A Mother to Embarrass Me

  “Laura,” Mom said.

  I came over next to the bed and stood near her.

  “Laurie,” she said. “I love you so much.” She started crying again.

  To my surprise, I started crying too. I grabbed hold of her hand and brought it to my cheek. “I love you, Mom. I do.”

  I knew right then that those words couldn't be truer. So what if she shouted crazy words in the car? So what even about the Elmo slippers and working in pajamas? So what about her public singing and dancing? Mom had to be one of the best people I knew.

  It was two weeks later that Mom got the phone call. I was in bed, asleep, when her scream awakened me.

  “Baby's coming,” I said. I leapt to my feet, still asleep really, and tried to hurry down the hall toward my parents' room. Somehow my feet got tangled in my bedsheet like it had become rope. My attempt to run nearly killed me. Only the top half of me moved and the movement was in a downward motion. I just missed crashing into my desk.

  Mom screamed again.

  “I'm coming,” I hollered. My heart pounded in my ears and for a moment I thought I might faint for real. I clawed at the carpet and half crawled toward the door.

  “Laura!” Mom's voice echoed down the long hall toward my room. “Laura!”

  “I'm trying to get to you,” I shouted. Was my mother dying? What in the world could be happening? I rolled onto my back and kicked at the sheet. At last it came off one leg.

  I got up, threw open my door and started running down the hall, the green-and-white-checked sheet dragging behind.

  “What?” With another hard kick I was able to free myself. The sheet sailed like a cloth ball back toward my room, loose ends fluttering.

  Mom was sitting up in bed, cradling the phone to her chest.

  “Guess what?” Mom's voice was a squeal.

  I stood at the foot of her bed now. “Your water broke?” I had seen that plenty of times on TV. Maybe—I raised a trembling hand to my lips—maybe Mom was going to have the baby now. Maybe I would have to deliver it, right here, right here in my mother and father's bed. Ooh, yuck. At least we had plenty of towels. And hot water. And—

  Wait a minute, I was not ready for something like this. “Not yet,” I half shouted. “You're still too early to let Kyra come.”

  My mother shook the phone at me. “No, no, no, Laurie.”

  “You've called nine-one-one?” It felt as if I had become frozen to this spot at the foot of Mom's bed. I might never move again.

  “No.”

  I couldn't make my feet do anything, so I stretched as far as I could, reaching for the phone Mom held. “I'll call,” I said. “I'm not sure…” Now my tongue was frozen. I couldn't even begin to say, “I can deliver the baby.” This was definitely a job for someone trained in more than list writing.

  “Laurie.” Mom's voice was loud. “That was the fitness center people. Remember the commercial?”

  Why would she call them? Had she met a doctor there? Or an ambulance driver?

  “This is about the Saturday football game. Do you remember?”

  The fitness center? Football game?

  “Do you know what I'm talking about?” Mom made the words come out one-at-a-time slow.

  A football game? Was she now thinking of taking Kyra to a football game? A newly born baby to a football game? My feet began to thaw. So did my mouth.

  “Mom,” I started, “you can't take a new baby—”

  “No baby,” she said.

  “No baby?” My voice screeched out of me, and for some reason I fell to one knee. I guess that proves just how scared I was.

  “Of course there's a baby.” Mom patted her large tummy, then waggled the phone at me.

  “There's a baby on the phone?” I asked. I stood up. Both of my legs were shaking, so I wasn't sure I wouldn't fall again. “Our baby?”

  Mom motioned me close to her. “Honey. Listen to me.” She squeezed my wrist with her hand. “This has nothing to do with the baby. You know that game where they're having old BYU football players come and play for charity?”

  “Yeah.” I kind of remembered hearing someone say something about it. Maybe it was Quinn. Or Christian. Wait. At my party all the guys had been talking about getting to see Steve Young play ball with Ty Detmer and Jim McMahon. I really hadn't been paying attention, so I wasn't quite sure. I pretended I knew, though, so Mom would get on with the story. I had to find out about Kyra. “Go on.”

