But I don’t even look at the paper. Instead I stare at her. “Mom, you
have
to let us do this. It’s Lola’s last night, and she won the tickets, and it’s a Christian concert. Honestly, what could possibly go wrong?”
She shakes the newspaper, pointing to a headline. “Look at this, Cleo. There was a shooting on Wednesday night. Right down there near the Coliseum, and a young man died and—”
“There will always be something,” I say a bit too loudly. “There will be car wrecks and epidemics and murders and all sorts of horrible things happening all over the planet, Mom. But that does not mean they’ll happen to me. Don’t you get that? Someday you will have to let me go!”
“I know...” She nods sadly. “But I do not have to let you go into the city tonight.”
“Mom!
”
“I’m sorry, Cleo, but everything in me says this is a bad idea.”
“You think anything I want to do without you by my side is a bad idea. Seriously, do you plan to go to college with me next fall? Will you be my roommate? Will you walk me to classes? Hold my hand? Wipe my nose?”
She actually looks as if she’s considering this.
“You have got to get a life, Mom. Seriously, this is sick and getting sicker.”
“I know I’m a little overprotective, but—”
“A
little?
Try
suffocatingly!”
“
Oh, Cleo, you’re just upset because you’re not getting your way.”
“It’s Lola’s last night here.” I try to soften my tone. “It’s just that I wanted it to be special for her. I want her to have some happy memories.”
“Then make a different kind of memory. Make it special for her right here,” she suggests. “Isn’t it your friendship that matters most of all? Why not invite Lola here for the night? You girls can have the run of the house, and you can order pizza and watch movies and pig out and crank up the music as loud as you like. Now, really, wouldn’t that be fun?”
“It might be fun if we were thirteen years old,” I snap at her. “But Lola is eighteen, Mom. I’ll be eighteen in June. Why can’t we do something more age appropriate for a change?”
“It’s just not a good night for this, Cleo. Trina’s party has been planned for months. Dad’s out of town. Vera has her plans. Besides that, she told me they’re leaving at sunup tomorrow. I’m sure she’d prefer that Lola isn’t out late anyway.”
“Vera doesn’t care how late Lola stays out,” I say with too much anger. “Unlike
some
totally paranoid mothers, Vera trusts Lola. And she doesn’t treat Lola like an infant.”
Mom presses her lips together, and I can tell she’s mentally counting to ten. But I just stand there with my hands on my hips, glaring at her. I’m so mad that my fingernails dig into my palms. Why does she have to be like this?
“I suppose I could cancel on Trina’s party,” she says sadly. “That way I could take you girls to the concert.”
Suddenly I’m wondering who is guilting who now? “No way. I won’t let you do that, Mom. Then you’ll blame me for missing out on the one thing you’ve been looking forward to for ages.”
She holds up her hands. “Then what do you expect me to do?”
“I don’t know.” I turn away from her, ready to throw something or just scream. Juvenile? Yes. But isn’t that how she’s treating me?
“I wish you could see that it’s for the best, Cleo. It’s really not safe for two young girls to drive into the city, park down by the Coliseum, and walk in the dark. If you were older, you’d understand.”
“I understand that my mother is a total freak. A controlling, fearful, obsessive freak who is always expecting disaster to strike.”
She blinks. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“And I’m sorry you’re my mom,” I snap back. “I wish I was an orphan!” I complete my juvenile act by stomping off to my room and slamming the door so hard the wall shakes. I pace back and forth in my room now, feeling like a caged tiger, ready to claw and bite and tear into any unsuspecting thing that dares to open that door. Fortunately, my mother doesn’t make any attempts.
After a while, I quit pacing and just sit on my bed. What is wrong with that woman? Okay, I am fully aware that my mother grew up in a very dysfunctional home. A crummy little house in a run-down neighborhood with too many kids and not enough supervision. Her parents were both flaming alcoholics. Her dad barely held a job. And her mother walked out on her husband and five children when my mom was only twelve. As the oldest daughter, my mom had to play “mommy,” trying to hold the family together, but it was a thankless and impossible task. It was a rough way to grow up, and I do feel for her. But that was then; this is now.
It doesn’t take a shrink to figure out that my mom has over-compensated for her sad upbringing by creating what she considers a perfectly safe haven here in our home. After putting herself through school and working in real estate for years, she married my dad in her midthirties. She waited until she was nearly forty to have children, and then she had only one—me. Driven to “do this right,” she gave up her career to stay home and play mommy. She made it her full-time job to take care of me.
So really, I’m not stupid. I know exactly why she is the way she is, and most of the time I try to be tolerant. But for some reason—maybe it’s losing Lola—I’m completely out of patience today. I’m fed up. I feel the walls closing in on me, like I can’t breathe, like something’s got to bend before it breaks into a million little pieces.
I need to take my life into my own hands. Seriously, it’s about time!
So with a fresh rush of independence flowing through my veins, I go online and check out other options for getting into the city tonight. I quickly discover I’m too young to rent a car and a taxi is too expensive. But then I remember there’s a bus stop a couple of blocks away, and upon closer investigation, I discover this very bus line connects to the metro that, as fate would have it, has a stop
right in front of the Coliseum.
How safe is that?
Now I’m tempted to go present this new liberating information to my mom, except I
know
my mother. She would see danger around the corner. She would throw a complete fit if she thought her child was going to use
public transportation.
Good grief, the woman freaks out when I use a public restroom. And to ride the metro (with all those thugs and drug pushers) into the city in the dark of night—well, I might as well pick up a gun and play Russian roulette! So I decide to take a different route with her. I don’t want to lie, but it will be a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. I won’t give her a chance to ask and I won’t tell.
I return to the kitchen, but she’s not there. I look around the house and finally find her in her bedroom, getting dressed for tonight’s big bash. She looks surprised to see me. I’m sure she thought I’d pout for much longer than an hour.
