not in a position at that moment to be nice or to feel sympathy.

              “Charley,” she sighed. “I, I don’t know where to start.” That statement threw me over the edge and I lashed out at her.

              “How about with why? Why are things like this?” I spat out. My bottom lip was quivering because looking across the table at the woman who was solely responsible for the way my life turned out, sitting there looking perfectly coiffured made me want to cry. She didn’t look up from the table but sat wringing her hands together in anguish which made me even more upset. She didn’t have a right to be sad. She didn’t have a right to be anything. I was the victim. I was the one who had suffered at her hand, at Paul’s hand, at Adam’s hand all those years not her.

              She seemed to be prepared for the venom I was throwing at her because she said to the table: “I was weak, Charley. I wish I was like you, but I’m not. I’m sorry.” I was not prepared for an apology. Sure, that’s obviously what all the calls and emails were about but until I heard the words, I never expected she’d say them. Knowing that she wasn’t as cold and callous as I imagined after our last conversation weighed heavily on me and I couldn’t keep up the anger. She glanced up at me, unshed tears in her eyes and I couldn’t stay angry. She was my mother and part of me knew that she was just as much a victim as I was.  

              “I forgive you, mom. I can’t say that I understand it or that I ever will but I forgive you. I just can’t forget. It’s all still really fresh.”

              “I understand,” she sniffed and dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a napkin from the holder on the table. “You don’t know what it means to me that you’ve said that. I realize that isn’t supposed to make it better but I’m hoping that it’s a start. I would like to be in your life, if you’ll let me. We can start slow, but I do want to be in your life, Charley. I love you.” Again I was overcome with a wave of emotion. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard her say those words to me -if I’d ever heard her say those words to me. I believed her. I believed that we could go slowly and things, for once could be better -maybe even good between us.

              “Okay.”

              “Okay?”

              “Yes mom. I’ve learned a lot since being here. Being away from you and Paul and that house. I’m willing to work on this if you are.”

              “Of course I am. I know things with …everything is…complicated.”

              “No mom. It’s fucked up.”

              “Charley!”

              “Oh come on. Don’t think you’re going to tell me not to swear now, mother. It’s a little late for that.”

“You’re right you’re an adult. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to fit into your life; you’re too old to need a mommy anymore. Not like I was ever really good at that to begin with.”

              “Maybe we could try to be friends.”

              “I’d like that.” We sat in silence for long moments, each staring out onto the campus. Students walking and laughing together -seeming so normal. I felt so on the outside of all of that, sitting across from the relative stranger that was my mother. “So,” she sighed, “any boys in your life?”

              “Mother!” I cried out, but couldn’t help but smile. “We didn’t just delve into bestie territory did we?”

              “What? I’m just trying to lighten the mood and you did say we should be friends. This is what friends talk about. So…anyone?” She smiled back.

              “Actually, there is someone.”

              “Really? Details,” she leaned forward on her petite elbows just like Collette or Kelsey would when there was juicy gossip.

              “There really isn’t much. His name is Jaime Rosen. He’s twenty-four.”

              “Twenty-four?” Her eyebrows shot up in surprise and concern.

              “Yes mother. The age difference really isn’t that big of a deal. My best friend Collette is twenty-five, my other close friend Markus is in his twenties, too.” Mom couldn’t hide the shock in her voice when she responded.

              “What about your roommate? Or people from your classes?”

              “Okay mother, chill out it’s not like I’m cavorting around town with the underbelly of the greater Tampa bay area. It’s not like I don’t have friends my age, but I don’t really have a lot in common with them. I’ve been on my own for way longer than I’ve been living here. Collette, Markus, Jaime, they know what it’s like to take care of themselves like I’ve had to do. Collette is a devoted PsyD. candidate, Markus is the head chef at my job, and Jaime is the head trainer for the campus gym.”

              “Head trainer, you say?” I tried hard not to be pissed at her incredulity. The fact was no one automatically put us together, even when we were holding hands always irked me. When we were together there would inevitably be at least one girl outright ogling him and looking at me with the same confused expression my mother wore at that moment. It was beyond frustrating but I could understand it. Jaime looked like Superman. Same body type, strong jaw, dark hair and blue eyes. He was breathtaking to behold. I certainly didn’t look like Lois Lane, but Jaime didn’t seem bothered by it. We hadn’t really discussed the fact that I was half black, but it never came up.

