Not Quite A mom

by Kirsten Sawyer

  The fifth day of the silence was the breaking point for Tiffany. A survivor, she needed to figure out a way to make the best of her miserable situation, so she approached Lizzie with an offer to help her win her fiancé back. In Tiffany’s opinion, a girl shouldn’t want to marry such a prick, but since she knew she would take Scott back and immediately have sex with him if he offered, she couldn’t judge Lizzie too much. Thankfully, Tiffany’s plan worked—even better than she had hoped. Lizzie quickly accepted Tiffany’s offer for help and was so uplifted by the idea that she would be getting back together with Dan that she decided to attend Charla’s funeral back in Victory with Tiffany.

  Tiffany still secretly held out hope that Buck Platner would insist on becoming her guardian and take her away from Lizzie, but since that wasn’t very likely, she was prepared to help Lizzie, thereby helping herself. The drive to Victory felt even longer than usual, and Tiffany’s legs twitched from being still for so long. Lizzie drove slower than her great-grandmother had before she had passed away a few years earlier. Tiffany thought she was going to go insane by the time they finally pulled into the driveway of Lizzie’s parents’ house, a house identical to her own except for its pretty yellow paint and living purple flowers.

  Lizzie’s parents had seemed happy to see her, and everything was going well until she had followed Lizzie down the hall to the bedroom in the same location as her own had been, to what had been converted into an office and exercise room. Tiffany feared it would ignite another meltdown from Lizzie and quickly offered Buck’s house as a place to stay. Knowing her choices were Buck’s or the Holiday Horse, Lizzie agreed to Tiffany’s suggestion.

  Even though she’d only been to Buck’s house twice, it felt so good to return there, and she felt totally comfortable. The warmth and kindness of his personality radiated through his home. It was the kind of place where you could feel comfortable putting your feet on the coffee table after getting yourself a Coke from the almost empty fridge. She wished so much she could live there instead of in Lizzie’s designer showcase apartment with the couch that looked like you weren’t even supposed to lean back on the fluffed down pillows.

  So happy to no longer be alone with Lizzie, Tiffany was almost caught off-guard when Buck pulled his truck into the parking lot of the Holy Lady of the Ivy where the marquee sign that normally boasted the week’s sermon topic said “Memorial for Charla and Chuck Tatham” in the same black lettering that the movie theater used for the newest Jack Canton film. Suddenly it hit her like a bucket of cold water.

  Stiff and silent, she followed Buck and Lizzie into the church. Her grandmother was the first to approach her and grabbed her in a secondhand smoke–filled embrace. Gran’s eyes were red from crying…or maybe from smoking her “special cigarettes,” as she referred to the marijuana her grandparents grew on their sun porch. Gran and Gramps were good people but wacky beyond belief, and as a result, Tiffany didn’t spend too much time with them. They were also busy people, active in their bowling league and cross-country motorcycle club when they weren’t harvesting mary-jane for their personal use.

  Her grandmother’s hug released her into another and then another, and before she knew it, she had been hugged all the way to the front of the church. Feeling as if she’d gone through the wringer, Tiffany sat down alone in the front pew and stared at the matching side-by-side wooden coffins her mother and stepfather presumably lay in. As she wondered which box housed her mother’s remains, Buck slid into the pew next to her and whispered, “You okay?”

  Without a word, she buried her head against his chest and cried, big and audible tears for the first time, not caring who saw or what they thought. Before she finished crying, the service ended and once again people were trying to hug her, shake her hand, or awkwardly offer condolences. Buck, sensing her discomfort, gently took her hand and led her out a side door near the front of the church. The two stood silently and watched all the cars file out of the parking lot and head to her grandparents’ house for sandwiches and lemonade. Gran had made all the funeral arrangements and had decided she didn’t want a bunch of people standing around watching her daughter be put in the ground, so the brief funeral didn’t include any graveside service. As quickly as it started, it ended, and everyone followed the caravan in the direction of the refreshments.

