Seriously. Is it not enough I am burdened with a psychotic best friend? Must my grandmother be losing her mind AT THE EXACT SAME TIME????Tuesday, September 8, the loft
So as if this day hasn’t been long enough, when I got home just now, it was to find utter chaos reigning. Mom was bouncing a screaming Rocky in her arms, tearfully singing “My Sharona” to him, while Mr. G sat at the kitchen table, yelling into the phone.
I could tell right away something was wrong. Rocky hates “My Sharona.” Not that I would expect a woman who took her three-month-old to a protest rally where someone ended up throwing a trash can through a Starbucks window would remember which songs he likes and doesn’t like. But the “M-m-m-my” part actually makes him spit up, if you accompany it with jiggling, as my mom was doing, and she seemed oblivious to the white stuff all over her shoulder.
“What’s going on, Mom?” I asked.
Boy, did I get an earful.
“My mother,” Mom shouted, above Rocky’s screams. “She’s threatening to come here, with Papaw. Because she hasn’t seen the baby.”
“Um,” I said. “Okay. And that’s bad because…”
My mom just looked at me with her eyes all wide and crazy.
“Because she’s my MOTHER,” she shouted. “I do not want her coming here.”
“I see,” I said, as if this made sense. “So you’re—”
“Going there,” my mom finished, as Rocky’s screaming hit new decibels.
“No,” Mr. G was saying into the phone. “Two seats. Just two seats. The third person is an infant.”
“Mom,” I said, reaching out and taking Rocky from her, careful to avoid the spit-up still spewing from his mouth like lava from freaking Krakatoa. “Do you really think that’s such a good idea? Rocky’s a bit young for his first plane ride. I mean, all that recycled air. Someone with Ebola or something could sneeze and next thing you know, the whole plane could come down with it. And what about the farm? Didn’t you hear about all those school kids who got E. coli from that petting zoo in Jersey?”
“If it will keep my parents from coming here,” Mom said, “I’m willing to risk it. Do you have any idea what kind of minibar bill they racked up the time your father put them up at the SoHo Grand?”
“Okay,” I said, between verses of “Independent Woman,” which always has a soothing effect on Rocky. He is much more into R & B than rock. “So when are we going?”
“Not you,” Mom said. “Just Frank and me. And Rocky, of course. You can’t go. You have school. Frank’s taking a vacation day.”
I knew it had sounded too good to be true. Not the potential risks to my little brother’s health but, you know, that I might get to escape to Indiana, instead of facing election hell back at school and the potential breakup with my boyfriend.
Which reminded me.
“Um, Mom,” I said, as I followed her into Rocky’s room, where she’d apparently been engaged in putting away his clean laundry before Mamaw’s blow fell. “Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure.” Although my mom didn’t exactly sound like she was much in the mood to talk. “What?”
“Uh…” Well, she HAD told me once that I could talk to her about ANYTHING. “How old were you the first time you had sex?”
I fully expected her to say “I was in college,” but I guess she was so busy trying to cram all of Rocky’s MY MOMMY IS MAD AS HELL AND SHE VOTES onesies into his tiny dresser, that she didn’t think about what she was saying beforehand. She just went, “Oh, God, Mia, I don’t know. I must have been, what, about fifteen?”
And then it was like she realized what she’d just said and she sucked in her breath really fast and looked at me all wide-eyed and went, “NOT THAT I’M PROUD OF IT!!!”
Because she must have remembered at the same time I did that I am fifteen.
The next thing I knew, she was blathering a mile a minute.
“It was Indiana, Mia,” she cried. “It’s not like there was so much else to do. And it was, like, twenty years ago. It was the eighties! Things were different back then!”
“Hello,” I said, because I’ve fully seen every episode of I Love the 80s, including I Love the 80s Strikes Back. “Just because people wore leg warmers all the time—”
“I don’t mean that!” Mom cried. “I mean, people actually thought George Michael was straight. And that Madonna would be a one-hit wonder. Things were DIFFERENT then.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. Except, moronically, “I can’t believe you and Dad Did It for the first time when you were FIFTEEN.”
And then, noticing my mother’s expression, I was like, “Oh, my God. That’s right!” Because she didn’t even meet Dad until she was in college. “MOM!!! Who WAS it?”
“His name was Wendell,” my mom said, her eyes going all dreamy, either because Wendell had been a total hottie, or because Rocky had finally quit crying, and was instead drooling all over the lion patch on my uniform blazer, so that for once, the loft was filled with blissful silence. “Wendell Jenkins.”
WENDELL???? The man my mom gave the precious flower of her virginity to was named WENDELL????
I seriously would NOT have sex with someone named Wendell.
But then, I am having grave reservations about having sex with anyone, so my opinion probably isn’t worth much.
“Wow,” my mom said, still looking dreamy. “I haven’t thought of Wendell in ages. I wonder whatever happened to him.”
“You don’t KNOW?” I cried, loudly enough that Rocky kind of gave a little start in my arms. But he calmed down after a quick verse of Pink’s “Trouble.”
“Well, I mean, I know he graduated,” my mom said, quickly. “And I’m pretty sure he married April Pollack, but—”
“Oh, my GOD!” This was shocking. No wonder Mom is the way she is! “He was two-timing you????”
“No, no,” my mom said. “He started going out with April after he and I broke up.”
I nodded knowingly. “You mean he loved you and left you?” Just like Dave Farouq El-Abar and Tina Hakim Baba!
“No, Mia,” my mom said, with a laugh. “Good grief, you have an uncanny ability to turn everything into a country western song. I mean he and I went out, and it was great, but I eventually realized…well, I wanted out of Versailles, and he didn’t, so I left, and he stayed. And married April Pollack.”
Just like Dean married that other girl on Gilmore Girls!
“But…” I stared at my mom. “You loved him?”
“Of course I loved him,” my mom said. “Gosh, Wendell Jenkins. I haven’t thought of him in ages.”
GEEZ! I can’t believe my mother is not still in contact with the boy who relieved her of her virginity! What kind of school did she GO to back then, anyway?
“Why are you asking me all these questions, Mia?” my mom finally wanted to know. “Are you and Michael—”
“No,” I said, hastily shoving Rocky back into her arms.
“Mia, it’s perfectly all right if you want to talk to me about—”
“I don’t,” I said, fast. Real fast.
“Because if you—”
“I don’t,” I said again. “I have homework. Bye.”
And I went into my room and locked the door.
There must be something wrong with me. I’m serious. Because you could totally tell when Mom was remembering having sex with Wendell Jenkins, that she’d had a good time. Doing It. Everyone seems to have a good time Doing It. Like in movies and on TV and everything. Everyone seems to think Doing It is just, like, the pinnacle of experiences.
Everyone except for me. Why am I the only person who, when she thinks about Doing It, feels nothing but…sweaty? And not in a good way. This can’t be a normal reaction. This has to be yet another genetic anomaly in my makeup, like absence of mammary glands and size-ten feet. I am totally lacking in the Do It gene.
I mean, I WANT to Do It. I mean, I guess that’s what I want, you know, when Michael and I are kissing, and I smell his neck, and I get that feeling like I want to jump on him. Surely this is an indication that I want to Do It.