A Mother to Embarrass Me (2 page)

I was ready.

I lay in bed for a long time staring at the ceiling. It seems that for all my life Mom has been embarrassing the heck out of me, but I know that isn't quite true. Not when I really think about it. I mean, only last year I can remember being
proud
of Mom.

Mary Wolf, one of my best friends, and I shared fifth grade. She lives only two doors down from Quinn and Christian. That makes it easy for me to walk by Quinn's house, what with him living so close to Mary.

Anyway, she and I sat side by side, right in the front of Mr. Bennion's fifth-grade class. It was there, sneaking notes to each other, that we became friends.

And it was Mr. Bennion who had parents come and visit our class and tell what they did
for their job. I think it was some career day thing.

Derek Larson's mom talked about being a three-dimensional artist. She showed a couple of her paintings, complete with doors you could open and close.

Allie Keene's dad talked about being an inventor. He showed a pager that he had worked on that showed all kinds of important information on it, like when your next appointment was and where.

Mary's mom is a stay-at-home mom. She brought in jars of food she had canned and a loaf of fresh bread that was still warm and even a great big carrot cake for everyone to try.

Then in came my mother, dressed in her work clothes, a pair of blue jeans and an old T-shirt. Now, at the memory, I shivered with embarrassment. Why did she wear those clothes, spattered with paint and smeared with clay, to school that day? And why hadn't it bothered me then? Like it did now. It could have been worse, I knew that. Sometimes Mom works in her pajamas.

Anyway, I remember she held up a sculpture she was working on, one that she called
Freedom.
It was a little girl, her hair blowing forward, holding on to a kite that really seemed to tug from the girl's hand.

“I modeled for that,” I had whispered to Mary. And she said, “Wow, that's cool, Laura.”

I hadn't been embarrassed of Mom then. In fact, I was so full of pride that day that when she came to sit in the back of the room with the other parents, I grinned big at her. She grinned back and I felt this big gush of love. So big that I actually wanted to hug her. In public. In my classroom, of all things. Right in front of everybody.

I shivered again, glad that I hadn't been so stupid that day to do something like hug my mother in front of other people.

So when had the change happened, this being embarrassed? It almost seemed an overnight thing that Mom went from cool to geek. How could anyone change so fast?

I looked at my list. My mother-changing list. The list that just might succeed in making me the happiest woman alive. Right at the moment I felt like a woman. Not just a twelve-year-old. I felt like a woman with a list waiting to emerge from her fingertips—well, really the pencil I held in my fingertips—to fall upon—well, really write—the things that would set my mother straight. Forever.

I needed a hundred pages of suggestions to make her an acceptable mother. Hundreds. This task before me was huge, one I felt only a woman could undertake. A twelve-year-old woman.

With great sincerity I wrote a large number one. I took my time, coloring around the edges with a gel pen.

Next to the number one I wrote: “Complete overhaul needed.”

Just what would a complete overhaul take? Brain surgery? Did we have money for that? I was sure we did. In fact, I knew Mom and Dad had a college fund for me. Would they let me use it for something that might make me truly, truly happy?

“Start with something easier,” I said out loud. “Something Mom could do if I helped her set her mind to it. Something—”

At that moment Mom's voice pierced through my door like a javelin might. “My baaa-bee.” These two words were repeated many times.

Okay, number two on the list was easy.

2.
her awful singing

So was number three.

3.
her awful singing that is so loud all the world can hear

And four.

4.
her awful, loud music

I stopped. Where were all the ideas now? All I had thought of were music-related items. But could I be blamed? Even a jury from
Ally McBeal
would agree with me that no human mind could think of anything more with that music blaring away.

Fine. I knew how to end the list. I turned five pages ahead in my notebook. At the bottom of the fifth page I wrote the number 100 and spelled out in careful, neat letters, “Change her whole mother self.” I could fill in the rest as it came to me.

Mom was in the kitchen below, I could tell by her voice. She was singing again, this time making up the words to “Rock Me Tonight,” along with a harmony that no one would recognize even fitted the song. Without going down there, I knew what she was doing. Dancing. Swinging her hips and hopping around on the stone kitchen floor, probably getting ready to start Dad's dinner.

“How much more of this can I take?” I asked the ceiling, where I had pinned a poster with the words
WHO YOU ARE IS IMPORTANT
,complete with a rainbow and a wrinkled-looking dog who didn't know how ugly he was.

I flung myself off my bed and stomped to my door. I threw it open wide, hard. It bounced against the wall, leaving a tiny ding.

“Mom,” I shouted. “Mo-om.” Anger warmed my cheeks. “Turn down the music.”

Right at that moment the music stopped. “What's that, Laurie?” Mom sang the words,
using another new tune. For sure she was in what she calls a “creative mode.” All this singing proved that.

“It's Laura,” I shouted. Why in the heck can't she even get my name right? “Can you please turn down the music?”

There was a moment of silence and then Mom said, “All right, honey.”

“Thank you.” I used my most sarcastic voice, then slammed the door shut for good measure. I plopped onto the bed again and for a moment felt a bit of satisfaction. Things stayed quiet downstairs. There was no music at all. I smiled to myself.

