The Perfect Mom

by Janice Kay Johnson

  The redhead who’d come in with the child gazed in surprise after her…friend? Sister? Roommate? He had no idea.

  “I didn’t beat her,” he said, trying to look harmless.

  She gave him a distracted look. “No, she’s… It’s been an awful day. We should have called you, but we forgot you were coming.”

  “Logan Carr,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Helen Schaefer.” She shook his hand. “This is Ginny.”

  “Ah.” How did you politely say, And who the hell are you?

  “Ginny, did you want to watch television while I show Mr. Carr the kitchen?”

  The waif shook her head hard, her big eyes fixed suspiciously on him.

  Helen Schaefer didn’t look so hot, either, he noted, which made him wonder anew what had happened to upset both women so much. Her face was too pale under skillfully applied makeup, the shadows beneath her eyes purple. He’d felt the tremor in her hand, saw the gentleness with which she stroked her daughter’s head.

  “Lead on,” Logan said, wishing the classy blonde hadn’t skipped. He picked up his clipboard from the step where he’d dropped it earlier.

  The kitchen had potential and not much else. The vast floor space was wasted, as was typical for a house of this era. Cabinets had been added in about the 1940s, if he was any judge. Which meant drawers didn’t glide on runners, cabinets were deep spaces where you could lose a kid the size of this Ginny, and they stretched to the ten-foot ceiling, the upper ones useful only for stowing stuff that ten years later you were surprised to discover you still owned.

  “We can’t afford to replace those,” the redhead told him. “What we’re thinking is that we can make use of this corner.” She gestured.

  One area held a table, set with pretty quilted placemats. The corner she had indicated currently had a cart and oldish microwave, an extra chair and a lot of nothing.

  Logan considered. They didn’t want to replace their crappy, inadequate kitchen cupboards. Instead, they had in mind him building something that didn’t match in this corner.

  Go figure.

  “Make use in what way?” he asked politely.

  Apparently reading his mind, she smiled with the first spark of life—and amusement—he’d seen in her.

  “Kathleen and I have started a business together. We’ve only made a few sales—this is really at the ground floor—but unfortunately it’s taking over the kitchen, and we all have to live here, too.”

  “All?” he asked, hoping he didn’t seem nosy.

  “Kathleen owns the house,” she explained, “but Ginny and I live here, too, along with another roommate, Jo, and Kathleen’s daughter Emma.”

  The one who hated her, he presumed.

  And who was Joe, lucky bastard, living with a couple of beautiful women? Unless they were lesbians and Joe was gay.

  Nah. Logan couldn’t imagine the woman who’d tumbled into his arms and felt so natural there as a lesbian. Unless that was why she’d left her husband…

  Damn it! he thought in irritation. What difference did it make what lifestyle she’d chosen? He wasn’t courting the woman, for Pete’s sake! He was bidding to build some cabinets for her.

  Period.

  He cleared his throat. “What kind of business is taking over the kitchen?”

  “Kathleen makes soap. I market it.”

  “Soap.”

  “Yeah. You know.” She gazed expectantly at him. “Bars of it. The good kind. Not the kind you buy at the grocery store.”

  Personally, he bought whatever was cheap and not too smelly. Speaking of which… He inhaled experimentally. The kitchen was fragrant. He’d vaguely thought they must have been baking earlier, but the overall impression wasn’t of food, but more…flowery.

  “Soap-making,” he repeated, and contemplated the corner. “Tell me what it involves.”

  They both turned at the sound of a footstep. Looking like a different woman, Kathleen came into the kitchen.

  Her face was expertly made up, her thick golden hair loosely French braided. She wore a long, black, knit skirt that clung to her hips and thighs, and over it a simple T-shirt in a vivid shade of aqua. She looked like a million dollars.

  “I’m back,” she said with a warm but somehow practiced smile. “Ready to beg your pardon for forgetting you were coming, and then weeping all over you.”

