Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life as a Mother and Daughter (Reading Group Gold) (7 page)

“How can they do that? They’re so stupid!” she said, angry, which I know is the second stage of grief, and probably the one where she feels most comfy.

“Well, I guess they know.” I want to move on to more important subjects, like her health. She’s supposed to be on oxygen therapy at night, but Brother Frank told me she hadn’t been cooperating. “Ma, how come you’re not using your oxygen?”

“I don’t want to.”

“You have to. The doctor said.” I was worried. The doctor found that her oxygen levels are too low, which surprises no one but her. We Scottolines have big noses, and she always says we get more oxygen than anybody in the room. Turns out one of us doesn’t. “You need the oxygen, for your blood.”

Are you sitting down?

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Oh. Maybe … I do,” she says, pausing.

I don’t understand. “What?”

“It’s probably nothing, but the other night, I got a pain in my arm.”

Oh my God.
“Ma, you did? Your upper arm? Your left arm?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“That’s a sign of a heart attack!”

She scoffed. “No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You’re joking. You think I’m stupid? My heart’s not in my arm.”

“Ma, really—” I stop when I hear her burst into laughter. “That’s not funny.”

She can’t stop laughing. “Yes, it is, cookie.”

And she’s still laughing, when we hang up.

Half-Full

By Lisa

I just read in the newspaper that an Italian lingerie manufacturer has instituted a program whereby women can return their used padded bras to the stores to be recycled into insulation for home construction.

Bravissimo!

I was wondering if this would work in the United States, but I don’t think so. Why?

We don’t throw out our old bras.

I don’t have evidence on which to base my opinion, but I bet I’m right. I confirmed my theory by asking my girlfriends if they throw out their old bras. All of them agreed with me, which is why we have girlfriends.

I cannot throw away an old bra. I don’t know why. Even if I don’t wear it anymore, I keep my old bras in my drawer, where they ball up in a tangle of frayed lace, spent elastic, and underwires that could put out an eye.

I can tell the oldest ones because they’re black and red, a veritable checkerboard of youthful enthusiasm. And they’re made of nylon or some sheer synthetic that was eventually replaced by good old-fashioned white cotton, like an old Maidenform commercial.

From the days of maidens.

One of my friends does exactly what I do. Rather than throw away her old bras when her drawer gets too full, she simply starts a new drawer. And she buys new bras more often than I do, as she has a more active personal life, if you follow. I don’t get a new bra unless I get a new husband.

So right now, I have ex-bras.

I don’t know why my friends and I save our bras, except that it may have to do with the price. I remember when a bra cost twelve dollars. Now, you need a second mortgage, especially if it’s what we used to call padded, which they now call formed. And instead of the soft cottony stuff they used to pad them with, they now use removable things called cutlets, which you can stuff in your bra if you like wearing veal.

I like the old padding better, of course. I have one bra that’s padded with some sort of airy honeycomb. It used to make a minefield of bumps on my sweater, telling the world that not only I was wearing a padded bra, I was keeping bees.

The price of bras reaches its peak with a brand known as La Perla. The more financially prudent among you might not know about La Perla, so you’ll have to trust me on this, as you should in all things. I’ve never lied to you, and will tell you now that a La Perla bra cost as much as a strand of pearlas.

How I came to possess a La Perla is a boring story, but the short of it is that I was going on TV, and the saleswoman told me I needed a special bra for TV, so I tried it on and it fit me like a cupcake pan in which the cupcake doesn’t quite rise, if you follow.

Though I prefer to see the cup as half-full, not half-empty.

Anyway, the cup’s shape was amazingly breast-like, though completely fake, which made it perfect, so I told her to add it to my bag without really checking the price. And when I looked at the receipt, it was too late.

But I have a solution.

I’m putting it in my will.

There’s financial planning for the future.

Heirloom underwires.

Mother Mary and the Terrorists

By Lisa

They say that the past isn’t even past, and that’s always true when Mother Mary is around.

It all begins with a call from Brother Frank. “I got bad news,” he says. “We’re bastards.”

“Wha—?”

“Well, we went to get Mom’s driver’s license renewed.”

So far, I’m following. Mother Mary doesn’t drive, but she carries an ID card issued by the Florida DMV. Her last ID card expired, which I found out on her last visit after I tried to put her on a plane back to Miami. They wouldn’t let her fly until they patted her down, which she enjoyed way too much.

“The DMV says we can’t renew her ID card without her marriage certificate.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s a woman who’s using her married name.”

“So what?” I’m trying to understand. I don’t see what a driver’s license has to do with a marriage certificate, especially at this point in my mother’s life. My father passed away in 2002, and my parents have been divorced forever. They were married in 1950, a time when people balanced spinning plates on TV. Now
that’s
entertainment.

“It’s a new law, since September 11.”

In the background, I hear my mother yelling, “Those terrorists, they should be ashamed of themselves!”

I nod in approval. That someone should be ashamed of themselves is one of the worst things she says. And when she’s really mad, she’ll throw her shoe at them and shout, “Out of my sight!” I fear for the terrorists if they ever meet Mother Mary. She’ll order them out of her sight and throw her shoe. She always hits her target. There are missile launchers with less accuracy.

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Frank, can this be true?”

“Yes. We were in line behind a ninety-two-year-old woman whose husband had been dead for fifty years, and they wouldn’t give her an ID card. She had taken two buses to get there, so we gave her a ride home. She said it was a
mikveh.
”

“You mean a
mitzvah,
which is a good deed.”

“What’s a
mikveh
?”

“It’s a ritual bath. Forget it. Tell the story.”