  21

  It goes without saying that I am not an emotional person. I don’t cry at weddings, movies, or long-distance phone company commercials the way that many girls do. A guy I dated for seven months in college actually called me a “frigid bitch,” which I think was just his way of voicing his anger that I wouldn’t have sex with him, but it maybe had to do with the fact that I was with him when I got the call that my grandmother had died and I didn’t shed a single tear. Don’t get me wrong—I was sad…of course I was sad, but I just don’t cry very easily. In fact, the tears I shed over Dan were the first to flow from my eyes in quite a long time—probably years.

  All this being said, I was shocked to feel tears streaming down my cheeks during Charla’s funeral. It wasn’t so much the words the pastor was sharing about a woman I didn’t know and her husband—your typical funeral stories about how much they loved life and blah-blah-blah—but the stories about the Charla Dearbourne I spent my childhood with. My memories began on the grade school jungle gym, where Charla and I would spend recesses perched atop the metal web sharing Oreo cookies like the queens of the playground. Then we were in junior high, using our allowance to buy light blue eye shadow at the drugstore, and stealing liquid eyeliner and mascara from our mothers’ makeup collections. As some member of Charla and Chuck’s bowling team droned on about their “dedication to the lanes,” I remember Charla in high school, her wavy blonde hair and blue eyes both looking so big on her petite frame, telling me her boyfriend wanted to “go all the way” the night of the homecoming dance. I’d listened intently as she’d described every detail of the night—part of me jealous, the other horrified—and I’d sat with her on the side of the tub as we waited for a little plastic stick to tell her her fate.

  After I left for UCLA, I’d convinced myself that we’d grown apart, but the truth is that I’d pulled away. Sometime around the blue eye shadow days, when every teenager thinks she’s hot stuff, I’d become convinced I was too good for Victory and nothing (and nobody) would keep me in the small town. Now, suddenly, sitting wedged between my own mother and Charla’s, I’m realizing how much I lost (gave away). The pain stuck into my stomach like a knife. As the pastor completed the eulogies and everyone stood up to greet those around them, Margie, Charla’s mother, turned to me.

  “Charley (that’s what she’d always called her daughter and I’d forgotten until this instant) always knew she could count on you. I’m so glad you have her Tiffany,” Margie said with a sniffle.

  It was like twisting the knife. Before I could respond, other people were there patting Margie’s back and offering her tissues. Suddenly, I realize that Tiffany is my second chance with Charla. By getting to know the teenager, I can make up for lost time with my childhood friend. As I look around the church, I revoke my vow to find someone, anyone, in Victory to keep the girl. She is coming back to Los Angeles with me. She will help me win Dan back and it will be just like the days when Charla and I would scheme and scam together.

  Unfortunately, Tiffany is nowhere to be seen, which I guess is for the best, since it would be awkward to explain that my plan had been to ditch her but that a sudden surge of feeling has prompted me to do the right thing…especially since no one really knew about my goal of getting rid of the teenager. My parents usher me toward their car, and before I can locate my original carpool, I’m in the backseat of my mother’s Accord in the traffic of the funeral exit. My mother coos in the front seat about what a lovely service it was and how nice the flowers looked and asks my father if he thinks the wreath she sent looked nice enough. Their conversation is mostly background noise until I hear her mention Buck Platner.

  “What’s that?�
�� I ask, realizing too late that my question came out far too eagerly.

  Thankfully, my mother doesn’t seem to notice, although I see Ray raise an eyebrow and look at me in the rearview mirror.

  “I was just saying what a sweetheart he has been to Tiffany. Margie was telling me how she spent the weekend at his house when he had some trouble tracking you down, and there he was with her again today. I didn’t even realize that he and Charla had been friends?” she says, never missing an opportunity to throw in any sort of question.

  “Say, didn’t you go to the homecoming dance with him?” Ray asks.

  “I think it was a prom,” I say, trying but failing to fake nonchalance. “The wreath you sent was lovely, Mom,” I add in an attempt to change the subject even though I have no clue which of the dozen circles of carnations with gold cursive “Sympathy” across them my mother was responsible for.

