Chapter Sixteen
“TIERNAN, GIRLS. MAY I COME IN?” HER MOTHER ASKED, THOUGH it wasn’t really a question. And even if it was, Tiernan had no voice to answer it, the air had been sucked from her lungs into the black hole that was Judy Horowitz.
Judy wore a red silk blouse, black slacks, and heels—half corporate lawyer, half matador dressed for a bullfight. Her makeup was perfect.
“You girls wouldn’t mind giving us a little privacy, would you?” she asked, smiling at Alice and Summer. Her voice had that soothing tone she used to coax their cat into its travel box for a trip to the vet. The cat always made a break for it. Tiernan fought off the urge.
“Sure, not a problem,” Alice said, practically falling over herself to get out the door.
Summer heaved her massive purse onto her shoulder. “We’ll be back . . . later.”
Then the door slammed shut and it was just Tiernan and her mother, mano a mano at the Gaywether Hotel. It had all the makings of a pay-per-view special.
With a flick of her manicured fingernail, Judy turned off the TV so that the only sound left was the hum of the white noise machine. Hotels used white noise machines to drown out sounds from adjoining rooms—voices, the television, the moans and groans of the newlyweds next door. Judy had one at her law firm to protect her clients’ privacy. Her own daughter’s privacy was clearly less of a concern.
“How did you find me?” Tiernan asked. If her mother was a matador, Tiernan was the bull bucking in its pen before the match.
“The Millers,” Judy said, kicking off her heels. “They called me after they spoke to Alice yesterday telling me to expect a call from you.” Her eyes bore into Tiernan. “But that call never came.”
“Mom, I was going to call you, but I—”
Her mother cut her off with a talk to the hand move. “Stop, Tiernan. Just stop.” Judy sat down on the corner of the bed. Now that Tiernan got a good look at her face, she seemed tired and worn, like she’d come looking for a nap rather than a fight.
“You know, I was really, really angry when I found that note. And I was still angry when I got on the plane to come down here.” Judy took a deep breath. “But now that I’m here, I’m just . . . happy to see you’re okay.”
Cue violins here. This little performance was about to go down in the Jewish Mother Guilt Trip Hall of Fame.
“So, are you girls having a nice time?” her mother asked (and not in a sarcastic way). Strangely, Judy’s eyes looked wet.
Tears weren’t part of her mother’s usual MO. Unless this wasn’t a guilt trip. But what else could it be? A head injury?
“I don’t know.” Tiernan stopped pacing. “Kind of. I guess.”
“Well, that’s good. I always thought Alice and Summer were a good fit for you.” Judy pulled her feet up under her. With her size-two frame, she looked small, like a little kid.
Tiernan knew what to do with a ranting and raving Judy Horowitz—the Judy Horowitz who confiscated cell phones and bought drug-testing kits from CVS like they were Tic Tacs. But what the hell was she supposed to do with this?
“Mom, is this some kind of reverse psychology thing?”
Her mother smiled. “Why? Is it working?”
Tiernan snorted disdainfully, but it didn’t quite hide her smile.
“Come, sit next to me.” Judy patted the bed and Tiernan sat. As if there was another choice. On her mother’s right foot, her big toe poked through a hole in her stocking.
“I was hoping we could just talk for a minute, like two adults.”
“Well, we can give it a shot,” Tiernan said. She could still run. She was faster than Judy. She had shoes on.
“I want you to know how scared I was, Tiernan. How hurt I felt when I found your note . . . those hours I spent not knowing where you were.”
Tiernan’s stomach tightened. Her mother’s voice had a hollow sound to it, as it had in those weeks after Tiernan’s dad had moved out.
“I was so frantic to find you, I even called Dustin.”
Tiernan winced. Dustin was the boy she’d dated junior year. It hadn’t ended well.
“He’s at his parents’ lake house in New Hampshire for the summer. He said to say hi.”
“Hi,” said Tiernan.
“Anyway, on my way down here, something happened.”
You bumped your head on the airplane’s overhead compartment? You converted to Hare Krishna at the airport?
“I realized that this right here”—she gestured to the room—“is not about your anger at me for grounding you, or for confiscating that alcohol, or for any of the squabbles we’ve had in recent times. This is old stuff between us.”
Her mother reached out and put her hand around Tiernan’s clenched fist, gripping it so tightly, Tiernan could feel the throb of her own pulse, as if Judy were holding her actual beating heart.
Her normal response to maternal affection was to pull away but, for some reason, she didn’t. This time, Tiernan relaxed her fist and held her mother’s hand back.
“Tiernan, we’ve both made mistakes and done things we regret. . . .” Judy’s voice trailed off. “But if we want to try to work it out—instead of doing what we’ve been doing over and over again for the past four years—then we need to go all the way back to the start.”
Tiernan gave her mother a wry smile as she fought back tears. “How long do you have?”
