I swear I hear Declan mutter the word elope. Then he distinctly says, “Garters?” in a gruff voice.
“Will we throw plaid rice?” I joke.
“Is there such a thing?” Marie gasps.
“Check out Etsy,” I say as I walk toward the door, trying to ignore the lustfest going on in the kitchen. My phone buzzes over and over. Probably Mom, whipped into a panic. “You can find anything on Etsy.”
Even if you shouldn’t be able to.
“Hey! What about the Cheetos and marshmallows?” I hear Declan call out as the elevator doors close.
I close my eyes and slump against the elevator wall, wondering how my night opened with dog butts and ended with plaid fingernails.
Chapter Four
Living with Pamela Warrick is a physical, and emotional, landmine. She’s always been high strung. Neurotic. Tightly wound. A Museum Mom. So anal retentive you could put coal up her butt and get a diamond.
But only in private.
Mom’s OCD is like tree pollen in Massachusetts in May. It is just there, a fine layer that coats every surface, appearing with a spectral green hue when it is at its worst. It makes your eyes water and your throat itch, a malady you can’t escape. No amount of drugs can stop it. Trust me. I tried, back in high school. And not the kind you buy at a drugstore.
I have heard—and told—all the jokes about her uptightedness.
But when you add the fibromyalgia that hit her my senior year of high school, it’s like taking obsessive compulsive disorder and living with that on double speed.
With pain.
When she’s so picky I can’t do anything right, including breathing, I remind myself it’s not her fault. And it’s not. Getting rear-ended in a compact car by a guy driving the biggest SUV on the market and who didn’t even apply the brakes isn’t something anyone causes.
Except for the asshole driver who was—that’s right—texting.
Sexting, we learned, in the trial. You really do not want to watch those exhibits being paraded around a courtroom.
Neither did his wife.
Because the sexy pictures he received while texting weren’t from her.
Mom’s settlement covered her medical bills, some of her ongoing massage and physical therapy, and about half my college tuition.
But there’s never enough money to cover the change in her.
I extracted myself from Shannon’s place with promises to return tomorrow. They’re not empty assurances, though Declan’s look of appraisal made it clear he didn’t care so much about the fool’s errand of buying weird grocery items at the buttcrack of the day, but did find my flimsy excuse for leaving to be about as sturdy as Donald Trump’s sense of feminist principles.
I get out of the cab and walk up the front steps of our house, a rented duplex in Newton, the journey as familiar and comforting in a damning sort of way, as if my life is on infinite repeat and all I can do is march along the deep grooves that my own feet created long before this moment.
“Amanda? Is that you?” Mom’s voice is a mixture of concern and anxiety.
“Who else would it be?” I say, realizing my mistake as the words come out.
“Who else? You could be a robber,” she answers, outraged at my insouciance. “A rapist. Someone trying to steal that nice computer your boss gave you.”
“Right.” The less said, the better. Did I mention what my mother does for a living?
She’s an actuary. Working right now on terrorist insurance for large corporations. It’s like having Josh Duggar work in costume design for Hooters.
Nothing like picking a line of work that feeds into your greatest source of weakness.
“It could be Tommy Lee Jones,” she says.
“Right—wait, what?”
Mirth fills her voice. “Hah. Gotcha.”
One joke. One little, not-funny joke is all it takes for me to understand her mood. I’ve cultivated a series of coping strategies for understanding where she is emotionally at any given time.
“You got me,” I say, walking over to her old vinyl record player and putting on some Thelonius Monk, the neat, orderly steps for starting the machine done by rote memory, a soothing ritual that cuts through today’s craziness.
Mom’s passion of vinyl carried over to me. The scratches and bumps make the music gritty and real, and jazz helps her to mellow out.
“What were you doing?” she asks as the music provides a backdrop for our talk.
“Kissing a billionaire,” I blurt out.
“Really? There certainly are plenty of billionaires going around now. Shannon got one. Are they handing them out like free samples at Costco now?”
“Hah,” I pivot. “Gotcha.”
She believes the lie. Wouldn’t you?
“Oh, Amanda,” she says, moving with great effort. Where I’m taller and rounder, Mom is a pixie. Tiny and high-strung, she says the fibro turns her into blocks of concrete shoved inside a flesh set of tights. Her pain level must be manageable today.
Some days, she can’t even joke.
“You’ll find your billionaire some day, honey,” she says, yawning.
I already have, I want to say. I pinch my own forearm, willing the thought to go away.
Spritzy runs into the room, collar clanging.
Mom winces. “We need to do something about that collar. The metal against the metal makes my silver fillings hurt.”
Sound sensitivity comes with her fibro, too.
I pick up the little teacup chihuahua, giving him some love. Spritzy shakes in my arms with an unremitting joy that makes me wonder why on earth I keep spending so much time obsessed with worrying about whether I’ll ever find true love.