Tansy
“Why are you still at the school?”
I’m twenty-five minutes into a conversation with my mom when she drops the question. There’s a hundred things I could be doing, but Mom and I have been building a new relationship over the past couple of months. I didn’t talk to her much when I was with Jody. It was hard to have a conversation without Jody needing something, or asking questions while I was still on the phone, or jumping into the topic and insisting I put it on speakerphone. I hadn’t noticed how short my conversations with my mom had become until it was too late.
I’m flat on my back on the rug in our library nook, my feet up on a padded bench that I usually use when I’m reading to the kids. On the wall above me are the natural disaster projects they turned in last week. Corbyn has a really nice eye for emotion in her drawings. The fear on the faces of the earthquake victims is surprisingly real. I guess that’s what Sunday afternoon drawing classes with a Cal Arts student will do for you.
“I had a lot of grading to get done,” I tell Mom.
“Couldn’t you take it home?”
“It’s not exactly cozy there. I haven’t really unpacked.” I sigh. “Honestly, I haven’t unpacked at all.”
There’s something clattering on the other end. Mom’s making dinner. “You’ve been in that apartment for two months. You know what I say. A tidy room . . .”
“Makes for a tidy brain. Yes, Mommy,” I tease. “I heard that a thousand times when I was a kid.”
“I’m going to send your brother out there.”
“Mom, no!” I sit up in a panic. “What?”
“He’s bouncing around the house like a bum ever since he got laid off at the factory. He needs something to do.” She’s got that note of determination in her voice. “He’ll come unpack for you.”
“That’s really not necessary.”
“It’ll be good for you and good for him.”
“Mom, you can’t.” I rub my forehead. It’s not that I suddenly have a headache, but I can feel the pressure of my brains trying to scramble out of my head because I can’t figure out how to solve this. “Justin’s got a life. He’s not your proxy to send off.”
“Not much of a life, he doesn’t.” She makes a tsking sound. “That Johnson girl dumped him, and I can hardly blame her. He was at the bar flirting with Rebecca Wilkins. You know her. She was a year behind you.”
Life in a small town is such a weird little dance. There are certain things that are wholly public and other parts that are never talked about. “Is there anything you don’t know about his life?”
She gives a tuneless hum as she thinks about it. “I don’t think so? Oh! I don’t know what kind of porn he likes, thank goodness. But I swear to god that’s about it. I need a break from him, Tansy. I haven’t had a quiet dinner with your father since Justin moved back in.”
“So that’s what this is about. Not me unpacking.”
“Do your mom a favor.” Water’s running. I wonder if she’s making pasties. Probably not. Too much work for an average weekday. She’d save that for Sundays, when Nanna comes over for what’s left of family dinners. I miss those. “I need to get laid.”
“Oh my god, Mom,” I shout. I sound like a humiliated teenager, and I don’t care in the least. “Don’t do that to me!”
“I’m just trying to build honesty,” she says, but she’s laughing too. “Transparency is important in relationships.”
“I hate you.”
“So I can send Justin?”
“Don’t you dare.” She can’t see it, but I’m wagging a finger. “How about I come visit instead?”
“How does that solve my problem? That’s even more people in my house.”
“Don’t you want to see me?” Mostly, I want her to stop talking about her sex life. Forever. “I’ll bring a friend. She’d like hunting, I think.”
“A friend?” It’s very much like Mom for her to narrow in on that part. “Like a friend-friend? You’re not already dating, are you?”
“No,” I say, because I don’t really know what it is that Cai and I do. We’ve seen each other a couple more times, but we haven’t had sex again. Some make-outs, but not sex. Part of me agonizes about having freaked Cai out, but another part of me has enjoyed the slow burn. Things aren’t as heavy as my relationship with Jody, and I can’t help but feel like that alone keeps it more casual. Being with someone is supposed to be work, and with Cai it’s just fun. No matter if we’re playing PS4 games or hunting for the best taco truck, life is good.
“We talked about you having some time to just be yourself.”
“Yeah, this is fine. It’s no big deal. She’s my tattoo artist.”
“Your tattoo what?” She’s practically screeching.
Bingo. That got her off the trail. “Yeah, it’s on my calf and it’s really pretty. You’ll love it. I’m going to check in with Cai—that’s her name—and see if she can get off work around my October break.”
Because the children attending the academy are the offspring of the rich and entitled, they can’t go an entire month of school without having at least a four-day weekend. As a result, we have a random vacation break in October. I’m definitely not complaining. It’s the perfect time for hunting white-tailed deer in Idaho.
“You’re going to come visit?” Mom’s getting excited now that the idea is sinking in. “How long can you stay?”
“I can probably stay the whole week. I’ll see if Cai wants to just come up for part of it, or if she has the time off or something. I don’t know if she exactly gets vacation hours.” Probably not, now that I think about it.
“This will be wonderful! I’ll call your nanna. She’s missed you so much.”
“I know.”
It’s been four years since I’ve been home. Jody saw to that. It was never that she said no, we couldn’t go visit, but she made it so very, very hard. I managed to talk her into a trip for Christmas our second year in college. She picked a fight with me the night before. I think it was about taking the trash out—I was nagging her by reminding her, even though the can was literally overflowing and I had nowhere to dump the coffee grounds. She slept on the couch that night and ignored me when I woke her up to go to the airport. Flat out ignored me and pretended to sleep.
It’s humiliating to remember the way I begged her to come to the airport and how I apologized for asking her to take the trash out. I couldn’t imagine showing up in Boise with an unused ticket and having to explain why my oh-so-wonderful girlfriend decided to bail at the last minute.
Then she made it harder and harder for Mom to visit me.
I cried alone in the bathroom when Mom and Dad quietly sent back their RSVP card marked not attending.
God, I had no damn spine.
“This’ll be great,” I find myself saying, and I mean it. This isn’t just about keeping Mom from sending Justin to do my unpacking. I want to go visit now. I need to smell the mountains. With or without Cai, for that matter. If I show up alone, that is one hundred percent A-okay with me now. “See if Uncle Theo can come too.”
“Sure! Of course!” Mom’s bubbling over. “You go buy tickets. I’ve got to make calls. We’ll go shopping too.”
“Oh, no way. You’re not getting me into Sam’s Buckle Emporium.” I laugh.
“They have some cute shirts! I need you to tell me how to wear skinny jeans.”
“You put one leg in, then the other, and then you pull them up over your butt.”
“You’re a smart butt.” There’s a pause, and I can imagine Mom smiling at me. “I’ve missed you, sugar.”
There’s a lump in my throat that burns the back of my nose when I try to swallow. “I’ve missed you too. This is going to be a good trip. I can already tell.”