“As long as it takes,” Judy said.
They sat like that in silence for what seemed like ages while Tiernan’s mind reeled back through the past few years. What was there left to talk about? The divorce was old news. Her parents did the best they could to make it as painless as possible for Tiernan and her older brother, Todd—sat them down for the mandatory “it’s not your fault” lecture, as if they were a couple of kindergartners, even though Tiernan was fourteen at the time and Todd was about three weeks away from leaving for college. The lucky bastard.
But life wasn’t fair. And marriages were no different from anything else in the world—eventually it all turned to crap. It’s not like it didn’t bother Tiernan that her father had cheated on her mom and moved to Colorado with his new girlfriend, but it wasn’t as if there was anything she could actually do about it.
“Tiernan,” her mother began, “I’m going to tell you something I’ve been afraid to say for a really long time.”
Tiernan’s stomach tightened as if she were readying herself for a punch in the gut.
“I feel like—” Judy’s voice quavered. “I feel like I’ve let you down. That I haven’t been the mother I wanted to be. The mother you deserved.”
So Judy guilt-tripped herself as much as she guilt-tripped everyone else? Interesting.
“I was so sad when Dad left, so consumed with my own problems, that when you started acting up and getting into trouble at school, it just felt like, like too much to take. It’s no excuse. It’s a horrible excuse. And I know you were only acting out because you were upset about the divorce, about Dad leaving. But at the time, I could barely manage my marriage falling apart.” Judy paused while a single tear rolled down her cheek and plopped onto the bedspread. “And I didn’t give you the attention you needed because it was easier . . .” Judy bit her lip and shook her head.
Tiernan wanted to tell her mom that she didn’t have to finish the sentence, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
“It was easier . . .” Judy sucked in a breath as more tears came. “It was easier to let you push me away.”
Tiernan sat perfectly still while the weight of her mother’s words settled over her. Part of her wanted to scream at her mother, to throw things against the walls and watch them smash. Her own mother, the one person in the world who had to love her and instead had abandoned her. Just like her father. Just when she’d needed her most.
“But I’m not going to do that anymore.” Judy sniffled. “And I know in two more months you’ll be off at college . . . but I’d rather spend the rest of our lives slogging through the mud together than to just sit back and watch you drift away.”
Tiernan hugged her knees into her chest, listening to the sound of her mother cry. She hated her father for running off to Colorado with his girlfriend—for lying to them, for leaving. But the truth was, she hated Judy even more. Judy, who was right there with her the whole time in the same house, and until this moment had never seemed to notice Tiernan was good for anything other than yelling at or punishing.
Judy slid her arms around Tiernan’s back and held tight. If she hadn’t felt so weak, she would have flung her mother off right then and there. Just busted out of her embrace and taken off into the night. Stop pretending we’re a normal mother and daughter! Tiernan wanted to scream. It’s too late for that. Way too late. But for some reason she couldn’t move a muscle. It took everything in Tiernan’s power to hold back her own waterworks.
“You and I build walls to protect ourselves,” Judy whispered as she stroked Tiernan’s hair. “It’s what we do. I put on my war paint and my suit and my heels every day, and I go to court and I fight, fight, fight. And everyone always says to me, ‘Judy, you’re so strong.’” Her mother sniffled. “But you know, Tiernan, a person can’t be strong every minute of her life.”
Suddenly all the tears Tiernan had been trying so hard to keep down rose up in her throat and she was sobbing hard, her head pressed into her mother’s chest.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let loose and cried like this, but now that the well of pain had opened up inside her, there seemed to be no stopping it, and the more Tiernan tried fighting it off, the deeper she fell—down, down, down into the darkness. If her mother really loved her, why did she push her away? Who else did Judy think Tiernan had during the divorce? Her father was gone. Her brother was off at college. She’d already shipped her off to boarding school, tearing her away from Alice and Summer, the only people who really knew her back then, the only people who’d truly cared. They had cared, even though Tiernan’s insecurities had made her doubt it.
No, Judy was wrong. Being strong was what protected her from being like this—a pathetic, sniveling mess. And given the choice, she’d rather end up a soulless stone-cold bitch than have to deal with this kind of pain. Wouldn’t she?
All at once the answer came to her, and Tiernan pulled herself free from her mother’s grasp just far enough away to look Judy in the eye. Tears had left her mother’s makeup a mess—streaks of blush and mascara in all the wrong places, her lipstick faded and smeared—like a watercolor painting left out in the rain. It was a wild look, but at the same time, Tiernan was comforted to see her impeccably dressed, buttoned-down mom looking so imperfect.
“I love you, Tiernan,” Judy continued. “More than you’ll ever know. But I’m still making mistakes and finding my way in the world, just like you are. That’s the big secret about being a grown-up—you’re never actually done growing up at all.”
