I'm Glad My Mom Died(14)

“Thanks, Angel. Karen’s gorgeous though. She looks like a beauty queen.” Mom puts the cap on her tube of lipstick and rubs her lips together to spread the plum color over both of them. I think her natural color is so much prettier.

“You look like a beauty queen too,” I say, partially because I do believe it, but mainly to reassure Mom. She doesn’t have many friends her age, and the ones she does have she hardly sees. So the fact that she’s meeting up with one of them today for lunch is a big deal.

Karen is Mom’s best friend from high school, and after they graduated, they went to beauty school together. Mom’s relationship with her seems complicated. One minute she’ll say Karen is this amazing person and so wonderful and so sweet, and then the next she’ll say that Karen is actually kind of a B-I-T-C-H.

“We’re not supposed to say that word.”

“I’m just spelling it, Net, plus God would understand if he knew Karen. Did I ever tell you about how she stole my baby’s name?” Mom asks while she spritzes herself with perfume.

“Uh-huh,” I say while I keep brushing.

Mom looks down. I can tell I hurt her feelings. She’s told me this story so many times before, but here she is wanting to tell it to me again. And that’s okay. She just wants to be heard.

“But I could hear it again.”

“So I had the name all picked out,” Mom launches in immediately. “Jason. I thought it was a good name. Sturdy. Not too common, but also not weird like some of these new kids’ names. Lagoon or whatever. And you’re not supposed to tell anyone ’cuz it’s bad luck, you know? You’re not supposed to tell anyone the baby name you’ve chosen.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Are you listening, Net? You seem like you spaced out.”

“I’m listening.”

“So you’re not supposed to tell anyone, but I did. I told Karen because I figured she’s my best friend and she wanted to know, plus we were pregnant at the same time so we were going through all that stuff together. Well, lo and behold, she pops out her kid first, and what name does she choose? Jason. She stole my name.”

“I like the name Marcus better anyway,” I tell her. “It’s more unique.”

“Oh I know it is, but it’s just the principle.”

“Oh I know,” I agree.

Mom takes a deep breath and brushes her eyelashes with a third coat of mascara.

“Anyway, I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, but she’s still a good friend.”

This logic confuses me so I just say, “Uh-huh.”

“Not my best friend though,” Mom continues. “You’re my best friend, Net. You’re Mommy’s best friend.”

I beam. I’m so happy to be her best friend. To be the closest person in the world to her. This is my purpose. I feel whole.

“Why’d ya quit brushing?”

I return to the task.





12.


“WELL, THIS MORNING IS GOING to hell in a handbasket!” Mom shouts as she chucks a dish into the sink. I flinch at the sound but head to the kitchen regardless. Someone’s gotta help Mom, and most everyone else is still asleep.

“Maybe if somebody else did the damned dishes for once!” she shouts again, slamming down a mug. The handle breaks off it. She throws the mug pieces into a Ziploc bag, to preserve the memory.

“I’ll do them, Mommy,” I say carefully, not wanting to aggravate her any further.

“Oh no, not you, sweetie,” Mom says, reaching out to stroke my hair with her dish-soapy hands. “I don’t want you to get prune fingers. That won’t do you any good. Who’s gonna wanna cast a little girl with prune fingers?”

“Okay.”

“Mark! Can you take Jennette to dance?! I need to finish the dishes so I can take her to acting class!”

Dad heads toward us from the living room. He steps over a sleeping Dustin and Scottie on their Costco mats.

“Huh?” he asks once he finally gets into the kitchen.

“Jennette’s dance class, can you take her?”

“Sure,” he says plainly.

“Try not to be too enthusiastic,” Mom says.

“Sorry.”

“Well don’t apologize for everything. Just hurry. You have to leave in twenty to get her there on time.”

Mom signed me up for a rigorous schedule of dance classes after I had an audition for a Paula Abdul dance special and did terribly. All the other girls at the audition were doing splits and twirling three and four times in a row, but I didn’t know how to do any of that. We were taught a minute of choreography and, even though I’m good at memorizing lines, the two types of memorizing are clearly unrelated because I couldn’t remember one move. Mom told me she never wanted me to be humiliated like that again, so she signed me up for fourteen dance classes a week—two each of jazz, ballet, lyrical, musical theater, and hip-hop, plus one of stretching and three of tap—and told me two background jobs a month will cover the costs.

I actually like dance. A lot. I like moving my body, it gets me out of my head. And I like most of the girls I dance with—they’ve been nice and welcoming to me. I secretly like being away from Mom, too—she doesn’t watch me dance the way she watches me act. Maybe it’s because she didn’t want to be a dancer growing up, she wanted to be an actress, and maybe Mom only sits in when I’m being the thing she wanted to be. I don’t know. Regardless, even though I would never mention it to her, it feels good that she’s not around. It’s a relief. I don’t have to worry about constantly being monitored.