  “My commercial is going to air then. Right. During. The. Charity. Game.” Mom shook the phone at me with each word. I dodged it. “Teehee,” she laughed. And I mean it. She really did laugh out “Tee-hee.”

  “I thought you were dying,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “I thought you were in labor.”

  “I'm fine,” Mom said. The phone was beeping now but still she didn't hang it up. “I've got to call your father.”

  “You made me lose my dream.” This wasn't quite true, but it seemed a fair thing to say, seeing how hard my heart was pounding. I felt all trembly. “Look, my hands are shaking.” I stuck both hands out in front of me like a sleepwalker. Neither shook. “People should not be allowed,” I said as I turned, “to awaken another person with a scream.” I started back toward my own room, scooping up my sheet as I went, but Mom called out to me.

  “Laurie, aren't you even a little bit happy for me?”

  I turned to face my mother, whose blond hair was messy from a night's sleep. There were dark circles under her eyes. The phone was still in her hand, the one that usually had her wedding band on the third finger. The ring was gone. Mom was too swollen to wear it.

  My heart went mushy. “I am happy for you,” I said. “Really happy.”

  And I was. But I still had one more thing to add to my list.

  I might not be ready to deliver a baby, but my list-writing skills were as strong as ever.

  things to change about MYMOTHER!!!!!!!

  28. her screaming like she is in trouble when really she is happy

  From her bed Mom directed the planning of the charity football game party. We had only three days to get ready, which, Mom said, was just enough time to do it right.

  She made all the calls, to the caterer, the flower people and a cleaning crew even though the house looked fine. She had Dad and me go to Dillard's and get new bath towels for the guest room near our basement theater. Then she and I wrote out a seventy-five-person guest list, hand addressing each envelope.

  “I want all my friends to be here for my television debut,” Mom said. “After all, it's been fifteen years.” She gave a little laugh, propped up in bed, her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  My guts were doing a tap dance. Mom had convinced me that the only hand towel in the commercial was one that had been slung over her shoulder. Still, I worried.

  “I have on a tasteful Rocky Mountain Fitness Center workout suit,” she said when she asked me to deliver my share of the invitations. “I hope all your friends can come. It'll be fun.”

  “You're supposed to be in bed all the time,” I said, picking at the lightweight peach-colored blanket that covered her knees. “That's why it's called bed rest.”

  “I will be. The whole time, right up until the bell rings and the first people start arriving. Then I'll hurry down to my La-Z-Boy recliner and prop my feet up.”

  “Okay,” I said. “ 'Cause you know what the doctor said. And Daddy.”

  Mom smiled at me and reached for my hand. She gave it a little squeeze. “I love you, Laurie,” she said.

  I smiled at her.

  “Now, I'm going to need decorations. Do you think you and Mary could take care of that? You can surprise me.”

  That sounded fun. “Okay,” I said. “Since you promised to stay in bed.”

  I made Dad do a little promising too.

  “No eighties clothes,” I said.

  “Check,” Dad said.

  “No dancing.”

  “Check,” Dad said.

  “No spinning on your
head, no patting Mom's belly, no country-and-western singing, no cowboy boots, no mousse in your hair, no computer talk, nothing embarrassing.”

  Dad stared at me hard. Then he saluted. “Check,” he said.

  “And no saying ‘check,’ ” I said. “Ever again.”

  Dad tilted his head, opened his mouth then closed it, and after a moment gave a slight nod. “Ten-four, good buddy. I'll see what I can do.”

  I just rolled my eyes.

  Mary and I spent hours running streamers everywhere, placing flowers around the room and putting up old photos of Mom BM (before marriage). We got lots of balloons filled with helium and let them go so the ceiling was covered in plenty of color just in case someone looked up. We filled three coolers with ice and stuck cans of soda in to get cold. The room looked great.

  “I am so excited,” Mary said.

  “Me too,” I said. And I was. Nervous about the commercial, but excited about what would be happening here. About seeing Quinn right here in my very own house.