  “Oh, Lizzie, I’m so glad to hear you say that,” she says and then starts bad-mouthing the other arrangements sent which were apparently completely inferior to her own.

  I breathe a silent sigh of relief that I dodged the Buck Platner issue, but I can’t help wondering why it was an issue to begin with. Before I had an answer, we were pulling up to the Dearbournes’ house, one identical to my parents’. The Dearbournes’ house is on Cheryl Court, apparently named for the developer’s wife. It’s around the corner from my parents, exactly 150 paces, which I know because every other week I “ran away” to Charla’s bedroom; the weeks in between she ran away to mine.

  The street is filled with old American-made pickup trucks and small imported sedans, with people dressed in their “best,” which often only means a clean denim workshirt and boots, piling into the Dearbournes’ home. I follow my parents up the steps and into the tiny foyer. The Dearbournes are kind of hippielike and their home is evidence. Above the dining room table is a purple peace sign that Margie crocheted, and a curtain of beads hangs at the entrance to the hall leading to the bedrooms. Margie always tried to make Charla wear hand-knitted sweaters and knockoff Birkenstock sandals, but Charla was much more interested in replicating the pages of Teen magazine.

  Once inside, I again look for Tiffany, but I don’t have any luck.

  Oh well, I tell myself, I’ll see her tonight at Buck Platner’s house.

  I still cannot believe I am spending the night there. I shake my head and throw a disgusted look toward my mother for the demolition of my childhood room. She mistakes the look for a sad face and returns by tipping her head to one side and making a frown. I turn away and then make my way through the crowd of people, who no longer seem like the forlorn crowd from the church, toward a plate of pressed ham and American cheese sandwiches on the table. I take one, as well as a handful of Oreo cookies. “Charla’s favorite,” I say to no one in particular as I set the plate down in order to twist the cookie apart and eat the white icing just like Charla and I used to do as kids.

  22

  Buck and Charla hadn’t exactly been friends. They were friendly back when they both attended Victory High, especially when Buck had taken Lizzie to the dance, but in the years between that night and the day of her funeral, they had exchanged only one-or two-word greetings when their paths happened to cross. This fact wasn’t lost on Buck as he sat in the front pew at Charla’s funeral comforting her daughter.

  In the past week, Tiffany Dearbourne, a girl he would have had trouble naming had he been face-to-face with her, was suddenly part of his life. As he sat in the pew, sweating profusely beneath his wool suit, Buck’s mind wandered from the minister’s eulogy. He thought about where he might be sitting right now if Charla had hired Frank Watson to write her will, or if she had named her mother, Margie, to be Tiffany’s guardian. Maybe he would be sitting in a back pew somewhere with some of his Victory High classmates…or maybe he would be sitting at home on his couch watching a baseball game.

  Buck’s life had taken a quick turn down an unknown path one week ago when his father summoned him to the office. He now found himself front and center at Charla’s funeral and reunited with Lizzie. He chastised himself for thinking about her during the funeral but continued to do it anyway. He found himself straining to turn around discreetly and look for her in the crowded church—a difficult feat from the very front row. He couldn’t see her anyway; people were packed in like sardines in a can. He did, unfortunately, catch the eye of his father, who gave him a questioning glare as Tiffany sobbed on his shoulder.

  He hadn’t thought about his father being at the funeral, but once he made eye contact it was obvious—Charla was a client, after all. Buck had been extremely vague and evasive when filling his father in on the details of Tiffany’s transfer of custody. He certainly did not mention the extra days it took or that he personally drove her to Los Angeles. Buck knew his father would question him about how he had gotten to know Tiffany well enough in less than twenty-four hours to sit with her at the funeral, and Buck would have to figure out a way to avoid the explanation.

