Short Story 1: Untitled

This is one of two short stories I wrote for my- you guessed it- short story class at SUNY. Enjoy! 

The day began as any other day. It was a rainy, miserable Thursday in March, the kind of day that makes one decide first thing in the morning that that day will be bad. I threw the down comforter aside in an aggravated motion, glaring at the flashing and beeping alarm clock for disrupting my peaceful slumber. Getting out of bed, I turned off the alarm and checked my cell phone: three missed calls from my mother. I had been successfully avoiding speaking to my mother after making the colossal mistake of telling her about my most recent breakup with Tom, the senior talent scout for the local talent agency. It was an impressive title, at least it was to me when we first met and I was still dumb enough to think there really was still time left- of course I could see myself being married to him!- I now shuddered, remembering the foolish, school girl-ish words that I had uttered not two weeks prior to my best friend, Jeanine. Words that, at the age of thirty-three, seemed fit only to bolster my own mood and Jeanine’s and not centered in any reality to speak of. Because, when you wake up one day and realize you’re thirty three and single, working for a temp agency and no career to speak of, not to mention the ubiquitous “When are you having kids?” question hurled at you from every Yenta you make the mistake of having small talk with, you need some reinforcements.

             “You have two new messages”, said the electronic voice at the other end. “Denise? Are you there? It’s your mother..” I know its you, Ma, there’s a little thing called Caller ID nowadays, I thought bitterly. “Listen, I was at the market the other day and ran into Susan Orphell, do you remember her? With the ringlets? You used to be inseparable..” Tapping my foot impatiently, I considered throwing my phone against the wall, but thought better of it. I may need it later, in case Jeanine calls. Or Tom. Wishful thinking. Putting my ear back to the phone, my mother continued with her rant. “Well, she is on this new diet where she counts points, or they give her points for not eating sweets or something..? Anyway, it has to do with points somehow..” Yup, definitely should have thrown it.. “and she just looks ah-mayzing! Added emphasis for further insult, I thought, looking down at my protruding- yet still without child- belly.

My mother was practically giddy, for goodness sakes. Of course I remember Susan Orphell, she was my best friend for all of junior high and high school, until she moved away our junior year. “Somewhere out west”, she had told me when she first heard, “Where no one knows me and I can start fresh as the most popular girl in the school!” Apparently, Susan told herself grandiose things that she knew would never come to fruition, too. With frizzy light brown hair, a mouth shoved full of orthodontia, bushy eyebrows and about thirty extra pounds, Susan wasn’t exactly gonna be prom queen. Her father’s company was to have a merger with another company, and that turned out to be in some town in Arizona. When she moved away, I knew that was the end for me. As two outcasts in our high school, rejected by both the popular kids for not having the newest fashions and fastest cars, and the losers for not having an opinion on the best level of Asteroids on the Atari, we clung to each other at first out of necessity, lest we be eaten alive in the dangerous hallways of junior high and high school. From that point on, high school as I knew it became one long blur of social rejection. Even back then I’d tell myself it was going to build my character, mold me into this pillar of strength and personal conviction, but in reality all it did was make me dislike people. And myself. And acid washed jeans, actually.

My mother’s voice snapped me back to reality. She was still droning on. “..6 sizes! Can you imagine.. She looks half her size! Although she was never that big to begin with..”

It was true Susan always suffered from baby fat, constantly switching from starving herself to bingeing and never having any luck with losing weight. Although we kept in touch, we never had the closeness that came along with sharing the same time zone, and I remember her telling me once that she had gained another 20 pounds when she was in her late 20’s. Flitting around the house with the phone still pressed to my ear, I wondered if my mother was going to get to the point. If she even had a point. Though I had begun ignoring my mother’s phone calls, my usually wide open schedule becoming increasingly clogged with make-believe appointments and errands, I still found it necessary to listen to her messages in their entirety, a weird habit I had in case at the very end she had some dire message about someone being in trouble, or to tell me dad had another heart attack.

Hopping on one foot, I put my shoe on my left foot, then my right. I smoothed down my skirt (our office has a casual dress code, but I’ve always abided by the old adage “dress for the job you want, no the job you have”, another lie I tell myself) and pour my coffee from its steaming pot into my travel mug emblazoned with Middle Valley Community School on it. Taking one final glance in the mirror, phone still to my ear, I decide I looked presentable enough for the job I’ve hated for the past six years, one that I was sure they could just have a monkey do and save a hell of a lot of money. But, as the saying goes, “A bad job is better than no job”. Or maybe that was just my mother who said that. Six years ago, before finding the temp agency and being placed at my current job, I was unemployed for 5 months after my other job laid off me and forty others. I didn’t think my mother would ever get over the shame of that one. I was busy a lot then, too when she’d call. My father was much more a live and let live kind of guy, laid back and unassuming. Whenever I would ask his permission for something growing up, many times he’d begin to answer with a “ Sure, Nise. I don’t care.” Then he’d quickly change it to “Well, what did your mother say?”  And even though I never did anything too bad or dangerous, when my mother told me I was grounded for a weekend I would nonetheless try my father to see if I could pull one over on her and get out of the house, most likely to go over to Susan’s and watch R movies. My father was a hard working man, an arborist who had thrown out his back many times and broken almost every bone on the job. I remember the day he fell out of the cherry bucket thirty feet below, instantly shattering both heels and how he’d suffered more from the boredom that came with sitting inside the house for those three months. Even with the danger that came along with that field of work, my father was the kind of man who preferred possible danger with lungs full of fresh air and dirt under his nails to being chained to a desk, staring at a computer screen.