“I’m going to Lola’s,” I say in a defeated sort of way. “She said they can use some help cleaning up the house.”
Mom gives me a forced-looking smile. “Oh, that’s nice of you, Cleo. I wish I could help too, but I’ll need to head out of here by five in order to make it on time.”
“Yes, it’s nice that
someone
gets to do what she wants tonight.”
“Oh, Cleo.” She shakes her head at my snarky tone as she takes a black-and-white striped dress from the closet. She’s had that dress for years, probably since the previous century. She holds it up in front of the mirror, studying her image with an unhappy expression.
I’m tempted to tell her to choose something else, but why bother? If she wants her friends to tell her the eighties are calling and have decided they want their dress back, what’s it to me?
“Have fun,” I say in a flat way that suggests I won’t be.
“Are you going to invite Lola to spend the night tonight?” she asks hopefully. “Order pizza? Watch movies?”
I shrug. “Maybe...”
“I’m sorry about the concert, Cleo, really I am.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say glumly. I figure the less I say, the less I will have to lie.
“And I’ll fix you girls breakfast in the morning. In fact, why don’t you tell Vera to bring the boys over tomorrow? I’ll make everyone pancakes and bacon and eggs. Tell Vera I’ll have it going really early so they can be on the road before dawn.”
“Okay.” I’m still keeping up the sad act.
“Oh, Cleo,” she says with a frown. “Maybe I should just forget Trina’s party and go to the concert with you girls.”
“No, Mom.” I shake my head. “Go to your party.”
“But it’s Lola’s last night and your last year of high school.” She reaches for her cell phone. “And it would be fun to go to a concert.”
“No, you need to go to your party.”
“But, Cleo—”
“Seriously, Mom.” I give her an exasperated look. “Get a life!”
She blinks.
“Fine. I’ll go to the party.” “Fine,” I snap at her, turning away.
As I’m heading down the hall, she calls out that she loves me. Naturally I pretend not to hear. And instead of answering, I just hurry out the front door and away from my house. Maybe by tomorrow, after she finds out it’s possible to safely go into the city and return in one piece—and after she gets over being furious with me for doing so—maybe then we can smooth this thing over between us.
In the meantime, I just don’t feel like being around her. And really, I wish she would get her own life—and quit trying to run mine.
I
‘ve never been much good at housekeeping, but I try to make myself useful at Lola’s, which is something of a joke. And it’s not long before Lola asks me to take the twins to the neighborhood park.
“We’ll need to be ready to leave for the concert before six,” I tell her.
“But the concert doesn’t start until seven thirty.”
“I know, but we need to leave my house
before
six.”
She gives me a curious look, but I’m already herding the boys out the door. “We’ll be back here by five thirty sharp,” I tell her. “Then we’ll go to my house to get ready.
Okay?
”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Race you guys to the park.” I take off running with the twins at my heels. To my surprise, either Jamie and Eddie have gotten faster or I’ve gotten slower, and they easily beat me. Thanks to some of their friends who are already there and kicking a soccer ball around, all I’m required to do is supervise and cheer.
While I’m standing there, I go over tonight’s scheme, trying to decide whether or not it will really work. And suddenly I get what I think is a brilliant idea... or a really dumb one. Sometimes the line between smart and stupid is very narrow.
But before I can question myself, I call my mom’s number. Because it’s a bit past five, I’m pretty sure that (1) she’ll be on her way to Trina’s party and (2) she will not answer her phone because she’s extremely diligent about never using her phone while driving. To my relief, I go straight to her voice mail. Taking in a fast steadying breath, I begin. “Hey, Mom, we had a slight change in plans. Lola is so sad about moving and leaving her childhood home that we decided to spend her last night at her house—kind of campy, but it’ll be fun.”
Then as I close my phone, I crystallize the final part of the plan. When we get home from the concert, I’ll tell Mom we changed our minds and decided to spend half the night at Lola’s and half at mine. For some reason I think this might work, keeping my mom from ever knowing we went to the concert. Or maybe I’ll just confess and hope that Mom won’t flip out with Lola around.
At five fifteen, I yell to the boys that it’s time to go. Naturally they don’t want to leave the fun, but when I remind them of the birthday party they’re going to tonight, they’re suddenly racing me back to their house.
Soon Lola and I are leaving her strangely empty house, but before we go, Vera asks where Lola’s sleeping tonight. “After the concert will you stay here or at Cleo’s?”
“I’ll let you know,” Lola says.
Suddenly, I feel uneasy. What if my lies catch up with me? I’d hate for Lola’s last night here to be spoiled by my mom throwing a fit. But Lola is eager to spend the night in a real bed, so I agree. Then as we’re walking to my house, she asks me if we’re taking my dad’s beamer.
“I wish.” I explain my alternative plan of using public transportation. “I think it’ll be fun.”
“Really? Your mom’s down with that?”
I just shrug. “Sooner or later she’s got to let me grow up, Lola. I mean, think about it. I’ll be away at college next year. She’s got to start cutting the apron strings.”
Before long, we’re distracted with getting ready for our big night. Just for fun, we both decide to put our long hair in updos. Lola’s curly dark hair works nicely, but my straight hair keeps sliding out of the clip.
“This always happens,” I tell her. “Mom has to help me.”
“Let me try it.” She reaches over and gathers up my slippery hair, giving it a couple of tight twists, then secures it into place with several pins.
“There.
That should keep those silky locks in place.”
I look at our reflections in the mirror. Although we’re oppo-sites—Lola with her green eyes and brunette hair, me with my brown eyes and blonde hair—our looks seem complementary to each other. And seeing us standing here, our last night together, I almost feel like crying. “What am I going to do without you?”