Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life as a Mother and Daughter (Reading Group Gold) (6 page)

Chalk it up to mom genes.

Getting It Straight

By Lisa

Women have come a long way, baby, except for one thing:

Hair.

By which I mean, curly or straight?

Secretly, I have curly hair, and not wavy curly, I’m talking majorly curly. I don’t have curls, I have coils. I don’t have naturally curly hair, I have unnaturally curly hair.

Let me take you back in time, to the Jurassic.

By which I mean, 1955.

When I was little, I had so many curls that once they sprouted from my head, they grew sideways, defying many natural laws, starting with gravity. Bottom line, on my shoulders sat a triangle of hair.

I was too small to care. If anything, I thought it was good, because every adult who came up to me asked, “Where did you get that curly hair?”

Let’s pause a moment to examine the questions we ask little kids.

I had no idea where I got my curly hair or my blue eyes. Nor did I know the answer to the third question, which was usually, “Do you help your mommy in the kitchen?”

I swear, this happened. There was a time in America when they asked little girls this question, all the time. Now, they’re not allowed to. It’s against federal law. Try it, and go to politically correct jail.

Nowadays, nobody’s in the kitchen, and we’re all overweight.

Anyway, I got older, and kids started to tease me about my hair. All the cool girls in school had straight hair, as did the girls on TV and in magazines. Also my best friend Rachel, whom I loved.

So I discovered Dippity-Do. It was hair goop, and they still make it. I checked online and found the website, where they claim to be “the original name in gels, for over 45 years.”

Bingo.

I seem to remember that Dippity-Do came in pink or blue, maybe for girls or boys, but that could be my imagination. Boys didn’t use it, anyway, because they liked themselves the way they were, which was clearly insane.

Girls used Dippity-Do by the tubful, and by ninth grade, I had mastered the art of slathering it all over my wet head, putting my hair on top of my head in a ponytail, and wrapping it around a Maxwell House coffee can, which I bobby-pinned to my scalp.

Then I tried to sleep.

If American girls were drowsy in math class, this was the reason. My hair didn’t even look good, because it would be bumpy on top, until it fell out. The sides would be smooth, except for telltale ridges from the coffee can. And the delicious aroma of Maxwell House.

Still, I did not stop, as there was another product to try, which there always is, this being America, where we girls know that if we just buy X, we’ll be beautiful and our lives will change.

I’m talking U.N.C.U.R.L. It was some kind of chemical straightener that you painted on your hair while holding your nose.

It had great marketing, with a spy-girl on the front of the box, and if you bought it, you became “The Girl From U.N.C.U.R.L.,” which would make you feel like a cool double agent and not a miserable preteen with a triangle head.

The stuff smelled funny but worked great.

For two days.

Then came blowdryers, and the rest is history. We could blow our hair straight, using an array of gels and mousses, and I still do, though it’s starting to seem like too much work. Once, on book tour, I got too tired to blowdry my hair, and my then-publicist looked at me in horror.

“What did you do to your hair?” she asked, aghast.

“I let it go curly,” I answered, in ninth grade again.

She said, “But you don’t look like your author photo.”

I blinked. That I knew already. I look nothing like my author photo. That’s the whole point of an author photo. If it looked like the author, nobody would buy the book.

The girl in my author photo is from U.N.C.U.R.L.

In contrast, Daughter Francesca was born with curls, lived through all the dumb questions people asked her, and always wore her curls with pride.

“Mom, why don’t you wear your hair curly?” she said to me, the other day, and I told her this whole story. And she said, gently, “I think you should just be yourself.”

I’m considering it, and we’ll see.

Sometimes it takes a kid to straighten out a mom.

The Heart of a Gambler

By Francesca

Recently, two friends and I decided to break free from our everyday lives and escape to Atlantic City for the weekend. None of us had ever really gambled before, but we were feeling lucky.

