I Was Told It Would Get Easier

by Abbi Waxman

  “Baby, it’s okay,” I said softly, stroking her hair. “I know it’s hard to be your age.”

  “How do you know? It’s completely different than it was when you were sixteen.” She pulled away her hands and her face was angry again. “I mean, physically it’s the same, but it’s a completely different world. You didn’t even have computers.”

  This was, of course, untrue, but I doubted this was the time to split hairs. You cannot win this argument, I reminded myself, because she is irrational and actually couldn’t be less interested in what your teenage experience was like any more than I had been interested in my mother’s. Her brain is awash in chemicals and her prefrontal cortex is as smooth as a hazelnut, and she’s looking for someone to blame for how she feels and you’re sitting right there.

  Emily was still going, her voice thick with tears. “You could make mistakes at school and it didn’t ruin your entire life. You could get into college with like a 2.4 GPA and do fine. You could get drunk and stupid and it wouldn’t show up online the next day and follow you everywhere you went your whole entire life.” Her hands were back over her face, and now she rolled over and started sobbing into the coverlet.

  Oh, for crying out loud. “I know, honey, I’m so sorry.” I rubbed Emily’s back and thought longingly of the shower. I’d been so close . . .

  EMILY

  I got a great T-shirt and the theater tour was really good; I loved it. I posted pictures and we got back to the hotel in plenty of time to chill out. I was planning on having a shower, but Mom decided to push me about college and got all upset about it. She doesn’t understand that things are so different now, there’s so much pressure to be perfect all the time, perfect at school, perfect online, plus a little bit different, to make yourself stand out. A learning disability is good, or maybe freckles all over your face, or a little bit plump but sexily body positive . . . you know, something that says you’re not basic. While still meeting the basic criteria, obviously, and not messing up in some catastrophic way.

  I stood in the shower and tried to clear my thoughts. I’ll admit I’d gotten a little bit bent out of shape when my mom was interrogating me, and I didn’t want to look puffy at dinner. I was still freaked out about the girls in my Statistics class, but even before that, I felt anxious all the time. Maybe I have a disorder; maybe a specialist can write me a note getting me out of life for a few years, so I can recuperate.

  The shower helped, though, and maybe dinner would be fun. I hoped Mom wouldn’t bug me again.

  JESSICA

  In the end there wasn’t time for both of us to take a shower, so Emily took one and came out totally recovered and in a good mood. And me? Well, still feeling grimy from all the walking we’d done, I had to content myself with fresh deodorant and brushing my teeth. At least I’d been able to vent to Frances while Emily was in the shower.

  I texted, “Emily has lost her mind.”

  Frances replied, “How can you tell?”

  “She says she hates me, then she says she’s sorry and cries, then she hates me again.”

  “Sounds normal to me. Two minutes ago Sasha asked me if she could Postmates a Venti iced chai from Starbucks, and when I said it was less than ten minutes away on foot, told me I didn’t care about her future.”

  I smiled. “The connection being . . . ?”

  “That she was doing Vitally Important Studying and the half hour she would lose by fetching her own drink—and please note, we have chai in the fridge—could mean the difference between getting into college and going on the pole.”

  “Totally reasonable.”

  “Right. The fact that your child even occasionally apologizes to you is amazing. Quit your bitching.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The dinner that night was at El Presidente, and dancing had been threatened. El Presidente was clearly a DC institution, with adobe walls painted pink and the scent of forty thousand tortillas hanging in the air. My tummy rumbled, but thankfully, chips and salsa came immediately once we sat down. The E3 group had a long table to ourselves, and Cassidy had arranged the seating in order to separate parents and children, “the better to get to know each other.” As the parents at least had our kids in common, we did fine, but god knows what the teenagers were going to talk about, especially once Cassidy insisted they put away their phones.

  “Oh my god,” said one parent, in an undertone. “They’re going to have to actually speak to each other.”

  “I think my kid’s forgotten how,” said another. “He texts me from the room next door to ask me something. On the one hand it’s ridiculous, and on the other hand it’s so much better than shouting back and forth.”

  Chris nodded, and said, “Sometimes I think it’s easier for Will to text ‘I love you’ than it would be to say it to my face.”

  I thought about the texts Emily and I sent each other. Even if we’d bickered all evening, we would declare a truce over text. I would sit in my bed and she would sit in hers, at the other end of the hall, and we would send each other funny pictures, say sweet things, discuss plans . . . It was lower stress, being able to talk without having to deal with body language, having time to think about how you wanted to say things. People lament the amount of time teenagers spend online, but there’s a lot to be said for old-fashioned, written communication.

  After ordering, the parents’ end of the table began engaging in gentle but insistent competition over social status, as expressed through the medium of children. Of course, Dani was leading the charge, which started out disguised as general conversation.

  “So, where is everyone at school?” She might as well have said, So, let’s rank each other by socioeconomic status and potential social power, shall we? but listing schools was much quicker and equally effective. Once you’ve entered a city’s educational system, it doesn’t take long to work out the pecking order. I imagine going to jail is a similar process. A week or two of getting the shit beaten out of you followed by a rapid self-placement in whatever subgroup offers the most protection.

