It was a rare occasion that Marilyn Straszewski was rendered speechless. In fact, I’d only heard tell of it happening once before, several years before I was born. So long ago that I doubted whether it had ever happened at all. But right at that moment, there was no doubting it. My mother was speechless. Words certainly flew at a frenzied pace in her head, but they failed to escape her lips, and that was all that mattered.
I chose to leave then, without even a glance back in my mother’s direction, and I must tell you, it felt damn liberating.
*****
“You’re home early,” Jo observed, looking at the clock when I walked through the door. “What, did you take your mom to a McDonald’s or something?” She turned around to sit on her knees, leaning over the back of the couch so that she could face me without getting up. “Oh please, please tell me you took Marilyn to a fast food restaurant and called it good.” She held her hands together in front of her as though in prayer when she spoke.
“No, I did one better and took her to that shitty Mexican place down the street.”
“Nah, that place is still a step up from any place that serves food kept under heat lamps all day.”
“Would it then make you feel better to know that as of thirty minutes ago, I’m most likely officially dead to her?”
“What?” She searched my face for confirmation that I was being sincere. Satisfied that I was, she continued, “As much as I’d love to say yes, etiquette dictates that I tell you how unfortunate that is. And it is … unfortunate, I suppose. She’s your mother; your flesh and blood. But toxic takes on all forms and doesn’t discriminate between familial ties.”
“I’ll drink to that.” I held up a bottle of wine I pulled from the refrigerator.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I answered her, taking a sip from the bottle. “I’ve gotten rid of a cancer from both my body and my soul.”
“That’s deep.” Jo giggled. “A little harsh, and a little dark, but still deep.”
I rummaged through the freezer, taking out a pint of fudge swirl ice cream and setting it down on the counter.
“Didn’t you at least bring some dinner home?”
“Nope. Marilyn and Melissa are going to have to dive into my vegetarian burrito all on their own. I can hear the bitching now.”
A knock on our door startled the both of us. Jo and I shared a glance as I sighed a little louder than I intended to.
“It would appear they’ve brought the bitching to us.” My shoulders slumped at the thought of having to deal with my mother again this evening, and I reflexively grabbed the bottle of wine from the counter as I shuffled to the door, calling back to Jo, “Let’s hope it’s just an encyclopedia salesman.”
“That hasn’t been said since 1985.”
Stress and annoyance levels at an all-time high, I opened the door to find Melissa, and only Melissa, standing on the other side. She stood in the hall staring at me sheepishly, finally moving to speak when I acted like I was getting ready to shut the door in her face.
“Wait, wait.” She held her arm out, ready to stop the door from closing.
“What is it, Melissa? What did Mom ask you to convey to me that she couldn’t herself in some vague social media post?”
“Mom didn’t send me. She told me not to come. She said you were obviously going through some things and taking them out on us, so it was best just to leave you alone to get over it all.”
“Yeah, that checks out.” I leaned against the doorframe with my hip. “Why are you here, then? Think you can convert me to the dark side?”
“No, I’m not delusional. Nor am I here to sell encyclopedias. I’m here because I want to be here. Because I want to talk, because I actually want to have a relationship with my sister.”
I stared at her, waiting for her to break out a retraction, to tell me that she was just fucking with me and, of course, Mom had sent her, but there was a sincerity in her eyes I’d never seen before, telling me there would be no retraction because there was nothing to retract. Curiosity piqued, I backed away from the doorway, holding the door open for her. She seemed surprised that I was doing so without putting up much of a fight. Not that she could go toe-to-toe with me if she tried, a fact I was certain she knew well.
“I’m going to head out for a bit,” Jo announced, throwing on her jacket.
“You sure? Jo, you don’t have to go anywhere. It’s your apartment, too.”
She waved off my concern. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I wasn’t planning on staying in all evening, anyway. One of us has to have an active social life.”
“Uh-huh. Does this have something to do with a certain woman whose name begins with an ‘M’ and ends with an ‘adison’?
“I surely do not know what you’re talking about.”
“And I surely think you’re a liar.”
Jo turned around in the doorway. “If you need anything, call or text,” she offered, waiting for me to nod before leaving.
“May I take a swig of that?” Melissa asked, nodding at the bottle of Merlot in my hand.
I handed the bottle to her. “Knock yourself out.”
“Thank you.” She took a sip, setting the bottle down on the counter next to where she was standing. “My stomach has been doing flip-flops.”
“And you think drinking wine is going to settle it?”
She shrugged. “It works for everything else.”
“I won’t argue with you there.” Chuckling to myself, I snatched the bottle from the counter and headed to the couch, motioning for Melissa to follow me. “Honestly, your upset stomach could be from the dinner you just ate at Los Dos Pollos. I caught a glimpse of the kitchen once in passing. It’s kind of sketchy back there.”
“It usually takes food poisoning a few hours to manifest.” She sat down on the couch, moving my Life’s A Bitch pillow aside, but not before studying it and shaking her head as she looked back up at me. “Don’t think Mom didn’t pick up on the Mexican restaurant slight.”
