“So, you weren’t out with a guy?” Mom asked pointedly, and I saw Milo looking incredibly ashamed out of the corner of my eye.
“Well, yeah, I was.” I drew my shoulders back a little bit, telling myself that I hadn’t done anything. There was nothing for me to get in trouble for, no matter what my mother’s angry glare was saying. “Is that a problem?”
“Who is he?” She flicked an ash off the arm of the chair, looking down instead of at me.
“His name is Jack.” I shifted uneasily, and stole a glance at Milo. Suddenly, I felt very sorry for him. I had no idea how long he had been forced to stand here with my mother, and I couldn’t imagine the kind of interrogation she had put him through.
Let me be clear: she wasn’t a bad mother. She was just a tired, lonely woman that worked seventy hours a week and hardly ever saw her kids. There was very little left for her except to try and convince us not to make the same mistakes she did, and the only way she knew how to do that was to be rather vicious.
“I see.” Abruptly, my mother put her cigarette out and exhaled deeply.
When she spoke again, her voice was sweet, much too sweet, and my skin wanted to crawl. “I think I should meet this boy.”
“How? When? You work all the time.”
“Well, he seems to be a night owl, much like yourself.” She looked up at me, batting her eyes exaggeratedly. “I’m sure that you could find a time within the next two days.”
A million different arguments ran through my head. The most obvious being that I wasn’t having sex or even dating Jack, but somehow, I thought that would make things worse. Trying to explain why someone in his situation would want to be friends with me sounded even harder than explaining why he would want to date me. Besides, I actually didn’t want to set her off further. I just nodded instead.
“Okay. I’ll figure it out.”
“You better.” She sounded a little surprised that I had complied so easily, and I wondered if I spent a lot of my time arguing with her just for the sake of arguing with her. I was probably a very bad daughter. Maybe even a very bad person. “And if I decide that I don’t want you to see this boy anymore, then that’s it. Do you understand?”
“Completely,” I nodded again. Of course I would see him anyway, but that wasn’t something I would tell her.
“Good.” Mom got up, grabbing her purse off of the table. She was apparently satisfied with the conversation, and she hadn’t even really screamed at me. It was actually a pretty good talk, as far as our talks go. “I’m going to go the casino now. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I replied lamely.
Mom brushed past me on her way to the door, smelling thickly of cigarettes and cheap brandy, but she paused at the door, turning slightly towards me. “I am glad that you’re home safe.”
“Thanks,” I said, unsure of how else to respond. Then she nodded once and walked out the door.
Milo apologized as soon as she left, but I assured him he had nothing to apologize for. He was always looking out for my best interest, and I knew that.
Besides, I was too tired to really worry about anything else. I didn’t even bother changing out of my clothes before flopping back in my bed.
I decided to just bite the bullet and text Jack to ask if he could meet my mother. When he messaged me back a few seconds later, I realized what exactly he’d done with my phone. He had ordered the song “Time Warp” and put it as his ringtone, so when I got a text message or phone call from him, that’s the song I would hear. Thankfully, he agreed to come over for supper the next night at 8 pm sharp, and I tried not to think about how terrifying that prospect was.
First thing when I got up, I briefed Milo on Jack’s arrival, but Mom was still asleep. For some reason, Milo had been gifted with everything domestic, meaning he was the cook in the family. I let him make supper, but scurried about trying to help him and straighten up the apartment. We actually had a really nice apartment; it was just very small. It was important to me that we impressed Jack with where we lived, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know why I felt anything I did about him, but I pushed that out of my mind. That wasn’t tonight’s problem.
Then the unthinkable happened. Jack arrived early.
“Jack,” I said breathlessly when I opened the door. He had found my apartment without me telling him the number, but I couldn’t mention that in front of Milo. He’d already think Jack was creepy enough without adding anything.
“Hi,” Jack beamed at me. He wore a simple tee shirt with Dickies, but it was the first time I’d seen him in pants. I suspected that this was his attempt at dressing up, and it made me smile.
“You’re early,” I told him. I held the door open, but I hadn’t let him inside yet, so he stood in the hallway, giving me an odd look. Milo had been behind me in the kitchen, noisily preparing something, but he hadn’t made a sound since we’d heard the knock at the door.
“Is that a bad thing?” Jack asked.
“No, not really,” I admitted, and finally took a step back so he could come inside. He smiled at my brother and his eyes quickly scanned the apartment.
“My mom’s just not awake yet.”
“Oh.” He glanced at the clock on the wall, noting that it was after seven.
“When does she get up?”
“I’ll go get her now,” Milo offered, wiping his hands on his jeans and stepping away from a pan.
“Oh, sorry,” I fumbled, realizing that I hadn’t introduced them. “Jack, this is my brother Milo. Milo, this my friend Jack.”
“Nice to meet you.” Milo did a little half wave/half nod combo, then darted off to get my mom.
“I think I make him nervous,” Jack told me quietly.
“Everyone makes him nervous,” I reassured him.
“Hmm.” We were standing rather awkwardly in the kitchen, although I did feel slightly better now that he was around. He had a kind of calming effect on me, but I didn’t know if that was good or bad. My mother was squawking things rather loudly at Milo, so I decided to make conversation to drown at the sound of her.
“So, are you hungry?” I gestured to the pans of some kind of Italian creation Milo had been making on the stove. “Milo’s making something delicious. He’s a really good cook.”
“Actually, I just ate.” Jack smiled sheepishly and put his hand on his stomach. “Sorry. I figured that since we were meeting so late, you’d probably already have eaten. And Mae insisted on feeding me.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” But suddenly I felt more nervous. In truth, I wasn’t that hungry and I could really care less if he ate or not. It was just that without the distraction of eating, a conversation with my mother would be much less pleasant. Then a tantalizing idea occurred to me. Maybe we could just turn this into more of a meet-and-greet kind of thing, where Jack could say hello to my mother and then just sweep me away. “So… do you wanna go someplace or something?”
“I thought I was meeting your mother.” Jack looked confused and pointed to my mother’s closed bedroom door, where Milo was still trying to convince her to put on some pants and a housecoat to see Jack. My heart went out to him, and he had more than made up for telling Mom about Jack.
“I mean, after that,” I explained. “Since you’re not eating. It would be silly to sit around here and watch them eat.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’ll live.” There were like ten million places to eat in the Cities, and this was the only one that included strained dinner conversation with my mother.
I’m sure that I could find someplace if I really had to.
“Alright,” he shrugged and leaned back against the kitchen counter.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Pretty much anything, as long as it’s not here.”
“I get it,” he nodded knowingly.
“I’m up!” Mom shouted, and a few seconds later, Milo rushed out of her room, looking rather frazzled.
“She’ll be right out,” Milo muttered. He went back over to the stove and stirred something simmering in a pan, looking relieved to be back cooking instead of with Mom.
