Chloe (6 page)

James seizes the opportunity, presented to him on a silver
platter. “You can come with me to Church on Sunday.” He smiles impishly.

Chloe grimaces and tosses her empty ice cream cone into a
trash can attached to a street sign. “Except that.”

“A kiss good night.”

Chloe squints one eye, the grimace morphing into a playful
cringe. “And that.”

James’ expression withers. Apparently,
anything he wants
has a very limited scope with lots of catches. Wryly, “You would think after 20
years I would be getting some different responses by now.” He takes a bite of
his ice cream.

Chloe reaches out and squeezes his empty hand. She releases
it just as quickly, just when he is about to curl his fingers around her palm,
and wanders ahead. She carelessly picks her way over the concrete. She turns
towards him, proceeding backwards and never faltering. “After 20 years, you
still don’t see that you get the better part of me.” She flashes him a warm
smirk and promptly crosses the street, waving down a taxi.

Meanwhile, she leaves James with his melting ice cream,
frozen in thought.

•

Cleopatra lays lasciviously draped across the couch. Her
clothing grows more scant by the second. Greg stands over her. At 45, he is
hairy and built like a bear. He is in dire need of a shave, and even more so of
a trim, but his rugged exterior only serves to heighten her desire. He wears a
Security Guard uniform with his gun strapped to his belt.

She bites her fingers seductively, shifting her legs to
tempt him. Taking the bait, he unfastens the belt with the gun. She gives a
girlish giggle. She likes to be teased. Fittingly, he likes to tease. He takes
off his shirt. She knots her fingers in the loops of his trousers and pulls him
down. They meet in a fierce kiss. Cleopatra has nearly unfastened his pants
when Chloe comes in.

Cleopatra scrambles out from under Greg and tries to compose
herself. She combs her fingers through her thinning hair and smoothes out her
blouse, which she realizes too late is nearly completely unbuttoned. She
hurries to correct that. Flustered, “You were not supposed to be here for another
two hours.”

Chloe looks at the two of them, too accustomed to the lewd
display and her mother’s way to be disgusted anymore, and shakes her head.
“People like you are why they invented bedrooms.”

Greg fixes her in a glare. “Chloe,” he acknowledges. It is as
close to a greeting as they come from him.

“Greg,” Chloe echoes just as ferociously. She holds her
ground.

Greg holds on to Cleopatra’s arm. He leans in, closer to her
ear. Lowly, “You said we would have the place to ourselves.”

Cleopatra suppresses a shudder and pulls her arm away from
him. “Things don’t always work the way we plan.” And for some reason, that
elicits a dark memory.

•

Cleopatra is escorted into the visitation room. This time,
she is speaking to her mother through a thick panel of Plexiglas. She slides
into an uncushioned orange chair and picks the phone up from the receiver. On
the other side of the glass, Maud does the same.

There is a strange, delusional brightness in Maud’s face: an
unsettling mask of serenity. She remembers seeing it during their last reunion,
but it is much more prevalent now. She looks like she is on drugs—on cloud
nine.

“Hello sweetheart,” Maud greets.

“Hello mom,” Cleopatra whispers.

“How are you?” Maud asks, gazing at her through calm eyes
wreathed in relaxed wrinkles.

Cleopatra takes a breath, hoping the air will find her words
hidden at the core of her being. The reason Cleopatra came is hard to admit,
even to herself. She needs her mother’s advice. She needs to unload the burden
weighing on her shoulders. She wants to tell her mother about the incident and
ask whether or not she should keep the child.

“I am alright,” she lies. “I thought I would come see you.
I,” she stammers. “I need some advice.”

“Advice?” Maud repeats with a twinkle in her gaze. “You didn’t
come to me for advice, even when I wasn’t in jail.” They chuckle hollowly.
There is a long moment of silence.

“Have you ever had to make a really important choice?”
Cleopatra manages. “What is the hardest choice you ever had to make?”

“Honestly?” Maud supplies. She pauses. “Selecting the weapon
to end your father with.” Cleopatra’s eyes fly open, the color draining from
her cheeks. Maud merely snickers. She places her elbow on the desk and lowers
her chin into the palm of her hand. “Honey, I have made a lot of choices. But
most of them have been easy ones. Funny enough, most of them were bad too.
Weird how those correspond… It is the good choices that take the most effort.”