  Her face was maybe still a little puffy, her eyes a little red. Even so, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, from her high graceful forehead to pronounced cheekbones and a full, sensuous mouth. She had the kind of translucent skin, faintly touched with freckles, that gives a woman an ageless quality. He couldn’t tell if she was twenty-five or forty. Either way, her face would have looked fine on the cover of one of those fashion magazines.

  “Ms. Schaefer was just telling me about the soap-making,” he said. “I gather you work out of the house.”

  “We both have real jobs, too,” Helen Schaefer said almost apologetically, “but we have faith this will take off.”

  Kathleen Monroe smelled good, Logan discovered when she stopped beside him. The scent was citrus, a little tart but also delicious. He wanted to bury his face in her hair.

  Cabinets, he reminded himself. He was here to make a bid. Not make a move on a woman.

  They showed him their supplies and the small pantry, which currently held row upon row of bars of soap, all “curing” according to them. Here was where the smell emanated from. Shelves and the single countertop overflowed, and more circled the floor.

  There were long square-edged “loaves” that would be sliced into bars, according to Kathleen. Some of these were clear but vividly colored, sea-green or shocking pink or rainbow streaked. Others were cloudy, dark-flecked and oatmeal colored, another a deep, speckled plum. Some soaps, looking more conventional, had been molded into ovals and rounds, with intricate designs of flowers and leaves pressed into the tops. They were beautiful, he realized, bemused. Not delicate and feminine, but solid and colorful and even sensual. He resisted the urge to touch or bend over to sniff individual bars.

  The fragrance swelled in this tiny enclosed area, a symphony where a few notes strummed on a guitar would have been plenty. Cinnamon and flowers and God knew what swirled together to overload his nose.

  As he backed out, the two women laughed.

  “Gets to you, doesn’t it?” Helen asked.

  “Ventilation,” Logan said. “You’ll want a fan out here and maybe another one in the pantry.”

  “That would be great,” Kathleen agreed. “Sometimes it’s hard to eat, oh, say, Thai food when what you’re smelling are vanilla and cinnamon.”

  He took out his clipboard and started to make notes: broad, double sinks, a stove top, storage for the tools of soap making: scales, jugs and huge pots and measuring cups and spoons.

  “Oh, and molds,” Kathleen said, her face animated. She opened a kitchen cupboard so he could see the odd conglomeration of containers used to mold soap, some—he guessed—meant for the purpose, others as simple as ice cube trays, muffin tins and boxes. “A cupboard with nooks designed specifically for the molds would be great.”

  Her main need, he gathered, was for work and storage space. He took his tape measure from his belt and began making notes while they watched, the kid still clinging to mom and staring as if she thought he was an ax murderer.

  “Get my name from Ryan?” he asked casually.

  “He says you’re the best,” Kathleen said.

  “Oh, is Ryan a friend of yours?” the redhead asked. “He’s marrying Jo.”

  Joe? The tape measure strung on the floor, Logan turned to see if they were pulling his leg.

  Both laughed. “J-O,” Kathleen told him kindly. “Short for Josephine.”

  Ah. Satisfied, he jotted down the measurement.

  “So, you didn’t put me on your calendar,” he remarked.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her flush.

  “I did. But the day went ha
yfire from the get-go.”

  The kid decided, at last, to speak. In a loud, clear voice, she said, “I thought Emma was dead. She fell on the floor and there was blood and she didn’t talk to me.”

  “Hush,” her mother murmured.

  “My daughter fainted and hit her head,” Kathleen said. “We had an ambulance here and everything. I just got back from the hospital. I’m sorry! It was scary, and everything else just left my mind.”

  “She okay?”

  “Just has a concussion. They’re keeping her overnight.”

  Uh-huh. She’d fallen apart because her daughter had bumped her head.

  He wasn’t buying.

  Writing down another measurement, he asked, “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen. Almost seventeen.”

  A teenager. Well, that explained the “she hates me” part. It also upped his estimate of her mom’s age. Kathleen Monroe had to be mid-thirties, at least.

  Satisfied with his measurements, Logan turned to them. “Let’s talk about wood and styles.”