“So we called the hall of records back home, and they can’t find her marriage certificate anywhere.”

“Do the records go back that far?”

“Yes, but the certificate is lost. Or it never existed.”

I blink. “It has to exist. They got married.”

“Yeah, but there’s no proof.”

Behind him, my mother’s yelling, “It’s all because of the terrorists!”

I let it go. “So what now?”

“She can’t visit you until we straighten this out.”

Which would be the good news.

Just kidding.

I ask, “What about a passport?”

“She needs the ID card. She’s gonna show a passport to write a check? And we’re illegitimate.”

“Does it matter?” I wonder aloud. In the olden days, they used to call it being
born out of wedlock.
I never liked the word
wedlock,
though its faintly incarcerated air fit my marital history to a T.

“I don’t think it matters. Everybody’s illegitimate, these days. I feel cool.”

I smile. “I know, right? We’re like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s twins.”

“I’ll be the girl.”

I laugh. “Okay, I’ll be the boy.”

Mother Mary shouts, “Bastards!”

But I don’t ask which ones she means.

Twit-Willow

By Francesca

My girlfriend recently took me to a barbecue with the hopes of setting me up with the host. He turned out to be a sweet guy, a great cook, and we talked all night. So I was disappointed when he didn’t get my phone number. He didn’t even ask for my email.

However, he did start following me on Twitter.

The next day, there was a tweet for me reading: “Nice meeting you last night. I’m checking you out 140 characters at a time ;)”

I knew he was kidding, but all I could think was
, oh no.

Are we doing this now? Do we really want to make Twitter the new frontier of having to be charming and attractive?

Demi Moore may have the time and the body to tweet bikini-clad self-portraits, but she’s a freak of nature. I am a mere mortal.

Admittedly, I learned to flirt on AOL Instant Messenger, and I’ve been told I write good text messages, but this social media boom is expanding faster than my learning curve. Simply being born after 1980 no longer confers sufficient expertise.

I only recently opened a Twitter account, and right now, it’s about the least sexy thing ever. I mostly tweet links to articles on animal rights, jokes about pop culture and celebrities, and pictures of my dog.

Are you turned on yet?

I also use Twitter for communal TV viewing. I live alone, so sometimes when I’m watching a particular show, I’ll go on Twitter and search for other people watching the same thing at the same moment. I goof on dumb reality shows and watch Philly sports events with the greatest/angriest fans on Earth.

So essentially, my Twitter account is a web incarnation of me on the couch in fleece pants.

Not exactly first date attire.

Even if I took the lead pursuing someone on Twitter, it’s an awkward medium for romance.

To “follow” a crush sounds like stalking him.

Which doesn’t work, by the way. I “followed” this one hot senior guy for most of tenth grade, and all I got to do was his French homework.

Facebook is stressful enough. How do I make a profile that is friendly to friends, professional to professionals, and attractive to potential mates?

I’m onto the code words. For instance, if someone lists “working out” as their interest, activity, or one of their “likes,” this is code for “I look good naked.” No one “likes” working out. We like how we look after we work out. Or more relevantly, we like how other people look after they work out.

And the pictures on Facebook have gotten out of control. Initially, I wouldn’t untag anything because it seemed too vain. But now that there are three million pictures of everyone, I’ve become more judicious, culling the unfortunate ones where I look too nose-y.

Trust me, with all that Italian spaghetti sauce in my blood, certain angles can get really nose-y.

Speaking of nosy, the Internet begs you to dig up the dirt on someone. Between Facebook pics, Twitter feeds, and good old-fashioned Google search, my friends and I can normally find a guy’s graduation honors, employment history, ex-girlfriend, and at least one shirtless beach picture, all before the first date.

Is that a good thing?

Not when I realize he can do it to me, too.

My mom thinks all this Internet stuff is a generational thing, but if that were true, I’d be better at it.

I told my best friend about Twitter guy, and she offered a theory that every guy has his own preferred technology for connecting with a girl. I should mention that my friend is also drop-dead gorgeous, so she’s had a lot of unsolicited experience.

She explained, “For example, Sam always used BlackBerry Messenger, and Topher would only text me, but Alejandro would actually call. I think that was a European thing.”

After rattling off a few more names from a few more continents, she concluded that the medium says more about the guy’s individual personality than anything else.

Later that week, I was still wondering how to proceed with my Twitterific flirting when I received a letter in the mail. It was from a guy I’d met a few weeks ago, before he had to go back to grad school in England. The letter was several pages long, thoughtfully phrased, beautifully written, and at the end, he politely asked me, if I wouldn’t mind the extra postage, would I write him back?

I’m buying stamps tomorrow.

Grainy

By Lisa

The great thing about being an empty nester is that you can eat anything you want, anytime. You know what the worst thing is?

That you can eat anything you want, anytime.

We begin when I drive Daughter Francesca to New York, because they don’t allow dogs on the train, even in a carrier. It bugs me that Amtrak doesn’t allow dogs, though they’re allowed on airplanes. Especially since a train ticket costs only a billion dollars less than a plane ticket, and neither runs on time.

But that isn’t the point.

The point is that I grab a quick lunch with Francesca in New York, and we go to our favorite Italian restaurant, where I take a chance on ordering something new. This is something I never do. I like to go to the same places and eat the same things, as you will see, but in this case I make an exception and order the farro.

The what?

I didn’t know what it was either, but it came with tomatoes, cheese, and olive oil, which sounded like pizza, and pizza is so great that even things that sound like pizza are usually great. So they bring me a bowl of farro.