I thought I knew why, and I hated not being able to explain the truth about my relationship with Ed to him.
On the other hand, the truth was murky: because I had gone to Ed’s apartment after Karin’s party, with every intention of sleeping with him, and done the same with David, there was the chance that David might think I was the sort of woman who made a habit out of testing out new mattresses within hours of meeting someone.
I didn’t dare imagine how I’d feel if the situation were reversed. What if David pulled up in his car right here, right now, and I saw him kiss another woman? The thought made my stomach lurch.
He never did come home. Later, back in my apartment, I’d fallen asleep with Paris curled up on the pillow beside me, her hands wound in my hair.
My mother let us nap until she scrambled eggs for dinner. I noted without comment that Mom carried Paris in the backpack while she worked in the kitchen and fed the baby bits of toast over her shoulder. The toast crumbs fell like rain on my mother’s new perm.
We ate dinner in silence until Mom noticed I wasn’t eating, but pushing chilly bits of egg beneath my toast like dust under a carpet. “What’s the matter with you?” she had demanded. “What are you trying to hide from me now?”
This was the first question my mother had asked since my return from David’s. Clearly, she was determined to act the part of a respectful parent, the sort of mother who wouldn’t think of imposing on her adult daughter’s boundaries, other than showing up unannounced and rearranging the contents of my entire house.
By now, my apartment looked as if it were occupied by a retired librarian. As Mom cooked the eggs, she could efficiently lay her hand on the oregano right next to the pepper, and I’d found my bathrobe hanging from the hook on the bathroom door with the belt coiled in one pocket as neatly as a snake.
When I hadn’t answered her question, Mom said that I looked tired. “And no wonder, the way you eat! You don’t have the fixings for one complete meal in that refrigerator. I can’t even tell you went shopping today! What was the point? Not one piece of meat.” Mom studied me closely. “You haven’t gone vegetarian, have you? Those people are always anemic.”
That was my mother’s idea of going native in California, I guessed: you moved West, turned vegetarian, and left all of your cares behind with those carnivorous Type A’s. I got up from the counter, lifted Paris out of the high chair, and staggered towards the bathroom.
My mother caught my elbow mid-stride and took the baby to bathe her for me. “You don’t look well,” she observed. “Bathing a baby is one thing I know how to do.”
Paris was surprisingly docile, even cheery in the tub. In the other room, I called David’s cell phone number three times. I even tried tracking him down at Aunt Mary’s, but the woman who answered the phone assured me that David’s group wasn’t scheduled to play this week.
Still, it wasn’t until I’d gotten Paris into her pajamas, read her a story, and rocked her to sleep that I felt completely free to break down. I had sobbed into the pillow until Mom produced an enormous bottle of cherry cough syrup out of her magic Mary Poppins flight bag, gave me a double dose, then made me tea with honey. The combination made my teeth hurt but finally put me to sleep.
Now it was morning and I felt as if I’d hit my head on something. Objects in the room appeared as if at the wrong end of a telescope. Mom’s chair was impossibly far away, and so were Karin and Ed, who sat cross-legged at the foot of my bed like meditating monks. Gradually, Karin had coaxed out the story of David discovering me in Ed’s car. I wondered, though not for long, why Ed hadn’t told her himself.
Now Karin reached over and rapped me on the forehead with her knuckles. “Earth to Jordan! Earth to Jordan! How are you feeling?”
“Stupid. Like the Stan Laurel of relationships.” I fished fresh oyster crackers out of the box beside my bed, taking grim pleasure in the furious dry pop of each shell between my teeth. “Admit it! I’ll probably be alone for the rest of my life.”
Karin, Ed and my mother exchanged glances. “I will admit to no such thing,” Mom said. “You’re a nice, responsible, hard working girl.”
“Exactly my point!” I finished off the sandwich and sank back into the pillow. “I’m a drone. A nice enough drone, but a drone. I’m the Queen of Drones, and how sexy is that?”
Especially with a scar on one breast, I nearly added, but didn’t because of Ed being there, and because I knew what my mother had said, and would say again: Get over it. You’re fine. Be glad you still have two.
