Cleopatra and Frankenstein(51)

“Don’t talk that way about your father,” says my mother.

“Are you kidding me? He left you, Ma. For a lesbian!”

“And so what?” she says. “All men leave! We outlive them anyway. I’ve got news for you, baby, in the end it’s always just us.”

“All men leave you!” I scream. “I still have a chance!”

“What exactly are you saying to me?” yells my mother.

“YOU CANNOT BE THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!”

A man wheeling an overflowing shopping cart appears at the end of the aisle, gives me a terrified look, and heads the opposite way. I hold on to the display towel rack and bow my head.

“I want more, Ma,” I say. “Wouldn’t you?”

*

My mother ignores me while we wait in the interminable checkout line. She ignores me when I point out that the line for “under 5 items” has been amended to “under 50 items” for Black Friday. She ignores me when I suggest going to the food court, where they have her favorite cinnamon buns, which are the size of her head and an entire day’s worth of calories, and thus something she almost never allows herself to eat. She ignores me when I ask if she has any idea which of the three identical parking lots we parked in, though that one I think she may just not know.

*

We are almost out of the mall and home free when a woman intercepts us. Her face is caked in makeup the same color as my beige Thanksgiving meal. Her hair is slicked back into a bun so tight it forces her eyebrows into arches.

“Would you like to enjoy a free trial on our Rock and Recline Zero Gravity Massage Chairs?” she asks. I look into her eyes. Pure mania.

“We’re okay,” I say.

“But,” she says, blocking our way with a ferocious smile, “it has six unique preset programs, five levels of speed and intensity, and two-stage zero-gravity positions inspired by NASA.”

“We really don’t—,” I say, but she is already ushering my mother backward into one of the plush armchairs. My mother sinks down, stunned, her legs and arms encased in leather padding.

“Isn’t that amazing?” beams the woman. “Here.”

She takes the towel rack from me and guides me into the chair opposite my mother. There is no point in fighting. It feels like I am being eaten by the chair, rolled around on its leather tongue. It is not, I must admit, entirely unpleasant. The woman presses a remote, and pulsing waves of pressure flow up and down my back, arms, and legs. This, I imagine, is what it feels like to be digested.

“Relaxing, huh?” says the woman. “Now let’s try the zero-gravity setting.”

She presses the remote again, and our chairs lift from the floor with a crank, then begin gyrating back and forth on their stands. I am being pulsed, rocked, kneaded, and rolled. I have no idea where my body ends and the chair begins. I look at my mother. She is tiny, devoured by all that leather. She is looking at me. We rock toward and away from each other.

“Eleanor!” she calls over the vibrations of the chair.

“Ma!”

“I never wanted you to have less!” she says.

*

We put up the towel rack when we get home. Two mugs filled with tea balance on the edge of the tub. Goldfinch and kestrel.

“If you could have bought anything in that whole mall, what would you get?” I ask.

She closes her eyes and thinks. I watch a smile spread across her face.

“An electric can opener,” she says.

Sometimes I worry my mother is shrinking in every way.

*

Since I am dateless and childless, it should be easy for me to spend my evenings writing my kids’ comedy, Human Garbage, but it’s not.

I open my browser and type “seeing dead animals” again. It does not appear to be an ailment others suffer from. I thought it was impossible in the internet age to find anything that made you truly unique, yet here I am. I go back to staring blankly at the screen. Somehow, I am still developing carpal tunnel.

*

Eventually I give in and search her name. It is a combination of letters so perfect it makes my teeth ache. I find a picture of her from an art show. She’s standing in front of a splashy nude, looking seriously at the camera. Her hair is in a long fishtail braid. Her skin is the creamy color of whole milk. She’s wearing cream too, a silk blouse tucked into a long, rippled skirt. Tiny gold rings in her ears. She is a pearl. A perfect pearl of a girl.

*

Okay, so I am not beautiful or blond or British. But I can make jokes, be nice to your mother, and give a decent blow job. That’s what I got.

*

Jacky has invited me to lunch. When I swing by her desk, I notice a picture of her in the ocean with a dolphin either side of her, kissing her cheek. On her computer is a sticker that reads “Dolphins are a girl’s best friend!”

“Are you married, Jacky?” I ask over lunch.

“No, hon,” she says. “Running this place? When would I have had the time?”

“But.” I look down. “Would you like to be?”

“Not my style.” She smiles. “Move to Florida, that’s the plan. Swim every day. Most of my people are down there now anyway.” She leans toward me. “Why? Do you want to get married?”

“No.” I shake my head. I am trying to find the words. Eventually I say, “You’re so lucky you found dolphins, Jacky.”