“You’re late.”
“I stopped for coffee,” I say.
Briefly, I search her face for my mom. She looks younger. The result of chemical peels, and skin tugs. I picture an old man cutting up her beautiful face and removing the signs of aging. When I was in high school everyone would say that I looked
just
like my mother in her pageant years, but I try to find myself in her new face and the only resemblance is in the stormy gray of our eyes.
“Well?” An eyebrow tries to cock up but fails. Botox.
“Well what?”
“The coffee?”
Oh, shit. That. “The line was crazy long. This stupid guy—”
“Not to worry,” She shrugs, and tries for a smile, as if the cameras are rolling. “I’ll make us some.”
This is so strange. Why is my mother being so nice?
I leave my duffle bag at the entrance and rub my shoulder as I follow her down a long corridor lined with pictures marking her lifetime. The first is her famous pageant photo: my mother in a blush-colored taffeta monster. She holds up her crown with a gloved hand while cradling a massive bouquet in the other. Then her wedding photo—the first time around, the only one that counts for me—a white flower crown around her straight golden hair, a real non-Botox smile on her face. Then there are six years missing, jumping to galas with celebrities, politicians, and then her big break when Husband #3 gave her her own cooking show. Every Monday night the US of A tunes into Foodie TV to watch my mother prance around the kitchen in Jimmy Choos and aprons by Oscar de La Renta. My junior year of high school, every guy in school tried to date me under the guise of coming over. I had “Stacy’s Mom” Syndrome. I hated it. It’s like I wasn’t worth being friends with if it weren’t for her.
Even with Husband #3 gone and married to Miss Poland, my mother is successful in her own right. She took what she got in the divorce settlement and created a culinary empire. This from the woman who couldn’t open a soup can without my dad coming to the rescue.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I say. Our footsteps echo in the high ceilings of the penthouse. “It’s so—”
“Wonderful?” My mom says playfully. I wonder if she ever “turns it off.”
I was going to go with
excessive.
When we finally get to the kitchen, my first impression is that there is no way my mother, who burned my
frozen pancakes
every morning, cooks in this kitchen. But there are dishes drying on the counter and the French press is out and ready.
“The only way to make coffee,” she says, and that statement alone fills me with the worst kind of heartache. My dad used to say that.
I sit on the high-top counter and watch her move around. She starts talking about her assistant, Felicity, a sweet young thing who just graduated from Boston College and was working in interior design when they met. Then her producer, who’s in the middle of getting a divorce, but then again who isn’t? Her “up and coming” restaurant, which is set to have a grand opening in two weeks.
I sip my coffee and keep my lips pressed together. This is the life she’s always wanted. Without me. Without dad. It goes without saying.
And then the conversation turns to me. There’s the: why aren’t you using moisturizer? Your forehead is as dry as the Sahara. And the: weren’t you wearing these pants the last time you visited? The: you’re almost 23, Lucky, you can’t be a bartender forever. The: please tell me you didn’t change majors again. And finally the: are you dating anyone?
Every question is a hammer sinking me deeper and deeper into my filthy shoes.
“Nope, free as a bird,” I say.
“Well Bradley’s been looking all kinds of delicious lately.”
“
Mom!
”
She shrugs and sips from her coffee. Black. “I’m only just saying. His family and ours go way back. I’m sure if you really
wanted
to, you could have him.”
“I’d rather not have that conversation.”
“Did I ever tell you that his dad and I dated for a week in high school?”
I love how she always reminds me that she had the best of everything back in the day, when Massachusetts upper crust was as inbred as the South. Then, her family lost everything and moved to Westchester, NY, where I was born. Not much of a downgrade, not to me at least. As soon as Husband #2 and his Smithson Lumber Empire brought us back to Boston, she tried to reclaim that life with moderate success.
“It’s nice to know that my best friend’s dad and you had a fling.”
“All I’m saying is that since you up and
left
us, I find it interesting that you chose to stay at his messy apartment instead of at mine when you got home three days ago.”
She knows
.
She knows that I lied and told her I got in today. I’m going to kill Bradley.