But, as we wandered through the maze-like casino floor, our confidence dissipated faster than cigarette smoke. Poker was way too intimidating. Slots seemed like a hopeless long shot. Between the three of us, we know all the words to
Guys and Dolls,
but our collective understanding of craps consisted of “seven is good.”

When faced with forking over our hard-earned, first-job cash, we didn’t want to risk it.

“I don’t think we’re cut out for this,” my friend said. “We don’t have the right personality for gambling.”

I wondered if she was right. Am I always this risk-averse? What do I consider a worthy gamble?

The answer came quickly.

Love.

When it comes to romance, I take my chances. Consider it high-stakes emotional poker. And what’s my weakness?

Ex-boyfriends.

I always give them a second chance, or third, or fourth to make it work. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I think, “the next time, this could really turn around.”

I’d like to think I’m an optimist. But deep down, I might have the heart of a gambler.

This time last year, I made my greatest romantic gamble. I had broken up with this guy years before, and we had barely spoken since, but he had remained a little ache in my heart. After attending a friend’s wedding, I was infused with enough sentimentality and champagne to fire off an email telling him how I felt.

Turned out, he felt the same way.

Not content to quit while I was ahead, I agreed to visit him on his military base. He’s training to be a fighter pilot, dreamy uniform included.

See why it’s hard for me to get over him?

I blame Tom Cruise.

All of my friends warned me the trip was a bad idea. My mom’s take was a little different: “If you feel like you need to do it, do it. You can handle whatever happens.”

Never bet more than you have to lose.

So I did it. I packed more cosmetic toiletries than federally allowed and hopped two planes to see him. We spent a week catching up and generally feeling like no time had passed. It took me all of twelve hours to fall for him again.

Before I knew it, I was all in.

But as luck would have it, on the last day, he told me it couldn’t work.

If you’re going to cry in a public place, an airport that serves a major military base is the place to be. Every airport employee and many passersby offered sympathetic smiles and words of comfort. The TSA employee at security even gave me a hug, though he still made me throw out my scented body lotion.

I felt guilty accepting their kindness, but I didn’t have the heart to correct them that I wasn’t a serviceman’s sweetheart, I’d just been dumped.

But I survived. I came home to my wonderful family and friends who swallowed their I-told-you-so’s and met me with support and understanding. And even while nursing a broken heart and a bruised ego, I felt satisfied. I had said the unsaid, laid my cards on the table, and taken my chance.

It was my last great gamble, a loss, and yet I’d do it over again.

With that in mind, casino games seemed like child’s play.

My friends and I finally agreed that blackjack was easy enough for our comfort level. With beginner’s luck, we won the first three hands. On the fourth, we were dealt a low number, thirteen. High off our previous wins, we decided to take our chances.

“Hit me!”

Ten of clubs. Twenty-three. We lose.

The player next to us snapped, “Why didn’t you stay? The odds were against you. That was so stupid!”

The dealer, an older woman, shot the player a dirty look. Then she pointed a red-nailed finger in our direction and said, “Honey, don’t listen to him. That is
your
hand. You go ahead and play it however you want to.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Clipped

By Lisa

If you raise your daughter right, eventually she will know more than you. Which is the good and bad news.

We begin when Daughter Francesca comes home for a visit and finds me engaged in one of my more adorable habits, which is clipping my fingernails over the trashcan in the kitchen.

This would be one of the benefits of being an empty nester. You can do what you want, wherever you want. The house is all yours.

Weee!

In my case, this means that everything that I should properly do in my bathroom, I do in my kitchen.

Except one thing.

Please.

I keep it classy.

Bottom line, I wash my face and brush my teeth in the kitchen. I’m writing on my laptop in the kitchen, right now. My game plan is to live no more than three steps from the refrigerator at all times, which gives you an idea of my priorities.

Francesca eyes me with daughterly concern. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure the clippings don’t go all over the floor,” I tell her, clipping away. Each snip produces a satisfying
clik
.

“It’s not good for your nails, to clip them that way. You might want to use an emery board.”

