Mariah

“Name something you only do when you’re sick.” The announcer sets his card down as the contestants slam the big buttons in front of them.

“Puke!” I say, shoving the spoon back in the tub of ice cream.

The female contestant looks downright smug. “Nap.”

“Nap? You only nap when you’re sick?” I ask, rolling my eyes. The number one answer flips across the screen—nap. “Where do you find these people?”

Scooping another helping of lemon cake ice cream into my mouth, I watch the rest of the top answers cross the board. Every now and then it crosses my mind to get up and go pick out my outfit for my date tomorrow night. I respond by taking another bite of ice cream.

Dating isn’t my forte. Just thinking about it makes my stomach get all squirmy. If I were being introspective, I’d probably conclude that not having to date is one of the major reasons I prefer relationships over one-night stands or hook-ups. Talking about myself is awkward. Listening to someone else explain themselves while trying to be interesting is uncomfortable. Making it through dinner when you have nothing in common is horrific and not many men share my interests. Even if it goes well, hopes go up and, often times, dreams go down. It’s a no-win situation.

Be positive. Things could always be worse.

Flipping the television off, I still. There’s a ringing sound coming from down the hall. My pint of lemon cake ice cream goes to the coffee table as I race down the hallway and into my bedroom to retrieve it.

All the ice cream in my stomach starts to slosh around when I see the name: Mom.

See? Things just got worse.

Every time she calls, I tell myself this might be the day. Maybe she was at the salon and someone asked about me and she realized what a missed opportunity our mother-daughter relationship has become. Or maybe she was going through old photographs and felt guilty for not remembering when I won gold at Solo and Ensemble for my flute solo in middle school.

I let her go to voicemail a lot, but sometimes, I have more hope than brains.

One.

Two.

Three.

Inhaling a deep breath, I swipe the screen. “Hello?”

“Hello, Mariah.”

“Hi, Mom. Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine, honey. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” I say, biting a nail. “You usually just call when something is the matter.”

Sighing too hard and too long, I feel the dread build across the back of my neck. I should’ve sent her to voicemail.

The mattress bends as I sit on the edge of the bed and listen to her go on and on about how she calls and I don’t answer and how disrespectful it is to ignore your mother’s calls. Every other sentence has me biting my tongue with a comeback that, while true, would incense her. As entertaining as it would be to listen to her gasp—I always get a little thrill out of it—I don’t have the energy to see it through.

“Mom?” I ask, cutting her off. “Did you need something?”

The shock that someone has the audacity not to just sit and listen to her ramble has her tongue-tied. “I … Well … Excuse me?”

“Did you need something?” I ask it slowly. Looking around my room, a cozy nest of light greys and pinks, I wonder if I should change my sheets. I just bought a brand-new set of flannel ones that I wanted to try and the temperature at night must just be on the cusp of making it acceptable. “I’m in the middle of something, so if you could just spit it out, that’d be great.”

As soon as I say it, I wince and prepare for her retort.

“Spit?” she balks. “Oh, Mariah. When are you going to start acting like a lady? I didn’t raise you like this.”

“Can we just … cut around all this and get to the chase?”

I despise the pleading tone in my voice, but I hate even more the pause that stretches between us. It’s filled with the unspoken disappointment she feels at being my mother. The silence is pregnant with how misfortunate she feels she is and an awkwardness that’s made even worse by how our relationship dictates how we should interact with one another.

There aren’t tears anymore, just a muted acceptance of the situation. I am who I am and it’s not good enough for her. But it’s good enough for me.

“My birthday is this weekend,” she says finally. “I’d like you to come have lunch with me.”

This throws me a little. “Wow, Mom. Okay. Where do you want to meet?”

“I’m having lunch brought to the house to mark the occasion. It’ll be Betsy’s first time here and I’d really like to make it special.”

“Betsy?” I ask, trying to remember which of her friends this is. I’m sure she’ll lambast me for not remembering it’s her tennis friend or the one she just took a trip to San Diego with, but I truly don’t remember.

“The baby, Mariah.”

Blinking in super-slow motion, I realize she went there. She’s usually decent enough to not openly bring up Chrissy or Eric or the pregnancy that I found out about from a mutual friend’s social media post, a baby whose name I didn’t even know until now.

Tears come, wetting the inside corners of my eyes, as I realize Chrissy has taken our grandmother’s name. A hollowness echoes in my chest, each thought bounding around an area inside of me that should be filled with a feeling other than loneliness.

For a fleeting moment, I imagine walking into my mother’s house and seeing my sister holding a baby. She never even wanted kids. I was the one who wanted a huge family and she beat me to it, just like she tried to one-up everything I ever did.

“I gotta go,” I say past the lump in my throat.

“Stop it.” Her tone is cold, brash, void of any empathy for me. “It’s time you grow up, young lady.”

“Grow up? Are you kidding me right now?”

“Eric and Chrissy are incredibly happy and they now have a beautiful little girl.”

“I … good for them,” I say in disbelief.

“Yes, good for them. You should try to emulate their happiness a little instead of spending all your time in a library.”

This snaps me out of it. “Well, Mother, I was trying to do something similar and then my sister stole my boyfriend.”

“You can’t steal a person,” she charges back. “He was in love with her. Not you. Maybe if you had been a little more interesting, fixed yourself up a little more—”

“Nope. Not doing this today. Goodbye, Mother.”

My thumb swipes the call off and holds in the power button until the screen goes black. I look at the wall. After deep breathing for a few seconds, I shove all of that garbage out of my mind.

Rummaging through my closet, I know exactly what I’m looking for. The jeans I never wear, the ones Whitney says makes my ass look great, go flying onto the bed. A soft crimson sweater that hugs my curves and I feel good in joins it. It takes more time than it should to find my nude-colored heeled boots, but they’re cozied up in the back of my closet with a pair of black pumps. Both go on the bed.

“There. That should do it for tomorrow night.”

The satisfaction is short-lived. So, I do what I always do when I can’t settle down: head to the kitchen to bake something sweet to cancel out the bitterness.