  They sat at the kitchen table. Ginny at last became bored and, after a murmured consultation with her mother, wandered away. A moment later, canned voices came from the living room.

  He nodded after her. “How old is she?”

  “Ginny just turned six. She’s in first grade.”

  He hadn’t been around children enough to judge ages. Opening his clipboard, Logan took out a sheaf of pictures.

  They discussed panel doors versus plain, maple versus oak, open shelves versus ones hidden behind cupboard doors.

  As expensive as Kathleen Monroe looked, Logan half expected her to choose something fancy: mahogany with gothic panels and glossy finish, maybe.

  Instead she went for a simple Shaker style in a warm brown maple. “I want it to suit the era of the house,” she explained. “Later, when—if—I can afford it, we’ll re-do the rest of the kitchen to match.”

  He sketched out an L shape of cabinets to fit in the corner, then lightly turned it into a U. “A peninsula there,” he said, pointing, “would visually separate your work area from the dining area. Plus, it would give you more counter space. You could have suspended shelves or cabinets from the ceiling, too.”

  “Um…” Kathleen frowned into space. “It sounds wonderful,” she finally decided, “but it may be beyond my means. This may all be beyond my means,” she admitted frankly. “We looked at ready-made cabinets at Home Depot and Lowe’s, but Ryan thought we could do as well going to you, plus you could configure them more specifically for our needs.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he promised, standing. “I’ll have the bid to you in a couple of days.”

  The bottom line would be affordable, he already knew, even if he took a dive on the job. He wanted to help these women achieve their dream, he wanted to know why Kathleen Monroe had been sobbing—and he wanted to find out what a woman that classy would feel like in his arms when she wasn’t crying her heart out.

  Even if that didn’t have a damn thing to do with building cabinets.

  EMMA LAY IN THE DARK, feeling the sugar trickling into her body. It was like…like sipping on soda pop nonstop, all day long, until you ballooned with fat. She could feel it sliding through her veins, cool and sticky. Every time a bag emptied, somebody came and changed it.

  She hated the nurses who had put the IV needle back in three times, and even more the ones who had finally tied her hands to the bars of the hospital bed so she couldn’t tear it out again.

  But most of all, so much it corroded her belly, she hated her mother for letting them do this. For making them do it. Mom could have said, “I’m taking her home.” She could have told them not to force calories on her.

  Instead, she was committing her own daughter to a jail. Just because Emma wouldn’t stuff her face.

  She was, like, almost at a perfect weight. She used to think eighty pounds would be good, but she had still been pudgy when she got there. So she made her goal seventy-five. Or less. Less would be good. It would give her some room to go up a pound or two and not freak so much.

  She didn’t even know why she was surprised. Mom wanted to control her, and food had become their main battlefield. It was so weird, because Emma knew her mother used to think she was fat. Her eyebrows arching disdainfully, she’d say, “Emma, do you really need a second serving?” Or, “Don’t you think carrots would be better for your figure than potato chips?”

  She liked to give these little mother-daughter lectures, too. She’d sit on Emma’s bed and say, in this friendly voice, “I know you’re only twelve—” or thirteen or fourteen, the lecture didn’t change “—but pretty soon you’re going to want boys to notice you. It’s going to really matter to you if you feel plump or don’t like the way you look in cute clothes.”

  What she really meant was, You embarrass your father and me. To her friends, she said with a laugh, “Emma still has some baby fat, but she’s stretching into this tall beautiful girl.” Baby fat, of course, would magically melt away. Real fat was just disgusting and stayed.

  And Mom and Emma both knew that was the kind Emma had.

  Emma had started dieting when she turned fourteen not because she wanted to look good in cute clothes, but to please her mother and father. Mom’s face would glow with delight and pride when Emma said no to seconds and dessert and snacks.

  When he saw her picking at a salad for lunch instead of pigging out on macaroni and cheese, Dad would say something like, “Keep on that way and we’ll have two beauties in this house before we know it.” Meaning that Mom already was one, but Emma was plain and fat and he hated it when he entertained and he had to produce his one-and-only child and admit she was his.

