Falling Up (2 page)

But before I make another attempt to go to sleep, I think I'll write a letter about my relatives to Jamie—the answer girl. See what she has to say.

Wow, I'm thinking after I finish that, lamie is right. Okay, I realize that I am Jamie—well, sort of. Sometimes it feels like she's a totally different person, and I get worried that I could possibly develop a personality disorder as a result of taking her too seriously, which I'm determined not to do. However, I do think I'll try to keep her advice in mind for the rest of Shannon and Maya's visit. Besides, its less than a week. How bad can it get?

Saturday, May 4

“I'm taking you girls shopping,” my aunt announced this morning as I poured myself a cup of coffee and percolated on a plan that might allow me to escape my relatives today.

Maya groaned, and I made what I thought was a polite yet insistent protest, but Shannon was not to be deterred.

“No arguing,” she said to Maya, then looked at me. “Can you drive us, Kim?”

“I, uh, I guess so.”

“Its settled. Lets leave around noon.”

I thought we were going to the local mall, but Shannon insisted we drive to the city. “We need the good shops.”

“Yeah, right,” muttered Maya from the backseat.

Then Shannon continued to talk, about a mile a
minute, about what we would look for, what was hot, what was not, and I mostly just blanked it all out. I mean, who cares really? I'm sure that I don't.

But I reassured myself, in four days they'd be gone. And tonight I would go to youth group, tomorrow to church, and on Monday I planned to return to school after a week off. I would've gone back sooner, but Dad really thought I needed to be home. I have no idea why since it's driven me nearly nuts hanging with these two freaks, but at least there's an end in sight.

Once we were in the city, I managed to convince Shannon that the new mall there was pretty good. “They have lots of designer shops,” I told her, rattling off a few names as if I knew what I was talking about. I didn't mention that parking there was less of a nightmare than downtown, and finally we were there, walking around the busy, noisy mall like the strangest threesome ever.

Shannon, leading the way, reminded me of a mechanized Barbie doll that someone had wound up too tightly. She wore bright-colored capri pants and a top that was a couple sizes too small, and her highly styled blond hair literally bobbed up and down with each quick step. But how she managed to stay upright on those tall spike heels was a complete mystery to me.

Maya, on the other hand, looked like a sedated earth muffin as she slowly shuffled along, a couple steps behind us, in her weird flat sandals that made her feet look like flippers. She had on this faded tie-dyed dress that reached nearly to her ankles and looked like
something literally left over from the sixties. But despite her dreary outfit, her face was still stunningly beautiful— and she appeared almost goddesslike in the way she held up her head.

And there I was, with my short black hair and my distinctly Korean features, looking like a midget next to these two tall females. Not particularly caring about appearances, I still had on my morning frump outfit of baggy khakis, pale blue T-shirt, and well-worn flip-flops.

Shannon seemed like a driven person as she dragged us from shop to shop, forcing us to search through the racks and try things on. Well, mostly me since Maya usually refused, complaining that her moms taste was tasteless and tacky. But I was trying to be a good sport, for Moms sake, and for the sake of peace and sanity. It seemed that Shannon was determined to shop and to spend money, buying lots of stuff—for all three of us.

“Is she always like this?” I finally asked Maya as we waited for Shannon to pay for her last purchases and rejoin us out in the mall.

“Just when she's high.”

“High?” I studied Maya's blasé expression. Was she serious?

She just shrugged. “You know.”

Now it would've been easy to just let it go, but for some reason I couldn't. Call it just plain curiosity, but I wanted to know. “No,” I told Maya. “I don't know. Do you mean high as in high on something?”

Maya gave me that look—the one where she appears to be the all-knowing adult and I am the stupid child, even though I'm two years older than she is. “What do you think?”

“I don't know what to think,” I said in frustration. “But it sounds like you're saying that your mom is high on something.”

“Duh.”

But now Shannon was approaching, loaded down with more bags, but still looking like she could break world records in a shopathon—if there was such a thing.

“Oh, there's a Versace shop.” She pointed to a sign down the way.

“I've had enough,” announced Maya. “And I'm hungry.” She looked at me, I assume for support.

“I'm hungry too,” I said.

“You can shop when we go home,” Maya told her mom. “We've had enough.”

Shannon looked disappointed, but to my surprise and relief she didn't argue. “Okay, let's get lunch. But not here. I want to go someplace nice. Do you know of anything, Kim?”

“Nice?”

“You know, something with good food and good service, hopefully something light. You know, California cuisine.”

Well, I wasn't so sure, but I decided to take them to a restaurant I'd seen that wasn't far from the mall. And while I'm sure it wasn't exactly what Shannon had in
mind, I thought it was okay. And fortunately for Maya's sake, they had vegetarian dishes too.

After we placed our orders, Shannon dominated the conversation. Not that either Maya or I cared since we were both being pretty quiet. But once Shannon started talking about childhood memories, some including my mom, my ears perked up.

“Everything was so boring when we were growing up,” she said. “Our parents and community were so conservative, so uncreative…so white bread, you know, that I could hardly stand it.” She looked at me. “But Patty didn't seem to mind. She actually fit in pretty well.” Shannon laughed now. “Come to think of it, she chose something like that as an adult too.”

I frowned. Was Shannon making fun of my mom?