Cleopatra feels sick. “Have you ever regretted any of your
choices?”

Maud considers, chewing it over. She finally draws her lips
into an indolent pout and shakes her head. “I used to. But what sense is there
in regret? All it did was make me old and give me grey hair. I can’t go back
and change anything. The way I see it, all ma’ choices came to a head the night
I killed Trevor and were then nullified by the spilling of his blood. Trevor
was, in a way, the embodiment of all ma’ choices. To free ma’self, he had to
go. Now, I regret nothing.”

“So… you can rectify a wrong choice with murder?” Cleopatra
asks, the wheels gradually turning in her head.

•

Greg shrugs back into his shirt. “I’ll be in the bedroom,”
he informs her, flavoring the statement with a clear indication that she is to
join him immediately. Greg takes his belt and his shaggy self and heads up the
stairs.

Cleopatra pulls out a box of cigarettes from her back pocket
and puts one in her mouth. Chloe promptly strides up and snatches it out. “You
start smoking again?” she questions. They have talked about this ugly habit often,
and the dangers associated with it. Cleopatra is all about danger though, as
evidenced by the foul sorts of men she brings him.

“It helps,” she defends, flitting her hands and fluttering
her fingers. It is as if she cannot see why Chloe would be upset or hold her
accountable. It is as if the woman thinks herself invincible and absolved of
all and any responsibility. It is as if she never grew up. If Chloe thought she
was bad, her mother’s moral compass is hopelessly off kilter. No job, no
chores, no rules. She practically exists in a fantasy land.

Chloe, instantly on the defensive and frustrated, continues
to speak her mind. “Why are you with that loser?” she demands, gesturing in the
direction the lumbering tyrant went. Her mother has dated a slew of men over
the years—none of them good, but some of them more bearable than others. She
knows better than this. “What happened to Paul?”

“Paul was last year,” Cleopatra dismisses flippantly,
turning her attention elsewhere.

Chloe holds her ground, eyeing her expectantly. “And the one
you were with last month?” she reminds.

“Phillip,” she finishes. “Nice guy. He left me for his
wife.” The statement rings with bitterness. Chloe virtually feels the biting
jealousy rolling off of her mother.

“And so you’re back with Greg,” Chloe concludes, as though
this is the end of a very long and tragic tale in which the outcome is
predestined.

Cleopatra shrugs. She has her reasons for floating from man
to man, stringing them along and letting them treat her as they please. She
loves them all like the beach loves its ocean, condoning all manner of abuse.
In fact. She has several reasons for her lifestyle.

Chloe has heard it all before. She is no more receptive to
them now than she was when her mother started spoon feeding them to her.
Cleopatra takes the box of smokes from her pocket and nearly takes out a second
before Chloe snatches the entire carton away.

Cleopatra scoffs. “Somebody has to pay ma’ bills. Buy ma’
clothes. Support ma’ bad habits.”

In other words, drinking and smoking—the two universal
vices. If Cleopatra is also into drugs, it would not come as a surprise to
Chloe.

The solution seems obvious to Chloe who, unlike her mother,
is gainfully employed. No matter how much Chloe despises her job and the
despicable woman she works for, she is still a reliable employee. She values
attendance. More importantly she values the paycheck that comes as a result.
She does not understand why her mother wants no part of that, other than the
fact that she is lazy. They have been on welfare for longer than Chloe can
recall. But welfare alone is not enough to live with the sorts of luxuries that
Cleopatra wants.

Chloe spreads her arms and opens her hands. “You could get a
job,” she suggests flatly. But Cleopatra will never do that. She would much
rather wallow in the squalor that is her life at present.

Cleopatra changes the subject. She has a habit of doing that
whenever the topic tangents to her duties as a mother or a citizen. The work
place, in any disguise, feels like a cage to her. Where is the freedom in a
nine to five job? “Why aren’t you at the movies?”

Chloe balks. “You knew about that?” She can hardly believe
that James would take the time, let alone have the gumption, to plot with her
mother. How they found the means to conjure such a scandal is completely beyond
her. Did Cleopatra ask James to keep her out later, as to have more time with
Greg? Or was it actually James’ idea and Cleopatra ran with it?

