“What’s he do?”
“Accountant.”
“Has he called you yet?”
I have asked these questions so many times that I’ve developed a crisp and efficient delivery, like Mariska Hargitay on Law & Order SVU always asking the kid to point on the doll where the creepy uncle touched her.
“Yes. But I let it go to voice mail. I have to stay smart about it! I don’t want to seem like I like him too much,” Dawn says sagely. She is really into all those dating mind-game books: The Rules and Why Men Love Bitches and If You Do Something You Want to Do, You’ll Literally Ruin Everything.
I roll my eyes, like I usually do when she starts spewing this nonsense, and flick a Twizzler at her.
“Come on, who actually cares about that crap? That stupid ‘Who cares less?!’ death spiral is such a waste of time.”
Dawn shakes her head.
“Nope. I didn’t design it this way, but like I always tell you, the party with the least interest—”
“Has the most power,” I finish along with her. “God, you’ve only been saying that since I was a zygote. Whatever. Disagree.”
“I know it seems retro to you, but you’ll see the light real soon,” Dawn says confidently.
“I hope not,” I groan. “It’s so depressing.”
She unmutes Bridget Jones’s Diary right as Hugh Grant and his smirking face emerge from the elevator just as “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” starts playing.
Begrudgingly, I’m like, “Okay, that’s a really legit sound cue. Good job, movie.”
She smiles. Today’s emotional crisis is out of the red zone.
“But please, please promise me you’ll mute Colin Firth’s ‘just as you are’ speech.”
“I promise,” Dawn lies.
I finally escape to my room.
Dawn’s always been like this. Back in seventh grade, Avery had a slumber party. She, I, and a few other misfits from school that we had nothing else in common with got into sleeping bags in the Parkers’ freezing-cold basement and watched Mean Girls. When Regina George’s velour-tracksuited “not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom” started handing out virgin daiquiris, I felt all six pairs of eyes swivel toward me, starting with Had Her Period on White Pants and Nobody Told Her Leslie and ending with Legitimately Mentally Slow Jenna.
And those are just my friends’ reactions. Last year at the Drama Club fall potluck dinner, Dawn rushed in, tugging down the hem of her electric-blue bandage dress, with boxed Entenmann’s cookies she tossed hastily on the table with the other moms’ homemade casseroles and pies.
“Who’s the old skank?” Ashley asked Natalia, not quietly (she probably thinks sotto voce is a type of coffee), knowing perfectly well that the old skank was my mom.
Later, predictably, they sang “Take Me or Leave Me” from Rent as both sets of parents filmed it from opposite sides of the audience, because to get only one angle would have been a huge social injustice.
At worst, Dawn and I don’t get along. At best, we confuse each other. Like, she’s in a zillion Meetup groups that all have some misleading title like “Melville Museumgoers” but are just a cover for a bunch of women drinking pinot grigio in someone’s den and talking about how shitty their kids and ex-husbands are. She comes home, and I ask her something pointed like “Did you check out the Goya exhibit?” and she replies distantly, “I had a really good share today.” Then she pours white wine over some ice cubes, goes into her bedroom, shuts the door, and listens to one Macy Gray song on repeat.
Dawn thinks I should open up and be more receptive to groups. I remind her that history rarely reflects well on groups of people who bond and get carried away. “You’re more like your father every minute” is her muttered reply. Sometimes I get the feeling she wants to squash the Dad half of me like it’s a cockroach. She even tried to get me to use her maiden name for a hyphenated surname. I said the only way on Earth I’d do that is if her maiden name was Barr, which it is not.
Her most blatant attempt to “connect” with me came in the form of a trip to Disney World. We drove down, sharing a motel bed on the way. But my mother omitted one important piece of information, which was that we could only afford the vacation in the first place because some timeshare was having a promotion. In exchange for the discount rate, we had to sit through a three-hour tour of available units and get the skinny on why going in on a three-bedroom condo in Fort Lauderdale was the Best! Decision! Ever!