Mommies Who Drink

by Brett Paesel

  “Absolutely,” says Marie.

  She stands up straight and sticks her chest out at us.

  “Feel,” she says.

  We look at her boobs.

  “Those are yours?” asks Michelle, looking back at the picture.

  “Got them at the silent auction last year,” says Marie. “Feel.”

  She points them at me.

  “Oh, I don’t have to,” I say. “I can see that they’re very . . . firm.”

  “Feeling is believing,” she says, pushing them closer to me.

  I look around and catch Pat looking at us. I smile at him as I reach out and lightly graze Marie’s breast. Pat winks. What does he think I’m doing? Trying to turn him on? Am I trying to turn him on?

  “You’ve got to grab it,” Marie says with an edge in her voice.

  Michelle leans over to me. “Grab it,” she says.

  I look at Pat again. He stands still, his full attention on me.

  I turn to Marie, take a deep breath, reach out, and give Marie’s breast a big squeeze. It’s like fondling a rock. I quickly take my hand back.

  I glance toward the bar. Pat is gone.

  “When I’m dead,” says Marie, touching her breasts, “these babies will still be rolling around all that loose dust in the coffin. They’re indestructible.”

  “I believe that,” I say, wondering why this is a selling point.

  I look around for Pat and spot him bending over the bid sheet for the thumb pinball machine again. Damn, I think he missed the breast-grab. He would have loved it. He’s textbook-heterosexual-man-crazy for the mere suggestion of my doing it with another woman. I once kissed another woman at a party and he got so excited he had to leave.

  “So think about the boob job,” Marie says to Katherine, “instead of the face-lift.”

  “It’s not an either/or thing for me,” says Katherine. “To be honest, I hadn’t even thought of having a face-lift before tonight. I just got excited because I couldn’t believe that I could get one for so cheap. I figured that if I didn’t end up using it, I could give it away as a Christmas present.”

  “Katherine, feel my breasts. And tell me you don’t want a boob job,” says Marie.

  “I don’t want to feel your breasts.”

  “Don’t be shy,” says Marie. “Brett just felt them.”

  “I don’t want to touch your breasts,” Katherine says slowly and firmly, like she’s talking to her son.

  “It’s just that they’re so hard you won’t believe it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  The two women look at each other for a moment. I feel sorry for Marie. I can’t quite think of what would create a woman whose mission appears to be the cosmetic transformation of all womankind. Maybe her mother told her she was unattractive. Maybe her first husband left her for a young thing. Marie’s face does not hint at answers. It’s hard to know what lies beneath the surface of a remade face.

  Marie squares her shoulders under the blue scarf.

  “All I’m saying,” she says, “is that the boob job is a steal. This doctor donates a job every year. And every year some lucky mom is transformed.”

  “I guess that lucky mom is going to be someone else.”

  Marie’s face reddens under the tan. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “I don’t want a boob job,” says Katherine—louder, I’m sure than she intended.

  A few faces in the crowd turn in our direction, holding clear plastic cups of wine as they watch our group.

  Katherine and Marie stare at each other in some freaky femmy standoff.

  I didn’t see this coming, and I wonder if I’m supposed to break it up. It’s clear that Michelle isn’t going to intervene. She appears to be enjoying it.

  More faces turn toward us.

  “Okay,” I say, edging between them. “Let’s relax here. I’m sure everyone will go home with some really great deal. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a face-lift or a boob job or some homemade bath salts. The thing is, we’re all winners.”

  Katherine shifts her weight from foot to foot, like a fighter. Marie stares her down.

  I’ve shot my wad. I don’t know what else to do but stand between them as Katherine bounces and Marie stares.

  Time passes.

  “Hey,” says Lana, materializing like a postmodern deus ex machina, “folks are doing beer bongs in the parking lot.”

  Heads turn away and murmuring starts.

  I watch the men in suits and women in clacky heels leave, headed for the next big thing—in the parking lot.

  Lana plops into a seat and throws her legs onto a table. Michelle smiles at me and I feel the air start to move again.

  Katherine backs up a bit, tension seeping from her body.

  Marie stays tense but turns on an electric smile.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to be pushy. It’s just that most people can’t wait to touch my breasts.”

  To Katherine’s credit, she lets the whole thing drop. I see it happen. She cocks her head and reaches out to hold Marie’s elbow in a gesture both awkward and sweet.

  “Thanks for offering,” she says.

  It takes half an hour to wedge the scooter we won between the mosaic nightstand and the basket of men’s skin products in our trunk.

  Pat and I pull away from the fund-raiser like carpetbaggers. I won’t know until tomorrow how much we’ve spent. But I doubt that we’ve ever spent this much in a single evening before.

  I tell Pat about Marie’s rock-hard breasts.

  “So that’s what it was,” he says.

  “Yeah. Why did you leave after I grabbed her breast?”

  “It was too exciting,” he says. “I had to leave.”

  He reaches over and slips his hand between my thighs as he watches the road. I put my hand on his and press it hard against me. With my other hand I grasp a lever and release the chair back, which descends a scant two inches before it meets with the patchwork ottoman we got for seventy-five dollars.