“But I can see it was different for her,” Shannon said quickly. “I mean, from what I can tell, your parents had a real nice marriage, Kim. Nothing like what we grew up with.”

“Your parents weren't happily married?” Now this was news to me. Not that Mom had ever said otherwise. Come to think of it, she hadn't said much about her parents.

Shannon laughed. “The only reason our parents stayed married was because our mom was too insecure to make it on her own. But the way Dad treated her. She just shook her head. “If she hadn't gotten sick, I'm sure she would've left him eventually. Maybe after us kids were grown.”

“Oh.”

“He never hit her, well, not that I ever knew of, but he could just cut her down with his words. Nothing she did was ever good enough.” Then using some colorful and rather profane language, she described her father as someone I'm just as glad never to have met.

“Sounds familiar,” Maya said in that bored-sounding voice.

“What?” demanded Shannon. “What do you mean?”

And that's when they got into it—right there in this relatively nice restaurant where, thankfully, I didn't know a single soul. Maya started yelling at her mother, saying how horribly Shannon had treated both Maya and Nick…and that's when I quietly excused myself to the ladies' restroom, where I sought refuge for about ten minutes or so.

When I emerged from the restroom, it sounded quieter, and I hoped that meant the fireworks were over. But when I returned to the table I could see that they were both smoldering, and it would only be a matter of time before the explosives came out again.

Fortunately, or not (depending on your perspective) they saved their nastiest arguments for the way home. I tried to tune them out as I drove, reminding myself that I should just focus on driving, but it was hard to ignore everything—the meanness, the bitterness, the knife-sharp jabs going back and forth. And I remembered what Maya had said back at the mall about Shannon being “high.” And I wondered if that might really be true. And if so,
perhaps it had something to do with all their problems.

Because while Maya wasn't completely innocent, it did seem like Shannon was doing a pretty poor job of mothering. And maybe if she handled things differently, well, perhaps it would be better for Maya. But then who can know for sure? Besides God, that is.

And so as I drove, I just silently prayed for both of them. But mostly for Maya. I think I was starting to feel sorry for her.

After we got home, Shannon announced that she was going to cook dinner tonight. I tried to tell her that wasn't really necessary, since people from both churches (mine and my parents) had been dropping off food all week. Our refrigerator was already packed. But Shannon insisted.

“You guys need some good healthy food. All these fat-laden casseroles are going to clog your arteries and kill you.”

I didn't mention that I had hardly been eating anything anyway. Or that my dad seems to have lost his appetite as well. Besides, I figured it would keep Shannon busy for a couple of hours or so. And when she asked to borrow Moms car to go to the store, I couldn't really think of any reason to say no. I just hoped she wouldn't get into a wreck.

The house was a lot quieter with Shannon gone. Maya was reading a magazine she'd picked up at the mall. It looked like some kind of environmentalist political kind ofthing. Not exactly my cup of tea.

Not that I don't care about the environment. I do. But not in the impassioned way Maya does. And certainly not at the moment when its all I can do to keep from falling apart. But the whole “save the earth” thing is one of Maya's hot buttons, and one that Shannon likes to push when she needs to get a rise out of her daughter.

So while things were relatively calm, I went to my room to practice violin, and work on some homework as well as my column. But it was strange as I played violin; it's like I could feel someone listening to me. I paused for a moment and checked to see if perhaps Maya was standing outside my door, but no one was there. Then I played some more and still had that feeling. Suddenly I wondered if it could be my mom. So I played for about an hour until my fingers, which were a little out of shape, began to get sore. And now I'm thinking maybe she can hear me. As a result, I think I'll be practicing more regularly again.

After my homework (which Nat dropped by yesterday) was finished, I decided to tackle a real letter in my column. Dad told me that I could take a hiatus (that's like a break), but I was worried that if Just Ask Jamie's column stopped at exactly the same time my mom died…well, someone might begin to suspect. And as lame as it sounds to be writing an anonymous teen advice column, I've gotten rather used to it and find a weird kind of comfort in doing it. Besides, the extra money's not bad either. It figured that the first one I'd pull out had to do with moms and daughters. Oh, well.

Okay, I was tempted to add something like, “and you should be thankful you have a mother who's still alive
and who still cares about you,” but that might make someone guess about Jamie's true identity. I have to be careful.

Anyway, after finishing up a couple more letters for the column, I decided to see how Shannons dinner was going, maybe even offer to help. But when I saw Mom's kitchen looking as if a pipe bomb had just gone off, it was all I could do to slip away without totally losing it. My mom's neat and orderly kitchen was blown apart, completely wrecked in just one afternoon! And to think I was worried about her car!

Sunday, May 5

I went to youth group last night. I even invited Maya to go with me, but she just made fun of the idea. And in all fairness, I would've done the same thing at her age. In fact, I'm sure I did just less than a year ago…back when Natalie was always trying to get me to go to hers. She's not doing that anymore. The sad truth is, she's not even going at all. Okay, I know she's still bummed about Ben, but she needs to move on. Last week, she told me that she's agreed to go see the counselor, but I'm not convinced she's sincere. My guess is that she's just trying to put on a good act for me, since Mom died. Like she thinks it will make things better for me if she's getting help. Come to think of it, it wouldn't hurt. But I have my doubts that she'll follow through. So far she hasn't.