I know she learned that from Mother Mary, who carries an emery board everywhere, like a concealed weapon. “I don’t have one.”

“I do, and you can use it.”

“No, thanks. It’s too much trouble.” I keep clipping.
Clik, clik.
Hard little half-moons of fingernail fly into the trash. My aim is perfect, and wait’ll I get to my toenails. Then I prop my foot up on the trash can and shoot the clippings into the air. Now
that’s
entertainment.

She adds, gently, “You clip them kind of short.”

“I know. So I don’t have to do it so often.”

“But your nails would look so pretty if you let them grow longer.”

“I don’t care enough.”

Francesca looks a little sad. “I could do them for you, Mom. Shape them, polish them. Give you a nice manicure. Look at mine. I do it myself.”

So I look up, and her hands are lovely, with each fingernail nicely shaped and lacquered with a hip, dark polish. It reminds me that I used to do my nails when I was her age. I used to care about my nails, but now I don’t, and I’m not sure why I stopped. Either I’m mature, or slovenly.

“Thanks, but no,” I tell her.

She seems disappointed. It is a known fact that parents will occasionally let their children down, and this will most often occur in the area of personal grooming or bad puns. I’m guilty of only one of these. All of my puns are good.

But to make a long story short, later we decide to go out to dinner, and since it’s a nice night, I put on a pair of peep-toe shoes, which are shoes that reveal what’s now known as toe cleavage, a term I dislike.

If your toe has cleavage, ask your plastic surgeon for a refund.

Anyway, both Francesca and I looked down at my unvarnished toenails, newly clipped though they were. I had to acknowledge that it wasn’t a good look.

“I can polish them for you,” she offered, with hope. “I think they would look better, with these shoes.”

“But we’re late,” I said, and we were.

“It won’t take long.” Francesca reached for the nail polish, and I kicked off the shoes.

“I have an idea. Just do the ones that show.”

“What?” Francesca turned around in surprise, nail polish in hand.

“Do the first three toenails.”

Look, it made sense at the time. The other two toenails didn’t matter, and no one can find my pinky toenail, which has withered away to a sliver, evidently on a diet more successful than mine.

But Francesca looked pained. “Please, let me do them all. We have time, and it’s cheesy to only do the ones that show. It’s like sweeping dirt under the rug.”

So I gave in. Like I said, I raised her right.

Mother Mary Hears The Worst

By Lisa

The best way to deliver bad news is to be direct, so when Mother Mary answers the phone, I tell her right away: “Ma, are you sitting down? Because they canceled
Law & Order.
”

She scoffs. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not,” I say. I know there are five stages of grief, and the first is denial, so I had fully expected her reaction. She watches
Law & Order
all day long. Anytime I call her, I hear
ba-bum
in the background. Also, she has a crush on Jerry Orbach, and I don’t have the heart to tell her he’s been canceled, too.

“This can’t be true,” she says in disbelief. “Everybody loves
Law & Order
.”

No,
Everybody Loves Raymond, I think but don’t say. “It was on for twenty years, so it lived a lot longer than most TV shows.”

“Stop it. I know you’re joking. You’ll never fool me again.”

She’s referring to the one practical joke I played in my life, to wit: She loves the lottery, and during my broke days when I was trying to become a writer, she encouraged me to buy a lottery ticket. This would be your basic Scottoline plan for financial success, and who could blame her, because she used to win all the time, like $500 a pop. So once, when the Powerball got up to two million bucks, I called her and told her I’d bought a ticket but I’d missed when they’d read the winning number.

So you know where this is going.

I read her the winning number, slowly, digit by digit, and by the time I got to the fifth, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. This was thirty years ago, and she has never forgotten. Forgiving was never in her vocabulary in the first place. To Mother Mary, forgiveness is for the weak.

I try again. “I swear, it’s the truth. Think of it this way. You’ll always have the reruns.”

“It’s not the same,” she says, finally believing me. She sounds so sad, my heart goes out to her.

“I’m sorry, Ma.”