I'm Glad My Mom Died(38)
“Oh. Yeah.” I’m satisfied with myself, thinking, Duh, a class period, like for high school.
“You do?” Teresa was clearly suspicious.
“Yeah.”
“Well I got mine. And I was scared at first to see the blood, but my mom taught me how to use pads and stuff. Then I went to HomeTown Buffet with all the women in my family to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” I asked innocently, as I desperately tried to use context clues to figure out what kind of period Teresa was talking about. It definitely wasn’t a class one. Nobody would celebrate that.
“To celebrate becoming one of them. Becoming a woman.”
Teresa said it like it was something she’d been wanting her entire life, like it was some romantic, incredible, alluring thing. Becoming a woman. I was confused. I envied several things in Teresa’s life—her pinball machine, her collection of Barbies (especially the ones with the short hair that Mom would never let me get because she thought it might make me want to cut mine), and yes, even her trip to HomeTown Buffet—a restaurant that my family deemed too expensive. But I did not envy her becoming a woman. Becoming a woman was the last thing I wanted.
Now, as I’m sitting here on the toilet with my blood-spotted underwear at my knees, I’m sure this is it. This is the thing Teresa was talking about.
“Um, Mommy,” I call out.
Mom asks me what’s up, and I swallow how mortified I am so that I can utter my next sentence.
“I’m bleeding.”
The door bursts open before I even get to the “ing” in bleeding, and Mom wraps me in a big bear hug. While I’m on the toilet.
“Oh, Sweetie,” she says with the gravity of someone consoling a friend who’s just lost their beloved pet. “Oh, Sweetie, I’m so sorry.”
Mom wraps a long strip of toilet paper around her hand and tells me to stuff it in my underwear while she goes to get Patti, my soft-spoken schoolteacher.
I watch the clock tick by ten minutes of slow-burning hell until Mom returns with Patti. Patti whips out of her back pocket a baby-pink wrapped square with a little strip of white tape across it. She wags it in front of my face like it’s a hundred-dollar bill. She beams and pulls me into a warm embrace while Mom runs off to tell the AD why I’m running late.
“Congratulations, Jennette,” Patti says softly into my ear. “Congratulations on becoming a woman.”
I trudge onto our school hallway set, where our next scene is taking place. I can tell by the way the PAs and ADs are treating me that they’ve all heard the news. I’m humiliated. And ashamed. How did I let this happen? How did I become a woman? I don’t know the answer, but I know the solution. I know what I’ll do to fix this.
Tomorrow there won’t be any 2% milk or Honeycomb or Smart Ones. I’ve been slacking and the slacking needs to stop. I need to get back to anorexia. I need to be a kid again.
37.
Mama I promise I’ll be all right
I’ll call to say I love you every night
I’m just trying to write the story of my liiiiiife
MOM AND I ARE SITTING in our room at the Hampton Inn & Suites in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, where we’ve been living for the past three months while I work on my country music career. We’re splitting a Nutrisystem frozen lasagna dinner (we ordered the monthlong program to keep each other on track since Nashville has “so much more lard than LA,” as Mom says) while listening to the final mix of my first single “Not That Far Away,” a song written from “my” point of view (by a couple of songwriters I sat next to for a few hours) to my mother, about being on the road without her and how much I miss her, even though in reality I’ve never spent more than a few hours away from her in all my eighteen years.
I don’t know much about music, but I know as I listen to this song that I find the rhythm un-rhythmic, the melody one-note, and the production outdated. I express none of these thoughts because of how much Mom loves it. Tears are streaming down her cheeks. Granted, I don’t think they’re just tears of joy. There’s a weight to them too, a significance, and I think I know why. Life has imitated art, if you can call this song that. (You can’t.)
My music career initially started as a result of the writers’ strike of ’07, when iCarly was put on indefinite hiatus until things got settled. During that hiatus, Susan suggested I start working with songwriters to put together demos to work toward a recording contract, because “that’s what all the teen actors are doing nowadays.” Susan represents Hilary Duff, who’s had several albums go platinum.
“And I heard she doesn’t even sing all the songs—that her sister sings half of ’em!” Mom chimed in excitedly. “No need to confirm or deny. My Nettie’s gonna sing all her own songs.”
Mom had me start posting covers on YouTube. Record labels saw those covers and two, Big Machine Records and Capitol Records Nashville, wanted to sign me. Mom decided on Capitol Records, because “Scott Borschetta’s gonna be too busy with that Taylor chick; he won’t have time for you.”
So I signed with Capitol Records and lived here in Nashville for three months last summer to work on songwriting. Then iCarly started back, so I worked on the show Mondays through Fridays, flew out to Nashville on Friday night red-eyes, had songwriting sessions, laid down demos, took meetings, and did photo shoots for album cover artwork and various press releases, then flew back to California Sunday night to be ready for the show rehearsals on Monday. Currently the show is between seasons, so Mom and I are living here for a few months while I prep for my first tour.