  Dani smiled. “Jessica and I are both parents at Westminster, but I don’t think anyone else is, right?” Westminster is the best all-girls school in Los Angeles, and one of the best in the country. It is cripplingly expensive, very hard to get into, and fiercely competitive once you had dragged your poor child over the barbed wire to get in. Don’t get me wrong, there are great kids there, some of the brightest and best of the city, but there are also enormously entitled, wealthy kids who make life difficult for the nice ones. But if you have a very intelligent kid, or one with medium intelligence but lofty ambitions, Westminster is a good choice.

  Dani scanned the table. “Phillip-Daniels?” She was going down the standard list; PD was the best co-ed school in Los Angeles, extremely academic and competitive. Four other parents raised their hands.

  “Northridge? Plummer? St. Jude’s? Hedgewood? Camberly?” She was only naming private schools, a safe assumption based on the expense of the tour, but I thought she was revealing more about herself than she probably wanted to. The rest of the table slowly segregated themselves, with only Chris unaccounted for. Dani turned to him. “And you’re in public school?” Ouch.

  Chris smiled at her. “No, we’re at Clarence Darrow.” Clarence Darrow was a small private school for academically gifted children, set midway between Los Angeles and Pasadena.

  Dani paused. “Really?”

  Chris laughed. “That’s hard to believe?”

  “No . . . I’m just surprised. Darrow is very . . .” Dani trailed off, apparently experiencing a moment of self-awareness that took her by surprise. Maybe she realized she sounded like a snob and a total bitch, but for whatever reason, she closed her mouth, confused. I tried not to enjoy her discomfort, because that would make me a bad person.

  Chris had clearly had conversations like this before. “Expensive? Exclusive? Yes,
it’s both of those things, but Will is very smart and apparently the principal at his elementary school, which was public, knew the principal at Darrow and reached out. They have an incredible program and Will really likes it.”

  Before things got out of hand, Cassidy intervened. “So, did everyone enjoy the colleges today?”

  “Yes,” said one of the parents, “I thought Georgetown was charming.”

  “I preferred George Washington,” said another parent, “particularly the dorms, which I thought were very nice.”

  “Oh yes,” said Cassidy, congratulating herself on regaining control of the group. “Are most of you assuming your children will live on campus for the first year or so?”

  The conversation bubbled on, and I saw Chris taking a deep breath to calm himself. He looked over at me, and I smiled, trying to convey supportive non-judgyness. The whole stupid conversation reminded me of elementary school, where I’d had a totally miserable time and always felt like a big fat loser. I was born with a club foot; it’s pretty common, especially if your mother smokes like a fiend while she’s pregnant (not that my club foot stopped her; my sister had beautiful feet, she said, and she’d smoked during that pregnancy, too, ipso facto, not her fault), and although they’d fixed it, I still had trouble running or playing sports very well. It wasn’t even PE that bothered me, it was recess, when everyone was friendly enough but had me mind the jackets while they all ran around playing whatever ball-based fad was sweeping the playgrounds of the East Coast that month. I’d sit there, surrounded by foothills of coats, reading and trying not to listen to everyone else having fun. Eventually my dad took me to archery class because it was something I could do as well as anyone else, and it clicked for me. But I’ve never forgotten third grade.

  * * *

  • • •

  It’s entirely possible that somewhere there is a group of people in their forties who can drink a lot of wine, then do tequila shots, then dance like Beyoncé, but we were not those people. The teenagers of the E3 tour group sat at their end of the table in frozen horror as several of the parents, egged on by Dani, who actually could dance annoyingly well and therefore never missed an opportunity to do so, took to the dance floor. There was a live band that was playing a medley of pop classics flavored with a Cuban beat, and until you’ve seen a middle-aged woman get down to a reinterpretation of “Independent Women” on trombone and cowbells, you haven’t lived. I imagine several of the teens will never be able to hear the song again without experiencing PTSD flashbacks.

  Eventually, inevitably, one of the parents fell, and Cassidy declared our evening over. We walked back to the hotel, which was only a few blocks, and most of us were pretty sober by the time we reached our rooms. I’m not going to say all, but most.

  “Did you have a nice time?” I asked Emily as she climbed on the bed fully dressed and settled down for some serious phone time. She pushed her shoes off her feet without untying them, which explained why she needed new ones so often. I decided to chalk up her inability to undo laces to parental failure, and let it go. I was too tired to nag.

  “Yes,” replied Emily, already flipping through her feed or watching porn or whatever it was she was doing. It suddenly reminded me of those kids at school who would curve their arms around their work if they thought you could see it; all this looking at screens no one else could see was as defensive and slightly aggressive. Don’t look at what I’m looking at; it’s not for you. No sooner had I had this thought than Emily turned her screen around to face me and grinned.