“What on earth is the matter with you? Since when was sexy everything?” My mother glared at me over her knitting. “Is it that time of the month? Do you need an aspirin?”
“Mom! Please!”
“Well, honestly. I’ve never been to such a pity party.”
A silence followed. Paris, who had been following the conversation like a front-row tennis fan, grabbed my spoon. I let her hold it, helping her manipulate it until one of my soup crackers swam into the spoon like a trapped tadpole.
Paris giggled and dropped the cracker back into the bowl. Soup splattered onto the bed tray that my mother had fashioned out of a cookie sheet covered with a dish towel. Mom and Karin both grabbed paper towels and blotted up the mess.
“Let’s get to the point,” Mom demanded then, tossing the paper towel with a pitcher’s professional wind-up into the kitchen trash. “You’re upset that David, a man you’re just getting to know, saw you sitting in a car with this man here.” She pointed to Ed, who actually blushed.
“Not just sitting,” I corrected. “I was kissing his neck.”
My mother studied Ed’s neck over her glasses, as if evidence of the act might still be visible. Then she shrugged. “Kissing is hardly a crime. There’s no diamond on your finger. After all, you’ve only known David a short time.”
I didn’t dare admit that David and I had already spent two nights together, or that I’d gotten into bed with him both times as fast as I could. Nor did I confess that I had let Ed take me home with him for the express purpose of a marathon pleasure fest, only to back out at the last minute. Sex for fun? Not for my mother. She had dated my father for a solid month before allowing him to kiss her.
Karin turned to my mother. Her dark hair was up in a severe French twist which, on Karin, only begged to be unpinned. “What I think,” Karin said slowly, “is that Jordan is overwhelmed by the sudden responsibility of caring for a baby, plus madly in love with David.”
I stared at her. Overwhelmed, yes. But the other?
“Madly in love?’ I mouthed the words like an unfamiliar spice. “I haven’t been in that kind of love since ninth grade! You know that.”
My mother agreed. “How could Jordan be madly in love? Love doesn’t appear overnight, tiptoeing in like the Tooth Fairy.” She frowned, then settled on a sentiment echoed in greeting cards everywhere: “Love is a seedling that grows into a solid oak tree over the years.” She smiled, looking pleased with herself.
I took a sip of ginger ale. Was that really what my mother thought her marriage to my father was, an oak tree? Well, every tree had its termites and fungal rot.
Ed stood and stretched. His blue jeans were tattered at the knees and his t-shirt was just as old, a thin web of cotton across his shoulders. The total effect was that of the Incredible Hulk bursting out of his clothes. “I think David probably reacted that way not because you were kissing another man, but because I was the one you were kissing,” he proposed.
“Oh, my. The King of Modesty!” Karin laughed.
My mother arched an eyebrow and held her knitting at arm’s length to count stitches. “Why do you say that?”
Ed looked sheepish and tugged on one corner of his moustache. “David and Karin were dating when I first met Karin at a dance club. David’s band was playing there, and he had invited her to hear them. I asked her to dance. David must’ve felt like I scooped Karin out from under him.” Ed sighed. “I did act like a heel. But I was a he
el in love.”
“You’ve said all this before, and I still don’t believe you,” Karin protested. “David and I were just friends. We never actually slept together. David just takes things too seriously.”
“You don’t get it, do you? You have a powerful effect on people,” Ed said.
He gave Karin such a solemn, tender look that I studied the drowning crackers in my soup, embarrassed. Paris was sitting on the bed with me, gumming a sandwich crust; I put my hand beneath her chin to catch the drool.
My mother was unimpressed. “Not one of you takes relationships seriously enough. You treat sex like a game of musical chairs: whoever isn’t quick enough, loses.”
“We only sleep with people we really care about,” Ed protested, his eyes still on Karin.
Oh, sure. And with anyone else who happens to be available. I stroked Paris’s hair, trying not to catch Ed’s eye.