  I close my eyes as his hand travels over my body, sure and seeking.

  I reach into his lap.

  The best part about being with someone this long is that we can go straight to the good stuff.

  Friday

  We’re about an hour into happy hour. Katherine has just slammed a beer and left, running home to

  relieve Slim of Jake-watching. Lately, Slim’s been gigging for a hip-hop duo whose name starts with “P.”

  Michelle, Lana, and I are in midconversation about whether Slim’s new job is a good thing or a bad thing for Katherine, who now has more money but less time.

  Lana looks down the length of the bar and smiles at something or someone.

  “He’s hot,” she says.

  I can’t see that far, so I’m going to have to take her at her word.

  “Introduce me to him,” she says to me.

  “What?”

  “Just find something fun to say and bring me over to meet him.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” I say.

  The reasons why I don’t want to accommodate Lana are many. I’m perfectly happy sitting here trying to solve Katherine’s problems. Plus, I don’t want some stranger sitting in on my hard-earned two-hour respite from child-rearing. And I can’t do the flirty-flirty-girl thing. It makes me feel like I’m acting a part I’d never get cast in.

  “It’s easy,” says Lana. “You just go over there and say something like ‘Where did you get that tie?’”

  “You like his tie?” Aside from not wanting to do this in the first place, I really don’t know why any of this has to do with his tie. And when did Lana start liking guys in ties?

  “No, Brett. I don’t care about his tie. I care about him. Go meet him for me.”

  “But why do I have to ask him about his tie?”

  Michelle sticks her head close to mine. “You don’t care about the tie. It’s just a way to get him to talk to you.”

&nb
sp; “But I don’t want him to talk to me,” I say. “What if he thinks I’m the one who’s interested in him?”

  “He might,” says Lana. “But then you’ll bring him over and he’ll meet me and you putter off.”

  “I don’t want to lead him on.”

  “Jesus, Brett,” Lana says, glaring. “Girlfriends do this for each other all the time. It’s an accepted, time-honored way of meeting guys.”

  “Look,” I say, “I’m shy as hell and married. And you’re brazen and more or less single. Why don’t you just walk over there yourself?”

  “Because I can’t take being turned down.”

  “I don’t get this at all. What’s the difference between you getting turned down there or getting turned down once I’ve handed him over?”

  “It’s less direct,” she says.

  I shift and look to Michelle for support. She gives me an unreadable smile, so I turn back to Lana. “What if he turns me down?”

  “You’re married. What do you care?”

  “I care a lot. I’m having a great time just sitting here shooting the shit with my girls, and now for no reason of my own, I have to go over and get rejected by a cute stranger?”

  Lana gives me a look she usually reserves for her daughter when she does something like stuff her underpants in her mouth just to annoy her.

  “Forget it,” says Michelle, her voice breaking Lana’s accusatory gaze. “I’ll do it. What do I care if I’m turned down by a straight male cutie? Doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

  She turns and walks toward the guy, becoming fuzzy in my gaze as she joins him.

  Lana looks on.

  “How did you ever hook up with anyone before Pat?” she asks, mystified.

  She’s watching Michelle pimp, so I don’t answer. I don’t tell her that when I was younger many men didn’t care that I was flirtation-challenged since I had spectacular tits. Flirting was as foreign to me as foraging for nuts, but men who liked enormous racks (and there seemed to be a glut) didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t talk for the first seven minutes. Maybe my silence made me even sexier. All I know is that men liked to rub up against me a lot and it didn’t much matter what I didn’t do or say. I sometimes thought that I could be in a coma and they’d still want to titty-fuck me.

  In no time at all Michelle returns with, “Ricardo, these are my friends Lana and Brett.”

  His gaze settles briefly on my chest before Lana scoots in front of me.

  “Funky tie,” she says, touching it lightly. “I’ve been looking at it for an hour.”

  Michelle slides into Lana’s vacated barstool next to me. We watch Lana as we periodically play with our drinks. I am both fascinated and annoyed by Lana’s flirtatious nature. Fascinated, because this particular skill set is so contrary to any of my own. Annoyed, because whenever Lana flirts with a guy, it breaks up my party.

  As Michelle and I watch, though, fascination wins. Lana is a master. She’s the Michael Jordan of flirting.

  Lana looks out the side of her eyes at Ricardo. Pulling a strand of hair from her ponytail, she plays with it as she talks in a high voice. I watch her completely transform herself from ballsy broad to nymphet. It’s remarkable. She actually appears to shrink in size.

  What also shrinks is her vocabulary and capacity for linear thought.

  “You have big hands,” she says. “Where’d you get them?”

  Ricardo reddens and holds up a mitt. “My father had big hands.”

  “Is your father a big man?”

  “He worked on a farm.”

  “Apples are my favorite,” she says, sliding her high-heeled foot back and forth.

  “When they’re ripe,” he says.

  “That depends on who’s eating them.”

  “You should try the Buffalo wings I just ordered,” says Ricardo.

  “You knew just what I was thinking,” says Lana as the two of them float to the end of the bar.

  I turn to Michelle. “Did you understand any of that?”

  “No,” she says, shrugging in admiration of Lana’s gift. “But it always works.”