I set my cup down and keep the hot liquid on my tongue. It burns. My face turns red under her judgmental brow. Yes, when I got off at South Station, I went straight to Bradley’s. His parents were my saviors during high school, while Mom was jet-setting with her husbands and I was forced into private school. Bradley and his friendship were the only good things that sustained me. He’s just started medical school, planning on going to some third world country to heal the less fortunate—because it’s not enough that he looks like an angel, but he’s also got the soul to match.
“Bradley’s got a girlfriend,” I say, my tongue as bitter as the black coffee.
“That’s because you never stay put.” She runs a hand down her platinum hair. I can see the half-inch of dark at the roots, which is surprising because she never lets her roots show. “If you stayed in one place for more than six months, you’d have someone.”
“I’ve been in New York for almost a year,” I counter.
“And all you have to show is a case of bedbugs.” She grimaces. “I hope you didn’t bring any with you.”
“Don’t worry, I burned my mattress and sheets. Which is why all I have are the clothes on my back.”
She holds her hands up in mock defeat.
This dance we do, my mother and me, can go on for days. Last year, at her old place in Cambridge, we became slightly nocturnal, her trying out recipes in the middle of the night and me with Bradley at some overpriced, downtown attempt at a New York speakeasy until the sun came up. It went on for an entire week before we made it to our yearly dinner—
Her phone goes off and I see Felicity’s name and picture pop up on the screen. Round face. Freckles. She wears a suit that makes her look like a girl playing dress up in her mom’s clothes. She reminds me of a turtle who can’t suck her head back in her shell.
Mom answers, “Go for Stella.”
I groan at how fake it makes her sound, but I’m relieved that I don’t have to make conversation with her. I take an apple off the table and sink my teeth into it. The flavor doesn’t mix well with coffee aftertaste, but it temporarily satisfies the empty feeling in my belly. Then I take in the kitchen once again, and I think, “Dad would have loved this kitchen,” only to realize that in the parts of the house I’ve seen, there isn’t a single picture of my dad.
Come to think of it, there isn’t a single picture of me either.
“WHAT?” she shouts.
In that instant, my old mother is back. Her TV-personality voice, the husky alto of a sexy Martha Stewart, is replaced by the breaking pitch of her shrill scream.
“How bad is it?” She reaches for her cup of coffee and ends up pushing it instead. It tilts sideways and I’m close enough to catch it, but the contents slosh off the sides, and for the second time today I’ve got coffee dripping all over me. “I’ll be right there.”
My mom sets the phone on the white marble countertop and takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose, pushing the pressure of an oncoming headache away.
“Get dressed, we have to go.”
“Go where?”
“Apparently nothing is allowed to go right. I swear if it wasn’t for—Come on, Lucky, I don’t have time to sit here. Put on something clean and wash your face.”
“Why do I have to go?”
“Dammit Lucky, can’t I ask you to do something for me without you having to ask why?” Her hand starts trembling. It’s slight, and she grabs the shaky hand with the steady one, but I’ve already noticed it. Her white and gold exterior is cracking and for reasons I don’t know how to explain, it bothers me.
“Okay, but can I at least know where we’re going and where the fire is?”
She ushers me into a guest bedroom, her foot tapping the hardwood floor like a doomsday clock.
“And by ‘fire,’ I mean a metaphorical fire, right?”
“Something’s wrong at the restaurant.” She makes a face when she sees my outfit—faded black jeans and a t-shirt that says I EAT WITH ZOMBIES—and groans but decides there isn’t time for a second change. “Perhaps your luck can rub off on it while you’re here.”
I bark a laugh, which doesn’t console her. “Lucky, me?”
The Star, a fine dining “experience” is an extension of my mom’s new lifestyle. Clean. White. Modern. Glass.
Sure, it
looks
expensive, like a designer dress you’re afraid to wear because it might get dirty. Despite the careful selection of square white tables, the giant sculptured lamps, and tall vases ready and waiting for their flower bouquets, I can tell it’s missing something. Something my dad would have called
spirit.
Life. Love.
