by Diane Munier
Me and Mom Fall for Spencer
Chapter Twenty-seven
I walk on the sidewalk, the heavy meal sitting in my protesting stomach. I know it’s not right, the man in the blue car, the same blue car that now sits in the driveway of the rental house. He followed us home, but he seems to live here now, separated from Spencer’s house by an empty lot.
I don’t hesitate, I walk onto the porch. See, I’m shy about a lot of things, backwards even I admit, I always have been the keeper of barbed social skills, but about this, this I can do for those same reasons.
So I am knocking on the door and he doesn’t take long to open because like me, he’s a watcher and I’ll bet he saw me coming.
“Who are you?” I say.
“Who are you?” he says.
“Your neighbor. You passed me when I was walking, then tonight at the restaurant. Now you’re here. Who are you?”
“I guess I’m the same as you--your neighbor.”
I can see behind him, the emptiness. A pallet on the floor. An open suitcase black and soft as butter.
“My stuff hasn’t arrived yet,” he says smoothly, turning to see what I do.
“I thought you were following me,” I say.
“Sorry about that. Guess our planets were on the same collision course.” He says.
“Okay,” I say. We’ve collided.
“You’re what…like the neighborhood watch?”
“Yeah.”
“How do I sign up for that?”
“It’s my job,” I say, and I’m already coming off the porch, but I turn, “Your name again?”
“You first?”
“Sarah.”
“Oh. Well A. R.”
“A. R.,” I repeat so he can correct me.
“Yeah. Which house is yours?”
I point to the left, “Two doors.”
He looks down that way. “Right. The dogs.”
I don’t explain. I hope they don’t bother him too much, but I hope they do. I don’t care.
“Well, be seeing you,” I say. I want to do the eye thing, point at my eyes, fingers in a vee.
And not giving me a name? No problem. Cyro will make a call on the plates and we’ll know soon enough.
So I stop at Cyro’s when I reach there and write the number and tell him to find out. I tell him we have a new neighbor in the rental, give him the make of the car. I don’t say anymore. But I could.
“If Spencer is in WITSEC…wouldn’t Colin know?”
Cyro puts his head to the side like I’m mental. “He won’t tell me that.”
“Maybe if you ask?”
“If he tells that because I ask, Doe is good as found.”
What if he’s already found?
I am troubled as I cross the street. Worse, Aaron’s car rolls up as soon as I make it to my gate. Seems he and Christine are delivering Mom. She’s drunk off her ass and crying. Christine doesn’t seem to want Kleenex duty. She literally hands her off to me with apologetic eyes. Apparently she’s about to get her groove on…again, and suddenly remembers Mom and me are related. Aaron leans over and asks if I want some help. Such a gentleman. That’s when I tell him I won’t be coming in to the office on Tuesday. I hear him say, “Sarah,” with some exasperation as I keep going.
So I’m half carrying Mom up the porch stairs and she’s going on about that son of a bitch. Face must have played his get out of jail free card or something.
We get inside and she stumbles trying to take off her shoes and lands on her ass there and she’s on her side then, fetal position. Her necklace is snaking onto the floor and her manicure looks limp lying there like someone spit out red pistachio shells. “Mom,” I say nudging her with my foot.
“Go away,” she says without opening her eyes.
“Mom come on. Get in bed at least.” I squat beside her and attempt to move her.
She slaps at me, one of the nails scraping my neck. “Get away from me.”
Since I’m already down there I back up a little and sit on the bottom step. She goes right back to playing possum again. I sigh big time.
“Stop staring at me,” she says, her moving lips the only indicator she’s not in a coma.
“I think I’ll take a picture so you can see yourself in the morning,” I say.
Her eyes pop open. “What? You think you’re cute?” She pushes up on her hands then.
“You’re drinking too much,” I say.
“Don’t be my mother. You’re not any better at it than she was.”
I suddenly have a new respect for that Grandma. Maybe she wasn’t as bad as Mom painted her. I am sure she had her side of the story.
“What happened?” I ask from long habit. I really don’t want to know. Because I probably already do.
Mom sits up a little more, pushes her hair out of her face as she mutters, “What happened…what happened…I married Fred Sullivan…got pregnant…that’s what happened.”
Oh, we are going way back.
“Mom…did Face do something?”
She peers at me through her drunken fog. “Who?”
“Jace. Did something happen?”
She waves her hand. “I need a smoke.” Her purse is nearby. She reaches for it and gets out her cigs and a light. She lights it and takes a deep drag and lets it out, her stomach caving, her shoulders drooping forward like her head weighs a ton. Sometimes, like now, I can see the shriveling beginning.
“You should be asking what happened to us…me and you. I think…a man is between us. I never thought that would happen.” She’s picking at her tongue like there’s tobacco there, but she’s smoking through a filter.
“Spencer.”
“Who else…Jace? Is Jace between us Sarah? Damn get a clue.”
“How is Spencer between us Mom?”
“You’ve turned on me ever since. I don’t know if you’re jealous or what it is. You’re never here. It’s like you don’t even want to spend five minutes with me.”