While Chloe reels, Cleopatra scours the couch for another
carton of cigarettes. Distantly, “You need a life outside of that laptop of
yours.”

Chloe goes slack-jawed, utterly appalled. A life outside?
Wait. Who has the job again? By life, she must mean a boyfriend. She must mean
a herd of girlfriends. She must mean nightlife and parties and hours wasted at
a local hangout. Chloe wonders if her mother can even fathom the gravity of her
time spent on her laptop. Every keystroke brings her closer to her ultimate
dream—her lifelong vision. Every moment is valued, prized, and put to good use.

“If I’m gonna be a published writer, I need to write,” Chloe
retorts.

But Cleopatra, ever the spirit-dampening realist, only has a
mind to reiterate the enormous odds stacked against her. “Only 5% of writers
get published.”

“I have every intention of being in that 5%.” Chloe would
like to think that her mother would encourage her determination and foster
further persistence. She does desire her approval, no matter how her callous
attitude suggests otherwise. Cleopatra is her mother.

Her mother shrugs, like she always does when matters become
too serious for her to entertain and she loses all interest. “I just think you
can do better for yourself.”

Chloe feels as though she has been slapped. If doing better
means taking up a vocation or participating in activities that she has no
passion for, then she is content exactly where she is. “And I think you can do
better than Greg,” Chloe combats.

This seems to take her mother by surprise because the woman
stands upright and stares at her like a deer in the headlights. The last thing
Chloe wants to do is bring this up, but shock-value seems to be the only way to
bring her mother around; to convince her to see life under the lens of truth
and not wishful thinking. “How many times has he tried to kill you?” Chloe
spits.

Cleopatra touches a scar on her face. Her hand hovers there,
in an attempt to hide her shame. Greg did not mean to, or so he claims. It
happened in a spate of rage—a crime of passion. The bottle was just within
reach. He acted without thinking. He will never let it happen again. He swore,
never again. And the incident with the iron was completely her fault. She
deserved the burn. Cleopatra hooks her hair behind her ear, trying to hide the
fact that Chloe’s comment struck a chord in her.

Once again, she changes the subject. “How was work?”

Chloe shakes her head, plainly disappointed, her nerves
frayed to the point where she wants to yank her hair out. She has never seen
eye to eye with her mother, and probably never will. Chloe cannot understand
how one person could make so many bad choices. She drops the carton of
cigarettes onto the coffee table with a dull thump. “I have stuff to do.” Chloe
turns on her heel and heads to her room.

Cleopatra rummages through the kitchen cabinets. She finds
her bottle of Vodka and pours herself a glass. There is no ice in the
refrigerator because she forgot to fill the freeze trays. Moreover, there is
nothing to mix it with, as they cannot afford soda. She drinks it straight. She
figures, all things considered, that it is a more effective method anyhow.
There is nothing to lessen the blissful sensation, the happiness, the
freedom
,
that comes from her truest friend.

•

That night, Chloe sits on her bed in front of her laptop,
staring at a blank screen with a blinking cursor. She wills her fingers to
begin typing, but they rest unmoving on the keyboard. Her stare is blank,
reflecting her mind. For the life of her, she cannot think of a thing worth
writing about. Fighting with her mother drains her.

She hears Cleopatra and Greg arguing in an adjoining room.
The voices are escalating. She covers her ears to block out the sounds. Chloe
glances around the room. She snatches her headphones from her bedside table and
quickly plugs up her ears with the ear buds. She plugs them into the headphone
jack and starts blasting heavy metal.

She minimizes the empty document and opens her picture
folder. She begins clicking through pictures of Patrick, her real dad, and her
mom in happier days. 25 years ago feels like an eternity. Cleopatra never
smiles like that anymore, nor nurtures the same fire in her eyes. She looks
like a different person. The woman in the next room is but a shadow of her
former self—a living shell.

Chloe turns her attention to Patrick, grinning next to
Cleopatra. She touches the face of the father she never knew, longingly staring
at him. She knows if he were here, life would look completely different. They
would be a family, not a train wreck. She adjusts her hand and covers Cleopatra
standing next to him. If their places had been exchanged—if Cleopatra had died
in the accident and Patrick had lived—would life be better too?