What a Girl Needs (13 page)

I once asked Mrs. Browning why she didn’t like me. She didn’t even deny it. She simply told me that she expected Christians to act better than the average population, and she didn’t think I met that criteria.
Right back atcha, Mommie Dearest.

I’m glad Jesus has a better entrance policy than she does. I admire those who have no clue when others don’t like them. They live in that ignorant bliss and have normal conversations with people who can’t stand them. I have no such luck in my life. When people reject me, I’m well aware of it.

The Browning house, which was always spotless—and not like Kay’s house, where it’s homey and the cleanliness calls to you like a
Real Simple
magazine—is in that
don’t-sit-there, not-there-either
way. It’s as if the house has proverbial giant hands, open-faced and ready to shove you out the door as you arrive.

Today, however, the house is chaotic. Toys litter the usually pristine living room with its white carpet and the same ice-blue sofas from when we were children. The 60’s lamps, with their bulbous aqua glass bases, are catawampus on the carved end tables, and there are remnants of fishy crackers smashed near the fireplace. I can only imagine how well this living situation is going.

Mrs. Browning is a widow, which surprises no one, I suppose. The fact that Brea’s dad made it as long as he did is more of a mystery.

Brea comes down the stairs with her hair, which is usually a mass of springy curls, in a wild pineapple bun exploding off the top of her head. She looks tired and drawn. Unreasonably so for her age, and I want to fix it. Why I think I can fix things, when they usually end in disaster, I will never understand.

“Auntie!” Miles comes at me and nearly takes me out by grabbing my knees. “Did you bring us more presents?”

“No, but I want to take you out for a yummy breakfast. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No,” Jonathan yells. “Can we get pancakes?”

“We can get pancakes. Brea, you up for pancakes?”

“Boys, we can have cereal.” She is heavy-lidded and not herself. This is the Brea I remember from childhood, the one who was afraid of her own shadow.
I need to get her out of the house.
“We don’t really do restaurants. Have you met my boys? They create their own weather pattern. I mean, look at this place.”

“Obviously, I’ll have to train my own kids to eat in restaurants. Go get dressed. I’ll clean up the house, and the boys will help me. Won’t you boys?”

They both shake their heads.

I raise my brows. “Not even for chocolate chip pancakes? Because I would clean for chocolate chip pancakes.”

They stare me down with their intense eyes and decide I’m serious, then they do some sort of mind meld, nod in agreement and start to pick up their toys.

“Go get dressed,” I say to Brea again.

“Ashley, they can have cereal.”

Not unless it comes with a side of Prozac.
“We are getting out of the house.”

Brea visibly relaxes at the order, but I’ve only incited Mrs. Browning. “Ashley, you haven’t taken two four-year-olds to breakfast, have you?”

“They’ll be good. Won’t you boys? If they were my kids, they’d already be perfect angels in a restaurant, because I don’t like to cook.”

Mrs. Browning sniffs. “What is it you like to do besides shop, Ashley?”

“I cook every night for my husband, Mrs. Browning. It doesn’t mean that I enjoy it.”

“You know they can’t sit still. Regardless of what they say.”

“This will be good practice for me, and if they mess with me, there will be
no more presents
.” I lower my voice. “Brea, go get dressed. I’ve got this.” I take Jonathan by the hand. “All right, first we’re going to pick up all the toys. Do you have a box that you keep them in?”

Jonathan nods, runs to the corner, and drags a big, blue plastic tub to the center of the living room.

Brea slogs back up the stairs in her slippers. Mrs. Browning is still present, with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, her spindly fingers crawling up her arms like two daddy longlegs spiders. “Ashley, these boys are not trained for restaurants. They eat healthy, nutritious meals at home. Chocolate chip pancakes?”

“Moderation, Mrs. Browning. I’ll take them to the park afterwards to burn off the excess energy.” I want to tell her this is her job, to spoil her grandchildren. I want to tell her she’s failing miserably at it, and I must interfere.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Brea has no excess energy. She’s been quite lethargic lately.”

