Tuesday, July 31, 2007
“Hey, mom,” I said as I walked into her small, two bedroom apartment. “I don’t have long, I have to be in Edmond by three to look at a job.”
“Well you can visit with your mother for a little while can’t you? You just walked in the door and already, you’re talking about having to go. I hope when I’m dead and gone you’ll remember how you treated me feel horrible.”
“I feel horrible now.”
Just then, my older sister came walking out from the hallway. “Hey,” she said as she came over and sat on the couch. “You here to get mom’s surprise?”
“Yeah, I can’t wait. What are you doing here, did you come over to watch me get it?” I said, joking.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said. “Where’s Joan?”
“We broke up. I thought mom told you.”
“That’s too bad, we were wanting babies.”
“Go have your own babies. Besides, what’s the deal with you two and Joan? I only dated her for a few days before she move in with me and we only lived together for a couple of weeks. I think we’d need a little more time than that for a life commitment, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said my sister, “A lot of people hit it off right from the start. Why don’t you just get married and see how it goes?”
“Because, unlike you, I’m not a demented whacko.”
She laughed. “Marriage isn’t whacko, Jody.” She calls me Jody.
“Marriage after only three weeks is,” I said.
My mother chimed in with, “Are you going to go your whole life single?”
“I don’t know, maybe. You guys don’t have any room to talk, neither one of you are married.”
“Oh, I’m too old to get married,” said my mother.
“I’d get married if I could find a decent guy,” my sister threw in.
“Mother, they don’t have a maximum age limit for marriage,” I said, then turned to my sister. “And there are all kinds of guys out there who would marry anything that breathes, so you both have no excuses.”
I was starting to get irritated. They were constantly after me to get married and it was getting on my nerves.
“We’ll pay you to get married,” said my mother.
“Yeah,” my sister added. “We can all get a house together. Mom and I could watch the babies while you and Joan are at work,”
I just shook my head and sighed. “Where’s my present? I need to get to Edmond.”
“No wait,” said my mother, “Let’s talk about marriage some more.”
“I don’t want to talk about marriage some more,” I said, standing up. “Now, if you don’t have a present for me, then–”
“Hold on, hold on,” my mother said, “Go into the kitchen first and get my purse.
I breathed out heavily, as I headed for the kitchen.
It’s probably a ring. She knows I don’t wear jewelry, but with my mother, it doesn’t matter what you like. She gets you what she likes, whether you like it or not.
I turned the corner from the tiny dining room, into the kitchen area, and was surprised to find someone standing at the sink with their back to me. After about a half second, she turned around and looked at me. Yes, it was a woman. And yes, she was good beautiful. And yes…it was Joan.
“Hi,” was the cheery voice that hit my ears. Her smile was broad and enthusiastic.
I paid no attention to the raucous laughter coming from the living room. “Wu-” I said, in an attempt to analyze the strange situation I now found myself in. My follow up questions were, “Ungck…” and “Abfruh…”
She just giggled as she leaned back against the sink, her hands on either side of her casually resting on the counter.
Having gotten over the initial shock of who this is, I was able to form the absurdly obvious question, “Wh-a-sh-de-uh…” Okay, it took me a couple of tries, but I finally got it. “What are you doing here?”
Her smile beamed into a grin. “I live here,” she said, and giggled again.
The living room laughter blossomed into hysterical guffaws, and I thought it best to re-assert my first questions, “Ungck…Abfruh…” Joan put a hand over her mouth and joined my sister and mother in the jocularity.
It seemed I was the only one that didn’t see the humor of it all.
My ex-girlfriend that was now a member of my mother’s household lifted herself off the sink and walked past me, still giggling, into the living room. In a daze, I followed. She went over and sat down in one of the plush, stuffed chairs against the wall.
So there I was, standing in the middle of the living room, my jaw dangling, in the midst of three women, staring at me and laughing.
“Surprise!” said my mother, and of course, a whole new tidal wave of hilarity swept all of them again.
Finally, able to get a grip, I looked at Joan. “What do you mean you live here?”
My mother answered for her. “I rented her a room.”
That did it. Another round of laughter.
I searched the ceiling in a life defining moment hoping to see the heavens split open and God graciously whisk me up into his divine oblivion–at this point, I would settle for the Enterprise beaming me up. I thought about asking my original first two question for a third time, but I didn’t for fear they would break out into that ridiculous laughter again.
Then you would have been able to read about me in the papers the next morning.
I turned back to Joan. “You can’t live here-how can you live here?” I turned to my mother. “How can she live here?”
Wiping her eyes, my mother said, “She needed a place to stay. I could use the money, so I rented her the front bedroom.”
I needed a drink–a strong one…maybe even a warm Sprite-Diet Coke-Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper mix. Caffeine free! (I don’t drink). “Well, um…congratulations, I guess,” I said. What the hell else was I going to say? What does anyone say in a situation like this–Thanks mom, I now have a beautiful hundred and fifteen pond sister?
Joan said thanks, and they all giggled some more. I looked at Joan again. That’s when I noticed how damn beautiful she still was. Even after all these weeks. I was thinking, ‘If I wasn’t careful, I could find myself needing to visit my mother much more often that I used to.’
No. Bad Idea.
Down boy, down!
After a few more strange glances, uncomfortable–or, at least uncomfortable for me– conversational exchanges, and unintentional kinky fantasies developing in my head, I finally left. I had to get to that job and put in a bid. Naturally, I was going to be late. If it was guy I was going to be doing the work for, after I told him my reason for being late he would definitely understand. Hell, he’d probably offer to take me out and get me drunk.
I told my roommate the about it and he thought it was incredible. He said I should write it into a story of some kind. I told him I would if it weren’t for the fact that no one would ever believe it.
That was the last time I ever moved in with a woman. I thought of an alternate version of that George Strait song, “Aaaaaaalllll my ex’s live in my mothers house…”
Scary.
Joan moved out a few weeks later, and for the time she was there, I didn’t visit her–Joan or my mother. My family and I never talked about it, and I never did find out all the machinations of how my mother wound up renting my ex-girlfriend a room in her house–IN HER HOUSE!!! But it’s probably just as well. It might be a psychological overload. You know, too much of a weird thing?
My dear mother is no longer with us, but I think of her often. The Good Book says that there are many mansions awaiting us in heaven. I’m sure that the sweet, saintly, but entirely insane woman I called mom now resides in one of them. Maybe when I get there, I will sit down with her and ask her about that whole weird thing. We’ll probably have a big healthy and glorified laugh with all the other saints and angles over the whole thing.
I just hope Joan is an atheist.
Keck
