Sisterchicks on the Loose (3 page)

“Twelve days,” Gloria corrected him.

“Eleven,” I said.

“Right in the middle of track season,” Gloria added with a cluck of her tongue.

My reserved son, who was old enough to vote in national elections, wisely continued his chore of loading the dishwasher and didn’t vote on this one.

Grampa Max motioned to our ten-year-old, who was trying to wedge his foot into his tennis shoe without untying the laces. “Come on, Josh. You can ride over to the school in my car. We’ll save some seats in the auditorium for these slowpokes.”

I ventured upstairs and tapped on Kaylee’s bedroom door. The distraught princess bid me enter. She had tossed the “ruined” white blouse on the floor. The very blouse I had washed, ironed, and sprayed with just the right amount of starch to make it perfect for her tonight. Ninety minutes of loving labor lay crumpled at her feet. Kaylee shot me a wounded look as if the apple juice disaster were my fault.

She had changed into a long-sleeved beige T-shirt that had once belonged to her oldest brother.

“That won’t do,” I said.

“I knew you would say that. But what else do I have?”

“I have a white blouse you could wear.”

“I don’t think so!” Kaylee rifled though her summer T-shirts. “I mean, no offense, Mother, but we don’t exactly, like, wear the same size, you know!”

Kaylee yanked the beige shirt over her head, and I noticed that not a pinch of baby fat remained on my daughter’s torso.

Where did it go?

She had the cutest little waist. Her 34A-size bra appeared too snug.

When did all this happen?

Kaylee was right. Nothing in my closet—not even my skinny clothes—would be small enough to fit her.

“I know you don’t want me to wear a T-shirt, but I don’t have any choice.” She pulled the wrinkled cotton shirt over her silky blond hair.

“I could iron it if—”

“Mom, we don’t have time! I’m supposed to be there in like five minutes!” Kaylee tugged the T-shirt over her black skirt and swished past me muttering, “Now my hair is so messed!”

That evening I watched with new eyes as Kaylee lined up on stage with the thirty other students. Nearly all the girls were wearing T-shirts. I counted only three white blouses in the choir.

Kaylee stood in the front row to the left. Under the bright lights none of the wrinkles in her T-shirt were as pronounced as I thought they would be. She blended right in. No one else in the auditorium would ever know how crisp Kaylee Andrews could have appeared onstage that evening. I wondered if I was part of a vanishing breed of mothers who owned an iron and knew how to use it.

I studied my daughter’s perfect posture, her steady concentration, and the way her mouth delicately opened and her chin rose when she held the long notes.

She was beautiful.

And she was oblivious. Oblivious to her poise and her winsome beauty. All the way to school she had groaned about her impossible hair and moaned that her shoes were too tight. She even said she wished her legs weren’t so long. Imagine!

From where we sat in the fifth row, all I saw was a gorgeous young woman blossoming in the right way at the right time, legs and all. Life would soon reveal the vast, wonderfully rich possibilities available to her. Gifted with an abundance of creativity, talent, and intelligence, my lovely Kaylee could
become anything. She could go anywhere. Do anything. The possibilities were magnificent, and she was overwrought about speckles of apple juice; about long, silky, naturally blond hair; and about the “curse” of long legs.

When the choir came to the final number, I had to fumble in my purse for a tissue. I couldn’t stop crying.

I don’t remember what song they sang. Something patriotic that started with four boys in the back row singing in barber-shop-quartet style. On the chorus, my Kaylee straightened her shoulders, tilted up her chin, and sang as if both she and Eve had never had a run-in with apples in any form. She was free when she sang. Free and beautiful. A vibrant young woman.

I cried because my Kaylee was unmistakably fifteen.

And that made me, unmistakably, forty-one.

T
wo and a half weeks
after the Helsinki ticket arrived, the glittering possibility of our adventure had grown to Milky Way proportions. I called Penny on the last Thursday night in January to tell her my passport hadn’t arrived yet. I expected that by the end of our conversation we would come to our senses and agree the dreaming and scheming was fun while it lasted, but it was time to tell ourselves and everyone else the truth.

“People keep slipping me money and loaning me travel gear,” I told Penny. “This trip has become a big deal. A very big deal.”

“That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. A very big deal. You and I are going to Helsinki, Sharon. Listen to me carefully. We … are … going … to … Helsinki.”

A pause followed. If Penny wasn’t going to speak the words that would begin the dismantling process, then neither would I.

The lovely delusion continued another week. That was the week everyone started to give me advice.

The clerk at the grocery store told me a terrible story about her sister. She went on a Caribbean cruise, but when she boarded the plane, she tried to heave her heavy luggage into the overhead bin and threw her back out. When they landed in San Juan, the paramedics had to wheel her from the plane on a gurney. She spent the week of her cruise lying in a Puerto Rican hospital.

Sufficiently motivated by her story, I drove around my neighborhood, measured a mile and a half on the odometer, then turned around and drove home. That became the three-mile course I walked every morning after the kids went to school.

Inspired by my determination, Penny bought some ankle weights and walked around her suburban San Francisco neighborhood. However, she outdid me by walking four miles every day and going on one of her protein shake diets.

“Have you lost any weight yet?” I asked Penny six days into her diet.

“Not yet. But I will. I need to. This always has worked before. It’s just taking longer this time. I guess I have more weight to lose.”

Penny and I were the same height and basically the same size. Her waistline was lower than mine, and she was larger on top. Over the years we shared maternity clothes and watched each other expand and shrink at different paces.

Penny’s biggest complaint after she turned forty was the effect of gravity. She said she believed that putting a man on the moon had to be a hoax because gravity was, in fact, an irrefutable law. Things go down, not up. If any of the NASA scientists wanted to challenge her facts, she said she had secret evidence up her sleeve.