  Mom Country

  I’m not sure how fast Spence can put on his pajamas,” my mother says.

  “I’m fast,” says Spence.

  My mother goes into the kitchen as Spence stands beside his pajamas, draped over the edge of the couch. I reach out and touch his cheek.

  “You’re really fast,” I say.

  Mom comes back from the kitchen with an egg timer in her hand.

  “Do you think you can get them on in three minutes?” she asks Spence.

  He considers his answer; though three minutes to a three-year-old could be as long as it takes to bake a cake or as short as a sneeze.

  “Yup. Three minutes,” he says.

  “Okay,” Mom says. “I’m going to set this timer. When three minutes is up, it’ll ring. If you’ve got your pajamas on by then, then you’ve done it in three minutes.”

  She punches in three minutes, shows Spence, and sets the timer down.

  “And go,” she says, reaching for her gin and tonic.

  Spence pulls his arms from the armholes and whips his T-shirt off his head.

  “On Friday,” she says, “I was thinking we could all go to the zoo. Then that night your father has tickets for Tchaikovsky’s Sixth. You can go with him and I can stay home and watch Spence.”

  Spence flings the T-shirt across the living room. It lands on the mantelpiece.

  “How much time is it?” he screams, pulling at the waistband of his pants.

  My mother puts down her drink and leans over to check the timer.

  “It’s only been half a minute, sweetie,” she says.

  “Are you sure that you don’t want to go to the concert with Dad?” I ask. “I can stay with Spence.”

  Spence falls onto his bum, wiggling furiously out of his pants.

  “No, of course not. I’ll stay home,” she says.

  My mother and I now begin to negotiate who is going to be more selfless Friday night. For reasons probably buried in our Swedish past, whoever does the most work with the least reward wins.

  Spence’s pants land on the coffee table.

  “Is it three minutes yet?” he yells.

  Mom looks at the timer.

  “You’ve got two more minutes,” she says.

  “All right,” I say. “But don’t make dinner. I don’t want you to work too hard.”

  Spence jumps onto the couch, yanking down his underpants.

  “I won’t do a big dinner. Just Reuben sandwiches,” she says.

  “I need another minute!”

  Mom leans back in her chair.

  “No, you don’t, love,” she says to him. “You’re doing really well.”

  Naked, Spence drops to the floor, grabbing his pajama top.

  “Why don’t I just make a big salad?” I ask.

  “Reubens are no trouble.”

  My mother is determined to walk away from this negotiation having established that she is still the title-holding self-debaser. She will give up going to the concert, she will make the dinner and watch Spence.

  Spence pulls the top over his head.

  “I can’t find the arms,” he yells, panting.

  Mom reaches over and untwists a dangling arm from Spence’s top.

  “All right,” I say. “Make the Reubens, but don’t do the dishes.”

  Spence jams his arms into the armholes.

  “How much time now?”

  “You’ve got a whole minute,” says Mom.

  “A minute?!”

  He grabs his pajama bottoms, falls to the carpet, and rolls around, wrestling with the material.

  “I’ll leave the dishes if you want,” she says. “But it’s just as easy for me to do them.”

  Forget it, I think, just do everything. Spence jumps up, finally jerking the waistband of his bottoms in place.

  He throws up his hands and bellows, “How much time was that?”


  My mother looks.

  “You had a whole forty seconds left over.”

  Spence collapses onto the couch.

  “That’s good,” he says, tired and satisfied.

  I am simply tired.

  Through the rest of the visit to my parents’ house on the lake, Spence demands to be timed on everything. We time how long it takes for him to eat, how long it takes him to get from the car to the front door, how long it takes him to brush his teeth. He takes the timer with him everywhere.

  “All kids love to be timed,” says Mom, pleased.

  I remember my mother timing me when I was a child, so the whole timing thing is not new. I wonder if friends of mine spent their youth racing against the clock as literally as I did.

  “Your mother is timing Spence?” Michelle asks me over the phone.

  “It’s this thing she does to make tasks fun. Like they’re a game.”

  “Spence doesn’t get frustrated?”

  “Not yet. He can get his pajamas on in a minute and a half if he doesn’t have to unzip his pants.”

  “I guess, if it works,” she says, sounding skeptical.

  “I didn’t think the timing thing was so odd,” I say.

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Wow. Now I feel like a member of a freak family. The timing freaks.”

  “Jesus, Brett,” Michelle says. “Every family has their weird things.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure, my mom used to take out her teeth and hide them somewhere in our rooms before bedtime. We had to find her teeth in order to get her to read a book to us.”

  “Wow,” I say, “that makes me feel a whole lot easier about my mother’s ‘fuck episode.’”

  I tell Michelle that when my younger brother was a junior in high school, he started swearing with cocky zeal. The swearing seemed to be some crazy challenge to my parents, a way of proving he was his own man, choosing to say “fuck” at least three times per sentence. My mother was mortified, not simply because she and my father never swore but because she considered swearing uncreative and a symptom of an impoverished vocabulary. Her words, not mine.

  When Erik refused to give up the constant swearing, she decided to meet “fuck” with “fuck.”