Fresh streams of tears spilled down Tiernan’s cheeks.
“And I know what I said isn’t what you wanted to hear. It isn’t what any daughter should have to hear.” Judy rested a hand on hers. “But if we’re ever going to get back to that place of trust and respect, of closeness—closeness I miss so much—then we have to start by being honest. With each other, and with ourselves.”
Tiernan used the back of her hand to wipe her nose and took a deep breath. She didn’t know what she wanted to say exactly, just that something in her needed to finally put words to all the feelings that for years had been bottled up inside. Feelings that, for better or worse, were begging to be set free.
“Want to know why I dyed my hair black that first time?” Her voice sounded nasally, from crying.
Judy nodded.
“I did it . . .” Tiernan’s tears began again in full. “I did it so I wouldn’t be a redhead like Dad. So you wouldn’t look at me and be reminded of . . .” Her sentence trailed off under her blubbering while her mother’s arms surrounded her.
“But then you hated it.” Tiernan continued through her sobs. “You’d just look at me with pure hatred in your eyes.”
Judy lifted Tiernan’s chin and held it, so that they were eye to eye. “You’re my daughter, Tiernan.” Her voice was steady and firm. “I would never, never look at you with hatred.”
Tiernan nodded like a guilty child. Judy’s mouth eased into a smile.
“No matter how much I despise the color of your hair.”
Tiernan inhaled a short laugh, sucking the tears from her lip.
“Sorry,” Judy said. “That’s another way I try to protect myself. With the wisecracking.”
You mean, we, Tiernan thought. But instead, she reached for her mother’s hand. “Do you know how mad at you I was when you sent me off to New Jew freshman year?” she asked.
“Yes.” Judy sighed. “I think you made that pretty clear.”
“I know you thought the reason I kept getting into trouble was to punish you for sending me there.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Judy admitted.
Tiernan paused to blow her nose. “But it wasn’t. I just felt like messing things up. Like ruining stuff was the only thing that made me feel better.”
Judy nodded. “Was that what happened with Alice and Summer? I never really understood what went wrong between you girls.”
Tiernan had never thought of it like that before, but maybe there was some part of her that had wanted to ruin their friendship. A part of her that wanted to drive Alice and Summer away before they wised up and decided to leave her. The thought made Tiernan shudder. But even more frightening was the realization that maybe she was more like her mother than she dared to admit—pushing away the people who mattered most.
“I never even tried to make any friends at New Jew,” Tiernan admitted. “Making friends takes effort, but pissing people off “—she snapped her fingers—“piece of cake.”
“Oh, you pissed people off, all right,” Judy said, rolling her eyes. “Especially the administration.”
Tiernan smiled. “Hey, if I were on the swim team, I would have been psyched to swim in a pool of grape Jell-O.”
“Tiernan.” Judy pursed her lips.
“Seriously, Mom. Don’t you think it was a little harsh that they expelled me over that? I mean, it didn’t even congeal!”
“They had to drain the entire pool,” her mother said disapprovingly. “Not to mention the fact”—a small smile peeked through Judy’s scowl—“that you didn’t even . . .” Now her mother was trying hard to keep a straight face. “That you didn’t even use kosher Jell-O,” she managed to sputter as they both erupted with laughter.
“So does this mean I’m not grounded anymore?” Tiernan asked through her giggles.
“That depends,” Judy began. “I think you still might have some work to do on this trip. And I’ll consider letting you stay, but only if you’re staying for the right reasons.”
The right reasons. Ha. When had Tiernan ever made that part of the equation? She’d always been more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kind of gal. The type of person who leaped before she looked. That is, if she bothered to look at all.
And what kind of work did Judy think she needed to do, anyway? Was she supposed to sit down with Summer and Alice for some big heart-to-heart like in one of those schmaltzy Lifetime original movies? And if so, just how many soul-rending conversations could a girl be expected to have in one week?
The truth was, Tiernan had no clue what the “right” reasons for staying were, only that running away had been the wrong one. And that was a pretty good start, wasn’t it? The rest she could figure out as she went along.
“So, what do you think?” Judy asked, breaking their silence.
Tiernan was skeptical. “You’re honestly giving me a choice in the matter?”
Judy nodded.
“Well, in that case . . .” Tiernan inhaled a deep breath. “I guess I’m going to stay.”
“FASTER”
THEY TELL ME ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY,
BUT WHEN I MET YOU, I KNEW RIGHT AWAY.
AND WE WERE MOVING FAST
BUT TIME WAS GOING SLOW
YOU SAID LET’S MAKE IT LAST
AND WATCH THE FLOWERS GROW
BUT I WANNA GO FASTER
I WANNA GO FASTER
A GORGEOUS DISASTER
WE WATCH IN SLOW-MO.
—from Level3’s second CD, Rough & Tumble