“Oh, fine.” Mom waves the question away. “Your typical teenage students. I can’t wait to retire and be done with it all.”
“I thought you loved teaching.”
“I did. I do. I’m just getting old.” She gives me a smile. Tired and resigned. But quite possibly the first genuine one since she arrived.
And I’d tell her about Henry. About how much fun it can be having him around. About what a pain in the ass he can be sometimes. Only she’d probably take it the wrong way somehow. See it as yet another reason for me to abandon ship and run home. A soft and fluffy thing winds around my legs. Leaning back in my chair, I watch Princess rub herself up against me. When she spies me watching, she hisses and dashes back to beneath the nearest couch. As you do.
“Did you see that?” I ask Beck.
He blinks. “What?”
“Princess deigned to acknowledge I exist.”
“Oh, no. What a beautiful moment and I missed it.” He grins. “Next time.”
“Next time.”
Mom just watches us with a faint frown. “Are you sure the animal is safe?”
“Yes,” says Beck, back to his blank expression.
This has to be the most awkward fucking meal ever. Mom was always wary of boys who came sniffing around her daughter. Thinking they could only be after one thing (vaginal access). But by the time the male in question has flown you to Denver, bought a house for you to both live in, introduced you to his family, bought you a wardrobe and a car, and offered you a job…you can probably safely assume that his intentions are earnest. Especially given he has yet to put the moves on said vagina. Not that I’m going to share that particular bit of information with my mother. Our sex life, or lack thereof, can stay our business.
“Why don’t we have Christmas here?” I ask, looking around the room. “We could get a big tree, invite everyone over.”
“You’re not coming home for Christmas?” Mom is aghast. Awesome.
“Would we both be welcome?” I ask.
Her mouth gapes. Answer enough.
“It’s our first Christmas together in our new home,” I say. “We haven’t decided how we want to spend it yet.”
Beck bushes his fingers over my hand. “Whatever you want, beloved.”
“We could get Princess a special Christmas collar and everything.”
“She would love that so much,” he lies with great vigor.
“Right?”
Mom looks at us as if we’re both crazy. Maybe we are.
“‘I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve,’” I quote. And it’s nothing less than the truth.
“Hey, that was my line.” Beck rises, kissing me on top of my head. He starts collecting the plates, pausing briefly to look at my mother. His gaze is cool. “You don’t trust me. I can understand that. I wouldn’t want some rich asshole coming in and sweeping my daughter off her feet either. Moving her to another state. Changing her life in big ways. Maybe you and I will learn to get along or maybe we won’t. I hope for Alice’s sake that we do. But whatever happens, don’t ever again tell her what to eat.”
Huh.
Mom stares after him as he takes the plates over to the sink. When she turns to me, the shock in her eyes is clear. Though I don’t know why she’s so surprised. Guess no one’s ever stood up for me before. I’ve done plenty of it myself. Or did I just learn to ignore such shit? Those times at BBQs when she’d point out what piece of steak had the least amount of fat. Serving me the smallest piece of cake at birthday parties. Things like that. Ugh.
“Why don’t I let you two catch up?” Beck heads up the stairs, not looking back.
I just wait, slumped back in my chair, sipping on my beer. How do you respectfully ask your mother to retract the stick from her ass? I knew there’d be resistance to my moving away and everything. This, however, is excessive.
Mom’s hands sit in front of her, fingers tightly laced. “I had a friend in college who dated a rich boy. Tori, her name was.”
“Wasn’t she one of your bridesmaids?”
“That’s right.” Mom’s smile is there and gone. Like lightning. “They were so in love. Just crazy about each other. They went everywhere together. Every party, every football game…you name it. There they were, joined at the hip. He even took her home to meet his family for Thanksgiving and he’d never taken a girl home before. It was fine at first. Everyone was perfectly nice. But then his family decided he was maybe a little too serious about this blue-collar girl. Her father was only a mechanic, you see? Her mother had passed. Tori didn’t know anything about fitting in with the country club set. Didn’t know the right glass to use. But they were determined to be together. Nothing could stop them.
“So after graduation they got married. She worked as a teacher, supporting them both, while he went to law school. It didn’t matter that he’d been cut off by his family and they had to live in some rat-infested attic. They were in love. As long as they had each other everything was fine. For years this went on; Tori worked and he studied. He studied hard, graduated top of his class. His family finally came to their senses and accepted the young couple back into the fold. They bought a big mansion in Bel Air and lived the high life. Parties and galas and business dinners. Holidays in the south of France and skiing in Aspen. She changed to teaching at a private school and drove to work in a brand-new Mercedes and wore Ralph Lauren. It was fine. Until it wasn’t.
“All of the little pressures just kept mounting up on her. The pressure to maintain that illusion of perfection. The pressure to always be in the right place saying the right things to the right people. The pressure to fit in and help her husband make partner. And all the while she was surrounded by these rich people living idle lives with poison pouring out of their mouths and not an ounce of kindness in them. I imagine it must have been like living under a microscope, constantly being watched, everyone just waiting for you to mess up so they could talk about it behind her back. No matter how much Tori and her man loved each other, it wasn’t enough to combat that kind of constant pressure and stress. The cracks started to show and they divorced in the end.
“You can tell me it’s not like that with you and your man. That he and his family and friends are different. That no one expects you to change to fit in. But I watched one of the smartest and strongest women I ever met get chewed up and spat out by just these sort of people. She moved to Scotland and he married a failed actress. The perfect trophy wife. It took Tori years to pull herself back together again.” Mom sighs. “I don’t want that to happen to you.”
“Mom, be reasonable. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for your friend, but I can’t make choices based on someone else’s life. For every possible situation there’s going to be a sad story. An example of how it all came crashing down and ended in ruins,” I say. “But Beck and I can only be ourselves and do what’s right for us. And I need you to respect that.”
Nothing from Mom.
“And as for your concerns about us working together…I’ve been flailing since I graduated, I know that. You and Dad knew that you wanted to go into teaching and that’s great. But it’s okay if I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I just have to make a start somewhere and that’s what I’m doing here and Beck is a big part of that. He woke me up. He made me want more for myself.”