  Just as Buck thought his skin would literally begin to melt, the minister finished speaking, and everyone else in the crowded church began. Tiffany was immediately accosted by aggressive condolence-wishers, and Buck couldn’t help taking pity on her. He quickly ushered her out a side door of the church; it was a door he had walked through twice as a groomsman in the weddings of his high school buddies. One had gotten married in July, and Buck remembered standing on the side of the church feeling as though he might faint from the heat. The other had married in February, and Buck had stood in the same spot in probably the exact same rented tuxedo shivering from the cold. As Buck stood silently with Tiffany, he noticed that the paint that had been peeling badly the last time he’d been there had been replaced by a thick coat of yellowish white.

  As hot as it was outside, it felt cool in comparison to the unair-conditioned church packed with people. He stood silently as Tiffany gulped to catch her breath and finally stopped crying.

  “Thanks,” she said hoarsely.

  He simply nodded in response and kicked a small pebble off the walkway.

  “What now?” Tiffany asked him, watching the pebble roll out of sight.

  “Whatever you want,” he answered.

  He knew there was a reception—is that what you call it? Buck had always thought it a strange practice to have a party after a funeral. People are sobbing and depressed at the funeral and then fifteen minutes later are cheerfully eating tuna sandwiches with the deceased person’s family—sometimes in the dead person’s house. Anyway, he knew Charla’s parents were inviting people back to their home after the funeral and he was torn about his desire to attend. Obviously, an opportunity to try to make a good impression with Lizzie was a top priority, but avoiding his father was another one. He suspected that his father, who was as big as he was and overweight on top of it, would be hot enough to swear openly as he mopped his brow with a handkerchief, but he also knew that his mother always did the “right thing,” and going back to Margie and Gordon Dearbourne’s house was probably the right thing to do.

  “I wanna stay while they bury my mother,” Tiffany replied.

  Again Buck only nodded and then stood with Tiffany until the church emptied out. He stood silently by Tiffany’s side as they put her mother’s and stepfather’s coffins on to little carts and wheeled them to the open and waiting graves. He kept his hand on her shoulder as they lowered the boxes into the ground, and offered her tissues as they filled the graves back up. When the ground was level and the workers were under a nearby tree wiping their sweaty foreheads and cracking open cans of Coke, Tiffany turned to Buck.

  “I guess we should go to my grandparents’ house now.”

  A surge of excitement mixed with dread pulsed through Buck. He hoped Lizzie would be there, but he dreaded what he would say to her if she was. Almost immediately he scolded himself for being so self-centered. He and Tiffany walked to the truck and climbed in. The black truck felt like an oven, and Buck kept the air conditioner blowi
ng on them at full blast for the short ride to the Dearbournes’. It was too short a ride for the air to get cool, but at least the minutes of hot air blowing on his face were miserable enough to distract him from thinking about Lizzie.

  By the time they arrived, many people had paid their respects and left. Buck was relieved that his father’s Cadillac was nowhere to be seen as he expertly parallel parked the big truck in a space left vacant almost exactly in front of the house. They entered, and because of his height, Buck had an easy bird’s-eye view of everyone in the house. His stomach flip-flopped when he saw Lizzie standing near the kitchen with a plate of Oreo cookies. His stomach flipped again when she looked up, saw him, and actually looked glad about it. Before he knew it, she had made her way through the crowd and was standing in front of them. Buck’s shock was second only to Tiffany’s when Lizzie threw her arms around the teenager and proclaimed, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Buck was enamored with Lizzie, but he had to admit that until this moment she had behaved like a raving bitch to everyone around her. From Lizzie’s tight embrace, Tiffany strained to give him a questioning look, which he could only return with a confused shrug.

  23

  The rest of the weekend in Victory feels like time spent in a time warp. Even though I haven’t been home in so long, in some ways it feels like I’ve never left. Granted, this probably has much to do with the fact that little has changed in the small town. Besides the addition of a Subway, things are almost identical. Except now, instead of the hatred that used to surge through my veins at the lack of progress in the small town, I feel as if it is contributing to my second chance. It’s the perfect setting to build a relationship with Tiffany that will make up for the one I lost with Charla.