At 7:15 I hollered at her to double-check her backpack while I grabbed the keys out of the basket we kept by the phone.
“You know, if I had a car you wouldn’t have to drive me,” Stormy said, coming into the kitchen while she pulled up her backpack higher on her shoulders. She was dressed in black skintight jeans and a black-and-green striped T-shirt. Her eye makeup was too thick on her pale face for my tastes, yet she was stunning with her wide brown eyes—Jared’s—and her long blonde hair—mine. The car request had become a weekly topic of conversation that never ended the way Stormy wanted it to.
“You can’t al-ways get what you wa-a-ant,” I sang as I headed toward the garage.
Stormy narrowed her beautiful eyes but followed me into the garage and hit the button to lift the garage door, which squeaked as it rose on its tracks. She didn’t say anything until we were both in the car and I was looking over my shoulder so I wouldn’t hit an unfortunate paper boy on my way out of the driveway. “I’m, like, the only seventeen-year-old in Lake Forest who doesn’t have a car.”
“You’re, like, totally making that up,” I replied with exactly the same cadence. Stormy scowled, and I bit back the real reason she didn’t have a car: I was waiting for her dad to buy her one. I brought home a pretty good salary, but while Paul and I split household expenses, we kept our money separate. My daughter’s car as well as insurance, gas, maintenance, and whatever cute seat covers she had to have were most certainly my expense, and I couldn’t afford it unless I gave up something else. I liked my lifestyle the way it was and didn’t want to adjust. It didn’t help Stormy’s case that I’d grown up as the second of five kids and had worn my sister’s hand-me-downs until I finally had a job and could start buying my own clothes. Our family had one car, which Dad drove. The rest of us walked everywhere we went—like Jesus did, Mom told us when we complained.
I struggled to put myself through a couple years of college as a single mom after December was born, and when I married Jared, he managed the money, still hoping to be a famous actor one day. Budgets were tight. Eventually I was a single mom again, and every penny counted once more. I considered it a tribute to a good work ethic and a wise choice in my current husband that I could now live in a place like Lake Forest, a middle-class city southeast of Irvine, California. Buying a car for my daughter wasn’t high on my list of priorities.
“So the one-act plays are over?” I asked, changing the subject as we wound through the neighborhoods. The school wasn’t far away, less than a mile, and I knew I could make her walk, but I felt bad that she came home to an empty house every day. Driving her in the mornings helped absolve my guilt.
“Yeah, but tryouts for the school play are today. Is it okay if I stay after?”
“Sure,” I said. “What are you going to try out for?”
“I don’t know,” Stormy said, flipping down the visor and inspecting her makeup in the mirror again. She fixed a microscopic flaw in her green eye shadow. “We’re doing Grease, and the Thespians will get all the big parts.” The Thespian Troupe was a club for kids dedicated to acting. Stormy liked the performing arts, but she wasn’t a fanatic. “There are some fun musical numbers and things, so Tress and I are just going to see what we can get.”
“Good,” I said, glad to see her putting herself out there and having such great experiences. December had been the same way when she had been in high school, and I was proud to have raised two daughters who had avoided the pitfalls I hadn’t navigated so well. “I still marvel every time I go to one of your plays—the kids are so talented. It’s so different than the stuff my high school did.”
“I can only imagine,” Stormy said. She flipped up the visor as I turned in to the school parking lot. “But what can you expect when you have to weave the cloth for your own costumes and do everything by kerosene lamps?”
“Ha-ha,” I said, giving her a playful scowl. “Isn’t it a little early in the morning for old-people jokes?”
“It’s never too early for old-people jokes,” Stormy said, waving her hand elaborately and rolling her eyes with dramatic flair.
I slapped her arm playfully, then hit the automatic unlock on my door. “Get the heck out of here,” I said, pushing her with my right hand.
“Okay, okay,” she countered, just as playfully. She picked up her backpack. “I can take a hint.”
“Wub-oo,” she said once she was out of the car. She used to say that when she was a little girl and couldn’t articulate “love you.”
“Wub-oo too,” I said back. She smiled, shut the door, and then turned toward the school with her bouncy step and bouncy hair. Within seconds, her bouncy friends joined her, and I headed back home where I’d take out the curlers, put on my makeup, sip my coffee while I checked my personal e-mail, and then head out for another day at the office just as Paul was waking up. He was a computer programmer for a manufacturing company out of LA and had to spend only twenty hours a week in the office. The rest of his job he did from home. Lucky jerk.
“I have a good life,” I said out loud as I headed home, loving that I believed every word of it. It was even more rewarding to know that I had a good life on purpose, not by chance. I’d worked hard as a mom, an employee, and a woman to get where I was, and it had not been an easy journey.
My long-suffering Catholic mother often said “Who wants easy?” Growing up, I’d hated that phrase, and as life became more and more difficult, I came to despise it. It had been only the last few years—since marrying Paul and moving to Lake Forest, really—that I could appreciate the struggles I’d overcome. Maybe that’s how everyone was—grateful only after the hard stuff was over—but I still wanted easy, at least sometimes.