  “Oh my god, check this out.” It was a baby animal of some kind—I couldn’t really tell from the bathroom door—maybe a bear? It had its head stuck in a bucket and people were trying to help it. Eventually it popped off and the baby—it was a bear—rolled over backwards several times before loping off into the woods.

  “So cute,” said Emily, turning the phone back.

  I gazed at her for a moment, watching her mouth curve up into a smile at whatever she was looking at, and felt that certainty of love that lives in your bones, an awareness you would give your life for someone and not regret it for a second. I remember reading to her at night, her little body settled in my lap, the smell of her hair and her tiny fingers wrapped around my thumb. Back then I was the one introducing her to everything, the one gatekeeping her experience of the world. Now I’m no longer necessary, my daughter doesn’t want a mediator and, in fact, was sharing new information about the world with me. Without Emily I’d never have known baby bears could get their heads stuck in buckets, although I probably could have surmised it.

  Suddenly, just as I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, Emily looked up at me. “Did you have a good time, Mom? At dinner?”

  I was surprised. “It was fine.”

  Emily frowned. “Only fine? What did you guys talk about?”

  “You guys, of course. What else is there to talk about?” I turned away and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. “The part where that other mom did the robot was pretty funny, largely because I thought you kids were going to die of embarrassment.”

  I started getting ready for bed, wondering if Emily was even listening.

  EMILY

  I couldn’t hear Mom’s voice any longer; she was running water in the bathroom. I have no idea what she really thinks anymore. She used to be so easy to get along with, all my friends loved her, she was generally agreed to be the cool mom, the one who made cookies on the weekend and didn’t care if you cursed. She was tired a lot, and worked all the time, but when she wasn’t working, she would take me to museums and buy me toys and we’d go to Disney or the beach . . . but in the last few years, she’s changed. She’s not anxious, exactly, just more . . . pinched. I wish there was a way to pause your life so you could stay in the good bits. Nine had been perfect. I could have stayed nine forever.

  I had a load of good photos from tonight, including some potentially viral gold. I managed to capture the moment when that kid’s mother moonwalked herself right off her own feet, and I was far enough away that you can’t tell who she actually is. No need to ruin someone’s life because his mom can’t look where she’s dancing.

  My mom came out of the bathroom, dressed in one of her many comfy nighties, smelling of face cream and a hint of toothpaste. This is how she would smell at night when she read to me; I remember it so well. Her lap was the comfiest place in the world, not that I could fit in it anymore, plus that would be weird. When she heads out to work in the morning, she smells of perfume and makeup, moving fast and taking her coffee to go. But at night she smells of roses and mint and seems to have all the time in the world for me. For a moment I got the crazy idea to ask her to read to me and opened my mouth to ask.

  The phone rang. She looked at the screen, and answered. “Hey, Valentina, what’s up?”

  I watched her for a moment. When she’s working her face changes. She gets focused, interested. Whenever she looks at me she looks tired, resigned. I guess I’m less fascinating. Perhaps I should sue someone or attempt a complicated corporate arbitrage of some sort.

  Well, don’t respond at all, she said to Valentina, who’s this woman at her office I’ve never met, but who seems to be Mom’s work daughter. It doesn’t matter if we’re in the middle of something, if Valentina calls, Mom gives her her full attention. I’m not jealous; whatever gave you that idea? Mom was still talking on the phone: Wait him out, let him come to you. Be busy whenever he tries to reach you, tell your assistant to intercept your calls and tell him you’re unavailable.

  Eventually, Mom got off the phone, then tapped at the screen for a moment.

  “Why is your school calling me?” she asked. “I’ve missed three calls today.”

  I froze.

  “Wait,” she said, “I know. It’s fund-raising time again. They want a check, and because I’m on a college tour, I am raw and fearful and open to persuasion.” She grinned at me.
“They are professional sharks, your school, I have to hand it to them. Your tuition is bigger than the library budget of some small towns, but they’re never too shy to ask for more.”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  She turned back to her screen. “I’ll email them that I’m away, which they should already know, for crying out loud, and deal with it when I get back.”

  “What’s up with Valentina?” I asked. I don’t even know why I asked; I don’t really care.

  Mom looked surprised. “Valentina? She’s up for partner at work, and I’m trying to help her get there, that’s all.”

  “That’s very supportive of you.”

  Mom looked quizzically at me. “It’s my job. She’s my mentee, I take care of her.”

  “You’re her boss?”

  “Not exactly, it’s different than that. I look out for her. I anticipate problems, I give her guidance, I lobby for her with senior people at work.” She frowns at me. “Like Angela was for me, remember?”

  “Angela?”

  “Angela was my mentor when I was younger.” She looks hazy for a moment. “I guess it was when you were very small.”

  Why do I feel so annoyed about this? “So, Valentina is like your kid.”

  Mom shook her head. “No, she’s another adult who’s professionally more junior than me.”

  “But you make time for her. You listen to her. You answer her calls and emails. You think about her future.” Suddenly I was angry. “You treat her more like a daughter than you treat me.”

  Mom waited a second, then clearly decided to take the bait. “That’s not true. She listens to me more than you do.”