Mom exploded. “Edward, if you and Karin really care for each other, you’ll get busy building a life together. Look at you! You’re what, Ed, forty-something? You’re pushing fifty with a short stick! That’s two-thirds of your life gone. You’ll be having a stroke soon, with nobody around to wipe drool off your chin. And Karin? You’ve got your looks now, so it’s easy enough to find company. But women’s faces fall after forty, and your hips will spread from here to Texas whether you have children or not. If you can imagine sitting in a rocking chair next to this man some day and liking it, reel him in while you’ve got the chance.”
“Mom!” I scolded.
But Karin spoke up for herself. “People live a lot longer than they used to, Mrs. O’Malley. Forty today is what thirty was in your day.”
Mom snorted. “Forty is still old enough to have a bad back and an ounce of common sense.”
Karin soldiered on. She’d never been afraid of anyone’s parents, even as a child. “Don’t you think it’s good for Ed, for all of us, to find out who we really are before we make a commitment to someone else?”
On the warpath, Mom’s cheeks burned red and her breath came in short pants. “What absolute drivel. You still have the same basic personalities you did when you were the size of this baby here.”
Mom nodded her head towards Paris, and then something must have stopped her–what? Paris’s curls? Her hands clasped on the blanket? Her tiny, perfect nose? For she smiled at the baby before continuing in a softer voice.
“Karin, you’ve always been bold,” Mom said. “I can remember you doing handstands on our lawn for all the world to see, not caring whether your dress was up or down. And you, Jordan O’Malley, have always been sweet and serious. You may be taking a vacation from common sense right now. But no amount of experimenting in San Francisco will ever change the fact that you’re basically a very nice girl who likes to make people happy.”
“That’s me,” I muttered. “Nice.”
Karin laughed. “Yeah, and I’m the little slut with the dress up around her waist.”
Mom shook her head. “The point is, you did nothing wrong today, Jordan.”
I nodded, momentarily accepting absolution.
“All right, then.” My mother had finished the strawberry hat. She began winding up her yarn and gathering it into the flight bag beside her chair. “It’s time to quit beating yourself up. Hang the blame where it belongs. If David was really so keen on being with you, he should have yanked open your car door and confronted you, instead of zooming off like a scared rabbit.”
I stared at her. “But why should David go out on a limb and risk having me reject him for Ed, when he’s already been there and done that with Karin?”
My mother leaned over and pulled the strawberry hat onto Paris’s head, admiring her handiwork as Paris touched the hat and chortled her approval. “Nobody ever said love is dignified, Jordan. That’s about the last thing we are, when we’re in love.”
Paris was shrieking at me from her crib, her face screwed up like an angry troll’s and her pale hair standing on end in feathery tufts. I climbed out of bed and scooped her up, nuzzling her damp neck. It was only then that I realized my mother wasn’t in the apartment.
Morning sunlight flooded the room. Mom had spent the night on the floor, on a blow-up mattress she had toted along in her suitcase. God knows what else she had brought with the air mattress, rubber gloves, and sponge. I recognized this mattress as something I used to lie on at the town beach; underneath the white sheet, the mattress’s green canvas skin was mottled and bleached from the sun.
Where could my mother have gone at 9 o’clock in the morning without a car, in a city where she knew no one? I fussed in the kitchen, making oatmeal for Paris and me.
I tried David’s cell and clinic numbers as I cooked and handed Paris utensils to bang on her high chair tray. He wasn’t answering either number. Still, I felt calmer. Today I’d catch up with him, explain. A good night’s sleep and Paris’s morning grin had restored a sense of normalcy to my life. Or was it Mom’s tomato soup and grilled cheese? All I had to do was reach Cam and David today. Then everything would be fine.
The baby and I ate outside on the deck and played in the thin ribbons of sunlight, creating helicopters out of dried leaves. Then I brought Paris inside and carried her in the backpack to keep her out of trouble while I cleaned up the kitchen. The phone rang as I dried the plates.
I jumped towards it, convinced David would be on the other end. I would be cheerful and warm, not panicked or tearful. Karin was wrong: I was not madly in love with David. Just interested.
I picked up the receiver and squeaked a hello.