I run my hand along the length of the bar. The wood is freshly polished and I can smell the stain, but most of the bar is unfinished. Much to my mother’s dismay, I’ve served behind a few bars. And when I say “a few,” I mean “a lot.” They were never this nice, this fresh. The wall behind it has room for a huge selection of good booze, not the watered down stuff some places serve, which makes my bartending heart pitter-patter.
But I’m beyond that now. I’m here to hit the reset button on my life. So with my eye behind my camera I snap one shot of the most beautiful bar I’ve seen in a long time and I follow my mother’s scream.
“When did this happen?” my mom asks Felicity. Mom doesn’t introduce us, but Felicity smiles, and waves at me like we’re long lost friends, before returning her attention to my mother.
A throng of construction guys crowd around the women’s bathroom. Everyone holds their hands to their mouths. I don’t understand why until the reek hits my nostrils, like a dead cat wrapped up in flambéed human skin.
“What the—?” I nearly gag when I get closer.
My mom clutches her phone to her chest, her knuckles white. She’s seconds away from screaming or hyperventilating or both.
“The lines in the street are backed up. Something about the rain and flooding and clogging up sewer lines,” Felicity says, trying to smile despite the odor. “The whole block is having problems. I’ve been trying to get a plumber down here, but no one is available ‘til Monday. The ones that can make themselves available want to charge us a 400% markup.”
“That’s—I can’t—!” My mom’s knuckles go white around her phone. “This is completely
un
acceptable.”
“Oh! One of the construction workers thinks he can help,” Felicity says. Then she whispers in my ear, “But I think he’s just making it worse.”
The sound of wood breaking in half fills the room, followed by a loud crash.
I run with my mother to the main room where a wooden beam has snapped in half and fallen across a section of tables. Sparks flicker where a golden light fixture has shattered.
“Mom, no!” I hold my arm out to stop her from moving forward.
The sparks of the exposed wires turn into little flames that catch onto the fresh paint. Felicity screams and someone shouts wondering why the sprinklers aren’t going off. The construction guys don’t know which way to go. Everyone just stares as the small fire eats the head on the beam like a struck match.
I run to the bar area and grab the fire extinguisher. My last bar kept it back there because my bar-mate’s fire blowing trick sometimes got out of hand.
I hop on top of the bar and blast the flames before they do any real damage. White residue coats the entire section, giving the illusion of an abandoned Christmas display. A dizzy head rush makes me wobble. Someone’s hand grabs my leg to keep my steady but I insist I’m fine.
“Lucky!” My mom is on the border of hysteria, her voice ten octaves too high.
“I’m fine,” I say, hopping down from the bar.
She holds me at arms length and studies my face. I shake from the adrenaline, but I’m good. The last time she held me like this, I had fallen off the roof trying to sneak out. For a moment I let myself think about the way she was before all this. I pull out of her hold and repeat, “I’m fine.”
Several construction guys scratch their heads as they survey the mess, wondering how in Construction Heaven this could have happened. More and more people come out of the kitchen area.
My mom presses her fingertips to her temples and closes her eyes. Her pristine restaurant is falling apart and she’s standing right in the center of it. All eyes drift towards her, waiting for her to explode. I know my mom likes attention, but this isn’t the kind she’s used to, and I can see it in the tension of her shoulders.
A short mustached man in a plaid shirt and tan work boots wrings his brown hands as he works up the courage to talk.
“I don’t know how it happened, Ms. Carter,” he says. “We used the best of everything—”
My mom inhales deeply. I recognize the look and the intake of breath that steadies her, readies her anger. She’s a dragon.
“Then how, pray tell,
did
this happen, Carlos?” She’s speaking up at the ceiling, the naked wires exposed where the wooden beam broke the light fixture. “Because if that had happened during the tasting, I would’ve gotten my guests killed! And on top of that—” She turns her body to the bathroom, but can’t bear to look at it.
My mom’s hands start trembling. She holds her cell phone like a weapon. “Do you know what next week is?”
Carlos shakes his head.
“The restaurant’s tasting for my network, Boston Foodie, Lush Life, and a whole bunch of food bloggers who wouldn’t know a merlot from a malbec, but have hundreds of thousands of followers.” She’s so close to his face but the man doesn’t back down. Not one bit, like he loves standing in the way of her fire.