Screwing the lid on my coffee mug, I grabbed the keys from the end table next to my weathered beige couch that was once white and ran out the door, running down the two flights of stairs from my apartment and into my ancient Toyota Corolla. My office is located downtown, and has first come first served parking, and as a perpetually late employee (even though I personally don’t think 5-7 minutes should qualify as late), I usually had to park in the overflow lot two blocks down. The drive itself was a short one, about 5 minutes, and when I arrived that day I was still on the phone listening to my mothers message. Locking my doors and grabbing my umbrella, I dashed across the street, only avoiding being clipped by a biker by mere inches. “…The real reason I called..” Thank God, I thought. “..was to tell you that she’s found someone. Susan is engaged!” Stunned, I dropped my phone into a giant mud puddle as I was crossing the street and stooped down to retrieve it. It was then when I heard the bus hurtling toward me at full speed. Lurching forward, I escaped certain death by a hair.

Getting home later that day, still shocked by the news of Susan’s engagement and my near death experience, I pulled the car onto my street, immediately spotting my mother’s maroon SUV. Scoffing and cursing my luck, I knew I had to face her sooner or later, and I pulled the car into the drive, slamming my door with perhaps a touch too much force.

“Well, good you’re home. I left you a few voicemails, you know”, she said, her way of saying hi.

“Yes, mom, I know, I’ve just been a bit-”

“Busy, yes I know. Susan wasn’t the only reason I called, but I figured it would be at least a little incentive to call me back.” This time, my mother seemed truly hurt and I vowed to take most of her calls from then on.

“Well, I’m sorry, here, come inside and we’ll talk.” I secretly cursed myself for not washing the breakfast dishes before I had left that morning, knowing that, even if she didn’t comment on them, it would surely come up in a later conversation, probably in front of people. Leading her into my modest living room, she immediately plopped down on the couch, and to my horror, began to cry.

”Your father and I are separating.” The words seem to hang in the air like a toxic cloud, ready to rain down acid on me.

“Wh-why? When? How?” I was at an utter loss for words. My mother was not one for wasting time or mincing words. My parents had always seemed so happy to me, the exception to the rule that marriage equaled unhappiness.

Exhaling a shaky breath, my mother dabbed at her eyes with the ever-present kerchief that she always keeps in her purse. “We’ve been at ends with each other a while now, but I just figured we would grow out of it and things would go back to normal. There is no one reason for a separation, Denise, sometimes its just inevitable at some point that two people grow apart, I just hoped that we’d find our way back to each other, back to the way things were when we were happy..” Her words trailed off and I realized she was no longer talking to me, but reminiscing about the good times she had shared over a 35 year marriage with my dad. Tears burned at the corners of my eyes and threatened to spill over, but I wouldn’t let my mother see me upset. Even though it was traumatic for me as an adult to see my parents go through a separation, I tried to put myself in my mother’s shoes and be there for her the best I could. It was the first time in my memory I had thought of my mother as an actual person, and not just my mother, and I felt a surge of a mixture of regret, guilt and love for her at that moment.

“…Just can’t be fixed, believe me, we’ve tried. We even went to counseling, and you know how much your father hates shrinks.”

It was true, my  father was a staunch disbeliever in all thinks therapy- he thought problems between people would best be solved between the people involved, not some therapist who’s only investment in the people were their wallets. “Besides”, he had once reasoned with me, “if they don’t solve your problems right away, they get to keep charging you for sessions.” Things must’ve been worse than I realized.

“Your father has agreed to a separation agreement, but wishes to keep the house. It allows us to keep our benefits intact, and this way I won’t have to go out and look for a job at my age, as your father has agreed to continue to handle our finances,” she continued. I wanted to scream at her to get to the details of the split, but knew no answer would suffice for me, and besides I wanted to allow her to talk freely to me.

“..don’t know what the people at church would say if we divorced, we’d never get over the shame of that and besides, it’s against God’s will.” I realized I had been lost in my own thought and trained my eyes back on my mother’s pained, lined face. Really looking at her, I saw she looked much older than her 59 years, her beautiful face and creamy ivory skin that had always been her source of pride now seemed sallow and wan.

“Ma, when’s the last time you had a really good night’s sleep?” I gently inquired, for even in times of extreme stress she was sensitive to any inquiries about her looks. I remembered the time our evil tabby cat, Stitches had scratched her face when she had tried to pick him up when I was little, and she had called out of work for two days from embarrassment, never leaving the house while it healed.

“I- oh I don’t know, it seems like years in truth. I just feel as though the rug has been pulled out from under me, even though I’ve seen this coming a while now. I just have so much to think about now that your father and I are basically going to live separate lives. The only suitable apartment I’ve found doesn’t open up until May, and since it’s not yet April, I will have to find myself a place to stay until then.” Lifting her head up suddenly, she backtracked, “Not that this is the reason I’ve shown up today, I would never impose on you in such a way, I just needed to vent my frustrations on someone, and well, you-”

“Ma, you know you are always welcome here, you’re my mother for God’s sake, what kind of a daughter would I be if I didn’t at least give you the option?” I said incredulously.

“Oh, I don’t know, the kind who never answers her mother’s phone calls?” she replied with a wry smile, the first I’d seen since she showed up.

I slid down the length of the couch and wrapped my arms around her, the embrace feeling like the most genuine act of love we had ever allowed ourselves. It seemed to last for an hour with the both of us crying, rocking back and forth and I prayed a quick prayer of thanks for being given such a mother. Through my tears, I apologized for having been so self involved, for not seeing she was going though trauma of her own, for being so distant.

“Seriously, Ma,” I said when we let go of each other, “You can stay here with me in the spare bedroom. This way you can be more comfortable than you would be in a hotel or anything.”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“Mom,” I said, looking her square in the eye, “I would love to have you.”

And I meant it.

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