  Mary clapped her hands. “All the guys are going to be here from your boy-girl party, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “And remember, we don't talk about the night. Ever.”

  “Aye, aye, Cap-ee-ton,” Mary said.

  “Sheesh,” I said. “Have you been talking to my father?”

  “No, should I?”

  “Absolutely not.” Boy, did I mean that. The next thing I knew, Mary might start dancing with my father. He might teach her to break-dance. What a frightening thought.

  “Who else is coming?”

  I ran through invitations, ticking off the names I could remember from Mom's list, then running high-speed through mine. “And Derek, Maggie, Sam and I think that's all.”

  And Quinn, too, I thought, but I kept it secret. I hadn't invited Rebecca to come with him because I wanted to have a chance to maybe sit near him, if it was possible.

  “Is Christian coming?” Mary asked.

  “Maybe.” I hadn't spoken to him, not once, since the morning he caught me spying on him and Mom. Until yesterday, every time I saw him, he looked the other way. Yesterday I had given him an invitation, walking it to his door even, the names Quinn and Christian written in my best handwriting on the cream-colored envelope.

  “For Mom's party,” I had said to Christian. I had stood outside the door to his house, cool air blowing out on me, things smelling a little like spaghetti. He'd said nothing, only raised his eyebrows.

  I backed down the stairs. “Hope you can come,” I'd said, lifting my hand to shade the afternoon sun from my eyes. “Quinn, too.”

  Christian had shrugged, then shut the door with a soft click. It had sounded worse than a slamming door, though I'm not sure why.

  Now I said to Mary, “We'll see about Christian. We'll see if he even shows up.” And I kind of hoped he would.

  Dad helped Mom into her La-Z-Boy as soon as we heard car doors slamming outside. He tucked a blanket around her knees and there she sat, makeup on for the first time in days (“I can't let them see me without it!”), hair all done (“What will they think if I don't at least brush my hair?”) and in a pretty pink outfit (“I don't look that terrific in my jammies”).

  “I haven't been up in so long,” Mom said, “I can hardly stand the wait.”

  “Remember, Jimmey,” Dad said. “Laura and I will do anything you need us to do.”

  “I won't risk baby Kyra,” Mom said. She smiled like nothing else, her face all lit up. “Being in bed has been such a bore.”

  “Still, I want you to take it easy,” Dad said. He planted a kiss on top of Mom's head.

  “I'll not be overdoing anything,” she said.

  I could only hope this would be true. And about the commercial. I could only hope for a towel as big as a tent. I glanced at Mom. No, a towel bigger than a tent.

  Mary was the first kid to arrive.

  “Help me greet,” I said when I let her in. It was hot outside and the smell of petunias swept in through the front door.

  “I love this!” she said. “I love parties!” Mary clapped.

  “I know it,” I said. “That's because you have your parents and I have mine. Parties at your house are nothing to fear. Don't forget the Night.” I did a little bit of a dance, chugging my arms around, trying to look geeky. What I needed was a too tight silky shirt and a sequined glove like M.J. used to wear. Darn my luck for not having those things.

  “But Laura,” Mary said. “You told me your mom and dad promised not to do anything embarrassing. Besides, even if my parents were embarrassing, and they are, they would never have a caterer show up and do this kind of thing.” Mary threw her arms out, meaning my whole house, maybe my whole life.

  If only she knew.

  Mary and I answered the door as Mom and Dad's many friends showed up. It wasn't long before the game was about to start. That's when I saw Quinn come walking down the driveway from where he… what was that? From where he and Rebecca had parked.

  “Oh no,” I said.

  “What?” Mary looked out too. “I see,” she said. “No Christian. Maybe he'll still show up.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe so.”

  Quinn and Rebecca made their way down the driveway, hand in hand. They were still kind of far away when he said something and Rebecca threw her head back and laughed to the sky. Her hair swung around and Quinn reached right over and kissed her a long one on the mouth. It was such a long one that Mary said, under her breath, “Get a room.”

  I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. The man I loved was kissing someone else. The man I planned to marry, the man I would have five children with, the man I would wear Elmo slippers for, was kissing someone else passionately in my driveway.