Yeah, that’s called depression from living in your lair. I remember it well.
“I’ll bring Brea back home first. I never get to see my little nephews, and Auntie Ashley needs to spoil them.”

She tsks-tsks and I feel it as if I was Miles’ size. Both boys look at their grandmother, as if preparing for the great unleashing, but she refrains.

“Why don’t you go take a long, hot bubble bath and enjoy the quiet?” I suggest.

“Why don’t I sit on the sofa and eat bon-bons?”

The boys are still now—looking back and forth between their grandmother and me. “Why don’t you? The world is your oyster. I’m sure you deserve the break. It can’t be easy having two little ones under your feet all day.”

Mrs. Browning softens ever so slightly, and I go in for the kill.

“Come on, Mrs. B. Don’t worry about them. You work so hard every day. Pamper yourself this morning. I promise, I can’t do any major damage in one morning.” Though, after last night’s dinner party, that may not be true. That only took me twenty minutes.

“Boys, let’s go in the backyard and clean up the toys out there.” I open the patio door and step outside into the bright sunshine. The heady scent of gardenias with freshly cut grass meet me. Across the great expanse of grass is the old swing, hanging from the ancient oak that canopies most of the yard.

“Whose scooter is that by the swing?”

Both boys shrug with their darling, pudgy hands up and I jog back to the scooter littering the lawn. I pick it up and place it on the brick path, and I pump once. Just once, mind you. My maxi skirt is suddenly ripped from my body with the force of the nearby NASA wind tunnel. I plunge toward the lawn and try to decipher what happened, as I suddenly feel a breeze on my backside. I spit out some grass and see Jonathan and Miles standing over me as if I’m Lilliputian. My bare, pasty legs reflect the sun’s rays and I take note of my skirt wrapped tightly into the wheels of the scooter.

“You’re in your undies.” Jonathan points. “Mommy says undies stay in the potty. ’Cept at naked time.”

“Naked time?” I try to maintain as much decorum as a woman, clad only in her granny panties can, while I yank at my skirt. It’s stuck in the scooter’s wheels and it won’t give way, no matter how hard I tug.

“Uh-oh,” Miles says.

“Miles, can you do me a favor and go get your mommy?” I plead while I struggle with the skirt some more, only to hear a telltale sharp rip of fabric, like a sheet being torn in two.

“Uh-oh,” Jonathan repeats.

“Jonathan, your mommy. Can you get her please?”

But it’s too late. I look up at the white French doors, and Mrs. Browning is between them with her sneering gaze.

Really, what can I say? I’m in her backyard in my delicates with her grandsons. There is no recovering from this. I accept my fate. But she says nothing. She disappears into the house and returns with a towel. “Cover yourself.”

I do. I’m grateful to my mother, subscribing to the old adage recommending clean underwear in case you were in a car accident.
Or, you know, a scooter incident.

My skirt is in tatters, so when I finally slink back into the house with the towel wrapped around me, Mrs. Browning greets me with a floor-length, emerald-green polyester skirt, that I can only assume is her 1970’s attempt at the Maxi-skirt. “Now, can I get the boys some cereal?” she asks.

I reach for the textured, itchy skirt and pull it on gratefully. She avoids all eye contact while I do so. “Thanks for the skirt.”

She lifts up the scooter, now strewn with shreds and threads from what used to be my skirt. “I think this is history.”

I nod, and she takes a pair of scissors to it and hacks it off the scooter’s wheels.

Brea comes down the stairs, fully dressed with her dark hair in its familiar loose waves that frame her beautiful face. “Ready.”

“Really? You got ready that fast? You’ve shortened your routine a bit, haven’t you?”

“Survival skills. If I take too long, I pay the price in a mess elsewhere.” Brea’s eyes narrow. “Were you wearing that before?”

“You’re really going to take the boys to breakfast?” Mrs. Browning asks again, as if we’re taking them before a firing squad. “They can stay with Grandma!”