I didn’t particularly like my size or the effect of gravity
either, but until this trip I guess I thought what was happening to my body was inevitable. Even if we never boarded a plane or hoisted luggage into an overhead bin, I liked the way I felt after I walked. That bit of motivation in my normally sedate life was worth the price of the tour book and passport—the passport that still hadn’t arrived by February 6.

Penny called on the evening of the sixth to tell me her passport had arrived and she was sending me a tour book on Scandinavia that she had bought.

I asked why she was sending the book to me instead of gleaning the desired information herself.

“I don’t have time to read it,” she said. “This is supposed to be the slow time of year for real estate, but it’s been wild around here. I might have another house in Moraga sold before we leave.”

“That’s great, Penny.”

“I know. God must be providing us with extra souvenir money or something. I can’t believe this year is off to such a great start.”

I tried to image what life would be like with “extra souvenir money.”

“I hope you’re taking notes as you’re going over the tour books,” Penny said.

“I am.”

“Good. Anything interesting yet?”

“Did you know more saunas are in Finland than cars?”

“Seriously?”

“According to the tour book the ratio is one sauna to every five people.”

“Now that’s useful information.” I could hear Penny running the water in the kitchen sink. “Do you think you and I are
going to upset the Finnish national sauna ratio when we show up and add two more people to the population for a week?”

“Finland isn’t as insignificant as you think. You really should read this book, Penny. Finland is the only country that has ever fully repaid the U.S. for a debt.”

“A debt?”

“We loaned them a lot of money after World War II.”

“Sharon?” Penny had turned off the water, and her voice grew low. “You do realize, don’t you, that this is supposed to be a
fun
trip, not a
field
trip? Immigration personnel will not make us take a test before we can enter their fine country.”

“Very funny.”

“What about fun places to shop? Tell me you marked those in the book, too.”

“I have them all marked. Restaurants, too. I don’t think you need to send me the other book.”

“Okay. I might toss it in my suitcase, if there’s room. All we have to do now is wait for your passport and a response from my aunt.”

“You still haven’t heard from her?”

“No, but I will.”

“Did you try to call her?”

“I only have an address. She’ll write back to me. You’ll see.”

The whole trip seemed to be hanging by a thread. I didn’t want to be the one to snip that thread.

On Tuesday afternoon, the second week of February, Gramma Gloria stopped by with a laundry basket full of craft materials.

“You’re the organized one in this family, Sharondear.” She planted herself at the kitchen table and unloaded bits of red ribbon, Styrofoam balls, a glue gun, and white streamers. “You
can help me figure out how to make centerpieces for the senior citizen sweetheart banquet at church on Saturday.”

“What are you planning to make with all this?”

“Well, I don’t know, Sharondear. That’s why I brought it over. We need nine of whatever we decide on. We have fifty people coming this year. Isn’t that sad? I remember when we used to have a hundred come each year. One hundred and twelve one year. Do you have any coffee?”

“For the centerpieces?”

“No, Sharondear. For me. I’d like a cup of coffee, if that isn’t too much trouble. I don’t want to be a bother.”

This was one of my mother-in-law’s favorite lines. After delivering it she would wait with one ear cocked until someone, usually me, replied, “It’s no bother at all.”

I had enough coffee left from that morning for about two cups, but the coffeemaker automatically had turned itself off. I knew the coffee would be lukewarm by now, so I poured a cup for Gloria and headed for the microwave.

“Don’t heat it up, Sharondear. I burned my tongue the last time you did that.”

“It’s going to be cold.”

“That’s okay.” Gloria took the cup from me. She had a sip and made a face. “Why, this is ice-cold!”

“I know. Here, let me heat it up for you.”

“Oh no, Sharondear. That’s okay. I can sip it this way. I thought perhaps you had a fresh pot going, that’s all.” With a grimace she pressed her lips to the cup’s edge.

Jeff and I had spent not hours, not days, but the equivalent of weeks discussing the challenges we have with his mother. Gloria always has been opinionated and subtly manipulative. No one in town would disagree with that.

During the last few years, however, her comments had become more critical and biting. Everyone in our family hid a little scar somewhere that was inflicted by the jagged incisors her words now carried. There seemed to be no way of working through a disagreement with her once her mind was set. She was more determined than ever and at the same time disturbingly illogical in her thinking. We adjusted our relationship with her to what Jeff called “honor without homage.”

While I’m sure this approach is a healthy way to deal with a person like Gloria, I usually diverged to the path of least resistance, and the cold coffee situation was one of those cases. I quietly started a fresh pot. Gloria protested, but I said, “It’s no bother.”

Satisfied, she fiddled with the ribbons. “It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? If you need me to, I can take Kaylee to dance lessons after she gets home from school.”

“Kaylee doesn’t take dance anymore.”

Gloria looked up and blinked behind her large glasses. “She doesn’t? You didn’t tell me that. When did she drop out?”

“She didn’t ‘drop out.’ ” I clenched my teeth. “Kaylee chose to stop taking dance lessons a while ago.”

“Well, no one tells me these things!”

More than two years had passed since Kaylee’s last dance class. Of course Gloria had been told; the gaps in her memory were widening. I knew I should roll through the conversation rather than stop to correct her, so I excused myself, saying I needed to put the clothes in the dryer.

As I slipped out of the kitchen, I remembered years ago when Penny tried to correct Gloria when she used the phrase, “This is a fine kettle of kittens.” Gloria defended herself to the end, saying that fish had nothing to do with this expression.
Everyone she knew said “kettle of kittens.”