“Do you really feel this way?” I thought it was something else. I didn’t know what, but not that she felt I was ignoring her.
“You’ve always…well we’re the two musketeers.”
“Mouseketeers Mom,” I say. I don’t know why.
“It’s changed now. You’re going to be just like me.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re running after the first good looking man who is available and you’re going to end up pregnant. Then you’ll see what I mean when your options go flying out the window.”
“First man? I’m twenty-seven Mom.”
“That’s so young.”
“So I ruined your life. Me and Fred Sullivan. We’re to blame for everything. You have it so bad. Without us you’d be what…a movie star by now?”
“I don’t know why I try to talk to you.”
“You don’t. You never talk to me,” I say.
“Always pointing fingers at me. I’ve been a good mother. Single mother. You try it.”
“You just told me how horrible it is, how I’m going to end up with the same horrible fate. Motherhood, right?”
“And marriage to the first guy that comes along because you want to get away.”
“I don’t want to get away,” I say.
“Yeah you do. You just don’t know it.”
I’m shaking my head. “You don’t know me.”
“Hah. I’ve been you. That’s how much I know you.”
“You can’t talk to a drunk,” I say.
She looks ready to choke me. “Miss high and mighty. How’s the air up there?”
“Come up and see. First you have to get your ass off the floor though.”
We stare at one another. I don’t know why I’ve never seen her insecurities before. But then, I’ve never talked to her like this.
I want her to come back at me, shut me up, be stronger, have better answers. Then I’ll believe she knows better. But she has nothing.
I’ve pitied her for a long ti
me.
No wonder she hates me.
“I can’t make it up to you,” I say.
“What?” she asks, using her cupped hand for an ashtray.
“Everything.”
“I never asked you to.”
No, she never had. Like I said, we never talked. But somehow, I knew. Somehow, I fell into it. And she let me.
It’s late when she finally gets into bed. I have done some work up in my room, mailed off another file to Aaron just to make sure he’s not going to fire me or anything.
Normally I would say it was too late to go to Spencer’s. But I’m protecting him now. So I pack my bag and make sure the doors are locked and I go out and pocket my keys. At his house it is a few beats before he pulls the door when I knock. He looks a little mad.
“You okay, Sarah?”
“I’m sorry.” I get that out pretty quickly.
“I said I wasn’t going to push, but I just didn’t know. I saw them bring her home. I wasn’t sure you were alright.”
“Spencer.”
He stops rattling and looks at me.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.” He steps back and I enter the house.
“You’ve got a new neighbor. A. R., he says.”
“What’s A. R.?”
“His name. He has a ponytail,” I say.
“Like Face?”
It’s much better groomed than Face’s bar-be-que grill-brush, but I don’t say.
“Maybe he’s…,” he starts and then he laughs.
“Don’t say it,” I warn. He’s talking about Mom having a new distraction.
He shrugs and tries to stop smiling. “You gonna work while I finish watching the ballgame?”
I see he’s laid out snacks. The dogs are around me saying hello, but then they are off wrestling lazily with one another.
So he goes to the bathroom and he’s in there so long I do open another file and eat some of the popcorn he’s got there. I throw some to the guys and they are all over it, then they sit there and watch every morsel as it makes its way into my mouth. So I don’t get much done, but I see the file, read it actually, many thoughts in my head.
It’s like that, almost like things resolve themselves without me. Divide and conquer is definitely my brain’s floorplan. I am a multiplex theatre with a different movie in every room and most of the time I’m watching them all.
When he finally gets back he is without a shirt, just his sleep-pants. He comes right to me and takes me by the hand and I rise and shut my laptop and set it to the side all at once.
“Miss Sullivan.”
He’s my attendant now. I laugh and follow after.
The bathroom looks nice, a couple of candles lit there.
“Where’d you get candles?” I say.
“They were under the kitchen sink. I guess when they showed this place they wanted to mask the empty dampness.” He turns to me. “Notice there are bubbles. Dish soap, but it’s the kind nice to your hands so….”
This makes me laugh. “I bathed here when I was a kid,” I say. When they remodeled they kept the big porcelain tub.
“Really? So you don’t feel strange in here,” he says.
“I’m working on it,” I say.
“Hey Sarah…I wasn’t thinking. You don’t have to do this baby. I just thought….”
“It’s fine,” I say. The living room is harder, but I don’t say.
“You take your time. I’ll be watching the game if you need me.” He moves a little toward the door.
“You know you make me so happy, right?” I say.
He moves back to me, takes my hand and kisses it. “You’re a goddess,” he says.
“Don’t leave.” I clear my throat.
He smiles but his eyes are very serious.
I hold my arms out. “Go…for it.”
His hands move to the bottom of my shirt. I lift my arms straight up and he pulls it off. My bra is just a flesh-colored geriatric affair. He steps close, reaches around and unclasps it in the back and gently removes it. “Miss Sullivan,” he whispers, his eyes on ‘them.’ He makes himself look at my eyes, briefly, smiles a hoo-rah, and he’s right back there.
I can hear his breathing. “We’ll just…,” he says like he’s doing a great service and he’s excited. He is lowering my sleep pants and I kick them off when they get down there with my shoes. Then it’s just my underwear.