              “Yeah, head trainer.” I said smugly, proud that I’d been able to win the affection of such a man. She looked a little taken aback but, wisely, didn’t say anything about it. “Whatever. I like him a lot, and he likes me the way that I am. It’s getting kind of serious.”

              “How serious?”

              “Pretty.”

              “Hm. What about Teddy?”

              “What? Where did that come from?” I hadn’t thought too much about Teddy in months and since I was with Jaime I didn’t want to. In that moment I realized that Jaime was everything that Teddy wasn’t. He was assertive, he was self-assured, but that came through years of working on his own character. Jaime wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth; he worked damn hard for everything he had. He valued his opportunities. Most importantly he valued me. He cherished me in a way that Teddy never had and, I was sure, could never have. I felt silly for falling for him and for going all spazzy after we “broke up”. It was silly that I spent all of those months clinging to his letters, knowing that the words were hollow because they brought me comfort. I wasted my first few months of college missing out on the present because I was dwelling on the past. I was pretty affronted that my mother of all people was bringing him up. “What about him?” I clipped.

              “Charley, he talked to me.”

              “He what!?” My breathing was working itself into a pant. I never ever thought that Teddy would approach my mother. When? Why had he done it? I was trying to keep control of my emotions but it was too much. Mom, fortunately, didn’t seem to notice me rhythmically breathing to maintain control over myself.

              “Honey, he seems pretty broken up. Maybe you could call him -he deserves to know you’ve moved on. You two really had something going on.” There wasn’t really a question there which made me wonder how she knew we had something going on. What had he told her?

              “Well, it ended pretty much before it even started,” I said a little too brightly in an attempt to mask my incoming panic.

              “Why?”

              “God, there are so many reasons why,” I looked at her pointedly. She and Paul were two reasons, though I thought it would be a low blow to bring that up. “You know the family. I don’t belong with them. He and I…it just wouln’t have worked out, okay? We’re pretty different. Besides, I’m with Jaime now.”

              “Honey, I probably shouldn’t say this but in the interest of full disclosure, I read some of those letters he wrote to you.” The stupid letters! Why hadn’t I forwarded my mail? That was mistake number one, but then again, it would’ve only been a matter of time before I responded if the letters kept coming; before I allowed myself to be sucked back into his empty charm. Still, I was kicking myself. She’d read them. If the ones I still had stashed under my bed in my dorm were any indication then she knew a lot more than I wanted her, or anyone for that matter, to know.

              “Oh mom, don’t let him suck you in, okay? Those things he said weren’t for me. The whole thing was just a self-aggrandizing gesture and I don’t need it. There have been too many people in my life who are selfish. Too many who act only in their own interest. Teddy is one of them. He doesn’t love me nearly as much as he loves himself. He’s caught up in a fantasy and I just don’t have the time or the privilege to be the same.” The truth of my statements registered for her. Little did I realize it as the words were coming out of my mouth that I wasn’t only talking about Teddy.

              “I think you’re wrong about that,” she said shaking her head from side to side. “I think he does love you. Madly in fact. I also think, on a certain level, you love him; or you did. You did confide in him at one time, no? He just didn’t know how to love you the right way at the time. I think he realizes that and wants to make amends. He made mistakes, honey, but you can’t hold those over him forever.”

              “Are we still talking about Teddy?”

              “Kind of,” she shrugged.

              “Mom, I am willing to have a go at us because you’re my mom. But Teddy? That ship has sailed. I’m with Jaime now. Why are you advocating so hard for him anyway?”

              “You didn’t see the look in his eyes. You know he’s called me every week asking if I’ve spoken to you. He wanted me to give you these.” She slid several business sized envelopes from her purse across the table to me.

              More letters.

              “Honey, he’s hurting. If you don’t want to be with him, that’s fine, but put him out of his misery.”

              “Mom, I doubt he’s carried a torch for me for this long. These letters were written months ago. He’s probably back with Lacey anyway.”

              “Lacey Cramer?” She asked sounding surprised, which was strange. She’d spent more time with the family; with Brooke and Claire than anyone. She had to have known about the history between them.

              “Yes mom, they’ve been together on and off for years. They’re practically betrothed. She’s just one reason, on the laundry list of reasons, why we cannot be together.”

              “He asked me to give them to you, anyway. He seems to think they’re still relevant.”

              “Since when are you two so chummy?” It was all just too weird. I knew in my head Mr. Holmes and Paul worked together, I knew that Brooke and Iris were in the same social circle but the incestuousness of it all never quite registered until that conversation with mother.