“That you, Jordy?” My father bellowed from across the country. I could hear a shooshing sound on the line. The hose? He was probably watering Mom’s roses.
“Yes.”
“Huh. Almost didn’t recognize your voice. What the hell is going on over there? Put your mother on the phone!”
“I don’t know where she is,” I answered truthfully.
“What do you mean? I got her damn note. Says right here in black and white, she’s staying with you in Frisco.”
Paris squealed, trying to wrest the phone out of my hand and give it a good gumming. I held it out of reach and spoke loudly into the receiver. “Mom’s here,” I admitted. “But she’s out at the moment. I don’t know where. And, Dad, nobody calls it `Frisco’ anymore.”
“Frisco, Nabisco, who the hell cares?” my father muttered. “Do you know what the crime rate is in that city?”
I didn’t. My father, no doubt, had gone to the town library, his home away from home, now that he’d stopped being a regular at the bars, to look it up. This was the first time Dad had phoned since I’d left. He’d always maintained that phones were for business, not pleasure, so I was impressed that he’d actually dialed out of state.
“Dad, I’m sure Mom’s fine. She probably just went out for milk or something.”
I should wear an official name tag: “Family Peacekeeper,” I thought, scrubbing the egg pan with resentful zeal as my father yammered on about where Mom should be and what wasn’t getting done in her absence: the mail, the dry cleaning, the grocery shopping, the vacuuming. Why did I get all the flack, while Cam pulled one disappearing act after another?
“What the devil is that racket?” my father demanded suddenly.
I’d forgotten Paris, since I was so accustomed to having her yell in my ear while I did chores. “A nature show,” I told him. “Parrots and monkeys.”
Dad grunted. “A lot you’ve got to do, watching TV at this hour. You teachers and your summers off. Then your unions have the balls to demand more money! When your mother gets back, tell her to call me. Can you do that much for your old man? Or is that asking the moon?”
Did I imagine it, or did my father sound nervous? Mom could say all she wanted to about coming West to find Cam and me; it dawned on me now that she’d left for other reasons as well.
“Sure, I can do that. Listen, what’s going on with you two, anyway?”
“None of your be
eswax,” he said. “A little misunderstanding. Just get your mother to call me ASAP.”
My mother and my landlady, Louise, arrived about an hour later, while I was playing with the baby on the floor and wondering whether to call the police. Mom’s face was flushed from exertion and she looked pleased with herself. She was wearing a huge necklace of bright red and yellow beads.
“Oh, hi Louise!” I said. I’m glad you two have met.” I aimed to sound casual, but my voice strained tight as elastic around my unasked questions. I waited to see what explanation my mother might offer for her absence.
None was forthcoming. Instead, she gave me a look that said, See what it feels like? Meanwhile, Louise squealed and clapped her hands. “Oh, there’s our little miracle darlin’!”
At first, I thought she meant me. But then I heard babbling at my feet, where Paris was using my leg to pull herself up to a standing position.
Louise scooped the baby up and cradled her in one meaty arm. “You precious little pumpkin pie,” she murmured. “Who’s happy today? Who’s got a smile for Louise? Who needs a kiss?”
Ignoring Paris’s wailed protests, Louise bussed the baby and played out the whole hyperbolic “this little piggy” routine on her toes. Well, at least I wasn’t going to get evicted for housing a child.
My mother hung back, smiling not just at me, but at the baby. “Hello, Jordan,” she said. “Feeling any better after that good sleep? It’s time for a fresh start!”
“Sure, I’m better. And you look great.”
I felt pinpricks of irritation at being kept in the dark about my mother’s activities, but it was true: Mom looked terrific. Her perm had softened into finger curls around her face, which was pink from her recent outing, and her gaze was bright. She had erased five years since yesterday.
“Thank you,” Mom said briskly. “I’m so glad you’re well. We have a busy day ahead of us!” She rubbed her hands together, grinning like a cruise ship hostess.
“We do?”
“Yes! We’re going to track down your brother.”
“I’ve already tried to find him, Mom. Nothing but dead ends.”
Sleeping Tigers Page 17