“Are you kidding me? I was counting on it. Marilyn may be a lot of things, but dense isn’t one of them.” I took another drink from the wine bottle, then handed it over to Melissa.
“Try living within driving distance of her.”
“I’d rather break that wine bottle against the counter and stab myself with one of the glass shards from the broken end.”
“At least you were able to get out and start a life in New York City.”
I cocked my head, holding out my hand for the wine bottle, which she relinquished reluctantly. “And you could have done the same thing.”
“No … I mean, yes. I guess I could have, but I was just so damn consumed with trying to constantly win Mom’s approval, I kind of lost myself along the way.”
“So, find yourself again. And for the love of God, Melissa, if you don’t want to give up music, don’t give it up just to appease our mother.”
She nodded. “It wasn’t only to appease our mother. Brett would prefer I not work and we start a family, instead. His mother was a stay-at-home mom, and he feels that’s the only way children ought to be brought up. No daycare, no babysitters—”
“No socialization. Is Brett a sixty-year-old man stuck in the body of a twenty-something-year-old? Because if so, he and Marilyn must get along famously.”
“Ugh, you have no idea.”
“What is it that you want?”
“You asked me that earlier, and I remember thinking to myself that no one has ever asked me that before. I was so stunned by the question that I had to sit and think about it for a moment, which is sad because I should know the answer. It should be obvious.”
I handed the bottle back to her. “But it’s not.”
“Not at first, but then it became clear.” She held the rim of the bottle to her lips. “I don’t want to give up music. At least, not forever. I want to be able to be there for our children, but I can’t be the June Cleaver both Mom and Brett want me to be. The strange thing is, I really di
dn’t think I had a choice until you said something. And then I remembered that I did—I do. You were always so strong. I admired the way you stood up to Mom when she flew off the handle about one thing or another.”
“Did you? Because I seem to remember you relishing every admonishment thrown in my direction whenever I tried to stand on my own two feet in front of her.” I remembered my pint of Ben & Jerry’s still sitting on the counter and leapt up to retrieve it, grabbing two spoons before returning to the couch.
“You’re right,” Melissa acknowledged. “But it wasn’t because I wished any ill will to come to you. It was because Mom and Dad had put you on such a high pedestal that I … well, I was beyond jealous of you.”
“You were jealous of me?” I scoffed, taking a seat on the couch next to her, handing her one of the spoons as I pried open the pint of ice cream. “I’m sorry if I find that a tad bit hard to believe. Our parents doted on you your entire life.”
“Do you want to know why they doted on me? Because I’m their damaged child. They’ve never seen me as anything more than my heart condition, believing I would break into pieces right before their eyes. They put me in a bubble, only letting me engage in activities they deemed safe. While you were doing barrel jumps, I was taking a painting class, and we all know Bob Ross I am not.”
“You can say that again.” I took a spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s and shoveled it into my mouth. “Your trees were more melancholy than happy.”
“Thank God you could tell they were trees at all.” She giggled, opting to stick with the wine over the ice cream. “You got to play basketball and volleyball, be an active child and teenager, while the most strenuous thing I was permitted to do was carry my flute up a flight of stairs at school. Mom and Dad’s expectations of you were high, and although I understand why that may seem like they were being hard on you, I would have killed for them to believe in me half as much as they did—as they still do—you.”
“It’s a funny thing, perspective. The way it changes things. I always thought you were the golden child, and come to find out, you thought the golden child was me. It’s their fault, you know, Mom and Dad. They never should have acted in such a way as to make either one of us feel the way we did growing up.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“If you drink any more, you just may end up in the doghouse like I am right now.”
“Maybe it would be for the best.” Melissa smiled, setting the bottle of wine down on the coffee table.
“You know, it’s a shame we weren’t closer growing up, because if we would have known how the other felt, we could have joined forces to become a real thorn in Marilyn’s side.”
“That would have been great.” I handed her the pint of ice cream after I caught her eyeing it in my hand. “I’m sorry, Mena.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Sighing, I slumped back on the couch, thinking to myself how different things would have been if only we would have known a decade ago what we knew about each other right now.
“Does it bother you, having to wait to have children? Maybe, potentially never having them at all?”
I shrugged. “Oddly enough, I hadn’t really thought about it before. Starting a family had never been on the forefront of my mind, until Peter introduced me to Jackson. Motherhood was thrust upon me when I was around him, and I tried. I tried to acclimate myself to the possibility of being someone’s stepmother, but I failed. I failed so hard that Peter broke up with me.” I reached for the ice cream, shocked to see a quarter of it was gone already.
Melissa shrugged. “It’s your fault. If I would have had a decent bite to eat at dinner, I wouldn’t be so hungry.”
“You got me there. But I’ll be damned if you’re getting this back.” I sighed. “To answer your question, I guess I never wanted kids of my own, until I met Jackson, and then again when I was told that it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to have them for a while.”
“We always want what we can’t have.”