The rest of my day unfolded pretty much like every other day. I went to work, had lunch with a coworker, then got back to work. It wasn’t until I was on my way to the 405 that I remembered I was out of reading material since I hadn’t made it to the library yesterday. I considered going home by way of the library in El Toro, but then I saw the sign for the Barnes and Noble in the Spectrum Mall and decided I deserved a treat. In deference to my middle-aged waistline, I’d stopped rewarding myself with bagels and cookies from Efren’s Bakery and started treating myself to new books and pedicures instead. I was down eleven pounds from a year ago, so my plan seemed to be working, albeit not as quickly as I’d have liked. I took the next exit and looped around.
I spent the next thirty minutes browsing the store, looking for something that caught my eye. Joanne Fluke had a new culinary mystery—I liked those. But I’d heard a lot about The Hunger Games; Stormy had said she wanted to read it before she saw the movie. She’d inherited her love of theater from Jared and her love of all things fiction from me. I found the first book in the series and then practically tripped over the newest Sarah Elizabeth Phillips. After weighing all three books in my hands, I decided to splurge and buy them all. If Paul and I were going away in a few weeks, I’d need a book or two anyway. I hoped his comment about bringing a bikini meant we’d have a beach. I adored the beach, but for someone living in Southern California I spent a pathetic amount of time there.
Thinking about the weekend reminded me that I hadn’t talked to Jared or Stormy about Halloween yet.
Quickening my pace toward the registers, I texted Jared about the weekend plans; I hoped I could talk to Stormy about it before Paul came home. There was an older woman talking to the one open cashier. She was dressed in a banana-yellow suit—crease-fronted pants, a long vest that reached almost to her knees, and a pink-and-yellow patterned blouse. I suspected the suit was a polyester blend since it moved nice but looked heavy. She wore matching yellow sandals and dangly yellow-and-pink beaded earrings that swung when she moved her head.
I stood a polite distance away but couldn’t help overhearing.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the college-aged cashier said. “But we have a policy against outside advertising.”
“But the other bookstores were fine with putting out s
ome of my fliers,” the woman insisted, brandishing a stack of half-sheet blue fliers. “And our first meeting is on Saturday. I really think your customers might like the opportunity to join my book club.”
I’d belonged to a book club several years ago, before the divorce, but it had been with a group of women from work, and I eventually couldn’t fit it into my schedule anymore. I still regretted having to give it up. I admired this woman for putting one together.
The clerk explained their policy again. The woman shook her head, sending her earrings into a frenzy, and finally stepped back from the counter. “Well, I guess we know which bookstore won’t be getting my business.” She turned and saw me standing there.
I offered her a smile so she would know I wasn’t annoyed with her occupying the only cashier.
“Do you like book clubs?” the woman asked.
It took a couple of seconds for me to realize she was talking to me. “Oh, me?” I said, just to make sure.
She nodded and took two steps toward me. The clerk shook his head apologetically; I smiled at him to assure him I was okay. No need for people to get uncomfortable.
“Yes,” the woman said. “I’m starting one and thought the best way to find members would be to have fliers at the local bookstores, but they say it’s against their policy. Don’t you think that’s actually a disservice to their customers?”
Oh boy. Was I supposed to agree with her? “Corporate decisions,” I said, hoping to find a safe answer. “And liability issues.”
“Liability?” the woman repeated, raising her penciled eyebrows. “What do you mean by liability?”
“Well, let’s say they put out some fliers inviting people to someone’s home, and then that person turns out to be a serial killer and the victim’s family sues the bookstore. Their insurance premiums would go through the roof!”
“You think I’m a serial killer?” the woman said flatly.
“Oh, no,” I said quickly as my face heated up, not even realizing what I’d implied. I looked past her to the clerk who was now biting back a smile while helping another woman who had passed me up when I hadn’t stepped forward in line. “No, I just, well, I sell insurance so I think about that kind of thing. But I didn’t mean to imply you’re a serial killer, just that, well, liability issues are a rising problem within our litigious society as a whole, and in order to protect themselves, companies sometimes have to make policies that protect them from possible litigation. The unfortunate result is that they are sometimes unable to support community projects, like your book group, due to the necessity of protection from malignant causes.” I was actually a little impressed with my quick explanation, and behind the woman’s intent expression, I thought she might be too.
She looked at the stack of fliers in her hand, peeled one off, and handed it to me. “I’d love to have you in my book club,” she said simply. “Do you have a pen?”
“Uh, yes,” I said, carefully. She kept staring at me so I opened my purse and took out a pen. She grabbed both the pen and the flier she’d already given me and scribbled something on the back.
“Here’s my address,” she said. “We meet this Saturday at seven o’clock. Feel free to bring a friend or two.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, rather confused at what had just happened.
“I’m Ruby,” she said, handing me back the pen and the flier. Finally, her expression softened and I felt myself relax. “And I’m not a serial killer, I promise.”
She turned toward the door and gave the clerk a triumphant look as she marched out of the bookstore, the rest of her fliers in hand. I waited until she’d disappeared through the first set of doors before walking up to the counter to buy my books.
“Well,” I said as I set my purse and my purchases on the counter, “that was interesting.”
