Objects of My Affection (36 page)

“I don't
want
it to happen. You said it yourself: I can't do this
alone. I need you. Please, Mom,” he says, taking on a pleading tone that is my personal kryptonite—I'm aware of it, and, unfortunately, Ash is, too.

“Sweetie, as much as I may want to, I can't.”

He goes in for the kill: “Don't leave me to do it alone.”

“Then come home with me,” I say, grasping for a way to fix this, though there's technically not a home for him to come home to. I'll figure it out. “You can do an outpatient program there and live with me. That'll be more affordable.”

“Outpatient? Living with you? That's worse than the Willows!”

It takes a second for what Ash just said to sink in, and when it does, I nearly choke on a laugh. His outrage is so absurd that it lifts the curtain of fear I've put up between us, and in that moment I can see him clearly. It appears that my boy—my sweet, beautiful, but troubled little boy—is a spoiled brat.

The realization takes me by surprise since I've always prided myself on not spoiling him. He could throw a tantrum to get a new toy until he combusted and I wouldn't give in. But that I didn't buy him things doesn't mean I haven't given him too much. I must have. Because I can't believe he'd let me do it—he'd gladly let me wipe out everything I've done,
again,
and for the sole reason that better me be uncomfortable than him. This goes beyond his addiction—which I don't think he can entirely help—to something that's in his control.

Now it's time I took control. “Outpatient is your only other choice,” I say, having found my spine, right there in my back, holding me up. “So it's that or the Willows. I suggest the Willows.”

Grumbling under his breath, he gets up and slides his legs into the pants that are in a heap on the floor. I can't believe it. He's getting dressed. I've done it! I held tough, and he's going to go back to rehab. It's all I can do not to grab him and smooch his face as he glares at me. “What's your deal—you take bitch lessons or something?”

“As a matter of fact I did. From the master.”
Thank you, Marva.
I bend down to hand him his shirt, also from the floor. “You need to shower before we hit the road?”

“I'm not going anywhere, except to take a piss.”

“I thought …” I don't bother finishing. We're back at square one.

While he's in the bathroom, I throw away the empty baggies and containers so they'll quit mocking me. They're winning, and I'm a big loser. Short of clubbing Ash over the head and dragging him unwillingly back to rehab, which he'd walk away from again anyway, I'm fresh out of ideas of what to do.

I spend the next couple of hours trying to sell Ash on the Willows—even getting Dr. Paul on the phone, but Ash refuses to talk to him. It's Dr. Paul who eventually breaks it to me that I'm wasting my efforts so there's no need to miss my flight home. If my son won't go willingly, they can't take him.

As Ash polishes off the rest of his sandwich (I have to force myself not to imagine the germs on it since I have no other food to offer), I try one more strategy. “Can I at least meet your friend?” With a few hours until my flight takes off, I have enough time to make an ally. If he's off drugs as Ash said he is, then the two of us can gang up on my hardheaded son.

“That fell through.”

“So there's no friend going to NA.”

“Not anymore.”

“And no couch for you to crash on.”

He shakes his head.

This just gets better and better. “So where are you planning to live?”

“Haven't worked that out yet. I was hoping you could float me some cash.”

And it's official: This trip has been a total failure. May as well skulk home before I somehow make things worse. In the time before I catch my flight back, I buy Ash groceries and a bus pass, and book the motel room for another week. That probably makes me a sucker, but one whose son at least won't die hungry and homeless in a gutter.

At the airport, I call Phoebe, my contact at Organize Me!. She tells me that ads, e-mail notices, and signs have been posted, so
they're expecting crowds in the hundreds tomorrow. Bigger-ticket items are already priced, and staff will be on hand to haggle the rest. They're ready to go! Hanging up, I can see why Will had once threatened to replace me with these people. Talking with them offers the reassurance of being held close to your mama's warm, yet very organized, bosom.

It's after midnight when I get home, but as is often the case lately, Marva is still awake. I pop in the house to tell her Ash didn't go back to rehab, and while I'm there, I'm so wired that I decide to look for any last-minute items for the sale. After only a few minutes she kicks me out. “You're driving me batty! It's like having a bird accidentally fly into the house, fluttering about and crashing into windows.”

“I suppose I should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

Marva grabs a pack of cigarettes off the counter. “Might turn in myself after I have a smoke—thought I'd stop by your little sale in the morning.”

Although I summon great verve to tell Marva she needn't bother—we've got it under control!—she insists that it sounds “fun.”

Oh, yes, tomorrow is going to be a regular laugh riot. When I get to the bungalow, I don't bother inflating the bed and just collapse on the couch. Between having to face Daniel at the sale, and now Marva's possible guest appearance, whether things sell will be the least of my troubles. I close my eyes, trying to get
some
sleep, but now that I'm no longer busying myself with work, all I can think about is Ash—there in that hotel room, teetering on the brink of a backslide, or worse, and his own mother without a clue of what to do about it.

If you love something, set it free; if it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was.

—Poster about letting go that cluttered the walls of millions of homes in the 1970s

T
he sale is due to start in an hour, and already I feel as if I've put in a full day (especially since I
have
been here since six). Everything is set up in the warehouse: the cash registers, shopping baskets, and endless rows of tables, racks of clothes, and items laid out on the floor. The staff (eighteen of them!) are dressed in red polos and khakis, so I feel as if I am at the world's weirdest Target store and we're about to open doors on the busiest shopping day of the year. I'm strapping on a fanny pack so I can handle money when I hear Niko behind me. “Here she is.” I turn around to find him walking up with Daniel. “Security wasn't going to let him in, but I recognized him as the collectibles
guy,” Niko says before taking off—inadvertently reminding Daniel of the time I'd introduced him so rudely.