Mom's last words, “All right, honey,” played back in my head. Guilt crept in around the edges of my satisfied feeling. Guilt! As if
I
should feel guilty about anything. Mom had embarrassed
me.
I had a right to be angry with her. Why did this guilt thing always happen to me? Why not to her?

“Fine,” I said. “Just fine.” I got up and stomped to my door and opened it. Mom wasn't going to win the battle without a fight.

I could hear the sounds of dishes being clinked together. I made my way to where Mom worked in the kitchen. She looked up when I came into the room.

“Hey, baby,” she said. She looked worse than the day when she visited my classroom. She wore
an old pair of blue-and-green flannel pajamas even though the sun was high in the sky. They're four inches too short and they bag in the butt. These are jammies that she doesn't sleep in but works in. In fact, she doesn't sleep in anything at all, a thing that has always embarrassed me, since before my birth, I'm sure.

“I like to be comfortable when I'm creating,” she tells people who come to the door and see her in nightclothes.

“Did you find anything good at the library?” Mom asked.

I didn't answer for a second, then with an icy voice I spoke. “Yes.” I looked in the fridge even though I wasn't interested in anything, a little amazed at how only one word could seem to mean so much.

But Mom didn't even notice my strong yes. “How about grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner tonight? I'm craving something fried.” She didn't wait for me to answer. “I know I shouldn't, but I'm going to anyway.”

I glanced at my mother with only one eye. It wasn't easy to do, even with the practice I had had at my front door, when I had looked out at Quinn and Christian. It wasn't easy to look at her, I mean, without really looking. From this position I could see that her cheeks were plump.

A little shock tremor went through my bones. I jerked my head around to get a full-on view. I
nearly dislocated my neck in the process. Mother was a little… well, a nice word for it would be
chubby.

“I'm working on a new piece,” she said.

Shock had frozen my tongue. My skinny mother, bulging. When in the world had that happened? While I was at the library?

There was a knock at the door. Still I stood, staring at my mother with both eyes now.

“Would you get that, Laurie?”

I wanted to say yes but I couldn't. Instead I turned and walked toward the front door. I felt like a zombie, only slower. Mother—fat. My mother, fat. My mother, ex-model turned sculptor, fat. It was enough to make a crazed man sane.

It was Mary at the door.

“You're back,” she said, and then walked into the house. “I called you thirty-eight times and there was no answer. Check caller ID if you don't believe me.” Her hair was braided in lots of tiny braids with beads at the ends. Mary's older sister, Karen, wants to be a beautician. She's always doing cool things to Mary's hair. I'd let her do cool things to mine, too, but Dad likes my hair the way it is 'cause it looks so much like Mom's.

“I believe you,” I said, awakened from my zombie-like state.

“Did you get any good books?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I got that Richard Peck one you told me to read, about the
Titanic.”
Mary loves all of Richard Peck's books. Each of us always
tells the other what titles are good. This summer we decided to see how many we could read before school starts again. My goal is one hundred.

“I came over to see if you wanted to walk to the library with me.” Mary swung her head, and the little beads clinked together.

“Sure,” I said. “I don't think Mom would care. Just as long as I'm home in time for dinner. She's actually making food tonight. We're not going out.” I rolled my eyes in an exaggerated way and Mary laughed.

“I wish we were always going out to eat,” she said.

“No you don't. After a while it gets boring. There aren't that many restaurants in our area.” To tell you the truth, we'd have to be in a city bigger than New York to have enough variety, that's how much we eat out.

“Let's see if you can go,” Mary said.

I grabbed her by the arm to stop her. “Do me a favor,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. “See if Mom looks different to you.”

“Different how?”

I noticed that the beads in Mary's hair matched the ties on her braces. “Different, different.” I couldn't bring myself to say the word
fat.

She gave me a squinch-eyed look, then said, “Okay.”

We went into the kitchen. Sun splashed
through the windows onto the sink and counter-tops.

“Mare-Mare,” Mom said in a voice that made it sound like she hadn't seen my friend in a million years and not just since yesterday. “Hello!” My mother is so cheerful that, sometimes, even
that
gets on my nerves.

“Hey, Mrs. Stephan. Can Laura go to the library with me? I'm out of books.”

Mom had piled all the ingredients near the stove to make grilled cheese sandwiches: bread, cheese, butter, and a cookbook. A
cookbook.
Whoever heard of having to read directions on making a grilled cheese?

“We're having grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. Chips, too,” Mom said. She held up a package of Baked Lay's potato chips. “With fresh sour cream.”

Good grief
, I thought. I crossed my eyes at Mary, who ignored me and smiled at my mother.

Mom popped open the sour cream container and dipped her finger into it. She licked off the sour cream, then said, “Sure, Laurie can go. Can you two be back in an hour?”

Mary nodded and I heard the beads tap.

“By six o'clock, Laurie girl?”

“Okay,” I said. Grrr. Laurie girl. I'd have to add nicknames to my list of things to change about my mother. And cheerfulness.

Mom came near to give me a kiss. She had a tiny bit of sour cream on her top lip. I wasn't sure if it was there by accident or if she had left it there on purpose. Sometimes she does that. I mean, sometimes she coats her lips with chocolate from-the-can icing and walks around like it's lipstick. That makes Dad laugh. It makes me sick. At least nowadays. It used to be I'd wear chocolate lipstick too. Now I've grown up. Too bad my mom hasn't.