“Don’t go.”
I looked up from my wallet and laughed at the stoic look on the clerk’s face. “You don’t think I should?”
“She’s totally going to poison your iced tea,” he said as he began ringing up the books. “And then I’ll have to testify about this whole exchange, your family will sue Barnes and Noble after all, and, like you said, our premiums will go through the roof. Just stay home.” He never once cracked a smile.
I laughed again and glanced at the doors before leaning over the counter conspiratorially. “I’m a wild woman. There’s no telling what I might do.”
Chapter 3
Saturday—my favorite day of the week.
I slept in until almost nine, lingered over coffee, and read half a dozen chapters in The Hunger Games. As soon as Stormy saw it, she wanted it, but I was reading it first. In the afternoon, I helped Paul with some yard work and then took Stormy shopping for jeans; she had to have some colored skinny jeans, which I found disturbingly similar to the pants I wore back in high school. Jared had agreed to pay for half of the shopping spree after saying he’d love to have Stormy for Halloween. Stormy wasn’t as thrilled; she was sure she’d end up babysitting Jared’s girlfriend’s two little kids, but she was a pretty good sport once she knew she could still go to a friend’s Halloween party that Saturday night.
“Are you going to dress up?” I asked as we pulled onto the Afton Parkway on our way to the mall.
“For the party? Yeah.”
“What are you going to dress up as?”
“Tress and I are going to be Playboy Bunnies.”
I laughed at the obvious joke. When Stormy didn’t laugh with me, I glanced at her while I slowed down for a light, and I felt my face fall. “That is a joke, right?”
“I’m seventeen, Mom,” Stormy said, but she wriggled in her seat uncomfortably.
It was all downhill from there. By the time Stormy had found her final pair of jeans—teal skinny jeans that I thought looked ridiculous—we weren’t even speaking. I’d forbidden her from wearing the costume of her choice and had even threatened to cancel my weekend with Paul if I had to in order to make sure she didn’t go advertising herself as a tramp. A Playboy Bunny? I thought over and over again on the drive home. She couldn’t be serious—could she? Didn’t she realize what that would say to every other kid at the party? As a girl who, at Stormy’s age, had been six months pregnant, I knew exactly what it said, and there was no way on this green earth that my daughter was going to send out those kind of signals. I’d always thought I’d done a good job of teaching my daughters the self-respecting nature of modesty, but apparently I’d missed something.
The car hadn’t even come to a complete stop in the garage before Stormy opened her door and stomped up the stairs. I took my time gathering my purse, racking my brain for the right way to handle this. Why was I always the bad guy? So often, parenthood felt like a losing battle I could never win.
While I was stalling, I saw the book club flier on the dashboard and picked it up, giving it another look. I hadn’t thought much about it since encountering Ruby at the bookstore on Wednesday, but Paul was planning to catch the Lakers game, and Stormy was going to be a ton of fun tonight. Maybe going to a book club with a bunch of strangers, one of whom I’d already called a serial killer, was just what I needed to salvage my weekend.
I pushed open the door and was almost knocked over by a completely unexpected tackle-hug from the daughter who minutes earlier hadn’t been speaking to me.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said, squeezing the breath out of me. I had to put out an arm to brace myself against the wall so that I didn’t lose my balance. “I’ll dress up as anything you want me to,” she said. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I managed to push her back a little bit. “Thank me for what?” I asked.
“The car!” she squeaked, her face completely lit up.
“The car?” I repeated, beyond confused by this whole situation. Had I blacked out or something?
Stormy dug her cell phone out of her pocket. “Tress is going to freak!” She pushed a few buttons and headed toward the kitchen counter. “Tress—guess
what? I’m getting a car!”
I walked to the counter and put my purse down before looking at the newspaper spread out on the island. It was open to the used car section and sitting on top was a notebook with some notes written on it in Paul’s handwriting. The cars listed were things like a Kia Spectra, a Ford Fresia, and a Jetta. Girl cars.
“Paul?” I called, heading toward our bedroom where his computer was set up. I felt a little thrill run through me at the idea that he was buying Stormy a car. Part of me, I admit, was bothered that I couldn’t do it, and yet I was touched that he would step in. He and Stormy got along really well, but something like this would go a long way toward making their relationship even better, and it was proof that we really were meshing into a family.
“Huh?” he said when I entered, though he didn’t look up from his computer.
I came up behind him and put my arms around his shoulders, kissing his neck. “You are my hero,” I said before kissing him again.
Paul laughed his teenage-girl laugh and turned his chair, allowing me to slide onto his lap. “Wow, and all I was doing was checking the NBA stats.”
I smiled and nuzzled his neck again; he was a sucker for that kind of thing. “I mean about the car. She’s out of her head excited, and you saved me from a really miserable day in parenthood-land.”
Paul was quiet for a minute. “I’m confused,” he finally said.
I pulled back. “If you wanted it to be a surprise, you shouldn’t have left your notes on the counter,” I said, tapping him playfully on the nose.
“Oh,” Paul said, realization dawning. “You mean the car for Mason.”
The Newport Ladies Book Club: Daisy Page 2