It doesn't go over Daniel's head. His face flashes annoyance, but he doesn't say anything. A few seconds later he's over it and is turning in a circle to take in the full effect of the warehouse. “Wow. Her stuff looks so much bigger stretched out.”

“Doesn't it?”

“I should've come earlier. I'm going to have to sprint through here to look at everything before they let people in.”

“You don't have to do this. They've already done the pricing, and—”

He cuts me off. “I said I would. Don't want to see Marva get ripped off if something slipped past you all. No sense selling for a dollar what's worth a thousand.”

Having exhausted our desire for conversation, Daniel grabs a rolling cart and starts making his way through the aisles. At first I keep tabs on him out of curiosity, but soon I'm absorbed in the frantic preopening activities. A few minutes before nine, I go to peek at the line outside, which, shockingly, snakes around the warehouse. And coming up the side of it, right toward me, are Marva and Will. She's a walking billboard for the style of clothes people can purchase inside, wearing a geometric-print caftan and dark glasses. Her hair is in a turban and she's back to leaning on her cane. Will—to my delight—is unwittingly in the staff uniform of a red polo and khakis.

Waving them past security, I escort them in, being especially watchful of Marva as she steps into the warehouse. My arm is at the ready to catch her if the trauma of seeing the sheer volume of her possessions splayed out makes her faint. One would suppose her son would be concerned, but he's got his arms crossed, swearing to himself in obvious disgust.

Marva's breathing seems shallow, her mouth formed into a thin line.

“You okay?” I ask. “Do you need to sit down?”

“Of course I don't,” she snaps. “I just got here! Is this all of it? Only this one room?”

Only this one room?
Don't play coy with me, sister—it's the size of a basketball stadium and there's not a chance it's unimpressive.

“This is it,” I say. “You must be proud to have given so much up.”

“Hmmph. As much as I'd enjoy staying here so you can patronize me, I believe I'll have a look around.” She heads in the direction of the furniture area, and when Will starts to follow, she points her cane to stop him in his tracks. “I hardly need a babysitter!” Then turning away, she exclaims, “Wait a minute, is that my art deco armoire I see there? I don't recall saying that could be sold!”

She bustles away as Will turns to me. Through a jaw so clenched I almost want to take a can of WD-40 to him, he says, “This is going to be terrific having Marva here. So glad you suggested it to her.”

“I didn't suggest it. All I did was remind her the sale was today.”

“You should have talked her out of it.”

I throw up my hands. “
I'm
not the one who drove her here!”

At that, he has the decency to look chagrined. “She's going to cause a ruckus.” We're both watching her. She's already corralled a worker into following her with a cart, into which she's plunking merchandise with the wild abandon of a sweepstakes winner let loose in a store for an all-you-can-grab-in-sixty-seconds prize.

“Not to be crude,” I say, “but why is she so worried about keeping things if she doesn't expect to be around much longer anyway? What sense does that make?”

“What sense does it make to own a hundred umbrellas? My mother is a crazy hoarder, and now she's running around, waving her hands in the air, telling everybody in the world that this is all hers. The entire reason I wanted this off-site was to avoid this very sort of a scene.”

“If it's any consolation, she's not waving her arms.” The bad news is, that's because they're too filled with merchandise.

Customers begin to file in. I pull off my fanny pack, handing it to Will. “Here, you can make sales. I'll deal with your mother.”

He holds the pack away from him in the manner of a man being asked to hold a woman's purse. “What? Me? I'm not here to work.”

I can't resist giving him a once-over as I say, “No? You're dressed like you are.” Then I head over to Marva and attempt damage control.

She's clutching a brass standing toilet-paper holder when I reach her—to my annoyance, one of the few items that I
did
sneak out. Figures. “Whoa, Marva, what's going on? Why are you shopping at your own sale?” Hoping a bit of levity might distract her, I add, “You angling for a family discount?”

“I've half a mind to close this sale down. Did you honestly believe I wouldn't notice how much you've brought here without my permission?”

Her accusation—even if it
is
true in this instance—riles me to produce my most powerful weapon: sarcasm. “What? A toilet-paper holder? Seriously, you're telling me that this is a prized possession? A family heirloom perhaps?”

The worker Marva had nabbed—a scrawny kid with the pasty complexion of a World of Warcraft addict—clears his throat. “Um, I'm supposed to be helping at the registers?”

“You can go,” I say as Marva commands, “Stay.”

He's frozen in place, hands clutching the cart. I feel sorry enough for him to take control. “Go. I'll handle this.”

“I hardly need to be
handled
,” Marva says after the boy scurries away. “I have simply voiced a legitimate objection to seeing my personal property up for sale against my wishes.”

It's seeing the cart heaped with what she
did
approve that keeps me focused. “There's no point in arguing about what you did or did not agree to sell. It's here now. As we speak, people are shopping.”

She tips her chin up defiantly. “Perhaps then I
shall
cancel this event.”

“It's your call.” She's hardheaded enough to do it. I could see her with a bullhorn, chasing out the crowd of at least a hundred people who are now dashing through the aisles of this one-woman flea market. “Of course, Organize Me! would need to be paid. And this is the last
weekend before your deadline, so I don't see when else it could be scheduled. You'd be out a lot of money. But if you are truly worried—”