  For a while, Emma had been filled with hope. Finally, she was doing something right. She was making them proud. She would become beautiful, like her mother. Every morning, she’d look at herself in the mirror, tilting her head this way and that, sucking in her cheeks, lifting her hair in different styles, trying to imagine that moment when she would know: I am beautiful. She’d told herself she was the duckling—a plump duckling—becoming a swan.

  Only, she stayed a duck. She never saw a beauty in the mirror. And her parents’ pride slowly faded as they started complaining about other things. She slouched. Shouldn’t she start plucking her eyebrows? Her table manners! The way she hung her head when she was introduced to their friends and business acquaintances. Obviously she needed braces. How could she possibly be getting B’s and even a C on her report card, when she was a smart girl?

  And she understood at last that she would never be good enough for them. She wouldn’t be pretty enough, smart enough, charming enough to be their daughter.

  Hearing the slap slap of approaching footsteps, Emma closed her eyes. The curtain around her bed rattled. A nurse lifted her covers enough to see the needle still stuck in Emma’s hand. A moment later, the footsteps went away and Emma opened her eyes again.

  She could see only a band of light coming through the half open door from the hall, diffused by her curtain. She didn’t have a roommate, either because the hospital wasn’t that full or because they thought she was a bad influence or something. She was glad. What if she had some middle-aged woman having her gall bladder out, or an old lady moaning? They might want to talk!

  Of course, she wouldn’t be here that long anyway. They were moving her tomorrow. It made her sick, thinking about it. Her therapist, Sharon Russell, used it as a threat: If you don’t eat, we’ll send you there, where they’ll stick tubes down your throat if you won’t eat and not let you alone for a single second in case you try to puke.

  They’d watch her pee and everything!

  She wondered if, once they untied her tomorrow and left her to get dressed, she’d have a chance to run away. Emma didn’t know where she’d go or what she’d do, but anything had to be better than jail, where some warden stared at you while you sat on the toilet! Energized, she started planning.

  She was almost sevent
een. She could get a job, maybe, and find a bunch of other kids she could share an apartment with. Or she’d call Uncle Ryan and see if he’d let her come live with him and Melissa and Tyler. They never paid any attention to what she ate. Uncle Ryan wasn’t embarrassed by her. He didn’t want to control her every move.

  That was what Emma had finally decided: she couldn’t make her parents happy no matter what she did, so she might as well at least be in charge of her own life. She didn’t want to be fat. It was so like them to want to control what went in her mouth. One minute she was fat and disgusting and she was supposed to nibble on green leaves instead of pizza. The next minute, she was getting too skinny and she should stuff her face. The real issue was, she should do what they told her to do.

  Smile. Try to look dignified, if you know how. When you laugh like that people can see your tonsils. You should be on the honor roll. Your idea is silly—write about this topic instead. Eat. Don’t eat. Make conversation. Quit chattering.

  Having her decide what she would and would not eat drove them crazy. So crazy, Dad didn’t even want to see her anymore. Which was fine by Emma. She was glad she’d made him mad. When he cracked and started screaming at her, she’d felt good. Powerful.

  And having Mom choose her over Dad had made her feel powerful, too. For a while. Until she’d realized that Mom was just as bad as Dad. She was as determined as ever to control Emma. Now that she’d failed, she was resorting to force, just like Dad had tried to do. Only Mom didn’t shove food in her mouth even though she was screaming. No, she made it look like she was doing the “right” thing. Insisting her daughter get “well.” That was her word. Emma wasn’t “well” because she didn’t want to be a porker like the other girls at school who wore their pants really low but had rolls that swelled over the waistbands.

  Emma tried wrenching her hands free again, but they’d tied them too tight. She felt as if she was being poisoned. If she were at home and she’d eaten too much, she would make herself exercise until she thought she’d made up for it. Sometimes it took hours.

  Maybe she could exercise even if she was tied down. Emma squirmed and kicked until she got the covers off to one side and her legs were free.