Every Other Weekend(13)
My mouth kicked up on one side and I gestured at the camera. “Are you one of those post-every-second-of-my-life-on-social-media types?”
“No, I’m one of those capture-the-moments-so-I-can-tell-the-story-I-want types, aka a filmmaker.”
“Right,” I said, remembering Shelly mentioning something about a film school program the night before. “So you make movies?”
“I make great movies. Just short ones so far, and nothing scripted—more slice-of-life type stuff—but full-length feature films are my future.” With a sigh she lowered her camera. “Real but better, because I get to control the outcome, cut out what I don’t like and frame the rest the way I want.”
“Wow, that’s cool.” Because it was, but also somehow sad. I gestured with my phone. “And thanks again. For being nice, and not just to me.”
“The famous mother. Tell me something, why do you care so much about making her happy?”
“Besides the fact that she’s my mom?”
Jolene nodded, scrutinizing me in a way that made my answer more transparent than I intended.
“She thinks all of this—our split-up family—is her fault. It’s not. My dad is the one who walked out.” I closed my eyes, thinking about that morning he’d left and wishing I’d done more. “She hasn’t been happy in a really long time, and more than anything, I want that for her.”
Jolene’s sigh brought my attention back to her. “I want to preface this by saying I’m still trying to be nice here. Try not to take it personally if you can’t make your mom happy.”
Jolene
“Oh, Mom! Your dearest daughter is home! Come shower me with kisses and lonely sob stories.”
My voice echoing back at me from the vaulted ceiling in the foyer was the only response I expected, and I wasn’t surprised. It was Sunday evening, which meant my mom was probably still at the gym. I dragged my bag upstairs to my room and tossed it in the vicinity of my bed before continuing to the kitchen. Like most of the house, it was pristine and blindingly white, from the glazed snowy cabinets to the Carrara marble countertops and glittering crystal chandelier. All that splendor faded into the background the second I smelled the lasagna that Mrs. Cho had left for me in the oven.
Technically, Mrs. Cho was only supposed to clean the house three mornings a week while I was at school—a rule Mom instituted to eliminate my interactions with a person I openly preferred to her—but she’d started cooking for me when Mom decided that the elusive key to her happiness was tied to the number of pounds she could lose and had stopped consuming anything that didn’t come in a martini glass.
I peeled back the foil, and the scent of cheesy, garlicky goodness wrapped its arms around me. “I missed you, too,” I told my dinner. It was too hot, which meant I burned my mouth and had to endure that tiny flap of skin hanging from the roof, but no sacrifice was too big for Mrs. Cho’s lasagna.
A thought propelled me across the kitchen to the fridge, and, opening it, I did a happy dance. There was a cheesecake on the second shelf, with luscious-looking red cherries on top. I checked our hiding spot in the bread box on the counter and found the best present of all: a note written in Mrs. Cho’s teeny tiny print.
I watch movie with man who drives car. I think I like dog movie best. I make you cheese dinner and cheese dessert. Be good.
My laughter echoed around the kitchen. I knew she’d like the psychological horror of Cujo more than the pulpy crime drama of Drive—she did work for my mother, after all. Mrs. Cho and I had recently formed a movie club together. She wanted to improve her English, and I was only too happy to recommend titles for her. Next, I’d have to try her on the less gory but arguably more terrifying Get Out.
I kept reading. Her notes were never long, and this one was shorter than most, but it was the last line she always added that filled my heart and flooded my eyes: I miss my girl. I could remember a time when I’d come home from school and Mrs. Cho would be waiting to hug me and lift me up on the island so that I could help her with dinner. She always smelled like fresh bread and Windex, and she’d scratch my back while I stirred bowls bigger than I was. She spoke next to no English back then, and I knew only the few Korean words she’d taught me, but we always understood each other.
I flipped the note over and in, my bolder, blocky handwriting, suggested a couple more movies for her to watch, and then profusely thanked her for all the cheese that I was going to consume that night and told her I missed her, too. My hand shook as I tucked the note away for her to find tomorrow.
Our notes were better than nothing, but I had to bite the inside of my cheek until that burst of pain chased the tightness from my chest before I could lift the first forkful of fluffy cheesecake to my mouth.
If Mom knew how much I ate on a given day, she would cast me out on the street and stone me. Probably. Maybe. More than likely she’d use it as an excuse to rant about Dad and his cursed slim genes, which I’d inherited. The calorie obsession wouldn’t last. She’d find out that she was just as miserable at a size four as she was at an eight, and then she’d be onto something new.
Back in my room, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and looked at the picture I’d sent myself from Adam’s phone. I tried to imagine what his mom had thought when she saw it. It was a good picture. I looked happy, and my lips weren’t curled back in that way they sometimes did that revealed too much gum. The sun had lit the shot at just the right angle, threading my brown hair with gold and highlighting the yellows and reds of the last few oak leaves in the tree behind us.