instructions not to share her phone number. And this Diva stuff. Sex toys. Some hidden desire to physically please, Connie assumes, the sexually unfulfilled women of the world. Finding a store. The business partner. The stares of people who still think sex is something you do once a year to fulfill a marital obligation. The tangle of city codes and laws and the charming personalities of the zoning and health inspectors. Probably a crippling wad of guilt because of what she has not shared with her mother, but apparently with her siblings. And this New Orleans problem. Franchise expansion. An apartment that has just moments ago been christened with its first cup of real coffee.
Oh, Jessica, Connie thinks. Oh, my baby.
“Your monsters are still there, aren’t they?” she whispers so quietly that the breath from her words is as faint as the breeze from a butterfly’s wings. “Monsters everywhere you look, bogeymen the size of Army tanks. Oh, sweetheart, where did you go? I had no idea. I had no idea how much I missed you—or how much I have missed.”
In those minutes while Jessica sleeps, her mother wonders if she couldn’t make Jessica’s small apartment sing to her like Connie’s house sang to Connie. She wonders what will happen tomorrow or next week, and at the tail end of that thought is also the knowledge that it does not matter. It doesn’t matter if she stays here in New York for a week or a month or maybe for the rest of her damn life. It doesn’t matter because she is here now and Jessica is here, too.
She wakes Jessica after that. Connie wakes her sweetly with her fingers dancing through her hair and then onto her face, across her lips.
“Hey, baby, what time do you have to get to Diva’s?”
Connie’s voice is a semi-foreign noise that rides itself through the corridors of Jessica’s brain and out to the ledge of her woozy consciousness. She remembers as she stumbles awake. She remembers strips of the past 24 hours as if she is watching a cartoon being put together. The champagne. The phone call. Her mother standing by the purple dildos. Dinner. All the damn booze. A conversation that would have stunned her into oblivion if she had not been stoned on the grapes of Santa Barbara. The bathroom door. Coffee. And now…her mother touching her face and this feeling as old as her heart that she will soon, very soon, call a love as fine as life itself.
“Jesus, Mom, I can barely move. I have been so damn busy I’m not even drinking anymore.”
“How sad is that?” Connie whispers again, this time a bit louder.
“What time is it?”
“It’s close to nine. What time do you open?”
“Not until 11 today, but I have to get my sorry ass in there and set up and I’m training the new clerks at noon.”
Connie’s brain flashes into mother mode. In less than five seconds, she smiles and forms a plan for the day. It could be 15 years ago when all three girls got the flu on the same day and she was scheduled to give a lecture, head up a conference with three administrators, and meet her insurance agent for an update after work.
“Listen,” she says, trying to act nonchalant. “Let me take care of your arrangements for the New Orleans thing. You get up, shower—you will notice there is a bathroom door now so don’t walk through it—and eat if you can.”
Jessica grabs her head and thinks: “This is what heaven must be like. Someone helping you through a rough passage. Coffee that smells like a street in Paris. And a bathroom door. A lovely bathroom door.”
“Okay, Mom,” she manages to mumble. “That would be terrific. You have me at a very weak moment. Save me some time later today. I have something else I need to tell you. We might as well get everything on the table and see if the damn thing tips over.”
The second Jessica pulls herself together and manages to leave the apartment, Connie swings into action as if she has just been released from a chain gang. She cleans, makes the
Oh, Jessica, Connie thinks. Oh, my baby.
“Your monsters are still there, aren’t they?” she whispers so quietly that the breath from her words is as faint as the breeze from a butterfly’s wings. “Monsters everywhere you look, bogeymen the size of Army tanks. Oh, sweetheart, where did you go? I had no idea. I had no idea how much I missed you—or how much I have missed.”
In those minutes while Jessica sleeps, her mother wonders if she couldn’t make Jessica’s small apartment sing to her like Connie’s house sang to Connie. She wonders what will happen tomorrow or next week, and at the tail end of that thought is also the knowledge that it does not matter. It doesn’t matter if she stays here in New York for a week or a month or maybe for the rest of her damn life. It doesn’t matter because she is here now and Jessica is here, too.
She wakes Jessica after that. Connie wakes her sweetly with her fingers dancing through her hair and then onto her face, across her lips.
“Hey, baby, what time do you have to get to Diva’s?”
Connie’s voice is a semi-foreign noise that rides itself through the corridors of Jessica’s brain and out to the ledge of her woozy consciousness. She remembers as she stumbles awake. She remembers strips of the past 24 hours as if she is watching a cartoon being put together. The champagne. The phone call. Her mother standing by the purple dildos. Dinner. All the damn booze. A conversation that would have stunned her into oblivion if she had not been stoned on the grapes of Santa Barbara. The bathroom door. Coffee. And now…her mother touching her face and this feeling as old as her heart that she will soon, very soon, call a love as fine as life itself.
“Jesus, Mom, I can barely move. I have been so damn busy I’m not even drinking anymore.”
“How sad is that?” Connie whispers again, this time a bit louder.
“What time is it?”
“It’s close to nine. What time do you open?”
“Not until 11 today, but I have to get my sorry ass in there and set up and I’m training the new clerks at noon.”
Connie’s brain flashes into mother mode. In less than five seconds, she smiles and forms a plan for the day. It could be 15 years ago when all three girls got the flu on the same day and she was scheduled to give a lecture, head up a conference with three administrators, and meet her insurance agent for an update after work.
“Listen,” she says, trying to act nonchalant. “Let me take care of your arrangements for the New Orleans thing. You get up, shower—you will notice there is a bathroom door now so don’t walk through it—and eat if you can.”
Jessica grabs her head and thinks: “This is what heaven must be like. Someone helping you through a rough passage. Coffee that smells like a street in Paris. And a bathroom door. A lovely bathroom door.”
“Okay, Mom,” she manages to mumble. “That would be terrific. You have me at a very weak moment. Save me some time later today. I have something else I need to tell you. We might as well get everything on the table and see if the damn thing tips over.”
The second Jessica pulls herself together and manages to leave the apartment, Connie swings into action as if she has just been released from a chain gang. She cleans, makes the
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