  “They need to come up for air,” Mary said. She sounded a little disgusted. “Have you ever noticed how some people are? They could care less we are here on the porch staring our eyeballs out at them.”

  “Let's not look anymore,” I said, and backed into the house. Mary followed behind and let me close the door. I fell against it and squeezed my eyes shut. There was a pain in my heart. A deep pain.

  “Laura,” Mary said, and her word came out as a gasp. “Laura.” Then her eyes got big. Not big as saucers, like people say in books, but pretty darn close to that. “You like him,” she said. “You like Quinn Sumsion, don't you?”

  “No,” I said. And it wasn't a lie. I loved Quinn Sumsion. I loved him.

  “You do,” she said, her voice full of wonder. “And all along I thought it was Christian that you liked.”

  I didn't have time to say anything, because right at that moment the bell rang.

  “I'll get it. Should I let them in? How about if I tell them to go away?” Mary asked. “How about if I tell her to go away?”

  I shook my head. “They've been invited,” I whispered. “Or at least he was. They must be allowed to enter.” I felt a bit noble, though there was still that awful pain in my chest.

  “Well, fine.” She hurried to the door and opened it wide. “Downstairs to the theater,” she said, and her voice sounded a bit icy.

  I had made my way to Mom's front office, where I glanced around the room and wiped at my eyes. At that moment I was filled with sorrow.

  Mary came in behind me. “Laura,” she said.

  “What?” My voice came out a squeak. How embarrassing.

  “I've sent them to the theater,” she said. “You okay?”

  I nodded.

  We stood silent in Mom's office for a moment. I had to change the subject. “She hasn't done any sculpting in a long time,” I said when I trusted my voice. “She has one piece partway finished in her studio.”

  “This party,” Mary said. She rested her hand on my shoulder. “Maybe it will make you feel better. Just don't look at the two of them. Hopefully they're way in the back. And maybe Christian will still come.”

  “Maybe,” I said. But now I didn't care. In fact, I didn't even want to be at the party. Of course, I had to
be, to make sure that the commercial was right. But I didn't want to be.

  “Laura,” Dad called up from downstairs. “Game's about to begin.”

  Mary gave me a tight hug. Her hair smelled sweet, like flower shampoo.

  “We better go,” I said. “Mary, you're a great friend.”

  “Of course I am,” she said. “Now remember, don't even look at those two.”

  The party was loud with people talking and laughing. Everybody was trying to find a seat to watch the beginning of the game. Most had already dug into the food. I made a valiant effort to do what Mary said, not to look for Quinn and Rebecca, but my eyes seemed to have a mind of their own. I found them both right off. They had snuggled up on the floor with a plate of food between them.

  “Great,” I said.

  “Don't look,” Mary said. She turned me away from the crowd. Now I faced my mother instead. Had she noticed that Quinn was cheating on me? If she did, I sure couldn't tell. A group of women stood near her. One said, “Jimmey, you were a beautiful model. These pictures of you are simply stunning.”

  “Back in the olden days I had perky breasts,” Mom said. I spun away, realizing I wouldn't get comfort from my mother. Still, I heard Mom finish, “Thanks to sagging, these are now thirty-two longs.” I could imagine Mom pointing at her own bosoms, and I felt glad I had missed that part of the demonstration.

  The whole group of women laughed and one of them said, “Ain't that the truth? Nursing and babies does it to you, huh?” The women laughed again.

  “Heh, heh, heh,” I said, but the laugh was fake. I moved away from my mother, then avoided getting too close to my father. If Mom and her friends were talking about breasts and nursing and other horrible stuff, I didn't even want to know what my father was talking about. That old saying “What you don't know can't hurt you” seemed good advice.

  A bunch of my friends, kids that had come to my boy-girl party and a few others, had pulled up folding chairs at one side of the room. “Let's go sit with everybody,” I said to Mary.

  She had heaped her plate with food. “We can share this stuff. You get us drinks.” I went off for sodas.