He stands up and rubs his hands together like he’s stoking up for the big one and I have to laugh a little, and he’s mister glee face, and he lowers my underwear. He makes a sound as he looks it all over and I kick out of my underwear and he helps me and I’m kind of mortified, horrified, and proud of myself all in one.
He still has my underwear dangling from his hand and I grab those and throw them in a corner and they look like a dust-rag over there.
He takes my hand and kisses it. “You’re a goddess,” he says.
I do a little laugh. Yeah I’m speechless. He leads me to the tub and I lift my leg rather gracelessly, probably shooting the beav right there and I have a flashing thought of Leeanne and what she’d say about this. One leg is in though, bubbles are thick, and I bring the next leg in and swiftly sink down like I’ve found a bush…so I can hide my bush.
“Sit back,” he says, and he’s got a wash-rag already, and I am in here, and oh my God it’s the most lovely thing.
“You have to come with me,” I say.
He looks at the rag, then seems to realize he can still wash me after he’s in. He puts the rag down and peels off his pants, then lowers his boxers and ‘boing.’ Oh my god. I know I’ve seen it already, but we are not yet familiar and the shock value is still strong. That thing has presence.
I swallow thickly as he gets in, and I see the balls then, not so bad and close to his body and plump. He is smirking because yeah, I gawk like a Michigan hick. But dang who wouldn’t. So he lowers Loch-ness in to the water.
“What were you thinking just now?” he says, big smile as the borderline hot as shit water covers his jewels.
“Read it,” I say. He makes the hand cradle and fits it right over the factory.
“It’s fuzzy. You’re…dazzled.”
“Think Scotland.”
“Lochness,” he says with eerie rapidity. “You saw the monster.”
My jaw drops. “How in the hell…?”
He’s laughing so loud it bounces off the walls and he keeps going. He grabs my foot and pulls me right up to the monster. If it was pointing at me instead of seeking air we’d be making that baby Mom is worried about.
It’s lots of wet, naked kissing then. The feel of him, hot bubbles and seal-skin. He’s going back and we are under the water kissing for a minute, then breaking above gasping and laughing.
“Hey,” he says, stilling me all of a sudden. He puts his hand on my chin, pushes back my streaming hair, his face right there, our noses almost touching, my arms around his neck, his hands on my back and my ass. “You know you make me so happy, right?”
I pretend to look down at the creature hard and long against my stomach, then I look back at him. “Yeah.”
“I ah…I hope this doesn’t freak you out too much but…I’m in love with you.”
It’s a strange reaction, but my face crumples, and the force of what I’m feeling, it’s that quiet cry, that insanely quiet moment when everything builds. It’s that feeling and I have little control, but I gasp first, and then the sound. It’s a thin wail because I’m working on holding it in.
“Oh baby, no, no,” he says cradling my head on his soapy slick shoulder. He’s sincere but he’s laughing too. “It’s okay. Too much? Too soon?”
I kiss him then.
“I thought you didn’t kiss people,” he says soft-voiced.
“I...I’ve changed,” I say and I kiss him again.
Me and Mom Fall for Spencer
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He’s at the market—A. R.. He nods his head at
me as he passes our booth carrying a bottle of water only. He barely glances at Spencer. That one is standing in the middle of the flow of shoppers.
“Don’t be a bumpkin. Buy a pumpkin!” Spencer sings while he strums his guitar. It’s kind of fascinating the way females of all ages gather around him here at the market. And some men, fathers of young children because they don’t have a choice. Their children are eager to stop and listen to the guitar man. Some of them already know his name and they say, “Hi Spencer.” And besides A. R. and the fathers of small children there are others, carefully coiffed men holding tote bags of peppers and green onions who also possibly find Spencer as interesting, as beautiful as I do.
I scan the crowd for A. R.’s head. He’s gone past. Now my good mood is a little choked.
But people continue to put their money in the carved out pumpkin Spencer has placed by his feet. And every once in a while he looks at me and breaks into the endless song he writes while he sings, “She’s a girl, she’s a girl, she’s a Nessie wrestling girl.” Or some-such, then he adds in this narrative voice, “But I just call her bubbles.” He winks at me.
I stare. I can’t even worry when he’s around. I know I’m blushing like a deep red. The bath, he’s taken me there in front of everyone and we have this secret language now. I cross my ankles and smile.
Ned and Dusty aren’t even responding to being petted anymore. They are like two black body pillows, lying under the table on their sides while many hands, all sizes and colors pat them. They are the best kind of advertising for the shelter, but I fear hugely that someone will head to the doggie jail and get Lucky before I can so I text Barb. “Don’t let anyone adopt that Lucky dog.”
She texts back, “Luck will not run out.” It’s almost funny.
We make a killing. On the way home Spencer counts the money and says, “We squashed it, baby.”
“Puns are the humor of fathers,” I quote with no room to talk.
“I probably fathered a few in my time,” he sasses.
I swerve the truck a little.
He reaches around Dusty and puts his hand on the wheel. “Sarah…you alright? Puns. I fathered puns.”