“It’s probably for the best, anyway. You wouldn’t know this, but I was a mother once when I was five. Her name was Wanda, and she was the best goldfish a girl could ask for. But then my five-year-old brain thought it would be a brilliant idea to give Wanda a bath in the toilet.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. Mom told me that I couldn’t put the goldfish in the bathtub with me, but she said nothing about the toilet. So, one day I took Wanda’s bowl and dumped her into the toilet bowl. All was going well, then I slipped and caught myself, one hand on the toilet tank and the other on the lever. In a split second, it was bye-bye, Wanda.”
Melissa attempted to stifle a giggle, failing miserably. “That’s terrible.”
“Laugh up my misfortunes.”
There were so many things I could tell Melissa wanted to say to me, that much I could see in her eyes. She’d known me her entire life, yet neither she nor I ever knew each other at all. We were strangers with familiar faces finally becoming acquainted with each other.
“Mom was wrong about Peter. Obviously, I don’t have to tell you that. She thought because he didn’t have a college education, and instead, had a baby mama—her words not mine—that he wasn’t going to amount to much in life. To me, he always seemed like he had it together. He worked hard, provided for his son, wasn’t dependent upon anyone. Honestly, he kind of reminded me of you.”
“Really? How so?”
“You both seem fiercely loyal to your friends. Neither of you hold anything back—like nothing at all. It’s as if you have no idea what a filter even is.”
“I get your point.”
“What I’m trying to say is that you two seemed so perfect for each other. I was surprised when you ended things.”
I stirred the remaining ice cream. It had softened considerably and would soon be the consistency of soup. I’d tried not to think about Peter much, the pain still being raw.
“You care about him, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. We have a history together. Nothing will ever change that.”
“But there’s someone else, right? At least, that’s the impression I got last night.”
I shook my head. “For a split second, I thought that maybe there could be, but I was wrong.”
“Well, it’s his loss.”
“If I had known you were a kiss ass, I would have tried to do the whole sister thing sooner.”
She struck me with my pillow, turning it around so that the crocheted message faced me. “Okay, I have to know the meaning behind this.”
I explained the meaning of the pillow; I explained that and everything. Melissa and I spent the rest of the evening catching up on the time we’d lost, which had basically been all of it. We were up so late that she decided to spend the night at my apartment, promptly leaving early the next morning to meet our mother at their hotel to prepare for their return flight to Ohio. Before she left, she penned a note, not wanting to wake me. A note that simply read:
Sis,
I love you.
*****
I sat at my desk on my first day back, completely lost. My brain was still at home in bed, wanting nothing more than to be anywhere else but here. Cursing myself for not having done any work at all to keep my mind sharp and the brain fog at bay, I flipped through the stack of papers on my desk, settling on a manuscript Phineas had asked me to go through shortly before my surgery. There was no better place to start, I suppose. I had just begun to dive in when a knock on my door startled me.
“Welcome back,” Phineas greeted me, looking just as hot as he had the night of the opera.
Get a grip, Mena. He rejected you, remember?
“Yes, I’ve been combing through the warm welcome awaiting me on my desk this morning.”
“Perils of the business. Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah, sure.” I swallowed hard, already nervous about the content of our discussion.
He entered my office, closing the door behind him, looking just as apprehensive about
speaking to me as I was to be spoken to. “About that night at the opera, I—”
“You don’t have to explain anything. You’re right, things went too far. We should remain professional.”
He nodded, clearly relieved as he took a seat in the chair across from my desk. “Still, it was my fault. I got caught up in a moment and should have stopped myself. I’m sorry.”
“Honestly, I’ve forgotten all about it.”
Phineas winced, briefly stung by my comment before he managed to shake it off. “Are we still on for the red carpet event in three weeks? If I must spend the night hobnobbing and kissing ass, I’d really like you there as a buffer to keep me sane.”
I thought about his request, remembering I’d already agreed to be his plus one months earlier. If nothing had truly changed between us, I should honor my commitment and get over myself and the pain being around him may cause me.
I nodded. “You know me and how much I love kissing some ass.”
“Thank you,” he sighed, relieved. “I know I’m supposed to be getting used to events such as these, but they’re still so exhausting.” He fell silent, and I could sense he was watching me shuffle through the manuscript I’d picked up. Since he walked in, I’d been purposely avoiding looking at him, or breathing through my nose, dare I catch a whiff of the same cologne that had invaded my nostrils the second my lips touched his. “You wouldn’t happen to have a formal gown, would you?”
“Should I wear my Saturday gown or my Friday gown?” I snorted.
“That’s what I figured. Since this is a work event, and I’m asking you to attend as a favor, I want you to use our company credit card and buy a gown. Deidre’s is nice, if you need suggestions.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you know where to find the best women’s formal wear.”
“I’ve been in relationships before, I— Oh, you meant that as a slight.”
“A slight? Me? Never.” My hand clutched my chest as I stared at him in faux shock.
“All right, then. Maybe I won’t tell you the next bit of news I came in here to share with you.”
When Stars Collide Page 23