“No!” The boys whine in unison.

I know just how they feel. Mrs. Browning always brought out the whiner in me, too.

“The boys won’t bother Ashley,” Brea says. “She’s done worse in restaurants on her own. Besides, she’s got the clown hair going on, if we get into trouble, we’ll just say it’s part of her act.” Brea shakes her head at me. “You’re totally making me crave a Big Mac.”

“You’re just jealous.” I pat my scarlet locks.

If Kevin worried that I was no longer the Ashley with the sparkle, I wish he could see Brea right now. Maybe we need each other to sparkle. Brea loves me for me: Clown hair, her mother’s polyester disco skirt and all. I’m home at last, and I force myself to forget Kevin’s mystical disappearing act, Kay’s dysfunctional version of romance and my lack of employment.

‡

“O
h my gosh,
this thing is like a boat!” I say as I steer Brea’s minivan toward the restaurant. She’s snuggled into the passenger seat with her eyes blissfully closed.

“I love that you can just be with me and not talk at me,” she says without opening her eyes.

Translation: Her mother never puts a cork in it.

“Our cafe is gone. Look, new owners—” I point to the loopy, red letters in Korean above the sign. “Now Serving American Breakfast.”

“They’ll have pancakes, so whatever. Are you going to explain that skirt?”

“I’d rather not.”

Brea’s personality is normally bubbly to the point of exhaustion. She’s the kind of woman who can get knocked into a lake, fully clothed, and emerge with a bright smile and say, “The temperature is just perfect! You should come in with me.”

That light has dimmed in her, and how do you tell someone they’re fading…or that it’s probably from the close proximity to their toxic mother? This may require more tact than I possess.

We walk into the new restaurant and the white plastic menu looms brightly over the Formica counter. The menu is sprinkled with unprofessional food pictures—which hardly look appetizing. One side is pale, runny scrambled eggs alongside bacon and pancakes. The other half is Korean—which appears to be tofu, vegetables and green onion pancakes in various combos.

“Something tells me chocolate chip pancakes are not on the menu anymore,” Brea whispers.

“Never mind. They still have the aquarium.” Jonathan and Miles make a beeline for the oversized tank, filled with large orange and black koi.

“Mommy, look!” Jonathan says.

“Sit anywhere,” the waitress announces.

“We’ll sit next to the aquarium if that’s okay,” Brea says. We take our seats in an old booth that’s probably been here since 1950 for all of the restaurant’s various forms. The waitress hands us menus then gives the boys kiddie menus with coloring crayons. The waitress slides away the chopsticks and replaces them with traditional American silverware cinched by a paper napkin.

“Can I start you off with some drinks?”

“Can I have a Diet Coke?” Brea asks.

“Anything for the boys?”

“Chocolate milk. Ash, you want a drink yet?”

“Just water, please.”

The waitress takes off. The boys rise from the bench seat and drift towards the fish tank as if led by a tractor beam. They palm-plant their hands on the aquarium.

“Boys, don’t touch the fish tank,” Brea says in a weary tone.

There’s a brief recognition of Mom’s voice, but their hands remain firmly on the glass.

“I forgive you for not telling me you were living with your mother, by the way.”

“That’s big of you.”

“Brea, you have got to get out of there. Do you want to be like me? Giving up all sense of dignity to live in a house bought my in-laws?”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. Let’s talk about something else. What did Kay want you out here for?”

“Next topic—”

“She’s marrying Matt, isn’t she? I saw them at Easter service, and I knew. Why else would he make an appearance at church?”

I toss the menu down. “I want to support Kay. She tells me she’s tired of being alone. That this might be the last chance she has to be a mother. What if she doesn’t meet someone else and she blames me forever?”

“Blames you for what? Not liking Matt Callaway? That has to be an exhaustive list.”

“No, I found something.” I try to be as delicate as possible, considering I have little more than my suspicions. “Do you think Matt would use Kay’s own house to cheat on her?”