I walk to the storage bin under the windows of the passenger side of Hello Yellow, open up her underbelly, and pull out my trash bag of clothes. I sniff armpits and crotches until I find my purple scoop-neck sweater and a basic pair of jeans. Bra and underwear were changed yesterday, so no worries there. Changing outside sucks because of the cold and the snowy slush underfoot, making your socks wet no matter how hard you try to balance on your boots when changing pants.
Dressed for school, still wearing three jackets instead of one winter coat, I walk back into Hello Yellow, BBB trailing in his dapper plaid coat; I grab my backpack, exit Hello Yellow, BBB trailing, and say, “Will you eat something today, Mom?”
“Oh, sure,” she says, lighting up a fresh cancer stick. She forces a smile, but she is looking at something just above my hair and will not make eye contact. I’m afraid she might start crying, so I kiss her on the cheek, walk away, lift BBB over the fence and then hop my way out of the school bus compound.
Mom’s not-eating started at an exact moment, which I can pinpoint. It’s a good moment gone bad. Here is the all-time Amber-and-her-mom moment number six:
Two Thanksgivings ago, when A-hole Oliver was just beginning to show his true colors and Mom was just beginning to slip, she decided that she was going to make this killer traditional Thanksgiving meal with a real turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and gravy and wine and candles and everything else that most people have on Thanksgiving. This might not sound like a big deal to you, but Mom and I had never had a real Thanksgiving dinner before, and buying all the ingredients wiped out what little savings Mom had. True.
We got up very early on Thanksgiving morning to get the bird into Oliver’s oven. And then we began preparing all of the side dishes while listening to this CD of Frank Sinatra doing Christmas music, which Mom had bought at the grocery store when she was splurging, because she is a big Sinatra fan.
This very morning—cooking with Mom—is one of my all-time favorite memories, because I had never seen her so happy, the two of us listening to Old Blue Eyes, as Mom calls Frank Sinatra.
Oliver got out of bed around ten and immediately went down the hall of the apartment building to drink with his friend and watch football, which was fine with Mom and me, because we were having such a great mom-and-daughter moment and I hated Oliver from the get-go.
I set the table really nicely, even making origami-swan place cards, and got the candles going so that Oliver’s dingy small apartment actually felt sorta festive and alive.
When the turkey was ready mid-afternoon, Mom had me go down the hall to get Oliver while she cut the meat, but when I knocked on the door of his friend’s apartment, no one answered.
We waited an hour for Oliver to come home before we started eating without him.
I knew that Mom was really sad that Oliver blew off her big meal—what she had spent all of her hard-earned savings on and spent so much time preparing—so I tried to make a big deal about everything and ate until I felt I was going to puke.
Mom hardly touched any of her food and just sorta stared at her plate while I shot so many compliments at her.
Oliver still wasn’t home by the time we had put the leftovers into Tupperware and washed the dishes.
So Mom and I sat down on the couch and watched TV.
Jurassic Park was playing on one of the few channels we got, and I was all snuggled up in a blanket with my head in Mom’s lap, taking in all the awesome dinosaurs, when she started to cry. So I sat up and held my mom for a long time while she cried and cried.
When she finished crying, she wiped her eyes and said, “Amber, you’re the best thing about my life.”
Oliver walked in all drunk right then, and Mom hustled herself into the kitchen to fix him a plate of food. I watched her dote on him, pretending not to care about his blowing off her meal, while he stuffed his drunken face. From the couch, as I watched them, I knew that I would never allow a man to treat me how Oliver treated my mother. And I began to believe that Mom knew this too—that I really wasn’t going to be like her—and maybe knowing that I would not have an Oliver in my future somehow made her life a little bit better.
I liked being the best thing in my mother’s life, even if I did wish that her life was a whole lot better than it actually was. Her telling me that on the couch as we watched Jurassic Park, it was sorta like a moment for me.
Back in the present, as I walk the cold mile to Ricky’s house, B Thrice circles my heels like a maniac, and sometimes he runs through my legs when I take a long stride. Because I’m a chick, I like to pretend I’m Dorothy, BBB is Toto, and we’re walking on the frickin’ Yellow Brick Road, just about to meet some interesting friends who will help us melt the Wicked Witch. It’s a pretty dumb fantasy, especially since Judy Garland was so super-mega beautiful and most boys would rather kiss the Tin Man—or even a flying butt-monkey—than swap spit with yours truly.
But I like skipping and singing.